by Debbie Rix
After the relative calm of Southwick House and its neighbouring villages, London seemed frantic and filthy. Imogen and Joy checked into a small hotel in King’s Cross. The rooms were dingy and the beds uncomfortable, but it was cheap, and had the advantage of being next to the station and their early morning train to Newcastle. Once they had dumped their luggage, they went down to reception to call their respective boyfriends.
‘I’m afraid the Lieutenant checked out several weeks ago,’ said the receptionist at Brown’s Hotel.
‘Did he leave a forwarding address?’ Imogen asked. ‘I’m his fiancée you see, and I’ve been away myself.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ The girl on the other end sounded sympathetic. ‘I do have an office number for him though, if that would help?’
Imogen had never been to Ben’s office, although she remembered him mentioning his office was in Mayfair the night he took her to the dance at the Grosvenor House Hotel. But he’d never given her his office phone number and as she dialled the number she realised her fingers were trembling; she was anxious suddenly at the thought of seeing him again.
‘Can I speak to Lieutenant Andersen?’
‘Who is this?’ The man’s voice on the other end had an American accent. He sounded guarded and suspicious.
‘My name is Imogen. Imogen Mitchell – I’m Benjamin’s fiancée.’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ the man said after a few moments. ‘I can’t help you.’
‘Isn’t this where he works? The hotel gave me this number. He left it for emergencies, apparently.’
‘I think there’s been a mistake.’
‘But you’re in Mayfair aren’t you?’ Imogen persisted. ‘It’s a Mayfair number – I recognise it, and I remember him telling me he worked in Mayfair. This must be the right place. I just want to know how he is, and where he is?’
‘I’m really sorry,’ the man said. ‘You are mistaken.’
The line went dead.
‘It’s very odd,’ Imogen said, when she found Joy in reception. ‘The man at the other end denied all knowledge of Ben.’
Joy began to sob.
‘Oh Joy!’ said Imogen, sitting down and cradling her friend in her arms. ‘What on earth’s happened?’
‘He’s married,’ said Joy between gasps.
‘Who’s married?’
‘Werner, of course. I just called his number and this woman answered. She said “he’s away”. She wouldn’t tell me where. I said I was his girlfriend. She laughed at me!’
‘Oh Joy, I’m so sorry.’
‘She said I was an in idiot. What was it? “An idiot to believe him.” And not to think I was the first. She was German too.’
‘Oh dear,’ said Imogen. ‘What will you do?’
‘Forget him, I suppose.’
In the middle of the night they were woken by the sound of sirens. The hotel guests gathered in reception in their nightclothes and were taken by an anxious hotel manager down to the hotel’s wine cellars. When they staggered out an hour or two later, they discovered the raid had been a revenge attack for Operation Overlord. Over two hundred unmanned bombs had been launched from Calais, over seventy of which had made it to London, wreaking horrific damage all over the capital.
The girls dressed and packed hurriedly, grateful to be escaping to the relative safety of the north of England. The train travelled painfully slowly, stopping periodically in sidings deep in the English countryside. But finally, as the sun was setting, they crossed the Tyne and pulled into Newcastle station. Imogen had sent a telegram to her parents telling them to expect her, and they were waiting on the platform with Joy’s parents.
‘Imogen,’ her mother said, holding her tightly. ‘I’m so glad to have you back.’
‘I’m so glad to be here,’ Imogen sobbed into her mother’s shoulder. It was as if all the tension and anxiety of the previous few months, and the terror of the previous night’s bombing, had simply evaporated as she was held in her mother’s delicate arms.
Imogen and Joy had four days in which to relax and enjoy themselves before they had to return to Portsmouth, and Rose was determined to spoil her daughter. She had made a special supper using a large portion of their weekly ration, and the fire had been lit in the drawing room. Imogen had a long hot bath and changed into a simple summer dress. As she lay on the sofa before dinner, the fire crackling in the grate and a large Dubonnet and soda by her side, Honey the dog jumped onto her lap.
