The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  I nudged open one of the doors, peered around the deserted hallway, then dashed up the servants’ stairs to the third floor, where I found the golden angel inside a carefully labelled crate, exactly where Barnes had described it to be. Quietly closing the bedroom door behind me, I tip-toed off, managing to make it all the way back down to the ground floor without attracting any attention. I was just congratulating myself on this when I rounded the final corner, too fast, and almost ran into a hunched figure.

  ‘Oh!’ I gasped. ‘I’m so sorry!’ The man was on crutches, one empty trouser leg pinned up high above where his knee should have been. Thank Heavens I hadn’t actually collided with him. ‘Are you all right?’ I added stupidly.

  He gave a hoarse laugh and shuffled sideways, closer to the window. ‘All right?’ he repeated. I looked at him and swallowed hard. Half his face had melted away. There was a dent in place of an eye, a flattened cheekbone, a mouth wrenched down at one corner. His remaining eye, a shrewd blue, was taking in my reaction. ‘Now, what do you think?’ he said. ‘You think I look all right?’

  ‘I meant, I hoped I didn’t startle you,’ I said, fighting a blush.

  ‘Oh, no. Not at all. But I think I startled you,’ he said. He seemed to be taking a sadistic delight in my embarrassment, but why shouldn’t he? In his position, I’d be tempted to go on the attack, too – better than constantly having to defend oneself against revulsion and pity.

  ‘You didn’t startle me,’ I lied. ‘But I have to be going –’

  ‘Just a moment,’ he said. ‘What’s that?’ I whipped the angel behind my back, but he leaned closer and chuckled. ‘Well, well. You from the village?’

  ‘No!’ I said indignantly (although admittedly, I was wearing Henry’s old duffel coat, which looked as though it’d been worn to muck out the stables).

  ‘Right,’ he said disbelievingly. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what. I won’t mention you nicking stuff from upstairs, if you do me a favour.’

  ‘What?’ I said warily, glancing over his shoulder. I really didn’t want to have to explain the whole thing to some over-worked nurse, but on the other hand, I distrusted the gleam in his eye.

  ‘Get the door for me,’ he said, already moving towards it. ‘Then prop it open with something.’

  ‘It’s freezing out there,’ I said, following his directions unwillingly. ‘And it’ll be dark soon.’

  ‘Yes, but they won’t let me smoke in the ward,’ he said, swinging himself over to a bench. He lowered himself onto it, arranged his crutches next to him and tugged a crumpled cigarette packet from his top pocket. ‘I went out into the corridor, except that Sister came along and tore strips off me, said I was blocking the way. She’s really got it in for me, she has.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why,’ I muttered, ‘when you’re so charming.’

  He looked up from his fumblings and grinned. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Not really –’ I began, and then I realised his hands were burnt, too. The stubs of fingers were fused into claws, thinly covered with something too taut, red and shiny to be called skin. ‘Do you . . . need help with that?’

  He finally got one of the cigarettes into his mouth, and nudged his lighter closer to me with an elbow. ‘You could light it. Take one yourself, if you want.’

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ I said, holding up a trembling flame. He inhaled, then started to cough. ‘And neither should you, by the sound of it.’

  ‘What, you reckon it’ll damage my health?’ he said. He gazed at me thoughtfully and blew a stream of smoke to one side. ‘You aren’t from here, are you? Where are you from, then?’

  ‘London,’ I said, rather than getting into some complicated explanation. ‘Right. Well, I’d better be off now. Good afternoon.’

  He waited till I was halfway down the ramp before calling out.

  ‘Hey! You forgot your angel!’

  I stopped, turned and stomped back. ‘Thank you,’ I said, through gritted teeth. He’d done it on purpose, I knew.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, with his lopsided smile. ‘Oh. And merry Christmas!’

  It felt as though he were dragging himself beside me on his crutches, all the way back to the gatehouse; peering over my shoulder as I helped Barnes prepare dinner; looming behind me as we ate. I couldn’t get him out of my head. I’d recognised the remnants of the uniform he wore, of course. Air force blue. He was – had been – a pilot, I was sure of it. Who else could have suffered those sorts of injuries?

