Page 52 of Christmas at Sturcombe Bay
He chuckled richly. “And I’m going to have a whole lot more of ’em. You just wait and see!”
“I’m sure you will.”
She drew back discreetly, taking a careful sip of her wine — she didn’t want to risk it going to her head. She was very aware of Alex beside her. Were the little shivers running through her bones because of his closeness, or because she was worried that someone would notice and comment that she shouldn’t be here?
Arthur was holding court again with his stories of times long past.
“Then there was Bill Bamfield — Squadron Leader William Frederick Bamfield, DFC and Bar, to be correct. He were an Ace, flew Hurricanes. Shot down eleven till he got shot down hisself over Normandy in forty-four. Blinded, he was.”
Shelley was fascinated. “He’s got a very good memory,” she murmured to Alex.
“He has, though this is the first I’ve heard about the Second World War. Mostly he loves telling stories about doing his National Service and the Korean war. He remembers every detail of that.”
“And there was Chalkie White and Clive Darrow.” Arthur was pausing only to pick up crumbs of his birthday cake. “Crew mates, they was. Their Lancaster got shot up badly on a bombing raid over Berlin. The pilot managed to limp it home, but the undercarriage was stuck and it crashed on landing.”
Alex turned to Lisa. “I was just wondering . . . Are there any old papers from those days?”
Lisa frowned and shook her head. “Not that I know of. They’ve probably all been sent back to the Ministry of Defence.”
“I’m not talking about official records or anything like that. But photos, diaries . . . ?”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s some old boxes down in one of the storerooms, full of papers and things,” Shelley suggested. “There might be something in there.” She dug deep to find her confidence. “I can show you where it is.”
Alex turned to Lisa. “Is there a key?”
“I’ll get it.”
The basement was reached by an old door behind the kitchen, and a steep flight of stairs. At the bottom was a long, narrow corridor with a stone floor, lit by stark fluorescent strips in the ceiling, one of which was flickering as if ready to go out.
There were several wooden doors down each side, all in need of a coat of paint. Shelley stopped at one of them. “It’s this one.”
Alex fitted the key into the lock and opened the door.
“It’s a bit dusty in here,” Shelley warned. “And there are spiders.”
“Never mind.”
She switched on the light — more fluorescent strips. An old copper boiler lay on its side in the corner, there were a couple of deckchairs with torn canvas seats, the floor was covered with a litter of old rubbish, and the place smelled of ancient dust.
“Here’s the boxes.”
At the back of the room a haphazard pile of cardboard boxes was stacked against the wall. They certainly looked old enough to date from the war years, being rubbed ragged at the edges, and some of them showing from the faded printing on their sides that they had once held bars of carbolic soap or tins of Spam.
He eased his fingers into one of the torn cartons. Inside, he could see the edge of what looked like a photo album. “Ah, this could be interesting.”
He opened the top. The carton was jammed with a random selection of papers, notebooks and photo albums, as if someone had just cleared out some drawers or filing cabinets and stuffed everything into the box.
He tugged at one of the albums until it came out.
There were pages of black-and-white photos of young men, some with bandages on their hands and faces, some with the puckered scars of healing injuries.
Some were sitting on beds in pyjamas, but most wore their service uniforms. There were snaps of them standing round a piano for a sing-song, with nurses in their uniforms too.
And some of them were recognisably taken on the terrace of the hotel, with the bay in the background. The Carleton had done its bit.
He pulled out another album, filled with similar photos. “I’d like to show these to my grandpa.”
