The Truth in Our Lies

by Eliza Graham

  I nodded. Grace had taken such pleasure in writing the labels and drawing the bee and hive.

  Instead of sitting down to lunch at Lily Cottage, I asked the landlady if I could make myself a sandwich to take into the woods. She let out a breath. ‘You’ve solved a problem for me. This is all I could buy today.’

  I saw two small mackerel sitting on an enamel plate ready for her to fry for Micki and me.

  ‘Miss Rosenbaum needs building up,’ I said. ‘Give her both those mackerel and anything else you can spare. Use my rations if necessary.’

  ‘You’re getting too thin yourself, sergeant,’ she told me. The WAAF boxy jacket had once hidden my curves. Patrick had said this was a great pity but perhaps as well for the concentration required of the men working with me in the Filter Room. I didn’t seem to have quite as much to hide these days. Like many people at this stage of the war, I’d lost weight.

  I wished I could pull on a pair of slacks and a lightweight jumper for my walk, but it would mean returning to Lily Cottage again to change back into uniform.

  I walked past Mulberry House, my sandwich wrapped up in greaseproof paper and stowed in my pocket. The grass on the lawns and verges was turning vivid green. I felt an urge to remove my shoes and stockings and plunge my feet into its damp freshness. I caught the spicy scent of viburnum, softened by jasmine: heady, almost lascivious. The entrance to the woods was less than a quarter of a mile from Beattie’s front door. He might be standing in his bedroom, where he liked to retreat during the lunch hour for a short, restorative lie-down. He could be watching me now, irritated that I had broken the pattern of taking my sit-down lunch at Lily Cottage with Micki. For all his tolerance of eccentricity, Beattie sometimes reminded me of an elderly retriever who disliked family members breaking the daily routine.

  But I wasn’t going to spoil the bluebells with thoughts of Beattie. I blinked as they came into view, their blueness almost unnatural, shimmering in midday sun now high enough in the sky to break through the canopy of oak, beech and fir trees. I found an old stump and brushed off the dead leaves so I could sit and eat while I admired the blue carpet. Their scent fell like a light gauze around me, enough to transform my fish-paste lunch into something wondrous. Dad, if he’d been here, might have made some comment about God’s benevolence of creation. I did not, could not, believe that the bluebells had sprung from some divine masterplan. But however they’d evolved, they acted as a tonic for an hour.

  I finished the sandwich and folded away the paper wrapping into a pocket. Still enough time for a short walk. Birds sang around me. Micki had been right: I needed this time in nature, among the trees. I thought of how Schulte had absorbed himself in his work in the copse.

  A crackle behind me made me glance over my shoulder. Perhaps a deer. The sun dropped behind a cloud. I decided to walk up to the pond and then loop back to work.

  The path I was on intersected with a track from the right. As I approached, a crow dropped from a bough to caw at me. Another two flopped down to join it. Perhaps they had a store of carrion nearby they feared I’d snatch from them. I’d never liked crows: the way they hopped in such an ungainly manner, as though they were dainty little robins, instead of walking like birds their size ought to. Grace, who’d been fond of birds, had told me that crows were extremely intelligent. To my way of thinking this made them even more sinister. I walked on and the crows fluttered up onto their boughs. A fresh swathe of bluebells caught my attention and I slowed to inhale the scent. Perhaps Beattie was right. This was what we were fighting for: the right for anyone to quietly enjoy woods in springtime, without fear, regardless of their creed or race, if they weren’t doing anything wrong.

  The crows cawed again. The undergrowth rustled as more of them dropped down from the trees. I heard a more pronounced crackle of dead leaves and turned around. Nobody was behind me, but I thought I made out a shadow between the trees, retreating quickly. Medium height, dark hair, early thirties. Quite nimble, jumps over streams. I recalled Schulte’s description of the man he claimed spied on him while he worked.

