years in the one job. She quickly gathered her thoughts.
'You said you look after St Mark's cemetery too?' she asked.
'The graveyard, yers. I make sure it's kept neat an' tidy, 'specially roun' the back, even though it don't get many visitors.'
'That's where the children are buried, isn't it? My husband saw the small graves.'
Percy fell silent. He looked down into his tea, the cup in one hand, saucer in the other and held under the cup as if to catch any drips.
Eve persisted. 'The children came from here, didn't they? They were all staying at Crickley Hall when they drowned, weren't they?'
Percy's face became grim, set like stone. His eyes pierced Eve's suspiciously and she instinctively pulled back an inch in surprise.
But those old faded eyes soon softened again; now they were full of sadness.
'The poor little mites were sent down to Devon durin' the last world war. 1943 they come here. Late summer. People in London thought the Blitz were over, didn't wanna send their kids away, split up the families, like. But the authorities knew better. They knew the bombin' weren't over yet and they wanted the young 'uns out of harm's way. The evacuees that came to Crickley Hall had no choice anyway—they was all orphans, y'see.'
He fell into silence once more and a distant look came into his eyes. Eve thought tears might appear in them, but the old man was made of sterner stuff. His eyes refocused on her.
'What makes yer ask about the kiddies, Missus Caleigh?'
There was more than just curiosity in the question: Percy seemed anxious.
'I… I just thought it was so sad,' she answered. 'All those poor children… drowned. I wanted to know more about them.'
What else could she tell Percy? That she—and Cally, Cally saw them too—had seen the children's ghosts? That they were haunting Crickley Hall? Surely he would only scoff, think her mad. Eve could imagine the word spreading round the harbour village—there was a madwoman living up at the Hall, thought the place was haunted. It seemed a close-set community, one where all kinds of rumour might start. It had been bad enough that morning in the shop, asking for a psychic's card, the odd looks that the shopkeeper and her husband had given her when she took it from them. The locals would think her eccentric, at the least. And who could blame them.
He drank more tea, then seemed to come to a decision. 'If yer wants to hear about it, then all right, I'll tell yer.'
And so Percy Judd told Eve the heartbreaking story of the evacuees from London who had come to Crickley Hall in the late summer of 1943.
•
'A course the Blitz were over by then,' Percy told Eve, 'but as I says, the gov'mint knew better. They knew the Germans weren't finished with their bombings yet an' the gov'mint wanted to get as many children outa London as possible. Lotta parents wouldn't hear of it though—they thought the worst was gone—but kiddies in orphanages had no say in the matter. Those that came to Crickley Hall shoulda got away from the city long afore, but I's'pose the authorities had trouble findin' 'ccommodation for 'em until this place come up.
'Gov'mint were right, en' all. Krauts sent over them doodlebugs in '44—'buzz bombs' some people called 'em, but V-1s was their proper name—an' they created havoc in London an' along the Kent flypath. But our eleven evacuees came afore that happened, much good it did 'em in the long run.
'There were six boys an' five girls, only two of them related: Gerald and Brenda Prosser were brother and sister. The eldest boy were twelve years old, though he were big for his age an' looked older too. His name were Maurice Stafford, a gawky unlikable lad, an' the eldest girl, eleven years old, were Susan Trainer. She played mother to 'em all, but especially to Stefan Rosenbaum, who were only five, the youngest of the lot. He were from Poland and didn't understand much English.
'Poor little mites, they was,' said Percy. 'All they come with was the clothes on their backs, cardboard suitcases with a change of clothes, I suppose, an' their gas-mask boxes hangin' roun' their necks. They looked happy enough when they arrived, chatterin' an' excited as they got off the bus that'd brought 'em from the station. Didn't last long though, that happiness.'
Eve listened intently as the story went on…
Percy told her that the children's guardians and teachers, who were also from London and new to the area themselves, were brother and sister, Augustus and Magda Cribben.
