The Riddle of The Caves

By Michael Chapman

A wartime story set in the summer of 1941 on the coast of Dorset.

The children of a naval officer and a young friend, relocated from London early in the war, search for a book of local topography which had been in the library of their school. The book was lent out, but a page has been torn from the register so they don’t know who borrowed it. They learn that the local public library also had a copy, but it was withdrawn from circulation under defence regulations at the outbreak of war.

The search to discover who took out the forbidden book takes an increasingly suspicious course and leads the four children into great danger. The Special Branch, Security Services and Coastguard all become involved, and the story develops a disturbingly spooky dimension when they explore a cave in the cliffs.
The children’s researches uncover a connection with the wrecking of an East India Merchantman in a great storm in 1786.

As the story progresses, it becomes clear to the children that they are caught up in a spy drama and a mysterious and secret government research establishment.

The story culminates in a tense adventure to foil the escape of the spy in a U-Boat, and finishes on a flash of other-worldly meaning.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Chapman
• Release date: Jan 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781783015719

Book preview

9

Chapter 1

It was a moment that would stay with them for the rest of their lives: the teachers lined up along the sides of the Big Hall; the five hundred boys standing in rows, all eyes fixed on the figure at the lectern; the Headmaster, in his gown and mortar-board, looking down upon his school.

‘Good morning, boys,’ he said.

‘Good morning, sir,’ they said back.

He smiled benevolently at them and turned his attention to the notes on the slope of the lectern in front of him. Adjusting his spectacles in the way he always did, he looked up and addressed the attentive school: ‘Before Morning Prayers, there are one or two things I would like to say –’

He hesitated in mid-sentence and frowned.

The loud, wobbling whistling went on fully seven seconds.

The children looked around incredulously, one thought common to all – ‘Who would dare to whistle during Assembly, interrupting the Headmaster like this?’

The tassel on the Headmaster’s mortar-board jerked as he shouted in a voice like thunder: ‘Everyone! Down on the floor.’

There was a frozen moment, whilst they tried to take it in. The whistling was deafening now, and had an additional element; a huge rushing sound, like a train on the London Underground railway.

Still not understanding, but obedient to the Head’s command, all five hundred and thirty pupils and staff threw themselves to the floor.

A moment of strange quiet as the whistling stopped, then a tremendous crash from nearby.

Doors that had been closed were hurled open by the blast, to be slammed shut again almost immediately by the rush of air being sucked back to fill the vacuum at the explosion’s centre.

The waves of air pressure made every-ones’ ears pop. All stayed prone on the floor whilst a sulphurous wind swept over them, acrid with the smell of explosives and heavy with dust and soot.

From somewhere, the air-raid siren rose from growl to full-throated howl as it sounded its belated warning.

‘Stay where you are, everyone.’ The Head’s voice cut through the gloom.

Frobisher, a fair-haired boy in the Upper Fifth near the back of the hall, spoke quietly to his neighbour: ‘That was pretty near.’

‘And no talking,’ the voice from the platform was sharp. ‘Two members of staff nearest the doors go outside and report any fires, please. The rest of you sit up. You know the fire-drill. Remain quiet and wait for instructions.’

Everyone sat up. There was an outbreak of coughing, but the dust blown through the broken windows and shaken down from the ceiling was beginning to clear.

The tall figure at the lectern peered through the gloom. ‘Is everyone all right? Put your hand up, anyone who isn’t.’

He looked at his attentive audience, but no-one moved. ‘Good. Will staff stand-up, please.’

The teachers got up and brushed their shoulders. The double doors opened and Mr Whitlock, the Head of Science, came back in. Every eye was upon him.

Mr Whitlock spoke loudly so that the whole school could hear: ‘The bomb fell into the road outside. Apart from a lot of windows, the school seems all right, Headmaster.’

The approaching sound of bells could be heard as emergency vehicles ground their way up the street.

The Head considered the possibility of another bomb, and saw the danger of them all gathered together in one place. He came to a decision.

‘Everyone, disperse to your class-rooms.’

All the boys turned to their left and followed their teachers out of the hall as they did every morning.

As soon as they were outside the boys gathered into excited groups; the senior school discussing what kind of bomb it had been and how deep a crater it had made; the juniors wondering if they might be let off early.

The Upper Fifth, in particular, found difficulty in settling down; it wasn’t easy to concentrate on mathematics revision when the war had been brought suddenly so close.

