Any Human Heart

by William Boyd

  Freya and Stella came to Euston to see me off, which was sweet of them. Stella asked me if I would be brown when I came back and I reassured her I wouldn’t. She was hugely intrigued by my tan when I came home in July. And I must say when I pressed myself up against Freya’s pale freckled torso I did look like some dusky octoroon. After the long months away from each other it was as if our sex-drives had been renewed. Freya used to pull back the sheets and stare at me – as if my naked brown body obsessed her. We kept sneaking off for quick fierce passionate fucks at all hours of the day. Five-minute specials, we called them. ‘Fancy a five-minute special?’ Freya would say after lunch. Stella would beat on the locked door and shout, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Daddy’s a bit tired, darling,’ Freya would call as I humped away, a stupid grin on my face.

  It seems strange to be heading back to Birmingham again, twenty years on: how I used to dread my end-of-term returns home. I’m to report to RAF Clerkhall for a two-week course in parachuting: a few days’ training, then a succession of five jumps in order to qualify. Something tells me this is not Vanderpoel’s idea – it seems more like something cooked up by Rushbrooke [the new head of NID] or some other brain. Ian said NID was trying to widen its modus operandi. ‘We’re going to be on the continent of Europe soon,’ he said. ‘We can’t just sit on our laurels.’ Ian seems glum: he’s a moody so-and-so anyway, but since I returned he appears withdrawn, fretful. Cherchez la femme?19

  I had a month’s leave when I came back from Nassau but I didn’t want to travel away from home: I wanted to stay in Melville Road and lead as ordinary and sedate a life as possible. I read, with pleasure – for the first time in months; I tended our vegetable garden; took Stella for walks. Freya and I would go out to a pub for a drink from time to time. I caught up with my friends and acquaintances.

  Guilt has been a huge success, critically and commercially:20 Peter Scabius is hailed as a new and important novelist. I still haven’t been able to read the book and when I met Peter just talked about it in the vaguest generalities. Peter didn’t notice, anyway: his head has been well and truly turned by all the money and acclaim. He has bought a large house on Wandsworth Common where he lives with Penny, his new wife (they married on publication day). He wears Tess’s death like a stigmata – a badge to demonstrate how much he has suffered. He said one truly revolting thing: ‘You know, Logan, since the news of Tess’s death, women seem to find me amazingly attractive.’ He’s probably cheating on Penny already.

  And I had a strange blunt letter from Dick Hodge announcing he had his leg blown off at the thigh when he trod on a land mine in Italy. He’s back at home in Scotland, ‘learning to walk’, and he added, ‘Since I don’t ever intend to move from here again you’d better come and visit me.’ He signed himself off as, ‘Yours, Dick. Legless but not, in case you were wondering, dickless.’

  I read in the papers that de Marigny has been acquitted at the trial. Some justice at least – but who did kill Sir Harry Oakes? The Bahamas, the Duke, the Duchess, seem like another world to me now.

  Wednesday, 8 December

  RAF Clerkhall. This place is a base for training Bomber Command crews and is filled with aircrew. We have our first real jump tomorrow and I am actually quite looking forward to it. We – the non-aircrew – form an odd little group in the mess: six Englishmen, a Pole and two edgy Italians. None of us talks about why we are learning to parachute – perhaps, like me, none of us knows. I’m the only naval officer.

  In the evening after dinner we’re free to go to local pubs or into Birmingham itself. I’ve been revisiting my old haunts, wandering around Edgbaston. Perhaps it is a post-Bahamas feeling, but I find I relish Birmingham’s stolid unpretentiousness. A big no-nonsense city. My schoolboy loathing of the place reflects badly on me. After the last six months everything about Birmingham seems reassuringly true and real – however grimy or knocked-about. One night I stood outside our old house and thought of Father, wondering what he would make of his son now, nearly twenty years having gone by. My two marriages, his two grandchildren, some sort of career and reputation as a writer cut short by the war. Would his ghost recognize this ageing naval officer?…

  Actually, this train of thought has rather been dominating my mind since I set it running. At NID it’s an open secret that all our work is now beginning to focus on the forthcoming invasion of Europe – the ‘Second Front’. Conceivably this war could be over in a year – and a kind of panic sets my heart beating as I try to imagine ‘normal’ life again, with my forties approaching fast and the need to start up my old career once more. Can I do it? It’s funny: the war, much as I moan about it, has meant that all decisions have been held in limbo. And sometimes a limbo is a tolerable place to be stuck.

