A Short Synopsis

THE INVISIBLE PIPER explores the lives of two families; one middle class, one working class, living on the South coast of England during WW11. Both family’s lives are irretrievably changed by war.

John and Mary Adams have one beloved son, 20 year old Rob who joins the RAF at the beginning of the war desperate to fly Spitfires. Their world of middle class complacency is shattered by this event and the arrival of a seemingly tough working class boy from the East End. Charlie Slater is a disarming 10 year old London evacuee searching for a hero and a home. He brings with him a traumatic background, a perceptive personality and an ability to make people care about him deeply.

In contrast with the Adams, the Braziers come from a working class background. Hilda and Bill Brazier have three children: Colin, 20, Kate, 17 and Rose who is 10. Colin and Rob have been close friends since school and join the RAF together. Hilda is devastated by her son’s departure as he has always been her favourite. Kate is devastated too, but for a different reason: she is in love with Rob. Kate is beautiful and vivacious, but feels completely unloved by her mother. She decides to join the WAAFS as a way of escaping from her home. In the WAAFS she discovers hardship, sexual liberation and friendship. Her world is transformed in a way she never thought possible.

THE INVISIBLE PIPER opens with a dramatic question: does Rob who is parachuting out of a burning Spitfire survive? We have to wait until the climax at the end of the book to discover the truth. During that time we explore Rob’s home life, his life in the RAF and the people he loves: Kate, his girl friend and ten year old, Charlie. Each time Rob comes home for leave, Charlie subtly changes Rob's perception of himself and the world. The developing relationship between Rob and 10 year old Charlie is the pivot on which the whole book revolves. Rob gives Charlie the love and security which has always been missing from his life. However, as we follow their friendship, we gradually realise that it is not Rob, but Charlie, traumatised, but lionhearted, who is the stronger person; it is Charlie who forces Rob to look deep into himself after he barely survives the appalling disfigurement of burns; it is Charlie who teaches Rob about real love and courage.

Chapter 1

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’
George Santayana The Age of Reason. 1905.

