We'll Meet Again (14 page)

Liverpool Street Station was crowded with people getting on and off trains. It was easy to slip past and get on a train. If someone saw him they’d think he was with a grown-up. If he was questioned, all he had to do was pipe his eye and say his Ma had got on the train while he was going for a pee and he had to join her. Usually, they took him along the platform and asked him to point his mother out to them. He’d point and say, ‘There she is!’ and rush to get on the train to join the unsuspecting woman just as it drew out. Getting off at Longfordham could be tricky, but he knew if he walked down the line a little way he would come to the crossing by the heath. He didn’t have to go through the booking hall.

The trouble was, he was getting fed up with it all. He didn’t get enough sleep and the village was so small everyone knew what everyone else was doing and he couldn’t keep ducking school. Besides, it would be easier to sell the stuff to the men building the airfield. He could send the money to his mother. The difficulty with that was that he didn’t write very well and addressing an envelope might be a problem. And supposing someone nicked the money before it got to his mother? He sighed as he locked himself in the toilet on the train. The ticket collector was coming along the corridor. Life was full of problems.

Mr Potts was waiting for him when he arrived. He grabbed him by his collar. ‘Where the devil have you been? We’ve got the whole village out searching for you. His lordship wants a word with you.’

‘What for? I ain’t done nothin’.’

‘We’ll see about that. Come along with me.’

He was taken to a side door of the hall and they were conducted
by a servant into a carpeted corridor with doors all along it. There were huge pictures on the walls in gilt frames and vases of flowers on little tables. They stopped in front of one door, the servant knocked and opened it. ‘Mr Potts and the evacuee, my lord.’

Ronnie found himself in a large sitting room containing two sofas, half a dozen armchairs, little tables on which stood china ornaments and photographs in silver frames. There were display cabinets full of interesting things and more pictures on the walls. Ronnie stared about him in awe, weighing up how much he could get for some of the ornaments if he could lay his hands on them. Standing by the fireplace, surveying him beneath beetling brows, was the Earl.

‘Ah, Potts,’ he said. ‘You found him then?’

Potts had pulled off his uniform cap and was holding it in front of him with both hands ‘Yes, my lord.’

His lordship turned to Ronnie. ‘Where have you been hiding today, young man?’

‘I ain’t bin ’idin’. I went home to see me mum.’

‘To London?’ he queried. ‘How did you get there?’

‘On a train.’

‘How did you pay for your ticket?’

‘Ma sent me the money.’

‘I see. And how is your mother?’

‘OK.’

‘You were seen getting on the train with a sack.’

‘So what if I was?’

‘What was in it?’

‘What you want to know that for?’

‘I think it contained vegetables and eggs. I am right, aren’t I?’

‘I bought them fair and square.’

‘Who sold them to you?’

‘A man. ’E said ’e’d got more’n he needed. Don’ know ’is name so it ain’t no good to ask me.’

The Earl smiled. ‘Do you know the story of Pinocchio?’

‘It were on at the flicks a few weeks back. I saw it at the fleapit in Royston.’

‘Then you will know that every time he told a lie, his nose grew longer, until it was so long it was an embarrassment. Do you want that to happen to you?’

‘Don’t be daft, tha’s a fairy story.’ Ronnie put a hand to his nose just to make sure it was its usual size.

Mr Potts clipped him round the ear with his cap. ‘Don’t you be disrespectful to his lordship.’

‘You know, if you had asked if you could have something to take home to your mother, I would have given them to you,’ his lordship said. ‘As it is, I shall have to devise a punishment.’

‘You ain’t never goin’ to ’and me over to the constable, are yer?’

‘I ought to, but it would be a shame to have a criminal record, don’t you think? That lasts you all your life.’

Ronnie knew that perfectly well; his father had one as long as his arm. ‘You can’t prove nothin’.’

‘Oh, I think we can. The night before last, you were in my woods and being chased by several of my men …’

‘Not me. I was in me bed.’

‘That you weren’t,’ Mr Potts said. ‘Your bed weren’t slept in. You were out all night. I heard you come in just as I was getting up.’