‘Now, it’s completely up to you,’ her mother said, ‘I’ve not arranged anything – but we could go out into the country if you like – for a walk along the coast perhaps. Alnwick is lovely at this time of year.’
‘It’s good just to be home, Mummy,’ said Imogen, stroking her dog’s ears.
‘Or we could see friends?’ her mother went on, brightly.
‘Rose,’ said Joe, ‘leave the girl alone. She just needs time to rest and unwind.’
The following morning, as Imogen ate a boiled egg and toast in the morning room, her mother noticed the ring hanging from a chain around her neck.
‘That’s a pretty thing,’ she said.
Imogen blushed, her fingers darting to the ring.
‘Oh… this. Yes.’
‘Where did you get it?’ her mother asked.
‘It’s rather a long story,’ said Imogen.
‘Well,’ said Rose. ‘We have four days.’
When Imogen had finished telling her mother about Ben she was relieved that Rose did not express either surprise or annoyance that she had kept him secret. She simply asked: ‘Do you love him?’
Imogen gazed out of the window and onto the garden. Her father’s beloved rose beds were in full bloom, the lavender hedging attracting clouds of bees.
‘I don’t know. I think so. To tell the truth, it was all so quick. He’s lovely Mummy – really lovely. Handsome and clever – he read Law at university. His parents are diplomats; they live in Washington.’
‘Those are all admirable reasons to like someone,’ Rose said. ‘But if you marry someone, Imogen, you need to know you will love them forever. You will love them for all their foibles, all their faults, as well as for their gifts and advantages in life.’
Imogen mused on this.
‘Yes. You’re right of course.’
‘It didn’t work out with Freddie, then?’ her mother asked perceptively.
‘I don’t know,’ Imogen said, standing by the window. ‘I really loved him, you know. I was on the verge of telling him so, but when we last met he told me I shouldn’t wait for him; that I should get on with my life and be a fine architect. He told me that he might not make it and he didn’t want to break my heart.’
She turned and looked at her mother.
‘He sounds as if he was being eminently thoughtful and sensible,’ her mother said, pouring them both another cup of tea.
‘I suppose he was,’ said Imogen, sitting back down at the table. ‘But at the time I felt so hurt. I thought he didn’t care. When Ben came along he seemed so romantic and devoted; he swept me off my feet – literally. He seemed so exciting and mysterious. He is mysterious, in fact. I tried to ring his office the other day and they denied all knowledge of him. Don’t you think that’s odd?’
Her mother sipped her tea.
‘I think you have a lot of thinking to do and that now is not the time to be making big decisions.’
‘Are you saying I should break it off with Ben?’
‘No,’ Rose said. ‘But don’t allow yourself to be rushed into anything either. It seems to me that you have a great deal to find out about this man – and marriage should never be undertaken in a mad panic. If he loves you, he’ll understand and respect that.’
‘Thank you, Ma. You’re right, as always.’
One week later Imogen and Joy stood excitedly on deck, the salty wind blowing in their faces, watching as the Normandy coastline came into view.
‘Isn’t it exciting?’ said Joy, taking Imogen’s arm. ‘Fr
ance at last – who’d have thought it?’
‘I know,’ said Imogen gazing at the grey-green water of the harbour. She thought back to the turquoise sea in the postcard of Le Havre she had taken from Norfolk House all those months before. ‘It’s just not quite the way I had imagined.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I suppose I had a vision of an idyllic little holiday village. From here all I can see is bomb damage and the beach littered with broken-down machinery. It all looks so grey and sad.’
After clambering off the boat using rope netting and ladders, the Wrens were driven by transport lorry across country, arriving late in the day in a bomb-damaged town in Normandy. Billeted together in an empty room in an uninhabited house, Imogen and Joy did their best to make it comfortable with their roll-up beds and travel bath. They had been issued with a tiny stove and a few packets of dehydrated food, and in spite of the fact that the room was dirty and uninviting, Imogen had a renewed sense of purpose. The Wrens set up their headquarters at a converted factory, and as they arrived each day, she felt proud to be part of this band of brave young women.
