Chapter Five
I jump at Tom’s voice and listen as he pulls himself upright from the doorjamb which he has been leaning against and kneels besides the bed.
“Don’t worry, Tarri—I always come back don’t I?”
He reaches out to tweak one of her dusky curls.
“Come on, it’s time short people were asleep.”
He pulls the covers back around her and kisses her cheek.
“Night Uncle Tom and Aunty Deet,” Tarri's voice is drowsy.
“Night, mush,” replies Tom, he pulls me up from my sitting position on the floor, his hand warm on my arm.
“Your freezing Deeta, you’d better sit by the fire for a bit I’ve got something to tell you.”
Tom hands me one of his jumpers and I pull it on thankfully as he picks up his mug of tea and leans on the back of Uncle Jep's chair.
I don’t tell him that it’s not just the cool air that is making me shiver, that the thought of him, Pip and Nella not coming back is to blame for my trembling.
“I had a little talk with Jamie, apparently he is aware of Ralph’s feelings for Nell and he’s trying to help.”
“I kind of thought that was what he was trying to tell me after I considered it for a while.”
“Yes, well. Jamie, being something of a hands on man showed a spectacular lack of tact, I told him it might help more if he didn’t try but allowed nature to take its own course.”
“Your right,” I nod. “He would only succeed in making Nell dislike him more.”
I look around the room toward the clock and after taking in the time manage to feign a pretty good start.
“If that’s the time, I’d better go,” I stand up and kiss Uncle Jep goodnight but as I turn to Tom he shakes his head.
“I’ll see you down.”
He opens the door and as I pass through, turns to say something in polish to Professor Jepsjon. We have navigated the first flight of stairs before Tom, taking hold of my arm, pulls me to a stop.
“What’s wrong, Deeta, why did you want to get away?”
Knowing that if I talk about my fears I will cry I pull away.
“I’m tired, that’s all. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
He makes no move to touch me again but looks at me for a long moment.
“You don’t have to tell me Deeta, but don’t fob me off with a load of rubbish.”
I think I stand there looking up at him miserably for a whole minute before I start to cry, but even then he makes no move to touch me, to comfort me, because he offered once and was refused. If I want his sympathy now I’ll have to ask for it.
“What if you and Pip and Nell don’t come back Tom, what then?”
I lean my head against his shoulder feeling his arms move around me. It is a while before he releases me and speaks.
“Hanky Deeta?”
A search through my pockets turns up nothing and Tom gives me his own. He keeps his arm flung loosely around my shoulders as we walk the rest of the way until we reach my door.
“Now get inside and get some sleep, didn’t you hear what I told Tarri, short people should be in bed by now, that goes for you too.”
His grin is full of camaraderie and he pats my cheek like Uncle Jep does.
“I promise you Deeta, we’ll all come home safe and sound.”
~~~~~~~~
Tom has left when I go up to make breakfast the next morning and the children are unusually subdued. I have greenhouse duty again and Professor Jepsjon School to teach this morning and all the children will attend.
So it happens that I pass the morning quite lonely and have the uncomfortable luxury of having plenty of time to dwell on my own thoughts undisturbed. Despite Toms promise I am still uneasy, with Nell it is not so bad, as a woman she will be given more protection.
Tom will not.
In fact I have an uncomfortable feeling that if anything he will take the most dangerous assignments himself simply as a matter of course.
And so the first day of Tom’s absence passes quietly. By the second day the children have recovered their bounce and the house is rowdy until they leave it to pursue more scholarly activities in the classroom. Spending most of the night worrying about the others who are ‘out’ has taken its toll on me and before eleven o’clock is reached I have what promises to be a blinding headache.
Having already tidied the house, washed the bedding and baked enough food for the five thousand I sit in Tom’s armchair with my cup of tea in the vain hope that a moments rest and the drink will scare my headache off.
I’m not sure how it happens but the next thing I’m aware of is the faintly groggy feeling you get when you’ve been woken from sleep quickly. A glance at the clock tells me that forty minutes have gone by, but the room is still silent with no noise to rouse me from what had obviously been a deep sleep. I stand up and meet my own eyes in the mirror above the fire place; I’m staring at myself in a kind of dazed way when I realize that mine is not the only figure reflected in it.
I suppose it must have been the second time he walked through this room and the first time he didn’t notice me curled up in the sinking depths of the large arm chair, he is quite as shocked as I am to see he is not alone.
