“There were four of them, plainclothes officers,” Peter said. “They certainly acted as though they could do whatever they wanted. It seemed Otto had no choice but to go along with them.”
“Yes, I suppose it did,” Milton replied. “Well, we just have to secure his release as soon as possible. Where’s Mother?”
“We were hoping you would know that,” Lena said.
“I vaguely remember now. I was still half asleep, but I think she knocked on my door and said something about going over to see Aunt Pippa. She and Alistair have probably walked over the fields to The Grange. I’ll give her a ring.”
He reached for the telephone on the table at the foot of the stairs and lifted the receiver. “Hello, Operator? Yes, good morning. Bigglesmeade thirty-three, please.”
There appeared to be a protracted response at the other end of the line.
“I see. . . . Really? . . . When was that? . . . All right, then. Thank you.” Milton returned the receiver to its cradle. “I’m afraid Mother has left; we’ve missed her. She’s gone to see Lady Charlotte, for some reason. And she won’t have reached Durfield Park yet.”
“You learned all that from talking to the operator?” Lotti said.
“Oh, yes,” Milton replied with a grin. “She’s always a wealth of information.”
There was nothing to do but wait. Milton suggested a pot of tea. He invited them into the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil.
“So, how’s life in the army?” Peter said.
“The food is terrible; the conditions are awful,” Milton replied. “But, of course, one expects all that. It wouldn’t be so bad if one felt one were achieving anything useful. But so far the training has been a joke. There aren’t enough rifles to go around, so they have us practicing with broomsticks! I’m being sent off to an anti-aircraft unit in Portsmouth next week. I’ve no idea if I’m going to be given any real ammunition.”
“That’s incredible,” Peter said. “I thought they were going full steam ahead with war production.”
“Yes, I know,” Milton said, pulling a large teapot from the shelf above the sink. “They canceled the Whitsun holiday, and Bevin brought in the sixty-hour workweek and all that. But they’ve a lot of catching up to do, it seems. All those years of appeasement and refusing to see what was going on in Germany, and that idiot Chamberlain saying just a couple of months ago that Hitler’s missed the bus. It appears the Tories did nothing to prepare even after the outbreak of war. From what I’ve seen of the army these past few weeks, we’d better hope there’s no invasion anytime soon.”
“Don’t say that!” Lena said, too loudly. “This country is the last hope. I can’t believe that Britain will cave without a fight.”
“I certainly hope not,” Milton said. “And I want to do my part. But I want to join a fight I can believe in. With real weapons. And not just that ‘defend your country’ balderdash—a progressive fight, a fight against fascism. We have to be fighting for a new kind of society.”
Lotti rescued the teapot, which sat frozen in Milton’s hands, and gathered together cups. “That’s all very well,” Lena said. “But that option is a luxury no longer possible in Prague or Paris.”
The current issue of the New Statesman lay open on the table. “Did you see this?” Milton said, pointing to a full-page article. “Trotsky has written a new manifesto on the war. He claims there would be no difference between victory for the old colonial powers Britain and France and victory for the new imperialists Hitler and Mussolini.” He picked up a pencil and started to doodle on the page, tracing loops around the T in Trotsky in the headline. “We have to fight for a workers’ revolution,” he continued. “Not for saving bourgeois democracy.”
“Trotsky is safely hidden away in Mexico,” Lena said, feeling her pulse quickening. “If he were in Prague right now, talking about workers’ revolution, he would be locked up. We have friends and family there. Their lives may be in danger.” Her voice became shaky.
Milton turned to her with a warm, sincere look. “I’m sorry, I . . .”
Taking some courage from his apology, she continued, “Defeating the Nazis has to be the most important thing right now.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to imply . . .” Lena met his gaze, noticing for the first time the rich, deep brown of his eyes. There was an intensity there, and it took her by surprise. She felt the color rise to her cheeks.
Peter said, “We seem to be forgetting that Otto has been arrested here in this country.”
