“Thank you,” Alpharetta replied, her embarrassment taken for shyness by the men.
“Lady Pomeroy and I both thank you,” Dow replied.
“Please let the village know that we’ll be at the tavern tomorrow evening to show our appreciation.”
The men, satisfied at his response, put their hands to their heads, as if tipping imaginary hats. Then they backed away and began to walk rapidly down the road.
As Alpharetta stepped into the house beside Dow, she peered at him over the bunch of flowers. “I’m sorry they saw me at close range. That will present a problem for Lady Margaret later, won’t it? But maybe they won’t broadcast what I look like. Sometimes, men don’t notice.”
“By tomorrow night, everyone in the village will know what you look like. Tradition demands that I buy a drink for all the men in the village. And you, my dear Miss Beaumont, will have to put in an appearance at the tavern with me.”
The same hostility he had directed at her that evening at Harrington Hall crept into Dow’s voice. And Alpharetta, anxious to escape, fled toward the kitchen to find a vase for the flowers.
Dow took the box upstairs. And if he opened it, he did not confide its contents to Alpharetta.
Chapter 17
Belline Wexford took her time packing. With the buzz bombs ruining everything, she was glad to be leaving London. Her nerves were badly frayed from all the air-raid sirens, night and day.
Never knowing where the rockets were going to hit, she had soon realized that the cutoff of the strange duv-duv sound overhead meant that they were coming down immediately. She didn’t like to scramble for shelter, any more than she liked having to man the USO canteen.
Almost all soldiers were gone and BBC radio news reports concerning the fighting in Normandy were somber. Strange, the BBC had ignored what was going on in London, broadcasting only the news of the missiles hitting south of the city. But from Bond to Picadilly, the people were complaining, and even blaming the prime minister, as if he were personally responsible for the bombs.
London had been a disaster for her in more than one way. Staying in the hotel with Ben Mark that weekend Alpharetta appeared had not turned out at all as she’d planned. Each time she remembered it, she was furious. He’d called her Alpharetta at the worst possible moment. The entire time he’d been making love to her, he’d been thinking of Alpharetta.
Well, she’d forget about Ben Mark, about London, about Marsh and the entire war, at least for the next few days. She was going to Scotland, to a nice place on the beach, with all expenses paid.
Belline finished packing, closed her suitcase, and left the flat she shared with the other three USO women.
At Lochendall, Alpharetta packed her flight suit for Dow to smuggle into the hangar. She was anxious to try out the Anson and see how it handled close to the water. That gray coastal mist that merged sky and sea was as dangerous as any Lorelei, sending so many pilots to a watery grave.
“Are you ready, Alpharetta?”
She looked up to see Dow standing at the open door between their adjoining bedrooms. Usually the door was kept latched, but she’d forgotten to close it after he had knocked a few minutes before.
She nodded and he walked into her bedroom to get the suitcase. Together they went into the hallway, the door still open between the rooms.
Dow had dressed in uniform for the afternoon, since the small airfield was a military installation, surrounded by a large wire fence and tall metal gates. Identification was needed from even the highest-ranking officer before entry was allowed.
The Rolls-Royce had been brought out for Dow and Alpharetta, and Eckerd now stood beside it. Alpharetta had seen little of the chauffeur since their arrival at Lochendall.
“Good afternoon, Eckerd.”
“Good afternoon, Lady Pomeroy.”
She stared at him to see if he were teasing her, but his eyes were straight ahead and serious.
The car passed the pub on the corner and went through the fishing village slowly, gathering speed at the end of the street. And along the way, Dow raised his hand in greeting.
“Are you the laird of the village?” she asked suspiciously.
Dow smiled. “The closest to it, perhaps. My mother was Scottish and I inherited Lochendall from her, as the second son.”
Alpharetta’s eyes questioned what her voice could not.
“Yes, I had an older brother, Gerald. You saw his portrait in the gallery. He was to have inherited the title and Harrington Hall. But he was killed in action.”
