The Dearest and the Best

by Leslie Thomas

  Stark-faced, the farm labourer stumbled forward, mouth open, and caught Sid’s arm. Rob Noyes, in front, stopped and looked.

  ‘Sid, Rob,’ trembled Harold. ‘I just seen a fucking ghost!’

  It was daylight at four-thirty, a soaked dawn, grey to the horizon, birds muttering. Bess awoke stiff and cold and saw that the German pilot’s head had moved to lie against her breast in the night. He opened his eyes.

  ‘Sleep well?’ she asked.

  ‘I must tell you that I have not been sleeping for one hour,’ confessed the young man. ‘But I was liking that place so I stayed there. I will remember this night when I am in the prison camp.’

  Bess did not reply. She crawled to the opening of the parachute and out into the damp day. She shivered. ‘I remember it being like this when I went camping with the girl guides.’

  ‘What is that?’ he inquired following her out. He handed her the Schnapps bottle and she was surprised that it was almost empty. She took a drink and felt it warm her inside. He drank the rest and carefully put the bottle under the parachute. ‘What is this girl guides, please?’

  She was looking around for the horse. ‘Well, it’s like . . . well, weren’t you ever in the boy scouts? Camping and parades and all that?’

  He nodded. ‘Also I was in the Hitler Youth,’ he replied soberly. ‘It is the same.’

  Bess had reached the top of the rise so that she could look out down the hill. ‘Ah,’ she called without turning, ‘there he is. He’s coming this way. Good old Merlin. He’s still wearing his parachute.’

  The young airman was looking at his watch. ‘It is near to five o’clock,’ he said. He held up his wrist. ‘I have a Swiss watch, see.’

  Surprised at the boast, she said: ‘So have I. There.’ She showed him.

  ‘The Swiss make things for others who are enemies,’ he observed.

  She had come down and stood by him now.

  There was silence between them with only a few piping birds sounding. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not even sure what I’m sorry about, but I am.’

  ‘It is okay,’ he shrugged. ‘That is how everything is now. I think I must give you my gun.’

  ‘God! You’ve got a gun? Where is it?’

  ‘In the plane,’ he smiled. ‘I did not want you to shoot me. I will get it. Then we must go.’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ She turned as Merlin appeared at the top of the bank. ‘Ah, there you are,’ she said. ‘Poor old thing.’

  The horse trotted gratefully to her. The parachute was sagging to one side though still secured around the animal’s neck and under its belly. She could not release the knots. The German walked along the wing from the plane. He handed her a pistol. ‘For you,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t undo the knots,’ she said, taking it nervously. It was heavy.

  ‘Also, I have a knife,’ he said. ‘I have brought that too.’

  He cut the knots in the parachute cords and quietly handed her the knife. ‘Now you must take me to the soldiers,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose so,’ she replied without looking at him. ‘Let me saddle Merlin and you can climb up behind.’

  The young German half frowned. ‘It would be better if I was walking at the side,’ he said. ‘As a prisoner.’

  ‘You’re riding pillion,’ she said firmly. She turned away from him and began to saddle the horse. He walked back to the edge of the mire and studied the plane. She saw his shoulders drop for a moment before he turned to her.

  ‘Merlin’s ready,’ she said. ‘I’ll get up.’

  ‘Please.’ He made to help her but she gently pushed him aside. When she mounted he climbed easily behind her and slipped his arms about her waist. His chin was just touching her neck. ‘I hope this is right,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, it’s all right. Come on, let’s go now.’

  The horse carried them in the grey, damp dawn, over the irregular land, through gorse-covered dips and shoddy copses, and eventually on to a ridge from which they could look down to the distant road. ‘England,’ the German said moving his mouth to her ear. ‘I did not think I would see it so close. Not yet.’

  On the road she saw a line of figures, shabby and slow. ‘There they are,’ she said. ‘I thought they’d be out searching.’ She moved the horse forward. ‘Here goes.’

  The LDV men saw them as they descended and stood in a dumbstruck group, staring at the girl and her captive. ‘Jesus,’ muttered Harry, mouth sagging, seeing the grey uniform. ‘She’s got a Jerry.’

