by John Wilcox
“I am sorry that Dominque was not able to meet you,” he said. “I am afraid it is bad news about her. I have just heard that she was arrested on the way to the railway station. She was one of our best couriers. It is very, very sad.”
“Oh God!” Proctor sat down and put his head in his hands. His eyes were protruding as he looked up at the priest. “This is ridiculous. Why can’t we just give ourselves up and get the whole thing over? Why do you people keep on resisting so?”
If the Abbe was surprised, he showed no sign. “My son, I understand what you are saying,” he said, laying a hand on Proctor’s shoulder. “The strain must be very great for you and we, worried about our own security as we are” – he looked across at Gladwin with an apologetic smile – “sometimes forget how it must be for you, hunted in this way across our country.”
He took a seat opposite them, sitting almost like a supplicant, with his knees and feet close together and his hands folded into his lap. “We resist, of course,” he continued, “because we must. We face Godless invaders who have proved themselves to be ruthless and cruel and who do not heed the teachings of our Lord.” The smile returned. “I myself remain a pacifist and I cannot and would not wish to fight. But, my son,” and he leaned across directly to address Proctor, “this does not mean that I cannot resist. So I do what I can to help in other ways, such as working to keep the escape line open and by giving succour, where I can, to those of the Jewish faith who are being so persecuted in our country now.”
Proctor’s head had returned to his hands and he remained staring at the floor, as though unaware that he was being addressed. The Abbe shrugged. “But if you wish to surrender to the Germans, then you must do so. It does seem a pity, however, that you should give in when you are so near to attaining your liberty at last.”
Gladwin felt the need to intervene. “Father, we are grateful to you for giving us sanctuary here. We have, as you say, been under pressure for some time now and my friend here particularly is feeling the strain. But,” his voice took on a stronger tone, “I assure you that there is no question of surrender. We will not give up and we earnestly request you to do what you can to get us to the border.”
He spoke forcefully now as much to Proctor, who had lifted lacklustre eyes to him, as to the Abbe. “So many – so very many – fine French people have risked their lives to help us that, at the least, it would be an insult to them and their bravery for us to give up now. There will be no, I repeat no, surrender.”
The priest lifted his hands. “Very well. I am glad to hear it. But I must warn you that, near to the border as you are, this is the hardest and most difficult part of your long journey. The Germans know that this is the main exit point for escapers and they are growing increasingly effective at… how shall I put it… blocking up the hole. They patrol the border strongly and,” he sighed apologetically, “they are growing increasingly successful at penetrating our line to it, as you can see with the arrest of poor Dominique. But,” he lifted his hand, as though giving the Benediction, “as soon as we lose one courier, we find another. For we have faith and righteousness on our side and we shall prevail. Now, we must address your own situation.”
The Abbe stood, walked to the door and called softly – did he ever raise his voice, wondered Gladwin? – down the corridor. Madame Robert appeared and he gave her what appeared to be a series of instructions. He turned back to his visitors and addressed them, choosing his words almost fastidiously.
“You both look very tired, which is understandable, for you have travelled through the night and you have been under great stress for many days, I know. Now that Dominique has been arrested, I fear that this house can no longer be regarded as safe. Madame Robert lives next door in a small apartment and I doubt if she is under suspicion by the Gestapo, unlike me, I fear.” The gentle smile returned. “So I have asked her to allow you to use the two beds in her second room. I suggest that you retire there and rest now. I have some arrangements to make for you but I will visit you later this evening to let you know what I have prepared.”
The smile was now directed at Proctor. “I believe that the events of the last few days have been particularly stressful for you, Monsieur, and I can well comprehend that. So Madame Robert will bring you a draught which will help you sleep and will perhaps relax you a little. With God’s help, that and the sleep may also give you a little extra energy, hopefully, for this last lap of your long journey. Now, Madame Robert will show you where to go. Sleep well.”
He extended a soft white hand and they took it in turn. “Thank you, Father,” said Gladwin. “We do appreciate all you are doing but – please, please be careful.”
He nodded and they turned and followed the elderly housekeeper out of the house, through a little gate, where she paused, holding up her hand indicating that they should wait. Then, having scanned the street carefully, she waved them on and let them into a modest apartment block. Her flat was on the top floor and she gestured to a small back room, where two beds were already made up. She spoke to them in French and gestured to a small bathroom.
Gladwin smiled his thanks and the woman left them for a moment to reappear with a glass of milky-looking water which she gave to Proctor. He accepted it without demur and drained it in one swallow. Then Madame Robert spoke to Gladwin, making clear what she meant by indicating the floor below and putting a finger to her lips. He nodded and she was gone.
Proctor sat on one bed with a sigh and took off his boots. Gladwin did the same on the other bed and for a moment both men regarded each other wordlessly. The same unspoken thought ran through their minds: was this really going to be ‘the last lap’?
Then the New Zealander shrugged his shoulders, stretched out on the bed and, within seconds, was asleep. On an impulse Gladwin put his hand into his trouser pocket and took out the nock. Several times on their troubled journey, in rare quiet moments, he had fingered Marie’s scarf and rubbed the nock in an attempted to recall something – anything – about Marie or their previous existence together... if they had had one, that is.
