Vanished and Discovered

by secwaters

Another story of the Swallows, Amazons, Ds and Eels as adults. This one is set in the late 1960s, again written mostly for adults to read, and rated T as it is really for adults not for anything to do with content. (Some of the story will only make sense if you have read 'Different Territory' first!)

1. Chapter 1

Vanished And Discovered

VANISHED

AND

DISCOVERED

not by the author of Swallow and Amazons

CONTENTS

I STRANGE MEETING

II TEA AT THE RITZ

III TO THE SEASIDE

IV FINDING THEIR WAY

V SAILING

VI CHANCE MEETING

VII AN EXPLANATION?

VIII REVEALATIONS

IX MORE REVEALATIONS

X PLANS

XI A TELEGRAM

XII A TELEPHONE CALL

XIII NEW ARRIVALS

XIV FURTHER REVEALATIONS

XV A PICNIC

XVI A STRANGER

XVII FINAL EXPLANATIONS

XVIII AN ANNOUNCEMENT

XIX THE FUTURE?

AUTHOR'S NOTE

After 1933 we know nothing of the Swallows, Amazons, Ds and their compatriots. In 'Different Territory' I recounted the gathering of some of them in 1947, and what changes took place in their lives. Another twenty years have passed and the childhood friendships are still maintained, even in those changing times.

A resident of Secret Water.

2014

TO

ONCE AGAIN J FOR STILL MAKING

MY ENTIRE LIFE WORTH LIVING.

CHAPTER I

STRANGE MEETING

Dick was immediately on his guard.

"Richard Callum?" The man who had entered the sparsely furnished waiting room walked towards him with his right hand held out. Nobody, not even his parents, called him that and certainly nobody did during the war. He stood up from the hard straight backed wooden office chair where he sat, one in the middle of a row of three, took the offered hand and shook it as firmly as he could, his years in the USA had taught him the importance of a firm handshake. As they were the only people in the room the man continued.

"Callum, I remember you from forty-seven, good to be of assistance." Dick did not recognize the man at all and thought it was unlikely that their paths had crossed back in those years. What it did tell Dick was that he had been checked up on by the security services when he made his request to speak to someone, and his background had been thoroughly investigated before being given an appointment to attend this shabby office in central London. "We understand you're trying to trace someone, a Miss Blackett?"

Dick felt the need, though managed to restrain himself, to remove and polish his spectacles.

"Yes that's right, Nancy, sorry, Ruth Blackett." Before he could continue to explain why he was interested in her the man spoke again. Their conversation only lasted five or ten minutes and then he was bid farewell and ushered out of the office and the building in quick succession.

Dick's wartime service at Bletchley Park had at least given him connections like this in London that were of occasional help in odd ways, but what he did at Bletchley he was still unable to reveal, even to Dorothea. It had been his sister Dot who had persuaded him to see what he could find out about Nancy, now that he had returned home permanently from the USA and seemed, to her, to have time on his hands. Not being sure how to proceed he thought one of these contacts maybe a start.

Dorothea had always kept in contact with Titty over the years, but she saw less of all the others, even Titty's brothers and sisters. The two of them would meet for tea at The Ritz Hotel most Wednesday afternoons, and a few months ago over one such tea Titty had seemed agitated. Her sister-in-law Peggy, Nancy's younger sister who had married her brother John after the war, was worried, nobody had heard from Nancy for almost a year. Though they all knew she did have this habit of not contacting anyone for a month or so and then always surfaced again wondering why everyone was so bothered about not hearing from her, this time it seemed much more serious. None of the group of childhood friends had heard from her.

Titty, of all of them even now they were in their late forties, was the one who kept in contact with everybody, mainly through letters, and would pass on any news she received to everyone else, yet she had heard nothing from Nancy, not even from Daisy. The revelation after the end of the war to them all that Nancy 'batted for the other side', as Roger teasingly put it, and lived with Daisy as if they were a married couple had been something of a surprise to all of them except Titty. Of the couple it was always Daisy that wrote to Titty, Nancy had never been much of a letter writer but she was always the one who wanted to know what the others were doing.

At Dot's encouragement to help with finding Nancy Dick used one of his wartime contacts to speak to, what he hoped would be, an appropriate person in the Home Office. Though he knew he was fortunate, but perhaps because of the years since the war had had been in business in the USA, he knew that he was unlikely to be told much even if there was much to tell.

The meeting with this unnamed civil servant in a dismal office in Whitehall was of no help at all, there was some predictable sympathetic words but Dick was told that such a short absence without contact of an adult did not constitute a 'missing person', so there was little they could do or tell him. Dick knew very well, that someone with Nancy's wartime background and possibly any of her activities since was probably on a file somewhere, just as he was sure all his were.

When he left the office he walked back to the nearby tube station and reasoned that this was the response he had expected, but for his sister to ask him to investigate meant there was something to be concerned about. He thought of how all those years ago on the Broads it had been her determination and encouragement that had got himself and Tom and the others to work on proving that Tom and the Death and Glories had not cast off boats or stolen shackles, if Dot thought something was not right then she would not give up.

