{"id":5231,"date":"2017-04-09T23:23:08","date_gmt":"2017-04-09T13:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5231"},"modified":"2017-04-09T23:23:08","modified_gmt":"2017-04-09T13:23:08","slug":"the-marlows-and-the-traitor-part-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2017\/04\/the-marlows-and-the-traitor-part-six\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Marlows and the Traitor\u2019, Part Six"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday Morning: Breakfast at the Lighthouse<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ginty and Peter wake up in the lighthouse berating themselves about their role in the situation they\u2019ve found themselves in, but Nicola is characteristically cheerful. Foley will be gone now and they can go home! Except when she goes outside, there\u2019s Foley, standing by the remains of the Talisman<\/em>. He has guessed about the sugar in the engine \u2013 turns out he made up that song \u2013 and Nicola bravely confesses to what she did, then asks why he\u2019s a traitor: <\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I don\u2019t know. Don\u2019t you get fed up, sometimes, with all the smug dutiful people, all busily scratching their little livings, all saying the same things, all professing the same beliefs in the same words that all the generations have sucked dry before them? Ninety-nine point nine percent don\u2019t even know what the words mean. It serves them right if someone chucks a bomb into the antheap occasionally\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ooh, Foley, you\u2019re such<\/em> a rebel. He sounds like a fourteen-year-old schoolboy giving a bombastic speech behind the headmaster\u2019s back. Nicola is unimpressed, because, like the Famous Five, she believes a traitor is \u201cquite the most beastly thing to be\u201d. And the fact that Foley\u2019s amused<\/em> by her reaction makes it even worse.<\/p>\n

Over breakfast, Peter quickly grasps that they\u2019re in greater danger now that the U-boat crew will be arriving at the lighthouse on Sunday. Ginty has a panic attack about having to go into a U-boat. (Don\u2019t worry about that, Ginty! You\u2019ll be murdered before that happens!) Then they watch the navy fleet sail along the horizon on their scheduled exercises and the children are disgusted by Foley\u2019s reaction:<\/p>\n

\u201cFoley didn\u2019t look particularly anything\u2013not vengeful, not conscience-stricken, just mildly interested.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Foley goes to feed the seagulls (because he\u2019s the sort of complex villain who\u2019s nice to animals) and Peter desperately tries to think of a plan. If only<\/em> there was a way to signal the navy fleet when the ships make their way back that night \u2026 Hang on, they\u2019re staying in a working lighthouse! <\/p>\n

As Peter tries to figure how he\u2019s going to get up to the light, there\u2019s a brief moment of hope when Robert Anquetil\u2019s boat, the Golden Enterprise<\/em>, sails past. Nicola leaps up in excitement, but Foley grabs her, yanks her arm behind her back and says he\u2019ll blow her to pieces if anyone moves. Ginty eventually finds the courage to say:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Let her go. You\u2019re hurting her.\u2019<\/p>\n

Foley let go at once. He peered down at [Nicola’s] face and then said, in the sulky aggrieved voice that an older child uses to a much younger one: \u2018Sorry. I didn\u2019t mean to hurt you. Why on earth didn\u2019t you say?\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, Nicola didn\u2019t say because she has a horror of looking cowardly and childish. But Foley\u2019s volatility and immaturity is really horrifying in this scene. And this is a man who was actually employed as a teacher!<\/p>\n

Switching to Robert\u2019s perspective, we discover he\u2019d been scouring the coast for a glimpse of the Talisman<\/em>\u2019s dinghy when he spotted the cloud of seagulls at the lighthouse and remembered Foley\u2019s habit of feeding them. So Robert used the secret entrance to the lighthouse:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe felt a sense of betrayal, that he should be using the secret channel Lewis had shown him when they were schoolboys, to fight and defeat him. But Lewis was always putting one in these predicaments\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Finding the Talisman<\/em>\u2019s dinghy tied up behind the lighthouse, Robert is tempted to rush in, overpower Foley and rescue the children. But there was a fifty-fifty chance Foley would win in a fight and Robert, unlike Foley, is cautious and calculating:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was no occasion for bogus, single-handed heroics. His duty, here and now, was to return to the mainland and report his discoveries.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But he\u2019s not completely unmoved and as he leaves, \u201che wished with all his heart he could have stayed there\u201d.<\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t he have a radio in his boat? Or a shoe phone<\/a>? What kind of intelligence agent is<\/em> he?<\/p>\n

Friday Afternoon: \u201cThe Children are Expendable\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back at the police station, Robert suggests to Commander Whittier that Foley may have intended all along to hide at the lighthouse till the coast was clear, then leave the children there while he escaped. Whittier, who\u2019s read Foley\u2019s file, says Foley would never be so sensible, calling Foley:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026a wild, slapdash young man, with a life-or-death temperament. Plenty of courage, but no discipline. No loyalty, either.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He reveals that during a wartime raid, Foley decided to disobey orders, leading to the deaths of eighteen men. (Yet despite this, the Navy: a) allowed Foley to remain a navy officer, even after the war; b) gave him a job teaching naval cadets; and c) gave him free access to top-secret information, even after they suspected he was a spy. Well done, British Navy.) <\/p>\n

Whittier has worked out the U-boat will surface near the lighthouse on Sunday night, which is when the navy will grab Foley and the U-boat crew and save the secret information. Robert wants to rescue the children first, but Whittier points out that the children may already be dead. If they are alive, Foley could warn the U-boat during the confusion of their rescue.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou understand me, don\u2019t you, Anquetil? There can be no question of any premature attempt to rescue the children [\u2026] the children must be regarded as expendable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Again, this is a CHILDREN\u2019S BOOK. And the British authorities, the good guys, are saying it\u2019s fine if three English children are murdered as long as the good guys get a chance to catch the bad guys, when it\u2019s just been shown that the whole situation has arisen due to the good guys\u2019 total incompetence! And no mention of the fact that the three children are the offspring of a naval commander.<\/p>\n

Even Whittier seems to realise this is a bit much, because he allows Robert to take a couple of men, David and Bill, on the Golden Enterprise<\/em> to keep watch on the lighthouse and says if the U-boat surfaces, \u201cwireless us, and do what you can\u201d. So there is<\/em> a radio on the boat?<\/p>\n

But first Robert goes to speak with Lawrie, who confirms Foley had photos of a torpedo and that the others were taken off on the Talisman<\/em>. Poor Mrs Marlow, who thinks Robert is with the police drug squad, says it sounds more like spies than dope and asks whether she should try to contact her husband, now on fleet exercises. Poor Robert lies his head off and they agree it\u2019s best not to bother Commander Marlow. (I wonder, if the children turned up dead in the middle of his fleet exercises, whether he\u2019d interrupt his work to come back home. Probably not.) Oh, and as Mrs Marlow sits by Lawrie\u2019s bed, she thinks:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seemed almost worse than the time her husband\u2019s cruiser had been bombed and she had waited to hear if he were among the survivors.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And she probably didn\u2019t cry, even then!<\/p>\n

Next, Saturday Morning: Peter Makes a Plan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday Morning: Breakfast at the Lighthouse Ginty and Peter wake up in the lighthouse berating themselves about their role in the situation they\u2019ve found themselves in, but Nicola is characteristically cheerful. Foley will be gone now and they can go home! Except when she goes outside, there\u2019s Foley, standing by the remains of the Talisman. … Continue reading \u2018The Marlows and the Traitor\u2019, Part Six<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-5231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-antonia-forest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5231"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5233,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5231\/revisions\/5233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}