by Caro Fraser
‘Well, thank goodness you’re alive,’ she remarked, when she saw Meg. ‘I’ve been rather worried, but I assumed you’d be staying at Diana’s.’
‘No, I was at the top of the road when the sirens went off. I finished up in the crypt of the church. You won’t believe who I met there – Dan Ranscombe. He was on his way here to give this back to you.’
‘Well, what a coincidence!’ Helen took the jewellery roll. ‘I’m certainly glad to have my rings back.’
‘We ended up in Belgravia, his father’s old house.’
Helen seemed to think nothing of this. ‘I’m glad you found somewhere safe for the night. I was just relieved to find my house still standing when I came back this morning. It could have been much worse. Obviously not for some of the poor people around here, but I’ve been very lucky.’
‘Where did you stay?’
‘Oh, they evacuated us to the air-raid shelter at the school round the corner. Not the most comfortable of nights, but everyone was in remarkably good spirits. It was quite a heartening experience. What will you be doing today?’
‘I’m having lunch with Diana, then getting the train back. I can stay on another night, if you’d like. We haven’t had any time together.’
‘Darling, not on my account, please. I’m sure Max is missing you. We can have a late breakfast together now, before I get off to my WVS salvage drive.’
*
Meg and Diana met for lunch. Diana was radiant; Roddy had telephoned last night, and she had told him about the baby. Meg listened as Diana talked happily. This is what it should be like, she thought. The way she and Dan could have been if only she’d known better, known more about the world and about herself. She passed a hand over her eyes at the thought of the deceit she and Dan were going to have to practise to have any happiness.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Diana.
‘I’m fine. Just a bit tired.’ She told Diana about the events of the air raid.
‘What a stroke of luck running into Dan. Better than being crammed into some dreadful shelter with loads of people. I’m afraid I just hid under the table and hoped for the best,’ said Diana. ‘And while I was listening to the bombs going off, I decided to accept your invitation to come and live at Hazelhurst. Actually, Roddy had already decided for me. He said the bombing’s only going to get worse, and that I’d be mad not to go.’
‘That’s marvellous. When do you want to come?’
‘Well, I have a number of things to arrange, but perhaps next week, if I can get myself in order.’
‘I’ll tell Paul. I know he’ll be delighted.’
*
On the train journey home, Meg reflected on what her future would now be. She remembered this feeling from four years ago, when she and Dan had first become lovers. What a false start that had been. This time would be different. It would involve lies, deceit, and any amount of guilt, but she didn’t care. Dan was right. Each time they met might be the last. She had to take her happiness where she could find it. The best she could do for Paul was to maintain a semblance of affection, so that he should never suspect.
When she arrived home late that afternoon, she found Paul in his study, pipe in mouth, going through papers. Her manner as she kissed him was bright and cheerful, and felt entirely artificial.
‘I’ve been hearing all about your air-raid adventures from Diana,’ said Paul. ‘Just as well you had somewhere to stay.’
‘Yes, it was kind of Dan, wasn’t it? It was all quite terrifying, though. At least Mother’s house is still standing, to say nothing of Mother.’ She pulled off her gloves. ‘I’ll just go and see Max.’
As she reached the door, Paul said, ‘Good news about Diana’s baby. And about her coming to live here.’ He turned back to his work. ‘Though I do think you might have asked me first.’
Meg was astonished. ‘Why? Would you have said no?’
‘Of course not. But it’s the principle of the thing. A man likes to be consulted on who he’s to have living in his home.’
‘For God’s sake, Paul, she’s your sister. Don’t be so pompous.’ The pretence at affection collapsed instantly. They were back to the mood of mild animosity which had prevailed before her visit to London. She turned and went to the nursery before he could reply.
*
A few days later Meg made a pragmatic decision and went to see Dr Carr, and asked to be fitted for a diaphragm. It took some courage, but she felt she had no choice. Given her situation, she couldn’t afford to get pregnant again.
