by Jina Bacarr
Still, I went to the extreme and blamed myself for what happened that night of the bombing. I couldn’t bring Flavia back nor any of the others who died that first night and subsequent nights following, but over the weeks and months I spent at St. Middleton’s a plan formed in my mind, a plan which would require great courage on my part and complete sobriety.
A plan I intended to put into action.
When I had completed the puzzle.
I enjoyed taking a walk on the grounds at dusk, though the high wall all around the hospital and big wrought-iron gates prohibited the sense of freedom one would expect from an outing. At the end of the cinder pathway, I could see a tangle of darkness tempting me to go far and away into the woods behind the hospital. It frightened me, though each day I’d find myself edging closer, curious to see what was down there. A mass of pitch so black, so intense I couldn’t walk through it, as I feared I would be plunged into a shadowy abyss if I did so, though nothing stopped me.
A week later, I tried again. Fog prohibited me from going any farther, increasing my sense of confusion, though a curious nudge on my shoulder seemed to be inviting me to try another time. I promised myself I would. For the first time since I had been at St. Middleton’s, I felt something stirring in me, something that gave me courage. A belief in myself.
A fortnight later found me again on the pathway, a slow sunset turning all shades of reds catching my eye, though I didn’t go too far. The next day, a fresh citrus scent tickled my nose as I ventured farther and I saw trees with oranges and lemons ripening. Elated, rife with joy, I reached up and picked an orange then sniffed its rubbery skin. A sensual aroma hit my nostrils, making me feel alive again after these long weeks. Each day, as the doctor had predicted, I slowly regained my sense of smell, but this day was most important to me. I completed the puzzle this morning, taking each piece as I had taken each part of my life since I’ve been here, then putting each piece into the whole design so I could see it as a complete picture.
Strolling along the path, I heard the sound of bell chimes tinkling the arrival of a merry breeze to catch the rhythm of my steps. Hands in my pockets, I hummed a tune. I was no longer afraid. After making this trek for weeks, I was leaving St. Middleton’s, the darkness no longer seeming so dark and threatening. And I knew why. I was looking into the depths of myself.
I was walking into my mind.
And coming out on the other side.
Coventry
February 1941
The official motorcar swerved around the large crater in the middle of the street and approached the center of the city. I stared out the passenger window, aware of the tenseness in my throat, my eyes focusing, my mind disbelieving. My beloved Coventry was in ruins. Nearly three months had passed since the Luftwaffe hit the city on a ten-hour, carpet-bombing night raid, killing six hundred inhabitants, damaging fifty thousand homes and destroying twenty-one factories. All but a handful of buildings in the business district. I noted with a half-smile as we drove through town the pastry shop was left intact, but the Rex Cinema (not the Globe where Lord Marlowe and I often went) had been destroyed. We stopped at the J. Lyons teashop for a cuppa, open for business in temporary quarters built from scaffolding and corrugated-steel sheets. Most distressing to me was the sight of the old cathedral. Only a shell was left to comfort mourners. Its fifteenth-century spire and ruined walls had become a stirring symbolic reminder of that dreadful day when thirty thousand incendiary bombs came whistling from the sky and bathed the city in a white glare with the haunting clarity of moonlight. Destruction rained down from that sky. Bombs lodged in drainpipes, on window ledges, in doorways. Everywhere.
We continued driving, though the amount of red mud and debris covering all the roads and street pavements astounded me. Water and gas mains broken, no service for weeks, and I was told the fire smoldered until Christmas morning. I found barriers in place all over town, no through traffic allowed, but because I was riding in an official car from the Foreign Office, with an “All right, Gov’nr” and a wave of the hand resembling a salute, we were allowed through. (Be patient with me, please. I felt I must stop at Coventry before I continue with my story.) I had received special permission to pause here on my journey to the north on official business. I wanted to see for myself what the Germans did to Coventry on that November day.
As we drove through the rubble in the streets, the sadness kept welling up inside me, wave after wave of it, and I fought with myself to be strong as I knew I could be, to pull myself together.
I observed several houses in a row all badly damaged, not habitable. We drove by slowly since my driver told me most likely the houses were in danger of being toppled by any vibration. Yet I saw this spindly lady, her shoes covered in mud, her hair wrapped in a plain white scarf, her dark woolen coat missing buttons, patiently removing what personal items she could from her bombed-out home (a teakettle, spatula and colander, books, clothing, and a raggedy doll) and tossing them into a small handcart. She pulled off her scarf and wiped the grit off her face, saw me watching her, smiled and gave me the V-for-victory sign, then went back to work. Her spunk and fortitude was an example of how everyone pulled together during these dark days. I shall never forget her.
Drawing upon her courage when we drove down the secluded lane toward our hideaway, I held my breath. What would I find? The house flattened? Nothing left of that part of my life with Lord Marlowe? I couldn’t believe it when I saw our hideaway cottage still standing, only a portion of the rear wall destroyed. I smiled, my face hurting, tears streaming down my cheeks. I raced up to the stepping-stones to the house (I couldn’t help remembering the graceful yellow daisies that popped up every spring between the cracks), counting five windows missing, including the whole window and frame in the kitchen, where the most damage was done. An extraordinary thing to me was seeing how the sticky blackout paper on the windows held the broken glass in hundreds of pieces together when the windows blew inward.
