Read Online Rule Britannia by Daphne du Maurier - Free Book Online

become a way of life. Did union with the U.S. mean that everything would change and everyone be happy? In which case, who were the “small body of malcontents” who would wish to prevent it? It was all very puzzling. It was useless trying to discuss the matter with Mad, she refused to do so.
    “I withhold comment,” she said icily, “until the state of emergency is over.”
    Which means, decided Emma, she disapproves of the whole thing. She thinks it’s phoney. Well, perhaps she is right. But one can’t exactly treat it as phoney while the marines occupy the stable block, there are barricades on the main road and the telephone is cut. The only thing you can do is to sit glued to the television and hope something will happen in between the succession of old American and British films. There were news flashes, of course. The Queen being greeted at the White House by the President, Prince Philip being welcomed by a tribe of Red Indians with whom, somewhat surprisingly, he was suddenly going to camp. The other members of the royal family were also scattered, the Princess Royal doing something with Girl Guides in Australia, the Prince of Wales commanding his destroyer in the Indian Ocean, the Duke of York seconded from his regiment to serve with the Mounted Police in Canada and Prince Edward on a mountaineering course in Scotland.
    Terry, whose technical school had also closed down for the half term, spent his time eavesdropping on the marines in the stable block. He inferred darkly that they spent most of their time listening to pop music on a shortwave radio.
    “They did let Mr. Trembath know about poor Spry,” he told Emma. “The C.O. who came to tea sent the corporal down. Corporal Wagg.”
    “How do you know?” asked Emma.
    “The corporal told me himself, when he came to the side door to return the bucket,” said Terry. So there
was
to-ing and fro-ing, despite Mad’s instructions to the contrary. Only a matter of time, thought Emma, before they were creeping up the back stairs for cups of tea. “The corporal said they were very pleasant to him at the farm,” Terry went on, “and asked him in, and he said that if all the Cornish girls were as hot as Myrtle he’d stay put when the alert was over and to hell with the marines.”
    “Go on with you,” laughed Emma, “that was just his talk.”
    “Maybe,” said Terry, “but I know Myrtle. You’ve only got to flash at her once and she’s had it.”
    Glowering, he lumbered off to the shrubbery, where Mad had set him and Joe to cutting down the dead trees, “to keep them employed,” she said. Mad herself, when not supervising the lumberjacks, had formed an association with Andy and Sam in the basement, and all three of them were engaged in cleaning and sharpening the stacks of lethal arrows and restringing the bows.
    “But, darling,” remonstrated Emma, when the boys had run off to find fresh emery paper, “you shouldn’t encourage them.”
    “Why ever not?” asked her grandmother, looking up from her task, the weapon in her hands more dangerous than a pygmy’s spear. “Andy will make a first-class shot. I wish I knew what’s become of that old straw target we used to have. I’m certain he would hit the bull’s eye every time.”
    Andy, his thatch of hair more unruly than ever, came running back again from the old scullery, and smiled when he heard Mad’s remark.
    “I can do better than that, Madam,” he said. “I can hit an orange on a bamboo stick at fifty yards. I know, I’ve tried it from my watchtower in the chimney.”
    “Good for you,” said Mad, “but don’t waste the arrows.”
    Oh, heavens, thought Emma, you might as well… you might as well go stand upon the beach and bid the main tide cease its angry flood… Was she quoting aright? Anyway, she knew what she meant. Her grandmother was inflexible. She went up to the kitchen, hearing voices, and found, to her great surprise, that Dottie was engaged in conversation with