Tools of War

by Dulcie M. Stone

  Sitting between Julian and Aaron, she told them yet again what she recalled of the man in the winter hat and coat. It seemed surreal. Had it really happened? The strange man and his terrifying attack belonged to the night and to nightmares. They had no place in the mundane world of chewing gum and sunshine and popular music and mothers pushing prams.

  “Was that the man you saw?” Julian re-questioned Aaron. “The man on the boat?”

  “Possibly,” Aaron nodded. “However, his name – no. I am sorry, Julian”

  “Photos - could you identify him?”

  “My memory for faces is excellent.”

  “What about you, Anne? You got a better look at him this time. What do you think?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Right. After work - stay behind. Both of you.”

  “What about Mum?”

  “I’ll get a message to your family. What about you, Aaron?”

  “For me also, if you please.”

  The chilled lemonade had soothed her parched throat. “Julian…?”

  “What now?”

  “Why didn’t you show me photos before?”

  “How could I? He could have been anyone, a suburban prowler like you thought. There was no indication of who he might be. Now we have a way to pin him down. Thanks to Aaron.”

  “Don’t worry, Anne,” Aaron reassured. “Together we will stop this man who follows you.”

  “But why? Why am I being followed?”

  “There’s the real question,” Julian answered.

  When they returned to the laboratory, contrary to most of his previous behaviour, Julian made no pretense that he was just another technician. Instead of changing into his white lab coat, he went immediately to the office.

  Moments later Grace and Macklin, carrying stacks of reports, exited. After closing the office door behind them, looking to neither right nor left, they silently and quickly crossed to the small lab. Again moments later, Aaron left the small laboratory, closed its door behind him, and set to work at an isolated work station in the main room.

  Something unusual was happening. But what? No one commented. This, in itself, was remarkably significant. In the old days they’d have gossiped about it for hours. No longer. Aaron’s silence, the closed doors, Julian’s mysterious conduct, the banishment of Grace and Macklin from the office – whatever was happening, mistrust forbade even the most innocent exchange. Better keep silent until this, whatever it was, was sorted out. Although productive work was impossible, even Alice had the sense to keep quiet and at least feign concentration.

  Julian spent the entire afternoon alone in the office. Doing what? As the interminable hours stretched, silent questions remained unvoiced and the already heavy atmosphere thickened. Until five o’clock when the majority of the staff, downcast and ill-at-ease and still not risking conversation, left.

  At five-ten Macklin and Grace exited the small laboratory, retraced their steps through the main room, knocked on the office door, entered, reappeared carrying hats and satchels and left together. Rumour, which had insidiously breached the barriers of the separate factions, had reported that Macklin’s wife had left him. It could well be true.

  After packing away their work, she and Aaron waited in the staff room. Flipping through magazines, they talked little and grew increasingly nervous. Had Julian made the promised phone calls? What would her parents say? How was she going to get home? Would the photos be useful?

  At five-thirty Julian joined them. “Right! I’m ready for you both. In the office.”

  “I’ve made tea....” she began.

  “Leave it.”

  She started to rinse the used cups.

  “Leave it, Anne!”

  Together with Aaron, she followed Julian across the wide expanse of empty laboratory. The late afternoon sun boring through the unshielded windows fell on pristine walls, covered machines, idle benches and empty stools. The air conditioned air chilling her tense body, the purposeful padding of laboratory shoes on parquetry and the uncanny absence of all other sound, seemed to sound a warning. But of what? If only she didn’t have to be here.

  Waiting in the office, seated in Macklin’s chair, was a stranger. In his mid-twenties, his straight black hair was combed back from a high forehead, his angular face was pale and earnest and his eyes were impersonal.

  Julian introduced them. “Anne -Aaron - meet Charles McHugh.”

  “Hullo.” The pallid face crinkled, the nostrils of the beaked nose flared and the bland eyes came to fleeting life. Indicating the pile of photograph albums on Macklin’s desk, he declared: “Ready when you are, Julian.”

  “Charles has brought us some pretty pictures to inspect.” Julian opened one of the albums. “Okay you two. Get to work.”

  The visitor swiveled the chair to view the traffic below, placed slim white hands behind his slick head, and ignored them. He anticipated a long vigil.

  Julian kept watch. As she and Aaron trawled through the albums, he silently observed every minute change of their expression. After turning each page and quickly scanning the photographed features of each unknown face, Aaron waited for her slower response before moving on. As Charles McHugh had correctly anticipated, it was a long and exhausting procedure.

  “He is not in the photos.” More than an hour later Aaron sat back, dejected.

  “The others,” Julian alerted McHugh, who withdrew a large case from under the desk, emptied another set of albums on top of the first, and again resettled into bored withdrawal.

  Success came within five minutes. The eyes, darkly unflinching in the black and white photo, she did not know; she had never seen them. But the broad face, the flat cheek bones and the wide flabby mouth were unmistakable.

  “That’s him!”

  “Good girl!” Julian was impressed.

  McHugh, swinging back, inspected the photo.

  “That is the man,” Aaron confirmed. “That is the man I saw. Who is he?”