I think a full second elapses before I utter a strangled scream and leg it through the door and into the passage way, as the first thing I come across is another camouflaged figure my panic is absolute, the first thing I think of is the children who in about fifteen minutes time will joyfully be free of the shackles of their lessons. The only way to go is up as the two strangers are behind me and so I run up the stairs even while I know that I am leading the intruders towards the children. With the sound of pursuit hideously loud in the stairwell, coherent thought is proving difficult. I’m half way up the forth flight when I hear Dec’s jubilant voice proclaiming himself the winner of some unseen race.
“Dec run!” my voice cracks and my throat, already sore, tightens making my breathing even more laboured.
Dec’s voice exclaiming above my head is cut short as he sees my pursuers, I hear the door onto the stairwell open and close above me and a moment latter something hit the floor behind me with a dull thud causing a cheer to reverberate around the walls.
Dec, bless him, hadn’t ran away when I told him to but had brought a large book from the school room above and hurled it at one of my attackers, as that man was at this very moment out cold on the steps his aim must have been pretty accurate.
The last of the men is felled by some sort of encyclopaedia this time lobbed by Roydon. I reach the landing they are standing on completely out of breath and Roydon and Dec seize a hand each and drag me after Ricky who has Tarri in his arms and Carris’s hand tucked in his.
From the direction in which they are going, I think their destination is Ralph’s house, but we keep running into the strangers that have breached the building and our efforts bring us almost full circle. We come to a standstill in one of the rooms with a connecting door and, breathless though we are, endeavour to regulate our breathing.
“Who are they?” whispers Roydon
“I don’t know, but they have some pretty neat kit,” answers Ricky as he relinquishes Tarri into Carris’s arms and places an ear to the door. “Ssh—someone’s coming!”
Ricky steps back a little from the door and we all wait expectantly. Sure enough it begins to open, Ricky waits until it is almost half way before he kicks it shut with all his considerable might and we run though the connecting door and through the room to the corridor which will take us to Ralph’s house.
How it happens I hardly know, but as Dec passes the open door of the school room he is dragged kicking and screaming through it by unseen hands, as hard as I pull on the handle it won’t move so they must have locked it behind them. I can see Ralph’s door further on and grab Ricky’s arm.
“Ricky, take the children to Ralph and stay there.”
“But—” I don’t know what he had been going to say, but he stops abruptly and nods.
As I turn and run down the hall way I hear them banging on Ralph’s door.
There is no sign of Dec when I enter the school room, but from the knocked over chairs it is obvious that there has been some struggling. I run through the next two rooms desperately and hear, in the distance, Dec’s voice raised in protest. I burst into the corridor to find Dec struggling madly with one of the camouflaged soldiers and picking up a stool from the room I have just come through, hit the man very heavily around the head with it, he sinks to the floor moaning and, taking Dec’s hand, we run down the passage, around the corner and up the steps slap bang into more of the soldiers.
Instinctively I push Dec behind me, below their visors I see derision in their smirks and when they step forwards they pull us apart easily. Trying to tear away from the vice like grip on my arm, I turn and pull my knee up into his stomach, his smirk changes quickly to a snarl of pain and as my struggles become more desperate I manage to free an arm long enough to punch him in the face. I must admit to a feeling of gratification as I see blood begin to trickle from his nose.
There is blinding pain as his fist connects with my face slapping it sharply sideways causing me to lurch backwards and fall to the floor; it is only Dec screaming my name that brings me groggily to my feet, to try if I can to follow them. I am rewarded only by a merciless grip on my arm forcing it behind me and well up my back as he drives me heavily into the wall, as I slip to the floor weakly, I again hear Dec’s voice calling to me but the sound grows gradually fainter until my eyes close and I hear nothing.
~~~~~~~~
My first conscious thought is that my head might split in two. Someone, immeasurably kind as they are, is bathing my face with cold water. The nausea brought on by its fiery hotness fades a little and I open my eyes experimentally. Uncle Jep is sitting next to me, over his shoulder I can see Ralph, Tarri in his arms and Carris holding tightly to his leg; both have been crying.
“Be still, little one.”
“Uncle Jep, Dec—.”
Professor Jepsjon shakes his head.
“You must be silent Deetina. We could not find Dec—did you?”
Tears well up in my eyes and I feel them spilling over in scalding droplets down my cheeks.
“They took him Uncle Jep—I couldn’t stop them, I tried—.”
“Ssh, Deetina, if you did not stop them neither did we.”
“The other children?”
“Ralph kept them safe.”
I close my eyes.
Dec gone…it doesn’t seem possible, yet I had seen it with my own eyes. What did they want with him? If only Tom were here—Tom …what would he say when he came home and found Dec gone? The nausea that had receded comes back in full force.
“She looks too pale.”
My mothers’ voice is quiet, she is obviously talking to uncle Jep, I hadn’t noticed her presence in the room but the knowledge that she is here, is a comfort. I feel a warm blanket spread over me and realize that I am shivering.
