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He had never been among those many who deeply dislike church bells, but the ringing that evening at Holihaven changed his view. Bells could certainly get on one’s nerves, he felt, although he had only just arrived in the town.

He had been too well aware of the perils attendant upon marrying a girl twenty-four years younger than himself to add to them by a conventional honeymoon. The strange force of Phrynne’s love had borne both of them away from their previous selves: in him a formerly haphazard and easy-going approach to life had been replaced by much deep planning to wall in happiness; and she, though once thought cold and choosy, would now agree to anything as long as she was with him. He had said that if they were to marry in June, it would be at the cost of not being able to honeymoon until October. Had they been courting longer, he had explained, gravely smiling, special arrangements could have been made; but, as it was, business claimed him. This, indeed, was true; because his business position was less influential than he had led Phrynne to believe. Finally, it would have been impossible for them to have courted longer, because they had courted from the day they met, which was less than six weeks before the day they married.

‘”A village,”‘ he had quoted as they entered the branch-line train at the junction (itself sufficiently remote), ‘”from which (it was said) persons of sufficient longevity might hope to reach Liverpool Street.”‘ By now he was able to make jokes about age, although perhaps he did so rather too often.

‘Who said that?’

‘Bertrand Russell.’

She had looked at him with her big eyes in her tiny face.

‘Really.’ He had smiled confirmation.

‘I’m not arguing.’ She had still been looking at him. The romantic gas light in the charming period compartment had left him uncertain whether she was smiling back or not. He had given himself the benefit of the doubt, and kissed her.

The guard had blown his whistle and they had rumbled into the darkness. The branch line swung so sharply away from the main line that Phrynne had been almost toppled from her seat. ‘Why do we go so slowly when it’s so flat?’

‘Because the engineer laid the line up and down the hills and valleys such as they are, instead of cutting through and embanking over them.’ He liked being able to inform her.

‘How do you know? Gerald! You said you hadn’t been to Holihaven before.’

‘It applies to most of the railways in East Anglia.’

‘So that even though it’s flatter, it’s slower?’

‘Time matters less.’

‘I should have hated going to a place where time mattered or that you’d been to before. You’d have had nothing to remember me by.’

He hadn’t been quite sure that her words exactly expressed her thought, but the thought had lightened his heart.

*  *  *  *  *

Holihaven station could hardly have been built in the days of the town’s magnificence, for they were in the Middle Ages; but it still implied grander functions than came its way now. The platforms were long enough for visiting London expresses, which had since gone elsewhere; and the architecture of the waiting-rooms would have been not insufficient for occasional use by Foreign Royalty. Oil lamps on perches like those occupied by macaws lighted the uniformed staff, who numbered two, and, together with every other native of Holihaven, looked like storm-habituated mariners.

The stationmaster and porter, as Gerald took them to be, watched him approach down the platform, with a heavy suitcase in each hand and Phrynne walking deliciously by his side. He saw one of them address a remark to the other, but neither offered to help. Gerald had to put down the cases in order to give up their tickets. The other passengers had already disappeared.

‘Where’s the Bell?’

Gerald had found the hotel in a reference book. It was the only one the book allotted to Holihaven. But as Gerald spoke, and before the ticket collector could answer, the sudden deep note of an actual bell rang through the darkness. Phrynne caught hold of Gerald’s sleeve.

Ignoring Gerald, the stationmaster, if such he was, turned to his colleague. ‘They’re starting early.’

‘Every reason to be in good time,’ said the other man.

The stationmaster nodded, and put Gerald’s tickets indifferently in his jacket pocket.

‘Can you please tell me how I get to the Bell Hotel?’

The stationmaster’s attention returned to him. ‘Have you a room booked?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Tonight?’ The stationmaster looked inappropriately suspicious.

‘Of course.’

Again the stationmaster looked at the other man.

‘It’s them Pascoes.’

‘Yes,’ said Gerald. ‘That’s the name, Pascoe.’

‘We don’t use the Bell,’ explained the stationmaster. ‘But you’ll find it in Wrack Street.’ He gesticulated vaguely and unhelpfully. ‘Straight ahead. Down Station Road. Then down Wrack Street. You can’t miss it.’

‘Thank you.’

As soon as they entered the town, the big bell began to boom regularly.

‘What narrow streets!’ said Phrynne.

‘They follow the lines of the medieval city. Before the river silted up, Holihaven was one of the most important seaports in Great Britain.’

‘Where’s everybody got to?’

Although it was only six o’clock, the place certainly seemed deserted.

‘Where’s the hotel got to?’ rejoined Gerald.

‘Poor Gerald! Let me help.’ She laid her hand beside his on the handle of the suitcase nearest to her, but as she was about fifteen inches shorter than he, she could be of little assistance. They must already have gone more than a quarter of a mile. ‘Do you think we’re in the right street?’

‘Most unlikely, I should say. But there’s no one to ask.’

‘Must be early closing day.’

The single deep notes of the bell were now coming more frequently.

‘Why are they ringing that bell? Is it a funeral?’

‘Bit late for a funeral.’

She looked at him a little anxiously.

‘Anyway it’s not cold.’

‘Considering we’re on the east coast it’s quite astonishingly warm.’

‘Not that I care.’

‘I hope that bell isn’t going to ring all night.’

She pulled on the suitcase. His arms were in any case almost parting from his body. ‘Look! We’ve passed it.’

They stopped, and he looked back. ‘How could we have done that?’

‘Well, we have.’

She was right. He could see a big ornamental bell hanging from a bracket attached to a house about a hundred yards behind them.

They retraced their steps and entered the hotel. A woman dressed in a navy blue coat and skirt, with a good figure but dyed red hair and a face ridged with make-up, advanced upon them.

‘Mr and Mrs Banstead?’ I’m Hilda Pascoe. Don, my husband, isn’t very well.’

Gerald felt full of doubts. His arrangements were not going as they should. Never rely on guide-book recommendations. The trouble lay partly in Phrynne’s insistence that they go somewhere he did not know. ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said.

‘You know what men are like when they’re ill?’ Mrs Pascoe spoke understandingly to Phrynne.

‘Impossible,’ said Phrynne. ‘Or very difficult.’

‘Talk about Woman in our hours of ease.’

‘Yes,’ said Phrynne. ‘What’s the trouble?’

‘It’s always the same trouble with Don,’ said Mrs Pascoe, then checked herself. ‘It’s his stomach,’ she said. ‘Ever since he was a kid, Don’s had trouble with the lining of his stomach.’

Gerald interrupted, ‘I wonder if we could see our room?’