  Bess slowed the horse to a trot and then a walk, moving slowly towards the astounded men. Only Liberty Cooper was expressionless. Robert forced himself to move forward. ‘Miss Spofforth,’ he called, ‘are you all right?’

  ‘Fine, absolutely fine,’ Bess called back. ‘This is Paul Heinz Teller,’ she shouted proudly. ‘He’s a German.’

  At ten in the morning, with the night rain diminished to a drizzle, Robert and his son trudged tiredly towards home. Millie was standing at the gate of her cottage, a coat over her head. ‘There’s been a call for you, Harry,’ she called as they approached. ‘Your mother just rang. There’s a message from Portsmouth. You’ve got to report back right away. They’re sending a car for you at eleven.’

  Robert grunted in agreeable surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were so important.’

  Harry shrugged. ‘Neither did I. Sending a car.’ He halted wearily at the gate. ‘Thirty-six-hour pass,’ he grumbled. ‘All I get is twelve hours and I spend that hiking around the forest in the dark.’

  Millie opened the gate. ‘I’ve got your uniform jacket here,’ she reminded him. ‘There’s some coffee ready. I want to hear about the German. Is it true that Bess Spofforth caught him?’ She looked narrowly at Harry.

  ‘It’s true,’ he sighed. ‘She would, wouldn’t she.’ He smiled meagrely. ‘As Harold Clark pointed out, he wasn’t a very big German anyway.’

  They went into the kitchen and she poured the coffee. Robert moved Bellows the cat from the rocking chair and sat down heavily, grumbling. ‘We put in all the effort and she’ll get all the glory,’ he said. ‘That newspaper chap, what’s-his-name, Beavan, was talking to her as we left. It’s disgraceful when you think about it. Organizing the search, getting wet . . . all that, and she rides down with the blighter hanging on like fury behind her. Then, just to add insult to injury, he’s finally taken off by the police. The police! I mean, that dim-wit Brice. Put him in a car and whisked him off to Southampton.’

  Thoughtfully Harry sipped at his mug. ‘I can’t imagine what the flap is from Portsmouth,’ he said. ‘God, why send for me? All I’ve done for the past six weeks is organize the filling of sandbags.’

  His father sniffed. ‘Maybe they want some more filled in a hurry,’ he offered moodily. He rose. ‘Well, I’m going. We also serve who only stand and wait.’

  Millie said to Harry: ‘Do you want to get tidy here? I’ll give you some breakfast. There’s some fresh eggs today.’

  ‘Thanks, Millie,’ said Harry. ‘I don’t have to go back home then.’ He turned to his father who was just plodding from the door. ‘I’ll give mother a call,’ he promised. ‘I’ll ask her to get the navy to pick me up here. They might turn up before you get back.’

  Robert nodded heavily. ‘All right, son. Let us know what it’s all about – if you can. When you can, anyway.’ Oddly he turned and shook hands with Harry. The younger man stood up with surprise. ‘Thanks for turning out last night,’ said his father. ‘Sorry it ruined your bit of leave.’

  Abruptly he went out across the wet garden and turned down the road behind the border hedge. ‘Poor old devil,’ said Harry. ‘He’s flaked out.’

  ‘I’ve never seen his shoulders so bowed,’ agreed Millie. ‘It’s all a bit too much for him.’

  ‘If we’d nabbed the German instead of Bess, he would have been full of fun,’ said Harry. ‘The glory would have kept him going until the end of the war.’

  She went to the stove and put an e
gg in a saucepan. ‘I’ll go and have a wash and shave,’ said Harry. ‘Damn. My shaving stuff’s at home.’

  ‘James’s razor is in the bathroom,’ mentioned Millie over her shoulder. ‘He keeps a spare here.’ She paused. ‘It hasn’t been used for some time. And there’s a spare toothbrush. Pre-war. Brand new.’

  He could see by her stance at the stove, her back still to him, how unhappy she was. ‘Any chance of James coming home this week?’ he asked awkwardly.

  ‘He might,’ she answered levelly. ‘He says he might.’ She turned and he could see the sadness in her eyes. ‘But I don’t know. He’s just very busy, that’s all. You’d think he was running the war by himself . . .’ She looked flustered. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t go on like that.’

  ‘It must be rotten,’ he mumbled. ‘I think I’d better get shaved.’