‘I stayed with a pal.’ He was beginning to panic, but one thing he was determined on and that was keeping his hide-out secret. If they found what he had been hiding there, then he really would be in the soup.

‘Ronald,’ his lordship said patiently. ‘We have spent the day searching for you and in the course of that, spoken to every one of
your school friends and some who denied they were your friends. None had seen you since yesterday afternoon, when you went off by yourself. This morning you were seen carrying a sack on the train.’ He paused while Ronnie squirmed. ‘Lying only makes things worse, you know. Come clean and I’ll be lenient.’

Ronnie didn’t know what lenient meant but it was obviously better than being handed over to the constable. ‘So I took a few spuds and eggs to take home to me ma, so what?’

‘Do you know what a magistrate is?’

‘He’s a kind o’ judge, only there ain’t no jury.’

‘Right. I am a magistrate and I can dole out punishments. My punishment for you is that you attend school every day without fail, and you help my gardener on Saturdays. And I want you to promise never to steal again. Will you do that?’

‘OK.’

‘Off you go then. Mrs Potts will have your supper ready.’

Ronnie left with Mr Potts, apparently contrite. He’d got off lightly and he knew it. He’d had nothing to eat all day and his belly was rumbling.

It was just as well he did not hear Marcus laughing. How did the boy come to know what a magistrate was?

It was Nanny Bright who had told Gillie and Prue she had seen Mr Potts’ evacuee boarding the train carrying what looked like a heavy sack. They had gone to visit her as they always did when they were home and had mentioned the search that was going on for the boy. ‘I’m fairly sure he didn’t buy a ticket,’ she had said. ‘He came onto the platform from the line. One of these days he’ll be hit by a train if he keeps doing that.’

‘I talked to my father about Charlie,’ Prue told Sheila the day after she returned from leave. She and Sheila had come off the afternoon
shift together and were cycling home. ‘He suggested writing to Pathé News to see if they can tell you anything. What do you think?’

‘I’ve often wondered about that, but I didn’t think it would do any good.’

‘You’ll never know if you don’t try. You would need to describe the scene as carefully as you can, so they can identify it.’

‘Then what?’

‘It depends what they say. They might have a still photo they can send, then you would be able to look at it more closely and make up your mind if it really is your brother.’

‘Do you think they’d do that?’

‘Don’t see why not. I don’t suppose it’s the first time they’ve been asked something like that. I’ll help you write the letter if you like, two heads are better than one.’

‘OK, but not a word to Aunt Constance.’

‘As if I would.’

The letter was written after dinner that evening, on notepaper headed with the Earl of Winterton’s crest. ‘It might carry a bit of weight,’ Prue said, putting a pad of it onto the table in her bedroom and unscrewing the top of her fountain pen. ‘Here, use this.’

‘No, you do it. Your handwriting is so lovely and neat and I don’t want to spoil your pen.’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘Yes. Your signature and the headed paper is sure to make someone sit up and take notice.’

‘OK.’ She took a seat at the table. ‘I want the date you saw the film and an exact description of the scene so it can be identified.’

‘It was the 28th of December, the day after the big blitz. The King and Queen were talking to a woman who had been bombed out. There was the rubble of a bombed house behind them, and there were people standing round, being kept in order by a
policeman; they were all smiling. Can’t think of anything else.’

‘Where was your brother?’

‘He must have been standing on some of the ruins, that’s why I noticed him; he stood out from the others.’

‘What was he wearing?’

‘I only saw the top half of him. Nothing out of the ordinary. A jacket and a cap I think.’

Prue began to write, a whole page of it, while Sheila went to stand looking out of the window. There were people walking about, a few bicycles and a van on the tree-lined road. She wondered what she and Charlie would do if they were reunited. It would depend on what he had been doing since they parted. She found it difficult to envisage him ever coming to live at Victoria Villa.

‘There, how’s that?’ Prue’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

She turned to take the sheet of paper. ‘Heavens, you’ve got the story of my life here.’

‘I needed to gain sympathy for you. Will it do?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

Prue signed it, found an envelope, which she addressed to British Pathé at Elstree Studios, and stuck a stamp on it. ‘Let’s go and post it, then we can have a drink on the way back.’

