The Long Summer of Monsieur Loiseau

The boys later went to see the crater, where the chapel once stood.The bomb actually fell in the cemetery, and the shock wave brought down the dilapidated building, the dome collapsed in the nave, and the ensuing fire consumed wooden beams, pews, frescoes and a wooden chancel.No one understood why the house of worship was being targeted, perhaps the bombardiers were determined to spend every kilogram of ammunition on the soil of Old England, perhaps the planes needed urgent weight reduction.The fire brigade in the town no longer exists, except for the Old Bailey who manages supplies, everyone has joined the army.On the third day after the bombing, a loose volunteer fire brigade formed by the villagers, like a swarm of well-meaning but bewildered ants, cleared the neglected rubble a bit, removed the cross, and temporarily relocated it to the police station The utility room, with pickaxes, uniform jackets that were too big or too small, and broken flashlights.The explosion kicked up hillocks of dirt and several pairs of rotting coffins, left untouched for now because no one knew what to do with them.

The crater was waterlogged, a gray, dirty puddle.The boys threw a few pebbles into it and quickly lost interest.Alex found an entrance by the side of a charred bush. There might have been a small arched wooden door before, but the fire had burnt that too, leaving only blackened stone with nail marks on it, like Unhealed wounds.

The steps were stone, granite, perhaps, and the center had been lightly hollowed out.Broken glass clicked softly under their feet, and the boys felt their way down the rough stone wall, cautiously, like down the black throat of a lion.Alex knocked over something, and with a crash, Harry called his name and groped, but the other boy seemed to disappear into the darkness.Harry's hand touched the sharp corner of a low cabinet, and then the wall, covered with some soft, slippery fabric.

"Alex?" he called again.

Still no answer.There was a flash of light, and the quivering flame of the match ignited the wick.Alex blew out the match and held the candle aloft, filling the small subterranean space with light.It must have been the sacristy of a chapel, the silver cabinet was empty, but other odds and ends remained, vestments on hooks, candlesticks, vases, oil lamps and a thick stack of moth-eaten music scores.

"Isn't this wonderful?" Alex asked, the candlelight illuminating his profile.

Harry looked at a crack in the wall that ran from the ceiling to the back of the low cabinet. "I think we should go."

"No one will come here."

"Maybe we shouldn't come either."

"No, Harry, you didn't catch me. I said no one would come here."

Harry waited.But the burning tears of the candle fell on Alex's hand just at this moment, the blond boy gasped and let go, the candle rolled to the ground and went out, throwing them both back into the pitch black darkness.After a frantic groping, he bumped into each other, the wall, and other unknown hard corners.Alex lit the match, and Harry retrieved the candle from under the cupboard, relit it, and stuck it in the brass candlestick.

"In other words, this place is ours." Alex finished the second half of the sentence.

A secret refuge needs a secret code name, and Harry suggested "Saint John", which is the same as the chapel, but Alex thinks this is not a secret at all, anyone can guess it, and should think of something that sounds completely unrelated, such as "Glade" and "Glass Ball" and the like.Harry thought both names sounded silly.After considering "dens" and "outposts," the boys finally decided to call the basement a "tree house," unobtrusive and with nothing to do with trees.

Throughout July, like two sneaky magpies, they moved all kinds of shiny things to the "tree house".A magnifying glass, growing books, a chess set, easel, paper, paints and brushes, cookie tins, a stamp album, playing cards, carpentry tools in leather cases, and a lamp There was no electricity, but Alex thought a light was needed on the low cabinet.The real light source was an old wind lamp that had been dug out of the rubble, just big enough to hold two candles, but needed to be cleaned out of the wax that had accumulated at the bottom from time to time.By the light of this lamp they performed plays, and distorted and magnified shadows fell on the walls, becoming knights and witches, dragons and poets, sailors and monks, kings and unicorns.

Urged on by the abundant rains in late July, weeds were eager to grow between the cracks in the floorboards, and the boys erected planks on the stone steps to keep out the pouring rain.The crater had become a small pond, and the exposed soil at the edges was re-covered with thin weeds.Once they found a toad in the grass, the size of a hand, and before they got close, he jumped into the water, kicked his legs, and swam to the other side of the crater, like a desperate sailor fleeing a sinking ship, and the boys threw stones like bombs The same fell around it, and finally a piece of sharp-edged gravel hit the toad's head. It twitched, turned its gray belly, and floated motionless in the green water.

