by Bill Walker
Michael’s heart thudded against his rib cage and his ears filled with a buzzing sound, as if his head had become a hive of bees. He wanted to kiss those lips, drown in the oceans of her eyes, taste the essence of her.
Without thinking, he leaned forward, excited to see her moving to meet him. Good Christ, it was really happening! He could feel her breath lightly dusting his mouth. And then—
“Michael?” Lillian called from the bottom of the attic steps. “Are you two all right up there? I was beginning to worry.”
“I feel like I’m back in school,” Michael whispered.
Erika leaned back, stifling a giggle.
Cocking his head toward the steps, Michael said: “We’re just fine, Mother!”
“Anything turn up?”
“No, nothing.
He felt Erika grab his wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. “Michael!”
The urgency in her voice made him snap his head around, prepared to see some rodent the size of a cat sitting on its haunches regarding them with hostile black eyes. Instead, he followed her gaze to the footlocker, noticing that a corner of the patterned paper lining the trunk had come loose on the inside of the lid. Leaning forward, he spotted the corner of a yellowed envelope poking out from underneath.
Ripping the paper aside, Michael yanked out the envelope, his eyes eagerly devouring the four words written on the front in a faded cursive script: TO MY UNBORN CHILD.
“Open it, Michael!” she said, when after a long moment he’d failed to do anything.
He looked up at her, his eyes flaring. “No. There’s someone else who should have that honor.”
He stood then and clattered down the attic steps. Erika followed him down into the parlor and watched while he threw the envelope into his mother’s lap. Lillian looked up at him, a startled look on her kindly face.
“Something turned up, after all, Mother,” he said, his voice smooth and controlled. “Open it.”
“But it says—”
“I know what it bloody says. Open it!”
“Michael!”
He whirled to face Erika who looked at him with a look of outrage.
“Please...don’t,” she said.
Michael sighed, nodding once, then fell into a nearby chair, a look of exhaustion spreading across his face. “I want you to read it, Mother. I don’t know if I can.”
He watched as she gently tore the aged envelope and pulled out a sheaf of equally yellowed pages covered on both sides with the same flowing script. Then, with a pleading look that spoke volumes, Lillian Thorley looked down at the pages in her trembling hands and began to read.
THE FATHER: 1941
Chapter Sixteen
The Heinkel hit rough weather over the Baltic and Thorley spent most of the harrowing flight strapped into his seat, trying to hold back the contents of his stomach. As the plane pitched and yawed, buffeted by the high winds and lashed by icy rain, he tried his best not to think of the events in Russia.
But this was impossible.
The images and sounds came unbidden: the explosions of the artillery shells as they ripped up the camp, the decomposing bodies and the god-awful stench that clung to everything, permeating to the soul where it festered like a disease. The thoughts piled on top of one another, wave after wave, until his stomach let loose with a torrent that felt as if his entire insides were coming up through his throat. Gasping, for breath, he unsnapped his restraints and tried his best to vomit where it would be the least offensive, but this did little good. The entire cabin now reeked of bile.
Wiping his mouth on the sleeve of the Wehrmacht uniform he leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes, feeling his head throbbing with a dull ache that somehow made the feeling in his guts less noticeable. A trade-off. One pain for another. Too bad it didn’t expiate the deeper one.
What am I going to tell them?
What indeed? That a British regiment was massacred in a country where they should not have even been in the first place? These were the facts, but they still didn’t add up. Why had they been there? Were they there to help the Finns or the Russians? And did the Germans really kill them and plan this whole charade as a ruse?
Why were they there?
The more he asked himself that question, the more the question itself sounded like a string of nonsense syllables, like a Hindu mantra spoken over and over again to focus the mind inward toward enlightenment, the words themselves meaningless.
