The Kingdom by the Sea by Robert Westall Page A

struck.
    “Please, God, keep Jack, Harriet, Susan and Shirley safe.”
    He had a fleeting image of their smiling faces as he lay with his eyes shut.
    Then he had an image of his own house bombed flat, smelling of gas and burning with little low blue flames.
    God didn’t seem to have anything to say in reply.
    But then God, in Harry’s experience, never had.
    He stayed two days; two days of endless rain. He stayed warm and snug. He got everything nice and dry, though his trousers seemed to have shrunk a bit. His old mates would’ve said they were flying at half-mast.
    He ate the food; Spam, corned beef and endless baked beans. Even tinned peaches, which he hated and the dog wouldn’t touch. He felt very guilty, every tin he ate, butwhat could he do? Every tin he opened, he looked at the family for reassurance. They went on smiling at him. He seemed to get to know them very well. He read all the girls’ comics. The little one must have read
Puck.
The eldest seemed to like boys’ comics, like
Hotspur
and
Adventure.
The mother had read
Woman’s Weekly
, but all the vicar had left behind was a big black Bible and a copy of
The Pilgrim’s Progress.
By the second afternoon he had read everything else, and was reduced to looking up the dirty bits in the Bible, where so-and-so lay with so-and-so. Then he looked at the ever-smiling family on the table, and felt deeply ashamed.
    He found
The Pilgrim’s Progress
not much easier. But there was one bit that took his fancy.
    “I saw a man clothed with rags… with his face from his own house… and a book in his hand and a great burden on his back. I looked and I saw him open the book and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled… and broke out with a lamentable cry saying, ‘What shall I do?’”
    That was his own state really, wasn’t it? It was a slight comfort to realise people had been in this kind of jam before; that there was a name for it.
    “I’m a pilgrim,” he said out loud, liking the word. “Pilgrim.”
    The third morning dawned bright and clear. He got up the moment he wakened, the moment he realised the rain had stopped. He flung back the curtains, and the old blue sky was back, horizon to horizon. There was a mist out to sea, that meant it was going to be a really hot day. The dog pleaded urgently to go out, relieved itself, then began running madly in circles round the carriages. It was ready for the road, and so was he. But he left with care; piled his bags outside first, then cleaned out the stove, made the bed, swept and dusted. He thought it looked pretty good; just like it had been, when he arrived. He wrote a note saying, “Thank you. A pilgrim.” He hovered, undecided whether to leave a ten-shilling note under the photograph, or a pound. In the end he settled for a pound, he had eaten an awful lot, and it was on the ration.
    He was just picking up the attachè case, when he saw the old man coming up from the beach. He was not in the least afraid of the old man. He had silver hair, and walked painfully with a stick. A puff of wind would have blown him away. It would be hours before the old man could get to the police…
    “Morning,” said the old man, coming up to the door. “That’s a grand dog you’ve got.” The old man’s eyes were very sharp. Took in Harry’s face, his clothes, his luggage, and the pound note on the table, all in one glance. “Thanks for leaving the pound note.”
    “I was here two days an’ three nights,” said Harry. “We ate an awful lot…”
    “That’s all right, son. And you left the place nice too. Good lad.” There was such… gratitude in the old man’s voice that Harry grew bold.
    “Is this your railway carriage?”
    “No. It was my lad’s.”
    “The vicar? Jack?”
    “Aye, Jack. God rest him!”
    “Is… is he
dead?”
Harry’s voice rose to a squeak he couldn’t control.
    “Aye. And his missus. And the bairns. In the bombing at Newcastle. A year gone. They all went together. One