Page 149 of The Gathering Storm

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The April weather was unexpectedly benign, and Richard was busy with the finishing of the holiday village site. The chalets were all built and only wanted painting, the sanitation units were just waiting to be furnished and connected, and the construction of the public buildings was well in hand. They would be ready for a summer opening – ironically, considering the low rumble of expectation about a war coming. If they went to war, there was little chance anyone would be going on holiday. And what would he do then? Unused, the buildings would deteriorate, to say nothing of having no return on his investment. The last war had gone on for four years.

One day he received a letter from the Air Ministry, asking him to attend for a meeting. He didn’t tell Cynthia, knowing she would jump to the conclusion that it would be something bad. She’d seemed a little happier after seeing Mr Young, and her appetite had improved, but she still turned away from him in bed, and he knew her recovery was fragile. He’d tell her afterwards, when he knew what it was about. He thought it must be something to do with procuring or hiring motor vehicles.

When he presented himself at Adastral House on Kingsway, and gave his name, the porter at the desk looked him up on a list, and told him he was to see the Administrator of Works and Buildings, and summoned a messenger boy to conduct him there. The administrator, a pleasant-faced but worn-looking man in his fifties, sat Richard down, offered him tea, and told him kindly that the Air Ministry was going to requisition his whole holiday camp site.

‘It’s ideal for our purposes,’ he said. ‘As you know, the east coast will be one of the first targets for enemy aircraft.’ He didn’t name the enemy – Richard gathered that the Air Force, at least, had no doubt they’d be fighting the Germans in the near future. ‘The land in Lincolnshire is flat and we’re building several new airfields there. Your holiday camp will provide us with accommodation for the officers, and administration and works buildings.’

‘Holiday village,’ Richard corrected automatically.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Not holiday camp, holiday village.’ Samuel had been insistent on that point.

The administrator gave him a strange look. ‘If you wish.’

‘So,’ Richard went on, ‘do I have any choice?’

‘I’m afraid not. That’s what “requisition” means. There will, of course, be compensation. And it will be returned to you at the end of the emergency, either restored to previous condition, or with a grant for you to restore it.’

‘The emergency? The war, you mean?’

‘We call it the state of emergency,’ he insisted politely.

When he got home that evening, he knew at once something was up. Cynthia met him in the hall, and Hannah and Leah were behind her, waiting in the doorway of the sitting-room.

‘What is it?’ he asked at once, Nevinson’s Holiday Villages forgotten. ‘What’s happened?’

She took a shaky breath. ‘A man came to the door just a little while ago. He had an armband. He said he was the warden for this building.’

‘What sort of warden?’

She wrinkled her brow. ‘He did say. Something about air raids.’

‘Air Raid Precaution? ARP?’

‘That was it,’ Hannah said. ‘He had the letters on his armband.’

‘I didn’t know anything about it,’ Cynthia said. ‘Air raids, Richard?’ She looked tearful.

‘If there’s a war,’ he said.

‘He asked how many were in the household,’ she went on. ‘Adults, children and babies. I told him four adults. And he left those.’

She gestured with her head, and he saw, on the hall table, a stack of four square-ish cardboard boxes. He took the top one and opened the lid. A black rubber face, with a hose for a snout and big round glass eyes, like the head of a nightmare pig, glared balefully at him. ‘Gas masks.’

‘He said everyone in the country would be given one eventually, but they were starting with London and the Home Counties because that was the most likely target. For gas attacks. He said we had to practise wearing them so as to be ready. We tried them on—’

‘It’s not easy,’ Hannah said. ‘There’s instructions on the box, but it’s not easy to get it on.’

‘The smell is terrible,’ Leah blurted out.

‘It’s hard to breathe,’ Cynthia said. ‘You have to drag the air in. It tastes of rubber and it makes you feel sick. Oh, Richard! Gas?’

‘It’s just a precaution,’ he said helplessly. ‘It might never happen.’

She walked away from him abruptly, went into the sitting-room. He was still in his coat and hat. Hannah, a little shame-faced, said, ‘She’s upset, that’s all,’ and helped him off with them. Then she hustled Leah towards the kitchen. ‘I’ll get supper on, now you’re home.’