Chapter 17
Give a man a good idea to use, or a well-written argument or a decent speech, and two days later he will have forgotten you had any role except to type it.
Ethel Carryman, 1942
‘It’s a Lizzie again,’ said George, patting the craft affectionately. ‘A Lysander. She can land in thirty feet. Won’t need your parachute tonight.’ He did not say why he was landing in enemy-controlled territory.
‘I had almost been looking forward to the parachute jump.’ Those minutes floating in darkness, far from the world. But the world — and its guns — would still be below her. Landing at midnight by plane was surely safer.
Or was it? An aircraft was a larger and noisier target than a parachute. But it was not her choice to make.
She sat in the back behind him as he chatted, evidently reading her discomfort, though Sophie doubted he could have guessed the cause. ‘She can’t go fast, not more than two hundred miles per hour, but we’ll cross the Channel at three thousand feet, above cloud level. There should be low cloud over the French coast, too. We’ll drop to four hundred feet there, too low for German anti-aircraft guns to hit us.’
‘Good plan,’ said Sophie absently, her mind with Nigel — Bob — driving that absurdly anonymous little car back to Shillings. Then to Thuringa, Daniel, Danny and Rose, Christmas beetles and cicadas and the Boxing Day picnic by the river.
Had Daniel told them she had gone to England yet? Would he wait till after Christmas? Her twins might see every day the secret was kept from them as another betrayal.
The plane taxied across the field then abruptly ascended, dipping and bucking only slightly in the chill, still air. Above them stars shone like candlelight through holes in the black tin of the sky. The Lysander turned abruptly. Sophie gazed down, suddenly fully aware of what ‘blackout’ meant, for there were no lights below them, only the faint gleam of a river that George seemed to be following to the Channel.
‘Messerschmitt to port,’ said George suddenly.
Sophie looked around, and there it was, a black wasp against the stars. She could hear its engine now, too. ‘Do we try dodging again?’ She tried to keep her voice calm.
‘Don’t have the speed. They do.’ Their plane dropped. Sophie heard the chop, chop, chop, as the Messerschmitt whizzed above them. Their plane made a tight circle.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Turning back. No other choice. There’s scattered cloud over the Channel, but we can’t hide in it while he has us in his sights. I’ll aim for Scotland.’ They dropped even lower.
Sophie shut her eyes. All the drama of the day for nothing. Suddenly she didn’t want to face the Christmas she had already farewelled, trying to smile and eat whatever feast Mrs Goodenough had managed while waiting for another ‘good’ night to land in France.
‘Well, who’d have thought it? The pilot is heading back himself. Must be at the end of a run and short on fuel.’
‘Do we have enough?’
‘It’ll mean landing in a lane most likely on the way back, but we’ll do.’
‘I nearly forgot.’ Sophie hauled the shooter’s sandwich out of the haversack, pulled a small chunk off one end, then handed a larger hunk to him. He bit into it, his eyes widening. ‘Steak! What’s this with it?’
‘It’s a shooter’s sandwich. Half hollow out a French loaf, sear a steak till it’s still juicy inside, place it and its juices in the crust while still hot, add thinly sliced cucumber and tomato — hothouse at this time of year . . .’ and possibly a single pot of each plant in the Shillings’s hothouses, for just such a gift as this ‘. . . then put the top on tightly and weigh it down with a skillet for at least two hours. Perfect food for pheasant hunting.’
‘Meat you can get your teeth into,’ George said reverently, and took another bite. ‘Mrs Greenman, may I ask you a favour?’
‘Of course.’ She assumed he meant another chunk of shooter’s sandwich.
‘If you see Violette while you’re in Paris, tell her the moon is still made of green cheese.’
‘The moon is still made of green cheese. Got it.’ She wondered what the code meant. James had been so definite that Violette was not part of any of his preparations.
‘It’s personal,’ George added. ‘Nothing to do with Lorrimer or the war. No need to hunt her out or anything, if that’s not part of the job. Just if you happen to see her . . .’
‘I’ll tell her.’
‘Thank you.’
