Harvey sighed, put his feet in their highly polished handmade shoes on to the desk in front of him, and took another look into his metaphorical net.
Still only tiddlers, he mused privately. Where are the big boys, one wonders? Where oh where oh where?
In spite of his intense effort to unearth the caochán all roads seemed to be turning into cul-desacs. Yes, he reminded himself this very morning when he was assessing the situation, one has had plenty of good leads and some of them looked as though they were going to prove to be very productive. Yet they had not – they had all ended in apparent dead ends, leaving Harvey Constable as nonplussed as he had been when he embarked on his covert investigation. People meeting people was all very well, but unless he could produce hard evidence that they were involved in sedition and treachery such people remained simply on the suspects list.
Admiring the craftmanship that had gone into making such a perfect pair of brogues, he turned his toes first inwards and then slowly outwards as if his feet were enjoying a private dance of their own while he ran an imaginary finger down his imaginary list of not so imaginary suspects, only to find himself sighing again with deep internal dismay. All the connections he had tried to make between certain parties were specious and based purely on supposition. That was his major disappointment. He had – as was his way – been utterly diligent in his detective work, not only examining the histories of all persons who had access to Top Secret information but following so many of them that he had practically gone round in circles. He had genuinely supposed that by now he would have come up with the culprit or culprits. Such was not the case. At the moment, other than having a list of several suspects he was empty-handed and apparently no nearer the truth.
He had therefore decided to broaden the scope of his enquiries and take a look at people he considered to be above suspicion. After all, he reasoned, those closest to the throne are often those with the most reason to betray, because sometimes they feel that they should be the ones wearing the crown.
He began with Anthony Folkestone, although, of all the people he was about to put under scrutiny, in his personal consideration the major and Jack Ward had to be the least likely to be involved in any treachery. That, however, was not the impression Anthony got when he found himself at the end of one of what Harvey Constable called his little chats.
‘That thing on your wall behind you, Major,’ Harvey said, nodding at Anthony’s map cabinet. ‘One has to assume, from the locking device on the front and the substance of what can only be described as a third rate piece of woodwork, that it contains highly confidential information.’
‘You would be perfectly correct in your assumption, Captain,’ Anthony replied, deliberately using Harvey’s army rank in order to maintain the proper protocol, a device that also enabled him not to be visibly or audibly riled by his interviewer’s overtly sarcastic tone. ‘I being the only person with a key.’
Harvey looked at him, raised one quizzical eyebrow, took something from the top pocket of his jacket and positioned himself so that he stood in front of the locked cupboard with his back to Anthony.
‘Not a very good lock I’d say, wouldn’t you agree?’
He stood aside to reveal the doors of the cupboard swinging open, exposing all the highly confidential information within.
‘You have a skeleton key, Captain?’
‘I have a piece of wire, Major. As used by professional burglars. The sort of lock you’ve employed is child’s play to them.’
‘Perhaps so, Captain. But then we’re not in the habit of employing professional burglars in MI5.’
‘On the contrary, Major. It is part of many an agent’s training. The ignoble art of pilfering. I should imagine that a very high percentage of bogeys, as the Colonel will insist on calling them, who sit here being briefed by your good self could open and close this cupboard the minute your back was turned.’
‘When I am not present in my offices, Captain, they are kept locked at all times, particularly this one – the inner sanctum, if you will.’
‘The very same criticism applies, Major. It would take one of your fully trained agents but a moment to be in and out of here with what they need to know. If they weren’t able to do so, then I would question their necessary skills very closely.’
Anthony regarded him steadily, but was unable to comment on an observation with which he found he had fully to agree.
‘I shall have maintenance build a much more secure cabinet, Captain. I shall commission it today.’
‘I should not mount or keep any visible display at all, if I were you, Major. Other than in your head, or in a properly secured filing cabinet. I am sure you understand?’
‘Filing cabinets are also lockable devices, Captain, if you recall,’ Anthony said, containing the small smile of triumph that threatened to appear. ‘So the selfsame criticism would govern them too, I should imagine.’
Harvey glanced at him briefly then strolled to the window to look out, hands clasped behind his back, fingers flapping up and down like a butterfly’s wings. Then he suddenly laughed, and shook his head.
