by Manda Scott
He says it aloud. ‘Come on.’ Beside him, Theo is biting one perfect nail. The J-named brunette is leaning over, gripping both arms with fingers gone rigid. She says, ‘Here!’ and the teleprinter stutters. Rapid as gunfire, it spits out three fast groups.
‘Strewth.’ Last night’s alcohol gathers at the foot of his gullet, churning. Laurence holds himself tight, as he did in the cockpit.
Theodora asks, ‘What is it?’
‘Q-code. Three-letter abbreviations to keep the channels clear. There are pages of them they have to learn before they go out.’ Fire blossoms around him. It cannot be real. He shuts his eyes.
‘I know what a Q-code is. I’ve just never seen QUG. What does it mean?’
‘I am under assault and must cease transmission.’
And Sarpedon does, except for one last burst in plain text.
‘Oh, Christ Almighty.’ Bile hits the back of his throat. He retches, clutching the chair.
‘Larry, what is it?’
‘It’s a Scottish toast. In Arisaig, he … we— I’m sorry. I have to go.’
He makes it up past the unsaluted guard, and out into the grey and silent street where he pukes violently into the gutter.
He has never wished death on anyone before – not someone he knows, not a man whose breath, laughter, courage he has shared, whose hand he has shaken. But he wishes death on Patrick Sutherland now; a swift, clean, glorious death in battle, and no chance for anyone in a grey uniform to demand answers to questions afterwards.
He goes back to his office, takes out the uncrackable gibberish of the day before and spends the rest of the morning beating his head on its intransigence. He fails.
CHAPTER NINE
12 MONTAGU SQUARE, LONDON
2 January 1942
‘HAPPY NEW YEAR, Larry!’
The Brigadier barges into the maisonette at six seventeen, bearing a bloodied parcel wrapped in butcher’s brown paper. Laurence is in his dressing gown and slippers, contemplating his first real coffee of the new year. He is doing The Times crossword, but the possible proximity of real meat is hard to ignore. He looks up, warily.
‘Did I forget to lock the front door when I came in with the milk?’
‘I have a key.’
‘Of course you do.’ Nothing, really, should surprise him. It was the Brigadier, after all, who magicked up a fully furnished two-bedroom apartment on Montagu Square, barely a five-minute walk from work, when almost everyone else is living on the wrong side of Hampstead Heath, or, worse, south of the river.
Laurence has been here slightly less than a month and it has taken him this time to come to appreciate the angles and curves, the subtle earth-and-turquoise colour palettes that are so different from the big, bold colours of his youth. He has not dared ask whose apartment it is, or was. He suspects the latter. Were it his, he would not willingly have left it and in default of ownership, he has come to see himself as its warden. At times, when the bombing is at its worst, he stands in the absolute dark of the blacked-out living room and offers an urgent, unfocused yearning that it might not slide to dust and rubble as has so much of London. By a miracle of chance, or the power of his fervour, it has remained intact so far, and he intends that it remain this way.
He lays aside his paper. ‘Happy New Year, Uncle Jeremy. Perhaps I should say “Happy Hogmanay” in honour of our late friend?’
Five days have passed since he found out that Sarpedon was Patrick Sutherland, and that his raid had gone down in the most disastrous circumstances. He remains explosively angry, mostly with himself.
The Brigadier says, ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘I should have cracked Sarpedon’s first transmission.’
‘But you couldn’t have done. Nobody could. The Frenchman who keyed it had been turned. He was sending gibberish. There was nothing to decipher.’
‘Who turned him?’
‘You’ve heard of Maximilian Kramme?’
The name is vaguely familiar. ‘I thought he was in Paris?’
‘He spreads his net wide.’ The Brigadier sits without being asked. His nails are shorter than they have been. He has a cold sore on one lip. In a man of imperturbable bonhomie, this comes as something of a shock. He lays his bundle of meat on the table. Laurence stares at it.
Gently, his uncle says, ‘Open it, Larry. It won’t bite.’
