‘Yes, he was shot down, Bill was shot down,’ Robyn continued. ‘But being Bill, and a lucky devil, he opened his parachute over Dorking. What a bit of luck!’ Robyn laughed. ‘Typical Bill, because, as he said, it meant that it was only a short walk to his local to enjoy a pint … which, unsurprisingly, he downed in one. Apparently his landlord’s face was something to behold.’
This time they both laughed although it wasn’t particularly funny. Everyone laughed in war whenever it was even remotely possible, perhaps because quite simply there was so little to laugh about.
‘He’s off again today, is Bill.’
There was a second of silence, barely that, and then they both started to talk volubly.
‘I’m driving that naval bod and one of his dates tonight.’
‘Not the one that’s always trying to go the whole way before he even gets to dinner?’
Now they were both pushing out of the front door together, car keys already dangling from their fingers.
‘The very same. I don’t know what life must be like at Admiralty House, but it certainly must be lively if he ever gets near the secretaries, poor souls. The sound of slapping in the back of the Bentley is enough to put you off going to sea for the rest of your life, truly it is.’ Robyn shook her head and sighed. ‘Still, here goes. Bonsoir, dear girl, and see you much later, I hope, chez Ciro, perhaps.’
Edwina had watched the other two leave the flat, laughing and talking, with envy in her heart. A part of her longed to be driving canteens, fire watching, and taking tea to people, running them to hospital, a bit of this and that. Why did she have the bad luck to catch the Great Man’s eye, and why, oh why, did he remember her? Most likely quite simply because she had red hair. Was it always the colour of one’s hair that meant you were singled out? Italians literally worshipped red hair. She knew that for certain because her mother had been a tiny bit Italian; although if she was in a temper, it seemed to be a great deal more than a tiny bit.
A little later Colonel Atkins rang the doorbell. He had hoped that Miss Carrots, as he secretly called Edwina O’Brien, would come round to his point of view, and now that she quite obviously had, he felt quite excited. It would be a challenge to see whether he could set up a beautiful young woman as a pot of beckoning honey and then watch to see which bees came buzzing round.
‘It was the fact that you inferred that I was “loose” that put me off; I think that’s what you said, at some point,’ Edwina stated, very much tongue in cheek, as she handed the colonel a zonking great gin.
‘What I actually said was that you would have to pose as some sort of a political loose cannon, someone who gave allegiance to no one, but hospitality to everyone. If successful you will find every kind of nationality feels at home at your table, in your apartment, but not necessarily anywhere else. A loose cannon is someone who raises a lone standard, walks a lone path, very useful in peace, even more so in war.’
Edwina lit a cigarette and nodded, before raising her glass.
‘Here’s to my firing power, Colonel, dotey.’ She paused. ‘As a matter of fact that is not a bad cover name, is it? Now I come to think about it. What do you think, Colonel? “Operation Loose Cannon”?’
The colonel smiled, the blue in his eyes seeming to become more pronounced. This was very good. Miss Carrots was beginning to think like a professional.
‘So be it,’ he murmured, and he removed a superb thin gold cigarette case from his inner pocket, extracted a slender Turkish cigarette, and lit it with a slim gold lighter, before exhaling slowly and appreciatively. ‘So be it, Operation Loose Cannon. I can see it on the top of a file already.’ He made a gesture as if underlining it. ‘Yes, very good. Now.’ He looked at Aunt Cicely’s small gold clock on the shelf behind Edwina. ‘I think we had better get our skates on. Word has it there is going to be a bit of a battering tonight, throwing everything at us, so we’d better hurry on before it starts getting interesting.’
They both quickly drained their glasses, and made for the front door, Edwina snatching at a light summer coat of silk muslin and lace, the colonel snatching up his hat and stick. As he did so the walking stick started to come apart.
‘Gracious, Colonel, dotey, how very Scarlet Pimpernel,’ Edwina commented as she saw that the walking stick actually clothed a sword.
