The Way Ahead (28 page)

‘That guy’s a nutcase.’

‘Sure, but he’ll give the Krauts a tough time trying to crack him.’

‘Overlord’, the attempt by the Allies to form a Second Front, originally scheduled for sometime in May, had been postponed more than once because of unsuitable weather forecasts, and was now set for the beginning of June. The invasion force, concentrated close to the harbours of the South Coast, was stamping its feet, playing cards, writing to mothers or wives, talking, arguing, sleeping, waking, doing press-ups, conducting open-air ablutions, remembering the excitements engendered by relationships with certain girls, thinking about what they were in for, and wondering when the hell it was going to begin.

Boots was there, and Tim and Colonel Lucas were with the Commandos waiting to be airborne.

Sammy Adams, kingpin of Adams Enterprises Ltd and its associate companies, was at the Elephant and Castle, the junction that launched traffic into London Road, New Kent Road, Kennington Park Road, St George’s Road, Newington Causeway and Walworth Road. It was a sad sight these days, having suffered massively from Hermann Goering’s bombers.

Sammy remembered the old, bustling junction, a place of surging life and old ladies in granny bonnets, old ladies he could often touch for a penny when he was a kid in patched shorts and darned jersey.

‘Carry yer shoppin’ bag ’ome for yer for a penny, missus?’

‘You look to me like you’d run orf with it’

‘Me, missus? Me? Ain’t I a Boy Scout when I got me uniform on?’ (He never was.) ‘’Ere, missus, you must be near on forty.’ (Usually, the victim was on the wrong side of sixty.) ‘It’s too much for yer to carry that ’eavy shoppin’ bag ’ome yerself, and I’d be pleasured to carry it for yer. Only tuppence.’

‘Up to crafty larks now, are yer? You said a penny first.’

‘Well, tuppence or a penny, missus, I ain’t pertic’ler, specially for a lady that’s your age. What’s it like being nearly forty? Here, did you know there’s other ladies round ’ere that looks over sixty? D’you mind if I ask if you’re under or just over forty? Here, give us yer bag, it ain’t right for you to ’ave all that weight to carry ’ome. That’s it, and I’ll tell yer all about me starving sisters on the way, and how me eldest lost a leg when she was run over by a tram.’

And so on, until they reached her doorstep, when he offered to split the difference between a penny and tuppence.

Sammy, shaken when he’d first seen what the bombs had done to the Elephant and Castle, had long since recovered from going into mourning for what had been. He lived for the present and future. Furthermore, he had Rachel with him, and Rachel had never been noted for being a wet female blanket. They were making a tour of bombed properties, each resembling nothing more than a pile of
bricks
and smashed stone. Sammy kept consulting a list and quoting transaction details. The turn of the tide against Hitler and Japan had made developers interested in post-war prospects. Much money had circulated during these war years, and developers had coined a large share of it.

‘This one, Rachel, bought by Adams Properties for nine hundred quid. Sold November, eighteen months ago, for fifteen hundred to Parkinsons Furniture Stores. Profit, sixty-six per cent.’

‘Sixty-six, Sammy? My life, that’s mouth-watering.’

‘Now, this one. Bought for eleven hundred and fifty good ’uns. Sold, April last year to Ambrose and Partners, Accountants, for rich gravy.’

‘How rich, Sammy?’

‘Two thou, Rachel. Profit, let’s see—’

‘Just under seventy-four per cent, Sammy.’

‘Flash of first-class arithmetic, that was, Rachel. Congratulations.’

‘Don’t mention it, Sammy.’

‘Next, that one across the road. Purchased two years ago for nine hundred guineas.’

‘Guineas, Sammy?’

‘Well, previous owner being a gent also owning gee-gees, he’d never heard of pound notes. Currently under offer for twelve hundred.’

‘Guineas, Sammy?’

‘Quids. Prospective buyer says guineas are ruddy chickens.’

‘Guinea-fowls, Sammy?’

‘Do they lay eggs, Rachel?’

‘All fowls do, Sammy.’

‘I like you for being informative, Rachel.’

‘I like you too, Sammy.’

