Read Online Last Telegram by Liz Trenow - Free Book Online Page B

holiday camp?”
    He filled his pipe and puffed it into life. Finally he said, “Leave it with me. I’ll have another think. Perhaps I’ll talk to Jim and Gwen and ask them to take soundings with the staff.”
    â€œThank you.” I hugged him, savoring his soothing smell of Old Virginia and hair oil.
    â€œNo guarantees, mind,” he said, turning back to his desk. “Now run along and help your mother with supper. I’ve got work to do.”
    The plan worked, just as I’d hoped. Over Sunday lunch, Father announced with some triumph, as if it had been his very own idea, that the mill manager Jim Williams had agreed to take on three new apprentices as weavers, warpers, or throwsters, depending on their skills.
    John’s forkful of food halted halfway to his mouth. “How did this happen?” he mouthed across the table.
    â€œTell you later,” I mouthed back, smiling smugly.
    â€œBut we can’t collect them yet,” Father was saying. “I have to be up in town all next week.”
    John had put his knife and fork down now. “We could go instead,” he said. “Lily and I can sort it out.”
    â€œPlease, Father,” I pleaded. “I can’t bear to think of those children waiting. They might even be sent back to Germany.”
    He pondered for a few seconds and then said, “I’ll check with Jim. See if he wants to go, or if he’s happy to delegate the job to you two.” Across the table, John was giving me a surreptitious thumbs-up. “It’s boys we want, remember,” Father said firmly. “No more than three. Strong lads who’ll really knuckle down to it.”
    â€¢ • •
    It was a dismal day as we drove in the rusty works van to the holiday camp. Clouds hung like damp sheets over the flat Essex fields, and when we reached the coast, the marshy land dissolved into the North Sea in shades of sullen gray.
    The road looked familiar. Surely this wasn’t the same place I’d been as a child, on holiday with a friend’s family? As we came closer, the memories started to flood back. The holiday had been a disaster. I was horribly homesick, and to make things worse, I was terrified of the flame-haired clown in a harlequin suit who had patrolled between the chalets each morning after breakfast, summoning us to the morning’s entertainments. He reminded me of the Pied Piper illustration in my book of fairy tales, and I was convinced that the children who followed him would never come back. So I refused to go with the clown, feigning all kinds of exotic ailments, and spent the rest of the holiday in my bunk bed, feeling humiliated and miserable.
    â€œYou’re very quiet, Sis. What’s on your mind?” John said. When I told him, he laughed. “Not too many clowns there these days, I don’t suppose,” he said.
    At the entrance, the words were still legible under peeling paint: “Welcome to Sunnyside Holiday Camp.” The gate was guarded, and spirals of barbed wire coiled along the top of the fence. We were ushered through and directed up a concrete driveway toward a group of buildings in the distance.
    As we came closer, we could see a gang of older boys kicking a football around on a patch of worn grass, and other children huddled against a chill wind on benches outside one of the pastel-painted chalets. Their faces were solemn and pale, like rows of white moons, turning to watch our van.
    Pinned to each child’s coat was a label. “Like little parcels,” I said. John nodded, grim-faced.
    We stopped and climbed out and the boys left their football game and ran over, crowding round us, firing questions in their strange guttural tongue. They stopped in surprise when John started speaking in fluent German, and when he’d finished they began chattering even more excitedly than before.
    â€œDon’t worry,” he said to me. “They’re only asking