The Chestnut Tree

by Charlotte Bingham

  He was the easiest person in the world to talk to, and, it had suddenly seemed to her, after a shot or two from his treasured whisky bottle, the most sympathetic. She told him all about Mickey disappearing and Mother and her having to pretend to Father that they were hearing from him every now and then, but actually faking the letters to read to Father. It was strange to think that all the time both of them had been resigned to the fact that not only was Tom lost to them, but Mickey was too.

  And yet Mickey had been alive – and not just alive but up there on the screen, somewhere in England, laughing and waving to the camera. It did not matter now that he had never got back in touch with them; it did not matter that he might never have given a thought to the worry that he had put Mother and herself through. All that mattered was that, like his chestnut tree, Mickey was alive, and perhaps even, like the tree, blooming.

  Of course in telling Peter all this, in confiding in him, inevitably Rusty realised that not only was he now a friend, but he was very probably, before the night was out, going to be her lover too.

  It was not difficult to make love during a war. Why would it be? With guns and sirens breaking the normal silences of everyday living, with a heightened awareness of life’s being all too sweet because it was all too short, with everything and everyone being taken away, and only sometimes being sent back, with the news either getting worse, or getting better, what – against all that – was a little lovemaking?

  And besides, Rusty wanted to make love with Peter because she could tell that he was bowled over by her, that, as he said, her transformation from tomboy to film star was so complete that when she walked into the Three Tuns, if it had not been for her red hair he would not have known her as the girl who had stopped to talk to him now and then when she passed his garage with her dog before the war.

  What surprised Rusty was not that they made love, but that it was so easy to make love, that making love was not nearly so complicated and difficult as she had always imagined it when she had a crush on Mr Kinnersley. What surprised her even more was that she became pregnant just as easily as she had made love, and having made the discovery, had found that she had no idea at all how to find Peter to tell him. It could not of course be kept a secret from everyone in Bexham, but it seemed that, as far as Peter was concerned, it was going to prove to be just that – a secret, until such time as he came back, which she prayed every night that he jolly well would. Peter must come back. He had to come back, to her, and to whoever she was now expecting.

  Meggie’s secret was different. The reason she was insisting on working in the restaurant was so that she could continue to pay the rent on her original lodgings. There she had constructed a small but effective radio transmitter which Heinrich had given her, just before he moved her into the family apartment.

  ‘You may need this in the days to come, and I might not be here, in fact I will most probably not be here,’ he told her, casually. ‘I don’t want to think of you alone, not knowing. You might be cut off from everything and everyone, but this way you will be able to get messages out to whoever you need to.’

  Of course he knew that Meggie would be using it for all sorts of purposes long before he was called back to his regiment, and that she would, at some point, have to disappear.

  But since he was no Nazi, it seemed that he did not care. Meggie was not on his side, but that did not matter to him, as he kept telling her whenever they were alone. The only thing that mattered to him was that she should try to get out of Germany as quickly as possible once the end came.

  ‘It is no bad thing to sleep with the enemy, is it, Martine?’ he would joke, and then they would make love again.

  It was also no bad thing to work in the vicinity of German officers, who like their male counterparts the world over enjoyed not just their food, but their drink too, and drink, Meggie was not the first person to discover, was a grand lubricator of tongues. Once drunk the Germans became as indiscreet as any other officers, if not more so. Once drunk they discussed their regiments’ movements, their lack of belief in their superiors; all manner of things that they should not discuss were often aired over restaurant tables in that café in Cologne.

  Besides all this, Meggie’s regular attendance serving at tables in the restaurant ensured that she, being easy on the eye, and a natural blonde, captured the interest of the wining and dining German hierarchy, who were always most anxious to tell this young beauty endless stories about the Third Reich and their own courage. How they loved to shoot wild boar, the wilder the better; how they revelled in skiing down dangerous runs in the Alps, adored to jump the most formidable obstacles on their thoroughbred horses. On the way, gratifyingly, she also learned about the deployment of their regiments, the still grandiose military ambitions of the Führer, and Berlin’s certainty of final victory over the Allied forces.

  Whenever this last boast was made Meggie was sure that the truth was quite the reverse, that they were all becoming less and less certain of any final victory. Innocently feigning ignorance about the actual state of combat she would find herself happily bombarded with information about proposed future strategies by officers who were clearly more intent on trying to climb into Meggie’s bed than on repulsing the Allied forces in Italy.

  Of course she was aware that she was playing a highly dangerous game, but then she had known that when she first volunteered to work for SOE and be dropped into Occupied France. She had also known that she was raising the stakes to a very high degree when she agreed to accompany Heinrich to Cologne as his mistress. But none of that mattered, really, compared to the information that she was able to transmit from the laundry cupboard of her lodgings. She understood the stakes all too well, because she was Elinor Gore-Stewart’s granddaughter. Yet none of this stopped a cordon of fear tightening around her heart when she discovered one morning that Heinrich had mysteriously vanished from the family apartment, without either saying goodbye to her, or leaving her a note.

