The Legacy: Trouble Comes Disguised As Family (Unspoken Book 2) T. Belshaw (management books to read .txt) 📖

‘especially when I hit everything but the targets on the rifle range. The instructor asked me if I was Hitler’s secret weapon.’

I tried to hold back a laugh, but gave in.

‘Oh, Godfrey. I know you think you missed out in the last war, but honestly, at nearly forty, I think you should really sit this one out too. Wasn’t forty the upper age limit?’

‘Near enough. Forty-one, I think.’

I did my best to make light of it all. ‘Well then, they’d probably have invalided you out because of your great age inside a year anyway.’

‘Add in the fact that they wanted me to shoot at the enemy, not the blokes around me.’

‘Don’t be disappointed, Godfrey, think of your family, they’ll be pleased to have you safe at home.’

‘My son says he won’t be able to face his friends at school because most of their fathers are going to fight.’

‘They won’t be so happy when they can’t sleep at night, worrying about them,’ I replied.

‘Do you know, Alice, I rather get the impression that you don’t like the idea of this war.’

‘You’d be right if you thought that, Godfrey. I understand why we’re doing it and I’ll back our lads all the way, but I don’t have to like it. I’m so pleased you were given a desk job. I can’t tell you how pleased. I’ve worried about you since the day you told me you were joining up.’

Godfrey was silent for a while. When he spoke, his voice was broken.

‘I missed you terribly, Alice. I thought about you every night in the barracks and I will be honest, when they told me today that I wasn’t needed at the front, my first thought was of you. Not my wife… You. Does that make me a bad person?’

My own voice suddenly broke up.

‘No… it makes you Godfrey, my Gangster Lawyer. Will you be spending a lot of time in London? Will we still be able to meet now and then?’

‘I will spend a fair bit of time in Westminster… but, I know a couple of very nice hotels nearby if you could find the odd free weekend.’

‘Just name a date, I’ll be there.’ I had never been to London even though my only surviving, adult relative lived there.

‘It’ll be a bit hairy when the bombs start to fall,’ he said.

‘It will just add to the excitement,’ I said, confidently.

‘That’s my girl.’ Godfrey sounded a little happier. ‘I’d, er, better go. I’ve got a lift on an army truck and it’s leaving in ten minutes.’

I blew a kiss down the phone. ‘Travel safely, Godfrey. I hope to see you before you set off for London.’

‘Count on it,’ he said.

By Christmas, the weather had taken an even bigger turn for the worst and we were suffering the lowest temperatures for forty-five years. I arranged to meet Godfrey, one freezing-cold Thursday afternoon, but our tryst was called off because the train he was supposed to catch was cancelled due to ice on the lines.

Our Christmas party was a very subdued affair. My remaining workers felt a sense of guilt for not at least offering to take up arms themselves, even though Barney and George were in their late fifties and the rest were over conscription age. They couldn’t look the wives of our missing workers in the face, even though the ladies in question let them know from the start that they didn’t think of them as lesser men. Emily Tomkiss, Benny’s young, pregnant wife, had us all in tears when she announced that she knew Benny was well because, not only could she feel it in her own heart, the baby could feel it in its heart too. ‘He’s coming home to us, I know it,’ she said, to a round of loud applause.

By eight o’clock, the temperature had dropped so low that the farmyard wasn’t safe to walk on. Icy cow pats and splashes of pig mess, which we hadn’t been able to wash away because the water from the hose froze almost as soon as it hit the floor, made our usual, farmyard-party impossible. So, instead of the roaring brazier outside, we spent our time crowded into the kitchen, huddled around our pot-bellied stove. We still sang our favourite Christmas carols and the kids caused havoc playing games of blind man’s buff and pin the tail on the donkey (though instead of a tail and a donkey we had a newspaper cutting of old Adolph, and the idea was to pin his silly little moustache onto it). When the game was over, we ceremonially tossed his picture onto the stove and we all cheered as we watched it burn.

Chapter 30

Wade was as good as his word and at exactly one o’clock on Thursday lunchtime, he arrived at the farm to pick up Jess’s laptop.

Jess unplugged it from the charging cable, saved her work and passed it to him.

‘So, how was the big date?’

Wade grinned. ‘We had a great time, thanks. We teamed up and played the new version of Black Ops Armageddon, it hasn’t been released to the public yet.’

‘Did you win?’

‘Slaughtered all-comers. We made a great team.’ Wade puffed out his chest to emphasise the point.

‘Love at first fight then.’ Jess grinned at her own joke.

Wade nodded seemingly missing the gag.

‘So, when are you seeing her again?’

‘We’re hooking up remotely tonight to play Call of Duty, Modern Warfare.’

‘Remotely?’

‘Yeah, we want to get to know each other’s tactics properly before we go any further.’

Jess frowned. ‘Oh, right, well, good luck with your bourgeoning relationship. I wish you many hours of happy slaughter.’

Wade grinned again. ‘Thanks. I think this might be fate lending a hand. I wondered why I couldn’t pull, recently. This was meant to happen, I think.’

He carried the laptop out to his car, placed it in a padded bag in the foot well of the passenger side of the vehicle, then walked around to the driver’s side.

‘I’ll get it back as soon as I can. I know you