“Perhaps something stronger than tea?” asks the professor.
“I think so,” answers my mother softly. “How do you feel darling?”
I can’t really think of anything but the fact that Dec is gone, but I am aware that my face is bruised and swollen and that I can’t move my right arm.
“I hurt.”
“If I ever lay my hands on the swine that did this—.” Her voice, filled with suppressed fury is suspended with tears.
“What else did they take?” I ask.
My Mother doesn’t answer and when I shift my head painfully to look at her, it is to see a worried frown has settled on her features.
“They didn’t take anything else.”
My mind dumbly seems unable to except this fact and dwells on it stupidly without really taking it in.
They came for Dec…why?
My mother is talking soothingly in the background but her words don’t penetrate the fog around my brain.
Why?
The question, neon lit and flashing pushes all other thoughts from my brain, I must ask out loud as Ralph answers my question, his voice rough with emotion.
“I don’t know, Deet, I just don’t know.”
“We’ll talk about this tomorrow Deeta, not now, you need to sleep—no don’t argue with me, I know it will be hard but you have to be brave.”
Uncle Jep arrives with a steaming cup.
“Come Deeta my precious one, I have made you a hot toddy, I know how much you dislike drinking whisky neat.”
He slips his arm around me pulling me upright to rest my head on his shoulder, carefully avoiding my hurt arm, and holds the mug to my lips. Fire courses down my throat and seemingly, straight into my veins.
“Uncle Jep,” I gasp hoarsely, “that must have been five parts whisky to water!”
“But in a moment you will feel much better, my dear.”
He turns to my mother.
“You will leave her with me will you not, it would be a shame to move her.”
My mother agrees after a few moments that it would be the most sensible option, even though it makes it impossible for her to stay with me.
“I wish my husband were here.”
“If it comes to that I wish that my boy were here,” answers Uncle Jep.
The whisky is beginning to take effect and I feel my eyelids drooping, but as I hear this whispered confidence I struggle and mutter sleepily.
“Tom will be so angry with me,” but the next second I have fallen into a fitful sleep.
~~~~~~~~
I wake up next to hear the pleasant sound of the fire crackling merrily in the fire place. The room is in darkness except for its orange glow, shadows flickering in and out of focus. My face which has been steadily throbbing, is even more achy than ever and as I stir restlessly it is to find that my arm is no longer numb but has come painfully to life, I moan softly.
“Are you in much pain Deetina?”
Uncle Jep materializes from the shadows to stand at my side; I take his proffered hand gratefully and hold on to it tightly.
“Uncle Jep.”
Somehow I can’t say any more, and though it is immeasurably painful I find myself crying again. With his free hand he brings a cool cloth against the burning heat of my face, it brings blissful relief and I tell him so. He is silent for a long time and then almost hesitantly he speaks.
“You are worried that Tomasz will blame you for what happened to Dec aren’t you Deeta?” his voice holds a worried inflection, “He would not be so unjust, how could you think that of him?”
“But Uncle Jep I was there…I saw it all, and still couldn’t stop them.”
“Deetina, that is precisely why he will never blame you; one cannot do the impossible, you could not have saved Dec any more then he could save himself.”
The cool cloth is again pressed gently against my face and Uncle Jep's other hand strokes my hair lightly.
“You wish to tell me of it?”
“There isn’t much to tell, all I remember is hazy. I know that there were a lot of them, we kept bumping into them as we tried to run away, I don’t think—wait, Dec and Roydon knocked two out in the stairwell!” I remember.
“Yes, Roydon said but they were not there when we searched for them.”
“Who do you think they were?” I ask quietly.
“It is not for me to say,” answers Uncle Jep.
No, I suppose it’s not for anyone to say. I look to where the firelight is casting dancing lights over the ceiling. More than anything I wish that Tom were here, if he was I know that things wouldn’t seem so desperate, Tom would think of something. But even if he was here it would be unfair to expect him to fix everything, it seems far too broken for that.
I thought that things could not get worse, that in losing Dec I had reached a low that could not be surpassed...I was wrong. Tom didn’t come home that night, as he had been scheduled to do, or the next night nor the night after that, and those days brought anxiety and a new fear that Dec was now lost forever and that somehow my Father, Nell, Tom, Pip and the others had been lost too.
Clare was a curiously absent figure from my bedside and I didn’t need anyone to tell me the reason why. My own mind was tortured by the same thoughts that were torturing her, I however could only imagine the despair she must be feeling at the thought that she had lost the man with whom she was to spend her life.
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I know, I know.......this was a sad place to end the chapter!!!
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