Cousin Dave. “Then it’s German, isn’t it? Got to be. And if it’s German then that’s where that girl comes from then, isn’t it? Stands to reason, don’t it? She’s one of them. She’s a lousy Hun. Could be the Kaiser’s ruddy daughter.”
“Don’t talk soft, Cousin David,” Mary said, pulling the blanket away from him. “And I don’t care who she is, whether she comes from Timbuktu. We’re all God’s children, wherever we come from, whatever we’re called, whichever language we speak. And don’t you never forget it.”
She walked right up to him then, and, looking him right in the eye, she spoke very softly. “You listen to me, Cousin David. I don’t want you never saying anything about the name on this blanket. You hear me? Not a word. You know what it’s like these days, with all this tittle-tattle about German spies, and all that. Nothing but poisonous nonsense. This gets around, and people will start talking. Not a word. We keep it in the family, right? You promise, promise me faithfully now.”
Cousin Dave looked away, first at Jim then at Alfie, hoping for some help. He was clearly nervous. He didn’t seem to know quite where to look, nor what to say. Mary reached up and took his face firmly in her hands, forcing him to look at her. “Promise me? Faithfully?” she said again.
It took Cousin Dave a while to reply. “All right, Aunty Mary,” he said at last. “I shan’t say nothing about it. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
But Jim didn’t trust him. Everyone knew that after a drink or two Big Dave Bishop would say almost anything. “We won’t say a word, will we, Cousin David?” said Jim, and with just enough menace in his tone that Cousin Dave would understand that he really meant it. “You went over to St Helen’s and you found the teddy bear, and you found the blanket, just an ordinary grey blanket. That’s all you say, like your Aunty Mary told you. And you don’t want to upset your Aunty Mary, do you? Cos if she’s upset, then I’m upset. And I get nasty when I’m upset, don’t I? And you don’t want that, right?”
“S’pose,” Cousin Dave replied, shamefaced.
All this time Alfie had been staring at Lucy. “I never saw anyone who was German before,” he said. “No wonder she don’t say nothing. She can’t speak English. And she can’t understand a word we say, can she? Not if she’s German, she can’t.”
But, as he was speaking, Lucy looked up at him, and held his eyes just for a moment. But it was long enough for Alfie to know for certain that she had understood something – maybe not every word he had said, but something.
LUCY’S MYSTERIOUS APPEARANCE FROM OUT of nowhere had been the talk of the islands for weeks now, eclipsing even the news of the war from over in France and Belgium, which had been the main anxiety and preoccupation of just about everyone in the islands since the outbreak of war nearly a year before – every islander except Uncle Billy, that is, who lived his life in another world altogether, seemingly quite oblivious to the real world around him.
All the news they read in the newspapers, or picked up from any passing sailors coming into port at St Mary’s, dashed again and again their hopes of an early peace, and confirmed their worst fears. To begin with, the papers had been full of patriotic fervour and cheery optimism, every headline another rallying cry to the nation. But in recent months much of that had vanished, as they read yet more news of losses, of ‘heroic stands’, and ‘bravely fought’ battles in Belgium, or ‘strategic’ retreats in France. Armies that were going backwards and losing men by the thousands were clearly not winning – as some newspapers were still trying to insist – and most people knew it by now. None of the boys was going to be home by Christmas time, as everyone had hoped, that was for sure.
The islanders were doing their best to put a brave face on it. They tried all they could to keep the home fires burning with hope, but nothing any longer could hide the truth behind the daily reports of ever mounting casualties, those dreadful long lists in the papers of the killed, the wounded and the missing in action. And in recent months there had been four drowned sailors from Royal Navy ships washed up on the shores of Scilly, every one of them a stark reminder that the war at sea was not going well either.
These were islands accustomed enough to tragedy. ‘Lost at sea’ had always been a common enough cause here of sudden disappearance and death, as witnessed on monuments in churches all over the islands. But when the news came in that the islands had suffered their first losses of the war – two young lads whom everyone knew, Martin Dowd and Henry Hibbert – a pall of grief settled over everyone. Both had rowed in the St Mary’s gig, and both had been killed near Mons on the same day. They were Scillonians. They were family. The war had truly come home.
But it was what had happened shortly afterwards to young Jack Brody that was the most difficult to bear, particularly for the people of Bryher. He was known throughout the islands as a cheeky, cheery sort of a fellow, a bit of a show-off, the life and soul of any get-together, always boisterous and full of fun. He had joined up at sixteen – under age – the first to volunteer from the islands, full of his usual bravado and banter, bragging how, once he got out to France, he’d sort out Fritz soon enough. A couple of years older than Alfie, Jack had been his hero all the way through school, always in and out of trouble, champion at boxing, and the best footballer in the whole school without any question. He was everything Alfie admired, everything he wanted to grow up to be.
But now, only six months after going off to war, he was back home again. From time to time Alfie would see him around the island, sometimes being pushed in his wheelchair along the path by his mother, sometimes limping on crutches, a couple of medals pinned to his jacket, his left leg missing. Jack could still put a brave face on it. He’d wave wildly at anyone and everyone he saw. Miraculously, despite his destroyed mind and mangled body, the heart of him still seemed to be there. Whenever he saw Alfie, he’d call out to him, but he didn’t know any more who Alfie was. Alfie dreaded meeting him. Jack’s speech would be garbled, his head rolling uncontrollably, his mouth slack and dribbling, one eye dull and blinded. But it was the tucked-up trouser leg that Alfie could not bear to look at.
Alfie hated himself for doing it, but once or twice he had even hidden himself behind some escallonia hedge when he’d seen Jack coming, just to avoid having to meet him. Sometimes though, there was no way out, and he’d have to force himself to go over and say hello to him, to confront again the leg that wasn’t there, the livid scar across Jack’s forehead where the shrapnel had gone in, and where, as his mother told him every time they met, it was still lodged deep in his brain. “How are you today, Jack?” he’d say. And Jack would try to tell him, but the words came out as scrambled as his mind. He would keep on trying, desperate to communicate. Humiliated, frustrated and angry, Jack would often have to turn away to hide his tears, and then there seemed nothing else to do but to leave him. It shamed Alfie every time he did it.
So during that summer, for Alfie, as for so many, the finding of ‘Lucy Lost’ – as she was now known all over the islands – had been a welcome distraction. She took everyone’s mind off poor Jack Brody, and the loss of Martin and Henry. The overwhelming shadow of the war itself receded. Lucy Lost gave them all something else, something new, to talk about. Speculation was rife. Imagination ran riot. Rumours were everywhere – plausible, or implausible, it made no difference. Stories and theories abounded, anything that might possibly explain how Lucy Lost had turned up alone and abandoned on St Helen’s, with nothing but an old grey blanket and a raggedy teddy bear with one eye and a gentle smile.
How had she got there?