  Last night I went into a pub on Broad Street and ordered a pint of bitter. The place was quite busy and the thick blackout curtains made it feel unnaturally closed off from the world. I lit a cigarette and drank my beer and let my head empty of thoughts, only half aware of the chatter around me, entering a warm, particularly English type of trance, allowing time to stop for twenty minutes or so. When I tried to pay, the publican refused my money but his wife contradicted him. ‘He’s always doing that,’ she said crossly. ‘Anyone in uniform. I tell him: they all get well paid and we’ve got a living to make. No need for charity.’ The man shrugged his shoulders and looked sheepish. I said she was absolutely right, paid up and left a tip. Quite what the significance of this anecdote is, I don’t know. I rode the bus back to RAF Clerkhall in a calm mood. Very Birmingham, I thought, which is why I’ve grown so fond of the place all of a sudden.

  Thursday, 9 December

  After all the training, the gymnastics, the jumping off the tower in the harness, finally the real thing. About twenty of us filed into an old Stirling bomber specially fitted out. I sat next to one of the Italians, who looked very jittery as we hooked the clips of our ripcords on to the cable that ran the length of the fuselage roof. ‘Buoni auguri,’ I said, and he looked at me with pure panic in his eyes. Perhaps he knows where he’ll be jumping into. Who were we, the odd-bods, the non-aircrew? We seemed the most unlikely sort of secret agents.

  The Stirling took off and we made a long slow series of ascending circles before we were at the correct height. As the drop zone approached a hatch was opened in the floor of the aircraft and the sergeant-instructor stood by it. ‘Whatever you do, don’t look down,’ he kept saying. ‘You look at my handsome face and when my hand falls, just step forward.’

  Half a dozen dropped out of view before my turn came. I felt nothing: I had managed to shut down all emotions – and I had an absolute trust in the efficacy and strength of the webbing and equipment I was wearing; had no doubt at all that my parachute had been properly packed and that the ripcord, when tugged, would see its easy and flawless release. The sergeant-instructor dropped his hand and said, ‘Go, seven,’ and I stepped through the hatch.

  There was a substantial physical blow from the rush of the slipstream and it seemed to me as if my parachute opened almost immediately. I looked up first into its dirty grey canopy and then looked down at the Staffordshire countryside. I saw that the first man to have left the plane was already on the ground, gathering the billowing folds of his parachute into his chest; the others who had preceded me were floating down in a rough line below me. I was savouring the feeling of suspension – not quite weightlessness (whatever that may be like: I didn’t feel like a piece of featherdown), more a sense of being dramatically out of your element, something I’d experienced once before in the Bahamas when I swam out beyond a reef and the ocean floor suddenly deepened beneath me, the water around me abruptly turning blue-black from pale blue – when I was aware of someone shouting at me from the ground: ‘Keep your feet together, number seven!’ I glanced down and saw another instructor called Townsend bellowing instructions at me through a megaphone. Christ, I thought, if I can recognize him as Townsend I must be bloody close to –

  Thud. I hit the
ground and rolled over, automatically rather than as instructed. It was exactly as we had been told it would be: the same effect as jumping off a twelve-foot wall – quite a height, actually, if you’ve ever tried it. I stood up, a proud grin on my face. ‘Not too bad, Mr Mountstuart,’ Townsend said, jogging up to me. ‘Only four more to go.’

  1944

  Friday, 7 January

  I was covertly reading Plomer’s autobiography21 – which has done aggravatingly well – and wondering if anyone would guess from its pages that its author was a promiscuous homosexual. Rhetorical question: the answer is no. Which then begged another – so what level of truth did this book contain? I was musing over this paradox when Vanderpoel came in and called me through to Rushbrooke’s office. Rushbrooke was waiting for me with another man whom I didn’t recognize but who was introduced as Colonel Marion (he was wearing civilian clothes). I felt a sudden pressure build in my body when I realized I was going to be given the assignment that my parachute course had prepared me for – and I wanted to say, ‘Before you go any further, Admiral Rushbrooke, I’d like to request a transfer to the Catering Corps’ – but said nothing, of course, and meekly sat down when Rushbrooke waved me to a chair. He smiled at me.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Mountstuart. We’ve bought you a couple of tramp steamers. You’re a shipowner. Now we want you to go to Switzerland and buy a few more.’