Dr Carr raised his eyebrows at the request. Meg could sense his disapproval. ‘If that’s what you wish. Though I’d have thought you’d be thinking of extending your family, a healthy young woman like you. I take it you’ve discussed this with your husband?’
‘I have.’
The doctor uncapped his pen and began to write. ‘This is something for the nurse to attend to, not me. Take this through and she will arrange all that is necessary.’
6
THE DAY AFTER Meg left, Dan reported to an address in Baker Street for a pre-operation briefing. In a nondescript meeting room, he found himself together again with the men he had trained with in Scotland, all in a motley array of uniforms. Dan and Brendan greeted each other with wary cheerfulness, and a sense of being on the brink of something. Brigadier Gubbins, their commander from the Highland training, was there. He was a middle-aged man with a markedly erect bearing, piercing eyes beneath thick dark brows, and a neat moustache. His somewhat stern aspect was softened by the warmth of his occasional smile. Next to him stood a tall man with a lugubrious, unsmiling face, who now called the room to order.
‘Please be seated, gentlemen.’
They took their places in rows of chairs, facing a long, polished table with three seats and a large map of Europe behind it. The atmosphere of grim anticipation was laced with a scarcely suppressed boyish enthusiasm.
‘Gentlemen,’ said the tall man, ‘I am Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, Director of Combined Operations. Brigadier Gubbins is of course already well known to you. We are here today to set out the scope of the work that you will be undertaking over the next months, and for which your training has specially prepared you. Now, as you men know, Special Operations Executive has been established specifically to undermine German fighting capacity and morale, and to help tie down its forces in peripheral theatres away from the main battlefronts. You will be carrying out raids and acts of sabotage and subversion, undertaking coup de main operations, and will be involved in covert, so-called black propaganda. In occupied areas you will be preparing secret underground armies based on local resistance groups to be organised and preserved in readiness to support a landing by regular forces at a time determined by Britain and its allies.’
There was faint, eager stirring in the room.
Brigadier Gubbins, casting a keen eye along the rows of expectant faces, now spoke. ‘We intend to harness the potential for resistance in the occupied countries and create secret armies that will support Allied landings as part of an eventual liberation of Europe. It is part of an attritional strategy to wear down Axis power. The objective is to harass the enemy and cause as much material damage as possible. In short, you will be a thorn in Hitler’s side.’
The admiral rose and went to the map. ‘The focus of SOE’s missions in the coming months will be Norway. Since the surrender of Norway, as you can imagine, there are thousands of Norwegian servicemen in hiding who need only arms and communications to become an effective underground resistance movement. Indeed, such organisations already exist in a rudimentary form. SOE’s task is to send agents to western and southern Norway to contact or form resistance groups, and at the same time undertake sabotage operations on vital infrastructure – harbours, bridges, pipelines.’
‘Thank Christ they taught us to ski,’ murmured Brendan.
‘A base has been set up on the north-east coast of Shetland’ – he rapped the map with his pointer – ‘here. Shetland has become a place
of strategic significance, not least because of its potential to be used as an alternative entry point for a German attack, and we are boosting its defences. At the same time, we shall be launching missions in Norway using fishing boats which have been transporting refugees from Norway.’
A long way from London, thought Dan. A long way from Meg.
‘Which brings me,’ said the admiral, ‘to the details of your first mission.’
*
After the briefing Dan went back to Belgravia. Before leaving, he wrote two letters. The first was to Bill Shirer, asking if he remembered any rumours circulating in Berlin about an Englishman called Paul Latimer, or if the name meant anything to him. Certain information has come my way which raises concerns about his reliability, and as he is engaged in what I believe is sensitive government work, it is important that I verify it one way or another. Most grateful for any light you can shed. He marked it ‘Strictly Private and Confidential’, and addressed it care of the CBS office in New York. He had no idea whether Shirer still worked for CBS, but he hoped the letter would find its way to him. He doubted whether Shirer would know anything, but it was worth a try.