‘Wilkinson sword stick, quite excellent. Should have put it back more securely.’ He smiled briefly, and secured the stick. ‘Had to use it in a bit of a hurry a few hours ago.’
Edwina turned away. The colonel’s world was becoming a trifle real for her tastes, and now she had signed herself up to it. Would she have to carry such a weapon too? All of a sudden driving randy young officers around London seemed infinitely preferable.
The Gestapo had searched everywhere and found nothing. Madame could see that it was making them irritable, and so she made soothing noises, and brought them a tray of drinks. Soon they would be fixed up with local girls, and then they would be gone, and that would be that. She hoped.
‘The Gestapo are usually more refined,’ she murmured much later to one of the girls as they too murmured, and grumbled, then grumbled and pocketed their earnings, leaving before any more unsavoury customers from that particular branch of the invading army arrived.
Finally, after the last girl had gone, leaving no one but Madame herself and the new arrival, she switched off the lights, and climbed the stairs to the top room. She knocked softly on the door, and when it was opened to her she found herself momentarily pausing to stare at what she saw.
‘Mon Dieu,’ she said softly. ‘Mademoiselle, the changes you have made, they make you unrecognisable.’
Katherine nodded. It was true. Following her sudden exit from Chevrons, Katherine had been sent to The Beeches, an old house that the newly reorganised pre-war MI5 had turned into a school for potential saboteurs and agents. Here, in addition to many other arts, martial and otherwise, she had been trained in disguise by a distinguished veteran actor from the Old Vic Theatre.
‘The trouble with most people, when they change their appearance, is that they change too much,’ the darling old actor had told the fledgeling agents. ‘And that makes them look startling. Better by far to do something small that will change your whole look, but still not make you stand out. So no to blond wigs that get knocked sideways, and moustaches that drop in the soup, and yes to changing your parting from one side to the other, shaving off a moustache or beard, or leaving off makeup where you once wore it, or putting it on thickly where you once did not wear it. Change the way you walk, the way you speak. Don’t put on a stammer, rather adopt a slight hesitation, or lower your voice, or heighten it. It is by these subtleties that you will find yourself changed from within, and that is the most important part of changing yourself. It is what a good actor must do, and frankly that is what will save your life if you find yourself up a gumtree – which you well might.’
Katherine was up a gumtree at that moment, albeit a heavily ornate one. Her General had hurried her from the house next door and up to a room where he had shut them both in.
‘The Gestapo are on to you, Elvira. Your only hope is to be kept here by me, and for me.’
As Katherine’s expression changed to one of potential fury, he put out a comforting hand.
‘No, no, my dear, I will look after you. Don’t worry. Madame is a friend of long standing, long before the war, from student days, when we all ran about France learning a great deal more than French, you may be sure.’
His face had softened as he remembered the carefree feeling of being a student, to be replaced by an almost fatherly concern.
‘It is here that you must stay. The worst that can happen to you will be that you will become bored, but Madame will give you food, and whatever else you may need, and soon we will find you a safe house. The Gestapo, you see, are convinced that you are a double agent, planted by the British since before the war. The person that gave you away under torture – I don’t know who it was.’
<
br /> Katherine could not hide the fear in her eyes, but it was not for her, it was for David.
‘Surely they are all dead?’
‘Oh yes, they all died – eventually.’
The General shook his head. He was an officer in the German Army, and a gentleman. The men that made up the Gestapo were recruited from a very particular kind of scum.
‘War is terrible, but the human muck it throws up is more terrible than we can perhaps imagine.’ He sighed briefly, then left her, and she locked the door after him.
The sound of his retreating steps, the sounds from the arrival of the official cars, the Gestapo and much else, happily came together, drowning the sound of Katherine’s sobs as she pushed a pillow against her face and gave way to grief and fear.
She fell asleep hoping against hope that – of all things – David was indeed dead. Please, please God, he remembered his cyanide pill. Please, oh merciful God, tell me he reached for it before they reached him. Please, please God it was indeed he whom she had heard calling to her.