The first week of August was a stretch of sunny days, and the gardener finally sent off his youngest son, Lyle, whose birthday had been a month earlier.Elena Carlston, the girl who succeeded Mr Burton as postman, took Lyle to the station in the van painted with the Royal Mail logo. "Air Force, as he wishes," said the gardener in the kitchen, pouring brandy into his tea, and staring at the dark brown tea in his cup, without speaking for a long time.

"The roses are about to bloom," he added at last, as if it were a matter more than anything else.

The boys played outdoors instead, leading Mercury out of the stable.The shadow of the paratroopers receded, and they were once more on the oak-lined hillside, holding their own track event with only two boys and an Arabian horse.Martha complained about the dirt on their shirts and warned that someday they would break their necks or step on a snake in the grass.They hadn't encountered a snake so far, but twice they had seen the same fox, whom the boys called "Charlie," who was brown with a tuft of white hair above his left eye and always had a hungry look on his face.Alex tried to feed him ham, but the fox fled quickly into the grass and disappeared.The second time he saw it, Charlie held a small young fox in his mouth, looked at the boys from a distance, and then disappeared in the dense weeds and bushes.They changed Charlie's name to "Charles" after that day, but Charis was never seen again.

The battle still goes on, but in the distance, fading into the background.In Cornwall, all the boys could hear was a faint echo.Occasionally, two or two teams of Spitfires would take off from the seaside, drawing an arc from west to east, and when he heard the sound of the engine, Alex would run out of the "tree house" and climb to the halfway point. Brick wall, wave to the plane because "George might be on it".

With his hands in his trouser pockets, Harry looked up until the fighter jet disappeared into the low-hanging clouds.

-

"And then September, [-]," said Prudence.

The reporter checked the power of the recording pen, pushed up the glasses, opened a new page of the notebook, and wrote "40/9".

"September [-]th, Georges came back and it was like Christmas, and Martha burst into tears of joy. It was the first time I met Georges Loiseau, and he was like a more angular Alex , no dimples, higher cheekbones, stern looking. He can't stay long, the vacation time is too short, it's time to go by tea time. Alex clings to him at first, but disappears in the afternoon, hiding in the 'tree house, not wanting to say goodbye to his brother. That's always how Alex handles things." Prudence smiled, and gently put the envelope back in the small iron box. "Eleven days will be the fifteenth of September, Mr. Rivers."

"More airstrikes?"

"The most intense daytime air raid." Prudence nodded, "I can't say I went through it, it was a boring day for me, you can't go out, you can only wait, no one Knowing what happened, it was all hearsay. Nearby towns were evacuated, people took refuge in the countryside, gathered in strangers' homes, huddled around the radio, waiting for news like ducks dying of thirst. The atmosphere in the kitchen was like Funeral, gardener smoking incessantly, Martha incessantly praying, Alex and I not allowed to go out, Baron's order, and this time he meant it. No news all afternoon, only static on the radio, post office Miss Carlston came on a bicycle and said London was about to be bombed, and so was Birmingham. We lost the telephone line to London, but the switchboard in Manchester was still there, and that's where the news came from. Not ten o'clock at night. By the time it was dark, we were herded into the bedroom and the day was over."

"On September [-]th, the Baron was notified of George's disappearance."

The reporter looked up. "As far as I know, George didn't—"

Prudence made a silent gesture, pressing his index finger to his lips, "Don't worry, Mr. Rivers, there are only two kinds of people who rush to ask the ending before the story is over: those who haven't learned to read and write children, and people who don't want to hear stories at all. No, George didn't die, he crash-landed in a place called Herney Bay, with a broken arm, but no other serious injuries, and the locals sent him back Southampton Air Force Base - We didn't know all of this until two months later, two painful months, and then a miracle fell from the sky. I don't know if a miracle is an accurate term, given what happened next, maybe George Death in the Battle of Britain would have been a much better ending. More on that later, we can't jump too fast, can we? Lest we mess up your notes." Prudence sighed, "And I, With the recklessness and overconfidence typical of children, I made a bad decision in the chaotic days that followed. I planned to sneak back to London to find my mother. No, so the train was not an option. I borrowed Martha's bike and told her I was going to the post office. Got some ham and bread from the kitchen and stuffed it in my backpack. Then I went to Alex and told He, I'm leaving."

"He said, 'I'm going with you'."

tbc.