British Bulldog

by Sara Sheridan

  ‘Hello,’ Mirabelle called, pushing open the door of the front room, where the disarray continued to such an extent that it took a moment to ascertain that there was nobody inside. She picked up a file and was horrified by a photograph of two stick-thin children, looking up ravenously from a meal of what appeared to be thin porridge. Behind it, two death certificates informed her that one had been called Girda and the other Max, although neither had a surname or, apparently, any knowledge of where they had originally come from. They died in November 1945 at the estimated ages of seven and eight years. They were so small they looked younger, except in the eyes. These children spoke German and Polish, someone had scribbled on the back of the picture – a clue in case anyone came looking and the photograph was not enough. It seemed so scant. Did all these files contain such terrible stories? There was hardly any space to move between the stacks, but could any amount of paperwork be adequate to encompass these tragedies?

  Mirabelle returned to the hallway and tried another room, which was in a similar state of disorganisation, but on her third attempt she finally found someone. At the back of the building, in a small room that was in a slightly better state than the others, an old woman wearing a smart navy suit was poking about in a filing cabinet A crumpled handkerchief protruded from the old girl’s sleeve and Mirabelle spotted a stain on her lapel that was only partly masked by an amethyst brooch. She was humming as she opened a box of papers, and as she looked up there was a waft of lavender scent that Mirabelle guessed was comprised mainly of medical components.

  ‘Hello.’ She peered myopically at Mirabelle. ‘Goodness, I expected someone far younger! What on earth were they thinking?’

  Mirabelle laughed. The atmosphere had felt so heavy with history that the old lady’s attitude came as a relief.

  ‘Come in, come in.’ The woman’s accent was northern and she spoke too loudly, which suggested that she was slightly deaf. That was why she hadn’t answered the door, Mirabelle thought: she hadn’t heard it. ‘I’ll be glad of the help however old you are,’ she continued cheerily. ‘It’s just you, is it?’ She checked the hallway without pausing to let Mirabelle answer. ‘Really, we’ll need a team of six. I haven’t taken on a job this large since I was stationed in Gibraltar.’

  ‘Gibraltar?’ Mirabelle raised her voice. ‘That sounds like an adventure.’

  ‘I’m Matron Gard.’ The woman held out her hand.

  ‘Mirabelle Bevan.’ Mirabelle shook it.

  ‘Well, it’s high time they sent somebody,’ the old lady said, guiding Mirabelle firmly back into the shabby hall and shepherding her into a tiny kitchen located under the stairs. ‘Look at you, large as life and I’m sure you’re cold too. It’s freezing out there. Tea? Well, speak up. Do you take milk? There’s some here somewhere.’

  ‘The thing is, I was hoping to use the archive,’ Mirabelle said as she took off her gloves. ‘I’m looking for a missing person.’

  The matron efficiently lobbed some tea into the pot and added a slug of hot water.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, sounding dejected. ‘My dear, have I made the kind of error that only an old beast can? Do you mean you’re not one of the girls they’re sending to help? And I was so hopeful.’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘I knew you didn’t look the type.’ Matron Gard sighed. ‘Look at your nails. In general, girls who work with this kind of material aren’t going to attract a fellow’s attention, and that’s the truth.’

  Mirabelle withdrew her manicured hands from sight. ‘Is the archive always so …’ She wasn’t quite sure how to frame the sentence.

  ‘You mean is it usually in such a mess? Oh, yes. I’m afraid it’s in the most dreadful state. It outgrew the last place, you see. And then we found these houses at short notice. The records had to be moved in a hurry and you can see the result. There’s a saving grace, though only one, I’m afraid – they’re organised geographically. That’s how they delivered them. As to the rest,’ the old lady cast her eyes upwards and Mirabelle momentarily wondered if she was referring to what lay upstairs, ‘it’s in God’s hands. His and the secretarial team’s, when they finally turn up. I expected them yesterday. I’m afraid we’re really not ready for readers, my dear.’

  Matron Gard added a small splash of milk and handed Mirabelle a cup of tea that let off an inordinate amount of steam. ‘There’s no sugar,’ she said.