But this time, as before, there was nothing. Perhaps he was just too far away from her and Agincourt to span the ages. Far away or not, at least he was now within spitting distance of the Spanish border and what – freedom, a chance to see the war out and then, and then, yes, return to Marie?
CHAPTER 12
Deep inside her, Kathleen knew that she had fallen in love with Fred Lucas, but she refused to admit it, even to herself. Bill could still be alive, somewhere over there, and that meant that she remained a married woman – and married women should not commit adultery. What she was having was just a bit of a fling, that’s all. But was she still a married woman? There had been no news from the Air Ministry, and with the spring giving way to summer there surely now could be little hope that her husband could still be alive. The trouble was that these courting sessions – as she preferred to call them – with Fred had aroused desires within her that had lain dormant since Bill had become, well, cold towards her. She was no longer a virgin, of course, and, at twenty-four, she was still a young vibrant woman – and it was clear that Fred knew exactly what to do. She realised with a sigh that it was only a question of time before she fell. And, with the realisation, fulfilment inevitably followed.
They had long since spread their wings and, with the lighter evenings, had visited a wider range of pubs across the Brecon Beacons. Taking a walk across the soft turf before driving on to their latest destination, Fred pulled her down by the side of a low stone wall.
“Come on, Kath,” he murmured into her ear, “open up love, there’s a good girl. You know I love you. Truly I do.”
“No Fred. You know it wouldn’t be right.”
“Yes it would. You know he’s gone. We can’t go on like this.”
And so she succumbed, with desire and passion released at last.
“Blimey,” said Fred, rolling onto his back and fumbling for his cigarettes. “I didn’t know what I’d been
missing. You were bloody marvellous.”
She turned her head away but she was pleased.
They made love now every time they went out in the Morris on those Friday evenings. Kathleen’s parents remained quietly disapproving, but had long since accepted that they could do nothing to stop the affair. Fred, anyway, was charming and attentive to them and Arthur Evans, Kathleen’s father, was not the type to stand before the fireplace, hands behind his back, and ask whether the man’s intentions towards his daughter were honourable. These days, in fact, he could no longer stand, for the disease eating away at his lungs – fed by the cigarette still defiantly stuck between Arthur’s lips – made him chairbound. When Fred suggested, then, that Kathleen should come away with him for a ‘dirty weekend’ at Rhyl, the idea met with no firm parental opposition. Within the two little houses on Inkerman Street, Brecon, it was becoming a recognised, if unspoken, fact that Bill Gladwin was dead.
“You can bring the babbie with you,” said Fred. And that clinched the matter for Kathleen. An adulterous weekend, openly admitted by Fred to be ‘dirty’, still seemed a step too far for her. But taking Caitlin with them made it, somehow, more acceptable.
“The sea air will be good for her,” she said. Her father gave her his slow, sad smile behind the blue smoke of his cigarette before lapsing into another coughing fit.
And so, one crisp but sunny evening in early June, when Fred had wangled some extra petrol, they put two battered suitcases into the Morris and set off to the north. Fred had dismantled Caitlin’s pram by removing the wheels and the handle and stashing them away separately in the boot, so that the body of the pram rested on the back seat and could take the child when she tired of sitting on her mother’s lap in the front. For Kathleen, this was an adventure. She and Bill had had no honeymoon after their wedding in 1942, only three nights in their newly-rented terraced house before he had to report back to his base in Norfolk. The seaside for her was a misty memory of one childhood visit to Aberystwyth in the twenties. There had never been enough money in the Evans family to repeat the treat. This time the journey itself was exciting enough for Kathleen, taking them up through the central mountainous spine of Wales, down to the sandy sweep of the coast at Rhyl. She discovered the full beauty of her country for the first time.
Fred had booked them into a boarding house fronting the sea and the landlady was glad enough to see them, after the rigours of the winter. Insisting that they could not leave Caitlin in the evening, Kathleen had demanded that they should stay on a full-board basis and so they duly handed over their ration books for their two-night stay. It proved to be idyllic. The sun shone and the threat of invasion via a hostile Ireland had long since disappeared, so they were able to push the baby along the almost deserted beach during the day, skim flat pebbles along the wave tops, and return to ‘Pen-y-Glyn’ for their meals and, after sunset, their warm bed and relaxed love-making between the sheets.
On the second night, as she lay with her cheek on Fred’s chest, Kathleen summoned up the courage to say, “Are you serious, then, Fred?”
“What d’you mean?” There was a small note of alarm in his voice.
“I mean, about us. What about your wife?” They had hardly ever spoken about Mrs Lucas, living in Hall Green, Birmingham, whom he visited approximately once a month at the weekend, but Fred had made it clear that she and he did not live together any more as man and wife. “I mean, would you leave her?”
“For you, d’you mean?”
“Well I don’t mean for Betty bloody Grable, do I?” Kathleen lifted herself up on her elbow in mock indignation.
“I thought p’raps you did. Betty’s quite fond of me, as it happens.”
