The Way Ahead (2 page)

‘Whatever unit they’re in, and whatever they’re doing, I’ll wager they’re giving a good account of themselves,’ he said, and washed down toast with hot tea. ‘Rely on it, Eliza.’ He had always called Lizzy by her baptismal name.

‘I hope you don’t mean Helene is firing guns,’ said Lizzy. ‘Mum’s been saying ever since the start of the war that it’s not natural turning women into soldiers. I admit she goes over the top a bit sometimes, but she’s right generally speaking.’

‘Women in khaki are supportive, not combative,’ said Ned. ‘They don’t take part in battles, and I think you know that, Eliza.’

‘It’s what my commonsense tells me,’ said Lizzy, ‘but Helene’s very independent, and the sort of woman who’d think she could fire a gun as good as Bobby. When we’ve had them staying here, we’ve heard her tell him she’s as good as he is.’

‘Which she is, of course,’ said Ned, ‘but she’s not the same. No woman is the same as a man, and
vice versa
. Look up the biology of the sexes—’

‘Do what?’ said Lizzy.

‘Yes, we’re biologically different,’ said Ned.

‘Are you showing off?’ asked Lizzy.

‘Only a bit,’ said Ned. ‘Helene won’t be firing big guns, Eliza, or be charging at the enemy. She’ll be doing a good job in regimental administration work, or something like that.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Lizzy, as Ned rose from his chair, ‘isn’t she something to do with that special women’s thing?’

‘I could ask what special thing women have got,’ said Ned, ‘but I won’t, in case you mean
that
women’s special thing, and even at my age I can still get embarrassed.’

‘A thick ear is what you’ll get in a minute, my lad,’ said Lizzy. ‘I was talking about that special unit called FANY, and you know I was. What do FANY officers actually do?’

‘Oh, all kinds of work, including driving generals, driving ambulances, or making express deliveries of the choicest cigars to our Prime Minister,’ said Ned. ‘Very special, that, and good luck to the girls and the old boy. Must go now, love. See you on time this evening, if the railways don’t get bombed during the day.’

‘But Hitler hasn’t done any daylight raids for ages, or at night,’ said Lizzy.

‘For which we’re all truly thankful,’ said Ned, ‘but I don’t trust the bleeder.’

‘Now, Ned.’ Lizzy got up.

‘All right, blighter,’ said Ned. ‘And in addition to that, he’s the world’s number one gangster. Now I’m off. So long, Eliza.’ He kissed her. Lizzy detained him for a moment.

‘Ned, I just want to tell you how glad I am we’re seeing this war through together,’ she said. ‘There, now you can go.’

‘You’re still my girl,’ said Ned.

‘I’m glad about that too,’ said Lizzy with soft affection.

While she was washing-up the breakfast things, she thought about her day ahead. She was going
to
Kennington to have Camp coffee with Jemima Hardy, Emma’s very likeable mother-in-law, then on to Walworth to enjoy a light lunch with Rebecca Cooper, adoptive mother of Horace, who was married to Sally, Susie’s sister. And in the afternoon she was going to share a pot of tea with her mum and Susie. Susie and Sammy, whose house had been flattened by a bomb ages ago, were still living in the large family house in Red Post Hill.

For all that she had a full day ahead, Lizzy still couldn’t help wondering and worrying about Bobby and Helene.

The phone rang. Answering it, Lizzy heard her stepfather’s voice.

‘Hello, Dad,’ said Lizzy, ‘what can I do for you?’

‘I’m at the office,’ said Mr Edwin Finch, second husband of Lizzy’s mother and an important cog in the high-powered wheels of British Intelligence. ‘I promised your mother to ring you. She doesn’t trust our own phone at the moment, since she’s convinced it’s in one of its contrary moods. You know, of course, that she still regards it as a new-fangled contraption capable of electrocuting her.’

‘Yes, I do know, Dad,’ said Lizzy, ‘but we can’t do much about her funny little ways. When Boots first bought his car, she didn’t trust that, either. He told her it would get from A to B safe and easy because it had four new-fangled round things. When she asked what they were, he said “Wheels, old girl.” He’s always been his own kind of comedian.’

‘Which we all relish, Lizzy,’ said Mr Finch. ‘Now, I promised to ring you as soon as I reached
the
office, rather than interrupting your breakfast by ringing from home. Your mother wants to know if you’ve heard from Bobby or Helene.’

