Spies on Bikes

by Dennis Forster

  ‘In that case she writes the same way as she talks. She’s written pages. It will take me time to separate the wheat from the chaff. She likes gossip?’

  ‘Of course, she’s a woman.’

  ‘Don’t say that to your Aunt Elizabeth. Is she a mischief maker?’

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘She tells it as she sees it?’

  ‘Yes … Uncle Charles, she’s a good woman. You asked her to help and she’s done her best.’

  ‘You are prejudiced. She bought you an aeroplane.’

  ‘She is from Boston. Her family landed with the Pilgrim Fathers. Whatever it is she’s written that’s making you question her integrity, believe me, it will be true or she will, hand on heart, believe it to be true.’

  ‘Sorry to raise your hackles, Harry, I wanted to know more about my source, that’s all. Before I share my suspicions with London I must be certain that the information she’s given me is bona fide.’

  ‘My American aunt is kind, generous and pro-British. She has two cats. One is called Nelson, the other, Wellington.’

  ‘I’m convinced … no cat lover would name her cats after people she disliked.’

  ‘Are you going to share your suspicions with me?’

  ‘Better not.’

  ‘She’s my aunt, dash it.’

  ‘When you meet my guests and know my suspicions about one of them you will give the game away. You will be hostile to the suspect.’

  ‘I will not … I’m as good a patriot as the next man.’

  ‘But you are not an actor. When you can hide your dislike of Mike then you will be ready for diplomacy. Your American aunt has given me the key to a door I’d hitherto not thought of opening. For that you must thank her. In diplomacy it is always an advantage to know what the other side is thinking – some people are such good liars.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘I like to think I am. When a diplomat knows a truthful answer is ‘yes’ he must learn, with absolute conviction, to answer ‘no’ if that is the answer the security of his country demands. I will not give you a written answer to your aunt’s letter. If one has a choice, never put anything in writing. A letter falling into the wrong hands can leave a chap up the Limpopo without a paddle. There are too many Americans who’d like to have evidence that people close to the President are keen to embroil their country in another European war. I would, however, like you to make certain that she knows of my gratitude.’

  ‘Where are your American guests now?’

  ‘All are on the Queen Mary, except for Marigold Striker. She’s a professor of history. She’s coming to join us from somewhere in Germany. I’ll have you know she’s the President’s eyes and ears.’

  ‘A female professor?’

  ‘Women do have brains, you know. Before joining us, she’s giving a lecture at Durham University. She’s clever and rich. Your American aunt knows all about her. In her letter she hints that it would be ever so nice if you and the professor were to become an item.’

  ‘I say, Uncle Charles, steady on.’

  ‘On the QM I’ve arranged for the Americans to dine in the Veranda Grill.’

  ‘A class better than first class. You are spoiling them.’

  ‘His Majesty’s Government is paying.’

  ‘Does that mean the visit is official?’

  ‘No, officially the visit is unofficial. They are coming to The Hall as my guests for a shooting holiday.’

  ‘And when they are here?’

  ‘To call a spade a spade we will discuss how to involve America in any conflict that might arise between Great Britain and Germany. All my guests are sympathetic to that aim, or at least I thought they were. Your aunt’s letter has suggested that I may have to watch my back. All have influence in their country. Professor Striker will inform President Roosevelt of all we say … that part of our get-together, at least, is official. So difficult to believe, standing here, looking at Northumberland’s rolling hills, everything so peaceful, that, in a civilised country like Germany, the home of Goethe and Beethoven, you can be beaten to death because you are a Jew. When I ponder what the coming months might bring, I experience the feeling I had when I went over the top at the Somme. It is one of bowel emptying resignation. It is not like the fear of making your first speech in the House. I see the sky above our heads full of aeroplanes daubed with swastikas. Hitler will try to bomb us into submission. In the coming conflict there will be no civilians. Everyone who lives in this green and pleasant land of ours will be a target. HMG has commissioned a study to find out how long it will take the Luftwaffe to destroy London – many, many years apparently. Thank goodness our capital is vast. To obliterate London the Bohemian Corporal will need an air force too big even for him to build. I suppose that’s one piece of good news. By the way, while you are here, there’s a favour Elizabeth and I want to ask. It concerns our refugee. He has relatives in America – can you help us find them?’

