The Last Letter from Juliet

by Melanie Hudson

  I trailed off. Cecille shook her head.

  ‘I doubt that is possible, Juliette. I know that agent. He is a good man.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to question, or to criticise, it’s just … it’s been playing on my mind. My aircraft crashed into a drainage ditch, you see, and he said they must have been ploughed that day, but how did he not see the ditch and call off the drop?’

  Cecille’s hand rested on my shoulder.

  ‘I will mention it to my husband,’ she said. ‘You will be home soon. Try not to worry.’

  ‘And also,’ I pressed awkwardly. ‘The agent I was supposed to take home that night. He was injured. Do you know what happened to him?’

  I dreaded the answer but Cecille shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I do not know.’

  At eight-thirty p.m. Madame Bisset handed me a thick woollen jumper to put on under my coat and kissed me on each cheek.

  ‘Safe journey, mon petit.’

  I threw my arms around her while her husband looked on.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered through her hair. ‘I’ll pray for your continued safety every single day of my life until this terrible nightmare is over. Promise me you won’t take any unnecessary risks.’

  She stepped back, breaking our embrace.

  ‘I cannot promise that, Juliet.’ She took her husband’s hand. ‘I’m afraid we must continue to fight … to do whatever we can.’

  I nodded my understanding, put the jumper on, fastened my coat and headed outside with Monsieur Bisset, who led me two miles across fields to a barn where he handed me back my pistol. I hid alone in the dark until a second agent appeared, who guided me a further mile across the Breton countryside to a dug-out under a hedge. He covered me in bracken and said, ‘Wait here.’ I asked for how long. ‘A while.’ came the answer. ‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘Even when you hear the aircraft, don’t move.’

  It was the longest wait of my life. I had no papers with me now. If the Germans caught me, I would have no cover story. Just after midnight, I heard a reassuringly familiar sound filter through the darkness – it was the sound of a Lysander, and to my absolute delight, I heard the pilot power the engines twice, just as I had done, as a signal of his arrival.

  The aircraft landed. I still dare not move. But then the bracken was pulled away revealing the silhouette of a man whose right arm was in a sling. His whole body was backlit by the moonlight. The profile seemed familiar. I climbed out of the hole and looked at the man more closely.

  ‘Edward?’ I whispered, hardly daring to believe.

  He smiled.

  It was Edward! He was alive and we were going home. I threw my arms around him, being careful not to press against his injured arm. He whispered an unexpected question in my ear.

  ‘You have your pistol?’ he asked.

  I looked at him in the moonlight.

  ‘Yes, why?’

  ‘Can you kill a man, Juliet?’ Shocked, I looked around and saw the Lysander in the next field, a hundred yards away, beyond an open interconnecting gate. ‘I can’t do it. My right arm is broken and my left hand is damaged. The agent tonight is working with the Germans. He’s the man who arranged the field on the night of your drop. We brought the RV forward an hour to trick him. He’s by the aircraft, now. When we approach him, don’t even hesitate, kill him, Juliet. All future drops will be compromised if you don’t.’ I nodded my understanding. ‘Cock you weapon now so that he doesn’t hear it.’

  We ran to the aircraft, and a moment later, I shot a man, at point-blank range, through the head, without hesitation.

  Edward spoke to the pilot who powered the engines and taxied the aircraft a distance from the body. He then took a grenade from his backpack.

  ‘You’ve been trained how to use this? he asked.

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘Empty his pockets, all of them.’

  I hesitated, looking down at the body.

  ‘Quickly, Juliet,’ he barked.

  I found identification papers, a knife and money. Edward took the papers and instructed me to put the knife and the money back in the man’s pockets. He then took his own French papers out of his pocket and told me to put them in the pocket of the man’s jacket. He then handed me the grenade.

  ‘Put this by his face,’ he said. ‘There’s a thirty second delay. Let me get to the aircraft, then pull the cord, run as fast as you can and climb into the aircraft behind me. Do not look back.’

  I set the grenade and ran to the aircraft and clambered up the ladder just as the grenade exploded behind us.

