Escape by Moonlight

by Mary Nichols

  ‘Justine. That will do for a start. How long has she been in jail?’

  ‘A couple of months.’ He knew the exact date; it was the day after they blew up the train.

  ‘Look, Descourt or whatever you name is, you have to trust me. I know Justine was helping escapees – goodness knows, I was one myself – and I don’t believe that’s all she was doing, but I’m guessing that if she has not been brought to trial and sentenced, they haven’t got much on her yet. If you want to keep your secrets, you are going to have to get her out. And soon. Before they wear her down.’

  ‘Do you think I haven’t thought of that?’

  ‘What have you done about it?’

  Max was silent, debating within himself whether he could trust the man. He spoke English like an Englishman; he had answered London’s earlier questions correctly, but that uniform and the self-assured way he wore it still left niggling doubts. ‘If you really want to help, then you find out when she’s being transferred. You seem to be able to move about quite freely.’

  ‘It’s only this uniform, but you better be thankful for it because it will help us in the end.’

  ‘Where did you learn to be so bloody cocky,’ Max demanded. ‘Did they leave nerves out when they put you together?’

  Roger laughed. ‘I’ve learnt to hide them, my friend. Did you go to an upper-crust English public school?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I did. I was sent at the age of seven. A boy of seven, an only child, spoilt by a doting mother and hated by his stepfather, is little more than a baby, but he learns, he learns quickly if he wants to survive. The best way to stop the bullies is to learn not to care. I’ve grown up not caring. It’s taken a war and a lovely woman to change that.’

  ‘Justine?’

  ‘No, although I could become quite fond of Justine, fond enough not to want to see her in the hands of the Gestapo. So, do we cooperate?’ He held out his hand.

  Max hesitated and then shook it. ‘She’s in Cherche-Midi but being moved to Fresnes soon for her trial. We think the best time to try and free her is en route.’

  ‘How many men can you muster?’

  ‘A dozen, but we can’t move until we know the date and time. Giles is trying to find out but no luck so far.’

  ‘Are you all armed?’

  ‘More or less, but I don’t think a shooting match will serve, innocent people might be hurt. We’ll have to rely on the element of surprise.’

  ‘Right. Tomorrow, I’ll recce the route.’

  ‘You don’t need to be involved.’

  ‘Oh, yes I do. You need me and my uniform and my knowledge of German. Besides, I want to contact London for the Annecy resistants. We need help if we are going to be any use when the time comes.’

  ‘I’m afraid that is going to be more difficult than you thought. Our pianist has been picked up.’ If Roger knew what a pianist was, Max thought, it might go some way to convincing him he could be trusted.

  ‘Damn! I’d counted on him. He’s the one that relayed all those silly questions I had to answer, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ Max laughed, relaxing for the first time since seeing him come down the steps of Justine’s apartment.

  ‘You planning to get him out too?’

  ‘Yes. It’s going to take a bit more organising, since the Boche are unlikely to send them to Fresnes together.’

  ‘How long do you think he’ll hold out?’

  ‘It’s already been several days and there have been no more arrests, so he must still be keeping them guessing.’

  ‘We’ve no time to lose. I’ll go to the prison tomorrow morning to see what I can find out about a move. You go and alert your troops, they’re going to be needed.’

  But for Etienne it was all too late. He had been executed by firing squad at dawn that same morning.

  The MI6 communications room in London was at first relieved when Etienne’s wireless came back on line. It sounded a little strange, Vera Atkins thought. The call sign was correct, but one of the secret codes had been omitted and it didn’t sound quite like Etienne’s touch. ‘He’s been off line so long, he’s simply forgotten to include it,’ someone said.

  ‘Double-check,’ Buckmaster said. There were always two codes in every transmission, one that could be given to an interrogator, if it became necessary, and a second that, if omitted, meant the operator had been arrested. ‘Vera, you know him well, ask him some questions only he can answer.’

