by Murray Pura
“She’s quite happy here in London with Cecilia and Angelika. If you and Catherine and Albrecht would take her in, I know her tears would dry quickly after my departure.”
“But what if you are killed?”
“I won’t be killed, Mother. There’s no reason I should be killed.”
“Yes, you say that, but—”
“I’m a colonel now, Mother. I won’t be in the front lines. It’s a very different situation from Ireland or even Palestine. Every place is on the front line in Palestine. That is not the case in Europe. Our front line will be along the border between France and Belgium. There will be no car bombs. No assassins in the night. Just our army and the French army against the German army.”
“You make it sound like the safest place in the world, my dear. That same region is full of men’s bones from the last fight with Germany.”
“I brood every day at that desk about Shannon. How I failed her. How I didn’t protect her. How my love was not enough to save her. If I don’t get out of that office and do something, I shall be a wreck.”
Lord Preston put his hand gently on his wife’s shoulder. “Of course Patricia is welcome at Kensington Gate, my boy, and I know she will be welcome so far as Catherine and Albrecht and Angelika are concerned. If you must go, I pray you go in peace.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“I cannot fight the tides of war and fate, can I?” Lady Preston gave her son a lopsided smile. “Come, give me a kiss, and be off on your quest for the grail.”
Robbie got up and leaned to kiss his mother on the cheek. “I’ll be right as rain.”
“It’s nice to hear you say so. I hope you are granted the power to bring that promise to pass.”
Robbie was gone by the end of September. There were rumblings from the twins, Peter and James, and more rumblings from Owen. These increased after HMS Courageous was sunk by a U-boat on September 17, HMS Royal Oak was sunk by another U-boat on October 14, and in the middle of it all a bomb from a German aircraft struck the Hood. Terry was not hurt.
Jeremy and Emma managed to convince their sons to remain at Oxford for the time being, pointing out they were not navy material anyway, while Edward wrote Owen from the Rodney and asked him to stick to his word and not enlist until he had turned eighteen and finished his schooling. To Lady Preston’s relief, nothing else happened to the Hood or Rodney, and nothing happened in Belgium or France either.
November 26
Dear Mum and Dad,
Your prayers seem to have routed the enemy, at least for the time being. Nothing is happening at all on our front, thanks to you, so now you will have to pray about something else—tommyrot. I swear it is just like what the boys wrote about from the trenches twenty years ago—mud and wet and cold and boredom. However the truth is that spirits are high and morale is good. Give Pat a kiss and hug from me. I have sent her a letter of her own that should arrive the same time as yours or shortly thereafter. All the best.
Much love,
Robbie
Libby and Charlotte got together every week to share whatever letters they might have received from Terry or Edward and to chat, sip tea, and pray. Victoria and Caroline counted themselves blessed that no air war was taking place like what had occurred in Spain, but both were shocked in December when their husbands returned from their base in Suffolk to announce their departure for France in the new year.
“You knew we’d sent aircraft across the Channel,” Ben said as Victoria wiped at her eyes with her fingers.
“Bombers. I never read they were sending fighter planes.”
“Look, nothing’s happening. I’ll bet nothing happens in nineteen forty either. The Germans see the buildup of troops and planes, and they’ve decided to call the whole thing off.”
“They’ve been doing a lot at sea.”
“But nothing on land or in the air. Please don’t worry.”
Victoria flared. “Of course I’m going to worry! We went through all this in nineteen eighteen! You should be flying a desk, not a fighter! What’s the matter with you?”
“Kipp and I are fit, and we’re still flying like wizards.”
“Wizards! Yes, we’ll jolly well need a bit of magic if we’re to see you home in one piece from this show!”
“Vic, we’ll have a treaty with the Third Reich by next summer. All they’ve really got going for them are the U-boats, and once we pop a few of those they’ll pull their troops out of Poland and march back to where they came from.”
“You make it sound so easy. Wars with Germany are never that easy.”