“I’m sorry.”
He did not inform her that he had also inherited the woman Gerald would have married, if he had lived, Lady Margaret Cranston. It was the only thing he could do in the circumstances, with his father’s heart set on joining the two families that had been friends for so many years. But today he felt fortunate that Meg had never visited Lochendall, even as Gerald’s fiancée.
At the gate to the military airstrip, the guard saluted as Dow stopped and showed his credentials. Eckerd drove slowly on to the sheltered side of the hangar, invisible from the road and even from the guards at the gate.
On the tarmac sat two reconnaissance planes—both Avro Anson Mk1s, the kind that normally maintained surveillance along the entire coast of the British Isles.
Twenty minutes later, the two planes took off, one after the other. The first was piloted by Alpharetta Beaumont, the other by Air Vice-Marshal Sir Dow Pomeroy.
They flew over the sheltered arm of the sea beyond the massive gray stone house on the crags—Lochendall. And Claus Mueller, also known as Lewin McGonegal, watched through his binoculars at the window of his house, until they disappeared. Then he went to the wireless to alert the fishing trawler, hidden off the point in the surrounding mist, of this unscheduled flight.
Anxiously he remained by the window, waiting for the planes to return to land. He had been assigned to keep his eye on the air vice-marshal. But he was still angry at Abwehr for not letting him know the man was married or that he was bringing a wife to Lochendall.
He had snapped her picture as she walked from the house and sent the film on to his contact. Not that she was that important. But intelligence should have all pertinent information on a man who might be planning the heist of the turbine of their downed missile.
Claus’s two contacts waited down the road for the reappearance of the Rolls-Royce. In an hour, it headed back to the village, and the two men followed it at a distance. Seeing the black car stop at the pub, they also stopped and casually walked inside to sit at the bar.
With her glowing cheeks the only telltale sign of her recent flight, Alpharetta sat at the small table in the center of the pub. Not long after their arrival, heavy black curtains were drawn at the windows and the owner’s wife lit the candles on the tables and the small kerosene lantern at the bar, the main source of light in the room. The pub’s old oak timbers might have come from a shipwreck along the coast hundreds of years before.
“Have you had a pleasant afternoon, Alpharetta?” Dow inquired.
“Yes. Oh, yes,” she responded enthusiastically.
The men at the bar, seeing the glow in her face, the sparkle in her eyes, attributed them to her newlywed state.
Word of Sir Dow’s arrival quickly circulated throughout the village. Soon the pub was overcrowded, with old men drinking their free ale at the oak bar while, at each table, entire families, quickly spruced up to come and view the lady of the manor, sat and watched as they drank less alcoholic brew, caring little that their dinners were growing cold in their cottages.
The people smiled. Dow nodded. One old man, fortified by his ale, stopped at the table on his way out and croaked, “A bonny lass, Sir Dow. A bonny lass. The Lord be with ye both.”
“Thank you, Hedgins,” Dow replied, knowing the old man’s weakness for a pretty woman.
After Alpharetta had gone to bed, Freddie Mallory, serving as courier from Sir Nelson Mitford at Air Defense in Middlesex, arrived at Loch
endall with messages for Dow.
Mercy, the code name for the Swedish mission, was set. By midafternoon of the next day, when the mist had burned off the coast, Alpharetta would be on her way.
Having seen her handle the plane that afternoon, Dow felt better about the entire caper. And yet a reservation remained. He had tried to discourage her even after she had agreed. But his business was not to interfere with Mittie’s plans, only to carry them out to the best of his ability.
He looked at the clock and back to the instructions. He decided not to awaken Alpharetta. She needed a good night’s sleep, unencumbered by disturbing dreams. Breakfast time would be soon enough to apprise her of the last details. Dow locked the instruction pouch in his desk, along with the mail packet forwarded to Alpharetta in care of Sir Nelson at Air Defense, and saying good night to Freddie, he went to bed himself.