  She and Charles devised some queries that sounded innocuous and would not alert the enemy if they were standing over Etienne while he transmitted. The answers came back correctly with the added request for a new drop of arms and ammunition on a site they had not used before. According to Etienne the usual ground was no longer safe.

  ‘Do we send it or not?’ Buckmaster was in the habit of asking Vera her opinion, and in her opinion, something was not right.

  ‘We could pretend to go along with it, but delay sending anything until we’ve been able to check with neighbouring circuits.’

  ‘Supposing they have been infiltrated too?’ Charles said. He was concerned for Max and Justine and this wasn’t helping. Every time he went home Annelise asked him if he had news of Justine and he could tell her nothing. It was building a wall between them because she thought he was deliberately withholding the truth. The only thing that was keeping her mind off it was her little grandson and preparations for a wedding when Jack managed some leave.

  ‘If they have, we are in serious trouble,’ the major said. ‘Have we got anyone new we can send out?’

  ‘There are one or two coming to the end of their training,’ Vera said. ‘I’ll see how they are coming along.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lucy found it hard to believe the change in her circumstances. Here she was living in this enormous house, housed and fed and treated as one of the family, but she didn’t feel like family and she suspected they were only being nice to her because of Peter. Everyone adored him, especially Lady de Lacey who would have spoilt him and given in to his every tantrum if Lucy had not remonstrated and made it clear that Peter would have to learn he could not always have his own way.

  Lady de Lacey had accepted that with good grace, had even apologised which made Lucy feel awful. She mourned the loss of her little home and her independence and she missed Jack. He had only been home once since she had come to live at Nayton Manor, and though they had snatched a hug and a kiss now and again, they did not sleep together. It just would not do, not until they were married, which was laughable considering they had already done the deed and everyone knew it. He was soon gone again, and without him and Amy, she felt out of her depth.

  Lady de Lacey had not condemned her for having Peter, but her ladyship had assumed she would marry Jack. It had been Lucy’s girlish dream, that Jack would love her and marry her and they would live happily ever after, but that was all it was, castles in the air and, at the time, she hadn’t known any better. Now she was having enormous doubts. If only that bomb had not dropped on her home. If only her life could have stayed as it was, bringing Peter up on her own, seeing Jack now and again and enjoying his sweet lovemaking, uncomplicated by things like weddings. Was Jack marrying her simply to make an honest woman of her and would he soon tire of her and find someone else, someone of his own class? How did she know there wasn’t someone like that already?

  She ought not to be here. The villagers stared at her when she wheeled Peter out in his pushchair and she could not always avoid her pa. He ignored her as if she were invisible, and Frank Lambert jeered at her, telling her she seemed to have fallen on her feet but they would soon find out she was a whore, daughter of another whore, and she would be back where she started.

  She didn’t want to believe that about her mother. She didn’t want her memories of her mother to be tainted, but she could not get the words out of her head. Added to what Pa had told her the day he told her to leave, they festered inside her, making her doubt herself. She d
idn’t tell anyone what Frank had said, couldn’t talk about it, not even to Amy, who came home as frequently as she could. She did, however, tell her she had misgivings about marrying Jack, one Saturday when they were sitting in the garden after lunch, watching Peter play on the lawn with Cecily, who treated him like a live doll. He didn’t seem to mind. Beside them on a garden table was a jug of orange juice made from the concentrate that Lucy was allowed for Peter and which she picked up at the doctor’s surgery.

  ‘Why?’ Amy demanded. ‘You do love him, don’t you?’

  ‘Of course I do, but no one knows a thing about me. I don’t know myself. Perhaps there’s something bad in my past …’

  ‘Rubbish! How can you think such a thing? You should have more faith in yourself, Lucy. You are sweet and gentle and loving and you are a splendid mother. Jack loves you and he adores Peter. I love you. Mama and Papa love you.’

  ‘I know.’ It was said with a heavy sigh. ‘But it doesn’t stop me wondering about what happened to make my mother go off like that.’

