The Secret Ministry of Ag. & Fish (22 page)

After what seemed at the time to be about ten years, but couldn’t have been more than half an hour, he turned to me with a smile, saying: ‘Right. Now I’ll take you to the Bear
Garden. It’s where I used to go with the rugger team on a Saturday night when I was at Cambridge.’ By that time I was in shreds and felt that the only place I was fit for was the
casualty department of the nearest hospital. He may, or perhaps he may not, have sensed my imminent collapse. Taking me by the arm, and ignoring the lift, he raced me down the four flights of
stairs, perhaps to strengthen my wobbly legs or to get the blood, which had certainly stopped flowing, thrashing about in my veins again.

But I was young and once out in the street I soon recovered. When we got to Piccadilly Circus he bought me a bunch of violets from an elderly flower-seller wearing a shawl and a black straw hat.
She was sitting, with a large basket full of the dainty flowers on her knees, on the steps of the statue of Eros, which was now boarded up. ‘Lovely vi’lits,’ she called, as we
passed. ‘Buy a bunch for the pretty lady, mister.’ So he did. It was all very romantic. And I enjoyed the Bear Garden which, in spite of its strange name, turned out to be a delightful
basement pub somewhere near Piccadilly Circus. We got back to Beaulieu very late that night because, in order to make up for my earlier terrifying experience, he took me to the theatre.

I don’t know what mission this particular agent had been assigned. All I know is that he had to go down to Wales for the weekend. While there he was arrested by the police and locked in a
cell for the night – until HQ had him released. He had made a silly, but understandable, slip. His real name was Wilson, but his temporary cover name was Wilmot. When signing the register at
the hotel where he was to stay, the first three letters being the same, he had made a fatal mistake and automatically written ‘Wilson’.

The local police were always warned, in a roundabout way, to be on the lookout for these prospective agents facing their final test, without any details being revealed as to their real identity
or mission. I believe the police were warned to look out for enemy agents whom the authorities suspected to be in the area. In this case the police only had to ask to see the agent’s identity
papers and check them with the signature in the hotel register in order to be suspicious and arrest him. Throughout the war we were all obliged to carry identity cards. They were as much a part of
our daily apparel as our gas masks. We would never dream of going anywhere without first hitching over one shoulder the cardboard box holding the gas mask which most people – certainly most
women, I’m not sure whether men were so fashion-conscious – encased in an attractive cover. Identity cards were usually carried inside the gas-mask case, so as to be sure to always have
them on hand.

There had certainly been other reasons why the police had been able to arrest this future agent. Perhaps he also had succumbed to the charms of another ‘Mata Hari’ working for F
Section who had been sent to seduce or trap him, and had then denounced him. Perhaps he had been given a mission to break into a building, retrieve documents or seek information and been caught in
the act. All these suppositions were possible. Whatever it was, he was arrested and spent a night in a police cell, furious with himself for being caught. But, even so, he must have passed the
test, because he was parachuted into enemy territory two months later.

Time and distance must take away the edge of pain because, as I look back, I cannot help remembering the good’ times: and there were some good times. There was the unity
we felt during those traumatic years, when we were all together fighting for the same cause, a unity which sadly evaporated with the end of hostilities. And the wonderful people I met. These
memories weave together to make up the tapestry of my life.

I think the war brought out the best and the worst in all of us. It certainly brought out the best in those young men and women who were so ready to sacrifice their lives in order that we might
be free today. But it also changed those who remained behind. The war honed us, burned away the dross, made us realize and value the things in life which were really important, often the simple
things which today in our world of plenty many take for granted, or ignore.

During the war hardly a day passed without our hearing of someone who had lost a loved one. We lived so closely with death that every new day was precious, a gift from God. We had so little, we
were willing to share. People left the tube stations and air-raid shelters in the early morning to discover that the row of shops they always went to for their meagre weekly rations had disappeared
under a pile of bricks in the night. The local hospital had been reduced to a heap of rubble. They no longer had a home, a school, an office. Then those whose homes were still standing usually
said, ‘Salvage what you can from the rubble and come to us. We’ll fit you in somehow.’ I’m sure the war hastened the beginning of the breakdown of the rigid English class
system. There was an atmosphere in London at that time which I had never felt before and sadly have never experienced since. A closeness, a togetherness. The barriers of race, colour, religion and
class seemed to have disappeared. We were all united, fighting together for the same cause.

Life went on. It had to. The war lasted nearly six years. People married. Those agents married. In this age of opulence, it might be difficult to believe that the best present anyone could give
a girl who was about to be married was a few clothing coupons. What a change from the lists we receive with our wedding invitations today!

On the day before her wedding, I remember asking a friend of mine what she was going to wear. ‘Oh, Mother’s lent me a dress and a hat she wore to a wedding in the summer before the
war. My aunt gave me coupons to buy a pair of shoes, my cousins have used theirs to offer me gloves and a handbag. And I’ve cashed in mine for a nightie and some underwear.’

‘But it’s January,’ I exclaimed. ‘You’ll freeze to death in a summer dress.’ She laughed.

‘No, I won’t. Grannie’s lending me her fur coat. I’ll be fine.’ She was marrying an agent who was about to leave on a mission. He was supposed to have three
days’ leave, but in the end they only had twenty-four hours.