He knew that many thought of his sister as a 'head in the clouds' romantic, but they did not know everything about her. When such opinions were voiced he always remembered their first meeting with Nancy, Peggy and the Swallows during the winter when the Lake froze. He could tell at the time some of them had doubts in letting himself and Dot join them, and years later Titty had told him how what really changed their view was when the two of them began ice skating, something they were both very good at unlike all the others. This sort of reaction happened with a lot until people got to know her, and it was much the same for him. At the start they had merely tolerated her writing, except for Titty of course, but when her books were actually published and began to win a number of respected literary awards, so they started to take her work more seriously.

Dick too was something of an unknown to many people, and occasionally he wished he could say more about his war work; he was sure some people thought he had avoided 'doing his bit,' during those years. But that was the trouble being one of many whose activities they were involved in at the time still could not be spoken of, though his thoughts soon came back to the whereabouts of Nancy.

Strangely, given the difference in their characters, he and Nancy understood each other, often when the others were dismissive of her grand schemes, he could see her planned goal and was willing to help her, even in childhood she knew how to make a mark in the adult world. Nancy would not just disappear; if she was missing she was for a reason of her own making, so he would attempt to track her down even if for some good reason she didn't want to be.

When he returned to Dorothea's flat he let himself in with the spare key as she was still out, so he was able to sit at her desk and make some notes in his pocket book about what he had, or not, discovered and what he already knew. The 'revelation' of Nancy's sexuality and her relationship with Daisy had been no shock or surprise to him, he had encountered such things during the war and people's intimate relations were of little interest to him, but prejudice was another matter. If Nancy and Daisy had moved without letting anyone know there must be a reason. But where to and why? He closed his notebook, sat thinking for a while and then went through to the kitchen. On her return Dorothea found Dick drinking a mug of tea and deep in thought, she was eager to know what he had discovered from his contact he had been vague about, she was not at all surprised but still disappointed by his news.

"But she must be somewhere!" Her annoyance was clear to Dick, and he reassured her that he would do what he could.

Opening his pocket book and going over his pages of notes once more something occurred to him.

"Dot, do you have a telephone number for Captain Flint?" Jim Turner, Nancy and Peggy's uncle, known to them all as Captain Flint seemed to Dick to be a good starting point; Nancy was close to him and always knew she could rely on him for help or support whatever the circumstances.

"Of course, it's in here somewhere." Dorothea picked up from her writing desk a rather battered red notebook; she rifled through it, stopped at a page and read out a number to Dick. Picking up the handset of the telephone he dialled the number, he did not need her to tell him the number again knowing he would not forget it, ever. As he heard the ringing tone he remembered the hot summer they spent at Beckfoot, the Blackett's home in the lakes, and knew where in the house the telephone bell would be ringing. After some minutes it was answered, a slightly frail woman's voice spoke confirming the number, Dick recognised the voice.

"Hello Mrs Blackett, it's Dick Callum speaking, I don't know if you remember me?" He knew she would but he had not actually met her for many years now, and it was clear to Dorothea from Dick's reaction that she did. After some further chat between them there was a pause of a few minutes and Dot realised he was then in conversation with Captain Flint.

"So you have no idea either, well when I know more I well telephone again. Yes, good to talk to you too. Goodbye." Dick replaced the handset on the cradle.

"Well? He doesn't know anything either, does he?" Dorothea was impatient.

"No, he hasn't heard from her in months, but he has given me an idea."

"An idea?" Dorothea sounded incredulous. As kind a man as she knew Captain Flint to be, she could not imagine that he could give Dick an 'idea' over their problem.

"Yes, do you remember what Titty told you about that week end after the war, in the cottage in Wales, when Nancy had to tell everyone about Daisy?"

"Of, course!" Dorothea knew of it in great detail, as on Titty's return to London she was near to bursting to pass on the details of what took place over those few days.

"Well Captain Flint wonders if Mac knows anything, that's when he suggested he could ask Mac to help them out."

"Mac?"

"Yes, you remember Mac, he owned the Sea Bear, the boat we were on when I saw the Great Northern Divers, well they rented a croft from him for some years." Dick was suddenly reminded of how he and Titty had returned the Divers' eggs to their nest, the two of them away from the others and both ending up in tears over what they had achieved. Neither of them spoke of this moment again, not to the others either, but both of them held it as precious memory between them. Dot noticed he was distracted, their conversation seemed to have been forgotten.

"You're not going to Scotland are you?" She looked alarmed, she thought of her brother as he was many years ago needing her help with journeys, forgetting he had travelled back and forth to the USA without her over many years.

"I will if I need to. What was the last address you had for them?" Dick wondered if just using their old address would give them any clues to their current whereabouts.

"I haven't actually got one, it's always Titty that keeps in contact, she'd have it." Dick was slightly exasperated by his sister.

"Can you 'phone her? When will you see her next?"

"Wednesday, we'll meet for tea at the Ritz." Dorothea now looked a bit embarrassed, despite her literary success it didn't bring her a regular income, she often couldn't afford to spend out on an afternoon tea in such luxurious surroundings, but some how Titty always could and so most weeks treated her. Dick was almost blunt with her.

"Good, I'll join you."