Contents PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE PART FOUR PART FIVE Hush Can you hear him? The trees can They are the first to know that he is coming Listen! The trees of the deep, dark wood, shivering and jittering their leaves like papery hulls of beaten silver; the sly wind, snaking through their tops, whispering that soon it will begin The trees know, for they are old and they have seen it all before It is moonless It is moonless when the Mud Man comes The night has slipped on a pair of fine, leather gloves; shaken a black sheet across the land: a ruse, a disguise, a sleeping spell, so that all beneath it slumbers sweet Darkness, but not only, for there are nuances and degrees and textures to all things Look: the rough woolliness of the huddled woods; the quilted stretch of fields; the smooth molasses moat And yet Unless you are very unlucky, you won’t have noticed that something moved where it should not You are fortunate indeed For there are none who see the Mud Man rise and live to tell the tale There – see? The sleek black moat, the mud-soaked moat, lies flat no longer A bubble has appeared, there in the widest stretch, a heaving bubble, a quiver of tiny ripples, a suggestion— But you have looked away! And you were wise to so Such sights are not for the likes of you We will turn our attention instead to the castle, for that way also something stirs High up in the tower Watch and you will see A young girl tosses back her covers She has been put to bed hours before; in a nearby chamber her nurse snores softly, dreaming of soap and lilies and tall glasses of warm fresh milk But something has woken the girl; she sits up furtively, sidles across the clean white sheet, and places her feet, one beside the other, two pale, narrow blocks, on the wooden floor There is no moon to look at or to see by, and yet she is drawn to the window The stippled glass is cold; she can feel the night-frosted air shimmering as she climbs atop the bookcase, sits above the row of discarded childhood favourites, victims of her rush to grow up and away She tucks her nightdress round the tops of her pale legs and rests her cheek in the cup where one white knee meets the other The world is out there, people moving about in it like clockwork dolls Some day soon she plans to see it for herself; for this castle might have locks on all the doors and bars against the windows, but that is to keep the other thing out, and not to keep her in The other thing She has heard stories about him He is a story A tale from long ago, the bars and locks vestiges of a time when people believed such things Rumours about monsters in moats who lay in wait to prey upon fair maidens A man to whom an ancient wrong was done; who seeks revenge against his loss, time and time again But the young girl – who would frown to hear herself described that way – is no longer bothered by childhood monsters and fairy tales She is restless; she is modern and grown-up and hungers for escape This window, this castle, has ceased to be enough, and yet for the time being it is all she has and thus she gazes glumly through the glass Out there, beyond, in the folded crease between the hills, the village is falling to drowsy sleep A dull and distant train, the last of the night, signals its arrival: a lonely call that goes unanswered, and the porter in a stiff cloth hat stumbles out to raise the signal In the nearby woods, a poacher eyes his shot and dreams of getting home to bed, while on the outskirts of the village, in a cottage with peeling paint, a newborn baby cries Perfectly ordinary events in a world where all makes sense Where things are seen when they are there, missed when they are not A world quite unlike the one in which the girl has woken to find herself For down below, nearer than the girl has thought to look, something is happening The moat has begun to breathe Deep, deep, mired in the mud, the buried man’s heart kicks wetly A low noise, like the moaning wind but not, rises from the depths and hovers tensely above the surface The girl hears it, that is she feels it, for the castle foundations are married to the mud, and the moan seeps through the stones, up the walls, one storey after another, imperceptibly through the bookcase on which she sits A once-beloved tale tumbles to the floor and the girl in the tower gasps The Mud Man opens an eye Sharp, sudden, tracks it back and forth Is he thinking, even then, of his lost family? The pretty little wife and the pair of plump, milky babes he left behind Or have his thoughts cast further back to the days of boyhood, when he ran with his brother across fields of long pale stems? Or are his thoughts, perhaps, of the other woman, the one who loved him before his death? Whose flattery and attentions and refusal to be refused cost the Mud Man everything— Something changes The girl senses it and shivers Presses her hand to the icy window and leaves a starry print within the condensation The witching hour is upon her, though she does not