Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [615]
She arrived at Wilton at half past four. The meeting at Larkhill had gone on late. Hurriedly she raced to the little Morris in Kingsbury Square and started the engine.
It spluttered slightly. She took no notice. Moments later she was bowling out of Kingsbury Square.
She skirted Salisbury on the Harnham side and soon was on the road that led south down the Avon. She passed Britford; Lord Radnor’s estate by the ancient forest of Clarendon lay on her left.
It was just after this, as she came up a slight incline, that the car engine died.
She pulled into the side of the road. It was a quarter to five.
She tried to start the car. It was no good. Soon it was ten to five.
Desperately she looked for a car or a bus, but the road was empty: nothing seemed to be moving. She noticed some cherry blossoms on the ground that stirred slightly in the faint breeze. The minutes passed.
The car which finally appeared came along the road in the opposite direction at a careful pace. It was driven by John Mason. She hailed him frantically.
“You’ve got to get me to Downton.”
“I’ve just come from there.”
“I know. Please, John. Can we hurry?”
He looked at her gravely. “Is it so urgent?”
She answered by getting into his car.
He rested his hands on the wheel. Then he sighed.
“I think I can guess what this is all about. I wouldn’t have thought it was so urgent.”
“You can’t guess. Really. Please hurry.’
Reluctantly he turned the car. It seemed to him ironic that he should now be expected to ferry her to her lover. Whatever she said, that must be the reason for the journey.
They got to Downton in five minutes and with a hurried kiss, she fled into the long, thatched inn.
She was always glad, in after years, that she had been in time. They made love with a passionate urgency that night and afterwards she cried.
He wondered why; only she knew it was from relief.
As the night of June 5, 1944 ended and the dawn of June 6 broke, the people of Sarum did not sleep.
Overhead, hour after hour, passed one of the greatest airlifts the world had yet seen. The planes were lit; their throbbing engines made the whole city reverberate and tremble. The black cloud seemed to be endless as the planes, many of them trailing gliders behind them, passed along the Avon valley and over the cathedral spire.
Adam Shockley and the squadrons from Ibsley were giving convoy and beach cover.
He felt a strange sense of elation that dawn as he joined the huge, humming concourse. He smiled to himself as they sped high over the quiet river and he thought of the sleepy city and its tall grey spire a few miles behind him. He thought of Patricia. For a moment, too, he remembered their conversation, her fervent denunciation of what she saw as the world’s unfairness. Then he grinned. That was her trouble – perhaps the trouble with the English in general. They all wanted to be nice guys. Maybe, after this was over, he could cure her of that.
As they passed over the still waters of Christchurch harbour with its narrow headland, and out over the Channel, Adam Shockley drew his final conclusion on Patricia and Sarum: locked in the past, but worth defending. Then he put both out of his mind, as they swept towards France.
Later that morning, Patricia Shockley picked up Brigadier Forest-Wilson at the entrance of Wilton House.
“It’s Bulford camp, please.”
There were still planes crossing overhead and it was impossible not to think of him: where was he now? Over France, over the Channel?
She felt numb as she drove.
When they arrived at Bulford she was able to put a call through to Ibsley. He was back. They would meet again in a day or two. She returned to her staff car, trying to look as calm as she could and she believed she had succeeded when, a few minutes later, the brigadier reappeared and asked her to take him to Wilton again.
In the rear seat, Forest-Wilson watched the back of her neck thoughtfully. One shrewd glance at her as he came out had been enough though. The offensive was only a few hours old