  Switzerland? I felt a warm rush of pleasure in my lower abdomen and for a horrible moment wondered if I’d wet myself in my relief. My bowels had indeed loosed but my dignity was preserved. Switzerland was neutral, I was saying to myself, safer even than the Bahamas. It seemed odd to go to a landlocked country to buy ships but that was none of my business.

  And so ‘Operation Shipbroker’ was born. The job, as it was explained to me, seemed quite straightforward – only the actual getting into Switzerland was complicated. The strategy was that I was to pass myself off as a Uruguayan businessman looking for funding in Portugal, Spain and Switzerland to increase the size of my merchant fleet, two of which were currently moored in Montevideo harbour. I wondered if this was credible and was reminded that not the whole world was at war. Take South America for example. Citizens of neutral countries were free to come and go, providing they had the necessary documentation and visas. Swedes could travel to England, Mexicans to the USA, Spaniards to Australia, if they could get permission.

  I was to visit certain banks in Geneva and Zurich and see if I could secure a loan to purchase my ships (all this would be detailed in a series of briefings over the next few days). ‘We don’t actually expect anyone to lend you money,’ Rushbrooke said, we just want you to be out there trying.’ I asked why. Then Marion spoke. ‘You’ll be approached, covertly, by Germans, or by the representatives of important Germans. They will want to know how much it’ll cost for you to take them to South America on your boats.’ Why would they want to do this, I asked? Because the war is going to end soon and the rats are already preparing to leave the sinking ship, Marion said. These people will approach you and you will take down their details – such as they are – and try to identify them. A man called Ludwig will contact you and you will pass that information on to him. How will I know Ludwig? I asked. He’ll know you, don’t worry, Marion said. How do I get to Geneva? I asked. ‘Why do you think you learned to parachute?’ Vanderpoel said, with an unpleasant smile. I was told I’d learn all the rest in the coming briefings. I had one more question: how long would I be in Switzerland? Until allied troops reached the border – either from France or from Italy – probably, Rushbrooke glanced at Marion, some time in the summer.

  Sunday, 9 January

  I hinted to Freya about ‘Operation Shipbroker’ – said the department had another job for me in Lisbon. This was Rushbrooke’s idea: he knew that a wife had to be told something. You’re not doing anything dangerous, are you? Freya asked. No, no, I said, it’s not dangerous. Just a question of information gathering – some scheme dreamt up by NID. Which started me thinking: whose idea was this? And who was Colonel Marion? I have a week full of briefings ahead of me, largely to make my cover story complete. They asked me to choose a name for my papers and visas and I came up with Gonzago Peredes – a little bit of me; a mark of homage to Faustino. Cables are being sent from Montevideo to bankers in Zurich and Geneva requesting appointments for Señor Peredes. A room has been booked for me at the Hôtel du Commerce in Geneva. I have a file full of details of merchant ships for sale.

  Sunday, 13 February

  Tranquil domestic weekend with Freya and Stella. We bought a puppy, a black Labrador bitch, on Saturday for Stella. Stella said she wanted to call it Tommy, so Tommy she shall be. Tomorrow I begin the long journey out to Italy. KLM from Bristol to Lisbon. Then by boat to Tripoli. Then military plane to Cairo and on to Naples. Everything seems well organized in true NID fashion. I’ve told Freya I’ll be gone a month or so and that she can always receive news of me through Vanderpoel. She seems calm about it: she looks on it as a business trip, she says. And I was away for eight months in the Bahamas, of course, so the white lie seems quite tolerable. Last night I bought a bottle of Algerian wine, which we mulled with some sugar and some ancient cloves and spiked with rum. We lay in each other’s arms on the sofa and listened to Brahms’s second symphony on the gramophone, then we went to bed and made love with due and tender seriousness – two old hands who knew what they were doing. Today we will take Tommy for her first walk in Battersea Park.

