The Scarlet Nightingale

by Alan Titchmarsh

  But there was no time to lose. She glanced at her watch. Four minutes. In four minutes she would discover whether their mission – and her part in it – had been successful.

  She prayed that Thierry was clear of the factory, then she hurried on to the station, trying her best not to break into a run, and stood on the platform awaiting the arrival of the train. As it rounded the bend a few hundred yards away in a cloud of steam and smoke, she heard an explosion. At first she could not be sure that it was not the train itself, but the reactions of others on the platform told her this was not the case.

  The relief Rosamund felt on opening the door into the kitchen of the house was palpable; especially when she saw Eric sitting at the table with a glass of red wine in front of him.

  His eyes lit up at the sight of her. It was the first time she had noticed such a positive reaction. He smiled, raised his glass and said, ‘You did it! I hung about outside to watch – from a distance, of course. Bloody mayhem it was. Cheers!’

  ‘Where’s Thierry?’ she asked.

  The door from the parlour opened and a smiling face came into view.

  ‘Here!’

  It was then that she burst into tears.

  Chapter 21

  FESCHES-LE-CHTEL

  NOVEMBER 1941

  ‘In her first passion woman loves her lover, In all the others all she loves is love.

  Lord Byron, ‘Don Juan’, 1818-24

  There was no guilt as she lay in Thierry’s arms, just a sense of profound relief – and release. It was as if all the pent-up tensions of the previous weeks and months had been set free.

  She had not for one moment expected this to happen; never imagined that she would give way to her emotions, even though from their first meeting she had found him attractive. She had never lain with a man before. There had been fumblings among the hay with the occasional youth in Devonshire, but she had reached the age of twenty still a virgin.

  She had sobbed at her first sight of him coming through the door into the kitchen – half out of relief that their ordeal was over and the mission accomplished, but also because at that moment she knew he was safe and that she cared for him more than just as a comrade in arms.

  He folded her to him as she wept, her body wracked with sobs. Eric took his cue and left the table, glass and bottle in hand, silently climbing the stairs to his room and closing the door.

  As the tears subsided, she looked up at Thierry’s face. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘What have you to be sorry about?’ he asked gently. ‘You have done what you set out to do. Mission accomplished.’

  ‘I know … it’s just that …’

  He stroked the back of her head as it lay on his shoulder. ‘Shhh! You don’t need to say anything. I understand.’

  She lifted her face to his and they kissed passionately, each of them grateful for a chance to let their feelings show. Then he led her upstairs to her room, undressed her and made the gentlest of love to her.

  I have tried many times to understand my actions that night. Tried, I suppose, to excuse myself for what happened. I was, after all, only twenty years old, I had just undertaken an operation – the magnitude of which most normal people would never be asked to equal – and my relief at its accomplishment, coupled with the fact that I had survived – I was still alive – pushed all other thoughts of morality aside. I had not been brought up to let my feelings show in such a way. Indeed, there were times when I thought I would never ‘know’ a man. But here I was, more alive than I had ever felt. Endorphins, we call them nowadays – those chemicals that can produce in a body excessive ‘highs’ – combined with the feeling of elation, banished all normal inhibitions without thought.

  And Thierry? I don’t think I considered what would be going through his mind. It was as if we had been thrown together in some scene from a film, and the moment he wrapped his arms around me he might have been Clark Gable and I Katherine Hepburn. Fanciful? Maybe. Infatuation? Possibly. But until one finds oneself in that situation, it is impossible to understand entirely the motivation of either party.

  All I knew was that I wanted to be loved so deeply that evening; loved by a man I had observed at close quarters for several months and who, in spite of his vacillations between cavalier insouciance and intense workmanlike powers of reasoning, I had come to admire and to trust.

  To go to bed with him seemed the most natural thing on earth, and at that moment I gave little thought to the morning. He was the gentlest and most courteous of love-makers. There was no haste, no rush, no force involved, just an overwhelming sense of giving on both sides.

  But when I woke up in the morning, I was alone. Thierry had gone and I was left to muse on the events of the day before as a watery sun crept in at the window. I lay for some time between the sheets of a bed that had witnessed me turning from a girl into a woman in the twinkling of an eye. A French eye; an eye that sparkled.

  And then the guilt came into play. That sneaking, dawning realisation of the perils of being carried away in the heat of the moment, of not only giving oneself away, but of letting down others. Of letting down Harry. How could I have done so? What could have possessed me? The feeling of elation was replaced by one of shame and confusion. What had the encounter meant to Thierry? What had it meant to me, come to that, and how would it affect our working relationship? All of these conflicting emotions would now come into play on a rotational basis as I reasoned with myself and examined my motivations. But confused as my feelings were, I was determined that I would not let the events of that night affect my ability to play my part in the team. The best thing, it seemed, was to pretend it had never happened. I wondered if Thierry would do the same.

  It was on the following morning, after she had come down for breakfast, that Rosamund witnessed a state of affairs she had not encountered before – that of Thierry being angry. At first she thought he must be furious with her for last night, but it soon became clear that this was not the case.

  ‘What more do they want?’ he asked Eric.