“What’s happened since war was declared in September?”
“The Royal Oak went down with eight hundred men. Talk to their Mums and Dads and ask them if anything’s happened since September.”
Ben tried to take her in his arms, but she pushed him away. He tried again, and she thrust him back. The third time he folded her in his arms, she cried into his chest.
“You barely survived the first one. I feel we’re tempting fate cramming you in a cockpit again. It’s madness.”
“Orders are orders.”
“I don’t believe it. No one’s going to order an old man like you into a Hurricane and drop you off in France. You probably volunteered.”
Despite Victoria’s tears and anger, her words made Ben laugh. “Old man? You make it sound like I’m ready for a rocking chair.”
“I wish you would stay home and sit in a rocking chair. I’d buy you a pipe and slippers and a warm woolen sweater and I’d give you the best hugs and kisses in England every night after work.”
“That’s an exceptional offer. But I’ll have no work to come home from if you’ll not let me be a fighter pilot, Vic. You know they took the lot of us test pilots to Boscombe Down in September and gave Martlesham Heath over to Number Eleven Group RAF, Fighter Command, right?”
Victoria was clutching his blue RAF tunic in her fingers, head on his chest, sniffling. “Right.”
“But this past week Kipp and I were ordered to report for duty back at Martlesham. We’re with Fighter Command now. Same place, different job. If neither of us can be fighter pilots now, we’re both out on the street selling pencils in Piccadilly Circus.”
“Oh, shut up. You two always get your way when it comes to flying.” She struck his chest with her fist. “Go to France then. If it’s as dull as you claim it is, I hope you get bored to death.”
“That’s a hard thing to say to a man just about ready for a rocker and a cup of tea and a casket.”
“I’ll give you a casket if you try to come home in one. Don’t even dream of it. You’ve never seen anger if you try to get out of the rest of our marriage by dying in France.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I mean it. I’ll break open the coffin and take you by the throat and turn you into another Lazarus. And then I’ll really take your head off and hand it to you on a platter.”
“Now I’m confused. Are we talking about Lazarus or John the Baptist?”
She hit him again. “It’s not funny, Benjamin Whitecross. Stay alive if you know what’s good for you.”
“I will do.” He began to kiss the top of her head. “Your hair smells wizard today.”
“You and your wizards. It’s fish and chips. Ramsay and Tim wanted some.”
“Did you not save any for me then?”
“Do you deserve any?”
“I should think so.”
“Why?”
“For surviving twenty odd years of marriage to Victoria Anne Danforth.”
She suddenly began to giggle. “Oh, do shut up, Ben.”
“Really, when you think of the odds I’m facing with you, why, a Hurricane or Spitfire is a safer place for me than this house.”
She laughed harder. “I said shut up.” But she did not strike him a third time.
Kipp and Ben left with their Hurricane squadron in January. Their wives, Caroline and Victoria, began to meet with the navy wives, Libby and Charlott
e, and soon all four were gathering at St. Andrew’s Cross once a week to talk and pray with Emma and Jeremy. To the relief of all, things remained quiet for the pilots and for the troops on the ground, including Robbie. A bomb crashed through the deck of the Rodney in April but did not explode, for which they thanked God, and other than that nothing unusual happened to their men in the Royal Navy either.
“I hope the entire war goes on like this,” Victoria said, “and then comes to an end this summer.”
In his daily broadcasts, Lord Tanner crowed about the sinking of British ships by U-boats, causing resentment toward him in the Danforth family and making his son, Charles, shrink farther and farther from everyone into the nooks and corners of his house and his room.
“The scoundrel ought to be hung up by his ankles and left to rot,” sneered Catherine and Albrecht’s son, Sean.
Owen avoided any family event at which Eva was likely to be present, citing school pressures and exams. Several times Lord Preston invited him to come down to Dover for a sail on Pluck, but as soon as he learned Eva would be part of the crew he begged off. Once she came by the house and left a letter with his mother. He held on to it for two days, wrestling over whether to open it, and finally placed it in the peat fire when no one else was home.