  No good thinking now that she, a Gore-Stewart, should not feel fear, because not even the strongest genes can overcome human feelings. She had come in much later than usual, and because of that had decided not to disturb him, creeping to the spare room that she used as her dressing room, and falling thankfully asleep at last, only to wake up and find that he was no longer around. Not just him, but everything to do with him. His uniforms, packed and gone, his shaving brush, shoes, boots; everything had gone, including a photograph of his mother that he always kept by his bed.

  ‘If you’re looking for Heinrich, you will not find him.’ The voice came from a large, winged armchair. ‘He left early this morning, didn’t he, Klaus?’

  Anna glanced over towards Heinrich’s man-servant, Klaus, who was busy laying an immaculate tray of coffee on one of the tables. He nodded, before straightening up and glancing back at Anna. It was as if they too had a secret. The look between them seemed to confirm it.

  ‘Any idea where he might have gone?’ Meggie asked idly, as she helped herself to coffee, or what now passed as coffee. ‘I was asleep when he left. He usually leaves me a note.’

  ‘How odd that this time he did not.’ Anna looked almost complacent. She looked across at Klaus again.

  ‘He is usually so good in that way.’ Meggie looked pointedly at Anna, making sure that not just her mouth was smiling, but her eyes too, because although Anna might be humourless, she was not a fool. Meggie knew that she would look into Meggie’s eyes and would sense the smallest tension, the least tiny pipsqueak of fear, and Meggie would be finished.

  ‘It is very strange, Martine. Apparently, Klaus tells me, Captain Von Hantzen took a large suitcase with him. So what do we make of that?’

  Meggie shrugged her shoulders and managed to look vaguely puzzled, while sipping at her coffee. ‘Perhaps he has some important papers in his suitcase, papers that no one else must see.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  Meggie liked the sound of this less and less, and she liked the look of Anna
and Klaus even less, but there was little she could do at that moment that would not arouse suspicion. She tried, unsuccessfully, not to dwell on all the possible explanations for Heinrich’s strange behaviour. What she feared most of all was that he had, somehow, been trapped. Or was going to be trapped, and that part of that trap would involve turning Meggie over to the authorities.

  Except it did not somehow seem likely that if that were the case he would have packed an overnight suitcase. That was not the kind of action a man being taken in for questioning by the Gestapo would take. So where had he gone? Back to his regiment? Or sent on some kind of mission perhaps by his high-ranking father? The unaccustomed fear of an hour before had been replaced by the more familiar relish of danger, and so, with cold resolution, she merely left Anna and Klaus to their thoughts, and continued with her day as usual. Hugh and she had always agreed, and everyone at SOE knew, that whatever happened, whatever you suspected might be going to happen, you did not rush, you did not change your habits. You just kept on doing what you normally did.

  She picked up her coat, an expensive coat that had once belonged to Heinrich’s mother, and let herself out of the elegant apartment, making her way, as always at that time, first to the restaurant. As was her habit, and in case she was being followed by either Anna or Klaus, she changed into her waitress’s uniform in the basement, and then, because she always took care to arrive too early to be needed, promptly left again, going the back way to her old lodgings, her coat concealing her uniform.

  She ran up the sixty-eight steps to her old apartment, let herself in, and went quickly to her transmitter, out of breath, but determined never to neglect what she saw as her absolute duty to the cause of Victory: the daily transmission of even the smallest detail. Heinrich’s leaving Cologne and not returning as always, his simply disappearing, was not a detail she would leave out. Every little aspect of life behind enemy lines at that moment would go to help London to build up a picture of the Nazis’ state of mind. Even the fact that Captain Heinrich Von Hantzen might have been called back to Berlin under special orders, or might have been taken for questioning by the Gestapo, was vital.

  Living with Meggie who was, with his help, posing as a Frenchwoman born in Strasbourg, and therefore understandably speaking perfect German, was not on the face of it particularly suspicious, and Heinrich, being a high-ranking officer, would not necessarily be under observation, and yet – war being war – he might be, not least since it was he who had supplied her, piece by tiny piece, with all the parts for her radio transmitter.

  Double, double toil and trouble was her code warning to London to tell them that she thought she was under suspicion, and that in his turn Heinrich, because he had, of a sudden, disappeared, might also now be under suspicion.

  When it came to espionage the most successful device that any nation could use against another was the double agent. Double agents trod a minefield, the risk so high that it was almost incalculable. They were the least likely to be successful, and the most likely to be discovered. Heinrich might be just such.

  Having completed her task, Meggie wrapped her coat around her once more and started the downward descent to the street. It was not until she stepped out on to the pavement that she saw the black Mercedes parked at the top of the narrow thoroughfare. Slowly and carefully she stepped back into the protection of the building, realising at once that only the Gestapo could occupy such an expensive motor car. She remembered with a sinking heart that somehow or another, in her flight from France, she had lost not only many precious belongings, but also, most precious of all, her cyanide pill.

  She started to re-mount the steps back to her apartment, intent only on destroying her transmitter and any other evidence there might be, when a voice behind her called, ‘Fräulein!’