  Rosamund poured herself a coffee from the pot that stood on the stove, and quietly sat down at the table. Her fair hair was tied back and she wore a floral-patterned blouse under a pair of drill dungarees that had been provided for her use by Madeleine and Paulette. Her face, freshly washed in the basin of her room, glowed with life. Her eyes sparkled.

  Thierry glanced at her as she entered, and the sight momentarily interrupted his flow. ‘Good morning,’ he said, his face breaking into the gentlest of smiles. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Like a log.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just a saying. I slept well, thank you.’

  The niceties having been accomplished, and Thierry, having gathered his thoughts once more, continued, ‘It’s bloody impossible. How the hell can we get a photograph?’

  Rosamund was puzzled. ‘A photograph of what?’ she asked, grateful to have something to take her mind off the confusion of thoughts that buzzed around inside her head.

  Thierry shrugged and tossed a hand in the direction of Eric, an indication that the explanation would be left to him.

  ‘The RAF want proof that the machine is out of action. If we can’t convince them, then the bombing raids on the Peugeot factory will continue.’

  ‘But that’s not fair!’ exclaimed Rosamund, realising in an instant that she might sound like a spoiled child. ‘The whole point of the exercise was to prevent the factory being bombed, to put the press out of action without loss of life. And now they want to continue their raids?’

  ‘It would seem so,’ agreed Thierry, his anger subsiding as that of Rosamund grew.

  Rosamund hesitated, searching for words. Eventually she said, ‘So how can we prove it?’

  Eric butted in. ‘By taking photographs of the damaged press and showing that it cannot possibly be repaired.’

  Rosamund slumped back in her chair. ‘How on earth can we get those?’


  Thierry, leaning against the sink by the kitchen window, took a sip of his coffee. ‘Easy. We send you to the gate with a camera. You smile sweetly at the guards, say you are a journalist and ask if you can take a few snaps of the damage caused by the explosion last night. The guards bow courteously and let you in. You take the photographs, breeze out and we post them to London.’

  Rosamund sighed. ‘Very funny.’

  Then Thierry said, ‘Actually, I think there is a way.’

  Eric and Rosamund regarded him quizzically.

  ‘But I’m not prepared to put our team at risk again. This one is down to Henri.’

  ‘I thought we were not involving Henri any more?’ said Rosamund.

  Thierry frowned. ‘What is your saying? “Needs must when the devil drives”?’

  ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘Henri has contacts. Secure contacts. All we need is one of them to pose as an insurance man – he probably knows someone who really is in insurance – and for them to enter the factory, take the required photographs and give them to us to pass on. Henri will have to talk to Robert Peugeot, of course, and make sure it can be arranged. Peugeot won’t be very pleased, having already taken the risk of allowing us in to … do the deed … but it will no doubt seem preferable to leaving his factory at risk from bombing raids.’

  ‘When we had already assured him that it would not.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You think it can be done?’

  ‘It must be. And when Monsieur Peugeot – and Henri – realise the likely outcome of failure to come up with the goods – and the consequent loss of life – I don’t see how either of them can refuse. The biggest problem will be getting the job done quickly. We need to get out of here as soon as possible. The Gestapo will be stepping up their enquiries and it would be safer if we were away from here.’

  Henri was a resourceful man; his position within the Resistance was respected and his contacts comprehensive. The required operative was located, Robert Peugeot was placated – as much as was possible – the ‘insurance man’ was instructed and dispatched to do the job, and the tension within the house for the duration of the exercise was palpable.

  When, two days later, an envelope containing the required photographs arrived, Thierry, Rosamund and Eric laid them out on the kitchen table and marvelled at the total success of the operation. It was clear that the damage to the tank press was irreparable; it would need to be replaced, and that would take weeks or even months.

  Thierry was especially complimentary. ‘Well done, Christiane,’ he said to Rosamund. Then he added, ‘You clearly are something of an expert when it comes to shaking things to their foundations.’

  Rosamund blushed.

  ‘Now let’s get ourselves out of here. Tomorrow morning we leave early.’

  Chapter 22

  LONDON

  NOVEMBER 1941

  ‘And bold and hard adventures t’ undertake,

  Leaving his country for his country’s sake.’

  Charles Fitzgeffrey, ‘Sir Francis Drake’, 1596

  Aunt Venetia was uneasy. She told herself she was being unreasonable; that such feelings were bound to be experienced when your nearest and dearest were posted overseas in a war. But there was more to it than that. Something in her waters told her all was not well. It might be intuition, it might be imagination, but it was not something she felt she could ignore. It had been a month since Rosamund’s departure. A month of worry, uncertainty and silence. Of course she had not expected to hear any details; she was well informed enough to understand that secrecy – even among one’s intimates who had inside knowledge – was a code that was strictly adhered to; especially when it came to the likes of Messrs Felpham and Belgate. Sir Patrick Felpham might appear to be a bit of an old buffer, but Venetia was aware that much of his bluster was nothing more than a cover – a means of putting off the scent anyone who might become too curious. How could anyone so seemingly otherworldly possibly have anything to do with the secret service? She had long since learned the futility of questioning the precise nature of his work – ‘This and that, my dear, this and that’ – but knew that he was involved in covert operations. It was also thanks to his good offices that certain provisions were more readily available to her than to other households – even in Eaton Square – provided she could be relied upon to host dinner parties that would help to ‘facilitate connections’, as he put it. The fact that he was something of a trencherman meant that such arrangements had an added advantage in these times of privation.