The door to the Heinkel’s cockpit banged opened and the Major stepped out. His face twisted into a grimace as he caught a whiff of vomit. He disappeared back inside and a minute later reemerged with a hip flask. Caught by a vicious downdraft, the plane dropped like a stone. The Major snarled and grabbed for one of the struts, as the pilot fought to pull up the Heinkel’s nose. The Jumo engines howled, and something heavy broke loose behind where Thorley sat and began banging against the bulkhead. Lightning flashed outside the plane, casting ominous shadows throughout the cabin, and the resultant thunder answered almost instantaneously. They were now in the heart of the storm and Thorley felt a knot of fear in his already beleaguered gut. The plane finally righted itself and began to climb, a moment of calm ensued, allowing the Major to reach him. Balancing himself against the bulkhead, the Major offered the flask.
Thorley shook his head, grimacing when the plane vibrated from a peal of thunder that sounded as if Thor’s hammer had torn open the heavens. “No...thanks,” he said, feeling his guts roiling.
“Take it,” the Major shouted over the noise, and thrust the flask into Thorley’s hands. “It’s tea and sugar. It will prevent dry heaves.”
Thorley felt a wave of nausea swimming up from his battered stomach and grabbed for the tin flask as a drowning man for a lifeline. He brought it to his mouth and began to swallow the syrupy brew.
“Easy,” the Major said, grabbing for the flask. “Take it slower.”
Nodding, Thorley took one more sip and returned the flask to the Major. “How much longer?”
“About two hours. The storm has the whole of the continent socked in, so we shouldn’t have any trouble from your people,” the Major said, alluding to the ubiquitous RAF.
“That’s assuming we make it through all this.”
The Major allowed himself a smile. “Johann and I have flown through far worse than this, and Johann is the best. I’d rather fly through a fucking gale than what we went through over Dover in 1940.” He paused, his jaw working as he mulled something over. It became obvious to Thorley that something was bothering the man other than a concern for his well-being. A moment later it became all-too-clear.
“What did you see down there?” the Major asked, his face a somber mask, the words almost inaudible.
Anger flared through Thorley until he remembered what these men had risked flying him in, and why. “I’m still trying to piece it all together myself.”
“They were your people, weren’t they?”
Thorley nodded, the words sticking in his throat.
The Major sighed. “I was afraid of that. It’s all fucking madness.” Rising to his feet he returned to the cockpit and Thorley spent the rest of the flight trying to keep down the tea and sugar.
Fate, or whatever it was that smiled down on them this day, decided to clear the weather ten minutes out from Lisbon and the landing went without a hitch. Grateful to get back into his own uniform, Thorley folded the German one carefully, placing it back onto the seat as he’d found it. The plane taxied to a stop and the pilot emerged from the cockpit and exited through the hatch, while the Major hung back.
“We were told on the radio that your plane is ready and waiting for you. It seems that a certain Senhor Velasquez has asked that you be informed that your original crew requested to be allowed to take you back. They are waiting with the plane.”
Thorley smiled, feeling better knowing that the oily little diplomat had kept his word. “I guess this is goodbye, then,” Thorley said, feeling awkward.
�
�We Germans prefer, auf wiedersehen.”
Thorley smiled and stuck out his hand. “Until we meet again....”
The Major took his hand and gripped it firmly. “It’s Hartmann, Klaus Hartmann. And it’s been an honor to fly with you, Herr Thorley.”
“Danke schön, Klaus. I feel the same.”
Thorley started for the hatch.
“Wait.”
Turning, he watched as Klaus unpinned a badge from his tunic and pressed it into his hands. It was a badge consisting of a silver-toned flying eagle clutching a swastika in its talons, overlaying a gilt wreath of oak and laurel leaves.
“It is our combined pilot and observer badge,” he explained. “I think you’ve earned it.”
Here was a man who’d put himself on the line for an abstraction, and would now be going back to what might mean certain death if his mission failed.
“I wish I had something to give you,” Thorley said pocketing the badge.
