The Secrets of Latimer House

by Jules Wake

  As they moved through the room, Evelyn registered the chill in the air as their feet echoed on the concrete floor. Every step through the room with its unfamiliar equipment seemed to take for ever. If one of the men ripped off their blindfolds and saw the room, the game would be up. Evelyn watched the blue-grey fabric of the uniform of the man in front of her with unwavering attention, ready for any deviation of movement. She didn’t trust him. There’d been challenge in his eyes in the cell and she wasn’t foolish enough to believe she’d won.

  One of his hands twitched and she gritted her teeth as he lowered his arm and then just in time she realised it was a distraction technique as with the other hand he began to tug at his blindfold.

  ‘Nein!’ she shouted.

  Raising her rifle she stabbed sharply at his elbow, surprising herself with her own vehemence.

  He grunted and stopped but she was ready for him. She prodded him again. Freddie stopped and looked over his shoulder, worry lines creasing his forehead.

  ‘Gehen!’ she snapped.

  With a surly swagger he began to walk again. She closed her eyes, trying to rally herself, her pulse tripping with a burst of adrenaline. She gripped the rifle. There was too much to lose. Latimer House was vital in the war effort, and this room housed the biggest secret of all. It would not be revealed on her watch. In a voice she didn’t recognise she spat, ‘One more move and I will shoot you.’

  She watched as the wool-clad shoulders tensed, both pleased and horrified that her threat had registered.

  They filed through the last half of the M room without incident and through to the corridor on the other side, passing the now empty wine cellars under a vaulted ceiling. As they walked she shivered in the dank air, the sounds of their footsteps ricocheting off the brick walls of the approaching tunnel. The mouth yawned. Ahead there were torchlights bobbing. Other prisoners were already being told to sit down against the walls and to keep quiet.

  Suddenly a voice yelled in German, ‘Sie werden uns ershießen!’ (‘They’re going to shoot us!’)

  The pilot reacted instantly. Ripping down his blindfold and turning to face Evelyn, he pushed her out of the way and bolted towards the door leading to the M room.

  It happened so fast, the only thought in her head was that she had to stop him. There was too much at stake. With steely determination she hadn’t known she possessed, she raised the rifle and fired.

  The noise roared around the tunnel and Evelyn’s ears sang as her arms reverberated with the power of the gun blast.

  A shower of brick rained down as the man fell to the floor.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ breathed Freddie. ‘You shot him.’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ snapped Evelyn. ‘I fired over his head. He threw himself to the floor.’ She drew in a breath and strode over, still holding the gun in both hands. Standing over him, she said, ‘Move again and I will shoot you this time.’ Her grim voice belied the nausea in her stomach and her fervent gratitude for all those lessons from her brother.

  She’d deliberately shot above his head at the roof, hoping that it would stop him. If it hadn’t, she would have had to shoot him in the back, and that would have been unconscionable, to shoot a defenceless man. She couldn’t have lived with herself.

  Behind there was shouting, crisp orders: ‘Nobody move. Nobody will get hurt.’

  Lieutenant Colonel Weston appeared at her side, along with Ian Spencer.

  Spencer dragged the man to his feet. His blindfold was pushed down to his neck. He shot Evelyn a surprised look and muttered in German, ‘I didn’t think you’d shoot.’

  She gave him a grim smile. ‘For King and country, I shoot.’ And realised she meant it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Judith

  When the gunshot rang out from beyond the door, every head jerked upwards and they all turned to stare at the door through which the last lot of German prisoners of war had been taken scant minutes previously. Walther and Sergeant Flesch jumped to their feet and ran towards the door, Flesch drawing a pistol.

  Everyone in the room froze, with that awkward see-sawing balance as if unsure whether to leap to their feet any moment, like gazelles ready for flight. The tension everyone had been keeping under wraps since they’d heard about the bomb was now leaking out, almost palpable in the air. Judith held her breath, wondering why the two men were running towards the danger. Where did they find the courage?