  Charles Belgate was a different kettle of fish altogether. He was one of her oldest friends and before the war had held a senior position at the Foreign Office. But he was retired now, and just how serious or vital his role was in wartime intelligence or international relations, she had yet to ascertain. His acquaintanceship with General de Gaulle might be historic rather than current, but she suspected there was more to Charles Belgate’s involvement that met the eye. She knew it was unlikely that she would find out the precise nature of such work – in that respect he was as adept as Patrick Felpham at deflecting enquiries – but he might at the very least be able to reassure her of Rosamund’s safety. He owed her that at least. It would take all her charm and cunning, she knew, but she had not lived the life she had, among the people she had, without picking up on vibrations from time to time. She would winkle it out of him somehow; at least, that was her intention.

  This was one of the reasons why she had arranged a dinner party. Not a large one – just a handful of friends who could be relied upon to ‘get on’ and who would make pockets of conversation that would distract the rest of the party when she found a moment to ask questions that were not for widespread debate.

  The frequent bombing raids on London had subsided, and although life could not be said to have returned to normal, the nightly journeys to the air raid shelters were in abeyance, and people did their best to keep up flagging spirits of an evening with songs around the parlour piano, visits to the local pub or, in Lady Reeves’s case, with a reestablishment of her ‘little dinners’.

  Mrs Heffer and her brother the allotment gardener – carrots and parsnips particularly good this year – had been pressed into service as usual, and Patience Westmacott – whose presence at the ‘de Gaulle dinner’, where she had buttonholed the charge d’affaires as though he were some recalcitrant shopkeeper, was still fresh in Aunt Venetia’s mind – had been dragooned into service once more: her strident tones would be a suitable distraction for anyone intent on eavesdropping when Venetia found her moment to quiz Lord Belgate.

  ‘The placement, Mrs Heffer; you have the placement?’

  Mrs Heffer, with the patience of a saint, pointed to the red morocco-covered seating planner resting in its usual place on the small table beside the fireplace, so that guests, while warming themselves against the winter chill, could ascertain their place at table.

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course. Must just check …’ Aunt Venetia ran her eye over the slips of white paper arranged around the depiction of the oval table in last-minute scrutiny. It was the third time she had done so in the last hour, but then it was important that confrontations should be avoided, that good humour should prevail, and that all her guests should feel they were having a good time, the better to put them in the mood to relax and – perhaps – be more forthcoming than was the norm.

  Satisfied that all was well (as indeed it had been the last time she had checked just twenty minutes ago), she enquired of her cook-housekeeper, ‘And the claret?’

  ‘Decanted. Four bottles. White wine in the cellar to be brought up just before the meal. Port and brandy in the drawing room. Ned will wait on.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  Mrs Heffer’s brother was pressed into service on these occasions, now that the Reeves household was run on a skeleton staff. He was not exactly a liveried footman, but he did wear his three-piece Sunday suit and employed a liberal amount of brilliantine to tame his unruly that
ch, which, on a bad day, resembled an exploded Brillo pad. Ned Heffer’s greatest attribute (aside from vegetable growing) was an ability to be totally unimpressed, however grand the company, and to say nothing throughout the evening. In this respect, he was a godsend to Lady Reeves.

  Lord and Lady Belgate, Sir Patrick and Lady Felpham, Sir Basil and Lady Flynn (he a royal courtier, she a lady who lunched), Patience Westmacott and her brother Hamish, and the Hendersons – an elderly couple from next door, along with their bachelor son – made up the party of twelve, and it was not long before the log fire and a glass or two of Pol Roger warmed up the party sufficiently for there to be a lively buzz in the drawing room.

  In spite of her underlying anxiety on this particular evening, Venetia Reeves was an experienced hostess, and not one to charge in like a bull at a gate when she needed information. Such a mission was to be undertaken with stealth and guile. She did seat Charles Belgate on her left but, as etiquette demanded, assiduously refrained from talking to him during the first course – one of Mrs Heffer’s more adventurous soups – and during the main course and pudding kept the conversation light and innocuous.

  The table was narrow enough to permit conversation across its width as well as between neighbours on either side, and before long Venetia could cast an eye around and see that the evening was moving along nicely. Sir Patrick Felpham was the only one whose attention was given wholly to the contents of his plate rather than to conversation, but then Venetia reminded herself that as well as a reflection on the quality of the meal, it was no doubt a useful ploy when it came to deflecting questions that he would rather not be asked. She smiled to herself and looked across at Patience Westmacott, whose dissertation on the relative merits of root vegetables in a wartime winter, while not fully engaging Sir Basil Flynn, had at least given him the chance to savour the 1929 St Julien in his glass. Ever the adept courtier, he nodded sagely from time to time and smiled distractedly, his mind no doubt elsewhere. Venetia sighed and hoped that she had not totally ruined his evening. At least the claret would be some consolation.