  ‘Sophie!’ said Henry impatiently. ‘I said, Toby wants the salt.’

  ‘Oh! Sorry,’ I said, passing it along. Simon was eyeing me curiously, so I quickly turned to listen to Aunt Charlotte – then wished I hadn’t, because she was going on about Daniel again.

  ‘I suppose his sort don’t celebrate Christmas at all,’ she was saying.

  ‘What sort?’ said Veronica. ‘Socialists? Or atheists?’

  ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. Not that one has anything against those of the Jewish persuasion, of course, but I do hope you realise, Veronica, that if you were to marry him, it would have to take place in some dreary little registry office. Just like poor Lady Londonderry’s daughter, when she married the Jessel boy. No lovely white dress, no orange blossom, no bishop’s blessing – that’s what a mixed marriage means.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Veronica, ‘because that’s my life’s ambition, to walk out of a church looking like a giant meringue and have people throw bits of coloured paper at me.’

  The conversation then went rapidly downhill.

  ‘Aunt C’s going about it completely the wrong way,’ said Toby, hours later, when everyone else was getting ready for bed and we were the only ones left by the sitting room fire. ‘The more violently she opposes them getting married, the more likely it is that they’ll run off to Gretna Green. She ought to say she’s delighted about the whole thing and pretend to give her whole-hearted approval.’

  ‘Veronica doesn’t need Aunt Charlotte’s permission,’ I said. ‘She’s twenty-one now. Besides, she doesn’t even want to get married. She’d have to resign from her job, for a start. And Daniel hasn’t even asked her.’

  ‘You think they’ll end up Living in Sin, then?’ said Toby, crouching down to push another chunk of wood into the fire. ‘That’d make Lady Bosworth’s year, I expect. Well, good luck to the two of them, I say. Grab any chance of happiness you can.’

  His face, etched in firelight, looked old and weary. Then the wood slipped. Sparks shot out, and the fire blazed up with a short, savage burst of energy. I pictured that pilot I’d met, engulfed in flames now, his arms flailing helplessly at himself, his skeleton mouth stretched in a silent scream. I shuddered, and Toby happened to glance up at that moment. He couldn’t have read my mind, but his thoughts must have been following a similar path.

  ‘You know, I can’t stop thinking about poor Ant,’ he said. ‘Such an awful way to go.’ He gazed into the flickering red and gold light for a moment, then said abruptly, ‘I’m not afraid of dying, you know. I mean, we’re all aware, each time we take off, that we might not make it back. Most of the boys just hope it’ll be quick. A bullet through the head, that’s what most of them want, or a good hard mid-air collision, so they take a couple of Nazis down with them. But I don’t care how long it takes. I wouldn’t even mind coming down in the sea, floating about for a while before I went under. The only thing that terrifies me is fire. That’s what gives me nightmares.’

  I didn’t want to hear any of this, but I was willing to listen to Toby all night if it helped ease his mind a little. I didn’t even dare say anything, for fear of discouraging him. I simply nodded.

  ‘There was a friend of mine,’ Toby went on, ‘who went down with his plane, back in August. The thing is – he could have bailed out. He had enough time. He was over a village in Kent, though, when his plane got hit. I think he wanted to avoid crashing into the buildings. Didn’t want anyone on the ground getting hurt. He just kept on flying, nu
rsing his plane along until he could find an empty field, but by then, it was too late. The engine was on fire. Smoke everywhere. Then the petrol tank exploded. When they got to the wreckage a few minutes later, there was nothing left but some bits of blackened metal.’ Toby’s voice was horrifyingly even. ‘He was a real hero. I could never be that brave.’

  I opened my mouth to say that what he’d already done was enough to make him a hero a hundred times over, but I couldn’t get my voice to work.

