Shute, Nevil by What Happened to the Corbetts Read Free Book Online Page A

seven o’clock. A shaft of sunlight, nearly horizontal, was streaming into the room; he sat up and rubbed his eyes. Then it came to him that there had been no raid, and that he was sleeping in his clothes.
    He got up and went to the window, feeling rather foolish. He saw his garden and the ruins of his lawn, the piles of raw clay on the grass, the car perched drunkenly above the trench, the pick and shovel lying discarded in a rose-bed. He passed a hand over his face, and went to the wash-stand for a drink of water.
    He went to have a bath, still half asleep. He remembered the water shortage before turning on the taps, however, and did his best with a cold sponge. Then he went back to his room, and dressed in a dark business suit.
    Joan came to him as he was dressing. ‘There wasn’t any raid’ she said. ‘I slept right through. Did you?’
    ‘Never had such a night.’ He turned to her. ‘I believe we’ve been making altogether too much of this thing’ he said. ‘It’s my fault-I should have had more confidence in the defences. I ought to have known they’d never get away with it a second time.’
    ‘You mean, they got through with the first raid just because they took us by surprise?’ she said.
    He nodded. ‘They had perfect weather for a raid last night. But with the aeroplanes there were about, they couldn’t possibly get through again. I think we shall be all right now.’ He smiled, a little ruefully. ‘But just look at the mess I’ve made of our lawn!’
    She came and looked out of the window with him. ‘It harness’ she said, and laughed. ‘Never mind, dear-I’ll get the gardener to put it right. It was the right thing for you to do.’
    ‘You think so? I’ve been thinking we got rather carried away.’
    ‘I don’t think we did. After all, they might have come again. We couldn’t know.’
    He nodded. ‘I suppose we couldn’t. Anyway, you’d better get the gardener for another half day this week.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I rather like to feel it’s there. Don’t let’s be in too much of a hurry to get it filled in.’
    ‘All right. Go on and get the children up, and I’ll start cooking breakfast. What have we got-bacon and eggs? I wish we’d got some maids back.’ ‘They’ll probably be back to-day.’ Breakfast was a tricky, tiresome meal, complicated by lack of milk and by the requirements of the children. Before it was over tradesmen started to arrive at the back door, amongst them the milkman. Corbett finished his meal as soon as possible and then, on plea of urgent work, made his escape to the office.
    ‘I’d like to have the car this morning,’ said Joan. ‘I’ve got a lot of shopping I must do, and I’ll have to take the family with me, baby and all. I can manage if I have the car. Shall I come and pick you up for lunch?’
    He nodded. ‘Look in about one o’clock. I’ll come home if I can.’
    He walked down to the office. In the streets the trams and omnibuses were running normally; in spite of the boarded windows and the gravel-filled craters in the roads the city seemed to have regained its usual atmosphere. He bought a paper at the first shop that he passed and stopped for some minutes on the pavement reading about the war. It seemed that we had carried out a great reprisal raid, but the communiqué was short; there had been no time for any great detail.
    ‘Hope our chaps got away with it as well as they did,’ he muttered.
    He went on to the office. There was a very big mail waiting for him on his desk, two days’ post in one. His partner, Bellinger, who lived at Bishop’s Waltham, came into the office; they exchanged experiences and discussed the war news for a few minutes, then separated to deal with the arrears of work. They were seriously inconvenienced by the absence of Miss Mortimer, their secretary; Bellinger sent Duncan, the managing cleric, into town to find and engage another girl. Corbett spent the morning laboriously