Little Exiles

Jon peers right and left. Surely there is no man alive who might have read every one of these books. They stretch from ceiling to floor, long shelves protruding from every wall to form alcoves in which a boy might hide away. Some of them are bound in leather with embossed titles: The Natural Laws of Navigation, Colonies of the Cape, and many more. Others are ragged storybooks with crumpled or missing covers.

Peter starts ferreting in a box, while George waits dumbly at the door.

‘Here,’ Peter says, tossing him a comic with the silhouette of an American detective on front. ‘You liked this one when we were at the Home.’

‘Are you going to read it to me, Peter?’

‘Later. You look at the pictures for now.’

Beaming, Jon disappears into the shelves. The books are older here, with names he recognizes but cannot pronounce. There is a little reading area, where two ornate chairs face each other across a low table. Stretched out between them, there sits an enormous clothbound book. On the front, in golden letters, are the words An Atlas of the World.

Jon pores through the pictures. There are always maps of villages and dales in the storybooks he loves to read, but never before has he seen a map so vast. He sees oceans with names he has never heard, the shores of the Americas and Africa, the endless expanses of white at the fringes of the world. He traces the names of countries with the tip of his forefinger, but no matter how hard he searches he cannot find England. His eyes are drawn inexorably down, and he sees the scorched yellow mass that is Australia, sitting so lonely and remote.

He wraps his arms around the book and staggers to the entrance of the library. Peter is sitting cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by comics.

‘I’ve never seen these ones,’ Peter says, holding one up with a flourish. ‘Dustbowl comics. They’ve come all the way from America, I shouldn’t wonder. I’m keeping these.’

‘You can’t keep them!’ George gasps.

‘Some other boy’ll just keep them if we don’t, George. Don’t be such a stickler.’ Peter looks up. ‘What’ve you got there, Jon boy?’

Jon flops down beside them. ‘It’s an atlas. Maps of the world …’

‘They had a big thing like that at the first Home I was in. Showed everywhere that was British, with little Union Jacks all over.’

‘Peter,’ Jon wavers. ‘I don’t know where we are.’

‘Well, we’ll soon fix that.’ Peter snatches the book and tears it open. ‘How dumb can you be, Jon Heather? A few days out of England, and you’re lost already!’

Peter peers down at the great map of the world in the centre of the book. His finger hangs delicately over Africa, then circles its way through the Middle East.

‘There we are, Jon Heather. England!’

Jon cranes to look down Peter’s finger. ‘It’s tiny,’ he says, eyes flitting back to the sprawling mass of Australia.

George, too, crawls over to Peter’s side, and peers at the world in his lap. ‘Will we be together,’ he says, ‘on the other side? Everyone from the Home, back in the same place?’

When Peter looks up, Jon catches the look of unease in his eyes.

‘What do you care?’ he grins, fighting down whatever he has felt. ‘You hate all those boys. They’re rotten to you.’

George whispers, ‘But I still want them to be there …’

Peter considers it. ‘Yeah,’ he scoffs, snapping the map shut, ‘we’ll be together, all right. All us boys of the Children’s Crusade. It’s going to be a grand adventure.’

Jon Heather spends long hours trying to judge by his atlas which shores they are passing, imagining in which of these strange lands his father might be lost. When the rains come, he hides again in the lifeboat, still clinging to his maps. Oftentimes, George crawls in after him, to listen to stories, or puzzle over why Peter always wants to sit with the girls from the girls’ home, or else to just sit in silence, watching Jon read.

Today, however, Jon has been alone, with only his thoughts and maps to keep him company. When the rain has passed over, he wriggles back onto deck. There might be land on the horizon, or it might only be a trick of the light. He holds tight to the atlas and scuttles back below deck.

In the cabin, Peter is reading one of the dustbowl comics for the hundredth time. On the front, two horsemen stand in front of a rampaging wall of dust in which the title, Black Chaparral, is picked out in dirt. In the bunk beside him, George is twisted in the blankets, naked to the waist. His skin is red, as if some unseen birthmark has spilled over and spread.

Jon stops. ‘George, what …’ His voice trails off, unable to find the words to describe this horror.

Over the top of his comic-book, Peter glares. Only a second later, Jon knows why – for, suddenly, George’s eyes scrunch tight, his lips part, and his face is flushed with waves of slobbery tears.

‘Jon Heather, for someone who doesn’t stop thinking, you don’t ever think!’ He flings the comic down, rolls out of bed, and goes to give George a sharp slap on the back. ‘What did I say, George?’

‘There, there …’ George replies, between mouthfuls of air.

‘Not that part,’ Peter interjects. ‘What did I say’s wrong?’

George looks up at Jon, with eyes ruddy and red. ‘It’s only a heat rash.’

‘A heat rash?’ Jon gasps. ‘Peter, you can’t possibly … Georgie boy, get out of bed.’

The fat boy’s eyes flicker. It is as if he’s been told to leap off a cliff, and is finding the idea strangely tempting. ‘Peter says I should have my rest.’

‘Come on!’

First, George must wait for Peter’s permission. Peter, eyes drifting back to his comic, slumps back into his sheets, refusing to even look up – so, taking his cue, Jon marches over and takes a pudgy hand in his own. The redness is here too, staining the backs of his fingers in wild, webbed patterns.

It takes a few tugs to get George out of bed, but when he understands that Peter isn’t going to rebuke him, he duly follows Jon out of the cabin. Turning away from the stairs that would take them to deck, they follow a labyrinth of passages.

‘It has to be somewhere,’ Jon says.

‘What does?’

‘He’ll have a cabin, just like ours. Just like those dead halls in the Home …’

At last, Jon knows he is near. The cries of the children are faded now, and in a doorway left ajar he sees a desk, a pot of pencils, a little calfskin Bible. At the end of the passage, a door is propped open and there, at a chair inside, sits Judah Reed.

Jon does not dare cross the threshold, so instead he reaches out with his free hand and knocks, softly, at the door. When Judah Reed does not turn around, he knocks again. He means it only to be a little louder, but judges it badly; now, he is hammering at the door. The sound startles George, whose hand tenses in his own.

Still, Judah Reed does not turn around. Instead, he lifts a hand, one finger stiff to indicate they must be patient, and concludes whatever he is writing. Then, at last, he looks over his shoulder.

‘Mr Reed,’ Jon says. ‘I need your help.’

‘Very well,’ says Judah Reed.

Jon moves to take George into the room, but quickly Judah Reed stands and strides towards them.

‘How can I help, Jon?’

Bemused, Jon shuffles back, so that George is in full view. When even this does not do the trick, he steps behind and pokes George in the small of the back, driving him forward like a particularly truculent ass.

Judah Reed looks George up and down. ‘Put him to bed,’ he says, and promptly turns back to his study.

‘But …’ Jon bolts forward, making George clatter against the wall. ‘Isn’t there medicine? What about a doctor?’