Don't Know Where, Don't Know When (The Snipesville Chronicles Book 1) Page 7

  “I beg your pardon?” the man said.

  “This one,” Smedley said loudly, as if the man was deaf. “He’s an evacuee.”

  “Isn’t he going in the wrong direction, in that case?” The man gave a half-smile.

  Smedley blew out a puff of smoke. “Bit of a trouble-maker, sir. I’m just taking him to a hostel for tonight, then up north tomorrow. See if I can find a place that will take him.”

  “What’s your name, lad?” the man asked gently.

  “Br…Braithwaite. George Braithwaite.”

  “Well, that’s a good Yorkshire name. Are you from Yorkshire?”

  Brandon agreed that he was.

  “Whereabouts?”

  “Excuse me?” Brandon stammered.

  “Whereabouts in Yorkshire?”

  Brandon paused, panicked, and then took a wild guess. “Um…York?”

  The man seemed satisfied with the answer. “Now that’s interesting. Your father, was he from the West Indies?” Again, agreeing with the man seemed the easiest thing to do. It’s amazing, Brandon thought, how often adults will answer their own questions if you hesitate long enough.

  But the man seemed disappointed with Brandon’s answer. He hesitated for a second, before appearing to come to a decision. He addressed the back of Smedley’s newspaper. “I might be able to help. My name’s Healdstone. Dr. Arthur Healdstone.” He pronounced it “Heeldstun.”

  Smedley lowered his newspaper when he heard the title. “Doctor, eh?”

  “Just a country doctor, I’m afraid,” the man answered modestly. “Look, my wife and I live in Balesworth, and I’m sure our son would be happy of the company of another boy. I’d have to speak to my wife, of course, but I’m sure she’d be willing to consider it. What with the present situation.”

  “Well, that would be very obliging of you, sir. All the same…” He looked doubtfully at Brandon.

  “That would be awesome!” Brandon whooped, and the doctor laughed. “Steady on, chum. I wouldn’t go that far if I were you.”

  Brandon’s enthusiasm seemed to have the reverse effect upon Smedley. “We’ll have to see, sir. I’ll have to make a full report on this lad, and we’ll need to take your particulars on the official form before we can proceed. And, as you say, it might be best if you were first to consult with your lady wife.”

  “Quite,” the doctor said, stonily. Brandon got the distinct impression that Dr. Healdstone had taken an instant dislike to Mr. Smedley. The doctor reached into his inside jacket pocket, and pulled out a small wallet, from which he removed two business cards. He handed one to Smedley, and one to Brandon, who put it in his pocket.

  Smedley promised the doctor he would call him the next day, but Brandon, with sinking heart, realized that he was probably lying.

  As soon as Smedley had once again disappeared behind his newspaper, the doctor said quietly, “George, if I can be of any assistance, don’t hesitate to write or telephone. This is an odd thing, but you remind me very much of a boy I once knew. His name was George, too.”

  The train was slowing as it approached a station, and the doctor stood and gathered his hat, raincoat and briefcase. The train shuddered to a halt, and he lowered the window, reaching outside to open the door by the exterior handle. As the door swung open, he gave a small wave before stepping down to the platform.

  Brandon smiled at him, and mouthed, “I’ll call.”

  Brandon was gazing out of the train window, and, with increasing interest, watched the countryside go by. In all the panic over trying to reunite with the Diases, not to mention worrying about how he would get home, this was the first chance he had had to appreciate where he was.

  The England of 1940 paraded gently before his eyes. He occasionally caught glimpses of wonderfully clunky cars—although not many of those, he realized. Very few people owned cars even before the war, and gas rationing ruled out most car journeys in 1940. All the same, as the train chuffed through the countryside, stopping from time to time in towns and villages, Brandon found it hard to believe that this was a country at war.

  Everything was so peaceful. The landscape was like a gently rolling patchwork quilt, laced together with hedgerows and dotted with small copses of trees and the occasional house. Brandon was fascinated to see the people: Two old men in flat caps, suits and ties, standing on the street, talking animatedly… A woman in a hat and dress riding a rickety old bicycle with a wicker basket in front, rattling down a hill… Two small girls wrapped up in wool coats, hats, and scarves, walking hand in hand along a road, with a small dog following behind them. Brandon was entranced. But soon it was dark, and he could see no more. He settled back in his seat.

