Читать книгу The Interpreter - Philip Gibbs - Страница 6

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He had other talks with her like that after a night when Chelsea was severely bombed and many little houses in the streets on both sides of the King’s Road were utterly destroyed or badly damaged. John’s mother and sister decided to leave London for the Surrey hills, and John had luck in finding them a house at Spurfold above the village, and very safe, he thought. It belonged to a B.B.C. man whose family had gone to the United States, and who was living in a hotel near Broadcasting House. He implored Anne to go with his mother and Judy, but her refusal was definite.

“I have my job to do, John. I can’t desert it in face of the enemy. It isn’t done, you know.”

That phrase angered him, and set his nerves on edge.

“Those words get my goat,” he said. “ ‘It isn’t done, you know.’ That’s how the English excuse themselves for their ghastly failures. ‘It isn’t done, you know, old boy,’ say their generals, when they’re up against the cunning and craft of their enemy. A most ungentlemanly war, they say, when Rommel gets the better of them in Libya, or when the Germans drop parachute troops behind their lines in Crete. It isn’t done, you know!”

“John, darling,” said Anne with a mild rebuke, “aren’t you being rather rude?”

John Barton knew that he had been damnably rude. He hated himself for that, but he was fighting for all his chance of happiness in life—for Anne’s safety.

“Wash all that out,” he said harshly. “My nerves are all jangled tonight. Anne, my sweetheart, I want you to get out of London. That’s all. This is the target of German attack. We’re in the bull’s-eye. Surely to God I’m being reasonable when I ask you to go with Mother and Judy to that Surrey village? You will find plenty of work to do there looking after evacuated children and all that. There is no dishonour in that. It would be doing your bit.”

Anne shook her head.

“I can’t let down my little crowd,” she told him firmly. “I’ve been put in charge of our mobile canteen. I can’t suddenly say ‘Good-bye, girls! I’m off to a nice little village in the Surrey hills. I hope you have a good time.’ ”

“You’re too damned heroic,” said John. “I wish to God I had married a girl as timid as a mouse. That’s how girls ought to be.”

“That’s how they were before my time,” said Anne, laughing at him good-humouredly. “Now, girls are not afraid to say ‘Boo’ to a goose, or even ‘Boo’ to a bomb. Of course we’re frightened all right, like most men, but we carry on with our jobs pretty well.”

“Hark! Those devils are coming again. There’s the siren wailing like a banshee.”

She was off duty that night after the long hours of the previous night in Limehouse. John also had finished his day’s work and for once was keeping the same hours as his wife. They were in the drawing room of their house in St. Leonard’s Terrace. Judy and his mother were in their bedrooms beginning to pack up for their move from London. John remembered every little detail of those hours.

She was not in uniform, but had put on an embroidered silk dressing gown, and her body was soft beneath it when he put his arm about her. That was when the first bombs fell near enough to shake this old house in Chelsea.

“It’s nice being in your arms when that row is going on,” she said. “It’s better than Limehouse last night. That was pretty near, wasn’t it?”

“Too near,” said John; “blast them!”

“That’s exactly what they do,” said Anne, laughing in his arms. “How absurd you are, John.”

“How brave you are,” he said. “I’m a coward. I hate all this. It scares me stiff.”

“It scares everybody stiff,” said Anne. “Nobody really likes it. But thank God we have some guns now. Listen to that barrage. Quite impressive. Oh, well, let’s do a crossword puzzle or something. Or I’ll play you a game of chess. It’s best to do something instead of listening to noises off, as they say on the stage.”

He played her a game of chess, and he remembered that she made an unconventional opening with the king’s knight, baffling him for a moment. He found it hard to concentrate on the game because of the explosions near enough to shake the old house. But Anne was absorbed in her game, and while she thought out a new move he watched her face upon which the soft light of a shaded lamp fell, touching her fair hair and turning it to gold. Sometimes a little smile played about her lips when she devised some trap for him.

“Look out for your queen, John! The old lady is in grave danger.”

There was not much light in the room. The black-out curtains were tightly drawn and there was a shadow world beyond the range of the electric fire and the shaded lamp by which they played. A line of light ran down the top of the piano in the far recess, and the frame of an eighteenth-century mirror over the mantelshelf was touched by the glow of the fire.

This room is a little sanctuary of civilization, thought John Barton. And Anne belongs to civilized tradition at its best—the lovely flower of it.

“Check,” said Anne, moving her queen.

Other pieces moved without her touching them. The board was flung from the small table, and all the chessmen were scattered about the floor as though swept away by an angry hand. A heavy explosion rocked the house in St. Leonard’s Terrace. The floor boards shuddered and there was the noise of falling glass.

“Damn!” said Anne in a vexed voice. “I should have check-mated you next move.”

John Barton had sprung to his feet.

“That was mighty close,” he said.

The drawing-room door opened and Judy stood there with her baby wrapped up in a blanket. Her face was white and there was fear in her eyes.

“I’m scared,” she said. “I’m going down to the cellar. Can you bring down the cot, John?”

Behind her was Mrs. Barton. She came into the drawing room and switched on another light. She spoke calmly, but there was a little tremor in her voice.

“I’m afraid some of the windows have gone. It’s a mercy we haven’t been cut by flying glass.”

Anne had gone over to Judy and put an arm round her.

“You’re trembling,” she said. “Don’t be frightened.”

“I am frightened,” said Judy. “I don’t want baby to be killed.”

The baby was sleeping as peacefully as though the guns now firing in a heavy barrage were a lullaby.

“I’ll light up the cellar,” said John. “We’d better all go down.”

He knew it was quite useless going down. If there were a direct hit on this old house, the cellar would be no safer than the attic. He had seen the effect of high explosives on London houses more strongly built than this. But there was a kind of psychological instinct to get below ground when those things were falling. He had had the cellar strengthened by steel girders. Failing a direct hit, it might be safer.

“I’m not keen on cellars,” said Anne. She had helped to drag out women and children from cellars in Limehouse. But she went down with Judy and the baby and Mrs. Barton, while John carried the cot. It smelt damp down there, though rugs had been put on the stone floor, and the walls had been hung with old carpets and bits of cloth, and an electric fire was switched on.

He had looked forward to sleeping in his bed with Anne, but for Judy’s sake she stayed down in the cellar that night, which was a bad night in London, with many fires and much damage. She made some cocoa and insisted upon Judy drinking it. Then she fell asleep on an old horsehair sofa with her head on John’s shoulder. He was stiff and cramped, but did not move lest he should disturb her. He was glad to feel the warmth of her body and the touch of her hair on his face. Once he kissed her and she stirred and said, “Hullo, John!” as though she had met him somewhere in a dream.

Long afterwards he remembered that night in the cellar—its damp smell, its picture of English life in wartime, with Judy asleep on a Lilo by her baby’s cot, and with his mother in an armchair with a shawl over her head. He felt again in memory the warmth of Anne’s body, and heard her murmur, “Hullo, John!” when he kissed her.