  ‘You want me to use my family contacts?’

  ‘Yes, get your aunt involved. Once they are located he’ll be off our hands.’

  ‘You make him sound less than desirable. Is he a handful?’

  ‘Shall we say, boys will be “boys”. It was the Countess of Reading who persuaded myself and Elizabeth to do our bit and take in a Jewish child. Stella can be very persuasive. We are all very fond of the lad. The rabbis are the problem. They are concerned about Jewish children been placed in non-Jewish homes.’

  ‘Are they frightened he might eat a bacon sandwich?’

  ‘When you have seen your mother and father bludgeoned to death I suspect the fear of eating a taboo food becomes somewhat irrelevant. The lad knows the rules of his religion. When I asked him about them he told me he wanted to be treated like an English boy. He calls me Uncle Charles. “Uncle Charles,” he told me, “do not tell me what I am eating. If I like it, I will eat it.” I took the same view in the trenches. We all did. Once Mike presented me with a plate of stew. When I asked him what it was he said, “Don’t ask.” He knew that I knew it was rat, but we all played this game. Silly, really, but there you are. We were all so hungry. It was hot and meaty. We gobbled it down by telling ourselves we were eating beef. It helped us survive. When the Germans attacked we were full of protein. That was the day I won my VC. If I hadn’t eaten rat I wouldn’t have had the strength to run across no-man’s land and take out that German machine gun.

  To keep the rabbis happy he goes to a Jewish school in Newcastle. He’s never keen to go, much prefers roaming the moors. He’s gaining confidence now that he knows he’s not going to be attacked because he is a Jew. He takes himself off into the heather for days at a time. He is quite the loner. Mike has taught him how to hunt rabbits with a longbow. He has the great gift of making people like him, no matter what he does. Elizabeth calls him her “Ray of Noisy Sunshine”. It helps us remember the time when our girls, your dear cousins, were pushing dolls’ prams round the house … how they used to argue.’

  ‘They still do.’

  ‘I know … I’m growing old, Harry. I’m in danger of forgetting just how much patience it takes to handle children. This morning I nearly lost my temper when I found Jack had been teasing Tom by putting snails on the melons.’

  ‘Does the lad not know how passionate you are about growing the perfect melon?’

  ‘I think not. Last week he upset Cook. The little devil hardboiled the eggs she’d set aside for breakfast. Phyllis couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t crack. He was watching her, I was told, giggling under a table. In the end both thought it funny. Phyllis now says that every time she thinks about it she gets a fit of the giggles.’

  ‘He made Phyllis laugh?’

  ‘Yes … I told you the blighter had a way with him. She spoils him and so does Elizabeth. I think my dear wife misses not having a son.’

  ‘You have a
grandson. How is George? He’s joining us tomorrow, I gather.’

  ‘Yes, that at least is something to look forward to. Elizabeth tells me that when George is here I’m much easier to live with.’

  ‘His health?’

  ‘The doctors have advised that the iron on his leg be removed. The poor chap will have to accept that for the rest of his life he will have a limp. Polio is a terrible thing. Yet, he’s been lucky. He has survived. He is still with us and for that I thank God.’

  ‘And what of his hearing?’

  ‘He has a partial loss. Meningitis and polio … the poor chap has had his share of misfortune. Elizabeth and I love him to bits. He’ll be spending what’s left of his summer holidays with us. We’ve told him that this year he’ll have someone to play with.’

  ‘Will he get on with Jack?’

  ‘I hope so … in their different ways both have had their share of bad luck. Both are tough characters. They are survivors. George is nowhere near as disabled as someone reading his medical history might imagine. He’s a crack shot. His limp never stops him walking miles over the moors. He can drive a tractor and manoeuvre it and its trailer into the tightest of spots. When they meet I think it might be like watching two stags during the rut. I would not bet on the winner. A good job they’ve not started thinking about, you know, the opposite sex. At least I don’t think they have. But it won’t be long before they do. At twelve they are no longer children.’