  ‘There are plenty of husbands overseas,’ she continued. ‘It’s just that he’s only in London.’

  He turned and went up the enclosed stairs with the sharp bend at the top. Rain was smearing the window on the landing. She had arranged a line of books on the window sill. He glanced at them. They were from her childhood: Little Women, The Girls from St Teresa’s, Swallows and Amazons. ‘I’ll bring you another cup of coffee, shall I?’ Millie called from below.

  ‘Fine,’ he responded. ‘I may have to rush.’

  ‘I’ve given your tunic a brush,’ she added. ‘Would you like me to run an iron over it?’

  ‘Would you? Thanks, Millie. Perhaps they’re going to parade me before the King or Winston Churchill or somebody. Perhaps I’ve done something gallant or wonderful that I didn’t realize at the time. But I doubt it.’

  ‘Now who’s after glory?’ she laughed. He was relieved to hear her laugh. He stripped to the waist and gratefully washed in the hot water. He cleaned his teeth and then lathered his face. As he began to use the razor she knocked on the door, called ‘Coming in’ and entered.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ he said familiarly through the lather as she laid the coffee down. He wiped the soap from his lips and chin and leaning towards her kissed her on the cheek. Small blobs of shaving soap adhered to her skin. ‘Now you’ll need to shave,’ he said.

  She remained smiling at him and then, turning quickly, said: ‘I’ll get the iron ready. You’ll want to have a decent tunic for your Victoria Cross, won’t you.’

  ‘Some bloody hope of that,’ he called after her. He heard her going down the cottage stairs and turned to the mirror again, shaving over the lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat.

  Eighteen

  AS JUNE BECAME July London remained in a kind of tranquillity with only a scattering of small raids from wandering enemy bombers. The guns were prepared, squatting in the parks, their long noses sniffing at the sky; unlit searchlights stared upwards like blind men. Air-raid shelters were scrubbed and stocked, emergency water and power supplies had been planned, and all the snakes and other poisonous creatures at the Regent’s Park Zoo had been put to death. What incidents might follow the bombing needed deep consideration, whether they concerned escaped rattlesnakes or panicked civilians. Churchill had long feared that one night of saturation bombing by the Germans might result in the headlong flight of four million or more people from London. Its control, he said bluntly, might unduly absorb the efforts of the armed services.

  The deep bunker at the edge of St James’s Park was now brought fully into use as an operations centre for the conduct of the war, and it was there, far below the ground, that the War Cabinet met every day under the Prime Minister who had taken to wearing a chubby blue battledress, like a boiler suit. He smoked endless large cigars, slept for half an hour after lunch, sat late into the night with his drowsy subordinates, and showed the everyday people the Victory V-sign with his fingers when he came to the surface of the capital. They cheered and shouted: ‘Good old Winnie!’

  James Lovatt continued to work in his room at the War Office, travelling the country in his function as one of Churchill’s unofficial ears and eyes, arriving at defence positions, garrisons, beaches and other ready places and compiling a weekly report which he himself delivered to the Prime Minister.

  The rounded old man liked him and often took time to go through his reports and to question him on the things he had heard and seen. He encouraged James to talk about his own New Forest village and how the people were faring there, how their spirit was. ‘They are directly behind the front line,’ he announced. He even rose heavily from his chair to detect the hamlet on the widespread map of the United Kingdom on the wall of his office. ‘Binford, Binford,’ he squinted. ‘Ah, yes, there it is.’ He sat down smiling, as if pleased with his discovery, leaning back in his encompassing chair. ‘A proposed German landing would extend probably from Ramsgate in the east . . .’ He remained seated but picked up a wooden pointer and pushing it over his head touched Ramsgate. ‘. . . to the Isle of Wight in the west.’ James could not suppress a smile and the old man grunted and apologized. ‘Yes, well, I imagine you are well versed in the whereabouts of both Ramsgate and the Isle of Wight,’ he intoned. He regarded James as if considering whether to tell him every secret he knew. ‘Herr Hitler,’ he said, ‘has called his plan Operation Sea Lion. We must wait and see if the sea lion actually takes to the water.’ He gave a cynical sniff. Then he smiled, not a large smile for he rarely used one, but a minute grin more in the eyes than around the mouth, boyish and mischievous. ‘And how is your father’s private army?’