‘The trouble with anything like this is that all the time one lives on the very cusp of farce, don’t you find?’ he said, turning back to Anthony and strolling across the room to retake his seat by the desk. ‘You’re absolutely right, of course. If my dedicated thief can get into your map cupboard he can just as easily get into your filing cabinet, or even – although with a lot more difficulty – possibly into your safe, since I imagine that like everyone else you keep the papers you finally don’t want anyone to see under proper lock and key.’
‘I’m not really prepared to answer that question, Captain. I think you understand the reason why.’
‘If it’s a matter of discretion—’
‘It’s a matter of protocol, Captain. As I am sure you will appreciate.’
‘It’s a matter of you trying to put me in my place, I’m beginning to think, Major.’
‘I can’t say I enjoy having my integrity questioned. Nor my loyalty.’
‘I am simply doing what is required of me. What is required of you – as you are quite well aware, Major – is that you will say nothing of this interview afterwards. Because this interview has not happened.’
‘I am perfectly well aware of that, Captain. But that does not prevent me from expressing my opinion. And my feeling is that I strongly resent being under this sort of suspicion.’
‘And I assure you that you are not alone in your sense of righteous indignation, Major. There is not one single person under the roof of this wonderful house who is not under suspicion.’
‘Does that include your good self, I wonder? Captain?’
‘Knowing the ways of the Colonel, Major, I am quite sure I come pretty high on his list. After all, in some departments and by certain people I am not regarded as the right sort of material myself. Certain parties would be only too happy if they could build a case against me and have me removed from the Service. But that is really neither here nor there. We have to leave aside any sense of grievance. I am quite sure the Colonel has already informed you that we have a very serious breach of security here, and we must discover how this information is being leaked. It is vital. More than vital.’
‘Rather you than me, Captain. Now if that will be all, I have some rather important work to get on with.’
‘Moi aussi, Major. And quite off the record – at this stage of proceedings, any help would be most welcome. Good day.’
Harvey collected his notes, files and books and with a polite smile to Anthony left him to get on with the business he had in hand. In the outer office Miss Budge wished him a polite good day, which Harvey acknowledged with a nod before placing his files on her desk and pulling up a chair to sit down opposite her.
‘A few general questions, Miss Budge,’ he explained. ‘We haven’t really talked to each other, have we? If you would be kind enough to spare me a little of your precious time?’
Harvey deliberately gave her no chance to reply, since the question was academic, Miss Budge having no choice in the matter. He then explained that everything they discussed was of course highly confidential and covered by the OS Act, and forbade her to talk to anyone else about these matters after he had finished with her. He also informed her in general terms of the enquiry he was conducting, without specifying the exact reason for the investigation.
‘I have asked that we are not disturbed during this interview,’ Harvey told her, opening a file in front of him. ‘Marjorie is in full charge of affairs while we’re talking, so you don’t have to worry yourself with any administration. I see from your records that before the outbreak of war you worked for the Service in the field, as an active agent operating in Spain, Germany and France. That is correct, is it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Miss Budge replied, her hands folded neatly in her lap. ‘I worked undercover in all three countries.’
‘Spending most of your time in France.’
‘I had quite a long term in Germany too, sir. Trying to identify any possible sympathisers.’
‘Dangerous work.’
‘I think most field work is that, sir. Although oddly enough I felt more at risk in France, since I was never utterly sure quite whose side certain of the French bourgeoisie were really on.’
‘I know just what you mean,’ Harvey agreed with a polite smile. ‘Although once you make friends in France, you make them for life.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Did you make any friends in France?’
‘Not really, sir. But then I’m not a very gregarious type. I don’t have many friends. In fact I sometimes think I prefer dogs, sir. Been like that ever since I was a little girl.’
‘Quite right too, Miss Budge. I’m a cat person myself.’ Harvey smiled again and then consulted his file once more. ‘You were a highly regarded agent, Miss Budge. All sorts of good mentions here – and recommendations.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘If you hadn’t been so badly injured in the field . . . ?’
‘I hope I would still be active, sir,’ Miss Budge replied without hesitation. ‘In fact I would very much hope so, sir.’
‘It was your idea to apply for a desk job?’
‘I was recommended, as it happened.’
‘Says here you applied.’
‘I had to make a formal application, sir. That’s perfectly correct. But I was recommended to do so by my Section Head.’