  ‘How is Jack’s English?’

  ‘Coming on in leaps and bounds. Like many Jews he has a gift for languages. In his youthful way he is quite the scholar. He keeps a notebook in which he writes rules of grammar, new words … use a word he’s not heard before and he’s at you like a dog at a bone … wants to know what it means, how to use it, how to spell it. “So I’ll not forget,” he says when he’s at his jottings. A few days ago he told me he’d been “fucking” a pheasant with Mike. I said, “You mean plucking a pheasant?” He looked me straight in the eye and said, “I pluck a pheasant, I do not fuck a pheasant?” “Yes,” I said, looking at him hard, “that’s right … pluck. We don’t use the other word. Make sure you write that down in your book.” I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but I do think he had a twinkle in his eye.’

  ‘Mike is a bad influence.’

  ‘Mike is like army rations, Harry, an acquired taste. You are prejudiced. He’s good for the lad. Mike and his wife have all but adopted him. Jack says he has four homes … Germany, The Hall, Mike’s cottage and his ‘erdgeist lager’, his earth-spirit home. It’s a kind of den he’s made for himself at the top of the Meadow Hill. When Mike and I were boys it was our den. Latterly he’s taken to sleeping there. He says being close to Mother Earth makes him feel safe. I fear the Nazis have traumatised him. Elizabeth fusses about him being out all night. She wants to wrap him in cotton wool. When I was his age I loved sleeping under the stars. I refuse to hem the lad in. He’s seen too much of the beast in man. I am giving him the medicine that helps me live with my memories of the Somme.’ He gestured towards the fields which, because of a ha-ha, rolled like a wave of uninterrupted green on to the terrace. He sniffed the air like a dog.

  ‘The champagne air of Northumberland,’ suggested Harry.

  ‘Yes, and the good news is he is drinking it up in goblets. Mike is teaching him all the things he taught you. He’s had him out stalking … tells me the lad is a natural, says he uses the lie of the land without having to be told … never forgets which way the wind is blowing. You know what noses deer have on them. The slightest whiff of human and they’re off.’

  ‘Maybe he’s a good hunter because he’s been hunted. Don’t they say a deer which has been shot at is twice as wary as one which has not?’

  ‘That’s why Mike is having trouble stalking that big stag. The first time he took a pot at him he missed by inches. I gather we’ll not see you for dinner?’

  ‘I’m off to Pruney’s birthday party.’

  ‘CB’s daughter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ve heard she’s nothing like her father, rather a good looking girl by all accounts.’

  ‘Rather.’

  ‘She must take after her mother. CB’s wife was an attractive woman … sad she died so young. I could never understand her marrying CB. Women are funny creatures, don’t you think? Where’s the party?’

  ‘Assembly Rooms.’

  ‘Take the MG. Mother told me she married Father because he drove a phaeton. Let’s see what an MG does for your chances with Pruney. I’ll tell Bert to leave you a cold supper. I won’t expect you back until the early hours. Your aunt and I will be tucked up in bed. If war breaks out people will be going to parties to help them forget rather than for pleasure. Harry … go and enjoy yourself. At your age I was in the trenches.’

  7

  To avoid the rat, Marigold lurched to one side. A sound like a bee in a hurry passed close to her head. Waves of sound broke against the tunnel’s walls. She turned, saw Doyle and ran.

  At the end of the tunnel, chest heaving, sucking in lungful after lungful of smoky air, she ran towards a group of men unloading a lorry. A rotund man, with red cheeks and a shock of white hair, appeared to be in charge. Every time a sheave of poles was unloaded he sucked a pencil and made a note on a clipboard. She ran at him like a sprinter who, knowing his competitors are hard on his heels, throws himself over the finishing line.

  ‘What’s the matter, pet? Is the polis after yuh?’

  ‘You bet.’

