by Pamela Pope
He must be ill. He wasn’t drunk. Fear of discovery was now secondary to the worry over his mental state, and he stepped out into the passage without caring, thankful to be turning the key on his weird fantasies.
Alarm bells started to ring before he was even through the body shop, and shouts for the Works to be evacuated were carried from mouth to mouth. Julian froze. No one could have known about the bomb. No one could have suspected his motive for being there, unless there was an inside agent working for Walter who had turned counter-spy and reported his activities. He felt like a fly caught in a bottle, not knowing which way to turn.
The decision was made for him when panic-stricken employees started carrying him along on the tide of their anxiety to be out of the building. He was pushed towards the far doorway opening onto the yard, which was too narrow to let the swell of people through other than a few at a time, and they crushed together like water building up against a dam. Julian had no choice but to go with them. He could feel the fear of these people, mostly women, and was infected by it.
Suddenly, and with terrifying clarity, he knew he had set the timing mechanism wrong on the device he had planted. Without his spectacles the numbers had been blurred and he’d had to go by the upright position on the dial to ensure it would go ofTat midnight. But in his haste he hadn’t checked. Seeing it now in his mind’s eye he knew he had primed it for six o’clock instead, having had to open the case the opposite way round in the confined space, with the lid towards him. Fear made his stomach lurch almost uncontrollably.
‘What the hell’s the delay,’ he called from behind. ‘Get a move on. There may not be much time.’
He pushed with the rest, but his voice only added to the pandemonium. A large railway clock on the wall above the door through which he was being pressed showed the time to be ten minutes to six now. He was almost the last to reach the yard, and he started to run so as to put as much distance as possible between himself and the explosion he knew would happen within minutes. Most of the employees had congregated in the road outside the main entrance, herded together for their names to be checked. He couldn’t go out that way.
He went round the side of the reception office, intending to make for a gate which would lead him into Western Esplanade, but through an open window he heard a quavering voice he recognised as belonging to Mr Thorne. It made him stop abruptly.
‘Are you sure no one saw Mrs Berman leave? There was no sign of her …’
Ellie. Astonishingly, the figure he’d thought was only in his imagination had been Ellie for real. For some extraordinary reason she’d been hiding in the storeroom and — my God, he’d locked her in!
Julian’s head was swimming, his heart pounding. All the passionate feelings he’d had for his niece flooded his mind, blocking out all else, and his eyes were wild as he looked back. He must return through the body shop and into the store before it was too late. The key was already in his hand as he set ofF, ignoring a staccato command to halt.
Max was chasing him. Max was yelling at him to stop as he gained on him.
‘You bloody traitor, Julian. You’ll hang for this if what Millicent told me is true.’ The younger and fitter man caught up with him just inside the now empty body shop, and he nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket as he swung him round. He had him by the throat. ‘Damn you! I’ve ordered your arrest.’
Julian could only gasp and choke on the words he had to get out. ‘Ellie’s … in the … storeroom …’
Max had been shaking him like a terrier with a rat, but he stopped dead, letting him go. ‘You’re mad.’
‘She’s there, I tell you! It’s where the bomb is. For God’s sake, if we don’t get there now it’ll be too late.’
Without another word Max set off again, this time streaking ahead as he ran between the construction lines of vehicles and machinery to the rear door, but by the time he reached the passage Julian was close behind. The storeroom door was open and Max rushed inside, yelling his wife’s name.
‘Ellie! Ellie, where are you?’
It was then the place was torn apart by a massive explosion which buried them both under bricks and glass and packing cases as the machine shop and everything in its vicinity was destroyed.
When she realised she was locked in, Ellie banged on the door until her knuckles were sore, but no one heard her. No doubt the noise would be mistaken for hammering in the body shop, which at times could be deafening. She shouted herself hoarse, but no one came. Where were the security guards? Admittedly the walls were thick and the door heavy, but surely someone must walk along the passage and hear her soon.
What an absolute fool she’d been, not to have revealed her presence to Julian. A reprimand for being nosy would have been infinitely preferable to imprisonment in this vast, airless storeroom which was beginning to make her feel she couldn’t breathe.
It was strange that Julian had been in the store at all. She’d been shocked by his appearance in that brief glimpse. He’d looked gaunt and old, his eyes almost glazed, but probably the dim light had just made him seem like that. His movements had been furtive, though, as if he didn’t want to be caught there any more than she did. If it had been anyone but him she would have been slightly suspicious.
She must find another way out. Utterly frustrated and angry with herself, she started to walk through the maze of metal shelves and packing cases. She ought not to have moved from the spot where Mr Thorne had left her. The man would wonder where on earth she had gone, but he wouldn’t think to look for her in a components store. She looked at her watch. It was nearly six o’clock. The women she’d seen assembling fuses would be going home, and new supplies wouldn’t be wanted until morning, which meant no one would be coming to the storeroom again tonight. Ellie’s skin became goose-pimpled. She was trapped here, and already it was beginning to get dark. The thought of spending the night in such surroundings filled her with terror. When it was completely dark she wouldn’t dare to move for fear of dislodging something.