  What had happened? Was someone dead? What about Evelyn? So steady and stern with that rifle, concentrating hard on the job in hand. Judith felt oddly proud of her, even though she didn’t really know her that well.

  They all waited in silence, Flesch’s gun trained on the door, wavering only slightly when it opened and Lieutenant Colonel Weston came through. He closed the door carefully behind him, putting his finger to his lips.

  ‘Stand down, Sergeant,’ he said in a low voice. ‘False alarm. Everything is fine.’ Despite his reassuring words, his mouth twisted with grim resolve. ‘Everyone all right?’

  They all nodded. He gave them a silent thumbs-up and disappeared back through the door again, leaving them as much in the dark as they had been all afternoon. There was a collective sigh, not quite of relief, as there was still the bomb above to think of, but at least there was one fewer thing to worry about.

  It had been an eerie, oppressive few hours since they’d heard from a Naval Intelligence Officer, via a microphone in one of the cells. She’d filled them in and given the order that they were to stay put until further instructions. It was clear that they were marooned until the bomb was defused or… The alternative was too worrying to consider. Then came the news that the prisoners of war were going to be taken to a tunnel beneath the house and had to come through the M room. One by one the microphones in the cells had gone silent and then pairs of prisoners in their blindfolds had filed through the room. As they shuffled through, Judith had studied them impassively, faceless and anonymous – the blindfolds rendered them featureless. It was impossible to relate any of them to the voices she’d become accustomed to. They were the opposite to ghosts, just empty bodies rather than spirits.

  It had been impressed upon them how vital it was to maintain absolute silence. The Germans were to believe that they were being led through empty cellars; not one clue should be revealed that there was more going on in these close confines. Every listener knew the importance of guarding the secrets of Latimer House.

  Judith had looked up at the ceiling countless times in the last few hours, wondering if it would hold under the blast. Would a bomb rip out the heart of the M room? Would it be as destructive as the Sturmabteilung had been in her father’s shop? Closing her eyes, she recalled the pages of sheet music strewn across the floor, fluttering in the wind through the smashed windows, and the bones of violins, crunched underfoot. Would a bomb toss everything in this room upwards in chaos before coming back down to rest in similar mangled disarray? Would it hurt as much to die this way? Her poor father had seen his life’s work destroyed and died in an agony of emotion. She caught sight of Frida’s pinched face on the other side of the table and another listener with his head in his hands. They all needed to be brave, to have faith. This time she wasn’t alone.

  The gunshot had startled her, startled them all, and now the unanswered questions as to what had gone on had rattled everyone in the room. They still had to keep quiet. What was happening above them? Not knowing strained the nerves, made everyone edgy. Frida tapped a pencil on the table, unaware of the tap, tap against the surface. Sergeant Flesch kept patting the pocket holding his gun. Walther had put his feet up on the table and had closed his eyes as if catching up on some sleep. Calm as ever, she thought, watching his sleeping face.

  ‘He’s got the right idea,’ murmured the Sergeant next to her, leaning back in his chair, folding his arms and following suit. A couple of others copied and for a moment Judith was tempted to lay her head down on the table and try. It was already two hours after their shift should have fi
nished but the thought of sleeping in a room of other people made her feel vulnerable. The not knowing what was going on chafed at her nerves. She flexed her fingers and thought of the piano she’d found. Closing her eyes, she imagined the keys in front of her and Für Elise in her head again. Imagined herself playing again. For the first time in a long time, she was able to lose herself in the music and the pinching fingers of tension gripping her shoulders eased their grip. She let the melody in, swirling around her head, enjoying the notes’ rise and soar. Time passed. The music caught her up and tossed her like the waves in the sea, through Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart and Liszt. When she finally opened her eyes, blinking with that back-to-earth, dropped-out-of-the-sky feeling in the bright lights of the M room, she made herself a silent promise: she would let music back into her life. She’d cut it out because it reminded her of her father, her life in Berlin and all that she’d lost, but what she’d really done was cut out the very heart of who she was.

  ‘Judith, Judith.’ A hand shook her on the shoulder and she jerked awake, conscious of the dribble running down her chin.