Sifting through the rubble with the moldy, fusty odor of damp sandbags filling my nostrils, I remembered the year before when I made a pilgrimage here. It was for selfish reasons then. A woman in need of hanging on to a life that was gone. A world now gone. I shan’t flood your mind with continuous details about the damage. What happened here in Coventry on November 14, 1940, has already been well documented for the rest of the world to see, a symbol of Nazi ruthlessness and horror that must be stopped. My story is but one, dear reader, but I implore you to go to your neighborhood cinema, sit in the darkened theater, your feet firmly planted on the floor, your hands gripping the arms of your chair, and watch the black-and-white newsreels that will show you the truth about what the Germans have done and what the British people have endured. You must help. Open your eyes and see what is happening to the rest of the free world. Please. I have. And I’m going to do something about it. But enough of my preaching, since I haven’t been Britain’s most stellar citizen, ignoring rules, thinking about my own selfish needs, using sex as an aphrodisiac to send our soldiers and pilots into battle. Now it was my turn to serve.
Knowing I had one last thing I must do before leaving the Coventry hideaway, I made my way up the staircase, each step creaking under my weight, welcoming me home, praying what I was looking for was still there, when I made it to the landing. When I walked through what was our playroom, I saw books strewn everywhere, furniture covered with plaster dust and black soot, the iron latch on the lavatory ripped off by the blast. I ignored it all and opened the secret wall plate over the mantel above the fireplace and pulled out the black hatbox with the white ribbon. There. Intact. I held it close to my breasts, my eyes closed, my heart soothed. I didn’t open it. That would be for later days when this terrible war was over. Until then the crimson cord would remain nestled inside the box along with my memories. I had a job to do.
I was ready to do what Sir_____ asked of me.
I was going to be a spy.
19
London
March 1941
I dashed out of the Dickins & Jones department store, packages blocking my view, but I did not head back to my town home in Mayfair. I had one more stop to make at Walpoles, praying they still had that practical, green-striped long housecoat I saw weeks ago before I left for the country. To a secret location somewhere in England. A silvery castlelike home, a bucolic setting located on a vast expanse of rolling green.
To learn how to be a spy.
I undertook the comprehensive training course with trepidation, knowing I had a fifty percent chance of a safe return. Still, I had made up my mind, knowing I would be working alone except for local agents, and if I were caught and tortured, the organization would not come to my aid. I wasn’t the only woman in the training facility; no, dear reader, women were considered prime candidates for espionage work. Women were less likely to be stopped and questioned in occupied territories, they tended to be more efficient as wireless operators, and exuded more patience than male agents in waiting for contacts. I, on the other hand, had a much simpler mission. Have lunch with an old friend, retrieve whatever she gave me and bring it back to the Foreign Office in London. I had no idea what it was and I was to ask no questions. I would not reveal the mission that way, even under torture.
It would be exhilarating to tell you how I participated in basic training, how I learned to fight and maim, Morse code and wireless operation, the use of code and ciphers, parachute dropping, firearms training, and how to handle explosives. Alas, dear reader, my training was the most basic since I wasn’t recruited to be a regular agent, merely a “friend” of Sir_____, someone who could utilize their social position to help the war effort abroad. A bit disappointing, I must admit, but that didn’t lessen my resolve to undertake the mission. In peacetime, an applicant recently treated for addiction would not be considered; but this was wartime. I prayed if I did well, they would hand me another assignment.
When I returned.
Which brings me back to my shopping mission today. Since I must appear to be something other than what I actually am, I needed new clothes. My cover had to provide me with a plausible and legitimate reason for being in Germany, while hiding my real reason for being there. I had received my call-up papers, though I wasn’t sure when I was leaving (I was to be ready to depart on short notice, which threw Mrs. Wills into a dither, who knew only that I was going abroad as a favor for an old friend of Lord Marlowe’s). Needless to say, I intended to undertake my mission in style. Food was rationed but clothing was not, though rumors abounded about how the government was secretly printing up ration books with a list of points for everything from trousers to handkerchiefs.
Until then, I relished shopping for a new wardrobe to create my cover (including a forged U. S. passport in my maiden name, Eve Charles) as a rich American woman on holiday in Germany. The cotton housedress I had seen fit the description of the type of clothing I would need to pull off my disguise. I didn’t know then I would be infiltrated into enemy territory wearing a man’s dark trousers and shirt, along with a heavy pea-jacket with a fisherman’s cap to cover my hair. I shall never forget what happened to me aboard that Danish trawler and the Nazi officer who raped me—
Excuse the scratching of my pen, dear reader, the jarring marks taking the place of words, my emotions rising to the surface, an invitation for maudlin scribbling if I allow my inner self to feel pity, which I won’t. What’s done is done, yet I must take a moment and reflect on the extraordinary journey I have taken in the name of freedom. The scent of Cleopatra’s perfume mixed with my natural essence and enriched the perfume with the creation of a new bouquet, but it couldn’t save me from the ruthless hands of that Nazi monster. But other female SIS agents have fared worse, surviving brutal torture and imprisoned in appalling conditions, only to die in concentration camps.