‘Not a word for ages, Dad,’ said Lizzy. ‘No letter and no phone call. It’s a bit worrying, really.’

‘You’d have heard, Lizzy, if anything had happened to them,’ said Mr Finch reassuringly. He was always in tune with the sentiments, emotions and worries of his wife’s large family. ‘It’s possible that because Helene is French and Bobby speaks the language so well, they’re working on liaison duties with the Free French divisions somewhere.’ Like Ned, Mr Finch suspected the work was with the French Resistance. ‘So don’t worry.’

‘Oh, worries have been everyday things for all of us since the war started,’ said Lizzy, ‘and we have to live with them, don’t we?’

‘It helps to some extent, living with them,’ said Mr Finch. ‘My love to you, Lizzy, and my regards to Ned. Goodbye now.’

‘Goodbye, Dad, and bless you,’ said Lizzy, and put the phone down. Going back to her kitchen, she again wondered about Bobby and Helene, where they were and what they were doing.

WHEN THE ALLIES
invaded Italy in September, Hitler ordered the whole of France to be occupied, and the Vichy Government, tolerated on the basis that it would co-operate with Berlin, found itself a puppet stripped even of its clothes.

At this moment, the SS and Gestapo establishment in the department of Marne was in a state of fury. With the war now going badly for Hitler on the Russian front, and American and British bombers wreaking havoc on German industry, the French Resistance was becoming bolder, and a group had succeeded in effecting the hold-up and capture of
Standartenfuehrer
(Colonel) Furstein and his deputy,
Sturmbannfuehrer
(Major) Grasse. Their car, driven by an NCO, came round a bend on its way into Epernay to find a bicycle lying in the road, a woman sprawled beside it, her face apparently a mask of blood, and a man kneeling beside her, trying to help her. Naturally, the compassion of Herr
Standartenfuehrer
induced him to tell the driver to stop. As soon as the car came to a standstill, a body of men and women materialized to surround it. It
was
a plant, a hold-up by obvious partisans, who threatened the occupants with British Sten guns. The driver was knocked unconscious, pulled out of the car and dumped on the verge, while
Standartenfuehrer
Furstein and
Sturmbannfuehrer
Grasse were speedily hand-tied and gagged. Three of the scoundrels crowded into the car and it was driven away. The driver subsequently reported the hold-up and what had happened to himself. Being unconscious he did not know what had happened to the officers.

A telephone call from one of the insolent partisans to the German headquarters in Epernay established the fact that both officers were being held as hostages against the release of six Resistance men and women who were under interrogation. The release was granted on orders from Paris.

Immediately, as the fleeing Resistance group anticipated, the area became thick with SS men, Gestapo officers and pro-German French police, who flung out a wide cordon in their determination to lay violent hands on the swines, and to retake the released prisoners.

The Resistance group was led by a man called Roget, and included two very useful and experienced SOE agents from London, code names Maurice and Lynette respectively. Bobby and Helene, in fact. This was their fourth mission to France, and each had been prolonged and dangerous. However, because Roget knew the area as well as he knew the shape of an apple, it did not prove difficult for his group to break through the enemy ring at night, and by morning they were on a barge
carrying
potatoes up the Marne river to the German garrison in Epernay.

The bargee had an escort, two German soldiers, as was usual on river craft carrying supplies earmarked for Hitler’s occupying forces. Swinish French partisans had a stinking habit of boarding a barge, removing the cargo and sinking the vessel. Several of the German hunters, SS men, arriving at the river, hailed the escort from the bank, shouting questions about escaping partisans. One soldier shouted back that nothing had been seen of them.

‘You are sure?’

‘Yes! Totally!’

‘Well, damn you for your blindness!’

‘We aren’t blind, we can’t afford to be!’

‘Then keep your eyes open!’

‘Of course!’

‘Shoot on sight! Not to kill, but to bring them down! We want the swines alive! You hear, you hear?’

‘Yes! Loud and clear!’

The barge went on, under sail, its engine out of action due to a serious lack of fuel. Germany was producing only half of what it needed to maximize its war effort. The Allied bombing raids were causing disastrous damage to sources of supply.

