The Dragonfly Pool

The children shivered in the sudden wind and turned their faces toward the SS Dunedin. They were among the last to leave the train. The first-class passengers had already embarked, with the Countess Frederica in the lead, shouting instructions to her porter as she strode up the gangway.

The other passengers followed, the throng gradually thinning; then came the Deldertonians in Magda’s charge.

“Go straight to the boat,” Matteo had ordered. “No dawdling. I’ll catch you up.”

They did not exactly dawdle, but Borro and Barney needed to examine the recently caught fish; Verity wanted to try out her French on a good-looking fisherman, and Tally was telling Karil about the white cliffs of Dover.

“They’re not really as white as all that, but all the same when you see them you get a lump in your throat.”

Matteo watched them go and paced the train once more. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he picked up his bundle and jumped down onto the platform. He could see the children ahead of him. They had reached the boat at last.

He was just crossing the track when he heard the sound of pounding footsteps and turned to see two extraordinary-looking people running toward him. One was huge and massively built, and the remains of a spotted apron clung to his baggy trousers. The other was smaller, wearing the remnants of a feather boa, and there was a scar on his upper lip.

They were almost level with him, running hell for leather for the boat in a last effort to snatch the prince.

Matteo kicked aside a fire bucket, threw down his pack . . . and charged.

The children, with Magda, had begun to make their way up the gangway. Standing near the top was the first mate in a smart blue uniform with brass buttons and a peaked cap. And on either side of him were two men in black leather coats and jackboots. Their hats were pulled down low, and what could be seen of their faces made the blood run cold.

“Stop!” said one of them, speaking in a strong German accent. “This is the group I have told you about. There is an extra child here—you will see. There is permission only for four boys—and if you count you will see there are five. And one of them—this one—” he pointed directly at Karil—“is the boy we are seeking. He is a runaway—a petty criminal—and he must come with us.”

The children felt as though they were turned to stone. All the color had drained from Karil’s face. He had seen enough in the last weeks to know that the men were from the Gestapo.

“It isn’t true,” said Magda, putting her arm around Karil. “All these children are traveling with me—they’re from Delderton School in Devon. We’ve been on a folk dance festival and we’re trying to get home.”

“Can I see your passports?” said the first mate.

“They’re with the gentleman who is in charge of—” Magda turned around to look for Matteo, but he had disappeared.

“You see, it is a lie. This boy is a dangerous troublemaker—we have a car here ready to take him back to his home. He has run away and must be returned. I have a permit from the German police. Here it is.”

The first mate examined it and handed it back.

“He is rather young to be a criminal,” he said, looking at Karil’s white face, his stricken eyes.

“He must not travel,” said the other man in jackboots. “You must hand him over now. At once.”

The first mate had been traveling the route between Britain and France for the past three years and there were things that increasingly upset him. He had seen refugees staggering onto the boat in tears—Jewish children, people with pathetic bundles from the countries Hitler had overrun—and he was getting angry. On the crossing before this one, an old man had sat in silence on the deck, tears running down his face.

“I was growing apricots,” he had said. “Such apricots. If you could have seen my garden! And then they came and said I had to leave, I was a dirty old Jew.”

“I’ve no time for this now,” he said to the jackbooted men. “If the boy’s papers aren’t in order it can be sorted out at the other end.” And to Karil: “Get on board, boy!”

Tally began to breathe again. Barney took hold of Karil’s hand. “Come on,” he said.

It was all right. They were safe. The leather-clad men were scowling, one tried to grab Karil’s arm—and the first mate pointed at the upper deck, where a couple of sailors were sluicing the timbers. The sailors, too, had seen things they did not care for on their recent trips and now they put down their buckets and came forward to the railings.

The men from the Gestapo shrugged. They had been told to avoid trouble with the British navy and now they made their way back to their car, parked on the quay.

The children were almost on board. The first mate stood aside. And then an extraordinary thing happened. Karil let go of Barney’s hand, turned—and ran back down the gangway, onto the docks.

Back into certain danger . . .

“Come back, Karil!” yelled Tod.