Lena blushed even more, realizing she had momentarily lost sight of that.
“Precisely,” Milton said. “Why should we fight for an establishment that does something like that?”
The sounds of energetic panting and footsteps on the terrace interrupted them. Lancelot bounded toward them, tail wagging, mouth drooling; Alistair was not far behind.
Milton told Alistair, “The Special Branch invaded Oak Tree Cottage and arrested Otto.”
“What?”
“We’ve got to get Mother and Aunt Pippa working for his release,” Milton said.
“I’m afraid your aunt Pippa is a bit distracted by a crisis of her own right now,” Alistair said. “She’s gone over to Lady Charlotte’s to commiserate.”
“What happened?”
“The whole household is in an uproar because another chambermaid left to work at the new aircraft factory in Eastbourne,” Alistair said. “That leaves only the chauffeur, the cook, and one parlor maid. Dear Mrs. Courtney-Smithers is beside herself. Cook could never be prevailed upon to make the beds, yet it is a task that, apparently, one person alone cannot possibly accomplish. She’s considering a complaint to Churchill himself.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Lena said, and then suddenly stopped herself and looked from Alistair to Milton, blushing again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
“No, you’re quite right.” Milton laughed. “It’s absurd.”
CHAPTER 18
SUSSEX, JUNE 1940
Muriel spent hours on the telephone. She started with Constable Bilson. He was incoherent, stumbling over himself in apology, full of deferential references to everything she had ever done for him and his family, until finally he disclosed that it was Detective Chief Inspector Montgomery at Lewes who had ordered Otto’s arrest. Montgomery himself was impossible to reach; he was in a meeting, he was at lunch, he was out in the field. His deputy, an Inspector Norris, quite understood Muriel’s concern—yes, it was quite correct, ma’am, that the Home Office directive did allow for individual discretion in the handling of aliens, but no, ma’am, he really couldn’t say what factors had been taken into consideration in this case, he was not at liberty to divulge, blah, blah. Muriel slammed down the receiver and groaned.
After lunch, Norris was also unavailable, but a Sergeant Wiggins, more readily intimidated by an upper-class accent, was persuaded to reveal that there had been complaints about the inhabitants of Oak Tree Cottage from some quarters, quite fancy people, they were, as he understood it, and that certain evidence had been seized at the property. The poor fellow was then treated to a barrage of righteous indignation and a treatise on Tory appeasement that was quite over his head. He retreated in search of higher authority, which brought an Inspector Westlake to the phone. He was with the uniformed branch.
“It’s being handled by CID, ma’am,” he informed Muriel. “They never tell us what’s going on.”
“Surely you must know where they have taken my tenant,” Muriel replied. She tried another line of inquiry. “I simply need to find out where he is and what the visiting procedures are.”
“It’s all very hush-hush,” he said, “due to the sensitive nature of the situation.”
“I quite understand, Inspector,” Muriel said. “I have my own reasons for needing to contact him, also of a somewhat delicate nature.” She had no idea what he might think she meant by this, but she sensed it was having some effect, so she continued: “It involves a young lady. As I say, i
t’s a delicate matter and has no bearing on the reason for his arrest. I would be most grateful if you could let me know where I might be able to locate him.”
“This is quite irregular, ma’am.”
“Of course. Discretion is paramount, Inspector. You can rest assured—”
“I believe he may have been taken to the Lingfield Racecourse, ma’am. As a temporary measure, you understand.”