know to call it that There is no one left to help her now The train is gone, the poacher lies beside his wife, even the baby sleeps, having given up trying to tell the world all that it knows At the castle the girl in the window is the only one awake; her nurse has stopped snoring and her breaths are so light now that one might think her frozen; the birds in the castle wood are silent too, heads tucked beneath their shivering wings, eyes sealed in thin grey lines against the thing they know is coming The girl is the only one; and the man, waking in the mud His heart splurting; faster now, for his time has come and it will not last long He rolls his wrists, his ankles, he launches from the muddy bed Don’t watch I beg you, look away as he breaks the surface, as he clambers from the moat, as he stands on the black, drenched banks, raises his arms and inhales Remembers how it is to breathe, to love, to ache Look instead at the storm clouds Even in the dark you can see them coming A rumble of angry, fisted clouds, rolling, fighting, until they are right above the tower Does the Mud Man bring the storm, or does the storm bring the Mud Man? Nobody knows In her bower, the girl inclines her head as the first reluctant drops splatter against the pane and meet her hand The day has been fine, not too hot; the evening cool No talk of midnight rain The following morning, people will greet the sodden earth with surprise; scratch their heads and smile at one another and say, What a thing! To think we slept right through it! But look! What’s that? – A shape, a mass, is climbing up the tower wall The figure climbs quickly, ably, impossibly For no man, surely, can achieve such a feat? He arrives at the girl’s window They are face to face She sees him through the streaky glass, through the rain – now pounding; a mudded, monstrous creature She opens her mouth to scream, to cry for help, but in that very moment, everything changes Before her eyes, he changes She sees through the layers of mud, through the generations of darkness and rage and sorrow, to the human face beneath A young man’s face A forgotten face A face of such longing and sadness and beauty; and she reaches, unthinking, to unlock the window To bring him in from the rain The True History of the Mud Man Prologue Raymond Blythe PART ONE A Lost Letter Finds Its Way 1992 It started with a letter A letter that had been lost a long time, waiting out half a century in a forgotten postal bag in the dim attic of a nondescript house in Bermondsey I think about it sometimes, that mailbag: of the hundreds of love letters, grocery bills, birthday cards, notes from children to their parents, that lay together, swelling and sighing as their thwarted messages whispered in the dark Waiting, waiting, for someone to realize they were there For it is said, you know, that a letter will always seek a reader; that sooner or later, like it or not, words have a way of finding the light, of making their secrets known Forgive me, I’m being romantic – a habit acquired from the years spent reading nineteenth-century novels with a torch when my parents thought I was asleep What I mean to say is that it’s odd to think that if Arthur Tyrell had been a little more responsible, if he hadn’t had one too many rum toddies that Christmas Eve in 1941 and gone home and fallen into a drunken slumber instead of finishing his mail delivery, if the bag hadn’t then been tucked in his attic and hidden until his death some fifty years later when one of his daughters unearthed it and called the Daily Mail, the whole thing might have turned out differently For my mum, for me, and especially for Juniper Blythe You probably read about it when it happened; it was in all the newspapers, and on the TV news Channel even ran a special where they invited some of the recipients to talk about their letter, their particular voice from the past that had come back to surprise them There was a woman whose sweetheart had been in the RAF, and the man with the birthday card his evacuated son had sent, the little boy who was killed by a piece of falling shrapnel a week or so later It was a very good programme, I thought: moving in parts, happy and sad stories interspersed with old footage of the war I cried a couple of times, but that’s not saying much: I’m rather disposed to weep Mum didn’t go on the show, though The producers contacted her and asked whether there was anything special in her letter that she’d like to share with the nation, but she said no, that it was just an ordinary old clothing order from a shop that had long ago gone out of business But that wasn’t the truth I know this because I was there when the letter arrived I saw her reaction to that lost letter and it was anything but ordinary It was a morning in late February, winter still had us by the throat, the flowerbeds were icy, and I’d come over to help with the Sunday roast I that sometimes because my parents like it, even though I’m a vegetarian and I know that at some point during the