It was something more than an evacuation on her part. She had got it into her head that somebody should make a gesture on behalf of the future and made me promise to use Heronslea, which she had somehow re-acquired with her husband’s money, as a kind of haven for children, a place where they might hope to collect the dividends of our own youth, of hers and mine, earned in the days when Hitler was a joke.
And the odd thing was that this extravagant action of hers became a reality for now Heronslea was indeed a home for children uprooted by the war and it was here that I had returned often during the last three years and watched Yvonne and the homeless Spanish children, and a rag-tag and bobtail of Dutch and French and Cockney kids romp in the coverts under the mild eye of Drip, the matron. It was here I had returned not so long ago with yet another secret and from here that I had set out on the curious journey that had led me, at last, to reunion with Diana, to cold-blooded murder in a Riviera villa and to this intolerably stuffy little room where the setting sun made memory patterns on the flaking distemper.
It had been a long, hard haul and homecoming seemed as far away as ever.
Chapter One
I NEVER pretended that I was in love with Alison, not even to myself. The strongest feeling I ever had for her was that half-jocular, half-affectionate need that a man sometimes has for a pretty spaniel bitch who follows him about and gets under his feet, waiting to be patted and teased at odd moments when the pressure lifts. She was aware of this and I don’t think she resented it much. Our marriage had been a by-product of the blitz, a kind of short-cut blasted from old habits and necessities by the bombs. It had its advantages and one or two moments of enchantment but that was about all. If we brought one another no ecstasies we achieved something not often achieved by man and wife. We exchanged the sixpences of daily currency, a few jokes shared, an unexacting companionship and often a mutual if limited physical satisfaction. The world was in ruins anyway. It was not a time to go digging under the rainbow.
The poverty of our relationship did not lessen my sense of desolation when I looked down at her in death, lying still and small among the other victims of the hit-and-run raid. If I ever loved her at all, it was then. The fussy tidiness of her surroundings was an affront to decency and one had the sensation of something close to obscenity as nurses and white-jacketed porters moved to and fro beside this pitiful sacrifice, wondering, perhaps, when their spell of duty would end and whether they could get changed in time for the matinée at the Odéon.
I stood there looking down at the calm face and wondering at the prettiness of her dark hair until one of the porters touched me on the arm and said it was time to go. I went down the long, bustling corridors and out into the winter sunshine and the Flight-Sergeant was waiting with the jeep. I got in and he avoided my eye, concentrating on traffic problems made worse by a labyrinth of hosepipe and stationary fire-engines but as we entered the undamaged section of the town he pulled into the curb and said:
“There was a message for you from Group. Will you be going back to camp right away or staying here for … the time being?”
He had been going to say “funeral” but stopped himself in time.
I forced myself out of a reverie that was leading me down the months and years to the time when I had first met Alison, then lost track of her, then found her again in a NAAFI queue soon after Dunkirk. I was glad he checked my thoughts because I knew they would lead to another dead-end where I would stop and begin bullying myself for the injustice I had done her by marrying her.
“What was the message about?”
“Couldn’t say but the Winco sounded edgy. Would it be about your remustering air-crew?”
“No,” I told him, “I failed the medical two days ago.”
“You ought to be cock-a-hoop over that!” he said.
“I’m not, especially now. Would you be? If you’d just seen your wife killed by the bastards?”
He considered this. “I’m not married,” he said, at length, “but if I was, or if it had been my kid-brother or my best pal or someone like that, I don’t think I’d let it panic me into bloody heroics! I’ve had all that, it’s a racket from beginning to end. One in ten are coping with Hitler and the other nine are on the mike or making dough. Sit tight and begin again when it’s over. That’s my advice, but then, I’m a regular, I only came in out of the cold!”
I was only half-listening to him. My mind had switched to the summons from Group. It would serve as an anchor before I was washed back into a sea of bitterness. It was not simply the death of Alison but the entire, stupid pointlessness of life, the everlasting menace of black-outs and syrens and pincer-movements and postings and rationing and untidiness that were being heaped on the plates of youth; it was a world that had promised so much and turned out to be a stinking refuse-yard in a corner of a dirty city, a place where all nervous energy was drained away searching for something worth having among a shifting mountain of sodden newspapers, rusty tins and stained, stopperless bottles.
I caught the Flight-Sergeant looking at me sideways. He was only an amateur cynic and his kindness popped through the conventional crust of the regular.
“You need a drink,” he said, “you need one damn bad, son!”
We had several drinks and it helped. When I went in to see the Winco I was sufficiently clear-headed to remember that he had lost his only son at Narvik and also that nobody had any time for a bore walking around with a chip on the shoulder. People are not interested in your griefs and disappointments although the majority pretend to be, at least for an hour or so. After that they make excuses and slip away, to the bar around the corner or to the lavatory if their brush-off technique is rusty. I remembered this just in time and sidestepped his condolences.
“Sorry about the air-crew,” he said, “but something will turn up. Maybe it already has—take a look!”