  Mirabelle sipped. Her fingertips were so cold that touching the surface of the cup was painful, and she moved the tea from one hand to the other. Britain ran on tea, they said. At least that hadn’t changed.

  ‘Thank you. I was hoping the archive might help solve a mystery. It was the last request of a dying man, Major Matthew Bradley.’

  Matron’s nose crinkled as if she scented something important. ‘Bulldog Bradley, is it?’

  Mirabelle nodded. However eccentric she was, Matron Gard was sharp as a tack.

  ‘He’s dead, is he? That’s a tragedy. He was one of our finest. But surely he was a young man and handsome? I seem to remember that. Gosh, he went early.’

  ‘Lung cancer,’ confided Mirabelle. ‘I suppose he must have been thirty when he came out of France. Or close to it. I only met him twice, very briefly. He died last Friday and in his will he asked me to find an old friend, Philip Caine. Flight Lieutenant Caine? Do you know that name?’

  Matron shook her head. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He’s the man Bradley escaped with. Somehow Caine got left behind in France. They last saw each other twenty miles outside Paris – I don’t even know in which direction. I’m not sure why Bradley left it so long to start looking for him – it might be because of some double dealing over a woman, which is the only thing I’ve been able to find so far. In any case, Flight Lieutenant Caine seems to have been on the major’s mind at the end, though they hadn’t met since 1942. Caine’s probably dead, isn’t he?’

  Matron Gard put down her teacup. ‘Well, I must say, dear, I don’t ever like to assume people are dead. If you were that man’s mother how would you feel if someone just took it for granted that he was done for?’

  ‘But it’s so long ago,’ Mirabelle burst out, suddenly passionate. ‘The war has been over for almost ten years. If Caine was alive wouldn’t Bradley have known? Wouldn’t they have run into each other by now? He found me after all this time on a far more sketchy acquaintance. It all seems so long ago.’

  Matron tutted. ‘Nothing is long ago in an archive. In the records we treat the dead the same as the living. Why, that’s the whole point of keeping papers. It doesn’t matter if it’s a hundred years or only a few weeks. It’s all filed away, fresh as the day it went under the covers.‘

  Mirabelle eyed the nearest boxes. She could see why Matron Gard had been put in charge of sorting out this mayhem. The papers wouldn’t dare stay disorganised for long.

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ she said, realising that Vesta thought of information in the same way. The files at McGuigan & McGuigan contained fulsome records. When Mirabelle had challenged Vesta about it, she said you never knew when some small detail might be required. Now the habit seemed comforting.

  Matron Gard continued. ‘The trouble here is that, apart from the geographical filing, the system is very patchy. It’s not even alphabetical yet. Some of it is filed according to date but not much. We’ll get to the bottom of it eventually but there is a great deal to do, cross-referencing and so forth.’ The old nurse thought for a moment. ‘Do you want me to have a look for this fellow?’

  Mirabelle found herself grasping the woman’s thick fingers in gratitude. It had been a trying day.

  ‘If you have French records …’

  ‘French records? My dear. Almost the whole of the upper floor is French.’ The matron waved her arm in the air with a flourish. ‘The Red Cross had extensive field hospitals all over France. Tell me, what was this man’s name again?’

  ‘Philip Caine. Flight Lieutenant Philip Caine. RAF. He was a flier.’

&nbs
p; ‘A pilot? So many heroes. I tell you what, he’ll make a very good training exercise. We owe it to the people who died to make sure we record what happened properly. Who knows what information might be useful in the future? These records have reunited families. They’ve brought together comrades in arms. And – this is very important – sometimes they just let the people who are left know what happened. People don’t always get to say goodbye.’

  Mirabelle’s expression betrayed her and the old lady paused. Fortunately, she was of a breed that would never ask a personal question no matter how much private information passed through her hands. ‘I tell you what, when the team gets here that’s what I’ll start them on. They’ll have to go through the lot in any case. We might as well take France first.’

  Mirabelle smiled. She restrained herself from hugging the old woman and instead focused on the information she required. ‘He was last seen about twenty miles outside Paris in the summer of 1942. I don’t have any more than that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Don’t worry. If he’s upstairs we’ll track him down.’

