The Last Summer at Chelsea Beach (34 page)

At the pedestrian gate, I lifted my pass to show the military police officer, praying he would not ask to see it more closely. I held my breath as the guard scrutinized me. “Press staging is that way,” he said finally, jerking his head to the right. “Down that road, turn at the corner. Second tent.” I exhaled silently. “But better be quick about it.” Before I could ask why, he had turned away. “Oy! You can’t park your lorry there,” he yelled to someone else. I hurried in the direction he’d indicated, past a soldier at an anti-aircraft gun who did not look at me, but kept eyes fixed on the muted sky above.

I neared the press tent, then paused. I’d grabbed Teddy’s pass impulsively, and in the cab I’d tried to come up with some sort of plan. I could not, of course, go all the way to France and deliver the visas myself. If I could find someone, though, a reporter or medic perhaps, who was going across and then bribe him with what little money I had left after the taxi, perhaps I could persuade him to deliver the visas. But now, the problems with my already-flimsy plan became more apparent: How would I find the right person, someone good who would deliver the passes and not simply take the money, or have me kicked off the base because I did not belong there? I contemplated my next move.

I entered the tent. Inside, a dozen or so men sat around talking and playing cards. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and sweat. I pulled my hat and coat closer to avoid detection. “Just arrived?” a man asked. I nodded. I could not risk talking to anyone. “You’re lucky. They’ve been promising to get us on a ship for two days. We might actually get out tonight.”

Across the room I spied a lone female correspondent talking to an officer. Despite Teddy’s denial, there were a few women among the press corps. I started in the other direction—I might be able to fool the men, but a woman would see through my disguise. She turned toward me. At the familiar profile, I gasped. “Claire!” I blurted, in spite of myself.

Her expression changed from panic to confusion and surprise. She was not wearing her auxiliary uniform, though, but rough pants and shirt made of camouflage. I sensed that she was doing some other kind of work; delivering medical supplies had just been a cover. Her expression turned angry and for a fleeting second I panicked that she herself might turn me in. She shook her head faintly, signaling I should not come over. Then she glanced to the right, subtly guiding me toward the exit.

I slipped from the tent. A minute later, Claire joined me. “Hello,” I managed to say.

We eyed each other warily. For all of our friendship, this was war and secrets abounded between us. “What in bloody hell are you doing here?” she demanded.

I considered asking her the same thing, but didn’t want to agitate her further. “I need to get the visas to the orphans.”

“Does Teddy know?” Her eyes traveled to his pass which hung around my neck. “You’re going to get yourself killed, not to mention ruin Teddy’s career. You could even jeopardize operations.” Did she know, I wondered, about the other work Teddy was doing through the paper?

I crossed my arms. “I was just—”

“Not thinking.” Her tone was accusing.

“Trying to get someone to deliver the visas,” I corrected.

“I could ring Teddy right now. Or have the pass revoked.”

“Or you could help me.”

“All correspondents,” a military police officer was calling inside the tent. They were leaving and I hadn’t even found someone to take the papers.

“But you won’t. Because you know that I’m finally standing for something—just like you.”

Something in her face softened. “Come on, then.” She led me to the queue of correspondents that were shuffling forward. “There’s a small group of journalists cleared to go. But their transit has been held up by fighting—until now.”

“I thought it was impossible to cross.”

“It was. But a few towns have been liberated, Caen, Cherbourg, and there’s a small area of coast under Allied control. They’ve found space on a supply ship headed for LeHavre. It’s still terribly dangerous. Come along. We must hurry if we are to get you on that boat.”

“Claire, wait.” I grabbed her arm. “I wasn’t actually planning to go myself. I just wanted to find someone to take the visas.”

“You are the only one that you can trust,” she replied firmly. “I would do it for you, but I’m not going in that direction.”

“But there’s no way I can manage it,” I said, hating the weakness in my own voice.

“It’s probably impossible,” she agreed. “And dangerous to boot.”