“Thank you, Inspector,” Muriel said. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
Muriel took Otto’s arrest as a personal affront. He had been the original refugee at Oak Tree Cottage, her first protégé. It took tremendous courage for a German to stand up and resist the Nazis. She felt a natural affinity for anyone willing to cast himself in the role of outsider. She felt like an outcast herself. Not that she would ever claim to have exposed herself to the same danger, but she knew something of being ostracized. As the only heir to one of the largest landowners in the county, she had inherited the Manor House and its constellation of cottages just after the Great War. But, to the consternation of the local gentry, she had not fulfilled the role of Lady of the Manor with the dignity they expected. To this day, Aunt Pippa was shocked that Muriel answered the door herself when visitors called, instead of having a servant admit them. And then there was the problem of her church attendance—or lack of it. The designated front-row pew at St. Augustine’s was conspicuously empty every Sunday. To top it all, Muriel publicly supported dangerous causes, such as the striking miners of Wales or Mr. Gandhi in India, and entertained an eclectic collection of artists, writers, and actors from London. Altogether, she was considered an embarrassment and was excluded from most social events.
None of this bothered Muriel. She laughed it off and entertained her dinner guests with anecdotes of being snubbed by stuffy old Mrs. Rees-Jones or pompous Colonel Knowles. But now this sergeant at the Lewes police station had hinted that someone with influence had reported the group at Oak Tree Cottage as potentially dangerous, and Muriel was furious. They hadn’t been able to touch the Czechs, of course—they were protected as refugees—but they had taken Otto. It was outrageous, a deliberate personal attack. She was determined to find out who was responsible and secure Otto’s release. When Alistair returned, she would ask him if they had enough petrol to drive to Lingfield. Perhaps if they simply showed up at the racecourse, they could make some headway.
The phone rang, sending her back to the table in the hallway. “Muriel! Thank goodness!”
“Hello, Aunt Pippa.”
“What on earth have you been doing? The telephone has been engaged for hours.”
“I’ve been trying to find out where they’ve taken Otto and who has the authority to release him. I’m not getting very far with the Lewes police. I may need your help.”
“My dear, I need your help.”
“Someone reported him to the authorities. I have to find out who. Has Lady Charlotte said anything?” Muriel rubbed the knots of tension in the back of her neck.
“She’s no help. She herself is worried she’s going to lose her chauffeur.”
“What? I mean about Otto.”
“Listen, dear, Cook tells me the oldest Bilson girl is now of an age to go into service. Can you find out if she is prepared to start here as a chambermaid?”
Peter thought Muriel was getting nowhere and that they should try their luck at the Czech Council offices. He suggested Lena accompany him. She tingled with excitement as she boarded the train— but then immediately felt a pang of guilt. Otto was interned somewhere, and here she was, enjoying the prospect of a trip to London. She had been to the capital only once since her arrival in England, three months earlier. She’d applied to the Czech Trust Fund for the refugee allowance that the others received, but had been turned down: she’d left Prague too soon, before the occupation. She had not been back to London since. She thought it might be awkward to be alone with Peter, but he seemed completely at ease, so Lena decided to relax and enjoy herself.
There I go again, she thought, forgetting that her main purpose was to work on Otto’s release. She tried to imagine what he was doing, how he was coping with his confinement. They had no definitive information about where he was. Muriel had been unable to confirm either that he was at the temporary internment camp at Lingfield or where he might be if he’d been moved. At least the police had allowed him to pack his typewriter. Was he able to do some writing? How was his mood? Was he despondent or philosophical? She had no barometer for his current state of mind. She felt more disconnected from him now than she had when they’d been separated by the English Channel.
She watched the green fields speeding by. It had been lonely sleeping without Otto on the sofa. It had been lonely sleeping next to him the night before too, but she pushed that thought out of her mind.
“I should write to Otto and send it to that place in Lingfield anyway,” she blurted out to Peter, sitting across from her. “I should have thought of that earlier and asked Muriel for the address.”
“Let’s see how much progress we make today.”
The train stopped at a small station. The door of the compartment opened, and a middle-aged couple entered. They took seats by the corridor, the man lifting two suitcases into the overhead luggage rack. The woman wore a freshly pressed summer frock and matching white shoes, handbag, and gloves. She nodded a friendly greeting to Lena and Peter.