“Once I imagined having my eighteenth birthday party and inviting her to be present as the guest of honor,” he wrote in a journal he kept his poetry in. “But when the great day came I just had the lads over—Ramsay, Sean, and Matt. I found that I didn’t miss her and that my heart is now quite closed to all thoughts of her.”
Lady Preston was grateful for the silent fall and winter and spring, no longer reluctant to join her husband for morning or evening prayers and happy to attend services at St. Andrew’s Cross and listen to her son-in-law’s sermons. Seeing the family friend Winston Churchill appointed First Lord of the Admiralty also cheered her up considerably.
“He is out of the dungeon and back beside the throne,” she said. “Such a blessed reversal of fortunes. Well, it does not look like his warrior spirit will be much in demand, but I am glad he is back in the government just the same.”
“It may not always be like this,” her husband warned her. “There were quiet spells in the first war too, but they always came to a rough end.”
“Don’t be so gloomy, William. It’s been almost nine months since the Germans invaded Poland, and all that time they have remained rooted to the spot. Herr Hitler has obviously changed his mind. Nothing more will come of his Polish adventure.”
“One thing certain about the man is that he is always scheming. He did nothing about Czechoslovakia after he got his way in the Sudetenland in the fall of thirty-eight. But six months later he swept over the whole country.”
Lady Preston glared at her husband. “I don’t like being filled with foreboding, William. Things are getting along rather nicely without your prophetic lamentations. You sound too much like Winston in his ‘black dog’ moods. Try to spread a bit more sunshine and faith around.”
“I only urge caution. And no letting up in the matter of prayer. Look at the mess we’ve fallen into in Norway, letting the Germans march over the border and seize control. Why, we could have prevented the invasion if only we’d put troops there in the fall as Winston wished. Now it’s a shambles and everyone is out for Chamberlain’s blood. ”
“No one is letting up in the matter of prayer, William, I assure you. But we can smile now and again, can’t we?”
Lord Preston nodded. “I don’t see why not. I simply don’t trust Hitler, that’s all. What he’s done in Czechoslovakia and Norway, he can do in France.”
“I intend to ignore him.”
“Ah. I wish I could.”
“You really must sleep on it, my dear.”
“If I sleep on it I shall have a rude awakening.”
The rude awakening came on Friday morning, May 10. Tavy’s hand shook him awake.
“My lord…my lord.”
“Mm? What is it, Tavy?” Lord Preston glanced at the clock in his room. “I see. I’ve overslept. Thank you for waking me.”
“An urgent summons from Prime Minister Chamberlain.” He handed Lord Preston two pieces of paper. “These notes were brought to our door.”
Lord Preston sat up and unfolded the first.
The Germans have attacked all along the front. Luxembourg has fallen. The armies of Holland and Belgium are hard pressed and in danger of being overwhelmed. The fighting in France is fierce. Come to Westminster at once. The blow has fallen.
Chamberlain
Lord Preston looked up from the note. “Pray tell Lady Preston we will gather for family prayers in the library. Alert Catherine and Albrecht. I should like all our servants to be present as well. Ten minutes, Tavy. It’s a matter of some urgency.”
“Very good, my lord.”
Once Tavy had left the room, Lord Preston unfolded the second note.
William,
I must tell you now that I have resigned as prime minister. I made this decision before news of the German assaults in Europe reached us. I no longer have the confidence of the House due to the way the crisis in Norway was handled and felt it was best for the country I step down. It is my belief Winston Churchill will be appointed in my place before the day is out.
Chamberlain
Thursday, May 16, 1940
Ashton Park
“When did all this begin, Liscombe?”
“We fetched the doctor yesterday, my lady. In the evening. Your father seemed to react to the news from the BBC that Holland had capitulated. He cried out something about the Somme and Verdun and collapsed. The doctor tells us it’s a stroke, a rather massive one, and that we are to keep him as comfortable as possible. He is not expected to recover.”