‘None other than our Miss Lavington, I see.’
‘Sir.’
‘You were pretty badly hurt in that scrap, were you not?’
‘I mended, sir.’
‘Broken leg, shot twice, once through the chest, once in the back. Took a bit of mending, I’d say. In fact I see here you were off games for nearly a year.’
‘I suffered some problems, sir. So I was told. Took some time to mend.’
‘Yes,’ Harvey agreed. ‘That’s in your report as well. Hardly surprising. Being betrayed isn’t the most comfortable of experiences. Nor I imagine is being shot in the back.’
‘My fault really. I should have seen that one coming, sir.’
‘Your betrayer. He was – as the French have it – a copin?’
‘He was someone I had been working with for some time, yes. Although this wasn’t in France, sir. This was in Germany.’
‘But your companion in arms was a Frenchman. Was he not?’
‘Quite correct, sir. Hervé Dumas.’
‘Working undercover – like yourself – as a German.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Harvey sat back for a moment to stare intentionally into space, lighting himself a cigarette as he did so.
‘How come he got to shoot you in the back, Miss Budge?’
‘Because he was a rat, sir. It happened at a rendezvous – a meeting I had with someone – a German – someone I was quite sure was a British sympathiser – and it was a trap. I had no idea Hervé was even there. But he was – and I was caught between them both, one in front, one behind. And then Hervé shot my contact – betrayed us both, in fact.’
‘You were lucky to escape.’
‘I only escaped because I killed Dumas.’
‘Even though he had shot you first. From behind.’
‘He came round in front of me, sir. After I had fallen. I fell all the way down the stairs.’
‘Ah,’ Harvey said. ‘It doesn’t say anything about that here. It’s a little bare – as these reports are inclined to be. It simply says you sustained two bullet wounds and a broken leg in an engagement with the enemy.’
‘I understand, sir.’
Harvey noted that Miss Budge had turned quite white at the recollection, and that her whole body seemed to be trembling.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I know this must be quite wretched for you.’
‘It’s all right, sir. It’s just that I haven’t really spoken about it since my return to the fold. As I was saying, Dumas came down the stairs and round in front of me, as I was lying on the floor. I think he assumed I was dead – and to make sure he was going to put another bullet into me anyway. He can’t have seen my gun or he’d have delivered his coup de grâce. As it was he gave me just enough time to shoot him, which I did.’
‘And well done too,’ Harvey said, closing the folder. ‘Little wonder you came to your desk job so highly recommended.’
‘Thank you, sir. But it’s no substitute for the real thing,’ she replied, permitting herself a smile for the first time. ‘I’ve always been a bit of a loner, sir.’ She stopped. ‘It can be a little too social at Eden Park.’
‘I’m sure. But my advice to you is to stick it out, because although I’m quite sure you find your job boring compared to being in the field, we’re not going to be able to win this wretched war without a bit of pen pushing. I know what I’m talking about. They’ve stuck me behind a desk indefinitely as well. So I know how you feel.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Harvey reopened her file as if to check something.
‘You went home to convalesce, right? Oop north?’
‘My parents live in Lancashire, sir. Little spot called Whitewell. Do you know the Trough of Bowland, sir? One of the loveliest places in England, I say.’
‘I’ve fished there many times, Miss Budge. Couldn’t agree with you more. So – thank you for your time,’ Harvey said, rising. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’
‘I don’t see how, sir. With respect.’
‘By answering so very truthfully, Miss Budge. And economically.’ Harvey sighed, tapping his files into order on the desk. ‘I can’t tell you how long-winded some people can be. You can always tell the people who aren’t quite telling the truth, because they do go on so. So thank you again – for your economy, and accuracy.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Miss Budge got up to open the door for her interviewer.
‘I see you had a dog when you were in Germany,’ Harvey said, stopping in the open doorway. ‘You had to leave him behind, did you?’
It was the only time in the entire interview Harvey actually saw Miss Budge left speechless. She blinked her eyes hard, a frown clouding her brow as if she was searching for exactly the right words to say, hurt in her eyes.
‘Yes, sir,’ she finally replied after clearing her throat nervously. ‘I’m afraid I did. It was something I regretted very much, but there was no alternative.’