There’s something wrong here. Laurence opens the parcel, peels back the layer of greaseproof paper and lifts out—
A file. Not sirloin, or even a lump of gristly stewing steak, but a file, rolled and bound with string. Beyond the subterfuge of the outer wrapping, there is no blood, only a profusion of red type that is far, far more dangerous.
He steps back. ‘I really don’t think—’
‘Trust me, I don’t take risks of this nature without reason. You do want to read this.’
He does. Against all sanity, he does. Because he has seen the smaller black type beneath all the fatal warnings: Sarpedon.
He may be sick. He opens the file. He reads the first page. And thus does he discover that one man survived the carnage of the raid.
Hope is such a dangerous thing, and fickle. ‘Patrick Sutherland is coming home?’
‘He is already home.’
‘In one piece?’
‘Yes.’
Laurence sits, heavily. His hand is shaking. He lays the file down on the table and stares at it until the type is no longer blurred. Raising his head, he asks, ‘Who betrayed them?’
‘Paul Mignon.’
‘The train inspector.’
‘The very one. He had sold them to the Boche before they ever landed, apparently.’
It is war. These things happen. On the gas, the kettle screams. Laurence pours for them both. This is not coffee, but it is not as bad a substitute as some he has tasted.
‘Where’s Mignon now?’ he asks.
‘That’s the interesting thing. According to your man Sutherland, the French cut his throat. They have teams of youths, apparently, whose sole function is to dispose of collaborators. He was dead before Sutherland left the country.’
‘But?’ There is always a but. His uncle never gives gifts without strings attached.
‘But his radio continues to transmit on the same schedule.’
Laurence finds he is smiling, thinly. ‘So the Boche are running it.’
‘Quite so. And if they are, there is a chance that they don’t know that we know he’s dead.’
‘We can test that, though, can’t we?’ Already he can think of the ways. The morning is brighter. The coffee tastes … never mind. He watches his uncle and tries to think three moves ahead. ‘You want me to work on this?’
‘I want you to coordinate it.’
‘Why not someone from Six? It’s more their bag, surely.’
The Brigadier stares at the swirling surface of his coffee. ‘What do you know about the Service?’
‘I’ve heard a persistent rumour that they are trying to shut down my Firm: that Claude Dansey, in particular, hates us.’
His uncle nods. ‘True on both counts. Dansey is a vicious, bitter, foul-minded bastard who should never have been given charge of a scout camp. How he manoeuvred himself to the position of power he currently holds is quite beyond me, but there is no doubting his hatred for anything that isn’t under his personal and total control. If he is given any excuse at all, he will shut you down. There are … individuals in higher positions who would prefer this not to happen. This potential ploy with the radio might give him just the excuse he needs. Therefore, we would rather he did not discover its existence. Therefore, we would like you to run it.’
We. It’s impossible, really, to imagine the power of men who can give orders to the likes of Uncle Jeremy.
It’s not quite as impossible to imagine the turf war in which he is caught, though it sticks in his throat. ‘Have we forgotten that Hitler is the enemy?’
‘I do believe some of us have, yes. At the very least, the
corporal is considered a lesser threat in the great scheme of things, particularly now that our colonial friends have scented blood and joined the chase.’ The Brigadier leans back and stares at the ceiling. ‘Someone in Washington has realized, a little late, that Germany is twenty years ahead of us in all things scientific. I rather think they plan a spot of intellectual larceny when the shooting stops. And, as we have already discussed, they are a great deal more interested in the Russians than they are in the Boche. That way lies the longer war. This one is all over bar the small matter of a successful invasion of the continent.’
Dear God.
He has always thought himself a small cog in a vast and crushing wheel, although when he was a pilot, up above the cloud layer, it was possible to imagine himself king of the skies. Down here, he sees himself as a joker in an entirely disposable hand. He says, ‘Men are dying in the most appalling circumstances to win this war. You do know that?’
‘I do.’
‘Eyes gouged out with kitchen forks. Limbs smashed with iron bars. Hung from rafters in handcuffs until the bones of their wrists come apart. Nailed to—’
‘Laurence!’