  Brandon was napping when the train began to slow down, and he found Smedley shaking his shoulder to wake him: “Come on, it’s Kings Cross.” He took Brandon’s case from the luggage rack, and handed it to him. Brandon rubbed his eyes, and groggily clambered to his feet. Smedley was already standing on the platform, impatiently holding open the door.

  Gingerly, Brandon jumped down onto the platform, and excitedly noticed the number posted on a pillar above him. “It’s nine! We’re at platform nine at Kings Cross Station! I never knew it was a real place!” Smedley looked at him as if he was mad.

  “What’s the matter?” Brandon asked him. “You’ve never heard of Harry Potter?”

  “Stop talking rubbish and come on,” Smedley snapped. They were in a small building, with only three rail lines, a ticket collector’s booth, and a newsstand, but as Brandon followed Smedley, he realized that this was not the main part of the station. Smedley led him down a short passageway with ornate trellis-patterned tiles in browns and beiges. Brandon found himself in another, much larger building, bustling with trains and people, that had a huge glass and iron ceiling curving overhead.

  All along the platforms were soldiers in uniform, policemen, nurses, uniformed railway porters, and women in the outfits of the WVS. There were old people, middle-aged people, and teenagers but, Brandon noticed, there were no children. “Sten-ad!” yelled a man in a cloth cap and muffler, as he stood behind a huge pile of newspapers. Passing him, Brandon could see that he was wearing war medals hanging from what had once been brightly colored ribbons, and that he was not standing after all: He had no legs, and he was perched on a stool. Glancing at the bundled newspapers, Brandon glimpsed the name Evening Standard, and the headline, FIGHTS OVER CITY TO-DAY.

  Smedley seized Brandon’s arm and ordered him to hurry. Ahead of them was a flight of steps leading downstairs, and a red and white sign shaped like a lollipop that read LONDON UNDERGROUND. They trotted down two short flights of stairs, and waited in a line to buy tickets for the subway train from a woman sitting behind a small glass window in the side of the concourse. They handed the same tickets to a collector, before stepping onto an escalator.

  Brandon almost fainted when he looked down. It was easily the longest escalator drop he had ever seen in his life. He felt like he was standing on the precipice of a mountain. He glanced at the step beneath his feet, which was made, not of metal, but of narrow wooden slats. To keep his mind off the height, Brandon looked to either side of him on the moving escalator, through the haze of cigarette smoke. Two more escalators, one going up, and the other down, paralleled the one on which he stood with Smedley behind him. Hanging on the walls on both sides of the escalators were small posters, advertising theatre plays, cigarettes, department stores, and instructions from the Ministries of Food and Information: Colorful pictures delivered stern messages against wasting food and urged people to obey their Air Raid Wardens.

  Separating the escalators were wide strips of metal sheeting. Brandon thought what fun it would be to slide all the way down them—but, apparently, someone else had had the same idea, because lamps were strategically fixed on the sheets at regular intervals.

  Brandon and Smedley had just reached the foot of the escalator when they heard a loud and sinister wailing from overhead.

  “Oh, blimey,” s
aid Smedley. “It’s the bleedin’ Jerries.”

  “Jerries?” said Brandon, “You mean the Germans?”

  “No, clever dick, I mean Vera Lynn… Of course I mean the ruddy Germans! It’s an air raid, you stupid boy,” he shouted.

  As the sirens wailed, Brandon followed Smedley through the tunnel to another escalator, which took them even further beneath the dangers on London’s surface. Everything in the subway station was covered in a thin, drab layer of sooty grime. To steady himself and his nerves, Brandon had been clutching the handrail the whole way down, standing on the right as dozens of people hurried past on his left. When he stepped off, he looked at his palm, and saw that it was covered in dirt.

  “Alright,” Smedley said, as they emerged from walking through a short tunnel onto the crowded narrow platform, “we’d better stop here until the All Clear.”