‘So sorry,’ said Mrs Pascoe. ‘Will you register first?’ She produced a battered volume bound in peeling imitation leather. ‘Just the name and address.’ She spoke as if Gerald might contribute a resume of his life.

It was the first time he and Phrynne had ever registered in a hotel; but his confidence in the place was not increased by the long period which had passed since the registration above.

‘We’re always quiet in October,’ remarked Mrs Pascoe, her eyes upon him. Gerald noticed that her eyes were slightly bloodshot. ‘Except sometimes for the bars, of course.’

‘We wanted to come out of the season,’ said Phrynne soothingly.

‘Quite,’ said Mrs Pascoe.

‘Are we alone in the house?’ inquired Gerald. After all the woman was probably doing her best.

‘Except for Commandant Shotcroft. You won’t mind him, will you? He’s a regular.’

‘I’m sure we shan’t,’ said Phrynne.

‘People say the house wouldn’t be the same without Commandant Shotcroft.

‘I see.’

‘What’s that bell?’ asked Gerald. Apart from anything else, it really was much too near.

Mrs Pascoe looked away. He thought she looked shifty under her entrenched make-up. But she only said, ‘Practice.’

‘Do you mean there will be more of them later?’

She nodded. ‘But never mind,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Let me show you to your room. Sorry there’s no porter.’

Before they had reached the bedroom, the whole peal had commenced.

‘Is this the quietest room you have?’ inquired Gerald. ‘What about the other side of the house?’

‘This is the other side of the house. Saint Guthlac’s is over there.’ She pointed out through the bedroom door.

‘Darling,’ said Phrynne, her hand on Gerald’s arm, ‘they’ll soon stop. They’re only practicing.’

Mrs Pascoe said nothing. Her expression indicated that she was one of those people whose friendliness has a precise and seldom exceeded limit.

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Gerald to Phrynne, hesitating.

‘They have ways of their own in Holihaven,’ said Mrs Pascoe. Her undertone of militancy implied, among other things, that if Gerald and Phrynne chose to leave, they were at liberty to do so. Gerald did not care for that either: her attitude would have been different, he felt, had there been anywhere else for them to go. The bells were making him touchy and irritable.

‘It’s a very pretty room,’ said Phrynne. ‘I adore four- posters.’

‘Thank you,’ said Gerald to Mrs Pascoe. ‘What time’s dinner?’

‘Seven-thirty. You’ve time for a drink in the bar first.’ She went.

‘We certainly have,’ said Gerald when the door was shut. ‘It’s only just six.’

‘Actually,’ said Phrynne, who was standing by the window looking down into the street, ‘I like church bells.’

‘All very well,’ said Gerald, ‘but on one’s honeymoon they distract the attention.’

‘Not mine,’ said Phrynne simply. Then she added, ‘There’s still no one about.’

‘I expect they’re all in the bar.’

‘I don’t want a drink. I want to explore the town.’

‘As you wish. But hadn’t you better unpack?’

‘I ought to, but I’m not going to. Not until after I’ve seen the sea.’ Such small shows of independence in her enchanted Gerald.

Mrs Pascoe was not about when they passed through the lounge, nor was there any sound of activity in the establishment.

Outside, the bells seemed to be booming and bounding immediately over their heads.

‘It’s like warriors fighting in the sky,’ shouted Phrynne. ‘Do you think the sea’s down there?’ She indicated the direction from which they had previously retraced their steps.

‘I imagine so. The street seems to end in nothing. That would be the sea.’

‘Come on. Let’s run.’ She was off, before he could even think about it. Then there was nothing to do but run after her. He hoped there were not eyes behind blinds.

She stopped, and held wide her arms to catch him. The top of her head hardly came up to his chin. He knew she was silently indicating that his failure to keep up with her was not a matter for self-consciousness.

‘Isn’t it beautiful?’

‘The sea?’ There was no moon; and little was discernible beyond the end of the street.

‘Not only.’

‘Everything but the sea. The sea’s invisible.’

‘You can smell it.’

‘I certainly can’t hear it.’

She slackened her embrace and cocked her head away from him. ‘The bells echo so much, it’s as if there were two churches.’

‘I’m sure there are more than that. There always are in old towns like this.’ Suddenly he was struck by the significance of his words in relation to what she had said. He shrank into himself, tautly listening.

‘Yes,’ cried Phrynne delightedly. ‘It is another church.’

‘Impossible,’ said Gerald. ‘Two churches wouldn’t have practice ringing on the same night.’

‘I’m quite sure. I can hear one lot of bells with my left ear, and another lot with my right.’

They had still seen no one. The sparse gas lights fell on the furnishings of a stone quay, small but plainly in regular use. ‘The whole population must be ringing the bells.’ His own remark discomfited Gerald.

‘Good for them.’ She took his hand. ‘Let’s go down on the beach and look for the sea.’

They descended a flight of stone steps at which the sea had sucked and bitten. The beach was as stony as the steps, but lumpier.

‘We’ll just go straight on,’ said Phrynne. ‘Until we find it.’ Left to himself, Gerald would have been less keen. The stones were very large and very slippery, and his eyes did not seem to be becoming accustomed to the dark.

‘You’re right, Phrynne, about the smell.’

‘Honest sea smell.’

‘Just as you say.’ He took it rather to be the smell of dense rotting weed; across which he supposed they must be slithering. It was not a smell he had previously encountered in such strength.

Energy could hardly be spared for talking, and advancing hand in hand was impossible.

After various random remarks on both sides and the lapse of what seemed a very long time, Phrynne spoke again. ‘Gerald, where is it? What sort of seaport is it that has no sea?’

She continued onwards, but Gerald stopped and looked back. He had thought the distance they had gone overlong, but was startled to see how great it was. The darkness was doubtless deceitful, but the few lights on the quay appeared as on a distant horizon.

The far glimmering specks still in his eyes, he turned and looked after Phrynne. He could barely see her. Perhaps she was progressing faster without him.

‘Phrynne! Darling!’

Unexpectedly she gave a sharp cry.

‘Phrynne!’

She did not answer.

‘Phrynne! ‘

Then she spoke more or less calmly. Panic over. ‘Sorry, darling. I stood on something.’

He realized that a panic it had indeed been; at least in him.

‘You’re all right?’

‘Think so.’

He struggled up to her. ‘The smell’s worse than ever.’ It was overpowering.

‘I think it’s coming from what I stepped on. My foot went right in, and then there was the smell.’

‘I’ve never known anything like it.’