When she was at last asleep she dreamed of many things. Images came and went: faces – many faces, so many of them from the past – so that when she woke up she was not surprised to find that her own face was still wet from fresh tears.
Once she had pulled herself together, she realised she had to assess her situation. She was a prisoner of a German officer, living in a French brothel. She didn’t know why but, as she sat on the end of the ornate carved French boudoir bed, and perhaps because of her dreams, Caro’s face came to her. She could see her walking along beside her, in some woodland somewhere near Chevrons, and she imagined what her younger sister would say to her.
‘You’re a prisoner in a French brothel? Gracious heavens, Katherine, that’s slightly original, isn’t it?’ Then as Katherine paused to let her catch up – Caro had always been a few paces behind her – she would say, ‘Could be worse, though, couldn’t it, Sis? I mean, you could be a prisoner in an English brothel, and it wouldn’t be nearly such good food. Still, probably a good idea to plan your escape, otherwise things might get a bit hot, wouldn’t you say?’
And Caro would be right. Katherine stood up, self-pity falling away to be replaced by practicality. She had to escape, but it would not be possible without the help of the General. Certainly Madame would be on her side only as long as the General paid her for Katherine’s services. She closed her eyes. Was it possible that she was here? Was it possible that her wretched patriotism, her idealism, could bring her to such a pass? She would have to go as soon as possible. She could not become the chère amie of a German. Quite apart from anything else, there was nothing in her training at The Beeches that had taught her how to be a lady of easy virtue.
For a minute she imagined the old actor attempting to teach her.
‘Now, dear, sit on the edge of the bed, and start rolling down your stockings, and while you’re doing it tell yourself, “This is for England, for freedom, for this sceptred isle, this precious stone set in a silver sea …”’
‘Oh, do shut up,’ Katherine murmured to herself. ‘Fantasies do not an escape make.’
And then she remembered that same old actor demonstrating turning himself from a railway official, all whistle and cap, into an old woman. It had taken so little, a few blackened teeth, a headscarf, wrinkled stockings. She stared at her hair in the mirror. What would it take to make it yet more different? Perhaps a pair of scissors, a few curling papers, and maybe even she would not know herself? She stared at her reflection yet closer in the mirror. Then, taking a mascara brush from her bag, she carefully blackened one of her front teeth, before standing back and smiling at herself.
Hours later her disguise was complete. A stained blouse, a skirt with the hem hanging down, wrinkled stockings (not difficult with suspenders) and flat shoes, one of whose heels she had knocked, so that it was askew. Her hair stood out in a satisfactory matted bob, and with her shoulders pulled down and hunched, clutching some now disreputable-looking bags with what remained of her essentials in them, she set out from the room. The General had taken what he could find of her belongings from the next-door house, and Madame and she had burned much of what little she had left.
It was early afternoon, a time when both the girls and Madame were resting. Katherine moved quietly past their doors, hearing with satisfaction the sounds of wine-induced snoring. The next moment she was in the street outside, and passing two Gestapo officers. Happily her stance was such that, despite her height, she could not catch their eyes. Happily also their own eyes were quite obviously being directed towards the door of the brothel, for they passed her on the trot as she turned into the main thoroughfare, and gave her not a second glance.
Katherine hurried on. After some time she turned into the station yard, shuffling along slowly, and made her way to the ticket office where she bought a ticket to Paris, stopping off all the way up France. Once in Paris, she could lose herself. But first she would take the usual precautions, and change trains many times. It was a tip she had learned at The Beeches, and a wise precaution, which Katherine would never ignore. If you were on a train for any length of time, people stared at you, often out of boredom or curiosity, or, in her present disguise, probably out of disgust. Hop on and off whatever method of transport you had chosen, and no one would be able to put their hand on their heart and say they had seen you.
‘You! Old woman!’
She turned.
‘You’ve dropped something!’