  Her shortness of breath made her whisper ‘you’ while her American accent boomed out ‘bet’. Because he was expecting a ‘runner’ (someone who broke the law by taking betting money to a bookie) and he was very keen that his bet be placed, ‘cos it was a dead cert’, he was more than half way to believing that that was what she was.

  ‘Are you the new runner?’

  When she nodded her head, not to answer his question but because she was out of breath, well, that was good enough for him.

  ‘We’ve never had a woman ‘runner’ before. I saw a cloud this morning that looked like a horse. I’ve got sixpence each way on Geordie Black. Do’s a favour pet, to bring me luck, touch my clipboard. McPherson keeps the money … ask for Eddy … in you go … follow the shunting poles. You can get out the back way …over the railway lines. I’ll take care of the polis … plain clothes man, is he? Leave him to me.’

  A notice warned, ‘Trespassers will be prosecuted. London and North-East Railways, Supplies and Contracts Dept’. The warehouse was cold, like a larder. There was a smell of dampness, a dungeon smell, also the smell of carbolic soap and wood resin, the aroma of the hardware store. One bay she passed was piled high with extra-long broom handles, shunting poles, she guessed; poles designed to make light work, through leverage, of lifting the steel couplings joining one railway wagon to another. Another bay held tottering stacks of galvanised buckets; another, untidy heaps of mop heads, thrown in, she got the impression, any old how, as the butchers of the French Revolution might have piled the guillotined heads of their aristocratic victims. If Doyle and the Pied Piper caught her, would they chop off her head, cut her up into little pieces and, mafia style, feed her to the fishes? Nearly tripping over a cardboard box smelling of soap she cautioned herself to concentrate, to curb her flights of fancy. She was alive and had every intention of staying that way.

  The place was a maze. A spiral staircase corkscrewed to an upper floor. A glass booth seemed to be some kind of office; through its grimy windows she glimpsed dockets filled with rolls of paper. Above its closed door, a crude sign, ‘Eddy’s’. The money man? What odds would Eddy give on her not being murdered by Doyle? Ahead she saw railway signals and daylight.

  Breathing heavily, gasping for air, she found herself on a loading dock where a shunting engine was beginning to move a short train of closed wagons. She jumped into the last wagon because its slid
ing door was slightly open. On its side, scrawled in chalk, ‘Kielder’; which she misread as ‘kill her’, such was her state of mind.

  She found her bolt hole to be full of shunting poles and galvanised buckets. Like the warehouse, it smelled of soap.

  By the time Doyle appeared at the door the train had gathered speed. His splayed arms and legs struggled to get a hold on the moving wagon. The advantage was all hers. She went at him with the hooked end of a shunting pole, like an English pike man attacking a Frenchman at Agincourt. To avoid disembowelment he jumped off, disappearing through floating feathers of steam.

  All too soon the train stopped. She wanted not one mile but hundreds of miles between herself and Doyle. In case he should reappear, she held the shunting pole in a way that showed she was ready for a fight. She heard voices … Geordie voices, a man whistling … someone happy at his work … someone talking about football … Newcastle were playing Arsenal … the door slid shut.

  At first the wagon moved in fits and starts. Its unpredictable jolts left her no choice but to sit on its dirty floor. She found the noise and constant jolting exhausting.

  Later, the lights of passing stations appeared and disappeared through cracks in the wagon’s ill-fitting door. Her discomfort was worse than anything she’d endured during last night’s stormy crossing of the North Sea. She made a pillow out of mop heads. At midnight, with great reluctance, but compelled by necessity, she relieved herself in a galvanised bucket.

  8

  In preparation for afternoon tea, Lady Elizabeth instructed Bert to open the French Windows.

  ‘My aim, Bert,’ she told the butler, ‘is to make Sir Charles ‘think’ he is al fresco. He is a perfect fiend for wanting to share his food with the elements and, since his spell in the trenches, with the poor as well. I sometimes think he’s mad.’

  ‘You sit there, dear,’ she told her husband, ‘then you’ll think you are sitting outside … and why are you not wearing a tie?’

  ‘Because I’m hot.’