Birdie Summerlin was a widow in her forties, older than most of the women in the British WAAF’s, with three sons in the service. She was a capable woman, with a penchant for laughter, but she’d had little occasion for laughter in the past four years. Like all patriotic British women, she had put her shoulder to the plow, as her father would have said, for she could not see herself sitting at home, knitting, while her sons were fighting.
For the past three years, she had been Dow Pomeroy’s staff secretary, with him in Tunis, and moving again to England when he was called back for special assignment. Although only ten years older than he, she had assumed a mothering role with him.
Not that she was against going out with younger men herself. She smiled as she thought of Eckerd and the good times they’d had together. Although the present assignment was a serious one, she and Eckerd were having a lark, pretending to be servants at Lochendall, because of security precautions.
Reggie was the only one who seemed disappointed in the change, for he was the odd man out, with the responsibility of taking care of Brewster, still a baby despite his enormous size.
“The air vice-marshal is taking this sham marriage a little too seriously, don’t you think, Birdie?”
“Well, he’s a serious fellow, luv,” Birdie responded. In bed, with the small reading lamp shining on her book, Birdie remembered the conversation when she had served Reggie his dinner that evening. But with Mallory returning, Reggie would have someone to go to the pub with, on his time off.
Freddie Mallory’s arrival at Lochendall was not unexpected by Claus Mueller, for the man was Sir Dow Pomeroy’s aide-de-camp. And even with the man on his honeymoon, the air vice-marshal still had responsibilities that could not be shirked. Unfortunately, there was no way Claus could find out what those responsibilities were. He knew that Mallory had brought instructions to him. Yet it was only a matter of time before Abwehr found out what the locked briefcase contained.
The next morning, when Alpharetta came downstairs for breakfast, she was surprised to see Freddie Mallory already at the table with Dow. She had heard someone come in late the previous night. Despite Dow’s wishes for a peaceful night, she had slept little. It was not the arrival of the car that had kept her awake.
“Good morning,” she said to one and then the other. Her face denied her restless night.
Freddie, jealous of his commander’s welfare, frowned as he recognized the woman who had shared the train compartment with them into London and now waited for Dow to hold her chair for her, as if she had a right to his attention and consideration.
“I think you two have met,” Dow said. “Alpharetta, this is Mallory, my ADC.” With a twinkle in his hazel eyes, he continued, “Freddie, may I present my wife, Lady Pomeroy.”
“You’d better be careful, sir,” Freddie cautioned. “Not too many years ago, saying such a thing in front of a witness in this desolate place would have made it legal.”
Feeling the disapproval in Mallory’s voice, Alpharetta said, “Don’t worry, Mallory. This will probably be the shortest marriage on record—of off the record,” she corrected. Turning to the woman at her elbow, she asked, “Birdie, do you think I might have an egg this morning?”
“Of course, luv,” she said, pouring the tea into Alpharetta’s cup. “That nice man, Lewin McGonegal, who clipped the hedge the other day, brought by some gull’s eggs this very morning.”
She didn’t mention that he’d stayed for a hot cup of tea in the kitchen.
Birdie took the other orders and when she had returned to the kitchen, Alpharetta, self-conscious in front of Freddie, asked, “Is there any news, Dow?”
“Yes. Mercy is to get underway sooner than we thought.
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
“Good.”
Alpharetta picked up her teacup. She was glad, for if she stayed much longer at Lochendall, she would forget Ben Mark, forget Lady Margaret. She looked out the window at the blue sky, filled with rolling clouds. “It’s a fine day for it,” she said.
“Yes. We couldn’t ask for better,” said Dow, feeling strangely depressed. “We have a busy morning ahead of us, Alpharetta. Briefing will be at 0900 in my office.”
Gone was the camaraderie of the past week. Freddie, by his presence, had effectively destroyed the intimacy growing between them.
“Oh, by the way, Alpharetta, there’s a mail packet for you on the table,” Dow informed her.