  My pulse quickened. I stepped off the track and brushed through the undergrowth to follow the shadow. The person I’d glimpsed had vanished, possibly turning off onto another path that would take them out of the woods and onto the lane. All kinds of people worked in the neighbourhood, many of them engaged in covert activity. I’d heard rumours of people who sounded very like commandos training not far from here. Airfields in the vicinity were rumoured to fly spies and agents to occupied Europe. Was it possible that I had wandered into some daytime exercise? You learned to keep your mouth closed if you saw something you thought you shouldn’t. You didn’t blab. There was no way I could reassure myself by asking questions.

  When I reached the road I looked left and right, my skin feeling clammy. Nobody emerged from the woods.

  Micki was standing at the front door of Mulberry House when I reached it. ‘You’ve a rip in your stocking,’ she said, looking at my legs. ‘And you’re very pale for someone who’s just had a healthy walk.’

  ‘The bluebells were lovely,’ I said, ‘but I’m not sure I like the woods very much.’

  Micki frowned. Mrs Haddon opened the front door before she could ask me why this was.

  For the rest of the afternoon as I read, edited and typed, my mind kept wandering back to the woods. Beattie said it was a quiet day and he wouldn’t need me in the studio with him and William, so Micki and I walked back together to Lily Cottage.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked as I turned sharply at the sound of footsteps running on the pavement behind us.

  ‘Nothing.’ But until I’d seen that it was a schoolboy chasing an errant football, every one of my muscles had been tense.

  16

  Beattie was meticulous about paying regular visits to returning Allied POWs. Usually these were men who had a chronic or serious illness whom the Germans exchanged for their own equally sick POWs. They often yielded interesting and useful information about what they’d seen in enemy territory. This afternoon he’d gone off to Bedford to interview a returner who’d been held in the south of Germany and exchanged because of a badly broken leg.

  When he arrived back at Mulberry House, I watched Beattie get out of the Austin and walk slowly to the front door, tapping a finger against his mouth. Some instinct led me to meet him in the entrance hall.

  ‘What is it?’

  He nodded towards his office. Beattie sat down at his desk, gazing out at the lawn, which Mrs Haddon was mowing. I could smell the cut grass and the scent of an early lilac opening its buds through the partly open window. Spring was here, but Beattie’s expression was as austere as frost. ‘I thought of not telling you, but it wouldn’t be right. Schulte’s parents and sister were arrested.’

  My mouth felt dry. I stared out at the garden, not seeing the blossom. ‘Do we know why?’

  ‘We only have what the prisoner I spoke to told me. Until his accident ten days ago, he was on a farm a few miles away from the town. Then he was treated in the civilian hospital. Word is Schulte’s parents were listening to the BBC. Frankly, everyone does, but it’s a useful pretext for an arrest.’

  My stomach felt cold.

  Beattie reached for his cigarette tin. He opened it and offered me one. I shook my head.

  A small, cowardly part of me clung to the chance that it might have been the BBC listening that had caused the family’s arrest.

  ‘So Schulte’s source back home in Germany has dried up,’ Beattie said. ‘At least we’ve found out promptly.’

  ‘Dried up? You mean they’ve probably already been tortured or killed.’

  ‘Very disappointing.’ He tapped his unlit cigarette against the lid of the case. ‘I can’t see how he can help us much now. He won’t get any more news from home.’

  The professional in me agreed, but a more personal guilt was outweighing professionalism.

  ‘What about Schulte himself?’ I burst out. ‘He was helping us, he wa
s anxious about them, and now this – his worst fear – has come to pass.’

  ‘Schulte is German. An enemy.’ He lit the cigarette and stared at the glowing end. ‘He’s given us all he can and now he’ll go to Canada.’

  Schulte was just an asset, so was his family. A shame when they ran dry, but only for operational reasons.

  ‘Come on, Hall, Schulte’s a combatant. He’s not someone like Micki, who’s never taken up arms against us.’ Beattie’s voice was icy as he read my thoughts. ‘Our priority is the people of this country – preventing as many Allied deaths as we can.’

  ‘I need to get some fresh air,’ I muttered, making for the door.

