The Way Ahead
Authors: Mary Jane Staples
It is 1944, and the Adams family, along with the rest of the people of the United Kingdom, are beginning to weary of the seemingly never-ending war against Hitler’s Germany. Bobby Somers and Helene, living dangerously in the French countryside with a group of Resistance fighters, find themselves in great peril. Boots returns from the war in Italy, to the delight of Polly and their two little rascals, twins James and Gemma – but he brings with him a German prisoner who has a horrifying story to tell of the concentration camps. And while Sammy and Susie Adams are keeping the family business going as best they can during the privations of wartime London, their son Daniel catches the eye of a lively young American girl who brings a welcome breath of fresh air to the Adams household, so many of whose younger members are doing their bit for the war in various far-flung places of the world.
As plans for the long-awaited invasion of France get under way there is excitement and danger, but love continues to blossom in the most difficult of circumstances.
THE WAY AHEAD
Mary Jane Staples
To Sheila, Liz, Janet, Lyn, Fay, Joan, Ron and all other friends who gave so much happiness to Florence
.
March, 1944
MOONLIGHT OVER FRANCE
. An RAF Lysander was flying low over the department of Marne, famous for its champagne vineyards.
Lysanders, high-wing planes that could land almost at a walking pace on a short strip of level or rough ground, had proved superb in the carrying of SOE agents to and from German-occupied France. Tonight was no exception for this particular machine. It flew ahead of desultory flak thrown up by an anti-aircraft battery manned by a French crew under the supervision of German officers. The gunners seemed incapable of hitting a flying elephant, much to the disgust of the Germans. But perhaps there was more to it than inefficiency. Perhaps the image of General de Gaulle and his Free French Army was looming larger day by day, for there were few people in France who did not suspect the Allies would open a Second Front sometime in the near future, and that de Gaulle would arrive with them to settle his account with Marshal
P
étain, Pierre Laval and other men who had sold France to the Germans in 1940.
The Lysander flew on in the moonlight. All flights undertaken in aid of the French Resistance took place during the full moon periods. Navigation demanded visibility to enable pilots to accurately pinpoint landing strips.
On this mission, the pilot, descending at decreasing speed, searched for the prearranged tiny lights marking the selected strip. Three lights, hand torches fixed to sticks in the form of an inverted ‘L’, were the established way of guiding a Lysander in, always providing a fourth torch, hand-held, flashed the coded all-clear signal.
There it was, the inverted ‘L’, clearly visible, and there too was the flashing code giving the pilot the signal to land, and he brought the plane safely down on the rough grassy ground with the lightest of bumps. The moment it stopped, out jumped a man and a woman, and from a point just beyond the nearest light several men and women of the Resistance came running. Stoutly bound packs containing arms, explosives and detonators were quickly hauled from the plane, and within minutes the Lysander was moving again, turning to taxi. It took off with a wave of good luck from the pilot.
The landing lights were switched off and collected, and the men and women melted away in company with the two SOE agents from London, Captain Bobby Somers, RA, and Lieutenant Helene Aarlberg, FANY, both of whom had survived other missions of underground activity in France.
‘Bobby, how far this time are we from my home?’ It was a quick whisper from Helene.
‘Only a few hundred miles,’ whispered Bobby. ‘Were you thinking of dropping in for Sunday tea?’
‘Idiot.’
She had called him that countless times, but not without a note of endearment. There was no-one quite like Bobby to Helene Aarlberg, daughter of a Belgian father and French mother. They were lovers, she and Bobby, and from him she had a firm promise of marriage when this disgusting war was finally over.
They ran on with the partisans, and the little group disappeared into a wooded valley, packs of arms and explosives strapped to backs.
There was work to do of a dangerous, hair-raising kind, and Bobby and Helene were as much committed as the men and women of the Resistance.
April, 1944
By this time, the extensive family of Mrs Maisie Adams, known as Chinese Lady because of her almond eyes and her addiction years ago to the quality work of Walworth’s Chinese Laundry, had experienced all the shifting patterns of a war that seemed to have no end.