At the far end there were narrow windows, but they were securely locked and only looked out on a narrow yard and a brick wall. No one would be going past to see her. She turned to her right and dodged between packing cases stacked on top of each other like building blocks, and ended up at the same door she had been assaulting. There wasn’t another one.
She sat on a box to consider her position. It was then the alarm bells started sounding with harsh insistence, almost deafening her, and she was on her feet again, desperate to know the reason for them. She could hear voices shouting. It sounded as if the building was being evacuated. For a moment Ellie was paralysed with fear: then she started kicking the door until her toes felt broken and her legs were trembling too much to hold her.
Something very serious was happening for alarms to ring. Something life-threatening, if the building was being cleared. She was petrified. There must be a fire.
Ever since the blast in Max’s apartment in Pullman, Ellie had been frightened of fire, but that fear had increased to an obsession after Grandfather Cromer had died in the inferno at the Iroquois Theater. She began to shake from head to foot. No one knew she was here, and she wouldn’t stand a chance if fire swept through as far as the store. She didn’t know precisely what the boxes contained, but she imagined they were combustible. Gulping, dry-eyed sobs of terror escaped her.
When the door was suddenly unlocked and two men appeared in the doorway her relief was so great she pushed past them to escape like someone demented. But she had only gone a few yards when one of them caught her in a grip of steel and forced her to stop.
‘Not so fast!’ he bellowed. He was in the uniform of a security guard and carried a gun. ‘What were you doing in there? Where do you think you’re going?’
‘Fire! I’ve got to get out,’ she cried, in terrible distress.
‘How do you know there’s a fire? Have you started one?’
‘No, of course I haven’t!’
His mate took her other arm and they hauled her along, through the double doors into the machine shop, between the deserted work-benches and out at the far end by a new entrance connecting the munitions department with the Western Esplanade. Groups of police and Army servicemen were gathering outside.
‘Let me go. I can walk on my own.’ She struggled and protested, furious at their treatment of her, but she couldn’t get away. ‘Will you take your hands off me!’
Her hat was somewhere in the storeroom where she had taken it ofTin the stifling heat. The pins were falling from her hair and she looked too dishevelled to be anyone of importance. An officer stepped down from an Army vehicle and came towards them arrogantly, his eyes flicking over the captive woman with contempt.
‘What’s this? What’s she done?’
‘Suspected arson, sir. Found her lurking in a storeroom by the machine shop. Could be high treason.’
‘Who is she?’
‘I can speak for myself,’ shouted Ellie. ‘High treason, indeed! What are you talking about? I’m Mrs Berman of the American Red Cross, and I demand to see my husband.’
‘Papers.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Have you got papers to prove who you are?’
The time was six o’clock. As a distant church clock chimed the hour, an appalling, ear-splitting explosion rocked the earth under their feet, and Ellie, along with everyone else, was knocked to the ground by the blast. Her head hit a stone and she lost consciousness.
After a few eerie seconds of silence, men began picking themselves up. What remained of Court Carriages’ machine shop and body shop was settling into a heap of twisted metal and bricks, and a cloud of dust was rising into the atmosphere.
It was almost dark, and Ellie Berman stayed unconscious for several more minutes. The woman they had found in such suspicious circumstances and dragged from the building with scarcely a minute to spare, lay on the ground where she had been thrown, her eyes closed and her grey cape with the Red Cross emblem on the shoulder spread across her. The officer who had demanded evidence of her identity ordered one of his men to get her in the lorry, but as she revived she tried to fight off all efforts to force her.
‘Don’t touch me.’ It was difficult to speak. Her throat felt tight and painful, and her eyes wouldn’t focus properly.
Bruised and dazed she managed to sit up, and she was sickened to the core as with blurred vision she witnessed the death throes of the company she had once helped to prosper. Treason. Did they really think she was capable of destroying something belonging to her family, Max’s company to which he had given twenty years of his life? And after all she had done to help the war effort it was ludicrous to suspect her of sabotaging it.
Was it treason? She felt ill as she remembered Julian’s strange behaviour, but even if she tried to incriminate him she doubted her word would be believed.
‘You’ve no right to do this to me,’ she wept, as cruel hands dug beneath her armpits to lift her.
‘Get her in there,’ the officer commanded, losing patience.
‘If you’ll telephone Richmond Hospital they’ll tell you why I’m here.’
‘Tie her up if necessary.’ Her plea was completely ignored.
No sense in resisting further if she didn’t want to be hurt any more than she was already. There was a lump on her temple which throbbed, and she couldn’t seem to see properly, but no one cared. She was bundled in the lorry, and no help was offered when she stumbled on the iron step.