  ‘I’ve said all along you should try and trace her. She ought to be at your wedding.’

  ‘You sound very confident.’

  ‘And so should you be. The best way to start is through Mr Storey and his work as a railwayman. Do you think he’s always worked for the railways?’

  ‘As long as I can remember. He was certainly working for them at Eccles. Before that I don’t know.’

  Amy was thoughtful. Papa was one of the principal stakeholders in the railway and he would know where to find Mr Storey’s work record, but her father was still in London, doing his mysterious war work. And when he came home he was often exhausted, so she couldn’t bother him about it. ‘Do you think Mr Storey served in the armed forces during the last war?’

  ‘He did say something about being wounded in the war, that was when he told me I wasn’t his daughter.’

  ‘No pictures of him in uniform or anything like that?’

  ‘Not that I ever saw.’

  ‘I wish I could get into his house, there must be something there to give us a clue.’

  ‘Amy, don’t you dare!’

  ‘No, I suppose it’s not a good idea. I’m going to start by finding out where Eccles is. Can you remember anything about it at all?’

  ‘No. I remember my first day at school and thinking my mother had abandoned me. I cried buckets and the teacher wasn’t very sympathetic, but Mum came and fetched me in the afternoon and I never minded after that. We left soon afterwards and came to Nayton.’

  ‘How big was the school?’

  ‘Not very big. Two classes, infants and juniors and two teachers.’

  ‘A village, then, not a town. If Mr Storey worked on the railways and you lived on station road, there must be a station there.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘I know. Come on.’ She stood up and hurried indoors. Lucy made sure Peter was happy with Cecily and followed. She found Amy in her father’s study, opening out a huge railway map. ‘It’s bound to be here, somewhere.’ She turned the map over to look at the index. ‘There’s an Eccles near Manchester and another in Kent and an Eccles Road here in Norfolk. Do you think that could be it?’

  ‘Could be. Pa has a Norfolk accent.’

  ‘Right. I’m going to start from there, but it’ll have to wait until I’ve got some more leave. Will you come with me? Mama will look after Peter while we’re gone.’

  But Lucy would not. She baulked at the idea, afraid to confront her past, and nothing Amy said could persuade her. ‘You go on your own,’ she said. ‘But if you succeed and the news is bad, I shall leave here and you won’t hear of me again.’

  Amy returned to Norwich next day, leaving Lucy feeling so unsettled, she couldn’t keep still. She helped in the house, though Annelise insisted she did not need to; she worked with the only remaining gardener weeding flower beds; she left Peter with Lady de Lacey and went for long walks, sometimes along the riverbank, sometimes through the woods, though she avoided the clearing where the old cottage was because it gave her the creeps. Occasionally she took Peter and his pushchair on the bus to Swaffham. But whatever she was doing, her brain was busy trying to recall something of the past. She was even tempted to call on Bert Storey and demand to be told the truth. It was not fear of him that put her off, but fear of what he might tell her. In any case, could she believe him?

  ‘Lucy, are you unhappy here?’ Lady de Lacey asked her one day. Lucy had got up from the breakfast table and run into the morning room in tears and her ladyship had followed, pulled up a chair beside her and put her arm about her shoulders.

  ‘No. You are very good to me. It’s … it’s …’

  ‘Come on, I am sure you can tell me.’ She noticed the letter in Lucy’s hand. ‘You haven’t quarrelled with Jack, have you?’

  ‘No, he’s the same as he always is. We’ve never quarrelled, at least, no more than a little tiff, soon got over. But I don’t think it’s right, tying him down to marrying me when perhaps he doesn’t want to.’

  ‘What makes you think he doesn’t want to?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s only doing it for Peter’s sake.’

  ‘Has he said that?’

  ‘No, but he wouldn’t, would he? He’s a gentleman.’