‘I wonder if we’ll get a reply,’ Sheila said later when they were sitting in the lounge bar of the Shoulder of Mutton, sipping gin and tonic. Sheila preferred orange with her gin but they didn’t have any. ‘They might just throw it in the wastepaper basket.’

‘True, but it was worth a try, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, but it’s got me all fidgety. I keep wondering and thinking …’

‘Best thing to do is forget it, then if you do hear from them it will be a pleasant surprise.’

Sheila went on her next leave as much in the dark about Charlie as ever. As usual she made for the Bennetts’. The baby was still there. Efforts to find his family had failed and Bob and June were hoping to adopt him. He was plump and happy and thoroughly spoilt. Sheila sat cuddling him while bringing June up to date on what had been happening in her life and telling them about the letter to Pathé. ‘They haven’t replied,’ she said.

‘Perhaps they couldn’t find the bit of film you were talking about.’

‘Perhaps. Anyway, I’m going to spend my leave wandering about here. I can’t believe he would stray far from home, even though there’s no home there any more.’

‘The site has been cleared, but there won’t be any rebuilding until after the war. It’s dreadful seeing these great gaps in rows of houses and wondering what happened to the people who used to live there. We have been so lucky, only a few broken windows.’

Since the Germans had invaded Russia, they had been kept busy on their eastern front and the bombing of Britain had virtually stopped and, apart from an occasional sharp reminder from Hitler that he had not forgotten them, Londoners were breathing easily and sleeping in their beds again. The aeroplanes that flew overhead now were British bombers and their fighter escorts.

‘I’ll go and see Janet too. She’s living above the shop now. We’ll probably have a night out somewhere.’ She handed Noel back to June who put him in his high chair in order to give him his dinner. When Bob came in, the three adults had theirs and afterwards Sheila went to visit Janet.

Her friend had moved into the flat above the shop and made it very comfortable. ‘It’s where Bert comes when he’s on leave,’ she said. ‘But there won’t be any of that for a bit. He’s in North
Africa and complaining about the heat and the sand getting into everything.’

‘It’s warm enough here at the moment.’

‘Yes. This flat is lovely in the winter, the heat comes up from the shop, but in summer it’s like an oven even with all the windows open.’

‘D’you want to go to the pictures tonight?’

‘OK. I’ll meet you outside. It won’t be the same without the boys though, will it?’

‘No.’

‘Have you heard from Chris?’

‘We’ve drifted apart somehow.’

‘Pity that. I thought he was really gone on you.’

‘No, well, people change.’

On the way back to the Bennetts’, she called on Mrs Jarrett. Her welcome was hardly cordial and she wasn’t invited over the threshold. ‘What are you doing here, Sheila Phipps?’ the lady demanded. There was a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth and steel curlers in her dark hair. She was wearing a stained apron and felt slippers.

‘I’m on holiday and came to see how you are and if you’ve heard from Chris.’

‘Of course I hear from Chris.’ She took the cigarette from her mouth and tapped the ash off it. Her fingers were stained brown. ‘Did you think he wouldn’t write to his own mother?’

‘Is he all right?’

‘He’s at sea, as you very well know. Last time I heard he was OK but none the better for the way you treated him. Wicked that was. He came home in a foul temper and it took ages before he’d tell me what was wrong. Money wasted it was. Rings don’t come cheap.’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Jarrett, but I couldn’t pretend to feelings I didn’t
have. I thought it better to be honest with him. I’m still trying to get over my family going like that.’ She gulped. ‘That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to stay friends with him, and I’m sorry if he took it the wrong way.’

‘Wrong way! What other way was there to take it? You trampled on his feelings without a care in the world and him on those Atlantic convoys and likely to be blown to bits at any minute.’

‘I did care and I didn’t know where he was.’

‘No? Well it’s no business of yours now, is it?’

‘No, I suppose not. I’m sorry I troubled you.’ She turned to leave, then hesitated. ‘You did pass my letters on to him, didn’t you?’