He stops. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t mention it. We’re all under pressure.’ His uncle stands, glances at his watch and makes a show of departing. ‘But your man is back. He is alive. He is being debriefed at Beaulieu. Your cousin Theodora is visiting us at Ridgemount. Lydia asked me to invite you to luncheon. If you were to drive down, it wouldn’t be too much of a detour to pick Sutherland up on the way back.’
Chance would be a fine thing. ‘I have no fuel.’
And here is a smile that he hasn’t seen in years. ‘I believe your Firm’s Daimler is free. I believe, also, that if you mention my name to Walkinshaw, the commissar of the car pool, it will be made available. Don’t get up. I’ll see myself out.’
Which is how, sometime after four o’clock, Laurence finds himself driving a Daimler – a Daimler, dear God – south and west from Ridgemount with Theodora in the passenger seat. Luncheon was probably good, but he didn’t particularly notice. He feels oddly light-headed, unburdened, even happy. The evening sky is clear, the sun is setting and the full moon hangs fat in the eastern sky.
He drives through snow-huddled villages on roads mired with slush and makes small talk with Theo about the family. Somewhere on the far side of Selborne, he says, ‘Where are you living?’
He asks in French, to keep in practice. She answers in kind. ‘In town.’
‘Yes, where?’
‘I have digs on Old Compton Street.’
‘Soho? Really?’
‘It’s fun. I share with Julie Hetherington.’
‘Another cipher clerk?’
‘Who else do I ever meet? You’d recognize her if you saw her. She’s dark-haired, tall—’
‘Legs like a Tattersalls filly and a penchant for coding?’ The J-named beauty. She has beaten him to three ciphers. Julie. He really did think her name was Joan.
Theo says, ‘She has an uncle in the Admiralty; he got us the flat. Where are you?’
‘Closer than that. Uncle Jeremy got me a maisonette at Montagu Square, and it’s too big – I was thinking we might share.’
‘Can’t, sorry. Julie would have a fit.’
‘Really?’ He glances at her, sharply. She lifts one wry, dry eyebrow in a look that is so like Chris it should hurt, except it doesn’t; it trips a final wire in his head and he is laughing, laughing so hard he can barely see the road, and Theo is laughing with him, hanging on to the door handle for dear life as he puts his foot down and throws the Daimler into a bend and loses the rear wheels coming into the straight again. Wresting back control, he changes up a gear and shouts a whoop to the skies, and they make the next twenty miles before either of them really returns to normality.
He misses the turn to Beaulieu and has to reverse back, peering through a misted rear window, which is enough to bring him down to earth. A little breathless, he says, ‘Does it run in the family, do you suppose?’
Theo is still holding on to the door with white-knuckled fingers. ‘Julie asked that,’ she says. ‘We decided it probably did. Aunt Lydia, obviously.’
‘Obviously. And cousin Roderick who moved off to the back of beyond too suddenly to be normal. But I always wondered about your father, frankly.’
‘I’m not sure I want to think about that, thank you.’ Theo contrives to sound arch.
Laurence grins at her. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ She lets go of the door and leans back in the passenger seat. More soberly, ‘I’m sorry about Chris.’
What is there to say? He says nothing and then, because nothing is not enough, ‘Thank you.’
He drives for a while. The silence is not unfriendly. Presently, she says, ‘Did Uncle Jeremy say something pertinent?’
‘Many things, but not in this regard. He’ll know, though. He knows everything.’ So saying, Laurence parks the car at the gates to Beaulieu, the stateliest of the Firm’s stately homes. In the guard room, a man is waiting.
Laurence steps forward, the conversation still a-buzz in his head. ‘Sutherland! Christ, it’s good to see you!’
‘Thomas. I hoped it would be you.’
Patrick Sutherland is not the man he was. He looks harder, his features more drawn. He is wearing the dress uniform of the Black Watch with a crown newly sewn on his shoulder, and pale spaces where the pips used to be. ‘And your cousin. Mademoiselle, enchanté.’ He bows. She offers her hand. He kisses the back of it.
Sutherland may be brittle, and jagged at the edges, but he is alive. Laurence stands in the part-frozen snow and feels his heart rise like leavened bread until it jams his throat and he cannot speak.