‘Sorry, darling,’ she said gently mocking him. ‘Let’s go away.’

‘Let’s go back. Don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ said Phrynne. ‘But I must warn you I’m very disappointed. I think that seaside attractions should include the sea.’

He noticed that as they retreated, she was scraping the sides of one shoe against the stones, as if trying to clean it.

‘I think the whole place is a disappointment,’ he said. ‘I really must apologize. We’ll go somewhere else.’

‘I like the bells,’ she replied, making a careful reservation. Gerald said nothing.

‘I don’t want to go somewhere where you’ve been before.’ The bells rang out over the desolate, unattractive beach. Now the sound seemed to be coming from every point along the shore.

‘I suppose all the churches practice on the same night in order to get it over with,’ said Gerald.

‘They do it in order to see which can ring the loudest,’ said Phrynne.

‘Take care you don’t twist your ankle.’

The din as they reached the rough little quay was such as to suggest that Phrynne’s idea was literally true.

The Coffee Room was so low that Gerald had to dip beneath a sequence of thick beams.

‘Why “Coffee Room”?’ asked Phrynne, looking at the words on the door. ‘I saw a notice that coffee will only be served in the lounge.’

‘It’s the lucus a non lucendo principle.’

‘That explains everything. I wonder where we sit.’ A single electric lantern, mass produced in an antique pattern, had been turned on. The bulb was of that limited wattage which is peculiar to hotels. It did little to penetrate the shadows.

‘The lucus a non lucendo principle is the principle of calling white black.’

‘Not at all,’ said a voice from the darkness. ‘On the contrary. The word black comes from an ancient root which means “to bleach”.’

They had thought themselves alone, but now saw a small man seated by himself at an unlighted corner table. In the darkness he looked like a monkey.

‘I stand corrected,’ said Gerald.

They sat at the table under the lantern.

The man in the comer spoke again. ‘Why are you here at all?’

Phrynne looked frightened, but Gerald replied quietly.

‘We’re on holiday. We prefer it out of the season. I presume you are Commandant Shotcroft?’

‘No need to presume.’ Unexpectedly the Commandant switched on the antique lantern which was nearest to him. His table was littered with a finished meal. It struck Gerald that he must have switched off the light when he heard them approach the Coffee Room. ‘I’m going anyway.’

‘Are we late?’ asked Phrynne, always the assuager of situations.

‘No, you’re not late,’ said the Commandant in a deep, moody voice. ‘My meals are prepared half an hour before the time the rest come in. I don’t like eating in company.’ He had risen to his feet. ‘So perhaps you excuse me.’

Without troubling about an answer, he stepped quickly out of the Coffee Room. He had cropped white hair; tragic, heavy-lidded eyes; and a round face which was yellow and lined.

A second later his head reappeared round the door.

‘Ring,’ he said; and again withdrew.

‘Too many other people ringing,’ said Gerald. ‘But I don’t see what else we can do.’

The Coffee Room bell, however, made a noise like a fire alarm.

Mrs Pascoe appeared. She looked considerably the worse for drink.

‘Didn’t see you in the bar.’

‘Must have missed us in the crowd,’ said Gerald amiably.

‘Crowd?’ inquired Mrs Pascoe drunkenly. Then, after a difficult pause, she offered them a hand-written menu.

They ordered; and Mrs Pascoe served them throughout. Gerald was apprehensive lest her indisposition increase during the course of the meal; but her insobriety, like her affability, seemed to have an exact and definite limit.

‘All things considered, the food might be worse,’ remarked Gerald, towards the end. It was a relief that something was going reasonably well. ‘Not much of it, but at least the dishes are hot.’

When Phrynne translated this into a compliment to the cook, Mrs Pascoe said, ‘I cooked it all myself, although I shouldn’t be the one to say so.’

Gerald felt really surprised that she was in a condition to have accomplished this. Possibly, he reflected with alarm, she had had much practice under similar conditions.

‘Coffee is served in the lounge,’ said Mrs Pascoe.

They withdrew. In a corner of the lounge was a screen decorated with winning Elizabethan ladies in ruffs and hoops. From behind it projected a pair of small black boots. Phrynne nudged Gerald and pointed to them. Gerald nodded. They felt themselves constrained to talk about things which bored them.

The hotel was old and its walls thick. In the empty lounge the noise of the bells could not prevent conversation being overheard, but still came from all around, as if the hotel were a fortress beleaguered by surrounding artillery.

After their second cups of coffee, Gerald suddenly said he couldn’t stand it.

‘Darling, it’s not doing us any harm. I think it’s rather cosy.’ Phrynne subsided in the wooden chair with its sloping back and long mud-coloured mock-velvet cushions; and opened her pretty legs to the fire.

‘Every church in the town must be ringing its bells. It’s been going on for two and a half hours and they never seem to take the usual breathers.’

‘We wouldn’t hear. Because of all the other bells ringing. I think it’s nice of them to ring the bells for us.’

Nothing further was said for several minutes. Gerald was beginning to realize that they had yet to evolve a holiday routine.

‘I’ll get you a drink. What shall it be?’

‘Anything you like. Whatever you have.’ Phrynne was immersed in female enjoyment of the fire’s radiance on her body.

Gerald missed this, and said, ‘I don’t quite see why they have to keep the place like a hothouse. When I come back, we’ll sit somewhere else.’

‘Men wear too many clothes, darling,’ said Phrynne drowsily. Contrary to his assumption, Gerald found the lounge bar as empty as everywhere else in the hotel and the town. There was not even a person to dispense.

Somewhat irritably, Gerald struck a brass bell which stood on the counter. It rang out sharply as a pistol shot.

Mrs Pascoe appeared at a door among the shelves. She had taken off her jacket, and her make-up had begun to run.

‘A cognac, please. Double. And a Kummel.’

Mrs Pascoe’s hands were shaking so much that she could not get the cork out of the brandy bottle.

‘Allow me.’ Gerald stretched his arm across the bar.

Mrs Pascoe stared at him blearily. ‘O.K. But I must pour it.’ Gerald extracted the cork and returned the bottle. Mrs Pascoe slopped a far from precise dose into a balloon.

Catastrophe followed. Unable to return the bottle to the high shelf where it resided, Mrs Pascoe placed it on a waist-level ledge. Reaching for the alembic of Kummel, she swept the three-quarters full brandy bottle on to the tiled floor. The stuffy air became fogged with the fumes of brandy from behind the bar.