His flush gave her a fair idea of what the message meant. She wondered if she should warn him that Violette might have changed since the Occupation. But then she was trusting the woman with her life. Who was she to warn George not to trust her with his love? There had been little love in Violette’s life. Even her parents’ love when they had finally been reunited with her in her teens was balanced with puzzlement and wariness.
The moon bulged up from the horizon on their left, not the full moon that most pilots needed to land at night, but enough, it seemed, for George, as it had been for the pilot of the Messerschmitt before he turned for home. A hunter’s moon, bright enough to see the target, its dapple shadows thick enough to hide in as their craft moved now from cloud to cloud.
George turned a knob. ‘Ultra-shortwave radio, to get the landing signal,’ he explained.
The craft dropped even further. Sophie strained to make out any detail. George must have the eyes of an owl. The land below them was still as black as the Channel, for France too observed the blackout. Suddenly Sophie could see four tiny stars below them. ‘Is there enough light to land?’
‘I’ve landed here before. As long as those torches are in the correct position and no one’s let a cow wander into the field He turned the engine off. The plane glided silently down, bumped, then drew to a halt.
Dark figures immediately ran towards it. A hand helped Sophie out; two men and a woman scrambled in. In less than a minute the Lysander was climbing to the sky again.
Chapter 18
Shooting to Live
. . . the use of stationary targets should be abandoned in favour of surprise targets of all kinds and in frequently varied positions. Such targets would include charging, retreating, bobbing and traversing figures of a man’s size.
The Commando Pocket Manual The British War Office, 15 August 1940
DANIEL
Rose had been home for three weeks, burrowing through the correspondence in Sophie’s study — the girl ate business affairs like they were plums — choosing the most leaf-plump red gum sapling for a Christmas tree, decorating it, deciding on the menu for Christmas luncheon, conferring with the Bald Hill dressmaker about refurbishing her dresses for next year, and even standing her watch on the CWA stall, contributing twenty-four pots of apple and date spread to help raise money for new fighter planes, followed by two hours with the woman she had always called Aunt Midge making camouflage nets with the other volunteers at the Town Hall.
Rose had also knitted five and a half socks, slightly crooked at the heels, three face washers and a scarf.
Daniel was slightly in awe of his daughter. He had worried, when the twins were babies, that she might grow up to be outshone by her brother’s title. But Rose glowed like the morning sun on the river. By the time she was thirty she would undoubtedly have made Higgs a global empire and would be gently urging her mother and stepfather to picnic on the hills and watch the kookaburras.
Danny Vaile, Earl of Shillings, returned from cadet camp grubby and hungry on Christmas Eve. He headed to the kitchen first, emerging with a doorstop of bread topped with cheese, lettuce, tomato and cucumber pickle and then more bread. ‘Where’s Mum?’ he asked as he took an almost anatomically impossible bite.
Daniel hesitated. He would have to tell them soon. But not before Christmas Day, especially as James had arranged a wireless phone call from England for two o’clock, a whole half hour, extraordinary luxury, ten minutes for each of them. If he told them their mother was in England before Chri
stmas lunch they might make unguarded comments or ask inconvenient questions during the phone call, with who knows how many exchanges listening in — a telephone exchange would be the perfect position for an enemy agent to learn their district’s secrets. ‘Still up in Queensland. I posted your gifts up to her.’
‘Not home for Christmas? That’s a rum do.’
‘There is a war on,’ said Daniel drily.
‘I had noticed that, Pa.’
The word ‘Pa’ relaxed him slightly. Nigel had been ‘Daddy’ when the twins were small. Daniel had been Uncle Daniel, or Uncle Dada, as Rose pronounced it, which had slowly become Da then Pa, used one morning by both twins as if they had discussed the matter, as it was quite possible they had.
They were his children. Legally they were Nigel’s. Biologically he suspected Rose had his genes, and Danny Nigel’s. But it was he and Sophie who had guided them through childhood and now adolescence. He and Sophie . . .