Klaus gave him a sober look. “You already have—hope.” Outside the plane, he found Velasquez’s Mercedes staff car waiting for him a few yards away from the Heinkel. Michael wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that Senhor Velasquez had delegated the chore of escorting him to a lower functionary. This one, a stocky man of indeterminate age and a propensity for wrinkled linen suits and garlic-flavored breath, was as taciturn as Velasquez was loquacious, for which Thorley was sincerely grateful.
A few minutes later, he was aboard the Vickers-Wellington, where he greeted Hildy and the others like long lost brothers.
“Good to see you, sir!” Hildy said, clasping his shoulders in a comradely embrace. “We’ll get you back right as rain. Göring’s given the goons the night off. The storm front has settled over the Continent, so it’ll be smooth flying all the way back to Blighty.”
They were airborne ten minutes later and headed north across the Bay of Biscay.
As tired as he was, and as disturbed as he was by what he’d seen, Thorley felt a sense of exhilaration knowing that he was going home.
He wanted nothing more than to be debriefed and to return to his wife and his safe, boring job as a translator. Let Sir Basil and the others debate the complexities of what he’d found. He was not involved; he was just the messenger.
It was dusk when they touched down in Chipping Ongar. After saying his farewells to Flight Lieutenant Mullins and the rest of the crew, he entered the blockhouse and changed back into his civilian clothes. He carefully placed his major’s uniform into a suitcase, which had been provided, and after one last look around, he left the building. Outside, as it had been in Lisbon, a car waited, the exhaust fumes like white clouds in the cool night air. Unlike Lisbon, however, Thorley found the rear of the car empty, save for a basket filled with a supper of cold chicken and a bottle of brown ale. In a way, he was relieved, for he was not relishing his appointment with MacIlvey and the others, did not want to relive those hellish moments yet again. Yet, he knew this meeting would be the last of it; that afterwards, he would be free to return to his old life.
That was the odd thing. He’d begun to think of his life prior to this mission as his “old life.” And what that meant exactly, he couldn’t say. Perhaps it meant nothing more than one more bit of growing up he’d needed to do. Then again, it might mean that going back to business as usual would be impossible. And that was what underlay his feelings of unease.
The whole of his existence had become...uncertain.
Pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind, Thorley opened the bottle of ale and took a long cool draught.
Alcohol was very likely the worst thing for him after what he’d gone through, but it felt good, and the light feeling of euphoria made him less nervous and more fatalistic about the immediate future. He pulled a leg off the chicken and gnawed on it slowly, savoring the mild flavors of sage and thyme. He didn’t realize how exhausted he was until he woke up outside 54 Broadway.
He sat up too fast, feeling the blood rushing out of his skull. “How long have we been here?” he asked the driver.
The man turned, eyeing him with profound disinterest. “Only just got here, Gov.”
“What time is it?”
“A little after eight.”
They would be up there now, waiting for him.
Stepping out of the Humber, he waited for the driver to pull away. He wondered if he should call Lillian first. He wanted to call her, needed to call her, yet duty dictated otherwise. His instructions were to return to Broadway immediately for debriefing. And he knew it would last most of the night. They would ask him to tell and retell every detail of the mission he could recall, over and over again, until they had every bloody moment of it noted down on reams of transcript.
One more night, and this will all be over.
He identified himself to the young lieutenant and was once again escorted up the stairs to the fourth floor. He found the door to the Director’s office open, the flickering light from the hearth warm and inviting.
Sir Basil was the first to see him. “Ah, Thorley, prompt as always. Do come in.”
Thorley managed a wan smile and stepped into the room. When he scanned the faces of the three men seated in front of him, he noted their outward calm. But their hard, glittering eyes betrayed their true intent. He knew then that the pleasantries were about to end.
Chapter Seventeen
Unable to sleep, Lillian lay in bed studying the track of the moon across the bedclothes. And she wanted to sleep—oh, so badly. Not because she was tired, which she was, but because she wanted to blot out the all-consuming terror sweeping through her, if for only a brief respite. But that was not to be. She replayed the scene with Sir Basil over and over until she could pick out the minutest details.