At the door from which Mrs Pascoe had emerged appeared a man from the inner room. Though still youngish, he was puce and puffy, and in his braces, with no collar. Streaks of sandy hair laced his vast red scalp. Liquor oozed all over him, as if from a perished gourd. Gerald took it that this was Don.

The man was too drunk to articulate. He stood in the doorway clinging with each red hand to the ledge, and savagely struggling to flay his wife with imprecations.

‘How much?’ said Gerald to Mrs Pascoe. It seemed useless to try for the Kummel. The hotel must have another bar.

‘Three and six,’ said Mrs Pascoe, quite lucidly; but Gerald saw that she was about to weep.

He had the exact sum. She turned her back on him and flicked the cash register. As she returned from it, he heard the fragmentation of glass as she stepped on a piece of the broken bottle. Gerald looked at her husband out of the corner of his eye. The sagging, loose-mouthed figure made him shudder. Something moved him.

‘I’m sorry about the accident,’ he said to Mrs Pascoe. He held the balloon in one hand, and was just going.

Mrs Pascoe looked at him. The slow tears of desperation were edging down her face, but she now seemed quite sober. ‘Mr Banstead,’ she said in a flat, hurried voice. ‘May I come and sit with you and your wife in the lounge? Just for a few minutes.’

‘Of course.’ It was certainly not what he wanted, and he wondered what would become of the bar, but he felt unexpectedly sorry for her, and it was impossible to say no.

To reach the flap of the bar she had to pass her husband. Gerald saw her hesitate for a second; then she advanced resolutely and steadily and looking straight before her. If the man had let go with his hands, he would have fallen; but as she passed him, he released a great gob of spit. He was far too incapable to aim, and it fell on the side of his own trousers. Gerald lifted the flap for Mrs Pascoe and stood back to let her precede him from the bar. As he followed her, he heard her husband maundering off into unintelligible inward searchings.

‘The Kummel! ‘ said Mrs Pascoe, remembering in the doorway.

‘Never mind,’ said Gerald. ‘Perhaps I could try one of the other bars?’

‘Not tonight. They’re shut. I’d better go back.’

‘No. We’ll think of something else.’ It was not yet nine o’clock, and Gerald wondered about the Licensing Justices.

But in the lounge was another unexpected scene. Mrs Pascoe stopped as soon as they entered, and Gerald, caught between two imitation-leather armchairs, looked over her shoulder.

Phrynne had fallen asleep. Her head was slightly on one side, but her mouth was shut, and her body no more than gracefully relaxed, so that she looked most beautiful, and, Gerald thought, a trifle unearthly, like a dead girl in an early picture by Millais.

The quality of her beauty seemed also to have impressed Commandant Shotcroft; for he was standing silently behind her and looking down at her, his sad face transfigured. Gerald noticed that a leaf of the pseudo-Elizabethan screen had been folded back, revealing a small cretonne-covered chair, with an open tome face downward in its seat.

‘Won’t you join us?’ said Gerald boldly. There was that in the Commandant’s face which boded no hurt. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

The Commandant did not turn his head, and seemed unable to speak. Then in a low voice he said, ‘For a moment only.’

‘Good,’ said Gerald. ‘Sit down. And you, Mrs Pascoe.’ Mrs Pascoe was dabbing at her face. Gerald addressed the Commandant. ‘What shall it be?’

‘Nothing to drink,’ said the Commandant in the same low mutter. It occurred to Gerald that if Phrynne awoke, the Commandant would go.

‘What about you?’ Gerald looked at Mrs Pascoe, earnestly hoping she would decline.

‘No, thanks.’ She was glancing at the Commandant. Clearly she had not expected him to be there.

Phrynne being asleep, Gerald sat down too. He sipped his brandy. It was impossible to romanticize the action with a toast.

The events in the bar had made him forget about the bells. Now, as they sat silently round the sleeping Phrynne, the tide of sound swept over him once more.

‘You mustn’t think,’ said Mrs Pascoe, ‘that he’s always like that.’ They all spoke in hushed voices. All of them seemed to have reason to do so. The Commandant was again gazing somberly at Phrynne’s beauty.

‘Of course not.’ But it was hard to believe.

‘The licensed business puts temptations in a man’s way.’

‘It must be very difficult.’

‘We ought never to have come here. We were happy in South Norwood.’

‘You must do good business during the season.’

‘Two months,’ said Mrs Pascoe bitterly, but still softly. ‘Two and a half at the very most. The people who come during the season have no idea what goes on out of it.’

‘What made you leave South Norwood?’

‘Don’s stomach. The doctor said the sea air would do him good.’

‘Speaking of that, doesn’t the sea go too far out? We went down on the beach before dinner, but couldn’t see it anywhere.’

On the other side of the fire, the Commandant turned his eyes from Phrynne and looked at Gerald.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Mrs Pascoe. ‘I never have time to look from one year’s end to the other.’ It was a customary enough answer, but Gerald felt that it did not disclose the whole truth. He noticed that Mrs Pascoe glanced uneasily at the Commandant, who by now was staring neither at Phrynne nor at Gerald but at the toppling citadels in the fire.

‘And now I must get on with my work,’ continued Mrs Pascoe, ‘I only came in for a minute.’ She looked Gerald in the face. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and rose.

‘Please stay a little longer,’ said Gerald. ‘Wait till my wife wakes up.’ As he spoke, Phrynne slightly shifted.

‘Can’t be done,’ said Mrs Pascoe, her lips smiling. Gerald noticed that all the time she was watching the Commandant from under her lids, and knew that were he not there, she would have stayed.

As it was, she went. I’ll probably see you later to say good night. Sorry the water’s not very hot. It’s having no porter.’ The bells showed no sign of flagging.

When Mrs Pascoe had closed the door, the Commandant spoke.

‘He was a fine man once. Don’t think otherwise.’

‘You mean Pascoe?’

The Commandant nodded seriously.

‘Not my type,’ said Gerald.

‘DSO and bar. DFC and bar.’

‘And now bar only. Why?’

‘You heard what she said. It was a lie. They didn’t leave South Norwood for the sea air.’

‘So I supposed.’

‘He got into trouble. He was fixed. He wasn’t the kind of man to know about human nature and all its rottenness.’

‘A pity,’ said Gerald. ‘But perhaps, even so, this isn’t the best place for him?’

‘It’s the worst,’ said the Commandant, a dark flame in his eyes. ‘For him or anyone else.’

Again Phrynne shifted in her sleep: this time more convulsively, so that she nearly awoke. For some reason the two men remained speechless and motionless until she was again breathing steadily. Against the silence within, the bells sounded louder than ever. It was as if the tumult were tearing holes in the roof.