  MEMORANDUM ON ‘OPERATION SHIPBROKER’

  On Wednesday, 23 February 1944 I boarded a Liberator bomber at an airfield outside Naples. With me were two Frenchmen – whom I’d just met – who were going to be dropped in occupied France. Our Liberator, loaded with supplies for the French Resistance instead of bombs, was to form part of a bombing raid destined for southern Germany. During the raid we would divert from the main bomber group and fly over western Switzerland, at which point I would parachute out. I had no idea of the Frenchmen’s destination.

  Under a zip-up overall I was wearing a grey flannel suit and tie. The label on the inside of the jacket was from a Montevideo tailor. I had with me a suitcase full of clothes and various documents of my trade – including a photograph of my wife and daughter back home in Uruguay. In my wallet I had a wad of Swiss francs and stamped visas and train tickets that recorded my journey from Lisbon to Madrid and on across occupied France to Geneva. I had letters of introduction to banks in Lisbon, Madrid, Geneva and Zurich. Everything about me said, with absolute authenticity, that I was a Uruguayan businessman in neutral Europe looking for a bank loan to buy ships.

  I shook hands with the Frenchmen and my trepidation abated somewhat. They were dropping into occupied France; I, at least in theory, would land in a neutral country whose inhabitants would not regard me as the enemy. I kept telling myself that: I was not falling into the arms of my foes. The dropping-officer was an Englishman, Flight-Sgt Chew.

  We took off at dusk. Our squadron of Liberators joining up with others from nearby bases gathering in a group above the Bay of Naples before heading north in formation, making for Bavaria. ‘Ball-bearing factory,’ Chew whispered confidentially. Chew was a talkative fellow (perhaps it was part of his brief) and he was glad to be dropping an Englishman for once (‘Keep themselves to themselves, the Frenchies do’). He kept asking questions to which he knew I wasn’t allowed to respond. ‘Been in London lately, sir? – Sorry, sorry.’ ‘Miners still striking back home, are they? Sorry, sir, haven’t been back in months, you see.’

  After about two hours I felt our bomber bank away from the bomber group and begin to descend. Chew told me to prepare myself, so I went and stood by the side door and attached the long webbing strap of my suitcase to my ankle and clicked my ripcord on to the roof cable. I dug a balaclava out of my pocket and put it on.

  This was the moment my fear reached its purest form and I heard a voice inside my head screaming, ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Mountstuart? You
have a wife and a child. You don’t want to die. Why did you agree to this?’ I let it rant on, it was distracting, and in any case I had no answers. Chew looked out of a small porthole and said, ‘Nice clear night for it, sir.’ Then an American voice said ‘Five minutes’ and a red light came on above the doorway. The two Frenchmen gave me V for victory signs and muttered good luck.

  Chew hauled the door open and the cold air whipped around us. Through the door I could see searchlights stiffly probing the sky. ‘Good old Swiss,’ Chew said. ‘Occasionally they throw up some ack-ack for form’s sake. Always switch on the lights, though, just so we can see where we are.’ Above the door the green bulb went on. Chew slapped me on the back and I picked up my suitcase, clutched it to my chest and stepped out into the night for my sixth parachute drop.

  It was an icy wind that hit me and I heard the whumph as my parachute opened above me, as simultaneously my suitcase was snatched from my arms by the slipstream and, as it fell, it jerked painfully on my right leg. For one horrible moment I thought I had lost a shoe. It was most uncomfortable with the dangling suitcase tugging beneath me like some animate being attached to my ankle. I heard the noise of the Liberator’s engines surge as it climbed away to rejoin the other bombers.

  There was a half moon that night and scudding clouds. Beneath me I could see the fields in a uniform grey-blue light with larger, whiter patches of unmelted snow. In the distance I could see the flat sheet of Lake Geneva and the not very efficient blackout of the city itself. I seemed to be approximately in the right place.

  I had a bad moment as I came in to land, just missing a small copse of trees, hit the ground awkwardly and was dragged along by my ‘chute for thirty yards or so. I caught my breath and methodically gathered in my parachute, slipping off the harness and my overalls. In my suitcase were an overcoat, a scarf and a Homburg hat. I put them on: it was cold. I then spent half an hour looking for somewhere to hide my parachute and overalls and eventually ended up burying them in a drift of snow by a stone wall, patting down the disturbed snow as best I could, reasoning that by the time anyone discovered them I should be lost in the city.