  ‘Eager as ever, sir,’ responded James.

  Churchill said: ‘I’m going to change the name to the Home Guard. It sounds better. Every soldier must be proud of the name of his regiment. They would fight all the better for it.’

  ‘They’d fight as best they could, Prime Minister, whatever they’re called,’ suggested James. ‘My wife told me last night that my father’s chaps had been out all night trying to capture a Luftwaffe pilot whose plane came down in the forest. But a girl on horseback found him and brought him in – much to their annoyance.’

  Churchill beamed recognition: ‘Of course she did! I read it in Beaverbrook’s paper. Pretty young woman too. What else? Tell me what else?’

  He leaned forward, genuinely eager to know, like a distant, elderly relative, anxious for any scraps of information about his family. It was clear to James that he enjoyed these few minutes fitted in between the serious and momentous moments of the day.

  James ventured: ‘Well, my father’s unit are anxious to get their hands on the American rifles they hear are about to arrive.’

  ‘I hope this week,’ grunted Churchill without hesitation. ‘They’ll have some task getting them out of the grease, I should think. And they’re outmoded, even ancient, I’m afraid. Stonewall Jackson would doubtless be familiar with the mechanism. But better than nothing. A good deal better.’ He puffed at the cigar. ‘And we want those fifty old warships,’ he mused. ‘Obsolete destroyers. I asked President Roosevelt if we would need to train sailmakers.’

  James laughed. Churchill seemed in no hurry to dismiss him. ‘What other intelligence have you gleaned?’ he inquired. He lifted James’s latest written report from the desk. ‘This is most valuable, you know, major. It gives me an ear to the ground. Whose notion was it in the first place? Was it Philip Benson or was it me?’ Not giving James time to say it was Benson, he continued, ‘It was one of my ideas, I expect. What about the military on our coast?’ Even in conversation he was theatrical. ‘Watching the seas. How is their morale?’

  ‘It’s pretty good,’ replied James, ‘in the circumstances.’

  ‘Waiting is a difficult part of war,’ mumbled Churchill. ‘Or anything else for that matter. I remember that.’

  ‘They feel it’s real enough,’ said James. ‘The danger. I suppose the difficult part, sir, is keeping on your toes when not much is happening.’

  Churchill frowned. ‘Let us hope to God it goes on not happening,’ he said. Suddenly he asked: ‘How do they feel about the King?’


  James had thought he had ceased to be surprised, but now he hesitated. Churchill helped him. The Prime Minister leaned forward confidingly. ‘Their Majesties, their noble Majesties,’ he said solemnly, ‘have indicated to me that under no circumstances will they leave London, let alone leave this country. There have been suggestions here and from the Empire that they, or at least Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret Rose, should be transported to safety in Canada. But the King will not hear of it.’

  ‘Regard for the Royal Family has never been higher,’ James said truthfully. ‘You only have to see the way people in cinemas applaud spontaneously when their Majesties are shown on the newsreels.’

  Churchill nodded. ‘Yes, I’ve heard that also. I must go to a picture house again when I have a moment. I’m very fond of the Marx Brothers, you know.’ He paused, again impishly. ‘I understand the people applaud my appearances on the screens, do they not?’

  Keeping a straight expression, James said: ‘Yes, sir, that is true.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Churchill. He apparently saw something below the desk and blew cigar smoke at it like a discharging gun. He mused mysteriously: ‘When you think what might have been.’ He looked James in the eye, as if it were essential to impress him. ‘We have a noble King,’ he said.

  James knew the interview was at an end. He had learned the nuances by now. As if by some signal a secretary opened the door with an anxious expression and a sheaf of papers. James rose and took his leave. ‘Goodbye, major,’ said Churchill. ‘Come and see me again soon.’ His big shoulders seemed to contract in the chair as the official advanced with the papers. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘for the dire business of the day.’

  It was just beyond noon when the naval staff car arrived at the Portsmouth headquarters. Harry went into the main busy concourse and was at once directed to an office on the ground floor. In an ante-room were a dozen young naval officers. Barraclough, who had been one of the contingent at Dunkirk, was among them. ‘I wonder what mess they want us to settle this time?’ he grinned at Harry. ‘There’s not many places left which we can evacuate.’