‘It’s certainly a very noisy place,’ said Gerald, still in an undertone.

‘Why did you have to come tonight of all nights?’ The Commandant spoke in the same undertone, but his vehemence was extreme.

‘This doesn’t happen often?’

‘Once every year.’

‘They should have told us.’

‘They don’t usually accept bookings. They’ve no right to accept them. When Pascoe was in charge they never did.’

‘I expect that Mrs Pascoe felt they were in no position to turn away business.’

‘It’s not a matter that should be left to a woman.’

‘Not much alternative surely?’

‘At heart women are creatures of darkness all the time.’

The Commandant’s seriousness and bitterness left Gerald without a reply.

‘My wife doesn’t mind the bells,’ he said after a moment. ‘In fact she rather likes them.’ The Commandant really was converting a nuisance, though an acute one, into a melodrama. The Commandant turned and gazed at him. It struck Gerald that what he had just said in some way, for the Commandant, placed Phrynne also in a category of the lost.

‘Take her away, man,’ said the Commandant, with scornful ferocity.

‘In a day or two perhaps,’ said Gerald, patiently polite. ‘I admit that we are disappointed with Holihaven.’

‘Now. While there’s still time. This instant.’

There was an intensity of conviction about the Commandant which was alarming.

Gerald considered. Even the empty lounge, with its dreary decorations and commonplace furniture, seemed inimical. ‘They can hardly go on practising all night,’ he said. But now it was fear that hushed his voice.

‘Practising!’ The Commandant’s scorn flickered coldly through the overheated room.

‘What else?’

‘They’re ringing to wake the dead.’

A tremor of wind in the flue momentarily drew on the already roaring fire. Gerald had turned very pale.

‘That’s a figure of speech,’ he said, hardly to be heard.

‘Not in Holihaven.’ The Commandant’s gaze had returned to the fire.

Gerald looked at Phrynne. She was breathing less heavily. His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘What happens?’

The Commandant also was nearly whispering. ‘No one can tell how long they have to go on ringing. It varies from year to year. I don’t know why. You should be all right up to midnight. Probably for some while after. In the end the dead awake. First one or two; then all of them. Tonight even the sea draws back. You have seen that for yourself. In a place like this there are always several drowned each year. This year there’ve been more than several. But even so that’s only a few. Most of them come not from the water but from the earth. It is not a pretty sight.’

‘Where do they go?’

‘I’ve never followed them to see. I’m not stark staring mad.’ The red of the fire reflected in the Commandant’s eyes. There was a long pause.

‘I don’t believe in the resurrection of the body,’ said Gerald. As the hour grew later, the bells grew louder. ‘Not of the body.’

‘What other kind of resurrection is possible? Everything else is only theory. You can’t even imagine it. No one can.’ Gerald had not argued such a thing for twenty years. ‘So,’ he said, ‘you advise me to go. Where?’

‘Where doesn’t matter.’

‘I have no car.’

‘Then you’d better walk.’

“With her?’ He indicated Phrynne only with his eyes.

‘She’s young and strong.’ A forlorn tenderness lay within the Commandant’s words. ‘She’s twenty years younger than you and therefore twenty years more important.’

‘Yes,’ said Gerald. ‘I agree… What about you? What will you do?’

‘I’ve lived here some time now. I know what to do.’

‘And the Pascoes?’

‘He’s drunk. There is nothing in the world to fear if you’re thoroughly drunk. DSO and bar. DFC and bar.’

‘But you are not drinking yourself?’

‘Not since I came to Holihaven. I lost the knack.’

Suddenly Phrynne sat up. ‘Hullo,’ she said to the Commandant; not yet fully awake. Then she said, ‘What fun! The bells are still ringing.’

The Commandant rose, his eyes averted. ‘I don’t think there’s anything more to say,’ he remarked, addressing Gerald. ‘You’ve still got time.’ He nodded slightly to Phrynne, and walked out of the lounge.

‘What have you still got time for?’ asked Phrynne, stretching. ‘Was he trying to convert you? I’m sure he’s an Anabaptist.’

‘Something like that,’ said Gerald, trying to think.

‘Shall we go to bed? Sorry, I’m so sleepy.’

‘Nothing to be sorry about.’

‘Or shall we go for another walk? That would wake me up. besides the tide might have come in.’

Gerald, although he half-despised himself for it, found it impossible to explain to her that they should leave at once; without transport or a destination; walk all night if necessary. He said to himself that probably he would not go even were he alone.

‘If you’re sleepy, it’s probably a good thing.’

‘Darling!’

‘I mean with these bells. God knows when they will stop.’ Instantly he felt a new pang of fear at what he had said.

Mrs Pascoe had appeared at the door leading to the bar, and opposite to that from which the Commandant had departed. She bore two steaming glasses on a tray. She looked about, possibly to confirm that the Commandant had really gone.

‘I thought you might both like a nightcap. Ovaltine, with something in it.’

‘Thank you,’ said Phrynne. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer.’ Gerald set the glass on a wicker table, and quickly finished his cognac.

Mrs Pascoe began to move chairs and slap cushions. She looked very haggard.

‘Is the Commandant an Anabaptist?’ asked Phrynne over her shoulder. She was proud of her ability to outdistance Gerald in beginning to consume a hot drink.

Mrs Pascoe stopped slapping for a moment. ‘I don’t know what that is,’ she said.

‘He’s left his book,’ said Phrynne, on a new tack.

Mrs Pascoe looked at it indifferently across the lounge.

‘I wonder what he’s reading,’ continued Phrynne. ‘Fox’s Lives of the Martyrs, I expect.’ A small unusual devil seemed to have entered into her.

But Mrs Pascoe knew the answer. ‘It’s always the same,’ she said, contemptuously. ‘He only reads one. It’s called Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World. He’s been reading it ever since he came here. When he gets to the end, he starts again.’

‘Should I take it up to him?’ asked Gerald. It was neither courtesy nor inclination, but rather a fear lest the Commandant return to the lounge: a desire, after those few minutes of reflection, to cross-examine.

‘Thanks very much,’ said Mrs Pascoe, as if relieved of a similar apprehension. ‘Room One. Next to the suit of Japanese armour.’ She went on tipping and banging. To Gerald’s inflamed nerves, her behavior seemed too consciously normal.

He collected the book and made his way upstairs. The volume was bound in real leather, and the tops of its pages were gilded: apparently a presentation copy. Outside the lounge, Gerald looked at the flyleaf: in a very large hand was written: ‘To my dear Son, Raglan, on his being honoured by the Queen. From his proud Father, B. Shotcroft, Major-general.’ Beneath the inscription a very ugly military crest had been appended by a stamper of primitive type.