  “That’s….” McHugh flipped the photo to read the inscription.

  “I think not,” Julian cautioned. “His name is not important to our young friends.”

  “It is to me!” She protested. “He tried to kill me!”

  “Believe me, Anne. Knowing his name will change nothing in your young life.”

  “His profession?” Aaron astutely perceived the essence of the exchange. “His profession concerns us.”

  “You are right there,” Julian agreed, yet said no more.

  McHugh set about replacing the albums in the capacious case.

  “You two collect your things,” Julian ordered. “I’ll call a car.”

  Firmly thwarting attempts at further argument, Julian escorted them down the lift and out the front door. Adjusting her eyes to the late evening gloom, she saw a black car waiting at the kerb. A young man in a dark suit was at the wheel.

  After settling them in the back seat, Julian spoke through the open window: “You will be driven to your respective homes. Speak to no one. Repeat - no one! We will be free to explain tomorrow. If all goes well.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Goodnight, Anne.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  September 16th:

  At their conference in Quebec. President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill settled plans to shift the War Effort to the Far East, and the destruction of the Japanese in the Pacific, as soon as possible.

  Despite intense anxiety and unrelenting suspense, she slept well. Which was not surprising because, warned by Julian’s phone call, her parents had urged her to drink a bed-time glass of brandy-laced warm milk. Neither had asked uncomfortable questions. Whatever it was that Julian had said, they’d listened.

  In the morning her mother insisted she eat a substantial breakfast before her father escorted her to the tram stop.

  As the tram appeared at the crest of the down-hill slope, he apologised: “I should be travelling in with you, Anne.”

  “I’ll be all right, Da
d. Don’t worry so much.”

  “Julian’s promised to meet you at the other end.”

  “I’ll be all right.”

  He held her face in his scarred hands. “You’re not just putting up a front? I could manage more time off.”

  “I’ll be all right, Dad.”

  The tram screeched to a halt. She climbed the steps, waved to her father, and ran the accustomed gauntlet of acrid newspapers to her place beside the driver’s cabin.

  Too disturbed for easy tears, she was relieved her father had not guessed her distress - or had he? Of course he had. He’d been uncharacteristically demonstrative. He had to be frightened too. Since his painful encounter with the saboteurs, as well as smoking even more heavily he’d been having his own regular brandy nightcap. No wonder.

  Vainly trying to concentrate on the flashing windows and the advertising signs and the buildings and parks which lined the way, she was acutely aware of everything inside the tram. The rustle of turning pages, the snuffles of Spring allergies, the shifting of impatient bodies, the whispered twittering of young women, the sickly perfume of the over-dressed matron across the aisle - and her own laboured breathing.

  Everything was magnified. Everything was more intense, more significant. Broad daylight in the safe zone of a familiar tram, surrounded by familiar people, and her heart was pumping and her hands inside the gloves sweating. What would this day bring?

  Her immediate neighbour turned the pages. The sound was excruciatingly loud, his body against hers unbearably repugnant. Desperate for distraction, she read the headlines - ‘Germans on the run throughout Europe.’ The War in Europe. That war was a far-off nightmare, infinitely less real than what was happening to her today. Infinitely less terrifying than the War in the Pacific, than the threat of the Japanese.

  The tram was impossibly slow. Trucks lumbered casually across its path; the alighting matron, tripping on her high heels, had to be rescued by the sycophantic conductor; the sweating bodies getting off in the industrial suburbs took hours to depart; an early shopper, clumsily boarding with stroller and baby, thought no one had to get to work on time; the rim of the city was besieged by impeding traffic. She should have walked the last few blocks.

  Julian, impatient but cool, was already at the stop. “Get a good night’s sleep?” Not waiting for an answer, he took her arm and walked quickly to the laboratory building. She had difficulty keeping up with him.

  Watching the lift door slide behind them, she begged: “Please – tell me what this is about.”

  Again not answering, he put a warning finger to his lips.

  “Damn you, Julian! I’m not a child!”

  “Then don’t act like one.”

  The lift eased to a smooth halt, the door opened. Exiting, they crossed the small foyer and entered the large laboratory. Everyone was already at work. The door to the office was closed. The door to the small laboratory was closed. Aaron was again at a bench in the main room.

  “We’ll call when you’re needed, Anne.” Julian disappeared behind the closed door of the small laboratory.

  Left standing alone at the entrance, she felt the silence. The laboratory had never been so quiet. Heart thumping, she escaped into the empty staff room. The exchange with Julian had left her bewildered and furious and intensely frustrated. What had he told her parents? Why wouldn’t he confide in her? Why wouldn’t he even talk to her?

  Stripping off her street wear, she slowly changed into lab coat and shoes. If only she didn’t have to face those closed faces out there. Whatever had occurred before her arrival, yesterday’s dreadful atmosphere had been carried over into today. If only she could have stayed at home.

  Settling at her desk, she surreptitiously watched the workers vainly attempting concentration on equipment that lay idle and reports that remained untouched. How many of them were also wishing they were somewhere else? Everyone was present. No absentees. Remarkable. For the first time in months, no absentees. No absentees! How had that happened? What was so special about today?