  ‘Anyway, that’s what I think happened to Ant,’ Toby said. ‘That’s the only explanation I can come up with. Otherwise, it doesn’t really make sense . . . But Ant would do that sort of thing, wouldn’t he? He’d sacrifice himself, if he thought it’d save lives on the ground.’

  I cleared my throat.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, that . . . sounds like Anthony.’

  Toby nodded slowly. ‘Right.’ But he seemed to be talking mostly to himself. ‘The letter they sent Julia said he was a hero. That’s what his Squadron Leader said. Yes, that must have been what happened.’

  The flames were dying down again, shrinking back into the glowing embers. Toby blinked, then smiled – a shadow of his usual beam. ‘Oh, but look at me,’ he said, ‘rambling on like this! Too tedious for words. Soph, you really are wonderful to listen to all that. An absolute angel, in fact.’

  We both glanced up at the Christmas tree, far too tall for the room. The green tip curled over at the ceiling, and the angel dangled from it precariously, clutching her filigree trumpet with pop-eyed alarm.

  ‘Only you aren’t annoyingly pious-looking,’ Toby added. ‘And your hair is less glittery.’

  I smiled back at Toby. I don’t think he recognised the effort it took me – at least, I hope he didn’t.

  ‘Well, I’m off to bed,’ he sighed. He unfolded himself from the floor and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘You going up now?’

  ‘In a minute,’ I said. ‘Good night. Sleep well.’

  ‘And you,’ he said, bending over to kiss the top of my head on his way past.

  But I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink. Not until I got all this written down.

  25th December, 1940

  I SUPPOSE I OUGHT TO feel flattered that people keep unburdening themselves to me, but I wish their secrets weren’t so weighty and oppressive. Today it was Simon’s turn, while we were out collecting firewood after church.

  ‘How’s Lady Whittingham?’ he asked with studied casualness, as I dumped another armful of sticks in the wheelbarrow.

  ‘Julia?’ I said. ‘She’s . . . all right. She’s spending Christmas at Astley.’ I glanced over at him, wondering how much he knew. I was fairly sure Toby hadn’t told – not about his marriage proposal, not about Julia’s pregnancy, definitely not about her visit to that very expensive nursing home that Daphne had found. I’d spoken to Julia on the telephone the day before we’d left London, and she’d sounded subdued, but relieved.

  ‘Mostly, I’m just glad not to feel sick all the time,’ she’d said. ‘I’m so tired, though. I went in to the ambulance station this morning, and my boss took one look at me and told me to go home, said the last thing she needed was me fainting in the middle of a call-out. They’re short-staffed, too, so you can imagine how ghastly I must look. Anyway, I’m taking the train down to Astley this afternoon and I’m planning to sleep for a week.’

  ‘It’s good that she’s with her family,’ Simon said. ‘That she has their support, I mean. At a time like this.’

  ‘I didn’t realise,’ I said, narrowing my eyes at him, ‘that you were so concerned about Julia’s welfare.’

  ‘I just think what happened was very sad, that’s all,’ he said, rather defensively. ‘Anthony Whittingham was a fine pilot. It was a . . . a terrible thing.’

  Simon then busied himself dragging a log – far too large for our purposes – out from under a bush.

  ‘Oh, come on, Simon,’ I said, not bothering to hide my exasperation. ‘What is it?’

  I really didn’t believe Julia’s personal circumstances were any of his business, and he’d been very judgemental about her in the past. But with Simon, it’s often best to throw one’s cards on the table, face up, right at the start. It startles him into abandoning his game before it gets too complicated. Not that I understand which game he’s playing, half the time, or what all the rules are. Anyway, my strategy worked. He abandoned the log.

  ‘Give me your word that you won’t tell anyone about this,’ he said, straightening up and peering round to ensure we were alone. ‘Not even Veronica. Not yet, anyway. I shouldn’t even be telling you, except I need your advice – and your help. It’s about Anthony.’

  ‘What is it?’ I said again, starting to feel very worried. Simon’s expression was frightening me. He took my arm and led me to a nearby rock, and we both sat down.