Rob distantly heard the telephone ring, but it couldn't have anything to do with him. He'd been flying for days without sleep.
He felt someone shaking him. ` Sir - Come on - another scramble.'
It was impossible. He'd only just gone to sleep. He staggered to his feet and headed for the door, fully clothed. He hadn't even taken off his flying boots; he'd been too exhausted after the last sortie. It was 4.30 am.
He saw the others running past him to their machines and suddenly, nervous energy flooded through his body. He ran towards his Spitfire, refuelled, rearmed and serviced in the short time since his last flight by the equally exhausted ground-crew.
The oscillating thunder of Merlin engines filled the air as pilots revved up. Rob could see the blue flames from the exhaust stubs, streaking through the half light.
`Up again, Sir? Don't them Jerries ever sleep?' Pickles, one of the ground-crew, yawned widely. ‘Just oiled the canopy hood - bit stiff.’
Rob yawned back as he urinated on the grass; a practice which no longer embarrassed him since most of the other pilots did it to save time before sorties. He climbed into the cockpit. Shaking the sleep away from his brain, he tested the oxygen supply and R/T and then taxied out to the far end of aerodrome and turned into wind. He saw the Thumbs Up from Flight Commander ‘Sandy’ Lane and opened up. A throbbing roar filled the cockpit and cut off the outside world as he sped across the aerodrome. The bumps from the undercart became less and less, until with a final bump, he was off the deck and a grey blur of grass slipped beneath him. His right hand dropped to the undercart control and moved it back. Then he felt for the pump. A few seconds later, two faint thuds told him the wheels were up, only then did he reach behind him to pull the stiff hood shut. He stifled another yawn as he put the airscrew into course pitch, throttling back to cruising revs.
What the hell was he flying at 4.40 in the morning for? No sign of the bloody Hun.
A shiver ran across his body as the R/T crackled into life.
‘Seventy plus Bandits approaching south-south-west. Angels 15 to 20.’
Rob looked around wildly, thankful he wasn't wearing a collar and tie. His neck had been rubbed raw for months until he'd taken to wearing roll neck sweaters and scarves, like most of the other pilots.
Then he saw them: thirty Dornier 17s and Ju 88 bombers at 15,000 ft, escorted by forty Me 109s at 20,000 ft.
Sandy’s voice stabbed through the headphones.
‘Go! Go! Go!’
Rob climbed steeply above one of the 109s and suddenly all he could see was hoar-frost covering his windscreen. No forward vision. His throat felt full of chalk. He watched the shaking in his hand as he rubbed a small section of screen. He had no idea where the 109 was. The oxygen was making him light-headed. It was a nightmare: trying to weave, scan his rear-view and clear the wind-screen all at the same time. His breath came in short, agitated gasps as he broke away from the others and dived. At 10,000 ft the screen cleared.
Thank God. No Messerschmitt on my tail.
The air above the sea was misty so he didn't see the olive-green camouflage on the long thin Dornier 17 until tracers streamed past his cockpit.
Jesus!
He suddenly saw large, black swastikas on the fuselage of the Dornier 200 feet away and climbed at break-neck speed, the sweat pouring from him; his eyes searing the skies until he saw the enemy beneath him. He banked violently and the Dornier's starboard engine shot through his gun-sights. His thumb jammed down on the firing button and the Browning machine guns tore into the Dornier's engine. The bomber erupted into flames and screamed into the sea.
For a second, Rob relaxed back into his harness. Only a second. But a second he was going to regret, forever. A Messerschmitt was above him, coming out of the sun. He was blinded by the sudden blaze in his eyes; he didn't see the orange tracers stream towards him, just felt the violent Thump Thump Thump of cannon shell screaming into his fuselage. He lost his elevator-control and the Spitfire went into a steep left-hand climbing turn. Rob felt the seat pressing deep into his body and momentarily blacked out. Then just as the pressure eased and the blood raced back through his brain, his oil tank burst into flames.
Terror electrified his body. He tore at the hood release. It wouldn't move. His screams filled the small cockpit as he watched flames eating through his fingers. Ignoring the pain, he tore again and again at the hood release. At last - it slammed back. He groped for the release pin securing the Sutton harness, trying to hold his head back from the flames. And suddenly, he was out, tumbling through sky and sea. A remote part of his brain telling him to pull the ripcord. He watched burning hands move in slow motion towards the chromium ring and experienced the excruciating pain of exposed nerve-endings as he forced his fingers to hold it and pull.
His screams exploded around the sky as the white silk canopy billowed above him. He looked down at the roasted flesh at the end of his arms and gagged at the smell. Then suddenly, the shock came ... and he started to shake, uncontrollably, and soon his parachute was swaying crazily from side to side.
From a long distance away, he heard someone yelling.

Chapter 2

`Evacuees have to accustom themselves to separation from family and friends, householders to sharing their homes with strangers ...
from a Pamphlet entitled `Government Evacuation Scheme'. 1939. Ernest Bevin.

It was a sunny morning in September 1939 and ten year old Charlie Slater was going on holiday for the first time in his life. He had a boxed gas mask around his neck, a brown paper parcel with a change of clothes hanging from a belt around his waist and a name-tag tied to the lapel of his short brown coat. He didn't notice the mothers fighting back their tears at Victoria train station as he was going to the seaside and had a slab of chocolate clutched in his sticky hand given to him by a woman on the evacuation committee. A whole slab. He charged up the steps of the train with eighty other children, desperate to get a window seat. He had never been on a train; had never seen the sea; had never eaten chocolate. The children cheered as the train steamed off. The mothers waved from the platform; some of the children remembered to wave back.