He handed me the signal from Group. The message quoted my name, rank and number and ordered me to report to H.Q. immediately for an interview. It didn’t say what the interview was about so I looked at the Winco for a clue.
“Soon as I heard about your wife and the hit-and-run I phoned Groupy Stevens,” he said. “You don’t have to go over now, I expect you’ve plenty to see to!”
No, I told him, I should like to go now and see what they had in mind. Underneath the weight of wretchedness concerning Alison I could still feel the smart of my failure to pass the air-crew test because of a defect in one eye. It seemed such a damned silly reason for failing and made nonsense, of all the trouble to which I had gone to transfer to the R.A.F. from the Gunners after returning from France, in June, 1940. Now I could see no prospect of getting into the real war and was already beginning to regret the transfer. My old battery was in North Africa and if I hadn’t been childishly impatient I should have been with them and thousands of miles from all this dreariness. I said:
“Haven’t you got a clue why they want me, sir?”
“My guess is some kind of Intelligence job,” he said. “Groupy Stevens is mixed up in that, or was. It’s probably interpreting. You speak fluent French don’t you? By the way, you never lived in France did you? How come you speak it so well? I never got beyond ‘Ou est la plume de ma tante?’ Could never get my tongue round those bloody ‘rrrrs!”
I guessed from this speech that he had information he was holding back and also that he had been looking into my service documents. I let it pass, however, for he was a cagey old bird.
“I learned French to show off to a girl,” I told him. His eyebrows went up and he grinned. “I always heard you could learn it better in bed,” he said. “Was it a French girl?”
“No, about as English as they come!”
“Was she impressed? Was it worth the effort?”
“Not really, it was all part of an act, a hell of a long act in a play that was a terrible flop!”
I could see that his curiosity was aroused but I cut the interview short by asking for my railway warrant. He said I cou
ld borrow the jeep I had used to go down to the hospital so I went up to the mess, tried and failed to eat a spam sandwich and drove off across the Downs to Group H.Q.
There was a good deal of phoning at the Guard Room. I might have been an escaped Luftwaffe officer trying to hijack a Spitfire but at last they signed me in and told me to report to Group-Captain Stevens. The Winco was right, Stevens was acting as Intelligence Officer and was enjoying it enormously. There was an air of small-town Thespian rehearsal about him and his office, as though at any moment a man wearing a deerstalker would sidle in, address him as “X-54” and write in code on the blackboard. I was so struck by this that I hardly noticed an officer wearing Free French flashes on his battledress who was sitting over by the window and trying to look as if he was there by chance.
“This officer is from General De Gaulle’s H.Q. He’s er … closely involved,” said the Group-Captain, looking more apologetic than any Group-Captain should look in the presence of an Acting-Pilot Officer.
The French officer made a sharp sitting bow and then stared out of the window. I had time to get a good look at him. He was about thirty, slim and good-looking, with regular features, darkish hair and cheek bones that were a shade too prominent. He had shapely hands and long, thin legs that he held pressed closely together, as though he was finding it difficult to maintain his passive role.
“Sit down, make yourself comfortable,” said Stevens affably and I had the impression that he too was unsure of himself. I was glad then that I had presented myself for interview. The extreme novelty of the situation took my mind off Alison.
The Group-Captain glanced at some papers and I recognised my service record and medical history folder.
“I understand you speak fluent French, Leigh,” he began. “Have you ever lived in France?”
“No sir,” I told him, “I studied it for a hobby when I was a boy and then spent several holidays there.”
“You were over again with the B.E.F. and came out via Bordeaux?”
I told him this was so and again got the impression that he would have preferred to have interviewed me privately but the French officer sat on, hands on knees, perfectly still and somehow critical.
“Just before you left Bordeaux, in June, 1940, an Englishwoman put some children in your care and you brought them to England with you?”
It was my turn to feel uneasy and I wondered if this was the beginning of a come-back. A man in uniform always thinks of a come-back first. It never occurs to him that an investigation involving his private life can mean anything but trouble. I decided to counter-attack. I wasn’t in the mood to be cross-examined, not even by a Group-Captain.
“That is so, sir, and one of the children was mine. The woman who brought her to me was her mother!”
I expected both the Group-Captain and the French officer to react to this but neither did and I realised then that my screening had been a thorough one. They knew about Yvonne and they knew about Diana and me and that was why I was here.
We stopped fencing and the air of restraint left the Group-Captain but it remained with the Frenchman. Stevens looked at the papers again.
“This woman was British, the wife of a Frenchman,” he said, almost as though he was confiding in me.
“Her married name is de Royden,” I told him, “and her husband is, or was, mixed up with Laval and the French Fascists. Before Madame de Royden married she was called Gayelorde-Sutton, Emerald Diana Gayelorde-Sutton. Her father was the well-known financier who committed suicide a year or so before the war!”
Suddenly the Frenchman chipped in, addressing me in French, not the carefully articulated French that a polite Frenchman uses when he addresses an Englishman but French that whipped across the room like short bursts of a machine gun.
“You were Madame de Royden’s lover before her marriage!”