  In the garden I sat on the bench, out of sight of Mrs Haddon. The spring flowers reminded me of Schulte’s description of the hotel gardens. Too many small details in our broadcasts could have been linked to hotels on that lake: we’d described the carts of produce arriving at lakeside establishments where Party bigwigs enjoyed excessive relaxation. Not hard for someone to find a list of German POWs originating from the Lake Constance area. Not hard to check where those POWs were held in England – the Geneva Convention required making the information available and the Red Cross might know the details. Most of the Germans had now been shipped overseas so there wouldn’t be many names to examine. If the Germans tracked Schulte to a camp in Bedfordshire, could that possibly compromise the radio station? The Germans might jam it, or put out announcements condemning it as British propaganda.

  I hadn’t been to the studio the night we’d broadcast this particular bit of Schulte’s intelligence, but I’d written the script, been so careful not to include any details that would identify the hotel. Through the window I saw Beattie stand up and stretch before putting on his jacket. He sometimes walked the short distance to see Sefton Delmer if the weather was fine.

  I waited until I heard the front door open and close before going quietly back indoors. I opened Beattie’s office door carefully, checking that nobody was coming out into the hall. Beattie kept all the final scripts in his filing cabinet. The key was in his top desk drawer. One ear open for the others, I took the key and unlocked the cabinet. Beattie was good at filing, which had always surprised me somehow. I searched for the dated file slip and pulled it out, riffling through the scripts until I found the little piece about Jews on farms in Baden. I’d described the town as having several lakeside hotels that benefited from the fresh local produce. In the margins Beattie had added an extra phrase: a charming hotel with its well-known red shutters . . . famous for its sailing boats . . .

  Perhaps there were other hotels with red shutters and boats in the town, but I didn’t think so.

  I had to be the one to tell Schulte what had happened to his family. The prospect made me want to be sick. Perhaps I didn’t really have to do this. He was a combatant, as Beattie said. An enemy, like the Germans who’d dropped the incendiary and deprived me of Grace. The parents and sister might already have been released by now. A busy afternoon stretched ahead of me, with another episode of Clara to complete.

  No, I was making excuses. It had to be me who told Schulte. I replaced the script in the cabinet and locked it and went back into my own office. The others were absorbed in their own work and barely looked up. I waited until I heard Beattie come back into the house and return to his room.

  I knocked on his door. He looked puzzled to see me. ‘May I have the car this afternoon?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Sir.’

  ‘To go out to the farm?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You know I can’t authorise a vehicle and fuel unless it’s for official work.’ He returned his attention to his paperwork.

  ‘Surely this counts as official? Sir.’

  He kept his eyes on his papers. ‘Cycle out there if you really have to make a personal visit to the prisoner in work time.’

  Half an hour to get there. Twenty minutes to see Schulte and another half an hour to cycle back here. With the evening deadline hard upon us. And Beattie knew this. He’d also be aware that I remembered all the times he’d taken a car for some purpose of his own that were almost certainly not connected to his official duties. Was he waiting for me to challenge him on the point? Damn him, I wasn’t in the mood for an exchange with Beattie. I wouldn’t give him what he wanted. I’d cycle.

  ‘Is this wise?’ Beattie asked. ‘Schulte might take this hard. Even though there’s not an ounce of evidence it was our doing.’

  What about the red shutters? I wanted to shout. ‘You always said Schulte would behave because he didn’t want to return to the cage.’ But if Schulte did lash out at me, perhaps I deserved it. On the other hand, perhaps it would be wise to take William with me. But William needed to rehearse his script for tonight.

  ‘Does it mean the Germans know where the programme is coming from?’

  ‘That’s a far more important question. Intelligence doesn’t think so. There’ve been no unusual attempts to jam us. Nobody on the ground in Germany has heard the authorities warning listeners off our broadcasts. It’s probably just bad luck that the Schulte family were arrested now.’

  ‘He won’t see it like that.’

  ‘Which is why I’m telling you it’s best not to be the one who breaks it to him. He’ll receive word in due course.’

  ‘I have to be the one to tell him.’

  He scowled at me. ‘Why are you taking on the role of unit martyr, Hall?’

  ‘Perhaps someone has to.’ I closed his door with some force as I went out.