  “Anne?” Aaron was at her side. “Anne - are you well?”

  Senseless question.

  “Anne!”

  “I’m sorry,” she forced a reassuring smile. “I’m okay.”

  “If you are sure?”

  “Thank you for asking, Aaron.” It was true, she was grateful for his concern. “What’s happening?”

  “We are to be interrogated. Individually. It will take a long time, Anne.”

  “It’s okay.” She bent to the work.

  Aaron returned to his bench.

  The interrupted silence again blanketed the room. It was uncanny. How could so many people make absolutely no noise for so long? Yet still there was none. The machinery was silent, the air conditioning silent, the office behind the closed door was silent, even the occasional movement of a chair or a piece of equipment was done without sound. Eerie. Unnatural. And building the tension to torture. Something had to burst. Someone had to speak - or scream. They didn’t.

  At ten a.m. the initial torture ended. Two men, coming in from the lift, momentarily paused to glance at the workers before crossing to the office. Knocking on the office door, without waiting for an answer, they went in. Moments later Grace, escorting the strangers to the small lab, knocked, ushered them in, and returned to the office.

  Heads down, hands busy, not speaking to Grace, no one had missed the official bearing of the two visitors. Blue suits, navy ties, hats in hands, straight backs, faintest whiff of tobacco, light shoes tapping on the polished parquetry, alert eyes scrutinising the room, they reeked of plain clothes officialdom. Police? Or one of the Services? Still there was no talking.

  At 10.30 a.m., precisely, the door to the small laboratory opened. Heads, no longer pretending disinterest, turned as one.

  From the doorway Julian, still not changed into his white lab coat and looking startlingly similar to the visitors, beckoned: “Helen!”

  “I’m in the middle of....” Helen began.

  “We need you now.”

  Helen obediently placed the cover on her machine, set down her pen, and disappeared into the small lab.

  “Be prepared,” Julian’s terse command carried through the large room. “As already instructed, each of you will be interviewed. Original assistants will be first.”

  At 11 Margaret was called.

  At 11.30 Margaret reappeared and Sophie took her place.

  As each left, they avoided curious eyes, resumed work, and said nothing. The tension was electric. What was happening?

  12.30. Lunch break time. Grace and Macklin left for their usual city lunch. The workers filed into the staff room, collected their lunch boxes, made tea and coffee, and searched for quiet places to eat. No one went out. Conversation was superficial, polite, repressed, and confined to as few words as possible; it seemed much wiser to pretend interest in one of the outdated magazines in the rarely used book rack.

  Her mother’s carefully prepared sandwiches tasted like saw-dust. She re-wrapped them, drank her tea, and flipped the pages of a Woman’s Weekly. She saw nothing. Her tense body ached. How much longer?

  One-thirty, back to benches over-loaded with work which should have been done weeks ago. It was impossible. Despite her best efforts, attention on the closed door totally distracted her. What was happening? Sophie, who hadn’t come out even for lunch, was still being interviewed.

  Just after two o’clock, more than two and a half hours after her entry, Sophie eventually emerged. Flushed and drooping, she looked at no one before disappearing into the staff room. No one followed her.

  Two-thirty. Once more the closed door to the small lab opened. The bent heads surreptitiously watched Julian and the two men stride through on their way out to the elevator. A frustrating anti-climax. Apparently she was not going to find out what it was all about today. Exhausted, she pushed the papers across the bench and rested her hot head on its cool metal surface.

  “All right, Anne?” Lillian called a
cross the room. The sudden intrusion was disconcertingly loud.

  “Just a headache.”

  “No wonder,” Helen sympathised. “Mine’s splitting.”

  “Are you going to tell us what this is about?” Joan’s wary eyes were on the office door behind which Macklin and Grace had spent most of the day.

  “I can’t.” Helen shook her head. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “So did I,” Margaret confirmed.

  “What’s wrong with telling us?”

  “No way.”

  “Was it bad?” Lillian probed. “Surely that much won’t break your word. Tell us. Was it bad?”

  Helen looked to Margaret.

  “It was pretty intense, I guess,” Margaret admitted. “Personally, I was glad to have the opportunity to get a few things off my chest. I would think Helen agrees with me.”

  “Do you know if you were both asked the same things?”

  “How would we know, Joan? We’ve promised to talk to no one.”

  “I know, but all he same….”

  “They gave their word, Joan.” Even after her break-down, Lillian’s was still the voice of common sense.

  “I know, but….”

  For the first time in months her former friends were actually talking freely to each other. No one from the office appeared. Sophie did not appear. Meanwhile Aaron and Myrtle and the new staff, even Alice, said nothing. Probably because the ‘old team’ members were actually talking to each other the ‘new team’ members would be finding the easy conversation, with its underlying familiarity of remembered friendship, a novel experience.

  At 3.00 Sophie reappeared from the staff room. Shaking her head at questions and making eye contact with no one, she made a pretense of resuming work.

  At 3.30, surprisingly, the three men returned. The talking stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

  Julian crossed to her. “Give us five minutes, Anne. Then come on in.”