It was not exactly an accusation but it was couched like one and because of this it annoyed me. I couldn’t see that it was any of his business.
“We were to be married shortly before her father died and she eloped to France!” I said, controlling my temper. Then, to Stevens: “With respect sir, I think I ought to know what kind of assignment this is before I go into my civilian history. There’s no reason why I should want to hold anything back and it’s all in the statement I made the day I disembarked at Plymouth in July, ’40. I was given to understand that I was volunteering for a straightforward Intelligence posting.”
“That’s true,” said Stevens, easily, “but I hadn’t even seen your application before Captain de Royden showed up and when I rang your Wing-Commander he told me about your losing your wife in the hit-and-run.” He smiled and looked like an amiable uncle for a moment. “Listen, Leigh, suppose we stop here and start up again when you’ve had time to cope with your private affairs? You’ve just had a bloody awful shock.”
Before the Frenchman could protest I told him the Wing-Commander had made this offer before I came over to Group H.Q. but I preferred to go through with the interview now that it had begun.
“Very well,” said Stevens, “maybe you’d better take it from here, de Royden!”
I must have been numb with shock or the name would have registered the first time he used it. As it was, and notwithstanding the line of questioning, it was not until then that I connected the Frenchman with Diana. I turned my head and took a good look at him, searching my memory for details of Yves de Royden’s features and then remembering that I had absolutely no recollection of what Diana’s husband looked like. It was fifteen years since I had met him, for a few moments only, in the foyer of a cinema and he could not have been more than seventeen at the time. The Frenchman met my surprised stare with fortitude and the mutual scrutiny ended in a draw.
“We speak in French please,” he said, crisply. “First it is necessary that I know how fluent you are. I came here to recruit for the De Gaullist group in the Paris sector. It is fair that you should know at once that I am a cousin of Madame de Royden by marriage. de Royden himself is now working for the Germans, not merely the Vichy French. I also feel it fair to tell you that I have all the necessary information regarding your association with Diana de Royden before and since the war, and that I obtained most of it from Madame herself!”
“You saw her recently?”
“But of course. She is working for us. She returned to her husband shortly after the Occupation!”
I was unable to conceal my surprise but he was a very well-bred man and lowered his glance to give me a moment to recover. I needed that moment badly. It was almost two years since I had parted from Diana at the Bordeaux ferry during the chaotic collapse of France, and ever since I had carried a mental picture of a hunted, harried creature, moving about Occupied Territory by stealth in the company of fugitives, carrying out desperate little acts of sabotage and living, if indeed she was still alive, just outside the range of a firing-squad. It was the kind of picture that fitted all I knew of the wild, unpredictable creature with whom I had romped and ridden in Devon woods during the halcyon period when we were growing up together at Heronslea. It was the kind of life that would satisfy her insatiable appetite for excitement and adventure. The first present I had ever given Diana had been a copy of Lorna Doone and one of the last things she had said to me, after telling me that Yvonne was our child, had been: “There were plenty of Doones left after all, Jan! The whole of Europe is crawling with them!”
Now that picture was seen to be as false and as fatuous as so many other pictures of Diana that had enslaved my imagination since the day of my fifteenth birthday, when she had ridden out of the woods to rescue me from one of her father’s keepers.
“She is reconciled to her husband?” I asked at length, and Stevens cocked an eye as though the interview was now beginning to interest him in an unofficial capacity.
The Frenchman lifted one shoulder. “How else could she be of any use to us? Before she was playing games. At that time, Paris was full of amateurs!”
The wa
y he said this, his voice grating with contempt, deepened the impression of steely, cold-blooded efficiency he had already conveyed. I saw that I had a lot to learn about resistance fighters.
I said: “The reconciliation must have been difficult M’sieur. Diana told me that when her husband joined the Quislings she told him that Yvonne was not his child. He must be a very tolerant man to overlook a thing like that.”
de Royden lifted the other shoulder, as though shrugging off another trifle.
“She did not tell him the child was yours,” he said. “My cousin does not know of your existence. That much I have been able to check. Otherwise I should not have bothered to trace you!”
Stevens cleared his throat, as though he was desperately anxious to be excused but the Frenchman ignored him. It was rather comforting to see a Group-Captain treated with so little respect.
“Madame de Royden has been reconciled to her husband for more than a year,” he went on. “It has been useful having her there living with him but now we have run into difficulties.” He paused a moment, wondering how to phrase the next sentence. Finally he continued, “It is because of those difficulties that I came to England to find you, Pilot-Officer Leigh!”
He flushed slightly as he said this and I sensed that his presence here was in some way an affront to his dignity and professionalism.
“Diana sent you to me?”
“We will come to that. We may come to it!” He corrected and here Stevens chipped in again, rather to the Frenchman’s annoyance.
“The fact is, Leigh you failed your medical for air-crew and then volunteered for Intelligence. Are you at all interested in Special Operations? This wouldn’t be our own S.O.E., it would be General De Gaulle’s outfit!” He had been on the point of saying “mob”, but the eyes of the Frenchman stopped him.
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