  Annelise smiled. ‘I asked him especially if he was sure about marrying you and he said he was. He said when he thought he had lost you in that raid, he knew there would never be anyone else for him, so you can put that idea right out of your head. As for being a gentleman, he is that – I certainly hope so – but not in the sense you mean it.’ She paused. ‘I was once like you. My parents have a small farm in France which was where I grew up, working on the farm. During the last war I fell in love with a soldier and bore his child, but he died before we could be married. It was a terrible disgrace and I was shunned by almost everyone and my family felt shamed, though they stuck by me. I met Lord de Lacey – he wasn’t a lord then – and fell in love again. We married and came to England and Charles adopted Jack. I have been happy, very happy, so it can happen, my dear.’

  Lucy stared at her. ‘He never told me that. I knew he was a stepson but I assumed you were a widow. Does he know?’

  ‘Yes, he knows, all my children know. And now you do too. You do love Jack, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, oh, yes. I’ve loved him for ages, long before he even noticed me.’

  ‘Then, how can you even think of refusing him?’

  ‘I am thinking of what’s best for him.’

  ‘You are what’s best for him. Now, let’s have no more tears.’

  Lucy sniffed and mopped her face. She hadn’t told Lady de Lacey the real reason for her tears, that she was afraid her mother had been … No, she couldn’t even think that. Jack’s letter, so cheerful, so full of optimism, had triggered off her feelings of doubt all over again. ‘Amy said she was going to try and find my mother,’ she said.

  Annelise smiled. ‘That would put the cat among the pigeons, wouldn’t it? I wonder how the law stands when someone who has been declared dead, suddenly reappears after her husband has married again.’

  ‘I don’t know. Pa told me it wouldn’t make any difference.’

  ‘Do you want her found?’

  Lucy thought for a minute before answering. ‘Yes, then at least I’d know why she left, but I think it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

  No railway stations had their names displayed and you either had to know the route and the stations along the line or rely on other passengers or the guard to tell you when you had reached your destination. Amy wasn’t even sure Eccles Road was her destination, but it was easily reached from Norwich by train and it was better to ask her questions in person. She did not think she would receive answers if she simply wrote a letter. Besides, the idea of sleuthing appealed to her. As soon as she arrived she went in search of the stationmaster.

  He was a middle-aged man past call-up age and very wary of Amy and her questions, but her most winning smile and a five-pou
nd note stilled his conscience. He confirmed that Mr Albert Storey had been a porter there. ‘I remember he had a wife and baby,’ he volunteered. ‘Pretty little thing, she was.’

  ‘Was the baby born here?’

  ‘No, though the little one weren’t above a week or two old when they arrived.’

  ‘Was she called Lucy? The baby I mean.’

  ‘Can’t remember. Might have been. What do you want to know for?’

  ‘I have a very dear friend called Lucy Storey, who is going to marry my brother but she has lost touch with her mother and I’d like to trace her, so that she can come to the wedding.’

  ‘Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.’

  ‘How long were they here?’

  ‘Can’t say. A few years. He was a bombastic sod, beggin’ your pardon, miss; liked his drink, liked to throw his money about in the pub. I never could understand why she married him; she was always smart, well spoken too – a cut above, if you get my meanin’.’

  ‘Did he have money, if he was only a porter?’

  ‘Seemed to. He liked a flutter on the gee-gees too, so he never had it for long.’

  ‘Where did they come from, do you know?’

  ‘No idea.’ A train came in and he left to see to it. Amy watched him supervising the unloading of a trunk and a few parcels from the guard’s van and sending the train on its way with a whistle and a wave of his green flag. Then he was back. ‘Sorry, I can’t help you anymore. You could ask the railway company. They are bound to have records, though this being wartime an’ all they might not be willing to tell you.’

  ‘No, perhaps not.’

  ‘Why don’t you try advertising for her? She might see it, or someone she knows might point it out to her.’

  ‘I tried that but it didn’t work, no one answered. I’m sorry to have troubled you. When is the next train to Norwich?’

  He consulted the large clock on the wall above the door of the waiting room. ‘Three-fifteen. You’ll need to cross to the other line.’