  ‘I was on duty the day Anthony’s plane came down,’ he said. ‘I knew about it before Lady . . . before Julia heard anything. It didn’t surprise me that the official letter said that he was a hero, he hadn’t suffered, all of that. They always say that sort of thing. But they specifically said he’d been knocked unconscious long before the plane crashed, that his body was burnt up with the plane, and that they found his remains in the wreckage. That’s not true.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘One of the WAAFs I work with heard Anthony over the radio that day. He knew his plane was hit, he said he was bailing out. He was high enough to parachute out safely. He had the cockpit hood open. It all sounded routine. She was so relieved, she mentioned it to the girl beside her as she was going off duty – well, that’s natural. Those radio operators have to listen to so many things going badly, it must have been nice for her to know that at least one pilot had made it that morning. But two days later, one of the officers called her into his room and insisted she’d heard it all wrong. He’s a bit of a bully and he tore into her. She was very upset. I saw her crying afterwards . . . Anyway, she told me some of it.’

  ‘But are you sure it was Anthony she heard?’ I asked. ‘Perhaps she did make a mistake.’

  Simon shook his head. ‘I checked. As far as I could – and I didn’t get very far before I hit a brick wall. It was his squadron, his section, his number. He got out of that plane, I’m certain. The plane might have been on fire when it hit the ground, but he wasn’t in it. They’re covering up something, you see.’

  ‘Well, no,’ I said slowly. ‘I don’t see.’ (I was actually thinking that the strain of his job, the long hours, the lack of sleep, had turned Simon a bit paranoid.) ‘Why would the air force cover anything up? If there’d been some sort of . . . mistake or accident or something, surely they’d want to investigate it at once, to stop it happening again? They wouldn’t try to pretend it hadn’t happened.’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘Remember the Battle of Barking Creek?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘No, of course you don’t, because they covered that one up, too. Three days after war was declared, someone spotted what looked like an enemy plane crossing the Channel. So Fighter Command sent up a squadron to investigate. But there was something wrong with the system, and that squadron was identified as hostile aircraft as well. So some more fighters got ordered up and they opened fire – against regulations – and two RAF pilots were shot down. One of them died. You think they told his family the truth? There weren’t any enemy planes at all in the sky that day. No one knows exactly what happened, even now, but I do know that one officer lied about giving the order to fire, and now he’s got a nice shiny medal and he’s one of those dashing Fighter Boys constantly being photographed and quoted in the newspapers. And it wasn’t just that the public weren’t told the truth about that incident – even within the air force, it wasn’t admitted that anything had gone wrong until seven months later. Seven months! And that’s not the only time they’ve hushed up things, either.’

  I sat there, struggling to comprehend all that. I was used to thing
s going wrong in my department at the Ministry of Food – I’d even witnessed a couple of Mr Bowker’s futile attempts to conceal his own incompetence – but I’d truly believed that the armed forces were different. They had to be. They were the ones fighting this war.

  ‘All right,’ I said, at last. ‘I can accept that the air force might make up something to . . . to placate Anthony’s family, if things had gone wrong. But there wasn’t anything comforting about that letter, Simon! It said his body got burnt up. That’s a horrible thing for his family to have to read. They couldn’t even have a proper funeral. Why would the letter say that, if it weren’t true?’

  Simon looked troubled. ‘I don’t think the air force wanted anyone to see his body. I think he bailed out, and they recovered his body, and they got rid of it. Or they burnt it and claimed they found it in the plane wreckage.’

  ‘But why? What do you think happened?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘But I think it must have been something to do with the parachute. I know sometimes they don’t open –’ He caught my wince. ‘Sorry, it’s gruesome, but it does happen, everyone acknowledges that. This has to be much, much worse. Perhaps . . . a design fault in some new type of parachute, and they’re protecting the manufacturer? Or perhaps the contract cost them a lot of money and was signed by an officer with connections in high places, someone worth shielding at any cost –’