‘Of course not,’ Harvey agreed, noting the pain still visible in her eyes. ‘How could there be? Again, my thanks – and perhaps one day soon you’ll be able to get yourself another little dog. When this wretched war is over.’
‘Absolutely, sir,’ Miss Budge replied, her composure restored. ‘Peace can’t come a day too soon.’
* * *
After a cup of insipid tea taken in his private office, Harvey considered his next move. There were four names he needed to look at, two of them being Eugene Hackett and Jack Ward himself, who even though already marked down by Harvey as an AS (Above Suspicion) Harvey knew still had to be included in the investigation for it to be said that he had done a thorough job. Besides, Harvey had actually noted a couple of blips in the Colonel’s record that merited further investigation, particularly since one of those blips linked him directly to one of the two other names on his list.
Harvey cleared his desk and prepared to enter what he hoped might be the last phase of his enquiry.
To Scott – and to Lily too – it seemed there was only one way their task could have gone so terribly wrong. They had been betrayed.
How they had escaped with their lives neither of them knew; nor did they understand, as they lay in silence in the dark at the very top of a remote hay barn in the middle of what Scott described as France nowhere, how they were still at liberty. It had been such a simple operation, or so it had seemed. They were to collect the latest drop from home. Two debutante agents had been sent to take their places, and a safe return to England organised for Lily and Scott. They were to escort them to their safe house, introduce them to the team of Resistance fighters with whom Scott and Lily were now heavily involved, and help them plan the next campaign of sabotage against the enemy stationed in Valognes, southeast of Cherbourg, in the Manche. The team with which Scott and Lily were associated was regarded as one of the crack Resistance units operating in the northwestern sector of France, where they had fought a long and on the whole highly successful campaign against the Germans with the loss of only three members of the twenty-strong group.
Fortunately, given the circumstances of the war and the knowledge of what happened to those who fell into the hands of the Gestapo, all three had been killed in a running gunfight with the enemy, the rest of the group happily escaping with only minimal damage. Furthermore, they had shaken off their pursuers with predictable ease since this was their country, disappearing into the vast countryside without leaving a trace, disbanding as was their habit whenever they ran into difficulties, and taking flight to various bolt-holes in Calvados, Orne or even a couple of them as far south as Maine-et-Loire.
But this time, with this new drop, things went badly wrong from the very outset. First of all, at the very last minute the location was changed. After frantic messaging back and forth to HQ it was discovered that this information was false and had obviously been fed to them by a double agent. The drop was postponed for a week until a new and safe location could be organised. In fact it took less than a week, and four days later ten of the team were in position round the perimeter of a field in the middle of a large stretch of farmland fifteen miles inland from Coutances, awaiting the arrival of what Scott had dubbed the new bugs.
The plane bringing them over arrived three minutes late, dropping two parachuted people and four parachuted sets of fresh supplies right on target.
The two agents were shot when they were still a good twenty feet in the air, their dead bullet-riddled bodies crashing to the ground, to be covered by their slowly collapsing parachutes. At the same time as the sudden burst of lethal gunfire the whole dropping area was set alight by flares and hand-held floodlights, the latter being used to search the field and its immediate environs in slow sweeping movements. Once the lights had temporarily passed him by Scott had been able to see that they were surrounded on all four sides by Germans who outnumbered them, Scott roughly guessed, by ten to one at the very least. Not only that, but the Germans had crept up from behind them, unheard and unseen, having obviously successfully removed the sentries the Resistance group had posted against such a contingency, thus cutting them off it would seem from any line of retreat.
‘The ditch!’ Lily whispered at Scott, who was preparing to fight what he considered was very definitely going to be his last fight. ‘We might be able to make it back through the ditch!’
Lily had remembered the long, filthy, stinking, but deep irrigation ditch that they had used on their way to take up their waiting positions hidden in the high banks and hedgerows that surrounded the field. Where it ran to she had no idea, other than that it ran away from the field and the heart of the farmland. It was deep enough to hide a person at full height, and if they managed to stay concealed there was an outside chance that they could make their escape that way, always provided the enemy was ignorant of its existence and its disposition.
‘How many of us can we alert?’ Scott had to shout back to her now, so cacophonous was the sudden outbreak of rifle fire. ‘Can we all get out that way?’