The train arrived at Hastings after a long, noisy journey. The teachers who had volunteered to accompany the children were exhausted after cleaning up vomit and urine from travel-sick and chocolate-gorged children. On top of this, they had to deal with a barrage of questions fired at them by children with strong stomachs and good bladder control:
‘ What's in that field, Miss? Is that a cow ? Ugh! - ain't they ugly? - What's them dangly bits hanging like that for? Get a butcher's at the black one! What's she doin’ on that cow's back, Miss?’ ‘Bit like me old man after the boozer,’ piped up an older boy. ‘Cor - look at all them white sheeps jumpin' about - how many lambs do they have a year?’ ‘Where can I have a Jimmy Riddle, Miss?’ ‘ How long before we has a butcher's at the pigs you was telling us about?’ ‘Where's the houses and smoke gone, Miss? - there's nothin' here but grass!’
None of the children had ever been away from the streets of London for a day.
It was raining as a curve of children meandered down Havelock Road towards the new underground car-park, following the middle-aged ladies who'd been sent to meet them. Suddenly the air was full of the anguished wail of an air-raid siren. Everyone started screaming. In the chaos that followed, many children tried gluing their bodies to wet pavements, while others stood in rigid shock, their fingers star-fished with tension. Only a handful of children, chocolate-smeared faces uplifted to the cutting edge of rain, stood in fearful excitement, desperate for their first sight of a large, black swastika on the side of an enemy aircraft. Charlie was one of them. Suddenly, they were all swept down the road by the adults and herded towards the safety of the under-ground car park. In the distance they saw an ARP warden wobbling towards them on an old bicycle shouting: ‘False alarm! False alarm!’ This false alarm, everyone discovered later, had been repeated all over England.