“I see.”
“I’m so sorry, my lady. He was doing very well indeed. Prime Minister Churchill’s speech on Monday seemed to stir him up so that he acted like a man half his age. ‘I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.’ He repeated the phrase over and over again.”
“Thank you, Liscombe.” Lady Preston sat down by her father’s bed and took his withered hand. “Please ring up the doctor for me. I should like to speak with him myself about Sir Arthur.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Liscombe left the bedroom. Holly and Harrison stepped forward.
“He was well up until that broadcast,” Holly said, resting a hand on Lady Preston’s shoulder. “Always ready for a dispute with Lady Grace.”
“Of course.” Lady Preston blinked her eyes and gazed at the silent face. “Does she know what has happened?”
“Yes. She knows. She was sitting with him before you came.”
There was a thumping, and they turned their heads. Lady Grace had made her way into the room, a cane in each hand.
“Elizabeth.” She did not smile. “How are you?”
“I should be much better if Father was recovering.”
“Ah.” She came in a little closer. “I was consulting with the dukes and duchesses on the other floors. Long gone, of course, so far as their physical presences are concerned. Yet very much with us in spirit.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“They wish us well in this time of crisis. That is to say, both with Sir Arthur’s illness and the fall of France.”
“France has not fallen yet, Lady Grace.”
The older woman met Lady Preston’s eyes with a gaze like iron. “How are the children? How are the grandchildren?”
“The grandchildren are fine. All of them are here in England.”
“What about Kipp? Edward? Robbie?”
Lady Preston looked down at her father’s face. “Edward is on his ship. No harm has come to it. Nor to the ship of our son-in-law, Terrence Fordyce. Robbie’s regiment is in full retreat. Kipp’s airfield to the north and west of Paris has been bombed, so they have had to move their aircraft as far from the German line of advance as possible. We have not heard fro
m him or Robbie. Or Ben. He is in the same squadron as Kipp.”
“Things are taking place in rapid order.”
“In too rapid an order for me, Lady Grace.”
“ ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.’ ”
“I should like to believe that.”
“O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come, our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.” Lady Grace sang the first verse of the hymn in a steady voice and thumped the end of one cane sharply on the floor. “He saved Ben in the first war. I well remember the day Ben was shot down. He saved Edward twice, didn’t He, when first the Queen Mary and then the Tipperary went down under him?” She thumped her cane again. “We will see the whole brood back safely in England, my dear girl, depend on it.”
“Thank you, Lady Grace. But as William is fond of reminding me, this world is not heaven, and if humans will insist on having their wars there will always be sons and daughters who never return to their homes.”
Lady Grace set her jaw and her face grew rigid. “Under the shadow of Thy throne still may we dwell secure; sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defense is sure.”
“Ah.” Tears slid across Lady Preston’s face. “He is not breathing…he is not breathing now.”
Harrison went to the other side of the bed and bent over Sir Arthur. Then he straightened.
“He is at rest.” Harrison nodded. “He is at peace.”
Holly took Lady Preston into her arms. “A good man, Elizabeth, a good and decent man.”
Lady Grace continued to sing. “Oh God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come; be Thou our guide while life shall last, and our eternal home.”
Sir Arthur’s funeral was on Saturday, May 18. Everyone came up from London. He was buried in the family cemetery near the chapel at Ashton Park. At the brief reception after the service, Owen avoided Eva’s eye and stayed close to his cousins Matthew, Ramsay, and Sean. Charles stood stiffly with a plate of cake in his hand in the great hall as people gathered in groups near him and talked about the war.
“If any of you wish to remain overnight or for a few days, you are welcome.” Lord Preston smiled. “For those who must return to London, we have several cars available to get you back to Lime Street Station in Liverpool. There will be a train for London in an hour and a half.”