London Dawn (27 page)

“Since when do you care about that, Commander Fordyce?”

“I thought you did.”

“Not tonight. Maybe not any other night ever again.”

Their lips came together. Her grip grew stronger and stronger and she refused to let him break off. The paper lanterns swayed above their heads. The soft light painted them amber and orange.

“Never leave me,” she finally whispered.

“I could be ten thousand miles away on the farthest ocean from England and I’d never have left you.”

She began to kiss him again. “That’s a pleasant thought.”

The families had returned to their London homes. Those who were staying at Kensington Gate had turned in, and all the squares and rectangles of windows were dark. A small light glowed on the top floor, where Albrecht and Catherine had chosen to live for the time being. Edward looked up at it from the backyard.

“Do you suppose he’s working on a book?” he asked.

Owen shrugged. “If what he says is true, he hasn’t had much of a chance to say what he’s wanted to say. Now he can.”

Edward glanced at his son. “Did something happen tonight?”

“No.”

“It’s like you have a cloud over you.”

Owen shrugged again. “Things didn’t work out the way I expected.”

“Is this about Eva?”

“A bit.”

“I thought you said you were holding off on that for another year?”

“I don’t know, Dad. She came up to me. I didn’t seek her out.”

“What did she want to talk about?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t get very far.”

Father and son moved away from the light of the lanterns and into the darkness against the stone walls.

“Well, son,” Edward said, “she is a beautiful woman with a magic all her own. I can’t blame you for getting caught up with her. And the age thing doesn’t bother your mother or me at all. It’s only a few years. What I have a hard time getting around is her commitment to the Nazis.”

“That weakens with each month that goes by. Charles is the one clinging on to the whole Nazi thing and marching with the British Union of Fascists.”

“Right.”

They were silent a few moments. Owen found they could see the stars clearly by the wall and thought about them being strings of paper lanterns high up in the night sky.

“She said she was ashamed of being a Nazi,” he told his father.

“Did she?”

“She was wearing a dress with long sleeves. I guess the dress is supposed to be short-sleeved, but she had the long sleeves put on to cover her Nazi tattoos. She hates them.”

“I see.”

“After she shared that secret, I felt I should share one. I expect I wanted to find out what she thought.”

“About what?”

“My Jewish blood.”

“You told her?”

“Yes. I just wanted to know.”

Edward put his hands in his pockets and looked at his son. “How did she react?”

“Not well. She didn’t get upset or anything, but I could see it bothered her.”

“All the Nazi isn’t out of her yet.”

“I don’t think it ever will be.” He ran his hand over the rough surface of the stone wall. “I want to go to sea, Dad. Get away from all this. Get away from her. Clear out my head. See other parts of the world like you have.”

“Run off to sea, eh? Well, many a young man’s done that before you. You have your mother’s and my permission to enlist once you’ve turned eighteen and finished school. I would be a very proud father to see you in a naval uniform.”

Owen smiled. “Do you think they would ever put me aboard your ship?”

“It might happen. Meantime, finish up your last year. Concentrate on your studies. That will help drive Eva from your head.”

“Not so well as a vast ocean will.”

“No. But read some sea stories. That will help you out even more. I’ve put the three C.S. Forester books on your shelf—
The Happy Return, A Ship of the Line,
and
Flying Colors.
”

“When did you do that?”

“Just before we came over here. You could say I had a feeling you might
need them. They’ll fill your head up with the adventure you crave. Next thing you know you’ll be an admiral.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

Owen took a step toward his father, hesitated, and then put his arms around him.

“I’ll miss you,” he said.

Edward patted his son’s back as they embraced. “Won’t be long and I’ll be back in port again. We’ll catch up on your life then.”

The paper lanterns swayed in the night breeze alone for another hour before Tavy and Skitt unplugged them and brought them down, Skitt climbing a ladder while Tavy held it steady.

In bed, Edward lay in his wife Charlotte’s arms and told her what he and Owen had talked about, playing with strands of her raven black hair as he spoke.

In the bedroom at their London house, Libby nestled her head on her husband Terry’s chest and listened to the strong rhythm of his heart while he smoothed her ginger blonde hair with the palm of his hand.

A few weeks later, at the end of July, Charlotte, Owen, and Colm watched HMS
Rodney
leave Plymouth. In August, Jane and Libby traveled to Portsmouth, where the
Hood
had been undergoing its refit, and stood almost at attention as it slipped its moorings and headed out to sea.

Rodney
arrived at Scapa Flow in northern Scotland before any of the other warships. Once the Home Fleet, including
Rodney
and
Hood,
had assembled, it left Scapa Flow on the last day of August. The next day the German Army and Air Force attacked Poland. Britain and France demanded that German forces withdraw, but Berlin didn’t respond. Edward was on the bridge of
Rodney
late Sunday morning, September third, the Fleet three hundred miles south of Iceland, when a signal was received from the Admiralty.

TOTAL GERMANY

The bridge was quiet. Edward looked at the faces around him. For months everyone had been expecting it, and now there it was. “Total Germany” was the Royal Navy code word for “Commence hostilities against Germany.”

The prime minister’s speech was relayed over the Tannoy system to the entire ship’s crew.

I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at Ten Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we hear from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.

Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honorable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland, whatever happened, and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement.

The situation in which no word given by Germany’s ruler could be trusted, and no people or country could feel itself safe, has become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it I know that you will play your part with calmness and courage.

Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. For it is evil things that we shall be fighting against—brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression, and persecution—and against them I am certain that right will prevail.

The same signal was received aboard the
Hood
and the same speech from the prime minister transmitted to the ship’s crew. Terry held the signal in his hand.

“It won’t be a short war, will it, sir?” asked one of the young midshipmen. “I wouldn’t mind if we were all home for Christmas, but that’s a bit of a pipe dream, I’m thinking.”

He looked at Terry hopefully, wanting the Commander to refute him. Terry slipped the signal into a pocket of his uniform.

“It won’t be a short war, Mr. Midshipman White,” Terry replied. “You may count on it being just as long as the last one.”

“But we’ll win it, sir.”

“Aye. We’ll carry the day.”

Terry’s immediate thoughts were of Libby and Jane.
It could be years before I see you.

Lord Preston listened to Prime Minister Chamberlain’s broadcast in the company of his wife and servants in the small library at Kensington Gate. Afterward he prowled the house and grounds, hands behind his back, head down. Now and then others could see his lips moving.

“He is consulting with the Almighty,” Lady Preston said to her daughter Catherine and Albrecht. “I hope it does some good.”

Albrecht turned away from the window, where he could see Lord Preston pacing the lawn.

“Now more than ever I must finish my book on a Germany that follows its Christian past rather than its Nazi present.” Albrecht picked up his cup of tea, finished it, wiped his lips quickly with a napkin, and bowed to Lady Preston. “Excuse me.”

“Of course. Each of us must fight the war in his own way. Some with prayers. Some with pens. Others with airplanes and ships.” Lady Preston looked at Catherine as Albrecht hurried from the room. “I greatly fear that harm will come to my children. Too many of them are in harm’s way. I fear also for my grandchildren. Too many of them are of an age where they may rush to enlist.” Her lower lip trembled.

Catherine knelt by her mother’s chair and took her hand. “We’ve got to hold together, Mum. We’ve been through a lot with the first war and Ireland. We can stick together through this too. Can I pray for you?”

“You can. But don’t just pray for me. Pray for the entire family. Edward and Terry are already at sea. I know very well that Kipp and Ben will not wish to remain test pilots now that war is declared.”

“Don’t fret about Ben and Kipp, Mum. They’re too old to fly fighter planes in a war.”

“They will find a way around the restrictions—depend on it. And Owen is champing at the bit to serve on board a battleship like his father. To say nothing of Peter and James—they will do anything to win Jane’s favor. You can be sure they will jump at the chance to fly with the RAF,
what with all the training they’ve been taking.” Lady Preston covered her eyes with her hand and rubbed it back and forth. “God help us.”

“We shall pray to that end, Mum.”

“Please do. If God hasn’t given up on me yet, we may see some light before we reach the end of the tunnel.”

Robbie was the first to cause Lady Preston to brace herself with further prayer, Catherine at her side.

A British Expeditionary Force had been set up over the past year with the express purpose of being deployed to Europe if war broke out with Nazi Germany. Now the troops were about to be sent over the Channel. Robbie had been asked to command a regiment even though colonels normally served as staff officers and not as field commanders.

“I was going mad brooding at that desk,” he told Lord and Lady Preston as they sat in the parlor at Kensington Gate. “When they made the offer I told them I needed twenty-four hours. It was not a direct order. Since I didn’t wish to trouble you I kept it to myself. I only told Jeremy and Emma. They prayed with me. We opened the Bible randomly and were at Psalm 144, even though Jeremy rarely reads that psalm or the ones before or after it. The first verse jumped out at all three of us: “Blessed be the L
ORD
my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” The second verse seemed just as meaningful to us: “My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.” I take it as a sign that I am to do something about defending Britain and defending Europe. I was in Palestine for so many years and Ireland before that. It’s time to do something for my home country.”

Lady Preston ran her hand along the arm of her chair. “Have you thought about your daughter? Patricia cannot survive the loss of both of her parents at such a tender age.”

“She’s quite happy here in London with Cecilia and Angelika. If you and Catherine and Albrecht would take her in, I know her tears would dry quickly after my departure.”

“But what if you are killed?”

“I won’t be killed, Mother. There’s no reason I should be killed.”

“Yes, you say that, but—”

“I’m a colonel now, Mother. I won’t be in the front lines. It’s a very
different situation from Ireland or even Palestine. Every place is on the front line in Palestine. That is not the case in Europe. Our front line will be along the border between France and Belgium. There will be no car bombs. No assassins in the night. Just our army and the French army against the German army.”

“You make it sound like the safest place in the world, my dear. That same region is full of men’s bones from the last fight with Germany.”

“I brood every day at that desk about Shannon. How I failed her. How I didn’t protect her. How my love was not enough to save her. If I don’t get out of that office and do something, I shall be a wreck.”

Lord Preston put his hand gently on his wife’s shoulder. “Of course Patricia is welcome at Kensington Gate, my boy, and I know she will be welcome so far as Catherine and Albrecht and Angelika are concerned. If you must go, I pray you go in peace.”