The hunting SS patrol raced along the bank to hail a following barge that was a dot in the distance. The two soldiers on the first vessel winked at each other, and the bargee showed a smile. All three were Roget’s men, one a 1940 refugee from Alsace, a Frenchman who spoke perfect German. The genuine bargee and his undressed German escort
lay
trussed and blindfolded below, Roget, Helene, Bobby and the rest of the group keeping them close company.

The barge went on until dusk arrived, when the bow was grounded at a place gloomy with marsh and devoid of inhabitants. But it was also devoid of Germans. The partisans and the SOE agents disembarked, booted feet disappearing into the marsh. The stern of the barge swung in clear water, and all together, they pushed the bow sideways until the vessel floated off and caught the tide, taking the trussed bargee and German soldiers with it, as well as the potatoes.

Roget, using a torch, led the way, the marsh sucking at them for two hundred yards before their feet began to tread firmer ground.

‘I am soaked,’ breathed Helene.

‘So are my feet,’ said Bobby.

‘I meant my feet,’ said Helene.

‘A small price to pay, my infant.’

‘Ah, yes, the luck was ours, but who is an infant?’

‘Slip of the tongue, considering your qualifications,’ murmured Bobby. Helene was tall, strong-bodied and robust.

‘Never mind, you are always very English, and I like you for that. How glad I am you were not born a German, a Nazi Boche.’

‘We can both thank my parents for that.’

Whispers mutually encouraging ran up and down the line of trekking men and women, boots squelching but spirits high. Roget took them on sure-footedly, and they melted into the darkness, heading for their primitive hideout in the hills to
prepare
for an operation even more audacious than the one just accomplished.

Helene’s hand touched Bobby’s. He took it, she squeezed his fingers. She was far from her parents, he far from his family, but they had each other, and they had Roget and their other French comrades.

Mid-April

A TRAM TRAVELLING
along the Walworth Road from the Elephant and Castle came to a stop at East Street. An Army sergeant alighted in company with a young lady, he limping a bit from a gammy knee, she lithe of limbs and colourful of dress, and accordingly a fetching picture of approaching summer on this warm spring day.

‘Old home ground, Emma,’ observed Sergeant Jonathan Hardy, gunnery instructor to recruits at a Royal Artillery training camp.

‘For my family as well as yours,’ said his wife Emma, younger daughter of Lizzy and Ned Somers, and much like her mother in her attractive looks, especially in respect of her chestnut hair and brown eyes. Her face was tanned. So was Jonathan’s. She worked on a farm not far from his training camp in Somerset, and the open air of that rural county had made its healthy mark on them. ‘Mum and her brothers were all born and brought up in Walworth,’ she said.

‘But well gone by the time my family arrived from Sussex,’ said Jonathan, a tough sergeant and playful husband. He was twenty-five, and owned the kind of physique much admired by Emma. It has to be said that he was even more admiring of her feminine line and form. Ergo, what she liked about him and what he liked about her led to very agreeable marital togetherness. They were always able to meet once a week, on either Saturday or Sunday, and to make use of Emma’s room at the farmhouse.

They were an engaging couple, Jonathan’s habit of lapsing into rural Sussex dialect often sending Emma potty, provoking her into having her own back by taking him off or belabouring him with rolled-up magazines. Sometimes, during their moments of agreeable togetherness, a teasing urge to take him off would rise above her palpitations, and she’d say, albeit throatily, ‘Be that your tin leg rattling, Jonathan?’

Jonathan, wounded in action in 1941, had been fixed up with a metal knee joint. It left him with his limp, but he appealed successfully against the possibility of being discharged, and won himself a posting as a sergeant gunnery instructor down in the county he called Zummerzet.

He was on seven days’ leave, and Emma’s employers, a farmer and his wife, had given her the week off to be with her soldier husband. They were presently staying with his parents, having spent their first three days at her parental home.

The light of the Saturday afternoon was kind to old Walworth, softening the smoky grey of its Victorian buildings and brightening shop windows.
The
main road, bustling with traffic, did not seem to have suffered too badly from air raids, but Emma and Jonathan had come across heavy damage elsewhere. Many streets of solid terraced houses were rent with jagged gaps.

‘Come on, Jonathan,’ said Emma, ‘let’s see what the market’s like these days.’ The East Street market, known as the Lane, was still functioning, despite severe shortages of fruit and vegetables. It had been a favourite pre-war shopping place for Jemima Hardy, Jonathan’s mother, and for Emma’s much revered grandmother, known as Chinese Lady, in long-gone years.