Lily had no idea – all she knew was that there were six of them on that side of the field and if she could pass the message on to her nearest companion, who was a good fifty feet away, he might be able to get word to his closest colleague. That was not only the best she could hope; it was all. She said nothing of course to Scott, whom she left to concentrate on his self-defence while she scrambled under heavy fire along the bank until she could shout to Yves who was fighting next to her. There was no time to wait for any reply or signal since the line of fire was becoming more and more concentrated on the area where she was, as well as getting uncomfortably nearer. Instead Lily somersaulted three or four times along the bottom of the bank, before crawling as fast as she could for the next few feet and finally standing up and running to where she could still see Scott, up on one knee and firing as fast as he could with his rifle at the ever closing enemy.
The next moment she had bundled him into the ditch with her, both of them flattening themselves in the mud and filth at the very bottom. Seconds later another body crashed down, half on top of Scott and burying him even more deeply in the mud.
The three fighters lay as still as they could until they heard the gunfire receding, then stopping, only to start up again as other targets were suddenly spotted. When it was clear that the enemy’s attention was engaged elsewhere, Scott, Lily and Yves began to crawl through the mud and debris, away from the sound of the ambush, until they were a good quarter of a mile away. Then they risked standing up in order to hasten the last part of their flight and ran as fast as they could along the deep cutting, their heads still well out of sight, until so distant had any noise of the hand-fight become that they felt it safe to stop and assess their situation.
They found themselves at what was obviously the end of a track, a lane that was terminated by the deep ditch that continued to run away into the darkness on either side. Yves pulled out his pocket compass and peered at it in the moonlight, the luminous figures giving him a position he then checked by the stars in the clear night sky above them.
‘I would say we are very well placed,’ he remarked. ‘We have come in the opposite direction to the nearest town, so we are facing due south. What we must now do is split up and find somewhere to lie low until those that are left of us can regroup – God willing – back at base.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Scott disagreed. ‘I don’t think we should return to base – in case they have taken any of us alive.’
‘No one will talk!’ Yves protested. ‘But no one!’
‘Just in case, my good friend. We cannot rely altogether on the undoubted courage of our colleagues. All the Gestapo have to do is find a way to make you talk – and they do. Not necessarily by torture, but by the involvement of innocents. We know that, Yves. We have seen it too often.’
Yves thought, then nodded. Just as Scott said, battle-scarred as they all were now, they had indeed seen and heard of things that they had never imagined they would witness. Just the threat of the execution of six totally innocent civilians, often women and children, would be enough to make any of their colleagues reveal the location of a base that they hoped and believed would now be both empty and deserted. No one could be blamed even if the place whose location they betrayed was still in use. Pain could be tolerated. The death of innocent women and children was an altogether harder thing to take. So they reasoned, while in all three hearts lay the heavy dread that in fact they might actually be the only survivors.
Before they parted, Yves promised to let them know, via one of the safe third parties their group used as messengers, what had happened to his cousin Rolande, who had been among the ill-fated reception committee at the landing field.
‘If anyone comes through this it’ll be Rolande,’ Lily assured him. ‘And even if he doesn’t, you can bet the German army’s going to be short of an awful lot of its soldiers.’
Yves grinned, kissed Lily a fond farewell and embraced Scott.
‘Whatever happens,’ he said before he disappeared into the night, ‘when peace comes we shall meet in Paris and get fiercely drunk, my friends! Au revoir!’
Lily and Scott thought long and hard about whether or not they should separate, finally deciding that the best plan would be to wait and see. They knew how intense the search for them would be, since their group had been hunted hard and endlessly ever since the Germans discovered how much damage they were doing. There was a big price on all their heads, and while they knew they were in a fiercely loyal part of France, they also knew that as in any country there were always informers and rats, people who would sell their birthright to the enemy for a guarantee of their own safety. So they knew it was useless just to hide up. They had to keep low but keep moving, always not one but half a dozen steps ahead of their pursuers, who were experienced hunters dressed in civilian clothes and often driving French cars, but always when seen on the move unmistakably German – and not only German but Gestapo.