course of the meal my mother will start to look worried, then agonized, until finally she can stand it no longer and statistics about protein and anaemia will begin to fly I was peeling potatoes in the sink when the letter dropped through the slot in the door The post doesn’t usually come on Sundays so that should have tipped us off, but it didn’t For my part, I was too busy wondering how I was going to tell my parents that Jamie and I had broken up It had been two months since it happened and I knew I had to say something eventually, but the longer I took to utter the words, the more calcified they became And I had my reasons for staying silent: my parents had been suspicious of Jamie from the start, they didn’t take kindly to upsets, and Mum would worry even more than usual if she knew that I was living in the flat alone Most of all, though, I was dreading the inevitable, awkward conversation that would follow my announcement To see first bewilderment, then alarm, then resignation, cross Mum’s face as she realized the maternal code required her to provide some sort of consolation But back to the post The sound of something dropping softly through the letterbox ‘Edie, can you get that?’ This was my mother (Edie is me: I’m sorry, I should have said so earlier.) She nodded towards the hallway and gestured with the hand that wasn’t stuck up the inside of the chicken I put down the potato, wiped my hands on a tea towel and went to fetch the post There was only one letter lying on the welcome mat: an official Post Office envelope declaring the contents to be ‘redirected mail’ I read the label to Mum as I brought it into the kitchen She’d finished stuffing the chicken by then and was drying her own hands Frowning a little, from habit rather than any particular expectation, she took the letter from me and plucked her reading glasses from on top of the Juniper will be better in the morning People always seem to be, don’t they? In the meantime I suppose I should put the table settings away.’ ‘It would be best.’ ‘Of course There’s nothing so sad as a table set for a dinner party that never was – oh my!’ She was by the door now, looking down on the mess there ‘What’s happened here?’ ‘I was careless.’ ‘Why ’ Saffy went closer ‘That looks like jam, a whole jar Oh, what a shame!’ Percy had found it by the front door when she was returning with the shovel The worst of the storm had passed by then, clouds had begun to blow themselves apart, and a few eager stars had broken sharply through the sheet of night She’d seen his duffel bag first, then the glass jar beside it ‘If you’re hungry, Perce, I could fetch you some rabbit?’ Saffy was bent over cleaning up the shards of glass ‘I’m not hungry.’ She’d come inside and sat at the kitchen table, put the jam and the bag on top and stared at them An age had passed before the message had made it from brain to hand, telling her to open the bag and see to whom it belonged She’d known, of course, that it had to be him she’d buried, but it was as well to be sure Fingers trembling, heart thumping like a wet dog’s tail, she’d reached for it, knocking the jam jar to the floor A waste, such a waste There hadn’t been much inside the bag A change of underclothes, a wallet with very little money and no address, a leather notebook It was inside that notebook that she’d found the letters One from Juniper, which she could never bring herself to open, another from a fellow called Theo, a brother, she’d gathered as she read For she did read that one She let herself sink inside the ghastly fact of reading a dead man’s letter, of learning more than she ever wanted to about his family – the mother who was a widow, the sisters and their babies, the brother who was simple and loved especially She forced herself to read every word twice; a half-formed notion that in such a way, by punishing herself thus, she might somehow make amends A stupid notion There would be no atoning now for what had happened Except, perhaps, by way of honesty But was there any way she could write and tell them the truth? Any chance that they might be made to understand how it had happened; that it was an accident, a terrible accident, and not Saffy’s fault at all? That Saffy, poor Saffy, was the person on earth least capable of desiring or doing harm to someone else That she’d been blighted, too; that despite her fantasies of London, the elaborate dreams of leaving the castle (she thought Percy didn’t know), she’d been unable ever to breach the boundaries of Milderhurst, not since that first attack of hysteria in the theatre; that if anyone were to blame for the young man’s death, it was their father, Raymond Blythe— No No one else could be expected to look at things that way They couldn’t know what it was to grow up in the shadows of that book Percy felt great bitterness as she thought about the ghastly legacy of the Mud Man This – what had happened tonight, the damage poor Saffy had unwittingly caused – this was the legacy of what he’d done He used to read