CHAPTER III

TO THE SEASIDE

A week later Dick and Titty met at Liverpool Street Station under it's cavernous glass roof, they were waiting to catch the next train to the Essex coast. Dorothea was unable go with them, her agent had called her the day before and needed to talk with her urgently regarding her forthcoming novel, Dick explained this to Titty on his arrival. Titty was disappointed to begin with, but with the search for Nancy uppermost in her mind she refused to let it deter her. She also thought that this was not like Dot, she momentarily wondered if she had wanted her and Dick to spend time together.

They bought their tickets, Titty reluctantly let Dick pay for her, and as they waited she explained to Dick how the trains to that part of Essex left regularly on the hour and all went to the most popular of the three seaside resorts on the coast. But at a village some miles inland the train stopped at a small station, the coaches were split with three or four attached to another engine and went off to the sedate resort and then lastly to the 'Town,' as the Swallows labelled it in their mapping of Secret Water, and the rest continued on. There was another village station they could have got off at before the Town but Titty had remembered this would have meant a longer walk for them to get to the farm.

Dick had bought some days earlier a copy of the 2½" to the mile Ordnance Survey map of the area, and of course being Dick he had nearly forgotten to bring it with him. As ever, despite their time apart, Dorothea had noticed his forgetfulness and reminded him just before he left the flat that morning.

The journey was, as most train journeys tend to be, uneventful, but the hour or so gave the two of them a chance to talk. They were on their own together for the first time in many years. Titty was not surprised that Dick, to begin with, seemed to find conversation difficult, in that aspect he had not changed much despite living in America, which she imagined, may have made him a more sociable person. But she was patient; she had always admired his quiet nature, his knowledge of many things and his determination to see things through, unlike the others who though they were more practical could sometimes get distracted. For her, meeting the Ds in childhood had been one of the defining moments of her life, and in meeting Dorothea she had found a friend like no other, another sister who was nothing like Susan or Bridget. Her companionship was one of the things that had helped get her through the war years.

After the usual every day chat between them, and the enquires about their respective families of which Titty had more to say, as Dick had met most of them quite often but she had only met Dr and Mrs Callum once or twice, a silence fell on the compartment. Titty took the chance to ask him something all of them had pondered and discussed over the years, even Dot.

"Dick," she paused, "what did you actually do in the war?" Dick looked almost embarrassed and she wondered if he would once again avoid the question as he usually did.

"You know I can't tell you." He thought to himself that he wished he could, especially as he had always found Titty easy to talk to compared with the others.

"Nothing at all?" Titty hoped this would persuade him.

"Well," he paused, "all I can say, and that's probably too much, is that what I did back then made it very easy for me get jobs in the new computer companies setting up after the war, particularly in the USA."

"Oh." She was disappointed that this was all he would say, but realised that he would not budge, she admired his diligence and loyalty.

She and Dot over the years often talked about Dick more than any of the others, particularly if he had girlfriends, and if did what they were like. Dot actually had little idea, she'd never met any and when he wrote to her none were ever mentioned, he seemed to have little social life at all, she too hoped he would have more of one when working in America. As Titty chatted to him during the rest of the journey she realised this was the longest the two of them had spent together for years, and that in some ways as adults she was only just getting to know him and found herself enjoying this reaquaintance.

Once the train had stopped and the carriages had been split at the small station, the part of it they had remained on soon arrived at the Town, and they alighted. Leaving the station they then took the road that led down past the church. This then crossed the road that led in to the Town in one direction and back to the sedate resort in the other, but they carried on up the main road and the slight hill towards the lanes leading to the Backwaters, all of which took them away from the garish delights of the seaside resort.

Dick had telephoned the farm the Swallows had fetched their milk from years ago a few days before, and after a lengthy explanation as to why he was interested the current farmer had suggested they meet him at the town end of Island Lane, or the Wade as they had named it, that led to the farm at low tide. As Titty knew all too well from back in childhood, missing the tide would mean being stranded either on the island or waiting at the main road as the sea covered the connecting track, until the next low tide.

Despite having to walk for some distance they were still quite early to meet the farmer, and so the two of them climbed on to the top of the defence pillbox that had been built at the beginning of the track during the war. Its height gave them a view across the Wade to the island and they would see the farmer when he approached them.

"This would have been useful when we got stranded, we'd have seen the tide was coming in much quicker than we thought." Titty was thinking out loud. Dick had heard the story of how she, Roger and Bridget were rescued from each one of them over the years. As they sat in the sunshine waiting they chatted about what they were going to say to the farmer, but it was not long before they saw a Land Rover begin to make its way from the island and drive towards them across the newly exposed track that had appeared once the tide went out.

As the farmer parked they climbed down from the pillbox to introduce themselves to him. The farmer got out of the Land Rover and walked towards them.

"Dick Callum?" He spoke reaching forward to shake Dick's hand.

"Yes, good of you to meet us."

"That's alright, I admit I was curious, my Uncle is Jim Brading, I'd heard about some of you. Didn't you sail to Holland from Harwich one night as children?" Titty interrupted before Dick could answer.

"Dick didn't, but I did, I'm Titty Walker, that was along with my brothers and older sister." The farmer looked bemused.

"Jim often talks about that, even all these years later. You all camped around here near the farm after I believe."

"We did, all except Dick and his sister, some of us got caught on the track by the tide!" She looked towards the Wade and the farmer grinned.

"Some still do! Now, what would you like to know?" Dick started off.

"Have you seen a woman around here, well two women, only recently arrived, maybe a year ago or less?" Titty interrupted him.

"They were here back then, one a friend of ours, Nancy, the other, Daisy, she lived around here back then," she paused, "you may have heard Jim talk about them, I think he met Nancy." The farmer thought for a moment.

"I remember him mentioning someone, but as for now, we don't get many people come to live here, we get a lot of visitors this time of year so we don't take much notice of new people." Dick and Titty both felt disappointed at this.

Dick tried another approach.

"Is there anyone in the village we could talk to who might have?"

"There's the pub of course, Pam might have seen them." Titty was deflated by this too.

"Unlikely, Nancy doesn't drink, saw too much drunkenness during the war." Dick had a thought.

"Does the pub take guests?" The farmer laughed, mostly to himself.

"No, Pam's an old-fashioned landlady, hers is a pub for drinking in not eating and sleeping! Your best chance is the Albion in the town." Titty had been thinking about staying overnight too. Dick had another question.

"Is there anywhere we could we hire a boat, just a sailing dinghy, something like that, just for a day or two?"

"Try the boatyard, tell them I sent you and that you know Jim Brading, they'll set you right." He thought for a moment. "Look I'll give you a lift, I'm going that way." The two of them willing accepted and once all of them were in the Land Rover the farmer drove back along the roads they had walked back to the centre of the Town.