They were about to drive off when a girl in a black office skirt and white blouse came running to the Army Lieutenant, her face white, her hands shaking.
‘Sir, I’m sent to tell you Mr Berman’s been killed. He went in the Works to find his wife. Oh sir, all this is my fault because I didn’t tell him she was here. I didn’t know where she’d gone.’
The officer slammed his hand against the side of the vehicle to delay its departure. He opened the door at the back which had just been fastened and a guard positioned in case the prisoner tried to escape.
‘Do you know this woman?’ he asked the clerk.
Ellie was crouching on the floor, her head in her hands, but she looked up with relief at hearing a slightly familiar voice. ‘Please tell them who I am,’ she begged.
The girl put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, mercy! It’s her. It’s Mrs Berman.’
‘Thank you, Miss …’
‘Cobham, sir. Miss Cobham. Was it her who done it? And to think Mr Berman died trying to save her …’
The door was slammed shut again.
Ellie didn’t make another sound. Her breathing was laboured, her shoulders hunched, and her arms were crossed so tightly against her breast it seemed she was crushing her heart.
‘Oh no,’ she moaned. ‘Oh, no …’
The soldier sitting next to her showed no sympathy. She fell against the cold, hard side of the lorry, her spirit broken, and the present dissolved away.
Above the noise of the engine and the rattling wheels she heard herself in the past when she had accused Max of not really loving her. Words, she had said. Just words which meant nothing, and she’d insisted she wouldn’t believe him until he proved he loved her. And now he had done it.
He had made the ultimate sacrifice by giving his life for her.
She wanted to die herself.
Twenty-Three
From the moment William fell in love with Galina the war took on a new significance. He no longer had to think only of his own survival. Galina was constantly on his mind, and he worried about her far more than he did about himself.
She was true to her word and wrote to him every day, even if it was only a single line to say that she loved him, and the letters got through several at a time. He tried to write to her as regularly, but the offensive continued and life behind the lines was brutally hard, so there were few chances to put pen to paper. He tried to make up for quantity by putting his heart into every missive he sent.
‘My darling Galina,’ he wrote. ‘I grudge every hour, every minute I am not with you. I long to hold you in my arms again, and pray we will win this war before many more weeks have passed. I lie on my groundsheet at night and remember the wonderful feel of your body close to mine. Memories of your hair sliding through my fingers tease me until I can’t sleep, even though I am too weary to remove my boots.
‘Loving you has made me hate what is happening to the world. With you I see a bright new beginning where everything is golden, and I ache for the suffering of innocent people who will never again know love. My dear girl, you have given a whole new meaning to my life and I can’t wait for the day when we’ll be together always.
‘Say that you’ll marry me. I shan’t give you any peace until you promise to be my wife. Who cares if our children will be Russian-Irish-Jewish-Catholics? Nothing and nobody will stop me from making an honest woman of you.
‘I’ll love you forever, William.’
The American First Army had now joined forces with the Second French Army of Verdun, and under the genius of General Petain, the Hun was swept back in orderly assaults. A combined Franco-American effort gained the high hills on the west side of the Argonne, and in the forest along the Aire River the United States troops won a substantial victory by driving the enemy clear of the railway line at Marcq.
The campaign was complicated by the desperate stratagems of the retreating Germans. When the fighting eased there were still ambushes to fear and traps to avoid. At one place in the advance they came to a stagnant pool of poisonous gas which made men terribly ill. At other times there were trip-and pressure-mines and the ever-present danger of one false step leading to Eternity. And always and everywhere, there were the dead. In other wars there had been time to bury the dead. In this one the numbers killed were so colossal, the weapons so destructive, that often there was nothing left of a man’s body to bury. William had seen mass burial-grounds blown open again by shells, ev
en corpses stacked together to help form barricades, and the smell of death hung about him continually.
‘We’ve been fighting our way through fields of wire and barricades,’ he wrote to Galina. ‘I look upon it as an obstacle course through which I have to struggle before we can be together.’
‘Take care, my dearest William,’ Galina wrote back. ‘I love every single part of you, and I know them all. You are the most precious being in my life and I’ll not settle for anything less than the complete you.
‘I can’t tell you where I am, but I’ve been moved to a sector quite a way to the north of you where casualties are high. Even so, I still look for you along every road in the hope we might one day meet again like we did the first time.
‘My darling, I’ll not give you an answer to the marriage proposal until the war is over. Who knows how differently we might look at things when the circumstances are changed.
‘The change will not be in me. I shall always love you. But I have to give you the chance to change your mind. You are always in my heart, Galina.’
The Argonne terrain suited the Americans, and they pushed forward through high wooded country, poor roads, rain and bad visibility, initiative on the part of patrols and platoon commanders bringing them safely through tunnels and wolf-pits and entanglements, and dodging the everpresent machine-gun posts.