  Brandon figured out that he meant that they should wait for a signal that the attack was over. As the muffled sound of bombs began an irregular drumbeat on the city surface far above, he followed Smedley to the far end of the platform. Smedley, with obvious distaste, laid out his overcoat on the grimy floor, and sat down against the curving wall.

  Spotting a colorful map of the London Underground on the wall above Smedley’s head, Brandon stepped forward for a closer look. He traced the rainbow spaghetti of the various lines with his finger for a while, marveling at the strange, ancient names of the stations: Aldwych, Chancery Lane, Charing Cross, Holborn, Piccadilly Circus, Moorgate, Lambeth, Blackfriars, Dollis Hill. “Never thought a map of the Tube would provide an evening’s entertainment,” Smedley remarked sourly.

  After a while, Brandon sat on the ground next to Smedley, being careful not to sit on the man’s overcoat, and wiped his hands on his own jacket. He looked around him. To his left, the platform ended in a wall. In front of him, the track disappeared into a round dark hole, and he could just see where it did the same at the other end of the curving platform. A blast of warm air, followed by a whooshing sound and a smell of brakes, announced the arrival of a train, which suddenly burst from the tunnel like a caterpillar from an egg. To Brandon’s eyes, the train looked tiny.

  The carriages were packed, and people tumbled off as soon as the double doors slid open. Some made their way to an exit, but the rest scanned the dirty and increasingly packed platform for somewhere to sit. Once the train had departed, Brandon began to read the huge advertisements pasted to the tunnel walls, for newspapers, whiskey, and theater plays. When there were no more to read, he gazed down the platform as people continued to trickle in. Whole families staked out spots on the platform with blankets and lawn chairs as soon as they arrived.

  A uniformed subway official approached one family, wagging a finger at them. The grandmother responded by pulling out a handful of small cardboard tickets, and waving them angrily at him. When the man tried to pursue the argument, she waved her hand over the small kids sitting sleepily on the blanket, yelling something about “her rights,” and then put her hands on her hips. Finally, the official threw up his hands, and stalked away with a furious look on his face.

  “Why was he giving them a hard time?” Brandon asked Smedley.

  “Nobody’s supposed to take shelter down here.” Smedley said. “The government are concerned that people will never come up from below to do their jobs. And quite right, too.”

  “But you work for the government and you’re down here,” Brandon pointed out.

  “Shut up, boy,” Smedley grumbled, but he did look a little embarrassed.

  The noise overhead grew louder, and the “crump” sounds made by falling bombs became more frequent. “Are we safe here?” Brandon asked nervously.

  “Safe as we can be in a war,” mumbled Smedley. He had pulled his hat over his eyes. “Now be quiet. I’m trying to get forty winks.”

  Good luck, Brandon thought, as babies cried and people talked loudly, even more loudly than his mom and Aunt Morticia when they were gossiping. One family was singing, and others gradually joined in with them. Brandon managed to pick out the words of the chorus, which ran “Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag, and smile, smile, smile.” He noticed that almost nobody singing was actually smiling, but he wanted to join in to keep his mind off the bombs dropping overhead. He didn’t think Smedley would tolerate it, however. So he lay down, arranging his suitcase as best he could to make a pillow.

  Mr. Archer was a kindly man, who was evidently much older than his wife. He was also a little deaf, and Hannah and Alex quickly learned that they had to speak up around him. Mrs. Archer was more self-consciously proper than her husband, and Hannah found her rather distant and snobbish. She proudly explained to Alex and Hannah several times that they were lucky children. Most people, she said, wouldn’t have room for a brother and sister, who in her view required separate rooms. But, it just so happened, she said, that their house had three bedrooms, even though they did not have children, only two cats. She showed Hannah into a large bedroom, and Alex into a tiny one.

  Hannah’s twin bed was covered in a blanket, sheet and plain salmon-colored quilt, and the room was otherwise quite bare. Hanging on the wall was a painting of yellow tulips, and on the dresser there was a small china figurine of a girl in a large blue hoop-skirted dress. The room smelled clean, but dusty and airless, as if it had not been used in a long time. It was breathtakingly cold.