My God, she thought, was it only two nights ago?
She’d just returned from the tryst with Paul when the knock on the door came. Paul had been in a foul mood when she revealed her news about the baby. He’d screamed at her, rebuking her for her carelessness, his words like slaps.
Shaking with anger, she’d started to leave, and he’d grabbed her, enveloping her body with his muscular arms, his hot kisses numbing her. Anger gave way to passion and then...to guilt.
Oh, God, where would it end?
Why didn’t she have the courage to tell Paul the truth? Instead, she’d lied to him, let him make love to her, then fled. She’d even refused a ride from Paul’s bewildered chauffeur, preferring to take the Tube directly to Stockwell Station. Ordinarily, she couldn’t abide the crowds and the smell of sweat and bad breath in the narrow, tightly packed trains. But while sitting amongst her fellow Londoners, she’d found a measure of solidity and calm. Etched into the tired lines of their faces, were problems other than her own, problems no doubt far worse than an errant husband and petulant lover. And it humbled her.
Enduring the short walk from the station, she arrived home just after nine, removed her coat and froze when she heard the sharp, insistent rapping at the door. Could Paul have followed her home, already contrite and wanting her? He wouldn’t dare, she thought. It would be far too risky for him to be seen in this neighborhood, though she had to admit the thought of it titillated her, but he would send his chauffeur, never himself.
With mounting unease, she tore off her scarf and coat, threw them onto one of the overstuffed chairs and went to the window, where she pulled aside one of the blackout shades and peered outside. What she saw looked like nothing more than a tall black shape outlined against the gray of the outside wall. She saw the flare of dull red light as the man sucked on his pipe, revealing his handlebar mustache and white hair.
Sir Basil.
For a brief moment she was paralyzed by panic. Had he followed her from Paul’s hotel? Did he know about them, and if so, was he here to admonish her not to risk her husband’s career by her selfish transgressions? Hot anger shot through her, and then melted away as fast as it had come.
He wasn’t here because of her.
Something
was wrong with Michael.
Stifling a cry of alarm, she went to the door, shot the bolt and flung it open. His eyes held a warm twinkle.
“Hello, my dear. You’re looking lovely. May I come in?”
She’d stepped aside and let him enter. He was solicitous, as always, and that only increased her silent terror. Closing the door, she followed him into the sitting room where she found him tapping out his pipe into the fireplace.
“Where is Michael?” she asked.
When he didn’t answer right away, Lillian felt a sharp knot of fear twisting inside her stomach that steadily worsened while she watched him refill his pipe and relight it with excruciating deliberateness, taking extra care to tamp the full-bodied tobacco down just so.
“Something’s happened to him, hasn’t it?” she said, at last giving voice to her deepest fear.
The old man looked shocked. “My Lord. Is that what you think?”
“Why else would you be here?”
“Please forgive me,” he said, shaking his head. “I get so wrapped up in my own little world that I scarcely think of what others must think. Michael’s fine, my dear. But there is something we need to discuss.”
He’d gone on to tell her that her husband had been sent to Lisbon on a special mission to translate documents captured from a German courier, documents, he said, that were far too valuable to risk being sent by the usual channels. And that he would be gone for two days.
It sounded reasonable, and totally within the purview of Michael’s job with the Foreign Office; but something in the older man’s manner gave her pause, made her realize that he wasn’t telling her the whole truth. She’d pressed him, then, asking pointed questions; and that had only made Sir Basil vague and evasive. At every point, he begged off, citing the Official Secrets Act. It was infuriating; and it took every ounce of her will not to lose her temper and throw him out of the house.
Now, two nights later, with her fear and worry at fever pitch, she thought of one other question she’d neglected to ask, and now seemed horribly obvious in the light of 20-20 hindsight: What if something happens to him?