“No come on. I’m serious.”
“One step at a time, love. You’re still married, as it happens. I think we’d better wait until you know what has happened to Bill. That seems sensible and fair, doesn’t it?”
“But even if he comes back, we could get a divorce. I don’t think he means anything to me any more, Fred. You’ve told me you don’t love Ethel and you’ve got no children, so why shouldn’t we get married?”
He bent to kiss her tangled hair. “No reason at all, love, once you have sorted out your… er… position. That’s all I’m saying. Now, try and get some sleep because we’ve got a long drive tomorrow.”
Over the next few days and weeks Kathleen recalled that conversation and played it over and over again in her mind. Was Fred being shifty or merely sensible? He had told her often enough that he loved her, but that was easy to say. She felt no competition from his wife, although he spoke sometimes about his ‘responsibilities’ in Birmingham. There was no other woman, she was sure of that, because in a tight little community like Brecon she would have picked up some evidence, some seemingly innocent fact that would point towards infidelity. No, Fred was true enough, but was he dedicated enough? He liked his freedom and the opportunity of taking a pint with his mates at the Working Men’s Club and, except for that weekend excursion to the coast, he had never taken her out more than once a week when she worked the day shift. Kathleen resolved that she must do something, anything to cement the relationship. She had given herself and she was determined to protect her position with the man she now loved.
Kathleen had always insisted that Fred should use a condom when they made love, but she knew that there were other forms of protection that could be used by the female partner. An article, tucked away at the back of Women’s Weekly, coyly referred to ‘the cap’. What the hell was that? She plucked up her courage and went to see the doctor on whose ‘panel’ she and her parents had been members for years. She was nervous, not about talking to him of these matters, but because he knew the family well and had delivered Caitlin. He also knew Bill and was aware that he had been posted missing. What to say to him?
Looking into his kindly eyes, Kathleen had the grace to feel ashamed. She had heard unconfirmed news, she told him, that Bill might be alive and could even be coming home soon. It was very confidential at this stage and she had been told not even to tell her parents. It may not turn out to be true, but if it was she wanted to give him the best homecoming present of all. Looking at the floor, she explained that Bill had always hated using a condom but they certainly could not afford another child at this stage. Was there some other form of contraception that she could wear which would be safe but not as intrusive as a sheath?
The doctor smiled, congratulated her on her good news, hoped that it would prove true and made an appointment for her to see a female doctor who had a clinic on the other side of Brecon, and who could fit her with what was called a Dutch cap. It was efficient and easy to wear. It should do the trick admirably. As he shook her hand he wished her luck and Kathleen blushed – but not from innocent embarrassment.
Kathleen visited the doctor during the day when she was working on the night shift, telling her mother that she was changing her library book. The fitting, although at first less than comfortable, went well and at her next assignation with Fred she told him, with suitable modesty, about her initiative, telling him that he needn’t bother with those nasty old things in future.
It was about six weeks later, when the summer was beginning to wane, that she first experienced morning sickness. She knew what to expect this time and, surely enough, as when she was carrying Caitlin, she began to hate the taste of tea. This clinched it for her, but she waited until a slight bulge in her midriff – still easily concealed by her working overalls – made it certain. Then, as she and Fred lay sharing a post-coital cigarette, she told him.
“What?” The expression on his face showed genuine anxiety. For her or for him?
“I know I’m pregnant, Fred. That damned cap. It didn’t seem to work after all.”
“Oh, bloody hell. This is all I need.”
She sat up to face him, the blood draining away from her face and her heart pounding. “What do you mean, ‘all you need’? I thought that perhaps you might even be pleased.”
&nb
sp; He threw his cigarette away in disgust. “Oh come on, Kath! Pleased! Bloody hell! You’re still married and so am I. Think of my position. I’m Works Manager. I’d lose my job if it became known I’d got one of my girls in the family way. Think about it for goodness sake.”
She sat looking at him with wide eyes. Then she touched his arm. “But Fred. If we moved in together people would understand. These things happen when two people love each other and Bill has been gone too long now to have survived. You can divorce Ethel and…”
“Divorce Ethel!” He raised his eyes to blue sky. “That cow would take me to the cleaners. She’d have everything: the house, the furniture, the car, every last penny in the bank.”
“But that wouldn’t matter, love. We’d have each other and you could come and live with me in Inkerman Street. People would talk but let ’em. That needn’t concern us. And Lloyds could never sack you – you’re too good at the job and they would never find anyone as good as you in wartime. Now that we’ve landed in Europe with the Yanks the war should be over soon and we could get married and have more kids and…” Her voice tailed away as she looked at his face. “Fred, I’d make you a good wife. Honest I would.”
He turned back to her. “That’s not the point, love. I’m too old to start again. It’s taken me years to build everything up.” He saw the look of terror in her eyes and he softened. “Now I’m not saying, of course, that I won’t marry you.” He took her hand in both of his. “Of course I will. It’s just a question of timing. To have a baby now would be… well, to say the least, bloody inconvenient. There will be plenty of time later when… well, when your position is sorted out and I can come to an arrangement with Ethel.”