  The Lysander could carry two passengers, who sat facing backwards, directly behind the pilot. I reached up and closed the canopy while the pilot, not waiting a second longer, began his take-off run. I remembered Wilkins’ instruction at Lanyon. ‘Three minutes, Juliet. That’s all the time you have to pick-up your parcel and turn the thing around. Any more than that and you leave everyone behind and fly home.’ Our pilot had waited at least seven minutes in the field that night. Grateful beyond words, I made a note to myself to thank him profusely on our return, but then rested my exhausted head against the canopy and watched France dip away beneath us. In silence and while scanning the skies for enemy patrol fighters, I held Edward in the moonlight and thanked the Lord for sending another angel to fly us home. To my astonishment on landing, I saw that the name of that angel, was Wilkins.

  We took Edward directly to his cottage after landing. Pa Lanyon had lit the fire and left bread, cheese and wine on the table. Edward’s dog was there too. Wilkins came into the house with us, to be met with a barrage of criticism from Edward (once he had calmed the dog down who was crying and wailing at his return) who was furious with Wilkins for recruiting me as an agent-drop pilot. Wilkins simply winked at me and shrugged.

  I stayed with Edward for three weeks during his recuperation at Angel View. His broken arm mended quickly enough, but it was expected that two of the fingers on his left hand would never function properly again. There were many questions to be asked about the failed Lysander trip and I wanted answers. I got them.

  It seemed that Edward’s advice not to trust the agent with either my name or the destination of my safe house in Brittany had been an inspired one. Edward knew that his network had developed a leak – a mole – but couldn’t decide whom, amongst his team, was the double-agent. He had begun to suspect the man, whose name I never knew, never wanted to know, just before the pick-up. So much so that he had instructed the other agent that was with him that night to create a dug out, similar to the one I had hidden in, with water and blankets and a little food, in a neighbouring field and if the pick-up was subsequently compromised (as it was) then Edward would not run, but hideout for a couple of days. On seeing my Lysander crash into the ditch, Edward was certain the mole was probably the agent, what he did not expect, however, was to see his beloved Juliet jump out of the cockpit. He said it was the most distressing moment of his life, because he knew he was too injured to run with me, but had to hope and pray I had heard him when he said to run alone. Edward and his trusted companion had slipped away and headed to the dug-out, leaving the man to torch the aircraft and me to run.

  I asked why the man hadn’t just told the Germans the time of the RV, surely that would have been a simpler way – to simply hand Edward over. He explained that it was better for the agent to make it look like an accident and have us all rounded up by the Germans once they saw the burning wreckage. That way he could stay working for both sides – trusted by the résistance and working for the Germans. In the past the man had done amazing and daring work for the Allied cause, which was why it was difficult to believe that he would compromise them now. This was why the timing of the next RV was brought forward an hour. No one knew of this plan except for two people – Edward and Wilkins. Monsieur Bisset had simply been told to get me to the dug out early. Absolutely no one was trusted. Once the message had been passed that I was on the move, Edward had informed the man that he also
wanted to get moving early, knowing that it was too late to get a message to the Gestapo or the Vichy police. He also knew I had a pistol and he knew, when it came to it, that I had the gumption to kill a man – I did not know whether to take this as a complement, or as a terrible failing in my character.

  But the pride in Edward’s eyes when he talked to Wilkins of my escape from the field on that first night was a fine thing for a woman to see. All the same, he was adamant that I must stop piloting the secret drop offs in the Lysander. I said nothing. It was time to allow Edward to rest, catch his breath, walk on the beach, and above all else, be shown just how much I loved him. In those three weeks we were for each other the light and the dark, air and water, sun and moon. But in my heart, I knew that it wouldn’t last forever and that if Edward could go back to France, he would. He would never give in.

  It was during our walk to the beach one morning that we had almost a carbon copy conversation of the one we had had on Christmas Eve, only this time, I felt exactly the same way too. There was no such thing has having felt as though one had done one’s bit … the fight simply had to continue, over and over again, whatever the personal cost, until it was done. Many so-called ordinary men and women felt this way too. Churchill referred to them as the unknown warriors, whose deeds would never be recorded, but without them – all of them – the war would never be won.