I survived, dear reader, angry and filled with the passion to save lives and end this terrible war. The obsession that was never far from my mind comes sharply into focus. Now I will use that passion against them. The Nazis. The urge to be part of the machine to defeat the enemy is irresistible to me.
At that moment on that cold March afternoon, scurrying from shop to shop in the fashionable London district, I had visions of being a glamorous lady of mystery, which included completing my travel ensemble of a cardigan navy suit with wide shoulders with the purchase of an adorable hat from the famed establishment on Regent Street. A navy straw hat trimmed with a cluster of flowers and ribbon loops with a veiling on the brim.
I was so pleased with my selection, I decided to wear it to boost my spirits. Silly, perhaps, but I found shopping bolstered my courage, though I had no illusions about the danger of my mission. Everywhere I looked I could see the signs of a city at war. Police wearing tin hats (though not as many people carried gas masks), barbwire, sandbags piled up, windows bricked or boarded up and air raid–shelter signs everywhere.
A cold, blue-gray mist hovered in the air and started to descend upon the wet London streets, making walking difficult. I was so intent on keeping the veiling on my hat from blocking my vision, I walked straight into a trio of RAF officers stumbling out of a pub. Very noisy. And very drunk. I did my best to avoid them as I made my way toward Oxford Street, but I slipped on the glistening pavement, giving the trio an excuse, in spite of their inebriated state, to come to my aid. Each man grabbed a package from me, while one very daring young officer slid his arm around my waist to keep me from falling. Startled, I found myself looking into the bloodshot eyes of a red-haired pilot who burst out with, “Boy oh boy, sister, ain’t you lucky I was here to catch you.”
I told him he’d best remove his hands and that I was not his sister. That elicited a round of guffaws from his friends. In spite of the awkward situation, I smiled. I was well aware of the RAF crews’ well-earned reputation for scrambling to the closest pub to get drunk after completing a mission. Not that I blamed them. Brave men, all of them. A Yank had joined their ranks, I was pleased to see, from the accent of the pilot who held me firmly in his grip. Why that thought went through my mind at that moment, I can only guess. I didn’t perceive aligning my affections with any man, even a gallant RAF officer. I had given up my wild ways regarding sex and drugs and hadn’t made any attempt to socialize or attend dinner parties since my return to London from the country.
Such actions wouldn’t seem unnatural to anyone observing me, Sir_____ assured me, considering what I had experienced the first night of the Blitz. I still had nightmares about Flavia and the others (I never mentioned it before, but that nice gentleman from Canada I was speaking to at the restaurant also died in the blast), and though I made it a point to visit Lady Palmer on numerous occasions since my return to London, nothing I could say to her would bring back her daughter. But I could do something for her. And for Britain.
Which is why I bought that ridiculous hat at Dickins & Jones. Who would ever believe I was a spy wearing a hat like that? Certainly not the RAF crew pleading and begging me to join them for a drink. I was tempted to accept their offer, to “blow off steam,” as the American flier said, making me curious and asking him questions about why he joined up. To fight them over here, he said, so he wouldn’t have to fight them back home. I wanted to tell him I was fighting for America, too, though the United States had not budged from her isolationist stance. I prayed she would get into this war as this brave lad had done. From New Jersey, he told me. I laughed, wishing I could tell him I was from Brooklyn, but my guise as an Englishwoman stayed firmly in place, though I admit I flirted with the men, relaxed now, remembering these men had faced death that morning and would soon do so again. I joined in with their youthful spirit, laughing and insisting I had more shopping to do, when another man emerged from the pub to see what mischief his friends were engaged in, stopped, then stared at me with a most disapproving look.
I stared back. Disbelieving.
It was Chuck Dawn.
Or should I say, Captain Chuck Dawn of the RAF.
We were
like strangers. I wanted to fall into his arms, but I couldn’t. I had a mission to do. I couldn’t take the chance of compromising it, all the work I’d put into it, the lives I could save.
“Are my men bothering you, Lady Marlowe?” Chuck asked, eyeing the young soldiers one by one.
“No,” I answered quickly. “I slipped on the pavement and they—”
“Aw, c’mon, Captain, she’s swell,” said my newfound friend from New Jersey. “Not like those other English dames we met who ain’t got no sense of humor.”
“Yeah, she a swell, all right,” Chuck said, “down to her pretty, pink…” He looked me up and down, leaving his thought unsaid but the meaning clear. His men were too drunk and too busy fighting over who was going to carry my packages to notice his sensual innuendo.
“I think it best we put those times behind us, Captain Dawn. We’re at war.” Why I said that, I don’t know, but I couldn’t weaken, let him know I wanted him to take me in his arms, kiss me. The harsh words helped me control myself, helped me remember I had a job to do, for to bring back what we had was too painful.
“You know this lady, Captain?” another man asked, nudging his buddy in the ribs.