So throughout December Scott and Lily stayed together but kept on the move. They were protected whenever possible by members of the Underground, put up at great risk to their courageous hosts, although they always made sure they moved in under cover of dark and out again before sunup, criss-crossing the country until finally they found themselves exhausted and all but at their wits’ ends. What finally brought them to their senses was the first sight of a poster bearing both their more than recognisable images. Not just one, but suddenly a whole plethora of posters stuck it seemed everywhere they went. Most of them were torn down as soon as they were posted, or so badly defaced that subsequent identification of Scott and Lily would have been miraculous. Not that the Gestapo would mind, as Scott pointed out when first they saw the posters. The idea was to let Scott and Lily know that the Gestapo knew what they looked like, which perhaps might be enough to disconcert them and throw them off balance. A secondary aim was to spread the word a lot more widely that there was good money to be claimed for their betrayal.
‘Time to split,’ Scott decided some time into January when they were huddled under rough blankets in an old abandoned hen house of a farm on the outskirts of a tiny village ten miles east of Ernée in the Mayenne district. Scott had already dyed his blond hair black as well as growing an equally blackened moustache, while Lily had cut her hair so short that she looked like a boy. But they both knew that however good their immediate disguises the time had passed for them to stay together on the run. As it was they felt they had taken unnecessary risks by staying together, jeopardising each other’s safety as well as the possible security of their Resistance colleagues by making it easier for themselves to be identified and picked up. The plan was that they would make their separate ways up to Isigny on the Calvados coast, where Rolande and Yves had originally set up their group’s first base. The house had been unoccupied by anyone known to belong to the Underground since the group had decanted itself to carry out its sabotages on the Cherbourg peninsula, but had always been kept ready for any member who became detached from his colleagues, or needed safe housing. How Scott and Lily got there would be entirely up to their own inventiveness and resourcefulness.
‘But to make it more fun,’ Scott suggested, ‘how about a little side bet? As to who gets there first.’
‘Great idea,’ Lily said, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. ‘What’s the pot?’
‘Fifty quid to first runner home.’
‘Fifty quid?’ Lily laughed. ‘I ain’t got fifty quid, Captain Stuffy! Tell you what I could do, though – if by any chance I lose.’
She looked at him by the light of a candle stub in an old food tin and then softly whispered in his ear.
Scott smiled and raised an eyebrow. ‘I’d better make sure you win then,’ he whispered back. ‘Hadn’t I?’
Eugene failed to make it home in time for Christmas, as Kate expected. He failed to make it home through January either, being moved from Burleigh Hospital up to Bristol where they were pioneering new treatments for broken backs and necks. After further treatment there he was finally allowed to return to Eden Park at the beginning of February, coinciding with the failure of the Allies to win the second battle of Monte Cassino.
‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ Eugene growled at Kate from over the top of the latest neck brace they had fitted him with a week before he had finally left hospital. ‘When I left Italy we were winning the damned war hand over fist. Now we’re stuck at the bottom of some blessed monastery fighting for our lives.’
‘It’ll be OK, Eugene,’ Kate comforted him, settling him into his chair by the window of his flat so that he could look out over the stable yard, only to be met with one of Eugene’s blackest looks.
‘You think I want to sit here?’ he demanded. ‘And watch Micky riding my fellow out every day? And wish I was up in the saddle again? No thank you, Katie – I’m not sitting stuck in front of a damn window like some old war relic! I’ll sit by the fire and read, if you don’t mind.’
‘I thought you said you still found reading difficult? Holding the book up in front of your face for ages—’
‘Let me be the judge of that, will you! Now hand me over Portrait of the Artist, there’s a good girl. And that bottle of whisky too, while you’re at it.’
‘You’re not meant to drink. At least I didn’t think you were – because of the medicines they’ve put you on.’
‘Jesus, woman! You’ll be telling me what to think next! I’m allowed one drink, of course. So pass over the damn’ bottle and a glass and take your scolding elsewhere.’
‘One drink.’
‘I said one drink, didn’t I?’ Eugene retorted, settling himself in his repositioned chair. ‘And that’s all I’ll be having. One drink.’
‘At a time,’ Kate smiled. ‘Knowing you.’
For a second Eugene regarded her without a smile. Then, unable to resist, he clicked his tongue, rolled his eyes heavenwards and held out a hand.
‘Come here,’ he commanded. ‘Sit on me knee but mind me blessed neck.’
