A Solitary War Read Online Free

back.”
    While the children were away they loaded the lorry with loose chalk lying at the foot of the quarry and drove up the gulley into the Nightcraft field. There, having set out two tons in sixteen heaps on one-fifth of an acre, they returned down the hill to the waiting children.
    “I only hope the blast doesn’t shake down the tiles of your Corn Barn,” said David anxiously.
    “And supposing someone has a broken head through the flying flint? Does the Workmen’s Compensation Act Insurance cover such an accident?” Phillip asked Luke, who didn’t know.
    “Probably a special risk, Luke. So will you take the men in front of the Corn Barn, out of the direct view, and therefore of blast. No, wait awhile.”
    The massive flint wall of the Corn Barn was leaning out from a wide crack extending from the brick door-jamb, at an angle of four degrees—a dangerous place, for fifty tons of flint and mortar would fall if the wall collapsed.
    “Better if you all went round to the Office.”
    The Office was a small, open, lean-to shed beyond the barn. It had been used by the auctioneer’s desk during a previous sale, and ever since had been known by that name. It was the home of Silas the young black boar, who was so fat that he could only just struggle on his feet at mealtimes. Wheat had been cheap just before the outbreak of war: eighteenpence a hundredweight, and Phillip used the grain, boiled, for feeding his pigs.
    The moment had come. Phillip climbed up the ladder against the quarry face and lit the fuse. Then he walked away with the ladder, and watched from a coign of the Barn. Hardly had he got there when Matt, who had been busy in the calf-box leading off the yard enclosed by the buildings, opened the turnip-house door and stepped over the bottom ledge. As always, in weather hot and dry or cold and wet, Matt wore gumboots over feet enwrapped in torn strips of old sack.
    “Go back, Matt. Go back!” cried Billy.
    Matt strolled towards Phillip. “What’s up, guv’nor?” he murmured . Then, “Marty’s just calved. A black bull-calf.”
    “I hope the bang won’t startle her.”
    “What bang, guv’nor?”
    “Blasting chalk. If my tamping is faulty, the blast might come this way.”
    “Oh, that’s it,” said Matt, in his soft, slow voice as he filled his pipe. “I thought it might be the Jarmans come.”
    “But it was only the bull-calf.”
    “Get back, Dad!” cried Billy, anxiously.
    The fuse was supposed to burn at the rate of three feet a minute. There were eight feet to sizzle through.
    “It’s all right, Billy, there’s some time to go.”
    Rosamund said, “Dad, what will happen if the wooden plug you rammed in flies back all the way over the river to the church and gets stuck in the tower?”
    “The rector will probably say: Now I know the meaning of the phrase, ‘the wooden walls of old England’.”
    “Hur, joke,” said Billy.
    When after another minute nothing happened Matt said, “Thet fuse is damp, arter so long in the chalk.”
    Certainly it seemed like it. Billy now became satirical.
    “I say, Peter, there might be such a thunderous and mighty roar that all the Spitfires round about will get into the air and start looking for Jerry bombers.”
    “Cor,” said Peter, “and all the beech trees on the hill above might come crashing down.”
    What could have happened? Seven minutes had ticked away, eight minutes, nine minutes. “War’ll be over per-aps before it goes off,” remarked Matt, puffing smoke into the still air. There was heard a slight noise like Phut ,as though a lump of damp chalk had fallen six feet to the ground. But—was it imagination, or did the quarry-face bulge slightly? A few bits rattled down.
    “Ould rabbit about, guv’nor,” murmured Matt.
    “Cor, that’s a rum’n,” said John.
    “We ought to have used high explosive,” said Billy.
    A young, red-headed labourer, examining the quarry face, declared that ten cubic yards of chalk were nicely