Milton to them when they were small – Evil on itself shall back recoil – and Milton had been right, for they were paying still for Daddy’s evil act No There would be no honesty She would write something else to the family, to this address she’d found in the bag, Henshaw Street, London The bag itself she would destroy; if not destroy, then hide The muniment room, perhaps, would be the best place for it – what a sentimental fool she was: to bury a man but be unable to throw away his personal items – the truth, and her defiance of it, would be Percy’s burden to carry Whatever else Daddy had done, he was right in one thing: it was her responsibility to look after the others And she would make sure they all three stuck together ‘Are you coming upstairs soon, Perce?’ Saffy had cleaned up the jam and was standing with a jug of water in her hands ‘Just a few more things to take care of down here The torch needs batteries ’ ‘I’ll take this up to Juniper then The poor love’s thirsty See you soon?’ ‘I’ll look in on my way up.’ ‘Don’t be too long, Perce.’ ‘I won’t I’ll be with you soon.’ Saffy hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, turned back to Percy and smiled softly, a little nervously ‘The three of us together,’ she said ‘That’s something, isn’t it, Perce? The three of us back together again?’ Thereafter, Saffy stayed all night on the chair in Juniper’s room Her neck grew stiff and she was cold despite the blanket draped across her knees She didn’t leave, though; she wasn’t tempted by her own warm bed downstairs, not when she was needed here Saffy sometimes thought that the happiest moments of her life had been when she was tending Juniper She’d have liked children of her own She’d have liked that very much indeed Juniper stirred and Saffy stood up immediately, stroked her little sister’s damp forehead and wondered at the mists and demons that were swarming there The blood on her shirt Now that was a worry, but Saffy refused to think too much upon it Not now Percy would make it right Thank God for Percy Percy the fixer, who always knew just what to Juniper had settled again, she was breathing deeply, and Saffy sat down Her legs ached with the day’s tension and she felt unusually tired Still, she didn’t want to sleep: it had been a night of odd imaginings She should never have taken that pill of Daddy’s; she’d had the most ghastly dream when she dozed off in the parlour She’d been having the very same one since she was small, but it had been so vivid this time It was the pill, of course, and the whisky, the upset of the evening, the storm outside She’d been a girl again, alone in the attic Something had woken her, in the dream, a noise by the window, and she’d gone to take a look The man clinging to the stones outside had been as black as sealing wax, like someone charred by fire A flash of lightning and Saffy had seen his face The graceful, dashing youth beneath the Mud Man’s wicked mask A look of surprise, a smile beginning on his lips It was just as she had dreamed when she was young, just as Daddy had written The Mud Man’s gift was his face She’d lifted something, she couldn’t remember what, and she’d brought it down hard upon his head His eyes had widened with surprise and then he’d fallen Slid against the stone and down, finally down, into the moat where he belonged FOUR Elsewhere that night, in a neighbouring village, a woman held her hours-old baby close, running her thumb against the tiny child’s peachy cheek Her husband would arrive home many hours later, tired from his night-watch duties, and the woman, still dazed from the unexpected and traumatic birth, would recount the details over tea, the way she’d gone into labour on the bus, the pain, the sudden, plunging pain, the bleeding and the savage fear that her baby would die, that she would die, that she would never hold her newborn son; and then she’d smile wearily, devotedly, and pause to press the tears that warmed her face, and she’d tell him about the angel who’d appeared beside her on the roadside, knelt at her knees and saved her baby’s life And it would become a family story, retold, passed down, resurrected on rainy nights by the fire, invoked as a means to quell disputes, recited at family events And time would gallop on, month by year by decade, until on that baby’s fiftieth birthday his widowed mother would watch from her cushioned chair at the end of the restaurant table, as his children made a toast, reciting the family story of the angel who’d saved their father’s life, and without whom none of them would exist Thomas Cavill didn’t go with his regiment when they headed into the slaughter of North Africa He was already dead by then Dead and buried, cold beneath the ground of Milderhurst Castle He died because the night was wet Because a shutter was loose Because he wanted to make a good impression He died because many years before a jealous husband had found his wife with another man For a long time, though, nobody knew The storm cleared, the floodwater