The suit of Japanese armour lurked in a dark comer as the Commandant himself had done when Gerald had first encountered him. The wide brim of the helmet concealed the black eyeholes in the headpiece; the moustache bristled realistically. It was exactly as if the figure stood guard over the door behind it. On this door was no number, but, there being no other in sight, Gerald took it to be the door of Number One. A short way down the dim empty passage was a window, the ancient sashes of which shook in the din and blast of the bells. Gerald knocked sharply.

If there was a reply, the bells drowned it; and he knocked again. When to the third knocking there was still no answer, he gently opened the door. He really had to know whether all would, or could, be well if Phrynne, and doubtless he also, were at all costs to remain in their room until it was dawn. He looked into the room and caught his breath.

There was no artificial light, but the curtains, if there were any, had been drawn back from the single window, and the bottom sash forced up as far as it would go. On the floor by the dusky void, a maelstrom of sound, knelt the Commandant, his cropped white hair faintly catching the moonless glimmer, as his head lay on the sill, like that of a man about to be guillotined. His face was in his hands, but slightly sideways, so that Gerald received a shadowy distorted idea of his expression. Some might have called it ecstatic, but Gerald found it agonized. It frightened him more than anything which had yet happened. Inside the room the bells were like plunging roaring lions.

He stood for some considerable time quite unable to move. He could not determine whether or not the Commandant knew he was there. The Commandant gave no direct sign of it, but more than once he writhed and shuddered in Gerald’s direction, like an unquiet sleeper made more unquiet by an interloper. It was a matter of doubt whether Gerald should leave the book; and he decided to do so mainly because the thought of further contact with it displeased him. He crept into the room and softly laid it on a hardly visible wooden trunk at the foot of the plain metal bedstead. There seemed no other furniture in the room. Outside the door, the hanging mailed fingers of the Japanese figure touched his wrist.

He had not been away from the lounge for long, but it was long enough for Mrs Pascoe to have begun again to drink. She had left the tidying up half-completed, or rather the room half-disarranged; and was leaning against the overmantel, drawing heavily on a dark tumbler of whisky. Phrynne had not yet finished her Ovaltine.

‘How long before the bells stop?’ asked Gerald as soon as he opened the lounge door. Now he was resolved that, come what might, they must go. The impossibility of sleep should serve as excuse.

‘I don’t expect Mrs Pascoe can know any more than we can,’ said Phrynne.

‘You should have told us about this – this annual event – before accepting our booking.’

Mrs Pascoe drank some more whisky. Gerald suspected that it was neat. ‘It’s not always the same night,’ she said throatily, looking at the floor.

‘We’re not staying,’ said Gerald wildly.

‘Darling! ‘ Phrynne caught him by the arm.

‘Leave this to me, Phrynne.’ He addressed Mrs Pascoe. ‘We’ll pay for the room, of course. Please order me a car.’

Mrs Pascoe was now regarding him stonily. When he asked for a car, she gave a very short laugh. Then her face changed. She made an effort, and said, ‘You mustn’t take the Commandant so seriously, you know.’

Phrynne glanced quickly at her husband. The whisky was finished. Mrs Pascoe placed the empty glass on the plastic overmantel with too much of a thud. ‘No one takes Commandant Shotcroft seriously,’ she said. ‘Not even his nearest and dearest.’

‘Has he any?’ asked Phrynne. ‘He seemed so lonely and pathetic.’

‘He’s Don and I’s mascot,’ she said, the drink interfering with her grammar. But not even the drink could leave any doubt about her rancour.

‘I thought he had personality,’ said Phrynne.

‘That and a lot more, no doubt,’ said Airs Pascoe. ‘But they pushed him out, all the same.’

‘Out of what?’

‘Cashiered, court-martialled, badges of rank stripped off, sword broken in half, muffled drums, the works.’

‘Poor old man. I’m sure it was a miscarriage of justice.’

‘That’s because you don’t know him.’

Mrs Pascoe looked as if she were waiting for Gerald to offer her another whisky.

‘It’s a thing he could never live down,’ said Phrynne, brooding to herself, and tucking her legs beneath her. ‘No wonder he’s so queer if all the time it was a mistake.’

‘I just told you it was not a mistake,’ said Mrs Pascoe insolently.

‘How can we possibly know?’

‘You can’t. I can. No one better.’ She was at once aggressive and tearful.

‘If you want to be paid,’ cried Gerald, forcing himself in, ‘make out your bill. Phrynne, come upstairs and pack.’ If only he hadn’t made her unpack between their walk and dinner.

Slowly Phrynne uncoiled and rose to her feet. She had no intention of either packing or departing, nor was she going to argue. ‘I shall need your help,’ she said. ‘If I’m going to pack.’

In Mrs Pascoe there was another change. Now she looked terrified. ‘Don’t go. Please don’t go. Not now. It’s too late.’

Gerald confronted her. ‘Too late for what?’ he asked harshly.

Mrs Pascoe looked paler than ever. ‘You said you wanted a car,’ she faltered. ‘You’re too late.’ Her voice trailed away.

Gerald took Phrynne by the arm. ‘Come on up.’

Before they reached the door, Mrs Pascoe made a further attempt. ‘You’ll be all right if you stay. Really you will.’ Her voice, normally somewhat strident, was so feeble that the bells obliterated it. Gerald observed that from somewhere she had produced the whisky bottle and was refilling her tumbler.

With Phrynne on his arm he went first to the stout front door. To his surprise it was neither locked nor bolted, but opened at a half-turn of the handle. Outside the building the whole sky was full of bells, the air an inferno of ringing.

He thought that for the first time Phrynne’s face also seemed strained and crestfallen. ‘They’ve been ringing too long,’ she said, drawing close to him. ‘I wish they’d stop.’

‘We’re packing and going. I needed to know whether we could get out this way. We must shut the door quietly.’

It creaked a bit on its hinges, and he hesitated with it halfshut, uncertain whether to rush the creak or to ease it. Suddenly, something dark and shapeless, with its arm seeming to hold a black vesture over its head, flitted, all sharp angles, like a bat, down the narrow ill-lighted street, the sound of its passage audible to none. It was the first being that either of them had seen in the streets of Holihaven; and Gerald was acutely relieved that he alone had set eyes upon it. With his hand trembling, he shut the door much too sharply.