‘I will not sit on your knee because I’m far too concerned about your blessed neck, Eugene, thanks all the same. I shall put a kiss on my finger, put my finger to your lips, then I shall sit here like the obedient little two-shoes you want me to be, and watch you having your one drink.’
‘You can read to me if you’d rather,’ Eugene growled. ‘Because you’re damn’ well right about it being tiring holding the book up. So unless you’ve something better to do—’
‘I have nothing better to do for at least a couple of hours,’ Kate replied, opening the book at the appointed place. ‘Then I have to go out.’
‘What do you mean, you have to go out?’
‘Sit down, Eugene, will you? Sit down!’ Kate gave a great big sigh and gently eased Eugene back down in his chair. ‘It’s not the end of the world if I go out, you know. When you were in hospital you didn’t know what I was up to and you didn’t mind.’
‘That’s all you know, precious.’
‘You couldn’t mind because you didn’t know because I wasn’t up to anything. But I did go out – not with anyone, I just went out. For drinks with my friends, for walks with Poppy and George, to go and have tea with my mother sometimes – but occasionally I do admit I did walk out with a member of the opposite sex.’
‘I suppose you think this is funny, do you?’
‘Mind you,’ Kate continued, ‘I’m not quite sure you’d think of him as a member of the opposite sex. I made friends with Captain Constable.’
‘Oh you did, did you?’ Eugene frowned.
There was a pause as he mulled over the idea.
‘He’s not interested in women, so I will lift my embargo on him, anyway.’ Eugene regarded her bleakly.
‘What’s wrong with him in any case? One of your great literary heroes, Oscar Wilde—’
‘Yes, all right! All right!’ Eugene interrupted. ‘I’m jealous of anyone you go out with. So who are you going out with tonight?’
‘No one,’ Kate replied. ‘My mother’s coming down for the weekend. Apparently she’s got things she wants to talk to me about, and since I can’t get up to town, and she has a bit of leave due—’
‘I’ll forgive you your mother. I forgive anyone who had anything to do with the creation of you.’ He sighed.
‘Hurry up and mend, will you? I’m not a great one for just blowing kisses.’ Kate too sighed.
Anthony thought long and hard about his proposition, long before he voiced it. He agonised over whether or not he should discuss it with Marjorie, before finally realising that were he to do so he would without a doubt be talked out of it, and thus be deprived of the chance of seeing a particularly bold dodge that Jack and he had thought up through to its conclusion.
‘Billy,’ he said one morning, when he had finally made up his mind. ‘I need a word with you, in complete confidence.’
Billy made sure the door was firmly shut before crossing to the desk that was situated well out of earshot of the office next door. Ever since he had begun working directly for Major Folkestone he had become totally obsessed with security, developing a routine of checking and double-checking that was beginning to drive Marjorie half mad. Before he went to bed the entire cottage would be checked, with Billy making sure all the doors were properly bolted and the windows secured, and he insisted on vetting any mail that came directly to the cottage itself, often even checking the contents of private letters with his famous spying instrument in case there should be something volatile.
Marjorie often confronted him, demanding to know where he imagined the dangers might be coming from, but all Billy would do was shake his head and mutter, ‘OS Act, Marge. You should know better than that.’ For of course now that he was actually working in security, Billy saw himself as a walking information centre, someone full to the brim with classified information and therefore a ready target for enemy spies and the like. Marjorie twigged this without being told, and first of all tried teasing Billy out of it, only to find that he greatly resented not being taken seriously. Next she tried to reason with him, as gently as Marjorie was capable of reasoning, only to find herself likewise rebuked and rebuffed. Finally she gave up and just took to sighing and expostulating whenever Billy indulged himself in one of what he called his Security Checks.
‘I have a job for you, Billy,’ Anthony told him as Billy stood smartly in front of his desk, at ease, but not easy. ‘If you don’t think you’re—’ The major just stopped himself in time, having been about to say if Billy didn’t think he was quite up to it. ‘If you don’t think it’s right for you,’ he corrected himself, ‘just say. I’ll quite understand since you’re relatively new to this game and this could be quite an undertaking.’
‘Understood, sir,’ Billy replied, having mentally already accepted the challenge. ‘Fire ahead.’