‘Anyway, twelve hundred quid don’t rate high enough, not now smart developers can’t see Hitler winning the war. Adams Properties are accordingly standing firm for fifteen hundred. Now, place your remarkable mince pies on that great heap of sad ruination over there. Large enough for a store. Collared for two thousand five hundred a year ago, split between the owners of three properties all bombed as one. Going, I’m confident, for four thou to Hurlocks, the Walworth Road store where me sister Lizzy at fourteen landed her first job. Profit, Rachel?’

‘We should calculate before completion, Sammy? Not wise.’

‘See your point, Rachel.’

They went on. At the end Sammy was able to announce that with the investment in the firm of twenty-five thousand pounds left to Rosie by her late natural father, plus five thousand pounds from Adams Enterprises, Adams Properties had begun trading with a capital of thirty thousand. Eighteen thousand and eighty pounds had been used to purchase bombed sites, and sales so far had amounted to twenty-eight thousand and ninety. Profit so far? Sixty-three per cent plus, said Rachel. You’re a walking percentage marvel, said Sammy. I like the plus bit, he said, it takes into account there’s still three sites up for sale or completion, purchase price having been included in the total outlay mentioned previous. So a bit more plus should be coming our way, he said. Did Rachel have any comments?

‘Well, you brought me here, Sammy, to take a look at these sites,’ said Rachel. ‘Are you sure you’ve done the right thing in buying and selling, and not buying for development?’

‘Well, development’s long term, as my old friend Eli Greenberg pointed out,’ said Sammy. ‘There’s going to be a shortage of building materials after the war and a kind of staggering economy, according to your dad, so there’d be nothing coming back for years with development, and I decided I don’t like waiting about. What I do like is investing the profit in Adams Fashions and expanding meself industrially. Along with the directors, of course.’

‘Personal expansion would ruin my figure, Sammy,’ smiled Rachel, as they took a walk to his car, parked in Newington Causeway.

‘It wouldn’t ruin your bank figure, Rachel. I’m looking for you and the family to approve Adams Fashions going in for big business.’

‘I should object, Sammy? I think your first love is the rag trade.’

‘Well, y’know, Rachel, there’s always a challenge about that, and a lot of customers. Every year’s new fashions grab female women, which reminds me I’ve never seen you looking like last year’s remnants, even if it’s my personal opinion that wartime styles could do with serious improving.’

Rachel, wearing a cream-coloured raincoat as protection against the wet and windy day, said, ‘I’ll bet on you, Sammy, to go in for serious improving when this war’s over.’

‘I appreciate your encouragement, Rachel,’ said Sammy.

‘Don’t mention it,’ said Rachel lightly, but an inward sigh developed. The differences that Leah and Edward seemed willing to set aside were those that had deprived her of the chance of becoming Sammy’s wife.

Wednesday, 31 May

THE TRAIN FROM
Paris was heading for Germany. Its passengers were all French Jews. Men, women and children. Families. Most of them imagined they were going to be resettled outside the country of their birth. Well, that was what they had been told by the French authorities and the French police who had rounded them up. Unfortunately, said the authorities, the present policy of France in these troubled times is to co-operate with Germany, which country, as you know, is Europe’s bulwark against the terror of Communism. Germany wishes to replace the Old Order with the New Order, and that means the establishment of an independent homeland for Europeans of the Jewish faith. Yes, the uprooting is very unhappy for you, but others who have already gone are adapting well, and we are sure you will too. Germany guarantees you will not be threatened by the menace of Communism, and that is an important consideration.

What the authorities did not mention was that
the
homeland in question consisted of a series of concentration camps specializing in either working the inmates to death or summarily gassing them on arrival, something that would have been so incompehensible to these Jewish families that, even if they had been told, they would have been unable to believe it. Deliberate liquidation? Of children as well as parents? No, no, who could believe anything so infamous? No, no. After all, they were French citizens, weren’t they? They obeyed the law, and some of the older men had fought with distinction for France in the Great War. Further, several of the younger ones had served in the Army during the battles against the Nazi hordes in 1940, even if those battles had been conducted only half-heartedly by the French generals.

Most believed the assurance that they were to be resettled in a civilized and understanding way, and certainly the train journey was very civilized. (They did not know just how civilized it was compared to the inhuman and suffocating conditions endured by the Jews of other countries in cattle waggons.) However, despite what comfort they took in reassurances and promises, they were bewildered by their expulsion from France, their native land. Some, a few, took no comfort and nor did they believe. They distrusted authorities who obeyed the German order to uproot them, and they suspected expulsion was going to lead to something frightening, for in their minds it related horrifyingly to rumours that German Jews sent for resettlement actually ended up being murdered. Would French Jews fare better? The doubters kept trying to
convince
the believers that resettlement was a mirage, especially as the train was in the hands of German soldiers and Gestapo officers. Their attempts were not welcomed.