At the end of August the Allies liberated Paris. As soon as word came through, the Wrens were ordered to pack up the base and move to the capital city. Their new headquarters would be a chateau in the suburbs of Paris.
Imogen wrote a brief letter home to her mother.
Dearest Ma,
We leave Normandy today and head for Paris. To be frank, I’ll be glad to go. The deprivation in northern France is terrible – ruined towns, food shortages, bombed out houses, and the people look so sad and downtrodden. In Paris we will be living in a chateau! Can you imagine? I can’t say much more, but wish you all well.
I love you and miss you and I’ll write once we arrive.
All my love,
Imogen.
PS: no personal decisions taken on any front – I thought you’d be glad to hear!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Färsehof Farm
September 1944
Magda pushed the last of the herd out of the milking parlour and into the yard. The cows ambled clumsily into one another, rubbing their soft noses together. Pieter, standing on the edge of the yard, held open the gate to the field.
‘Push them this way!’ he shouted.
‘All right,’ Magda said, slapping the backside of the last loitering cow. ‘They’re coming.’
The slowly setting sun cast long shadows across the yard and the air felt fresh and soft. As the last cow skittered off, her hooves clattering across the cobbles, Magda felt her child move. It was a soft, gentle motion – not quite a kick, more a sensation – a little fluttering, like a butterfly. She touched her stomach over her apron, anxious to experience the sensation again through her fingers. Her mother, standing at the kitchen door, called out to her.
‘Magda… are you all right?’
‘Yes Mutti,’ said Magda, ‘I’m fine, really.’
At nearly five months pregnant, Magda did, indeed, feel well. She was over her morning sickness and had entered the second joyous trimester of pregnancy. Her skin glowed and her hair was lustrous. She was not surprised at how well she felt. As a young woman she took good health for granted. But she was relieved that her attitude to the child she was carrying was also so positive. She had been so determined to live her own life after the war – to go to university, to follow in her brother’s footsteps, to live an independent existence – and now those dreams had been shattered. She would be a mother by the New Year, to a child with no father – at least not a father she was likely to see again. If it was Michael, she feared he would already have been captured, and possibly killed. Even if he survived, the chances of him ever returning were diminishingly small. She would be simply a pleasant memory in the young airman’s wartime experience that he could look back on with affection, before returning to his former life in the soft English countryside. If the baby was Otto’s then she actively prayed that he would never return… that he might die in a blaze of patriotic glory, so she could be left in peace for the rest of her life to bring up her child alone. Curiously, this sad state of affairs did not induce any sense of self-pity or resentment. Rather, as her belly grew, so too did her love for her fatherless child.
Her mother was waiting for her in the kitchen when Magda came in from the milking.
‘I should take over some of your work,’ Käthe said. ‘You shouldn’t be doing the milking any more. I worry something might happen. One of the cows might kick you.’
‘Oh Mutti,’ Magda interrupted, impatiently. ‘Don’t make such a fuss. I’m fine. I’m far better at milking than I am at cooking, you know that. We’d all be eating terrible food if I was in charge of the kitchen. What is for supper, by the way? And please don’t say rabbit… again.’
‘We are lucky to have rabbit,’ her mother replied sternly. ‘So many people are starving. At least here in the countryside, we have food.’
‘I know; I know we’re lucky. You’re right, I’m sorry. I’m just a bit tired. I’m going to lie down for half an hour, if that’s all right.’
‘Yes of course. I’ll call you when your father comes in.’
Lying on her bed, feeling the child squirm inside her, she closed her eyes and fell asleep within minutes. She woke to the sound of something knocking against her bedroom window. Befuddled by sleep she roused herself, reluctantly. The child within was sleeping too and Magda was annoyed that they had both been disturbed.