In fact, the class-rooms were in such a mess, and so many windows had been blown in, that the Head sent around a message saying the school would close that afternoon for repairs and cleaning.

The announcement was made at midday; they would go home immediately after lunch. The boys’ excitement at the prospect of being let out early was dashed by the news that they would all have to do double-prep. Pupils without someone at home would do their prep in the school library.

It didn’t take long for those boys to make arrangements with classmates to go home with them rather than spend the afternoon in the dreary library.

Edwin Frobisher had a friend in the Upper Fifth with a father in the army and whose mother worked in an office in the City and wouldn’t be back until late afternoon.

‘You can come back with me, if you want, Stewart.’

‘Can I? That’d be great,’ said Stewart Ross.

After lunch, they collected Edwin’s younger brother, Tom, from the Lower Fourth, and took the bus home to Blackheath.

***

Mrs Frobisher had heard the air raid siren and, like many mothers in the area, had waited anxiously for the ‘phone to ring. She had been busying herself about the house trying not to think what the call might be… She told herself that the school would surely telephone if either of the boys were hurt – or worse, ‘though she shut that thought out straight away.

She was so tense that when the ‘phone did ring, she snatched it up, immediately dropping it with a clatter onto the hall table.

‘Hello?’ she said, cautiously when she had picked it up.

‘Helen?’ said the voice over the ‘phone.

‘Robert – it’s you! I thought it might be the school. There’s been an air raid.’

The voice on the other end became urgent: ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes, I’m all right. It was the children I was concerned about.’

‘When was the raid?’

‘Not long after they’d gone, about nine o’clock.’

Her husband’s voice was reassuring: ‘You’d have heard by now if anything was wrong.’

‘Yes. Of course I would.’ Helen knew it herself. She just needed someone else to say it.

‘I’ve got some news,’ her husband went on. ‘We’ll be moving. I’ve been posted.’

Immediately her anxiety over her children was replaced by concern for her husband. ‘They’re sending you to sea!’

‘No, no. It’s another shore appointment. But we’ll be moving.’

‘Where to?’

‘To Dorset. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home.’

She had only just come off the ‘phone when there was a tremendous hammering at the front door and a shouting through the letter-box.

‘Let us in!’

Mrs Frobisher opened the door to her noisy sons. ‘Did you think I had lost my hearing?’

Edwin grinned. ‘Sorry mum. We got sent home because of bomb damage. We’ve brought Stewart.’

Mrs Frobisher had met him before. ‘Hello Stewart,’ she said, standing aside to let them in.

‘He’s going to do his prep with us because he can’t go home.’

‘If that’s all right?’ said Stewart.

‘Of course it is.’ said Mrs Frobisher. ‘Was your house damaged?’

‘It’s because his mother isn’t there’ volunteered Tom.

‘Then you must stay to tea, Stewart.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Frobisher.’

Edwin led them into the sitting room and dropped his satchel with a thud.

His mother stood in the doorway as the boys settled themselves at the table. ‘What happened?’

‘Not much really. There was a whistle and a bang and a lot of broken windows.’ Edwin dumped a pile of maths books on the table.

But Tom felt this belittled the occasion. ‘The whole building shook. I thought the ceiling was coming down.’

‘Twaddle!’ said his brother.

Mrs Frobisher looked at their friend for a judgement: ‘Stewart?’

‘There was a lot of noise and dust but no structural damage, I understand,’ he said.

Stewart was a serious boy who chose his words carefully.

‘Very unfortunately,’ said Edwin, ‘it’s only this afternoon we’re being let off, and we’ve got double prep for our pains.’

His mother smiled. ‘I hardly think you’ve had much pain, Edwin.’

Edwin snorted. ‘You can do my logarithmic computations, then.’

Mrs Frobisher understood how her elder son’s mind worked: ‘If it’s that difficult, you’d better miss tea, then.’

Edwin looked interested. ‘What is for tea?’

‘Sponge cake.’

‘Ah, right,’ said Edwin. ‘I’d better get on then.’

As he dragged his books from a bulging satchel, Mrs Frobisher turned to Stewart. ‘Would you like me to telephone your mother and tell her where you are?’

‘Yes, please.’ Stewart gave her his mother’s office number and Mrs Frobisher left the room to ‘phone.

For the next two hours the three boys concentrated on their prep. This involved a good deal of muttering and sighing and messing around with fountain-pens. A bottle of ink was produced and an enjoyable time was had filling pens and scrubbing at the nibs with bits of blotting paper. By the time each of them was content with the state of his pen, the table was littered with bits of inky blotting paper and their fingers stained blue-black.