  Everything had to be controlled by Beattie, all of it. He liked to play us like puppets, pull our strings, watch us dance for him.

  The bicycles belonging to Mulberry House both had flat tyres, costing me another quarter of an hour while I hunted down the pump in the garden shed. I cycled out of the village into an easterly wind, still cool enough in spring to feel like sandpaper on my face. Each of the miles to the farm gates felt as though the weather were reading my mind, trying to prevent me from carrying out what I knew was my duty. When I finally reached the farmyard, Mary came out of the pigsties, wiping her hands on the legs of her breeches. ‘I didn’t know you were coming. Lieutenant Schulte is out on the tractor in the top field. I’ll get him in for you.’

  ‘There wasn’t time to contact you, Mary.’ A lie, though if he’d forbidden me the car Beattie might also have prohibited a telephone call. The truth was I hadn’t wanted Schulte to know I was coming. Perhaps a mistake: telephoning ahead might have given him time to prepare himself for bad news. Another small doubt entered my mind. I brushed it away. This was the right thing to do.

  ‘Is he . . .’ Mary pushed a lock of hair out of her face, looking rather older than she had before and slightly flushed. ‘In trouble? Or being moved?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  An expression I couldn’t read passed over the girl’s face. ‘I’ll get him for you. Why don’t you go into the kitchen? Mum’ll make you some tea.’ She was as terse as ever but seemed fractionally less antagonistic towards me.

  Mrs Waites was kneading putty-coloured dough at the table. ‘A lumpen old loaf this one’ll be,’ she said. ‘I blame the flour.’ She looked up at me. ‘No, um, Lieutenant Nathanson with you this afternoon?’

  Any other time I’d have been amused by the studiously casual way she mentioned his name and the disappointment when I told her I was here alone.

  I heard the tractor engine outside in the yard.

  ‘The prisoner will hear bad news,’ I told Mrs Waites.

  Her mouth fell open. I wanted to ask her to stay within earshot in case Schulte went for me. My cowardice sickened me.

  Before she could say anything Mary came inside with Schulte. Mrs Waites covered the dough with a damp cloth, and she and her daughter retired to the farmyard, Mary casting a curious look over her shoulder.

  Schulte looked inquisitive but cheerful. ‘They let me out on the tractor now, sergeant, did you see?’

  ‘That’s good.’

&nbs
p; ‘And I have a few more snippets for you,’ he said in English. ‘Is that the right word, “snippet”?’ He sat down, looking up at me. The wild tension I’d first seen in him in Kensington had all but gone now, but he must have read something in my expression. ‘Have I done something wrong?’ He looked out at the farmyard where Mary was returning to the pigs.

  I straightened myself in the kitchen chair. ‘I’ll come straight to the reason for my visit, lieutenant,’ I said. ‘There are reports that your family have been arrested.’

  In an instant his tanned face seemed to fade to the colour of Mrs Waites’s bread dough. ‘When?’

  I told him what Beattie had told me.

  ‘All of them?’

  I nodded.

  He looked straight at me, silent.

  ‘We haven’t heard anything further.’ Still he said nothing. The watchfulness in his expression was turning to something harsher.

  ‘It was because of what I told you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘We don’t know the reasons but—’

  ‘The Gestapo will have lists of POWs who passed through England. They’ll know I was interrogated in the London cage – even if there’s no official record, another prisoner might have recognised me, informed on me in a coded letter.’

  I couldn’t deny this might have happened.

  ‘They’ll think I’ve been talking.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘They’re right. I’m a traitor.’

  The cat that had been sleeping by the range got up and scratched at the closed kitchen door.

  ‘It might not have been anything you gave us for the broadcast. We were careful.’ I tried to put the mention of those red shutters in the script out of my mind.

  Schulte’s eyes had seemed cold the first time I’d seen him outside the London cage but now they were like freezing shards.

  ‘Your parents listened to the BBC, you said—’

  ‘I helped you. And now my family has paid.’ He banged a fist on the table. Mrs Waites’s rolling pin jumped on the floury wooden surface.

  ‘I really am sorry.’ I sounded like a pathetic girl.