His mind twisted on the word. Sophie. Of course he managed without her. Perfectly well. After all, she had often been absent before on business, and it was not as if he was unoccupied between his patients and his hospital and the day-to-day decisions about the house and property.
He had not woken up on the river bank again, to find he had been John the night before. He treated himself as he would a patient: sufficient physical and intellectual exercise, a relaxed conversation with friends at least once a day, usually over dinner, so he didn’t have to face an empty dining room or kitchen once Mrs Taylor had left for the day. And now he had his children again. The house echoed with laughter, feet running in the hallway in the eagerness of youth, leftovers evaporating from the larder, meat safe and refrigerator if Rose or Danny had walked past. It was just . . .
She was away. Away in every possible sense, because once again she had stepped onto a plane to England and vanished from his life and back to Shillings and he had no idea what she was doing, as if their life together had never been . . .
‘Pa?’ Danny looked at him curiously.
‘Sorry, I was miles away. What were you saying?’
‘Are the land girls still here?’
‘Both have a week’s holiday for Christmas.’
‘Hope you and Mum gave them a jolly good present. They’ve been champs.’
‘A dress each made from the old curtains up in the attic, and pearl earrings.’
‘Jolly good.’ He vanished towards the kitchen again.
Daniel woke on Christmas morning to find the bed empty. It had been empty for two months, of course, but somehow, subconsciously, he must still believe in Father Christmas, who would have spirited Sophie home and down the chimney in his sleigh.
But he would hear her voice this afternoon. Close his eyes and smell her perfume again, the warmth of her skin. Know that at that precise moment of the spinning galaxies, she was thinking of him and no other, of their children and their home . . .
He arrived at the breakfast table to find juice from home-grown oranges in a cut-glass jug; home-grown fruit salad in a cut-glass dish; and Rose in an apron with an omelette in a frying pan. She kissed his cheek with ‘Merry Christmas, Pa. I’ve given Mrs Taylor the day off.’ She slid the omelette onto his plate, liberally flecked with herbs from the garden and a tiny scattering of cheese. ‘Coffee is in the pot.’
It was perfect coffee too, not coffee essence, thought Daniel gratefully as he poured himself his first cup.
‘Good morning, Pa.’ Danny’s face was proudly, freshly shaved. ‘Merry Christmas! I say, is there any bacon?’
‘I think Rose is doing omelettes.’
‘Rose! Any chance of bacon?’
‘Nitwit. There’s a war on, haven’t you noticed?’
‘Mum brought bacon back from her last trip.’
‘You’ll have to wait till she gets back this time then, and hope she’s been to a pig farm. I can do you grilled tomatoes.’
Daniel waited through breakfast. He even, at one level, treasured each moment of it, his happy children, the buttery taste of eggs, the scent of hot soil and gum leaves, the sheepdogs barking as they were fed their Christmas bones.
Gifts after breakfast, for the church service was not until late morning, a war-time necessity for shorthanded farmers, who must still tend to stock first. Thank goodness cattle didn’t get fly-blown like sheep. Midge and Harry were probably already out with the clippers . . .
Danny had made them all most useful boxes in woodwork; Rose had knitted him a Fair Isle jumper, using multi-coloured wool rescued from older garments, duly admired.
He and Sophie (but not Sophie: he could not pretend to himself that Sophie had actually bought these, though she had engineered their purchase) had found them books, varied items of clothing and, as their main present, a crystal radio set each that they could take back to their respective schools. He felt their hugs, their sweet young breath and, just for a moment, the world felt right again.
Rose cooked luncheon, or, as she said, left it to cook itself while they went to church, the oven turned right down, stuffed with slow-burning ironbark wood and damper. Roast goose — Midge had been raising them for Christmas, the eggs hatched under her hens, the profits going to the war effort — and corned shoulder of mutton instead of ham. Roast potatoes, pumpkin, beans from the garden, extremely good gravy, the plum pudding Mrs Taylor had made, expertly reheated, custard, brandy butter, home-made crystallised fruit, simmered in honey and apple juice instead of sugar, and extremely sticky and needing an inordinate amount of chewing. They persevered. Crystallised fruit was part of Christmas.