He was in his early forties, a cold hard man, a religious zealot and disciplinarian, who ruled the children with a rod of iron. His sister, a plain, stone-faced woman of thirty-one—'Looked older,' remarked Percy, 'looked much older than her years'—was equally harsh with the children.
Augustus Cribben, whose middle name was Theophilus, had been deputy headmaster of a London school for boys that had been closed because most of its pupils had been evacuated to other parts of the country. Magda had been one of his teachers. Other than that, very little else was known about the couple and the only person in Hollow Bay that Cribben engaged with was the vicar of St Mark's, the Reverend Horace Rossbridger, who admired the guardian for his dedication to the Lord and the firm control he had over the children in his charge.
Percy, who as a lad was the gardener-cum-handyman to Crickley Hall, even then taking care of the house and grounds whether it was occupied or not, had tried to befriend the children when his daily duties took him inside the house, but Cribben had soon forbidden any fraternization between Percy and the children lest they be distracted from their own duties. That hadn't prevented Percy from observing, though.
Within a matter of days the children had changed from happy, vociferous youngsters into wary and quiet creatures, afraid to do anything that might incur Cribben's or Magda's wrath. They had come to live in a regime so strict that it seemed to have broken their spirit. Punishment for anything Cribben deemed misbehaviour was severe, Percy learned. Their daily diet was porridge and a cup of water for breakfast, mincemeat, boiled potatoes and cabbage for lunch, cheese and an apple for their supper, all of which might have been fine, if limited, but Percy had seen for himself the meagre portions each child received. While they were not conspicuously undernourished, they soon lost any ounce of fat they might have had before, and their robustness was drained from them.
Inside the house they had to go about in bare or stockinged feet despite the damp coldness that always clung to the rooms no matter what the season. As well as saving on shoe leather, this also avoided 'excessive' noise. Augustus Cribben apparently suffered mightily from migraine headaches.
Nor were the evacuees allowed to play with toys that were sent by the various charitable organizations that regularly supplied orphanages and schools in poorer areas with clothes and books as well as playthings. Toys were put away in the attic storeroom next to the children's dormitory, almost as if their proximity was meant to torment—or test—the boys and girls.
'We found them,' Eve informed Percy, glancing at the old-fashioned spinning top that sat between them near the edge of the kitchen table. 'Gabe discovered it in the attic. As you said—hidden away in the storeroom next to the dormitory. My God, they've been there all those years.'
Percy studied the colourful toy, and there was sorrow in his gaze. A moment or two passed before he said, 'S'been no proper family here since to take any interest. No kiddies who might've had fun with things like that.' He sighed, and to Eve he seemed to shrink a little. The old man went on with his story.
'I remember seein' all the evacuees together once, marchin' down to St Mark's for Sunday service. September, it were, and the weather had turned cold. They was in pairs, holdin' hands like, the little 'uns trottin' along to keep up, girls in brown berets, the boys wearin' overcoats either too small or too large, none fittin' properly. All of 'em had gas masks hangin' across their chests, even though there were little chance of gas bombs in Hollow Bay. I still recall how quiet they was, not like ordinary kids who'd be laughin' an' chattin', some of 'em skippin' mebbe. Like they was when they first arrived. No, they was all silent as the grave, sort of… sort of…' He searched for the right word. ' .. cowed, if yer know my meanin'. Like they was afraid to enjoy themselves.'
Percy shook his head sadly at the memory. 'Cribben were up front, leadin' 'em, Magda fetchin' up the rear, watchin' out for any mischief the kids might get up to along the way. Maurice Stafford marched with her at the back, a tall boy, like I say, who looked older than he were. For some reason he was treated different from the others by the Cribbens. A tattle-tell, he were, I found out later. Told on the other kids if they did anythin' wrong. A big kid all right, but skinny, awkward-lookin'. I remember him grinnin' at me as he passed by, cocky with it, a great black gap in his grin where a tooth should've been. He weren't liked by the other kiddies an' there were a reason for that. Teacher's pet, he were. An' sly, very sly. A sneak. I found out about that when Nancy came to teach at