But no one could possibly have heard, although he stopped for a second outside the lounge. He could hear Mrs Pascoe now weeping hysterically; and again was glad that Phrynne was a step or two ahead of him. Upstairs the Commandant’s door lay straight before them: they had to pass close beside the Japanese figure, in order to take the passage to the left of it.

But soon they were in their room, with the key turned in the big rim lock.

‘Oh God,’ cried Gerald, sinking on the double bed. ‘It’s pandemonium.’ Not for the first time that evening he was instantly more frightened than ever by the unintended appositeness of his own words.

‘It’s pandemonium all right,’ said Phrynne, almost calmly. ‘And we’re not going out in it.’

He was at a loss to divine how much she knew, guessed, or imagined; and any word of enlightenment from him might be inconceivably dangerous. But he was conscious of the strength of her resistance, and lacked the reserves to battle with it.

She was looking out of the window into the main street. We might will them to stop,’ she suggested wearily.

Gerald was now far less frightened of the bells continuing than of their ceasing. But that they should go on ringing until day broke seemed hopelessly impossible.

Then one peal stopped. There could be no other explanation for the obvious diminution in sound.

‘You see!’ said Phrynne. Gerald sat up straight on the side of the bed.

Almost at once further sections of sound subsided, quickly one after the other, until only a single peal was left, that which had begun the ringing. Then the single peal tapered off into a single bell. The single bell tolled on its own, disjointedly, five or six or seven times. Then it stopped, and there was nothing.

Gerald’s head was a cave of echoes, mountingly muffled by the noisy current of his blood.

‘Oh goodness,’ said Phrynne, turning from the window and stretching her arms above her head. ‘Let’s go somewhere else tomorrow.’ She began to take off her dress.

Sooner than usual they were in bed, and in one another’s arms. Gerald had carefully not looked out of the window, and neither of them suggested that it should be opened, as they usually did.

‘As it’s a four-poster, shouldn’t we draw the curtains?’ asked Phrynne. ‘And be really snug? After those damned bells?’

‘We should suffocate.’

‘Did they suffocate when everyone had four-posters?’

‘They only drew the curtains when people were likely to pass through the room.’

‘Darling, you’re shivering. I think we should draw them.’

‘Lie still instead and love me.’

But all his nerves were straining out into the silence. There was no sound of any kind, beyond the hotel or within it; not a creaking floorboard nor a prowling cat nor a distant owl. He had been afraid to look at his watch when the bells stopped, or since; the number of the dark hours before they could leave Holihaven weighed on him. The vision of the Commandant kneeling in the dark window was clear before his eyes, as if the intervening panelled walls were made of stage gauze; and the thing he had seen in the street darted on its angular way back and forth through memory.

Then passion began to open its petals within him, layer upon slow layer; like an illusionist’s red flower which, without soil or sun or sap, grows as it is watched. The languor of tenderness began to fill the musty room with its texture and perfume. The transparent walls became again opaque, the old man’s vaticinations mere obsession. The street must have been empty, as it was now; the eye deceived.

But perhaps rather it was the boundless sequacity of love that deceived, and most of all in the matter of the time which had passed since the bells stopped ringing; for suddenly Phrynne drew very close to him, and he heard steps in the thoroughfare outside, and a voice calling. These were loud steps, audible from afar even through the shut window; and the voice had the possessed stridency of the street evangelist.

‘The dead are awake!’

Not even the thick bucolic accent, the guttural vibrato of emotion, could twist or mask the meaning. At first Gerald lay listening with all his body, and concentrating the more as the noise grew; then he sprang from the bed and ran to the window.

A burly, long-limbed man in a seaman’s jersey was running down the street, coming clearly into a view for a second at each lamp, and between them lapsing into a swaying lumpy wraith.

As he shouted his joyous message, he crossed from side to side and waved his arms like a negro. By flashes, Gerald could see that his weatherworn face was transfigured.

‘The dead are awake!’

Already, behind him, people were coming out of their houses, and descending from the rooms above shops. There were men, women, and children. Most of them were fully dressed, and must have been waiting in silence and darkness for the call; but a few were dishevelled in night attire or the first garments which had come to hand. Some formed themselves into groups, and advanced arm in arm, as if towards the conclusion of a Blackpool beano. More came singly, ecstatic and waving their arms above their heads, as the first man had done. All cried out, again and again, with no cohesion or harmony. ‘The dead are awake! The dead are awake! ‘

Gerald become aware the Phrynne was standing behind him.

‘The Commandant warned me,’ he said brokenly. ‘We should have gone.’

Phrynne shook her head and took his arm. ‘Nowhere to go,’ she said. But her voice was soft with fear, and her eyes blank. ‘I don’t expect they’ll trouble us.’

Swiftly Gerald drew the thick plush curtains, leaving them in complete darkness. ‘We’ll sit it out,’ he said, slightly histrionic in his fear. ‘No matter what happens.’

He scrambled across to the switch. But when he pressed it, light did not come. ‘The current’s gone. We must get back into bed.’

‘Gerald! Come and help me.’ He remembered that she was curiously vulnerable in the dark. He found his way to her, and guided her to the bed.

‘No more love,’ she said ruefully and affectionately, her teeth chattering.

He kissed her lips with what gentleness the total night made possible.

‘They were going towards the sea,’ she said timidly.

‘We must think of something else.’

But the noise was still growing. The whole community seemed to be passing down the street, yelling the same dreadful words again and again.

‘Do you think we can?’

‘Yes,’ said Gerald. ‘It’s only until tomorrow.’

‘They can’t be actually dangerous,’ said Phrynne. ‘Or it would be stopped.’

‘Yes, of course.’

By now, as always happens, the crowd had amalgamated their utterances and were beginning to shout in unison. They were like agitators bawling a slogan, or massed trouble-makers at a football match. But at the same time the noise was beginning to draw away. Gerald suspected that the entire population of the place was on the march.

Soon it was apparent that a processional route was being followed. The tumult could be heard winding about from quarter to quarter; sometimes drawing near, so that Gerald and Phrynne were once more seized by the first chill of panic, then again almost fading away. It was possibly this great variability in the volume of the sound which led Gerald to believe that there were distinct pauses in the massed shouting; periods when it was superseded by far, disorderly cheering. Certainly it began also to seem that the thing shouted had changed; but he could not make out the new cry, although unwillingly he strained to do so.

‘It’s extraordinary how frightened one can be,’ said Phrynne, ‘even when one is not directly menaced. It must prove that we all belong to one another, or whatever it is, after all.’

In many similar remarks they discussed the thing at one remove. Experience showed that this was better than not discussing it at all.