‘Oh, Sally,’ I cried, putting my arms around her when she returned to the office the day after her brief honeymoon ended. I was almost in tears, knowing how she must feel.
‘It’s so hard to have to say goodbye after only twenty-four hours, isn’t it?’ She smiled, but only with her lips. The smile didn’t reach her eyes, which reflected a
deep sadness and the trace of recently shed tears.

‘You can live a lifetime in twenty-four hours,’ she said quietly. Then, shaking off her melancholy, she dimpled and added with a mischievous grin: ‘Provided you don’t
sleep.’ The slight tension electrifying the air between us abruptly disappeared, and we burst out laughing.

Anyone who has ever been in love knows that wonderful feeling of gently floating on a cloud to another world where the sun always shines, the grass is always green and life is perfect. It must
be difficult to imagine nowadays what it is like to be terribly in love and know that all you have is twenty-four hours. I think those wartime marriages were as God meant marriage to be. They were
truly marriages made in heaven. The moments they shared were so precious that each one sought only the other’s happiness. They wanted a cameo of a perfect love which they could carry with
them during the long months, perhaps years, when they would be apart.

After the war some people said that it was selfish of agents to marry, knowing the dangers they faced. But I can’t agree. We all faced dangers during the war, from the blackout, the air
raids, the lack of food and medication, etc. Admittedly those agents’ chance of survival was infinitely less than it was for most of us. But I think marriage gave them a stability they might
not otherwise have had, preventing them from doing foolhardy things and taking unnecessary risks. They knew they had someone who loved them, who was waiting for them, that there was a future for
them once the conflict was over. They had a reason to survive, and return.

Many women working in SOE had their hearts broken, and I was no exception. On the eve of my nineteenth birthday I fell madly in love with an agent who had just returned from a mission. Oddly
enough, he fell in love with me. I never understood why or what attracted him to me. He was charming, handsome and twelve years older than I: he must have met many more attractive, more
sophisticated, more elegant women than I. But it was love at first sight, an irresistible pull one towards the other. I’d read about it, every young girl had, but I didn’t believe it
ever really happened except in Hollywood or between the pages of glossy magazines. Yet it happened to me. Our idyll lasted three months. Then he left on a last mission, assuring me that he was a
survivor and would come back and we could be together again: grow old together.

The day Bill left we had lunch together in a Chinese restaurant in Soho. Just the two of us. It was the first time I had tasted Chinese food. Although we both knew that it would be our last
meeting for perhaps a very long time, the last time we would be together, it was not an emotional lunch. We carefully kept emotion out of it. Bill talked about his family. He told me about his
mother, who had died of a sudden heart attack when he was on his last mission – he had arrived back just in time to attend her funeral; of his elder brother, who had been killed at Dunkirk
– and produced snapshots of his two young orphaned nephews, of whom he was very fond. I thought what a good father he would make. Among the snapshots was one of him with a beard, his blond
hair almost down to his shoulders, taken when he came out of hiding. I asked him if I could have it. He seemed amused by my request. He smiled and gave it to me. I cherished that photo and kept it
at the back of my wallet until one afternoon on Interlaken station a few years ago when my wallet was stolen out of my handbag. I only discovered it was missing when we were approaching Basle, the
frontier town between France and Switzerland, and the inspector came to check the tickets. I was left to cross the border with no ticket and no identity papers. It took some explaining. I had hoped
that whoever stole it would keep the money and return the wallet, or at least its contents. But they never did. It was the only photo I ever had of him.

After he left I was handed a letter he had written to me. It was a beautiful letter. He gave me his father’s name and address, which was his home base, and asked me to get in touch with
him. I never did. Perhaps it was discretion on my part, but more likely shyness. I still couldn’t understand why, out of all the women Bill had met, he had chosen me.

That afternoon after our lunch together he left me at the door of the office. I don’t think we even said goodbye. Then, with a smile and a wave, his hand raised to his maroon beret in a
final salute, he leapt on a bus. It was the last time I saw him. I was left with a little cameo of a perfect love. Perfect, perhaps, because it had been so brief.

But that was life during the war. One took the rough with the smooth, eagerly grasping happiness with both hands. We lived the fragile moments to the full . . . and hoped for the best. It was all
we could do. And, should our worst fears be realized, we picked up the pieces and carried on.

Some of my friends married when their future husbands in the Armed Forces were on embarkation leave, about to sail to an ‘unknown destination, either the Middle or Far East. And that was
hard. Five days was the most anyone in the Armed Forces could hope for as marriage leave; often it was only three. To have to part from your young husband after such a brief spell, knowing that it
would be a very long time, probably not until the war ended, before you would meet again, was heartbreaking. But those brides had the consolation of knowing that, although far from home, their
husbands would not be alone. They would be travelling with friends in their regiment, or squadron, or on board ship, comrades who would often be in the same situation as themselves. The wives left
behind could track their husbands’ journeys by listening to the BBC’s bulletins or watching the Gaumont British newsreels which usually went out several times a day before every cinema
programme. And once their husbands arrived at their ‘unknown destination, the destination became known, and they could follow the regiment’s or the ship’s movements through these
same news channels. They could write to them, giving them family news, telling them how much they loved them, how much they missed them, knowing that the letters would be delivered. And hopefully
they themselves would receive letters in return. They might not arrive very frequently, and often only in batches, and would certainly be censored, but at least there would be some communication.
They were not completely cut off.

The anguish they felt at parting was acute, but it was different from that of a woman who married an agent, because, once he had left, and been infiltrated into enemy-occupied territory, all
communication between them ceased. He went alone, cut off from all he held dear.