But it was the children’s only chance. “I have to try.”

“Come on, then.” At the front of the line, a military police guard was checking names against a list. Mine—or Teddy’s rather—wouldn’t be on it. I would be stopped. But Claire led me to the front of the line. “Don’t say a word,” she whispered. “This is Theodore White from the
Washington Post
,” she told the guard.

“He’s not on the list.”

“Surely there’s room. I’m Claire Churchill, by the way.” She held up her pass.

The guard’s eyes widened. “I do have one who got sick. Before the guard could speak further, Claire dragged me past him and onto the ship. Beyond the harbor was shrouded in darkness.

“Stay here,” Claire instructed in a low voice as she pushed me into a corner. She started from the ship.

“Claire, wait.” They were about to close the gate of the ship. Now was not the time. But I could not go with more secrets still between us. “About Lord Raddingley.” At the mention of his name, her face lifted. “He’s not what he seems to be. I’m sorry... There are others.” A helicopter droning noisily overhead nearly swallowed my words.

For a moment, Claire looked as though I had struck her. “I know.” Her voice was resigned, but with an unmistakable note of hurt.

“Then how can you possibly still want him?” Even if she loved him, strong principled Claire could not stand for that.

“The work,” she said with a jerk of her head toward the spot where she’d stood speaking with the officer minutes earlier. “There was a leak and we had to see if... Well, I really can’t say anything else.” Her voice trailed off, the space between us growing once more. “Alastair wasn’t the traitor. He’s a bastard, but at least he’s loyal to the Crown.” She smiled sadly. I understood then that she was close to Lord Raddingley because she had to be. But it wasn’t that black-and-white—she had feelings for him. Knowing about his betrayal and staying close to him anyway must have been so painful. “It wasn’t like that in the beginning. I’m fond of him and I wished that had been under other circumstances.” Her eyes held a mix of anger and sadness that belied her feelings for him. It was never that simple.

“I didn’t want to hurt you, but I thought you should know.”

The ship’s horn blasted. Claire looked over her shoulder. “I wish I could go with you. When you dock, head south from Le Havre. There’s a Carmelite convent about forty miles from the coast and they should be able to help you get the visas through.” She squeezed my arm, unable to do more without attracting attention. “There’s no special protection for correspondents, you know. Don’t get yourself killed.” Then she disappeared through the crowd.

A sailor herded us toward an enclosed, too-warm area at the stern of the ship. “Stay inside,” he ordered. The ship jolted, pushing off from the dock and as the deck beneath my feet began to sway, the full magnitude of what I had just done began to set in. Even with Claire’s instructions, I had little idea where I was going, how to get there—or back.

The supply ship lurched precipitously in the rough Channel surf. Around me correspondents sat on benches or on the floors propped up against walls. Some dozed, eyes half-closed, passing the hours still until we reached land. Those were the ones who had covered the war previously, approaching the danger with a certain resignation. Across from me, a young reporter checked his equipment as earnestly as if he were going into combat. I squeezed onto an empty space on a bench, tilted my head back. Despite the danger and my nerves, there was nothing to do but wait. The rocking of the boat took me back to my flight from Trieste. Mamma and Papa appeared in my mind, more real than they had been in years, so vivid I might reach out to touch them. The cable in Teddy’s desk had confirmed what I’d long known: that my parents were gone. Even as a child, some part of me had always known that it would end badly. But I thought it was the danger of their work that put them in jeopardy. I never imagined it might be me.

A rumbling noise, louder than any we’d heard previously, jarred me from my half sleep. “This isn’t right,” someone murmured beside me. My nerves tingled. “The fighting must have shifted. Another cock-up.” A barrage of machine-gun fire rattled too close, shaking the ship beneath us, like the air raids but quicker and more relentless. I rose to my tiptoes, trying without success to see out a small round window through the blackness on the other side.