‘Course I did. If he chooses not to answer, that’s his affair.’

Dejectedly, she left. It wasn’t that she had changed her mind about Chris; her reasons for turning him down were as valid as ever, it was because it had left such rancour behind.

‘Tim, are we anywhere near the target?’ Graham’s voice came to him over the intercom. ‘I can’t see a thing through this cloud.’

‘Two minutes to go, Skip.’

‘Good. Let’s get down to it. I want to be getting home and warm.’

‘Hear. Hear,’ came from Ken in the tail. ‘I can’t feel my feet.’ Intense cold was one of the worst parts of flying. No matter how many layers of clothes you wore, how many pairs of gloves and socks, your hands and feet froze.

The weatherman had told them there would be cloud over England but the skies over the target would be clear, but in fact the opposite had been true. The only advantage was that no enemy fighters had come up to harass them. That hadn’t stopped the anti-aircraft guns which were taking pot shots at them as they descended towards the target. There were flashes of bright light and puffs of smoke all about them and once a rattle against the fuselage which told them at least one of the shells had struck home.

‘Anyone hurt?’ Graham asked.

‘No, Skip,’ came from four voices, one after the other.

One of the Wellingtons on their port side suddenly exploded, lighting up the sky in a blinding flash and littering the air with burning debris which spiralled slowly downwards. No one made any comment, they were too busy praying they wouldn’t be next. With a full load of bombs on board, they had no chance of survival, any more than their colleagues had. They would mourn the men who had been lost when they were safely back themselves.

‘I saw the glow of fires a minute ago,’ Gerry, the nose gunner-cum-observer, put in, when the last flickering flame of the dying bomber had faded and they were in the dark again, except for the searchlights.

‘That doesn’t mean it’s the target,’ Tim said. ‘If some silly fool has dropped his bombs on the wrong place, we don’t have to follow suit.’

Below them Hamburg, a city with genuine industrial targets, also housed women and children and old men. He could not hit one without the other. On the other hand, he reminded himself, only the month before London had suffered its worst Blitz since the war started, worse even than the one in September the previous year, worse than the one just after Christmas which had set the city alight. And there was Coventry, Portsmouth and Norwich and all the other places that had suffered from German bombs. Why did he feel no urge for vengeance? Instead he felt sick and decidedly dizzy, almost as if he were drunk, but all he had had to drink on the long, cold flight was a flask of coffee.

‘Tim.’ Graham’s voice came over the intercom again, a little impatient this time.

‘Right,’ he said, leaving his seat to take up his position on the floor with his eye to the bomb sight. ‘Start the run in.’

Tim usually guided this with directions such as, ‘Left a little, right a little, hold it there’, but tonight all he said was ‘Steady as she goes’, and then, ‘Bombs gone’. The aircraft bucked upwards as the weight of bombs left it.

‘Thank God for that,’ Graham said, peeling away and gaining height rapidly. ‘Set course for home.’

Tim returned to his seat and his charts.

The flak over the coast had been bad on the outward journey. Now the enemy knew where they were, it was worse. Tim, sitting with his maps, sextant and compass on the board in front of him, found himself shaking. He wanted to be back at base, to be safely on the ground again, but at the same time he dreaded the debriefing. How far off the target had they been? If only there was some way to improve accuracy, he wouldn’t feel so bad about what he was doing.

Graham was busy flying the Wellington and trying to avoid being shot down, but the other four, David, the radio operator, Gerry, who had pointed out the previous fires, and the two other gunners, Sid and Ken, while remaining alert for enemy fighters, relieved of immediate pressure were chatting and joking and talking about having a pint in the Jolly Brewers that evening. Tim didn’t join in; it was just too much of an effort. He managed to give Graham navigational directions in a croak, but that was all.

‘North Sea,’ Gerry said. The danger was still not over; the flak might be behind them, but there was always the chance of being spotted by enemy fighters. The nearer they came to safety, the more their tension mounted. Once safely back it would be another operation to notch up towards the thirty they needed before being taken off for a rest.