Daniel glanced at his watch. ‘I think we had better go to the study.’
‘Why?’ demanded Rose, passing Danny the custard for the third time.
Daniel felt the smile consume his face. ‘Your mother has booked a phone call for two o’clock.’
‘Mum!’ Two totally different young people, but they both galloped in exactly the same way, along the hall and into the study. The phone rang. Daniel picked it up. ‘Yes, Dr Greenman speaking.’
He did not understand the words at first after the operators had connected them, nor even who was speaking. James Lorrimer, he realised. ‘Yes. No. Yes, quite. Yes, I will tell them.’
He should say something else to James, something about Christmas, weather, war, James’s health. He could think of nothing, except that Sophie wasn’t there.
He put the receiver down, to find two pairs of eyes — Sophie’s eyes, even if neither had her hazel colouring — staring at him. ‘Your . . . your mother can’t come to the phone right now. She sends her love.’
‘All right, Pa,’ said Rose quietly. ‘What’s happening? Mum’s not in Queensland — I follow all the Higgs news and there’s no problem that would take her away for so long. Where is she?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must know!’ There was a hint of anger in Danny’s voice.
‘Your mother flew to England two months ago. Your Aunt Lily needed her.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ he repeated helplessly. What else could he tell them?
Rose took his hand and led him to the sofa. ‘Tell us the truth, Pa.’ She glanced at her brother. ‘We’ve put two and two together over the years. Mum and Greenie and Jones, and Daddy and Aunt Lily did intelligence work, didn’t they, in the Great War? Auntie Midge has said some things, and so did Violette — I know we were young then, but we remembered and they made sense later. I’m right, aren’t I?’
‘Pretty much,’ he said quietly. ‘Your mother did exactly what she has always told you in the last war — organised hospitals, first in England and then in France and Belgium. Jones was in the regular army with your father. But, yes, at some stage, all of them did intelligence work.’
‘Is Mum doing something hush-hush now?’
‘Yes.’
‘What work?’ The anger was still there in Danny’s voice, as if his mother had no right to leave them without explanation or farewell. ‘Wh
ere is she?’
‘I don’t know what she’s doing, or where she is, except she isn’t in England.’ Or here, he thought. ‘The . . . the person I spoke to said we might not hear from her for six months.’ He could not give them James’s name. There was so much he could not tell them. Such as the truth about their possible parentage: he and Sophie and Lily had agreed that should not be until they were twenty-five, when Danny had already taken up the responsibilities of Shillings, and be less likely to impulsively say the earldom might not be his if he knew that Daniel might be his true father, and that the former Earl of Shillings was the woman he and Rose had known as their Aunt Lily. ‘But I . . . I know your mother wouldn’t have left us unless she felt what she was doing was important,’ he added, knowing it was inadequate, not just for them but for himself.
‘More important than feeding people with Higgs?’ demanded Rose.
‘More important than us?’ Danny’s voice was hard. ‘What’s she going to do? Kill Hitler?’
‘I don’t know!’ Daniel shut his eyes. The world shivered . . . or was it him? Christmas heat turned to chilblain cold, the smell of cordite, the tinny smell of blood and the too-sweet stench of rotting flesh. A pile of half-frozen bodies outside the surgical tent. Another pile of arms and legs. Graves that stretched along the mud; someone was always digging graves. That was war and that was where Sophie was and she had chosen it and she had left him and he could not bear it . . .
‘What about Aunt Lily?’ insisted Rose. ‘Is she involved with whatever Mum is doing too?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I bet she is. Sometimes when Mum talks of Aunt Lily it’s as if . . .’ Rose frowned. ‘I don’t know. Just that there’s more than being sisters-in-law.’
So much more, thought Daniel desperately. Where could he begin? He could not do it. If he even began to talk of Lily he might spill it all.
Sixteen-year-olds should not have to deal with this! And yet he had to give them answers. Make them understand that Sophie . . . Sophie . . . Sophie . . .
Legends of the Lost Lilies Page 13