  Edward took my hand and ran his thumb over the tops of my fingers. We were sitting on our boulder again, looking out at the islands.

  ‘I have to go back,’ he said.

  I’d been waiting for this moment.

  ‘Yes.’

  He turned to me.

  ‘But you understand why, this time?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I start flying for Wilkins again during the next suitable moon phase, which is at the end of next week. They’re delivering another Lysander to Lanyon for me to fly.’

  He bit his lip and paused before answering.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, Juliet. I can see why you want to keep working, but you could do that more than adequately in the ATA. Go back to Hamble. They would snap you up, there, you know they would, and you loved it once.’

  ‘So, there’s one rule for you and one rule for me …’ I nudged him playfully.

  He smiled.

  ‘Not at all. You’re a brilliant pilot and I can see why Wilkins is desperate to get you flying again – a French-speaking female stunt pilot? You’re a dream come true for his operation, and if I wasn’t so desperately in love with you, I’d want to recruit you as a ground agent for my own operation, too, you’re perfect. But please don’t do this, Juliet. Go back to Hamble, go deliver those big bombers you used to love flying.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’m sorry, Edward, but I can’t do that. Not now I’ve seen what it’s like first hand, seen how life is in France, seen the fight that goes on day after day after day by ordinary people, I can’t walk away. Wilkins needs me – your organisation needs me. And I don’t know why, but I just know I’ll be fine. I’ve always known it. Remember the last time we sat here?You said you wanted me to live to be a hundred years old and you know what, I really do think that I will. So, don’t worry about me, just keep doing what you’re doing and keep yourself safe and I’ll be here, waiting, when you get back.’ We looked across the ocean. ‘There’s a whole load of people just over that sea who are desperate for us to keep fighting. We can never stop this, Edward. Not until it’s finally done.’

  ‘You’ll fight them on the beaches, eh?’

  I smiled. ‘If I have to, yes, I bloody well will!’

  At that moment Edward took a small box out of his pocket and turned to face me. He opened the box, took out a ruby ring and with tears rolling down his face said,

  ‘I know you can’t just yet, but one day, will you marry me, Juliet?’

  I took the ring without hesitation and kissed him tenderly through the merging of our tears.

  ‘Oh, Edward, I’d love to.’

  Two weeks later, on the night of the next full moon, I flew Edward to a remote field in northern France. He jumped out, another agent climbed in and without waiting to say goodbye, I turned the aircraft around and climbed away. Just a few days later Edward Nancarrow was captured in Paris and tortured by the Gestapo. Incredibly he was not shot as a spy, but sent to Dachau, a concentration camp in Bavaria that specialised in the incarceration and torture of political prisoners, Jews and homosexuals. All I could do was to keep flying and pray for the war to end.

  Chapter 37

  Katherine

  Tied with a red ribbon

  The fact that I looked like rat-shit and that Sam had bags under his eyes the size of Gambia and could barely speak he was so tired, did not in any way dent the rest of the evening. It should have been awkward, two strangers bunking up in a cottage together, but it wasn’t. We sat in front of the fire drinking champagne, catching up like old friends, talking about Juliet and Edward, and going through all the memorabilia I had been collecting around the house but with the proviso that Sam did not divulge any of the details of the closing chapters in Juliet’s story – the best Christmas present I had ever had.

  I told him all about Fenella and Percy and Noel and how we’d (they’d) saved Christmas in Angels Cove for all the little children, which meant, given all the shenanigans, that I hadn’t had the time to decorate the cottage. I confessed that the elf was probably quite disappointed in me.

  To cheer the elf, despite the late hour, Sam clambered into the loft reappearing with a couple of plastic boxes full of Christmas decorations. We chatted while rummaging through the boxes until I came across something wrapped carefully in tissue paper. I recognised it as the miniature painting of the cottage Edward had done for Juliet, framed and still tied with a faded red ribbon.

