'It's a darn good job nobody wants to invade us now,' said Gregory thoughtfully. "We should be caught properly on the hop.'
When they arrived at the Anchor they found two buxom fresh faced girls and a busy lad laying up long trestle tables on a square fenced in lawn behind the inn. It was a jolly little place; two broad bow windows set in the house and painted, like a porch, a brilliant green, suggested the quiet homely comfort of long winter evenings with good fires burning, and big tankards of Mr. Tollemache's best beer. The proprietor bustled out, a pleasant smile on his face.
'Well 1 never! To think I should live to see a real live General as a guest of my house,' he cried as he caught sight of Gregory's hat, 'but it's strange times we're living in.'
Gregory limped up to him. 'It's very good of you to give us a meal at all with things as they are, but you must let us pay you whatever's right.'
'Keep the money, sir. Mr. Andrews gave a short laugh. 'What good is it now? There wasn't a tin of biscuits to be bought in Ipswich Saturday; no, not for a five pound note.'
'Things are as bad as that, eh?'
'Worse, friend, worse, and the people spreading over the countryside like a flight of locusts. We're in luck's way being off the map like this or they'd eat us out of house and home.'
Gregory led the little man on to talk of his last visit to the town, and listened with sombre interest to the account. Andrews, it seemed was the only man in the community who owned a car, and he had gone to Ipswich in the hope of obtaining groceries. He found the shops all shut, while police and Greyshirts patrolled the main streets of the town, and long queues of people waited patiently before the Government depots for their rations, the delivery of which had been delayed owing to the breakdown of the railway services. There had been riots on Friday night, and the poorer suburbs were in a ferment. In fact, when he was trying to leave the town again, bricks, bottles and stones had been hurled at his car, smashing the windows and the windscreen, and only by driving recklessly through the demonstrators had he escaped. The road towards Woodbridge had been thick with hungry people seeking shelter and food in the outlying villages, and as Andrews described the long procession of vehicles, vans, carts, cars, and even perambulators, piled high with furniture, bedding and more precious household goods, it reminded Gregory with terrible vividness of the refugees retreating westward along the poplar lined roads after a big German advance in France.
'Would you go in again?' he asked. 'I mean, if it is necessary to make a reconnaissance?'
'Not me,' said Mr. Andrews fervently. 'Not for a thousand pounds I won't; and I couldn't if I would for that matter. I'd hoped to get the gas for the car, but there wasn't any so it died on me back on Sutton Common, and I had to walk the last five miles home.'
Gregory smiled. 'There must be hundreds of thousands of cars abandoned by the roadside by now. What a chance for the car bandits, eh?'
'Ah! if they had the gas,' laughed Mr. Andrews, 'but a thousand atmospheres would be worth more than a Rolls today. Come on now, sir, here's breakfast, and eat hearty. You never can tell when you'll see another square meal.'
The men had already sorted themselves out and stood round the two long tables, which had last accommodated a crowd of noisy trippers, and Gregory needed no urging. With Veronica and Ann on either side of him he took his place at the top and they sat down to the dishes of fine fresh fish.
'Boiled, they are, miss,' Mr. Andrews apologised, leaning over Veronica's shoulder, 'but none the worse for that and I must keep what little fat we've got for other cooking.'
'They're delicious,' she declared heartily. 'What fools people are to make such a fuss about blue trout; if herrings cost as much they would be three times as expensive because they've got ten times the flavour.'
'Well now!' declared Silas, 'I do think Lady Veronica's arithmetic is just marvellous. I couldn't have worked that out in a month of Sundays.' His blue eyes twinkled merrily at her out of his round expressive face, and they all joined in the laughter.
When the meal was over Gregory led three rousing cheers for mine host of the Anchor, and after many expressions of goodwill, marched his queerly assorted company back to the Martello Tower.
The men were sent down to the beach for a bathe under Sergeant Thompson and Petty Officer Sims, while Gregory called a conference of the officers. Ann, Veronica, and Rudd were asked to attend ex officio and the party settled themselves upon tufts of coarse grass in the sunshine, some fifty yards to leeward of the tower.
'Now,' said Gregory, 'we must discuss our future plans. As you know it was my intention to take you all safely out of England but my luck didn't hold, so here we are back again in this unfortunate country where everyone is about to starve to death or go mad. The question is, do we stay here where an inscrutable providence had seen fit to park us, or do we advance upon a port in the hope of securing another ship?'
'We haven't been lucky with ships,' murmured Kenyon, 'and we are lucky to be here at all.'
'Unless you can procure a private yacht of at least a thousand tons with a skipper and crew who adore you, my dear, this child sits on the beach until it is all over,' said Veronica firmly.
Gregory smiled. 'You assume that it will be over then, in say a week or a fortnight's time?'
'I haven't the faintest idea, but nothing will get me on a warship again until the King holds his next review at Spithead.'
'You prefer to face the very real possibility that civilisation is breaking up and England going back to the dark ages?'
'Yes, O man of valour! I'm prepared to walk naked about the beach if need be, but I'm not going on a warship.'
"This ship business,' said Silas suddenly. 'Why did you choose a naval boat? Surely a trader would have been easier to get away with in the first place, and a whole heap easier to control once you were on board.'
'In order to be able to say “Stand and deliver” at the Azores or to other shipping when our supplies of food and fuel ran low.'
'Well, it certainly was a great idea, and with fifty good men behind you it might well have come off, but we've nothing like the same chance now, so I'm for taking a tip from the big Willie with the brown face. There's plenty of fish in the sea, let's stop here and eat them.'
'What's your view, Ann?' Gregory smiled, noting that a touch of colour was creeping back into her lovely face.
No more ships for me, thank you,' she said promptly; 'and anyhow I'm quite near my home now.'
'I don't see how that will help you, or us. However, what do you say, Rudd?'
'I'm for doin' jus' what you think best, Mr. Gregory, sir. I don't doubt but we'll manage ail right.'
'Yes, but I'd like to have your opinion all the same.'
'Well, if that's your wish, sir, this is 'ow it seems to me. Mr. 'Arker there, if 'e'll excuse the expression, said a mouthful. Wiv invalids an' ladies pardon me, Miss 'ow are we goin' ter get another ship? But if we stays put in this 'ere tower we could 'old it against the 'ole blinking Army if we wants to, an' speakin' for meself I've 'ad worse vittals than those we 'ad fer breakfast many a time, so wots the matter with a bit of a 'oliday by the sea?'
Gregory nodded. 'Well, you all seem pretty unanimous against any further attempt to leave the country, although frankly if I thought there was any reasonable chance of capturing a sea worthy ship, I'd take it, whether you came with me or not. I can see some sort of decent future for myself if only I could get to a black man's country where the climate's good and the food abundant, but I can't see any here. In a week or so the people from the towns will have permeated the whole countryside and then it will be dog eat dog. Once our ammunition is exhausted we shall stand no better chance of surviving than the rest, and if we do, it will be to drag out a miserable existence through a bleak East Coast winter on a diet of herring. However, there is no prospect of a ship at the moment, and as Rudd says, we can hold the fort if we're attacked by any starving rabble, so we had best dig in here for the time being. Now I'm going to have a talk to Sergeant Thompson about the men.'