“You’re from the
Post
,” a man asked, eyeing my pass. He took a swig from a flask, his breath giving off an astringent smell. Cringing, I nodded. I braced myself now for the man to ask questions or say that he knew Teddy and I was not him. “I don’t know if they’re going to get us across.”

As if on cue, the boat lurched sharply to the left. Were we turning around? For a second I was relieved. I didn’t belong here and I wanted to get back to the relative safety of England. But it was too late—and this was my only hope of helping the children.

But the ship straightened and carried on. The water grew unexpectedly rougher, churned not only by the surf but the fighting. We rolled left, then back again. A wave caught the boat then, sending us pitching to the right and I sat hurriedly, grabbing the bench so as not to fall, fighting my nausea.

The explosions and gunfire gradually slowed, a storm fading. When it had stopped altogether, I slipped from the cabin and onto the deck, looking around for a sailor who might stop me because it was too dangerous. I focused out at the horizon as I’d been taught as a girl, taking small breaths to calm my stomach. To the east, the sky was pink and smoky with unseen fighting. How had I gotten so far from home? Was this what it had looked like the night Charlie came over? My heart longed for him and I realized suddenly that he was not off fighting somewhere. He was dead. I forced down the bile that rose in my throat. I could not let sadness sweep me away now.

Instead, I tried to focus on formulating a plan. When we arrived, I would try to find the Order of Carmelites that Claire had told me about. I had not thought about what I would do afterward, though—or how I would get back.

The correspondent who had spoken to me inside was behind me again, having followed me from the cabin. Had I not been dressed as a man, I might have thought that he was interested in me. “After we dock, they’re planning to shuttle us to Cherbourg because of some unexpected fighting near Le Havre,” he offered. My heart sank. Cherbourg was nearly forty miles east of where we were supposed to land. It would take days to get back by foot—if I could do it at all.

We were nearing the coast now. The other correspondents jostled forward onto the deck, slippery from the faint rain that had begun to fall. It was daylight now, and the murky water stretched to where it met muted gray sky. Teddy would be awake and he would have realized what I had done. On either side of us in the Channel large warships loomed like sentries, protecting the thin strip of water around the beaches that the Allies had liberated just weeks earlier.

A few minutes later the bottom of the boat scraped. There was no dock, just a small inlet by some rocks. Someone pushed me from the boat and water seeped into my boots and ankles. The sky lit up suddenly and the ground shook, sending us sprawling onto wet sand. Smoke and gunpowder filled my lungs. This was war, what my mother had fought so hard to save me from. I had gone halfway around the world only to find myself back in the thick of it.

I straightened, taking in the wide swath of sandy beach rising to German combat positions, now abandoned. This landing spot had weeks earlier been a battlefield. The bodies had thankfully been removed but equipment, broken weapons and abandoned packs were still strewn like driftwood across the beach. A smell, burning and something more, hung in the air. “Off quickly,” a sailor ordered. “Stay together.” There were open trucks waiting for us, but as the others boarded, I hesitated. Going with them would take me far away from where I needed to go. If I got on the truck, I would never reach the children.

Desperately, I scanned the beach. It was wide-open and there was no way for me to walk away without someone seeing. But there was a dune about fifteen feet away, no bigger than the one Robbie had fallen from when we were children. I started toward it.

“You!” the sailor called after me. I turned back. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Still not wanting to speak I made a gesture indicating I needed to relieve myself, then pointed toward the dune. “Be quick about it,” he said. I hurried over and ducked behind the dune. Should I wait until the truck pulled away? But the guard would surely remember I was there. Crouching low, I began to move away from the trucks, in the direction where the rumbling grew louder. Twenty feet ahead stood what had once been a building of some sort, flattened by shelling days earlier. Beyond lay a road, my only chance. I ran toward it as quickly as I could.

“Stop!” The sailor’s voice came, louder and angry. But I was far from him now and close to the brush. I kept running, heedless in the direction of the trees. “You can’t...”

There was a sudden explosion, deafening boom and white light. And then I knew no more.