  Walther smiled gently down at her. ‘Time to go.’

  ‘Is it all over?’ she whispered in response to his soft voice, watching as the other listeners were filing out in silence.

  ‘Yes. We can leave and then they’ll take the prisoners of war back to their cells.’

  ‘Did they make the bomb safe?’ She stood up and stretched, glancing at the clock on the wall. She’d been asleep for half an hour but it had been a very long day.

  He laughed. ‘Unless you slept through an explosion. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a cup of tea. Do you think they’ll let us have extra biscuit rations?’

  ‘I hope so,’ she replied with feeling, conscious of her grumbling stomach. They’d been down here for eleven hours and she hadn’t eaten since lunchtime. It was now seven o’clock but she was anxious to find out what had been going on with everyone else.

  After plenty of toast, extra biscuits and unexpected sausage rations, Judith slid out from her place at the table, awkwardly clambering over the wooden bench seat and putting down her teacup, anxious to reach the quiet calm of her quarters. There wasn’t a seat to spare in the Sergeants’ Mess and the noise banged against her already aching head. Everyone seemed to be talking non-stop about the events of the day, snatches of this and that, enough to fill a kaleidoscope and certainly as dizzying. Judith had had quite enough of the drama. As she inched her way out of the room, she caught sight of Betty’s wan face, her hand propped up under her chin as if she could barely manage the weight of her own head. The poor thing looked washed out.

  Before Judith had even reached the bottom step of the staircase, Betty appeared at her side.

  ‘What a day,’ she said, rubbing at her temples.

  ‘Yes,’ said Judith. ‘Were you in the church all afternoon?’

  Betty’s eyes lit up and she looked around with a sudden mischievous grin. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when we get upstairs.’

  ‘Wait up.’ They turned to find Evelyn behind them. When the three of them reached the door to their room, she flapped open her coat to reveal a bottle of brandy. ‘Think we need a bit of a reviver. I’ve been keeping it in my car for an emergency, I think today qualifies, don’t you?’ Despite her upbeat tone, Judith could see the strain around her eyes and the droop of her mouth. Clearly she’d had a difficult day.

  ‘Lawks, yes,’ said Betty, crossing to Evelyn’s dressing table where she kept the three Baccarat glasses.

  ‘It’s been interesting,’ said Judith, sinking onto her bed and unlacing her shoes, her bones sagging with relief. Every sinew seemed to have been stretched taut all day. ‘And you can tell me what happened when that gun was fired. Everyone in the M room jumped out of their skins.’

  ‘What gun? How come I missed all the excitement?’ asked Betty, handing a glass to Evelyn.

  ‘Drinks first and I’ll tell all,’ said Evelyn, opening up the brandy.

  By the time three tots of brandy were poured, Evelyn sat on the end of Judith’s bed and Betty sprawled across hers on her stomach, propped up on her elbows facing them both.

  ‘It was pretty hairy,’ said Evelyn, taking a hefty swig of her drink after she told the full story.

  ‘And I thought I had a nerve-racking afternoon,’ said Betty, lifting her glass to toast them. ‘I’d have probably dropped the blinking gun and shot him in the foot or something.’

  ‘It was one of those split-second decisions. I really didn’t want to shoot him. All I could think was of my father and my brother and how cowardly it would be to shoot someone in the back.’ Evelyn shuddered. ‘Those poor men, I think some of them honestly thought they were about to be executed. They must have been terrified.’

  Judith pursed her lips. The German prisoners deserved everything they got. What they’d been through wasn’t nearly as bad as the suffering so many others had experienced at the hands of the Nazis. Luckily Betty had begun to talk so it stopped her voicing her thoughts but there was a tiny voice in the back of her mind wondering if she could have pulled the trigger. What had Walther said? ‘God will be our judge. He will be their judge too.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  June 1943

  Betty

  ‘Betty, Betty, Betty!’ her little sister trilled happily, running up the lane to greet her, throwing her stick-thin arms around Betty’s waist.