‘Don’t talk like that, you fool.’

‘We have to consider unpleasant possibilities, we must.’

‘Go away, or my children will hear you.’

‘First tell me where you think all the Jews of France and Germany and, yes, Poland, are being sent for resettlement. A Greek island? The South of France? Palestine, with British permission?’

‘What I think is that you have water on your brain.’

‘I do ask you very seriously, have any of us ever heard from friends and neighbours who have gone before us for resettlement?’

‘You can’t expect all the work and process of fitting into a new life to allow time for writing letters.’

‘I haven’t myself heard of one single letter from anybody, and I don’t like it that there are German soldiers armed to the teeth on this train.’

‘That is to make sure the train isn’t attacked by Communists, and that we reach our destination safely. It’s sad, yes, that France no longer wants its Jewish citizens, but it would never be responsible for betraying us.’

‘In my opinion, and that of others, it has already betrayed us.’

‘You and the others are crazy, and see, everyone in this compartment agrees with me. Go away.’

‘What can be done with people who are blinding
themselves
to the intentions and actions of France’s anti-Semitics and their German overlords?’

‘Go away, do you hear, you rabble-rouser!’

The train steamed on towards the Department of Marne, noted for its champagne vineyards and pine forests.

A certain section of the railway line in the east of Marne was cut through a deeply wooded area, and the foremost pine trees on either side of the track stood like towering sentinels. Trains, travelling at reduced speed, entered this wooded stretch from around a long bend.

The pine forest was usually quiet except for the snuffles and rustles of foraging wild life. It was not so quiet this afternoon, for an invasion by humans had caused the wild life to retreat noisily into the heart of their habitat, and the invasion itself had been a scrambling and disturbing affair. However, after the invaders, a number of men and women, had settled down, a comparative silence ensued. Now and again, whispers were heard.

After quite some time, one man addressed another in a murmur.

‘Twenty-five minutes, I think, if it left on time, Roget.’

‘It always leaves on time,’ whispered Roget, leader of Marne’s main Resistance group. Dark, bristly of jaw, Roget was a man of courage and fixed loyalties. Under no circumstances would he betray France or his comrades. He was a man Bobby and Helene had come to like and admire. ‘That is the way of Germans. They make a fetish of punctuality
and
paperwork. How are your nerves, eh, Maurice?’

‘Critical,’ said Bobby. ‘I need to see a doctor.’

‘We’re all in need, we’re all crazy,’ said Roget, ‘but who is sane in a Europe governed by a criminal lunatic?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ said Bobby, ‘I’m an innocent abroad.’

‘You’re no innocent, my friend,’ said Roget.

‘I was once,’ said Bobby.

‘So were we all at the age of five,’ said Roget.

On the other side of Bobby, Helene dug an elbow into his ribs.

‘If you must talk, talk to me,’ she breathed.

‘Don’t worry, Lynette,’ murmured Bobby, ‘I know you’re with me.’

Roget grinned.

‘Your tigress is awake, Maurice,’ he said.

‘And spitting,’ said Helene, always in a fierce mood when girding herself for a brush with Hitler’s Nazi Boches. She hated them for what they had done to France, reducing it to humiliation and turning it into a nation bitterly divided.

Today, another hold-up had been planned. This time a train was their target, the objective the release of its passengers. Helene was keyed up. Bobby had implied he was too, but she knew him and his ability to control his nerves and concentrate on the need for action at the right time. Ah, that English blood of his, it never rushed hot through his veins, it flowed like the sluggish Thames. Well, perhaps not all the time. There were the occasions when he was as hot-blooded as she could wish for. As for the Thames, she would like to see it again,
from
a place called Marlow, where Bobby had once taken her on a summer day. There the river was clear and running, the banks green, the gardens of houses sloping down to the waters, where ducks and drakes glided, flapped and dipped. The sun dappled the swirling currents and produced moving fingers of light on the surface. Bobby had taken her rowing in a rented boat, and they had laughed the afternoon away.