The scratching of nibs on paper; the counting out loud and bursts of humming was arrested by a rapping of the front-door knocker. They all looked up. Mrs Frobisher’s shoes could be heard on the tiles of the hall, then the sound of the front door being opened. A moment later the sitting room door opened and a girl looked in.

Elizabeth was twelve and dark like her mother.

‘Some people get all the luck,’ she said.

‘What’s lucky about double-prep?’ said Edwin.

‘We got bombed,’ Tom said.

‘Mummy told me.’

‘This is Stewart.’

‘Hello Stewart. I’m Elizabeth.’

Stewart, got up from the table and held out his hand. ‘Hello, Elizabeth.’

Mrs Frobisher looked around the door. ‘Let them get on with their work, now. It will be tea-time in a quarter-of-an-hour.’

The three boys went back to their labours, buoyed by the comforting sounds from the kitchen of tea being got ready.

Elizabeth went to an all-girl’s school and had her own homework to do. Past experience had shown that the two boys and their sister doing prep together was not altogether sensible. If they were not asking one another questions, they were either chatting or arguing. Mrs Frobisher had solved the problem by having her daughter do her homework in the kitchen.

Mrs Frobisher regretted it as soon as she said it: ‘We’ll be moving.’

Elizabeth looked up from her exercise book. ‘What?’

‘Don’t say What? like that, Elizabeth."

‘What did you say about moving?’

‘Your father is being posted.’

‘Where to?’

‘Dorset. That’s all I know. Daddy will tell us when he gets home.’

By the time she got to the end of the sentence, Elizabeth was out of the kitchen and rushing down the hall.

In the sitting room, Edwin was chewing his pencil and wrestling with the logarithmic conversion of yards to metres, whilst Tom was trying to remember which wives Henry the Eighth had beheaded, in what order, and why, when the door burst open.

‘We’re moving!’ shouted Liz.

‘What?’ said Tom.

Edwin removed bits of wood from his mouth. ‘Of course we are. Now go away. I’m trying to concentrate.’

Elizabeth was deflated. ‘Mummy told you.’

‘That we’re spinning on our axis? I thought everyone knew that.’

‘No. That we’re moving to Dorset, you silly.’

Edwin looked interested. ‘She didn’t say anything to us.’

Mrs Frobisher came into the room. ‘Daddy telephoned just before you got home. I was going to let him tell you.’ She turned to Stewart: ‘I spoke to your mother, Stewart. I said you’d be home by six.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Frobisher.’

‘Well, you all may as well come and have your tea.’

Around the kitchen table there was much speculation about what it all meant.

The chocolate sponge cake, although made with cocoa, was much appreciated. It wasn’t long before half of it was gone; some of it eaten, quite a lot of it stuck on people’s faces. Mrs Frobisher discreetly wetted a flannel and put it on the table.

‘I bet its Portland,’ said Edwin, authoritatively.

‘Why do you think so, Edwin?’ asked his mother.

‘It’s the only naval base in Dorset.’

She nodded thoughtfully. As a girl, she had visited Weymouth with her parents, and remembered the towering shoulder of rock that jutted out into the channel.

Tom had thought of something so exciting he nearly choked on his cake.

‘What about school?’ he spluttered.

Mrs Frobisher came back to the present. ‘I’m sure we can find a new one for you.’

‘It won’t be worth it,’ said Tom, ‘there are only a couple of weeks of term left.’

‘Four, actually,’ said Edwin.

‘Two weeks or four, you are not missing school,’ said his mother firmly. ‘And wipe your face’ she said, indicating the flannel. ‘Has anyone brought home their school atlas?’

Edwin shook his head. ‘Neither of us had geography prep.’

Stewart Ross put his hand up as if in class: ‘I did. I’ve got one. I’ll get it.’ He rushed out of the room and in a moment was back with a much-used atlas of the world.

Mrs Frobisher cleared the table.

They all gathered round Stewart as he opened his atlas to the British Isles. The map of England was small-scale and somewhat short on detail, but showed the coast of Dorset adequately.

Edwin prodded the map. ‘There’s Portland, and there’s Weymouth.’

Mrs Frobisher had a flash of memory – of donkey rides along the sands and a band of pierrots on the front.