They landed back at Wyton an hour later and tumbled
thankfully out onto the runway. ‘What’s up, Tim?’ Graham asked him as they walked towards the airfield buildings, leaving the ground crew to take care of the Wellington. ‘You’ve been like a bear with a sore head all night.’

‘Nothing’s up. I’m tired, that’s all. Feel a bit giddy, as matter of fact.’

‘Too tired to do your job properly,’ Gerry put in. ‘You overshot the target by miles. Waste of bombs, that was.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘I think you did, Tim,’ Graham said quietly. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to say so at debriefing.’

‘That’s up to you.’ He really didn’t care any more. He could hardly walk straight and it seemed as if the ground was heaving in front of him. He stumbled and would have fallen if Graham hadn’t grabbed his arm. ‘You need to see the M.O., old chap.’

Prue learnt Tim was in hospital after Tim’s mother had telephoned the Countess, who had passed on the news to Prue in a letter. Worried as Prue was, she could not get away immediately and it was a week before she had a whole day off and could visit him. And then she was told by the ward sister she could not see him. He had expressly said he did not want visitors.

‘What exactly is the matter with him?’ Prue demanded.

‘I’m afraid I can’t say. I am sorry you have had a wasted journey, Miss …’

‘Le Strange.’ Prue supplied her name. ‘Can I write to him?’

‘Of course.’

‘Tell him I was here, will you, please? Give him my love.’

The nurse watched her turn and leave. It was a pity she had to send the girl away, she might have been able to cheer the young man up. She walked along the ward to Tim’s bed. He was lying
flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. ‘You had a visitor, Flight Lieutenant, a Miss Le Strange. I sent her away. That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ he said, without turning his head. ‘And she’s not Miss, she’s Lady Prudence Le Strange, daughter of the Earl of Winterton.’

‘She’s very pretty.’

‘I know that.’

‘Why wouldn’t you see her?’

‘That’s my business.’

‘Sorry I spoke.’

‘Sorry, Sister. Leave me, will you?’

He dare not turn his head because it brought on the awful nausea, but he knew she had gone from the crackle of her starched apron. He was being looked after and treated like a hero when he was nothing of the sort. Why that raid over Hamburg should be any worse than those that had gone before he did not know, but it had not been the intense cold that had made him freeze, it was the conviction that what he was doing was wrong. His conscience was doing battle with his patriotism and his loyalty to the rest of the crew and he was in a mess.

His salvation had come in the form of a genuinely acceptable complaint. Labyrinthitis, a problem with the inner ear which affected his sense of balance, was common among air crews. It may have been caused by the rarefied atmosphere of the altitude in spite of oxygen masks, or it might have been the swaying and bucking of the aeroplane, which was disorientating, but it was certainly exacerbated by stress. Those suffering from it were immediately taken off active service. What would happen when he was cured, he did not know. More of the same? His crew had been given a temporary navigator and he knew any disruption of an established crew that worked well together was a bad omen. Nearly all aircrew
were superstitious and something like that made them vulnerable. He felt he had let them down badly. And Prue.

The last time he had seen her he had behaved stupidly, telling her what he should have kept to himself, and he felt embarrassed and ashamed. And then to fall asleep on her bed! What she must have thought of him, he hated to think. His plans for a romantic night had ended in farce. He couldn’t face her the following morning and had crept away long before dawn and walked back to Wyton. The letters she had written to him since were full of things she and her friends had done, the concert parties, the films they had seen, the story of the thieving evacuee, anything and everything except any reference to their last meeting. Was she as embarrassed about it as he was? If she saw him now, she would pity him and pity he could not abide. Better to end their romance here and now.

Prue could not understand the letter from Tim. The words were plain enough, but the reason behind them was unfathomable. His conscience had been troubling him, he had written, and it was unfair to her to go on seeing her when nothing could come of it. It would be kinder all round if they had no more contact and this would be his last letter to her. He wished her the very best of luck for her future and sincerely hoped she would find happiness with someone else.

She read it over and over again, then wrote and said she didn’t understand. What had she done wrong? He did not reply. After three weeks of watching for a letter, she realised he had been as good as his word.