“Good morning. Lovely day again, isn’t it?”
Lena nodded and smiled. The man opened up the Daily Mail. The headline: hundreds more interned. Lena glanced at Peter. There could be no more conversation, certainly not in Czech or German, nor in heavily accented English. She pulled Jane Eyre out of her handbag.
CHAPTER 19
LONDON, JUNE 1940
Peter said it was a short walk from Victoria to the Czech Council offices. He had lived in London for five months when he’d first arrived in England, and he led the way with confidence up Grosvenor Gardens, toward a maze of smaller streets. At every turn, there was some new wonder. Tall white facades glistened in the bright morning sun. The famous red double-decker buses swerved round the street corners, as handsome young men—boys, really—hung off the center pole on the rear platform. Streets full of life, the picture of normality for any capital city, with people calmly going about their daily business. But there were shrill reminders that these were not normal times: piles of sandbags or barbed-wire barricades around buildings, workmen removing the railings surrounding the gardens at Eaton Square. They needed the metal, Peter said, for tanks.
They reached Wilton Crescent. From a terraced row of identical five-story buildings, Peter selected one and guided Lena through the unlocked door. There was no identifying placard at the entrance, as far as she could see, but on the second floor was a door with a small brass sign indicating, in Czech and English, Czech National Council.
Inside, it was surprisingly busy. Two desks opposite the entrance each sported a young woman with a typewriter, one talking on the phone in fluent English. An open door behind them revealed another office, where several middle-aged men spoke loudly in Czech. To the right were a row of chairs beneath a window and five or six people waiting patiently for attention. The window was half open, and a grimy lace curtain fluttered in the breeze, but this did little to dispel the pungent odor of too many hot summer bodies. Outside, Lena could see the gray brick backs of the buildings from the neighboring block, and below, in each garden, the rounded, grass-covered humps of the Anderson bomb shelters that she had read about in The Times. They looked much smaller than she’d imagined.
Peter did most of the talking. He sounded very convincing: a prominent German anti-Nazi who had performed vital espionage work for the Beneš government in ’38 had now been interned by the British. Peter asked to speak to a Mr. Lisicky, who, he seemed to think, would have the most influence, but he was nowhere to be found, so Peter had to content himself with a series of more minor officials.
They listened politely but appear
ed preoccupied with more pressing concerns. From snippets of conversations from the back room, Lena gathered that negotiations with the British Foreign Office over the recognition of the Beneš government in exile were at a critical juncture. And they were very excited about a recent cable announcing the imminent arrival of the Free Czech Army on British soil.
Lena jumped up when she overheard this and approached the desk.
“Promiňte,” she said to one of the women. “Did I hear something about the Czech Army coming here?”
“Ano, slečno,” the woman said with a smile. She was pretty, with beautiful, shiny black hair and cheerful eyes.
A short, balding man in his fifties, standing behind her, added, “Yes, President Beneš finalized a deal with the Foreign Office last week. They’ll be arriving in British merchant navy vessels any day now. A few have already reached Liverpool.”
“My father and brother made it out of Prague a few months ago. They wrote from Belgrade. I think they’re trying to join the Army. If they joined in Belgrade, would they be coming here?”
That would be incredible. Lena felt light-headed in the thick air. She wiped her hand across her forehead, which was moist with sweat. She felt a gentle hand on her shoulder; Peter was at her side.
“They were lucky to reach Belgrade,” the official continued, blowing smoke high over their heads. “We lost many good patriots who were arrested in Hungary. They’re still imprisoned there.”
“But if they did make it to Belgrade?” Peter said.
“The Czech consulate in Belgrade stayed loyal and has been assisting in the mobilization. If they made it there, they were probably shipped to Agde, in the South of France.”
“And if they reached Agde?” Lena asked. This man was rationing out information, one answer at a time.
“All our forces in Agde will be brought to Britain by the end of next week,” he replied, and turned his back.
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