Anthony looked down at the papers on his desk in order to hide his smile of genuine pleasure, albeit one tinged with an undercurrent of anxiety. He had grown very fond of Billy, seeing him now not so much as a son figure but as a possible brother-in-law – if he found out that Marjorie felt the same way about him as he felt about her. Then he stopped smiling when the reality of what he was about to propose hit him once again. It was a highly dangerous mission, one that could endanger the young man’s very existence. Billy, of course, came to his rescue, as usual.
‘If you’re having second thoughts, sir, don’t,’ he said. ‘I’m game for anything, sir. You know that. I wouldn’t have been so bloomin’ keen to sign up, would I, sir? If I hadn’t calculated the risks.’
‘You’re quite right, Billy,’ Anthony replied. ‘And I’m having no second thoughts whatsoever. I know perfectly well that not only will you be game for what I’m about to propose to you but you’ll succeed triumphantly. This is something right up your street, young man.’
When Billy heard what was planned for him, he was thrilled, excited and proud. The major was right. It was something right up his street.
‘You can’t tell me anything at all?’ Marjorie echoed in dismay, even though she knew perfectly well just how sealed Billy’s lips were. ‘You could give me some sort of indication, surely?’
‘You know better than that, Marge,’ Billy replied, checking through the items he would need and was allowed to take. ‘All I can tell you is I have to go away for a while, and that is it. Sorry.’
‘Oh, God, Billy,’ Marjorie suddenly sighed. ‘What have I got you into?’
‘You in’t – you haven’t got me into anything, sis,’ Billy said, sitting down beside her and putting his arm round her shoulder. ‘You didn’t start this bloomin’ war, did you? So why make yourself responsible for everything that happens in it? People have to fight wars, and this is one war where we really do have to fight back or else we’re done for. You know that better than anyone ’cos that’s something you’ve always believed in. I believe in it too, sis – and I’m doing what I’m doing ’cos it’s something I can do, and because I can do it I have to do it, right? So chin up, sis – you know me. I’m dead crafty. I won’t get into no scrapes, don’t you worry. I can handle meself, and I can handle anything I’m asked to do. I’m not little Billy no longer. I’m great big Billy, OK? If I hadn’t got this dicky pulse thing, I’d be over there fighting hand to hand, wouldn’t I? So don’t you worry about a thing, ’cos this is going to be a doddle, promise.’
He gave her a quick hug and a playful punch on the arm, and since she knew there was nothing she could do to dissuade him, Marjorie went and made them both a cup of tea.
Just before she left on her own mission, Poppy found herself going to the sewing box and taking out the old diary. It seemed wrong, but it proved somehow irresistible since hardly had the owner of the beautifully gold embossed diary been married before her beloved husband too was called away to fight Napoleon.
Ben the carpenter came from the big house yesterday. We are all to have new iron bars set across the shutters to keep out Napoleon’s invading army. Being so near to the coast as we are, I tremble at the idea of troops outside the windows, of being forced to admit them to the House of Flowers. Rather than that I shall fight to the death, so with that in mind have asked one of my brothers to bring across a gun for me when he next visits – something I must not tell Mother . . .
There was a later entry that quite touched Poppy’s heart, because she knew exactly how the former chatelaine of the House of Flowers felt.
Nothing from my dearest dear now for months. I know nothing of where he is, or how he is. Every night I pray to God that he may come back to me, that I may yet again hold him in my arms, the most beloved of men. The army has had great losses on the Peninsula, but I know we shall prevail under the leadership of our great General Wellington. I must not think of my beloved – I must only continue to pray for the safety of us all, and for victory, which I know must come. My brother delivered the necessary old blunderbuss for my protection. He gave it as his opinion that one look at myself armed to the hilt with such a weapon and Bonaparte would run for miles. Even so, I remain firm in my determination to use my weapon should the need arise, which please God it shall not. For we will never surrender, none of us. Not ever!
Poppy put the diary down for a few minutes, staring into the fire. There was comfort in the fact that it had all gone on before, the fighting and the threat of invasion and then the subsequent victory, yet she found herself reluctant to read on in case the diarist’s beloved husband failed finally to return from the war. Somehow she felt that if that was what had happened, Scott would not return to her. So rather than read it to the end as had been her intention, Poppy closed the diary, retied the ribbon, and put it back into the little old mahogany chest where she had found it.