Britain, along with its Empire, was well into the fifth year of the conflict with Germany, and its people were bruised and battered. But so were the people of Germany who, suffering continuous assaults from the air by the bombers of the
RAF
and the USAAF, were at last coming to realize exactly what kind of hell their demonic
Fuehrer
had fashioned for them. That hell was about to become an inferno, for not only were the Russian hordes scorching German armies in the east, but the South Coast of England was soon to receive the men and machines of a colossal seaborne invasion force designed to set fire to Germany’s defences in the west. An armada of ships and landing craft was to assemble in ports, and the South Coast to become a guarded encampment of men and machines. The Press printed nothing and the radio breathed not a word about these forthcoming preparations for the opening of the long-awaited Second Front.
‘Well,’ said Mrs Lizzy Somers to her husband Ned over breakfast, ‘the news is getting more cheerful every day.’
Their kitchen wireless was in full flow, the BBC announcer as measured of tone as he had been all through the war, come storm or sunshine. The Allied armies in Italy were hammering away at the Germans, the Americans and British beginning to crack the Japanese in the Far East, and to get the better of the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic.
‘Yes, everything’s more encouraging, Eliza, no doubt about it,’ said Ned. He was now forty-nine, with greying hair, and as manager of a wine merchant’s in Great Tower Street, he was forever striving to survive a shortage of imports. That, of course, didn’t help to slow the greying process. However, having lost a leg in the Great War, he
made
do very well with an artificial limb, and carried out his ARP duties in the kind of valiant way that aroused emotional pride in Lizzy. Nearly forty-six herself, she still owned her admirable Edwardian figure, despite food rationing. Improved corsetry, lighter and better designed than formerly, was a delightful friend to her. She looked an extremely well-preserved woman, her wealth of chestnut hair and the deep brown of her eyes matchless. Ever a supportive wife and a caring mother, Lizzy represented to Ned a very rewarding investment in marriage. ‘I suppose we still can’t look forward to seeing much of our sons and daughters,’ he said, tackling his breakfast toast with strong, crunching teeth.
Their sons, Bobby and Edward, were twenty-four and nineteen respectively, Bobby an artillery officer, Edward an aircraftman in the RAF. Their daughters, twenty-seven-year-old Annabelle and twenty-one-year-old Emma, lived in the country. Annabelle and her two children had been in Wiltshire since the bombing began in 1940. Her husband, Nick Harrison, was a fighter pilot in the RAF. Emma and her husband, Jonathan Hardy, were in Somerset, Emma working for a farmer, Jonathan a gunnery instructor at an artillery training camp.
‘Oh, we’ll be seeing Emma and Jonathan soon,’ said Lizzy. ‘I did tell you Jonathan’s getting seven days’ leave, and that Emma will be with him.’
‘So you did,’ said Ned. ‘Well, that’s something. They’re two of my favourite people.’
‘Ned, you shouldn’t have favourites,’ said Lizzy, ‘it causes little ructions.’
‘Well, if big ructions arrive,’ said Ned, ‘don’t open the door to them.’
‘You’re just like Boots,’ said Lizzy, ‘you’ve always got an answer that’s a bit comical.’
‘My other favourite people’, said Ned, ‘are Annabelle and Nick, Bobby and Helene, and our one and only Edward.’
‘You said that just in time,’ smiled Lizzy. ‘Listen, love, about Bobby and Helene. Don’t you wonder sometimes what they get up to?’
‘Well, they’re young and healthy, of course, and Helene’s French, and there’s a war on,’ said Ned, ‘so I daresay they—’
‘Ned Somers, I don’t want to hear what you’re going to say,’ said Lizzy, refilling his teacup, ‘and I wasn’t meaning that, anyway, which you knew I didn’t. What I do mean is that we get hardly any letters from them, and when we do they never give us a hint of where they might be or what they’re doing. It’s worrying sometimes. I mean, what sort of a regiment are they in, for goodness sake?’
Ned had long had his ideas about what kind of a war Bobby and Helene were engaged in. Helene was French, her home in the agricultural region east of Dunkirk. Bobby was familiar with France, and spoke the language fluently. Everyone knew the British were giving all kinds of help to French Resistance groups, and it was reasonable to suppose Bobby and Helene had been recruited to work with them. Ned, however, was not going to let Lizzy know he suspected exactly that. It would give her sleepless nights. She’d think about them being caught, tortured and shot as spies. If I’m
right
, thought Ned, that’s actually a frightening possibility.