  I fell silent.

  ‘They were so in love,’ I said, the little frame in my hand.

  ‘They really were.’

  I wanted to know how it ended. Did Edward survive the war. Did they live a long and beautiful life together? I hoped so. But as Sam’s surname was Lanyon – not Nancarrow, or Gruber, even – I was worried that if I asked the question, my hope for a happy ending would be dashed. One more day of wishing for a happy ending wouldn’t hurt, would it?

  ‘Sam, sorry but can I ask … do you think, this flight tomorrow … it’s just, she’s put her engagement ring on, the one Edward gave her, and …’ I stalled. How to say what I was thinking. Would Juliet survive it? Was she actually hoping to die, to meet Edward on the far side? The more I read on, the more I wondered …

  Sam smiled.

  ‘I know what you’re trying to say. I’m going to pretend to myself that I haven’t read her memoirs. However tomorrow turns out, I’ll deal with it afterwards. She’s one hundred years old – one hundred, Katherine,’ he said, softly. ‘Living at Lanyon, it’s a prison to her. She’s not happy, I know she’s not. And she’s always been so very very happy all of her life. Joyful, even. I love her too much not to let her go, if that’s what she wants. Although goodness only knows how she would actually do it – maybe she’s planning to jump out over the islands, I wouldn’t put it past her.’

  My eyes filled with tears. He smiled through his own damp, sparkling eyes.

  ‘Listen, tomorrow is a day for celebration – her birthday. The biggest birthday ever! Now … let’s drink this champagne and you can tell me all about that damn apostrophe problem of yours!’

  Chapter 38

  Juliet

  A promise for Lottie

  I lived on at Lanyon, working closely with Wilkins. It was odd – just a year before, Lanyon had seemed alien to me, a cold, uncomfortably large house belonging to a bygone era. But for all that had gone before – the lulling into a ridiculous marriage to shore up a crumbing empire – the family did love me. Charles, Lottie, dear little Mabel, Ma and Pa Lanyon, they were all my family and love – when received and given in whatever form – was surely better than no l
ove at all. And with the thought of Edward’s imprisonment at Dachau rattling around my brain, I needed all the love I could get.

  It was during my flights into France that I felt most connected with Edward, and as I crossed the channel in the moonlight I would visualise sending my love direct from my heart to his, through a long strand of interconnected love, my heart with wings, flying across France to Bavaria, where I knew without question it would find its way to Edward and give him the support and strength he needed to carry him through the most horrifying days of his life.

  By June 1944 the allies were on the offensive and the liberation of France was just weeks away. Hitler expected the Allied attack to come through Calais, via the narrowest part of the English Channel, but he was wrong. On 6 June the Allied invasion of France began – D-Day – when 130,000 troops landed on Normandy beaches. The liberation of France and the beginning of the end of the Second World War had begun. My thoughts that day were with my wonderful friends, the Bissets, and I hoped and prayed that they had survived to see this moment. It was a day to be remembered, a day of incredible bravery and sacrifice, and yet in years to come, I would remember D-Day for a different reason entirely, a personal one.

  Lottie Lanyon spent D-Day at work. Still in the WAAF and working in the Mechanical Transport Section at RAF Predannack, she regularly drove aircrew and senior officers to and from the train station, or wherever else they might need to go. We spent the evening before D-Day together. Mabel was playing in the garden with Ma while Lottie, Amber and I walked the cliff path from Lanyon to Predannack and back again. It was a balmy summer evening and a light, warm breeze floated across the cliff tops. We sat on a craggy outcrop above Angels Cove at the end of our walk and watched the sun being slowly swallowed by the sea.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Edward,’ Lottie said. ‘Awful for him – and for you, of course.’ Lottie took my hand. ‘You must miss him, Juliet.’

  ‘I do,’ I said. ‘Every single moment. But having you, and little Mable …’ at that moment, Amber nuzzled herself under my arm ‘… and yes, you, too – having you all around, it all helps. Whether or not the troops will liberate Europe in time to save Edward is a question I don’t even want to think about.’