In the end there could be no doubt that the shouting had stopped, and that now the crowd was singing. It was no song that Gerald had ever heard, but something about the way it was sung convinced him that it was a hymn or psalm set to an out-of-date popular tune. Once more the crowd was approaching; this time steadily, but with strange, interminable slowness.

‘What the hell are they doing now?’ asked Gerald of the blackness, his nerves wound so tight that the foolish question was forced out of them.

Palpably the crowd had completed its peregrination, and was returning up the main street from the sea. The singers seemed to gasp and fluctuate, as if worn out with gay exercise, like children at a party. There was a steady undertow of scraping and scuffling. Time passed and more time.

Phrynne spoke. ‘I believe they’re dancing’

She moved slightly, as if she thought of going to see.

‘No, no,’ said Gerald and clutched her fiercely.

There was a tremendous concussion on the ground floor below them. The front door had been violently thrown back.

They could hear the hotel filling with a stamping, singing mob.

Doors banged everywhere, and furniture was overturned, as the beatific throng surged and stumbled through the involved darkness of the old building. Glasses went and china and Birmingham brass warming pans. In a moment, Gerald heard the Japanese armour crash to the boards. Phrynne screamed. Then a mighty shoulder, made strong by the sea’s assault, rammed at the panelling and their door was down.

The living and the dead dance together.
Now’s the time. Now’s the place. Now’s the weather.

*  *  *  *  *

At last Gerald could make out the words.

The stresses in the song were heavily beaten down by much repetition.

Hand in hand, through the dim grey gap of the doorway, the dancers lumbered and shambled in, singing frenziedly but brokenly; ecstatic but exhausted. Through the stuffy blackness they swayed and shambled, more and more of them, until the room must have been packed tight with them.

Phrynne screamed again. ‘The smell. Oh God, the smell.’

It was the smell they had encountered on the beach; in the congested room, no longer merely offensive, but obscene, unspeakable.

Phrynne was hysterical. All self-control gone, she was scratching and tearing, and screaming again and again. Gerald tried to hold her, but one of the dancers in the darkness struck him so hard that she was jolted out of his arms. Instantly it seemed that she was no longer there at all.

The dancers were thronging everywhere, their limbs whirling, their lungs bursting with the rhythm of the song. It was difficult for Gerald even to call out. He tried to struggle after Phrynne, but immediately a blow from a massive elbow knocked him to the floor, an abyss of invisible trampling feet.

But soon the dancers were going again; not only from the room, but, it seemed, from the building also. Crushed and tormented though he was, Gerald could hear the song being presumed in the street, as the various frenzied groups debouched and reunited. Within, before long there was nothing but the chaos, the darkness, and the putrescent odour. Gerald felt so sick that he had to battle with unconsciousness. He could not think or move, despite the desperate need.

Then he struggled into a sitting position, and sank his head on the torn sheets of the bed. For an uncertain period he was insensible to everything; but in the end he heard steps approaching down the dark passage. His door was pushed back, and the Commandant entered gripping a lighted candle. He seemed to disregard the flow of hot wax which had already congealed on much of his knotted hand.

‘She’s safe. Small thanks to you.’

The Commandant stared icily at Gerald’s undignified figure. Gerald tried to stand. He was terribly bruised, and so giddy that he wondered if this could be concussion. But relief rallied him.

‘Is it thanks to you?’

‘She was caught up in it. Dancing with the rest.’ The Commandant’s eyes glowed in the candle-light. The singing and dancing had almost died away.

Still Gerald could do no more than sit up on the bed. His voice was low and indistinct, as if coming from outside his body. ‘Were they… were some of them…’

The Commandant replied more scornful than ever of his weakness. ‘She was between two of them. Each had one of her hands.’

Gerald could not look at him. ‘What did you do?’ he asked in the same remote voice.

‘I did what had to be done. I hope I was in time.’ After the slightest possible pause he continued. ‘You’ll find her downstairs.’

‘I’m grateful. Such a silly thing to say, but what else is there?’

‘Can you walk?’

‘I think so.’

‘I’ll light you down.’ The Commandant’s tone was as uncompromising as always.

There were two more candles in the lounge, and Phrynne, wearing a woman’s belted overcoat which was not hers, sat between them drinking. Mrs Pascoe, fully dressed but with eyes averted, pottered about the wreckage. It seemed hardly more than as if she were completing the task which earlier she had left unfinished.

‘Darling, look at you!’ Phrynne’s words were still hysterical, but her voice was as gentle as it usually was.

Gerald, bruises and thoughts of concussion forgotten, dragged her into his arms. They embraced silently for a long time; then he looked into her eyes.

‘Here I am,’ she said, and looked away. ‘Not to worry.’

Silently and unnoticed, the Commandant had already retreated.

Without returning his gaze, Phrynne finished her drink as she stood there. Gerald supposed that it was one of Mrs Pascoe’s concoctions.

It was so dark where Mrs Pascoe was working that her labours could have been achieving little; but she said nothing to her visitors, nor they to her. At the door Phrynne unexpectedly stripped off the overcoat and threw it on a chair. Her nightdress was so torn that she stood almost naked. Dark though it was, Gerald saw Mrs Pascoe regarding Phrynne’s pretty body with a stare of animosity.

‘May we take one of the candles?’ he said, normal standards reasserting themselves in him.

But Mrs Pascoe continued to stand silently staring; and they lighted themselves through the wilderness of broken furniture to the ruins of their bedroom. The Japanese figure was still prostrate, and the Commandant’s door shut. And the smell had almost gone.

*  *  *  *  *

Even by seven o’clock the next morning surprisingly much had been done to restore order. But no one seemed to be about, and Gerald and Phrynne departed without a word.

In Wrack Street a milkman was delivering, but Gerald noticed that his cart bore the name of another town. A minute boy whom they encountered later on an obscure purposeful errand might, however, have been indigenous; and when they reached Station Road, they saw a small plot of land on which already men were silently at work with spades in their hands. They were as thick as flies on a wound, and as black. In the darkness of the previous evening, Gerald and Phrynne had missed the place. A board named it the New Municipal Cemetery.

In the mild light of an autumn morning the sight of the black and silent toilers was horrible; but Phrynne did not seem to find it so. On the contrary, her cheeks reddened and her soft mouth became fleetingly more voluptuous still.

She seemed to have forgotten Gerald, so that he was able to examine her closely for a moment. It was the first time he had done so since the night before. Then, once more, she became herself. In those previous seconds Gerald had become aware of something dividing them which neither of them would ever mention or ever forget.