Alpharetta was pleased that her mail was being forwarded. This time, she hoped to have a letter from Conyer. Duluth never wrote, but left it to his brother to take care of family correspondence. They had drifted apart over the years, with such a long distance between them. Yet Alpharetta remembered that period in her life when the three had been extremely close.
When Alpharetta had finished her breakfast, she picked up her mail packet and walked up the steps while Dow retired to his office.
Dow examined the contents of the briefcase once more—the fake identification papers, Swedish money, the code Alpharetta would use to get in touch with her contact, and, perhaps the most important thing, the maps.
Having read her mail, a quiet, withdrawn Alpharetta tapped on the door promptly at 0900.
“Come in.”
Dow sat at his desk, with the map spread over the entire surface before him. He waved Alpharetta to a chair in front of the desk and began his briefing, eyes intent on the map.
“There’s been a slight change in the initial plans. A spy is operating somewhere in the village, as I feared. Mittie says the coast guard picked up signals to a boat nearby. The spy is monitoring every takeoff and reporting the time of arrival back to base.
“Sir Reggie is going to fly reconnaissance from here, taking you, as a passenger, to the Orkney Islands.” He pointed to the spot with the wooden baton in his hands. “From there, you’ll be put aboard a fishing vessel that will get you to the coast of Sweden—here through Skagerrak. That’s the reason you will have to leave earlier than planned. Then Reggie will fly back to check in at the regular time the reconnaissance usually returns.”
He looked up to gauge her reaction, but there was none, only a distant look in her eyes. He frowned, “Are you listening?” he inquired with a sharpness in his voice.
“I’m sorry, I—”
“You’re not getting cold feet, are you, Alpharetta?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then follow the briefing.”
Again he pointed to the map. Alpharetta leaned over, trying to concentrate on the movement of the baton.
“This means the decoy will fly the plane in after you have arrived by boat. And when the plane is stripped of its Swedish identification, he will take off again. A half hour later, you, Alpharetta, will take off in an identical plane— also an Anson. And that plane will contain the missile fragments.” He paused. “Are there any questions so far?”
“What if someone talks to me? Or expects me to answer? You know I don’t speak the language.”
“That’s what the contact is for—to make sure no one speaks to you. He will do all the talking for you.”
/> For the best part of the morning, she remained in his office, studying the maps, memorizing the code. By the time she left the room, Dow had a feeling the mission was doomed.
Damn Mittie for getting him mixed up in such a hopeless situation! Why hadn’t the air marshal kept his theatrics to his days at Oxford? Then he felt ashamed. With the missiles threatening to annihilate them all, Mittie had to grasp at straws, at any chance, however small, to gain some measure of defense that all the military forces combined had been unable to provide.
And Alpharetta Beaumont was a necessary part of his plan.
Chapter 18
Coming through the window of the dining room, the light cast patterns upon the linen tablecloth and highlighted the blue and white Spode soup tureen in the center of the table. The tureen was not filled with soup, but with Scottish heather arranged by Birdie in an attempt to brighten the final luncheon before Alpharetta left.
Sitting at one end of the table, Dow knew that Birdie need not have bothered, for nothing could brighten the luncheon, with Alpharetta seated at the other end and Freddie between them.
The light made an arc around Alpharetta’s red hair, giving her an aura of an early Botticelli painting, with her delicate, fair skin, her sad emerald eyes mirroring thoughts that were a million miles away. And Dow, unable to reach her with a touch, or bring her to his side with a command, as he had done earlier when the gardener was watching, realized that something else, beyond Freddie, had subtly put a distance between them.
Alpharetta had little appetite for food and little desire to enter into the sparse conversation between Dow and Freddie.
As soon as the luncheon plates were cleared away, Birdie brought a tray of shortbread. Alpharetta, not wanting to hurt Birdie’s feelings by refusing, took the dessert and forced herself to eat part of it.
Finally Dow cleared his throat. The men had finished eating and were waiting for her. “Don’t you think you’d better finish packing?”
On Wings of Fire Page 16