The second letter was to Meg, full of love and optimism, with a couple of jokes thrown in to make her laugh. He left the envelope on the hall table, propped up against a small silver vase. As he was about to leave he glanced back at the letter. The empty vase made it look forlorn. He dropped his bag, went back into the house and found the key to the communal gardens. There were plenty of shrub roses in bloom, but he wandered around until he found, tangled through a laurel bush, a rose which had run wild. He cut off a spray, took it back to the house, filled the little vase with water, and tucked the roses into it. Then he locked up and left.
*
Bombs continued to fall on London, and Helen reluctantly concluded that, for safety’s sake, she should follow Diana’s lead and move to the country. In Cheyne Walk the carpets were rolled up, the furniture covered in dustsheets, Helen’s precious miniatures and Limoges enamels were removed to storage, and she took up residence at Hazelhurst. She had relished the WVS work she had been doing in London, and had no intention of letting her energy and talents go to waste in the countryside. Within a week she had joined the Alderworth Women’s Institute, which was then in the throes of a drive to prevent the waste of surplus fruit in the district, and a few weeks later she was helping to organise a grand jam-making session at the village school.
On the final day she announced at dinner the amount of jam produced. ‘Five hundred pounds, from five hundred and seventy-eight pounds of fruit. Quite splendid, don’t you think? Hitler’s not having it all his own way.’
‘Marvellous,’ agreed Meg.
Diana grinned, and whispered to Meg, ‘Does your mother know that she and the other WI women are now known in the village as the jam tarts?’
Helen, oblivious, went on, ‘I shall have to ring Sonia later and tell her.’
*
Ever since she had arrived at Hazelhurst Helen had been thinking of ways to rival Sonia’s enterprises at Woodbourne House. Meg and Paul already kept chickens, and pig-keeping would look rather like copying, she decided – besides which, she didn’t really relish the thought of looking after pigs and she didn’t think Meg would, either – so she was pleased when she hit upon the idea of beekeeping.
‘I met a most charming land army girl at the jam-making session,’ she told Meg. ‘She’s leaving the area soon, and has two hives which she’s offering for sale for seven pounds ten shillings. I think I shall buy them.’
‘But you don’t know the first thing about beekeeping,’ protested Meg. ‘And besides, you don’t like insects. I’ve seen the way you behave when there’s a wasp around.’
‘I feel very differently about bees,’ said Helen. ‘There’s no malevolence in a bee.’
‘Well, there isn’t in a wasp, either,’ observed Diana.
‘I’ve been speaking to Dixon. His father kept bees, and Dixon used to help him. He knows a great deal about it. I think between us we shall manage perfectly well.’
Privately Meg thought that the project would come to nothing once her mother realised what it entailed, and she was surprised and faintly dismayed when, the next day, Helen announced she had bought the hives from the land girl.
‘Just make sure they’re put well away from the house,’ sighed Meg. ‘I don’t want Max getting stung. Honestly, Mother, I think you’re mad.’
But Dixon, who badly needed projects to occupy him besides the Home Guard and his work at Hazelhurst, was full of enthusiasm. He saw to it that the hives were placed well away from the house, behind the now defunct racing car workshop, and made enquiries locally to obtain the necessary protective equipment, which Helen paid for. He even made his own honey extractor out of two cake stands, a couple of biscuit tins soldered together, and the gearing from a discarded butter churn from a nearby farm. He effectively took charge of the entire undertaking, with the providential result that Helen could take credit without having to go near the bees too often.
Everyone except Dixon was astonished by how much honey the hives yielded in the very month that Helen bought them.
‘Sixty pounds,’ she informed Sonia over the telephone. ‘It’s going to be quite a cottage industry. We’re collecting jam jars, and we’ll be selling what we don’t need ourselves and donating the money to the war effort.’
‘And to think,’ said Meg to Diana, ‘that I was worried she was going to be bored in the countryside.’