Katherine put out a dirty mittened claw, only to receive something quite revolting in return.
The boy ran off laughing. Katherine put the filthy piece of rubbish in the nearby litter bin, and climbed on the train, at the same time allowing a glow of satisfaction to wash over her.
Her disguise had worked.
Edwina was impressed. Colonel Atkins was purring. He had secured for her the best kind of apartment, situated as it was, fashionably, in The Place. It had a large first-floor drawing room with a double door leading to a large dining room filled with period pieces, all of which, in the event of the hostess wanting to give a large party, could be folded up or put against the wall. The whole suite of rooms was done up in the best kind of country house taste, with grand curtains decorated with rosettes (at least the colonel thought they were called rosettes) and heavy brass handles that pulled them backwards and forwards with sumptuous ease. There were Knole sofas upholstered in velvet, and flowered sofas covered in patterns of roses. There was a plethora of china ornaments and carved Nubian slaves with turbans and gold waistbands supporting both candles and flowers. The whole look was rich, sensual and, when you glanced at some of the paintings, tastefully naughty.
‘Why, Colonel, dotey, did you do this all yourself?’ Edwina turned to the colonel, widening her large green eyes, her head on one side.
‘I did have a little help,’ Colonel Atkins lied finally, because if Miss Carrots from Ireland knew the truth, it was that he had personally chosen everything that had gone into the apartment. This was not because he considered that he had faultless taste (the late beloved Mrs Atkins would have split her sides at the very notion), no, it was because he did not trust anyone else to know what was wanted.
If the colonel’s association with Miss Carrots was to be productive, everything had to be right, and the immense cost of what he had done would be entirely justified. But his plan could not work, would not work, if there was one detail that was out of place.
‘Careless talk costs lives’ was on posters all over the London Underground, all over the stations, anywhere the authorities considered that it would be effective, and Colonel Atkins had no doubt whatsoever that it would be effective. Put simply he did not think that anyone standing on a dirty station, or in a comfortless railway carriage, or outside a hospital, would be particularly tempted to give away information that might be considered useful to the enemy; but give those same people nice wine, nice food, and a beautiful woman paying them particularly sympathetic atten
tion, and they would probably betray their nearest and dearest without even realising it.
The colonel’s vision for the apartment was to present to the casual visitor a picture of the utmost taste, interlaced with a hint of something else. With this in mind he had chosen classically painted nudes, some male, some female, but in particularly tasteful settings. There was nothing on the walls of the flat to which the modern person, under the age of forty, could take exception, and nothing by which anyone over that age would not be mildly stimulated. All in all the apartment stank of taste and, with it all, was just a little sensual and roguish.
‘Oh, Colonel, look! Your tapestry!’
Edwina held up an elegant stool, which was acting as a partner to a very pretty inlaid desk.
‘Yes, well, since the colours suited, I thought we might as well make use of it here. I dare say you may well have an objection to it, in which case we can always bring round some sort of substitute. Some people take exception to tapestry; makes them feel woolly, I believe.’
Edwina walked up to the colonel and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
‘Well, your tapestry doesn’t make me feel woolly. It’s very, very pretty, an absolute treasure, and it certainly fits in beautifully, of that there is no doubt. Did you do it with this place in mind, do you think, Colonel?’
The colonel looked momentarily taken back. He had not thought of that. He looked round the flat, and his colour deepened. Was Miss Carrots suggesting that this place in which they found themselves standing might be his ideal apartment? He was used to examining his conscience. Every man must do so if he was to be just or honourable.
‘Yes, I have a feeling that I must.’
‘How lovely.’
Edwina sashayed down the drawing room, her silk petticoat making a delightful rustling sound. She sighed happily before she looked down the room, imagining herself receiving guests, manipulating them into having conversations, into sighing for the old days, or longing for new ones, into admitting their taste in love, or denying it – either could be most revealing, she was sure. She had a task ahead, but what a pleasurable one.
Goodnight Sweetheart Page 23