The children gasped as they walked into the car park: trestle tables lining the walls were piled high with food: tins of corned beef and spam, condensed milk and more slabs of milk chocolate. The air-raid warning was forgotten as they were each given a precious carrier bag full of food to take to their new homes.
They were steaming by the time they had walked from the car-park to a large reception centre in a school hall where a committee of ladies were waiting with glasses of milk and Marie biscuits to welcome them. Charlie didn't like the smell of the hall; it reminded him of books. After the women had recovered from the shock of seeing eighty steaming children, most of whom were undernourished, sickly-looking and smelt, the hall slowly emptied as the host families took their evacuees. Only Charlie and a handful of equally scruffy boys were still there. He scanned the room, slanted with light from its six high windows, looking for someone in charge. He spotted a tall, thin, nervous woman who looked like a greyhound he'd seen racing in the dog track he'd gone to with his old man. She was standing in the corner of the hall, directing operations and twitching her hands in his direction. He walked over to her.
‘ Where's this woman's what's looking after me then?’
Mrs. Fraser, the billeting officer, forgot the fact that the Council had set up an extremely efficient evacuation scheme in which she was only a small cog. She had watched five trainloads of children disgorge themselves into this hall for three days; she single-handedly, had worked extremely hard to ensure that all those children had a suitable family with which to be billeted. She was satisfied that she had everything sorted out satisfactorily - she had managed to make most families willingly agree to take an evacuee - it had been difficult to convince others that they really needed one in their house; the fact that the government would pay 10/6d for one child under fourteen; 12/ 6d for one between fourteen and sixteen, and 8/6d each for two children, had obviously helped some of them change their minds.
She hadn't realised, of course, that the children would talk like Charlie or be quite so dirty.
‘You listenin’? Where is she?’
She blinked in amazement at the boy and then looked quickly at his label. Charlie Slater: 114 Farleigh Road, Deptford. London. To: Dr & Mrs. Adams: The Beeches, Pevensey Road, St Leonards-on-Sea. E. Sussex.
Oh dear, that couldn't be right. ‘Er ... hello, Charles. I'm afraid not all the ladies have arrived yet.’
‘I’s Charlie - Why not?’
Mrs. Fraser was horrified to see a small boy, at the other end of the hall, urinating down his leg onto the parquet floor.
‘Why not?’ Mrs. Fraser repeated, blinking rapidly at the urinating child before she rushed off to see if she could find Mrs. Adams. She wasn't in the hall so Mrs. Fraser went outside and saw her walking up the hill towards the school. She tried to intercept her before she came into the hall.
‘Yoohoo - Mrs. Adams!’
Mary looked across the wet road reflecting the September trees and saw a very flustered Mrs. Fraser standing at the entrance of the school hall. She crossed over just as a watery sun broke through the clouds.
‘ Sorry, I'm late, Mrs. Fraser, but I've been very busy. My husband was on call again last night.’
‘Oh, I quite understand - that's no problem, Mrs. Adams - no problem at all.’
‘Have the children arrived safely?’
‘Oh yes, the children are safe all right, but ... but ... ’
‘Yes?’
‘I'm afraid ... I'm afraid ... to be blunt, Mrs. Adams - they're not what I expected.’
‘What did you expect?’
‘Well ... nice children.’
‘And aren't they?’
‘Well - I'm sure some of them are, but ... oh, you'll have to see for yourself.’
As they walked into the hall Mary was assaulted by the smell: although the hall had emptied considerably; the sour odour of damp, unwashed children still lingered in the air. Fierce battles were being fought between Stukka and Spitfire pilots as boys flew around the room blasting tracers at each other.
Mrs. Fraser hopped from one foot to the other in embarrassment as she shouted above the noise. ‘I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Adams. But I've been most dreadfully busy ... I know you asked for a little girl, but all the little girls have gone, I'm afraid - ’
Mrs. Fraser spoke, Mary thought, as if she was trying to catch words that were running away from her.
‘ - if you could have come earlier this afternoon ... you could have chosen ... as it is .. I'm afraid .. er.. Charles - the boy over there ... ’
Mrs. Fraser pointed nervously at Charlie who was dive-bombing a Stukka, ‘somehow has your name on his label and there aren't many children left and you did agree, didn't you?’
Mary looked from Charlie to Mrs. Fraser in silence.
‘Charles!’ Mrs. Fraser called across the room. Charlie roared towards the women dive-bombing two more enemy in his path before taxiing to a noisy halt in front of them.
‘Charles - I'd like you to meet Mrs. Adams - your new foster mother.’
Mary looked in disbelief at the Cockney urchin standing in front of her who had a tuft of dingy looking hair sticking up from the back of his head. He was undersized, dirty and ragged; one of his eyes was almost closed with a large stye and his flesh had the grey, limp look of malnutrition. He reminded her of the Artful Dodger. She watched a trail of dirty snot drip down his upper lip. He licked it as it reached his mouth. Mary shuddered.
‘I ain’t Charles! -I's Charlie!’ The boy peered up at Mrs. Fraser who twittered at his side. ‘You don’t half talk funny.’ He snorted with laughter as the women swallowed air.
Mary could feel a pulse throbbing at her left temple and unconsciously pressed her hand against it as she looked in amazement at the child. If indeed, he was a child.
‘Are we goin’ or what? Me legs is hurtin’.’
Mary could feel her mouth lock in an open position.
Mrs. Fraser drew Mary aside. ‘I've got no where else to take him, Mrs. Adams ... You can't imagine how difficult it is to place all the children we've been sent ... I don't know whether I'm coming or going ...’
‘Mrs. Fraser - I told you I wanted a little girl. Not a ... ’ Mary couldn't think of an adequate word.
‘So did everyone else, Mrs. Adams. But the committee has been saying all the afternoon - “oh Mrs. Adams will cope. Mrs. Adams copes with everything.” You always do, don't you? I don't know how you manage what with this and that. Between you and me, Mrs. Adams, I really don't know why I agreed to take this job - it's really - ’
‘Mrs. Fraser!’
The woman blinked rapidly at the staccato of Mary's voice and whispered. ‘Please take him if only for a week or two until we can sort something out... Please!’ Mrs. Fraser clutched her arm tightly. Mary could feel her trembling at the thought of having to look after the boy herself.
‘Oh, all right - a couple of weeks. But only a couple of weeks. Rob’s coming home.’
Mrs. Fraser almost danced the quick step. ‘Oh thank you so much, Mrs. Adams. I just knew you would.’ She fluttered off down the hall, anxious to escape.
How could Mary have known that the boy would change her life for ever.

Charlie looked in awe at Mary's detached Victorian house with its impressive array of windows, black against the setting sun. ‘Blimey - how many families live here, then?’
‘Just one. Us.’
‘Must have a lotta kids. Me Mum had six. Two's dead. How many you got?’
`One,’ said Mary, completely out of her depth.
Charlie was almost speechless. ‘One! With a house like this! You’re havin’ me on.’
‘No,’ Mary said carefully. ‘I'm not’. ‘Wipe your feet before you come in.’
But Charlie was looking at her front garden; at the beautiful russet beech trees, surrounded by a profusion of flowers: tall yellow hollyhocks, red and white carnations and pink roses.
‘Wot's that pong?’
‘My flowers.’
‘ Blimey - this yer garden then? - I thought it were a park or something. You must have a bob or two.’
Mary remembered her deep breathing exercises from her relaxation classes. She breathed deep from her abdomen. ‘Come in, Charlie and meet Dr Adams.’