Tom stared at the long line of Chesil Bank, the band of shingle thrown up by a gigantic storm, thousands of years ago, that stretched for miles from Portland almost to Bridport.

He pointed in excitement: ‘That’s where John Trenchard lived.’

They looked at him.

‘Who?’ said his elder brother.

‘John Trenchard – Moonfleet. You know!’

Mrs Frobisher had given the book to Tom for his twelfth birthday. ‘Yes, of course,’ she said.

Tom could see the coastline and country around Portland in his mind’s eye. ‘Are we going to live there?’

‘We don’t know where we’re going to live. It depends on daddy.’

Tom’s eyes were shining with excitement.

Elizabeth had her own idea of things to do in the country: ‘Could I keep a pony?’

This was met by scorn from Edwin. ‘Pony! What can you do with a pony?’

‘Ride it,’ answered Elizabeth, simply.

‘I would love to live in the country,’ said Stewart.

‘Why don’t you come with us?’ suggested Edwin.

‘Stewart has got his own family in London,’ Mrs Frobisher said.

‘Only his mother,’ replied her son, unfeelingly.

The subject was interrupted by the sound of the front door being shut.

‘Dad!’ they all shouted, and rushed out, except for Stewart, who remained rather forlornly at the table.

Mrs Frobisher apologised. ‘You must forgive them, Stewart. I’m afraid they’re rather excited.’

In a moment the children came back with their father.

Robert Frobisher was tall and dark-haired, like his younger son, and wearing naval uniform.

‘Hello, Helen,’ he said, kissing his wife.

‘You’re home early, Bob.’

‘Tell us! Tell us!’ they all insisted.

‘Hush! All of you,’ their mother told them. ‘This is Stewart; a friend of Edwin.’

Stewart got up from the table and held out his hand politely. ‘Hello, sir,’ he said.

‘Hello, Stewart,’ said Mr Frobisher, shaking his hand. He looked at the crumbs on the plates. ‘Was there cake for tea?’

‘Don’t worry, we’ve left some for you,’ said his wife. ‘Now what’s this about moving to Dorset?’

She cut a piece of cake and put it on a plate for him. Mr Frobisher sat down at the table.

‘Daddy!’ said Elizabeth, pleadingly.

‘What?’ he said, determined to tease them.

‘Pleeease!’

‘All right. Well, they’re sending me to the naval base at Portland.’

‘I told you so, didn’t I?’ Edwin said.

‘This is very good cake, Helen.’

‘Don’t speak with your mouth full, Daddy,’ his daughter admonished.

Tom was bursting with his own news. ‘We got bombed, Daddy.’

‘Were you frightened?’

Edwin dismissed it: ‘It wasn’t much. It fell in the street.’

Tom spoke crossly: ‘It was much! There was broken glass and dust everywhere, and we got let off for the afternoon. And I wasn’t frightened.’

Mr Frobisher looked at their friend. ‘What about you, Stewart? Were you frightened?’

‘No, I wasn’t, but it was a jolly loud noise.’

Edwin wanted to know more about Portland. ‘Are you going on a ship?’

‘In a ship,’ his father corrected him. ‘And, no, I’m not.’

‘What are you going to be doing, then?’ Edwin persisted.

‘I’ll find that out when I get there.’

Edwin had the feeling he was being fobbed off.

Mrs Frobisher decided her husband was being fussed. ‘That’s enough for now, children. I’m sure you haven’t finished your prep.’

There was a collective moan, but Mrs Frobisher was unrelenting. ‘Off you go, back to your homework.’

‘Yes. Off you all go,’ echoed their father.

Stewart Ross got up, too. ‘I ought to start for home. Thank you for tea, Mrs Frobisher.’ He collected his atlas and went with the others to get his books.

Mrs Frobisher filled the kettle and put it on the stove.

‘So, what is this job?’ she asked.

But her husband had picked up the newspaper and was studying the personal columns.

‘What are you going to be doing?’ she asked again.

But his attention had been taken by something in the property section. ‘What about this?’ he said.

Mrs Frobisher came and looked at where his finger was pointing.

‘House to let in Dorset,’ she read. She looked at her husband. ‘But it doesn’t say where.’

‘He looked at his watch and got up. ‘The estate agent is in Dorchester, I wonder if anyone is in the office.’

He went out into the hall and picked up the telephone: ‘Hello? I’d like to make a long-distance call, please. . . . .yes, to Dorchester in Dorset.’ He looked at the folded newspaper and read out the number. . . . .‘Yes, I’ll