  ‘Jane, Jane, Jane,’ she sang back to her sister’s delight.

  ‘There was a bomb. Did you know? We saw the men take it away in a lorry. They stopped by the green so we could all see. It was huge.’

  Betty had seen the bomb. She’d seen the men digging so carefully around it while she and Major Wendermeyer cleared the last few boxes from the offices. Every punch down of their shovels in the ground around it had brought with it a heart-clenching wave of fear. The thought of what could have gone wrong that day had brought back familiar nightmares last night.

  ‘Are you staying for tea? We have a cake. Bert’s coming. And Dennis, Minnie and Baby Face all laid eggs this week.’

  Typical. It annoyed her that Ma made cake for Bert using all her butter ration for him. She could bet he wasn’t suffering from starvation up at the farm. The Davenports weren’t short of a bob or two whereas without Betty’s wages, Ma would struggle to pay the rent. Her war widow’s pension didn’t go very far.

  Betty pasted on her best smile as Jane chattered on about the chickens, observing that her sister was almost bursting out of her dress. Her bosom seemed to have sprouted overnight and all of a sudden she looked like a young woman.

  ‘Come see the chickens. Come see.’

  They rounded the cottage and Jane led her over the small enclosure where five chickens scratched and pecked at the bare earth. Her sister immediately scooped up the smallest hen and stroked it. ‘This is Baby Face, she’s my favourite but Ma won’t let her in the house.’

  ‘I don’t think chickens like being in houses,’ said Betty gently, imagining her ma’s reaction. She kept the cottage spotless. They might not have much money but her ma was a proud woman and no one would ever accuse her of being slatternly. In her youth, before Dad had died, she’d been a gay, carefree woman, someone Betty had had a lot more in common with. Worry had made her anxious and snappy.

  Betty was about to turn away when she noticed the door to the coop had been fixed, with what looked like exactly the same piece of wood that she’d used to patch the hole. She bent to study the work which wasn’t as neat as hers had been, not by a long chalk. The tiny pin tacks were shiny and she frowned.

  ‘Who fixed the door?’

  ‘Bert. He…’

  Without listening to what Jane said, she raced over to the shed and stepped over the boxes and old hessian sacks to the corner where she’d hidden the toolbox. It was still there but not as well covered as when she’d left it. When she opened it, she knew that Bert had been in there. Pin tacks were scattered all over the insid
e layer and when she lifted it out, she saw that Dad’s hammer was missing. Feeling her anger start to boil, she carefully put the metal tray back and closed the lid. She carried the toolbox to the door and left it just inside. Bert would not be helping himself to anymore of her dad’s tools if she had anything to do with it. Her dad had been the centre of this family. His word was law but it was law that was dispensed in a fair and just way. He wasn’t one for losing his rag, he weighed things up, but if you were in the wrong he made sure you knew about it. Betty had inherited his strong sense of right and wrong.

  Marching inside, she found her ma making a pot of tea and Bert sprawled in one of the kitchen chairs.

  ‘Have you taken Dad’s hammer?’ she demanded, too angry to curb her tongue.

  The lazy smile left Bert’s face and he lunged to his feet and slapped her. Her ma gasped and Jane whimpered.

  ‘Don’t you go talking to me like that,’ he snarled.

  ‘Betty! Show some respect,’ said her ma, in horrified tones.

  Betty stood, fists curled at her sides. ‘You have no right.’

  ‘I have no right. What are you talking about? They’re men’s tools. There’s a war on. I needed a good hammer. And I’ll mind you watch your mouth.’

  Her ma glared at her. ‘Betty Connors, you sit down. Bert, pay no heed to her. I don’t know what’s got into her.’

  ‘I know what she needs,’ Bert growled. ‘A good thrashing. Beat some sense back into you. Since you joined up you’ve got ideas above your station. That’ll stop when we’re married, I can tell you.’ There was a vicious look in his dark eyes and she managed to hide the shiver of fear that gripped her, but she couldn’t bring herself to apologise.