  The Grannies’ Charter, as it was called in Bexham, had roused a storm of opposition. The idea that every able man and woman in the country up to the age of eighty must do war work, must put their shoulders to the wheel and work for Victory, was greeted with something close to horror by everyone except the grannies themselves.

  Mrs Todd was already hard at work as a bus conductress, so this new government edict affected the Todd household even less than Rusty’s pregnancy, during which, happily, her quite evident change of shape appeared to affect her father’s state of mind for the better.

  Lady Melton was different. She was not just determined to go to work in a real wartime occupation, she actually could not wait – not only that, but she found it most agreeable to be able to tell Sir Arthur that if she did not engage in some activity outside the home, she could be put in prison.

  Like any other husband in Bexham, Sir Arthur took the news that his wife would not be in to make his breakfast, lunch, tea or dinner – which with the lack of staff in the village was now expected of her – very badly indeed.

  ‘What are you going to join up for?’

  His wife’s eyes glinted behind her new spectacles. ‘I am signing on for the same job as Gardiner. She has found a new and most enjoyable occupation. Not netting – something much more congenial to a lady and her maid.’

  By now, Sir Arthur was not listening, too intent on switching on the wireless for the news. Really, he did not know what the war was coming to, his wife going out to work, his wife’s former maid going out to work, soon all the women in Bexham would be working, doubtless looking like those propaganda films that the Communists liked to show, with Russian women wielding great sheaves of wheat, wearing dungarees and laughing and smiling, pretending to enjoy their work, of all things. As if that was any kind of reality.

  Naturally Meggie had stopped on hearing someone calling Fräulein, because since there was no one else to be seen it would seem more than a little suspicious if she had carried on. Instead she turned, smiling.

  ‘Goodness, you startled me!’ she told the speaker in her impeccable German, to which she had added a light French accent.

  The large man smiled up at her, his surprisingly small shoe resting on the first of the steps.

  ‘You startled me too, Fräulein. I heard your pretty little feet on the steps outside my flat. Going out much earlier than normal, I see?’ He looked strangely important at this, and putting his hand in his pocket he took out an envelope. ‘You paid me too much money last month, so I am returning it to you. You are not a rich woman, although very well connected, I must say. Not many of the girls are as well connected as you.’

  He looked up at Meggie, a fleeting appreciation of her feminine attributes coming into his eyes.

  Meggie took the envelope he had offered her, and continued up to her apartment, calling down her thanks as she went, and adding, ‘Forgot my hat, silly me!’

  Once back in the flat she set about destroying or hiding every piece of evidence that might incriminate her. It was only when this task was completed and she took out the envelope with her landlord’s rent rebate in it that she realised it contained more than money.

  Gone to rejoin my regiment, you must fly tonight. Heinrich.

  Meggie burned this note too, and tucked the money into the front of the same brassiere about which she had complained to Judy on the day of the ‘war rehearsal’ outside Peter Jones. The blasted garment was still uncomfortable, damn it! Realising that she would in all likelihood not see Heinrich again, and that she might still be going to have to run the risk of passing the parked Mercedes outside, she nevertheless went back down to the street, secure in the knowledge that she had done her duty as far as her orders were concerned. Destroy all evidence, if at all possible. It had been, and she had.

  ‘Good day, Fräulein! I wish all the girls were as pretty as you. You fill the eye, do you know that!’ a voice called out in a country German accent.

  Meggie just had time to think dirty old man before she saw the Mercedes backing down towards her, and it had to be her because there was no one else in the street at that moment.

  ‘Ah, good day, Fräulein!’ another voice with a different accent c
alled. It seemed everyone today was intent on wishing Meggie good day. ‘A little late for our job at the restaurant, are we?’

  ‘No, no, I am not on the first shift,’ Meggie answered gaily, smiling, at the same time taking in the black clothes of the men inside the Mercedes, their matching black eyes, their fixed expressions, the way they were eyeing her up. She had no gun, she had nothing. To have a weapon while in Cologne, she and Heinrich had agreed, would be too incriminating.

  ‘In that case you have time for us.’ The driver’s door swung open, and all at once he stood in his leather coat in front of Meggie, smiling. Well, he was smiling if you could call showing your teeth smiling. ‘May we come up?’

  Meggie thought quickly of her apartment. There might still be a lingering smell of burning. She would pass it off as burning love letters. She thought of where she had hidden all the pieces of the transmitter, having first taken it to pieces – a bit here, a bit there.

  ‘Come up to see me, you mean?’

  ‘But of course.’ He was still showing his teeth. ‘We have been waiting for you many times here, in the past week, whenever we could. Such a very pretty girl does not often come our way – in the course of our duties, naturally. We spotted you first in the restaurant, and we have followed you here several times, but missed you. You have always left by the time we called.’

  ‘Oh, naturally, just in the course of your duties. Heil Hitler!’

  ‘Heil Hitler!’

  ‘How very flattering you are, gentlemen, but you must understand, I am at the moment . . .’ Meggie leaned forward and whispered.