  ‘Is there a telephone here?’

  Matron’s eyes twinkled at the absurdity of Mirabelle’s question. ‘It might be better if you leave me an address. I shall write to you if we find something.’

  ‘That’s very helpful. Thank you.’ Mirabelle reached for a pen and paper and decided that when she received the major’s money she’d definitely make a donation. The British Red Cross was invaluable.

  Chapter 6

  There is nothing like a dream to create the future.

  Feeling a good deal better, Mirabelle caught the Tube back across town. Perhaps things weren’t hopeless after all. Bradley’s request was odd but there was nothing threatening about it. If he hadn’t mentioned Jack, she wouldn’t have become so exercised. Really, it was time she moved on.

  A little boy wearing shorts positioned himself on the seat opposite and perched on his heels, smudging the glass with his hot little hand until his mother became agitated and pulled him down into a sitting position. Mirabelle noticed the boy was strapped into a leather harness. Well, really, she thought. Even Panther can heel.

  ‘Don’t be a nuisance, Frankie.’ The woman smiled apologetically and looked away.

  Five minutes later Mirabelle disembarked at Embankment. Rain was dripping from the trees as she cut past Somerset House onto the Strand; the snow had all but disappeared. A thin fog wound across the pavement. Canopies weighed down by pools of rainwater sagged ominously over the shop doorways. A man in a shabby demob suit was smoking on the corner, in conversation with a woman whose winter coat was heavily patched. Mirabelle avoided their eyes. Outside a tobacconist’s shop a life-size model of a Red Indian was chained to the railings.

  Aware that her footsteps were echoing in her ears, Mirabelle turned along Kingsway and made for the Air Ministry. Matron Gard had been willing to help, but the sheer volume of paper in the British Red Cross archive meant that tracking Philip Caine that way would take both luck and time, if he appeared in the records at all. This should be a more direct route: the RAF certainly ought to know what happened to one of their captured pilots.

  The building loomed towards her, and through the fog she could just make out a jagged straggle of icicles that had frozen where the gutter overflowed. Periodically a thick drip of water plummeted four storeys to land on the pavement with a dull splash. Mirabelle pushed the brass handle of the glazed inner door. At the reception desk an attractive secretary with glossy dark hair held sway – another girl too young to have taken part in the war. Mirabelle wondered momentarily what had happened to the army of secretaries and Morse Code operators that peopled London’s offices until 1945. Surely all of them couldn’t have married and become housewives? Was she the only woman over thirty who was still single and in gainful employment? She and Matron Gard. Behind the desk, the girl’s long legs crossed one way and then another as she studied an appointment diary. Mirabelle coughed.

  ‘Excuse me, I’m looking for an RAF officer who went missing in France in 1942. Flight Lieutenant Philip Caine. He was an escapee.’

  ‘Escapee?’ The girl sounded perturbed, or perhaps confused.

  ‘Yes. From a German prisoner of war camp.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ The girl nodded primly, her eyes drawn back to the diary. ‘We don’t really deal with that kind of thing. I’ve never had an enquiry like that before.’

  ‘I wondered if someone might remember him. Or if you might hold any records?’ Mirabelle persevered. ‘Would it be possible to find out who his commanding officer was?’

  The girl’s lips pursed. Her leg shifted as if she was terribly uncomfortable and this wasn’t her concern. ‘I don’t know. Lots of men never came home. It’s an awfully long time ago, madam.’

  Mirabelle felt a sting of anger. People wanted to forget the war; that was only natural. But there was a difference between putting the unpleasantness to the back of your mind and abandoning all duty to the memory of those who fought.

  ‘Is there someone else who might be able to help?’ she said crisply. ‘The war has been over for some years, granted, but there must still be serving officers who knew the man I’m looking for. He was a pilot.’

  The girl glanced over her shoulder. Mirabelle could hear typewriters in full flow and the low hum of conversation. The girl’s lips parted. She knew she had to offer some kind of help but it was plain that she wasn’t going to do so willingly.