The Adams house was ruptured by Charlie's arrival; in one day he’d turned Mary's world upside down. Her husband John had shown her, (she, who had never seen one nit before), approximately 2,000, all nestled in Charlie's hair.
‘You can crack the big fellas with your nails. Me and me brother used to have a bet on who could crack the most in five minutes. I always won.’ Mary looked at John in despair.
‘I thought this sort of thing had died out with Dickens, John.’
‘ I've not seen such a crop since I was in the trenches.’
They sent Charlie outside to play in the garden while John contacted Mr. Bruce, the Medical Officer, and warned him that they'd have to supply chemists with large quantities of Keatings to combat the vermin.
‘What did the other children look like? As dirty as Charlie?’ John was worried.
‘Well, it's difficult to tell - most of them seemed covered in quite a number of things.’
‘Oh Lord - I think we’ve got a health crisis on our hands. As if I haven't got enough to cope with. We'll have to bath the boy straight away.’
‘ We? I can cope with most things, but not verminous children, I'm afraid.’
‘ “These are not scrofulous and verminous children - they are the bud of the nation.”’
‘What are you talking about?’ Mary asked her husband.
‘Our Minister of Health, Ernest Brown, my dear, on the wireless the other night, talking about the advantages of having an evacuee in one's home.’
‘Oh really - I wonder how many he's got in his house.’
‘And I thought you could cope with anything.’
‘Yes, well - don't gloat or you won't have any dinner.’
‘ Is that a threat or a promise?’
Their cook Betty had just enlisted in the ATS so Mary, who was a mediocre cook, was forced back into the kitchen. John was still trying to digest last evening's meal of uncooked potatoes and over-cooked pork.
Mary went into the kitchen to wrestle with a new recipe of corned beef and cabbage while John took Charlie up stairs. She suddenly heard the boy screaming at the top of his voice and went running up the stairs to the bathroom. He was rigid against the wall with tears pouring down his face.
‘ He's tryin' to drown me, he is! He wants me to take me things off and then - and then - he's goin' to push me under the water. I heard about men like him.’
The boy was shaking with fear and holding on to his threadbare clothes as if his life depended on it. He stared at the water as if mesmerised. Mary's eyes followed his fear.
‘ He's never seen a bath before, John.’
‘What?’ John looked at her in amazement. ` ‘Don't be ridiculous.’
Mary knelt down in front of the boy, although his rancid smell make her feel slightly sick.
‘Charlie - Dr Adams and I go in the water once a week to get off our dirt.’
Charlie dragged his eyes away from the water to Mary's face.
‘But you ain't got no dirt.’
‘That's because we have a bath every week ... If you had a bath you wouldn't have any dirt either.’
Charlie looked stunned by this sudden knowledge. ‘You mean he ain't tryin' to drown me?’
Mary stopped herself from smiling. ‘No, Charlie. He's trying to get you clean.’
‘But I's always dirty - and me Mum's sewed me up for the winter.’
‘Sewed you up?’
Charlie was shivering as he opened his thin shirt; underneath they could see a layer of brown paper next to his skin. Mary and John looked at each other.
‘Yeah - bugs can't get through the paper see. Me Mum says.’
‘I've got something better than paper to stop the bugs getting you, Charlie.’
He stopped shaking. ‘Wot's that then?’
‘It's called a vest.’
Charlie looked at her dubiously. ‘Yeah - but can it stop you coughin' up blood? I never coughed up none cos I'm sewn up, see- but me brother - Mum didn't have enough paper so he weren't sewn up - and he died.’
Mary could feel her eyes pricking as she walked out of the room.
Charlie shouted after her. ‘So he ain't gonna drown me then?’
‘No, Charlie - he's quite safe,’ she called back.

© Linda M James 2008

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