‘Men!’ she said to Sheila one afternoon as they were cycling home from work after coming off the early shift. ‘You can’t trust them an inch.’

‘Have you quarrelled with Tim?’

‘No, we haven’t quarrelled. He simply said he didn’t want to see me or write to me again. I can’t believe that’s all there is to it.’

‘How much does it matter to you?’

‘Not at all,’ she said airily. ‘He’s not the only fish in the sea. I’ve had offers.’

‘Oh, and who might that be?’

‘If you must know Hugh Wentworth has been asking me to go out with him for ages. He works in Hut Eight.’

‘I know, I take post to him. He’s a nice man, but it seems to me that going out with someone on the rebound is hardly fair.’

‘All right, clever clogs, what would you do if you were me?’

‘I can’t tell you what to do. Look into your heart, it’s what’s there that counts.’

‘Oh, Sheila, you’re a tonic, you really are. So naïve one minute, so worldly-wise the next.’

‘Stuff!’

They were laughing when they dismounted and wheeled their bicycles round the side of the house to the back shed. ‘What are we going to do this evening?’ Prue queried, as they made their way into the house by the kitchen door.

‘Whatever you like.’

They passed through the kitchen and spoke to Constance who was cooking the evening meal, before going upstairs to their rooms.

‘Let’s go to the pictures. Leslie Howard’s in
Pimpernel Smith.
I’ve heard it’s good.’

In the film Leslie Howard updated his role in the Scarlet Pimpernel to outwit the Nazis and rescue the inmates from concentration camps. It took Prue’s mind off Tim for a little while, but concentrated it on her brother. Had he gone to France? It
would be a highly secret operation if he had and she was unlikely to hear anything of it before the war finished.

The ground came up more quickly than expected and Gilbert landed heavily which for a moment winded him, but he was safely down and no bones broken. He knew his first priority was to leave the field and bury his parachute before Jerry turned up. He sat up, thumped the disc on his chest to unclip the parachute and began rolling it up, hoping as he did so that the men running across the field towards him were friendly. Not far away Esme was busy with her ’chute and, tangled in a bush a little further off, was the canister containing supplies, including Esme’s wireless set, which had been dropped separately.

Two men, dressed in dark clothes, were busy putting out the flares which had guided the Whitley into the dropping zone, two more were untangling the canister from the parachute. He stood up as another approached him. ‘Boris?’

‘
Oui
.’ Gilbert had lived with that code name for weeks until it had become second nature to answer to it. He looked round to find Esme beside him. ‘This is Arlene.’

‘Bon
,’ the man said. ‘I am Jean. Leave the parachutes to the others and come with me. We must be quick.’

They followed their guide across the field, through a patch of woodland and out onto a country road where a small van waited for them. Jean hefted the canister in the back, motioned to Gilbert and Esme to climb in and then joined the driver in the front.

‘That jump in the dark was scary,’ Esme said as they moved off. ‘I couldn’t see the ground at all.’

Esmeralda Favelle, code name Arlene, was five foot nothing, but her slight frame hid a great deal of courage and determination and a quick wit. She was going to need all those in the weeks
to come. As he was. If the powers-that-be had known how he felt about her, they would certainly not have allowed them to work together on the grounds that emotions might interfere with efficiency and, in a tight corner, he might put them both and the whole operation at risk. But he wanted to protect her and he couldn’t do that if they were in different sectors which were forbidden to communicate with each other. He had never told Esme how he felt: it was safer for her not to know. She laughingly called him her partner in crime.

They had met during their early training when they were often paired and he found himself admiring her grit and determination. In one so small, it amazed him. What he had no idea of was what her life had been before she came to SOE. Her cover story was all he was required to know, just as it was all she knew of him. Each knew the other’s real name but that was all. Could love blossom under such circumstances?

Their parachute training had consisted of practice in the hangar from a fan, a descent from a tethered balloon, one daylight drop from an aircraft and one in the dark. That had been after they had gone through rigorous physical training, learning how to kill silently, escape and evade and how to stand up to interrogation if caught, all conducted in French and German, all designed to test their physical and mental fitness to the limit.