  That evening, Hannah sat on the bed, and for the first time, tears sprang into her eyes. She wept as quietly as she could, because she hated people to see her cry. Then she heard sobbing from next door, and followed the sound to Alex’s room, to find that he was crying as hard as she was. She sat and put her arm around him.

  “What are we going to do?” Alex asked between sobs. “I want to go home.”

  Hannah had no answer, but she hugged him tightly.

  Downstairs, the doorbell rang, and Hannah heard Mrs. Archer bustling to answer it, while complaining that she couldn’t imagine who would be calling at this time of day.

  Alex was still sniffling when Mrs. Archer shouted up to them. “Children? Come downstairs, please. There’s a lady to see you. From the WVS.”

  Alex bolted upright, and looked at Hannah. “Brandon! Maybe they’ve found him!” he said excitedly. They both hurriedly wiped their eyes, and dashed down the stairs, ignoring Mrs. Archer’s pleas that they take their time and not slip.

  But there was no Brandon. The visitor had come alone. She was Miss Tatchell, otherwise known as the Professor.

  Miss Tatchell asked Mrs. Archer if she could meet with the children in the front room. Mrs. Archer reluctantly volunteered that she had work to do in the kitchen before her husband came home, and she left Alex and Hannah alone with the visitor, who now perched on the edge of the sofa where the kids were sitting.

  As soon as the door closed behind her, Hannah and Alex began talking at once.

  ”Where’s Brandon?” Hannah asked urgently.

  “How do we get home?” piped up Alex, his face creased with worry. “Are we stuck here?”

  The Professor smiled, reached over and grabbed Hannah’s hand.

  “Kids! It’s okay, I promise!”

  “How is it okay?” Hannah scowled, roughly withdrawing her hand from the Professor’s clasp. “Let me get this straight. We’re in England, it’s World War Two, we’re living with strangers, and our new friend just vanished. And we’re supposed to be okay with that?”

  “Don’t worry about your friend…” said the Professor breezily, but Hannah was not going to be put off so easily.

  “Why not?”

  The Professor ignored the interruption and gestured around the room, “…or all of this, or getting home. The important thing is to find George Braithwaite.”

  Hannah’s jaw dropped. “Say what?”

  The Professor repeated slowly, “Find George Braithwaite. I promise you that I’m quite sure everything else will sort itself out, by and by.”

  “How?” Hannah shot back. The Professor
ignored her again. “And how can we find George Braithwaite if we can’t find Brandon? I mean, they’re the same person, right?”

  The Professor touched Alex’s cheek, and smiled at him. “Everything will be alright, darling. There’s nothing to worry about. You will all get home, and in one piece.”

  “Oh, really?” Hannah said angrily, and turned her back on the Professor. She heard the door close quietly, and when she turned, the Professor was gone.

  Mrs. Archer bustled back into the room. “Did that woman leave?”

  “Yes,” Hannah said, in a remote voice.

  “Well, she might have said goodbye. I was just making her a cup of tea.”

  “Didn’t she come through the kitchen, then?” asked Hannah.

  Mrs. Archer just shook her head, and left. However, almost immediately, she reappeared, with a cheery smile. “Well, this is something! That woman left your ration books on the hall table. How you two managed to lose them, I do not know. I wouldn’t have been able to buy food for you without them. But now I can go to the grocer’s for eggs.”

  Early the next morning, Brandon awoke to loud noise, but this time, it wasn’t bombs, but voices. He also woke to a revolting smell. It took him a moment to realize that the stench filling his nostrils was stale urine. Up and down the platform, people were gathering their belongings, wiping the sleep from their eyes, and putting their children’s coats on. In the background, Brandon could hear another siren, this one a constant tone, instead of the up and down wail of the first. That must be the All Clear, he thought: The air raid was over.

  Smedley was still asleep on the platform. Brandon needed to find somewhere to pee, and that gave him another idea. As quietly as possible, he got to his feet, and gently lifted up his gas mask box and his case. He looked nervously at Smedley one last time, and turned for the exit.