*
When Dan next came home on leave, he found his letter to Meg still propped against the silver vase. So she hadn’t been here. He picked up the pile of mail from the doormat, and found among it a letter from Bill Shirer. He took it into the kitchen to read.
Dear Dan,
It was good to hear from you, and I hope you’re well. By the time you get this you and your fellow countrymen will doubtless be heartily sick of the sight and sound of my compatriots in your peaceful shires, but I hope you Brits will forgive us Americans our idiosyncrasies and recognise us as friends and allies. We’re in this wretched war together now, and if it brings about a quicker end to Hitler’s crazed regime, I for one am glad of it.
To address your specific question: the name you mention in your letter did not spring immediately to mind, but I took the time to go through my notes and diaries (remind me, if we ever meet again, to tell you the story of how I got those out of Germany), and yes, I find his name crops up. Paul Latimer seems to have been regarded by Himmler – when I was working in Berlin, at least – as a useful friend to Hitler’s regime, and acquainted with a number of Nazi sympathisers in Britain who might be in a position to provide intelligence to the German government.
Dan took a breath and looked up. He did not want to believe this. He almost wished he had never written to Shirer. How was it possible that the man whom he had known since their schooldays could be a traitor? It was, quite literally, incredible.
He carried on reading.
This, of course, was before the war, and whether or not Latimer has since then been garnering intelligence which might be useful to the Nazis, I’m not in a position to say. I do not know who his contacts in your country were or are. But if he is, as you say, operating at a sensitive level, then I would say it is certainly a matter that needs looking into urgently.
I hope this is of help. If ever you are over our way when the war ends – as it must at some time, and with God’s help on the right side – I hope you will take the time to look me up.
With kindest regards,
Bill Shirer
Dan folded up the letter and put it in his jacket pocket, then lit a cigarette. So what was he supposed to do now? He had to speak to someone, and the only person he could think of was Brigadier Gubbins. He rang the number in Whitehall which had been given to SOE agents for their sole use, and was told the brigadier was in London. When Dan indicated that the matter was one of the utmost importance and could only be
discussed directly with the brigadier, he was instructed to go immediately to Whitehall.
*
On the journey to Whitehall Dan wrestled with what he was about to do. Shirer’s letter couldn’t have been clearer. If Paul was a Nazi sympathiser then he could be doing untold damage, passing on information that came his way through his government job and from other contacts, possibly fatally undermining the war effort. What choice did he have but to tell someone? But when he thought of Paul he didn’t picture a traitor. All he could see was Paul the seventeen-year-old schoolboy gloriously, single-handedly bowling out the Harrow opposition; Paul, who loved Meg and his son and, so Dan had thought, his country. He struggled to believe it of him. If the powers-that-be uncovered evidence of treachery, Paul would hang. Dan went cold at the thought, not just of Paul’s death, but of what it would mean for Meg, and for Diana. Their lives would be ruined, the disgrace and misery would never leave them. Max would be burdened by his father’s dishonour for the rest of his life.
No, he couldn’t do it. He almost stopped the taxi. But then he realised that these were considerations that properly belonged to Paul – and Paul, if what Shirer wrote was true, must have weighed them up and decided that he was prepared to betray everyone and everything he knew and claimed to love. It had been his choice. It is not mine, thought Dan. I have no choice. As for Meg, if all of this was true, and disgrace and dishonour awaited Paul, then it would be better for her to break with him now, before the worst happened. Whether he could persuade her to do so was another matter.
Dan was shown into the brigadier’s office. The brigadier returned his salute and invited Dan to sit down.
‘I understand you have something of vital importance to discuss, Lance Corporal. Fire away.’
Dan told his story, how he had been a correspondent in Berlin before the war, and had met Bill Shirer and Alice Bauer. He then talked about his relationship with Paul, their time at school together, and then Cambridge. From there he moved on to the list, on which Paul’s name appeared.