  ‘I think you might do best to contact the chap’s regiment directly. Which squadron was your fellow in? I can put you in contact with them, wherever they’re stationed. Though it has to be said, several wartime squadrons have disbanded now. They’re not needed any more, you see.’

  Mirabelle ignored the implication. ‘Caine was a flier. A bomber. If you could help me find out his squadron, that would be marvellous. He was shot down over France in 1942.’

  The girl’s eyes warmed as she took this in. ‘Hang on,’ she said, figuring it out. ‘You’re searching for this fellow and you don’t even know his unit? Aren’t you a relation?’ She sat back in her chair, flicking her pencil between long pale fingers. ‘If you aren’t related to him I can’t give you any information. That’s absolutely not on.’ A cold flash of cruelty pulsed across her gaze. She looked as if she was enjoying this. ‘You could be anyone. You could be a journalist.’ The girl raised her voice as she made the assertion. ‘You can’t just walk in here and demand an officer’s personal details.’

  ‘But …’

  Mirabelle wasn’t sure what she ought to point out first. What if Flight Lieutenant Caine had no family living? And didn’t his escape partner count for anything? She was here, after all, at the request of a bona fide British hero. Suddenly, with a pang, she remembered what it had felt like when Jack had died. The loss turned in her stomach and she felt deflated. She had no real right there, either. If she tried to find out personal details about Jack at the Special Operations Executive, they’d kick her out. Of course they would. SOE made no allowances for women like her. Lovers. Mistresses. Friends. It was only blood that counted, and legal ties. A bit of paper was more important than love.

  ‘You’ll have to leave, madam,’ the girl said firmly. She licked a finger and turned over a page, directing her attention back to the appointment diary, though a flicker of her long lashes betrayed the fact that she was watching to see if Mirabelle complied.

  Mirabelle reeled. Her cheeks were burning and the sense of outrage was building like steam in a kettle. ‘Well, really,’ she spluttered. If someone had walked into her office during the war and enquired about a member of staff, yes, she’d have given them short shrift, but there was no reason to be rude.

  The girl looked up slowly. ‘I can’t help you,’ she said flatly, staring towards the door.

  Humiliated, Mirabelle turned on her heel and marched into the freezing street with the words still stinging.

  Outside, the cold air slapped her in the face. Jack’s face appeared in
her mind’s eye. Her love for Jack was a shameful thing in the eyes of the world yet they had had eight wonderful years together. It was all so desperately unfair.

  Grateful for the drizzle that hid her tears, she turned off Kingsway and passed a beggar sitting in a doorway. He had only one leg.

  ‘Miss.’ The man put out his hand.

  Mirabelle felt suddenly indescribably angry. Why was there nowhere for these men to go? Why wasn’t the damage caused by the Blitz repaired by now? No wonder she felt haunted by the war – it wouldn’t be over until things had been put to rights. She flung a coin at the man and in a flash realised that her fury was directed at Jack’s wife – a woman who had been allowed her grief. ‘He was mine,’ she whispered. The loss curled inwards and it felt raw. What on earth was she doing here digging up this old story? Humiliating herself. She didn’t owe Bulldog Bradley anything.

  Without thinking she turned into the doorway of a pub. Inside, the regular afternoon drinkers shifted in the gloom as if they sensed new blood. She took a deep breath and realised she was the only woman in the place. The urge to scream or cry disappeared, and dismissing any reservations she stalked to the bar and ordered a whisky. When the single shot appeared the smoky taste revived her. She took out a handkerchief and dried her face.

  ‘It’s bitter outside,’ the barman said.

  Mirabelle was in no mood for small talk. She downed the rest of the malt in one.

  ‘Thank you,’ she managed as she pushed the glass back over the bar.

  Suddenly she wanted to be back in Brighton – not here in the tatty, uncaring city. She wanted to run a long hot bath and stare at the crackle-glazed tiles on her bathroom wall and sit in the window afterwards and watch the world go by. She wanted to sleep in her own bed and forget that Bulldog Bradley had left her this troublesome bequest and that she’d written a thoughtless letter to his widow. She wanted to forget all of it.