receded, and the protective wings of Cardarker Wood spread out around Milderhurst Castle The world forgot about Thomas Cavill, and any questions of his fate were lost beneath the destruction and debris of war Percy sent her letter, the final, rotten untruth that would plague her all her life; Saffy wrote to decline the governess position – Juniper needed her, what else could she have done? Planes flew overhead, war ended, the sky peeled back to reveal one new year after another The Sisters Blythe grew old; they became objects of quaint curiosity in the village, the subjects of myth Until one day, a young woman came to visit She had ties to another who had come before and the castle stones began to whisper with recognition Percy Blythe saw that it was time That after fifty years of carrying her burden, she could finally take it from her shoulders and return to Thomas Cavill his closing date The story could come to an end So she did, and she charged the girl to the right thing with it Which left only one remaining task She gathered her sisters, her beloved sisters, and made sure they were fast asleep and dreaming And then she struck a match, in the library where it had all begun Epilogue For decades the attic has been used as storage Nothing but boxes and old chairs and superseded printing materials The building itself is home to a publishing house, and the faint smell of paper and ink has impregnated the walls and floors It is rather pleasant, if you like that sort of thing It is 1993; the renovation has taken months but it is finally complete The clutter has been cleared, the wall that someone, sometime, erected so that one draughty attic might become two, is gone, and for the first time in fifty years, the attic at the top of Herbert Billing’s Victorian house in Notting Hill has a new tenant A knock at the door and a young woman skips across the floor from the windowsill It’s a particularly wide sill, perfect for perching, which is just what she’s been doing The girl is drawn to the window The flat faces south so there is always sun, particularly in July She likes to look out across the garden, along the street, and to feed the sparrows who have started to visit her for breadcrumbs She wonders too at the strange dark patches on the sill, almost like cherry stains, that refuse to remain hidden beneath the coat of fresh white paint Edie Burchill opens the door and is surprised and pleased to see her mother standing there Meredith hands her a sprig of honeysuckle and says, ‘I saw it growing on a fence and couldn’t resist bringing you some Nothing brightens a room quite like honeysuckle, don’t you think? Have you a vase?’ Edie hasn’t, not yet, but she does have an idea A glass jar, the sort that might once have been used to hold jam, was turned up during the renovation and is sitting now by the basin Edie fills it with water and puts the sprig inside, pops it on the windowsill where it will catch some sun ‘Where’s Dad?’ she says ‘He didn’t come with you today?’ ‘He’s discovered Dickens Bleak House.’ ‘Ah, well then,’ says Edie ‘I’m afraid you’ve really lost him now.’ Meredith reaches inside her bag and pulls a pile of paper from within, shakes it above her head ‘You’ve finished it!’ says Edie, clapping her hands ‘I have.’ ‘And this is my copy?’ ‘I’ve had it bound especially.’ Edie grins and takes the manuscript from her mother ‘Congratulations – what a feat!’ ‘I was going to wait until we saw you tomorrow,’ Meredith says, flushing, ‘but I couldn’t help myself I wanted you to be the first to read it.’ ‘I should think so! What time’s your class?’ ‘Three.’ ‘I’ll walk with you,’ says Edie ‘I’m on my way to visit Theo.’ Edie opens the door and holds it for her mother She’s about to follow when she remembers something She’s meeting Adam Gilbert later for a drink to celebrate the publication of Pippin Books’ Mud Man, and has promised to show him her first edition Jane Eyre, a gift from Herbert when she agreed to take over at Billing & Brown She turns quickly, and for a split second sees two figures on the sill A man and a woman, close enough that their foreheads might be touching She blinks and they’re gone Nothing left to see but the spill of sunlight across the sill It is not the first time It happens occasionally, the shift on her peripheral vision She knows it’s just the play of sunshine on the whitewashed walls but Edie is fanciful and lets herself imagine that it’s something more That once upon a time, a happy couple lived together in the flat that is now hers That they were the ones who left the cherry stains on her sill That it was their happiness that soaked into the walls of the flat For everyone who visits says the same thing, that the room has a good feeling about it And it’s true Edie can’t explain it, but there is a good feeling in the attic; it is a happy place ‘Are you coming, Edie?’ It’s Meredith, poking her head around the door, anxious not to be late for the writing class she loves so much ‘Coming.’ Edie snatches up Jane Eyre, checks her reflection in the little mirror propped above the porcelain sink, and runs after her mother The door closes behind her, leaving the ghostly lovers alone once more in the quiet and the warm Acknowledgements My sincere thanks to everyone who read and commented on early drafts of The Distant Hours, particularly Davin Patterson, Kim Wilkins, and Julia Kretschmer; to my friend and agent, Selwa Anthony, for taking such great care of me; to Diane Morton for speed-reading the final pages; and to all my family – Mortons, Pattersons, and especially Oliver and Louis – and friends, for allowing me to abscond so often to Milderhurst Castle, and for putting up with me when I stumbled back down the hill, dazed, distracted and sometimes even a tad displaced I am fortunate to work with a brilliant continent-spanning editorial team, and for their tireless work and unending support in getting The Distant Hours to the printer on time, I’d like to offer heartfelt thanks to Annette Barlow and Clara Finlay at Allen & Unwin, Australia; Maria Rejt, Eli Dryden and Sophie Orme at Mantle, UK; and Liz Cowen, whose knowledge of all things continues to amaze me Great thanks, too, is due to Lisa Keim, Judith Curr and staff at Atria Books, US, as it is to all my publishers, for their continued dedication to me and my books Thank you also to Robert Gorman at Allen & Unwin for his commitment; to Sammy and Simon from Bookhouse, who were incredibly patient with me and meticulous when it came to typesetting my words; to Clive Harris, who showed me that the Blitz can still be found in London if you know where to look; to the artists and designers who worked on creating such beautiful jackets for The Distant Hours; to booksellers and librarians everywhere for understanding that stories are special things; and in memory of Herbert and Rita Davies Finally, a big thank you to my readers Without you, it would only be half the pleasure The Distant Hours started as a single idea about a set of sisters in a castle on a hill I drew further inspiration from a great many sources, including illustrations, photographs, maps, poems, diaries, Mass Observation journals, online accounts of the Second World War, the Imperial War Museum’s Children’s War exhibition, my own visits to castles and country houses, novels and films from the 1930s and 1940s, ghost stories, and gothic novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries While it’s impossible to list all of the non-fiction consulted, the following are some of my favourites: Nicola Beauman, A Very Great Profession (1995); Katherine Bradley-Hole, Lost Gardens of England (2008); Ann De Courcy, Debs at War (2005); Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House (1979); Susan Goodman, Children of War (2005); Juliet Gardiner, Wartime Britain 1939–1945 (2004); Juliet Gardiner, The Children’s War (2005); Vere Hodgson, Few Eggs and No Oranges: The Diaries of Vere Hodgson 1940–45 (1998); Gina Hughes, A Harvest of Memories: A Wartime Evacuee in Kent (2005); Richard Broad and Suzie Fleming (ed.) Nella Last’s War: The Second World War Diaries of ‘Housewife, 49’ (1981); Norman Longmate, How We Lived Then: A History of Everyday Life in the Second World War (1971); Raynes Minns, Bombers & Mash: The Domestic Front 1939– 45 (1988); Mathilde WolffMönckeberg, On the Other Side: Letters to My Children from Germany 1940–1946 (1979); Jeffrey Musson, The English Manor House (1999); Adam Nicolson, Sissinghurst (2008); Virginia Nicolson, Singled Out (2007); Miranda Seymour, In My Father’s House (2007); Christopher Simon Sykes, Country House Camera (1980); Ben Wicks, No Time to Wave Goodbye (1989); Sandra Koa Wing, Our Longest Days (2007); Philip Ziegler, London at War 1939–1945 (1995) Also by Kate Morton THE HOUSE AT RIVERTON THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN For Kim Wilkins, who encouraged me to start; and Davin Patterson, who was with me to the last full stop First published in Australia 2010 by Allen & Unwin First published in Great Britain 2010 by Mantle This electronic edition published 2010 by Mantle an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world www.panmacmillan.com ISBN 978-0-230-75591-8 PDF ISBN 978-0-230-75589-5 EPUB Copyright © Kate Morton 2010 The right of Kate Morton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases Table of Contents PART ONE PART TWO PART THREE PART FOUR PART FIVE ... indeed For there are none who see the Mud Man rise and live to tell the tale There – see? The sleek black moat, the mud-soaked moat, lies flat no longer A bubble has appeared, there in the widest... talk about their letter, their particular voice from the past that had come back to surprise them There was a woman whose sweetheart had been in the RAF, and the man with the birthday card his evacuated... came running down the road towards the station, shouting at the guard to let their kids off; then shouting at older siblings to look after the little ones, not to let them out of their sight.’ She