‘Let me take you back to London,’ he says, at last. ‘You’ve been too long away.’
With darkness the frost has set in, hard and crisp, and Laurence drives back along roads of polished glass that send the Daimler whispering round corners with the rear wheels making graceful balletic movements across the tarmac. Theodora is in the front seat: Patrick Sutherland has insisted. Sutherland himself is fast asleep in the back, his face peaceful. Laurence and his cousin do not speak for fear of waking him.
In London, the roads are less obviously lethal, but there’s a raid on somewhere south of the river and the searchlights send an eerie, translucent glow across his path, overpowering the blade of his blacked-out headlights, so that it is impossible, really, to be sure where he’s going or what’s in front of him. By sheer fluke, Laurence finds himself driving north, up Charing Cross Road. Halfway up, Theo taps his arm.
‘I’ll get out here.’
‘You sure?’ His face is frozen, his lips rubbery and numb.
‘It’s faster to walk. And probably safer. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ She shoves open the door, unfolds herself. He forgets how tall she is. She leans in towards the silent figure in the back. ‘Goodnight, Major Sutherland. You are an inspiration to us all.’
Sutherland wakes, if he was ever truly asleep. He stretches out one long arm and shakes her offered hand. ‘Thank you, Warrant Officer Vaughan-Thomas. It’s a pleasure to know you.’
His gaze follows her as the Daimler eases away. The silence might suffocate them both. In the background is the low hiccough of an anti-aircraft gun. Still, Laurence can hear no planes. ‘Was it hell?’ he asks.
Sutherland says, ‘Not at first.’ There is a pause, and Laurence thinks that might be all there is to say, possibly all there ever has been, but then, ‘All that running up hills in Arisaig paid off. You’d have loved it.’ Then, as they turn west along Shaftesbury Avenue, reflectively: ‘It was hell. It is hell. Every single German on French soil is an offence against humanity and the French who collaborate with them … they are worse. I saw Castlemaine take his L-pill after his Sten jammed. If it’s any consolation, the death is swift, and not too grim.’
God.
Laurence drives another mile before he dares ask, ‘How di
d you get away?’
‘I was ordered to run. Pitt-Williams was with me at St Andrews. I beat him on the cross-country course three years in a row. He was a colonel. I was not. I ran.’
And again: God. So much pain. So much … Did he argue? Of course he argued. Any man would argue and Patrick Sutherland most of all. ‘Dying with them wouldn’t have helped,’ Laurence says. ‘As it is, we know Paul Mignon is dead and yet his radio is still running, which means we can feed things to the Boche: stories, falsehoods, ideas. Things like that can change the course of a war.’
‘I know. That’s what makes it worth it, the feeling that we might have done some good. You know – maybe you don’t know; flying Hurricanes has an obvious point – but in the ground war, you spend an eternity hanging around waiting for something to happen, and even when it does, you’re not sure if you’re actually being useful or if someone, somewhere is just sticking pins in a bloody map and likes blue, so the blue people move up a bit, and that’s you, and men die, and you take a hill, and then you lose it and it’s all a complete waste of time and life and pain and blood.’ He stops, abruptly. ‘Sorry. I think I may be a trifle jaded.’
‘You’re entitled to be.’
‘No. You can be jaded when you’re dead. And if you can keep us out of the way of the falling ordnance, we won’t be dead for a while yet.’
There’s a warning under the words. Laurence says, ‘You’re going back?’
In the dark, he feels Sutherland nod. ‘I have a contact who hasn’t turned and will never do. A physician in a small town in the Franche-Comté. He’s about to retire and he’s agreed to sell me his practice. My French is accented, but if I grab a textbook and touch up on my general practice, I’ll pass as a Belgian doctor. All the records are a mess. Nobody will be able to prove otherwise.’ There follows a pause of about half a mile, in which Laurence cannot find anything useful to say. Patrick Sutherland says, at last, ‘I can do this. Don’t try to talk me out of it.’
‘I wasn’t going to. I’d give my eye teeth to go with you. But you’ll be a village doctor for exactly as long as it takes the Boche to capture one of your men and make him talk. Then you’ll have to take to the hills.’