She knelt on her bed, and peered out. It was almost dark. The sun had long since sunk over the horizon, leaving just a pale apricot haze that merged into the inky darkness. Beneath her window stood a bearded man wearing a shabby overcoat and cap. It was difficult to tell his age, but he looked like one of the vagrants – deserting German soldiers mostly – who appeared from time to time on the farm, looking for food or shelter. She opened the window.
‘What do you want? If you want food, my mother will give you something.’
‘Food would be wonderful,’ the man said, ‘if you can spare any… little monkey.’
‘Karl!’ she screamed. ‘Is that you?’
He removed his hat, revealing over-long unkempt hair. But in spite of the dirt and the beard, there was no doubt it was her brother.
‘Karl!’ she shouted. ‘Wait there. I’m coming down.’
She ran downstairs, and into the kitchen.
‘Mutti, Mutti… it’s Karl! He’s outside.’
Her mother dropped the rabbit she was jointing onto the kitchen table.
‘Karl… here?’
Together they ran into the yard. Karl held his arms out to his mother who fell into them, sobbing. ‘My baby, my baby,’ was all Käthe could say.
Magda danced around, desperate to hold him.
‘I can’t believe it,’ she said, ‘you’re back… you’re really back.’
As he hugged his mother, smiling broadly over her head at his sister, they were interrupted by the familiar clip-clop of a horse and cart.
‘Quick,’ said Magda, ‘come inside. It’s probably just Papa coming back from the field, but it might be our neighbour, Gerhardt.’
She pushed Karl and her mother through the farmhouse door and slammed it shut, peering through the kitchen window into the yard.
‘Go upstairs,’ she whispered to her brother.
‘But can’t I have a hug first?’ he asked.
‘Later. Go… quickly!’
A few moments later, she heard Pieter’s voice talking calmly to his beloved mare as he led her into the barn.
‘It’s all right,’ she called up to her brother. ‘It’s only Papa; you can come down.’
In the kitchen, she hurled herself at him.
‘Oh Karl… Karl. I thought we might never see you again.’
‘I know, little monkey,’ he said, grazing her hair with his lips. ‘You’re not so little any more, are you?’ he said, as released her. ‘And where are your plaits?’
‘I chopped them
off – I got fed up with you pulling at them,’ she laughed, as he ruffled her short hair.
‘Magda…’ he said, noticing her swollen stomach for the first time.
‘Yes!’ she said calmly, ‘I’m pregnant. And no, it wasn’t deliberate, and no – before you ask – I’m not married, either.’
He looked momentarily dismayed, and stroked her cheek tenderly.
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you about it later, but not now. Sit down here facing the door. I can’t wait to see Papa’s face.’
Pieter was a man of routine. Each evening, when he returned home, he removed his boots and put them side by side at the door. He took off his long waistcoat and hung it on a peg. That evening was no different, except when he turned around he appeared bemused, as if he had seen a ghost, or a vision.
‘Hello Papa,’ said Karl quietly. ‘I’ve come back.’
Pieter’s face crumpled with emotion as Karl walked over to him. Taller by a head than his father, he held him, stroking his hair as Pieter sobbed into his son’s chest.
‘It’s all right,’ Karl soothed him. ‘I’m all right. And we’re together again – at last.’
The family sat up long into the night. Magda, desperate to avoid spoiling Karl’s homecoming, deflected all his attempts to discuss her own situation.
‘No,’ she insisted, whenever he turned to her. ‘I’ll tell you later. We’d rather hear about everything you’ve been doing.’
‘It’s so hard to sum it all up,’ he said, sipping the glass of schnapps his father had poured in celebration of his son’s return. ‘I left university as you know; I was interned at first – as an enemy alien. But my tutor at Oxford persuaded the authorities to let me work on his own farm. He knew where my real sympathies lay – that I was no threat to them. He even got to me write an academic paper or two while I was there – on economic theory. He was a good man and stood up for me. He had…’ he paused, searching for the right words, ‘… contacts with various organisations. I was put in touch with them and now I’m working with the Americans and the British. I’m part of a group of agents – that’s really all I can say. Even that is too much for you to know for your own good.’