63 
War Closes In
Amanda sat in a train staring out the window at the passing countryside, considerably subdued since her departure from the chalet two days before. Moving across northeast France after crossing the border from Switzerland, she was bound for Paris.
Her route had already taken her closer to the fighting in northern France and Germany than she had anticipated. She had been so insulated from the events of the war during her months at the chalet that she had had little idea how close it actually was. The moment she crossed the border, instantly the war—if not actual fighting, then certainly its effects—was all around her. France was not only one of the principal powers involved, unlike neutral Switzerland and Italy, this region between Basel and Metz represented the French-German border, and along it, included in the 400-mile entrenched line from the English Channel to the Swiss border, both sides were dug in and the fighting was severe. There were times they had been so close to the border yesterday that she could hear the sound of artillery fire in the distance. In every town or village they passed she saw signs of the conflict—soldiers in troop trucks, wounded men with slings and bandages and crutches, nurses and doctors, and columns of new recruits on their way to the front.
Suddenly the reality began to dawn on her that she might be heading toward even more trouble than she had intended to leave behind. Not that she wasn’t relieved to be in France. It was almost like being back in England after all the long, frightening months in Austria. She was more comfortable with the French language than she had been with German. Yet still the war was all of a sudden so close.
Mingled with Amanda’s observations were questions at last coming into focus of what she would do if and when she did get back to England alive.
Where she would go, what she would do, she wasn’t exactly sure. She hadn’t really thought much about her prospects. Would she get a job? What was she suited for? What could her future possibly hold?
She would probably look up Sylvia Pankhurst. She was the only friend she had. Actually . . . what else could she do? Maybe she could stay with Sylvia until she got on her feet.
Perhaps Cousin Martha would help her again. She hadn’t thought of the lady in months, maybe in a year. She was reminded of Geoffrey, but then quickly put the London Rutherfords out of her mind.
Then again came the horrifying, sickening reminder—something like waking up from a bad dream—that she was actually married!
Married!
How could she have been so foolish as to rush into something so important on a whim?
That was the biggest question about the future of all—what was she going to do!
Divorce Ramsay? Would she be able to do that in England when they had been married in Austria? The thought brought Sister Anika and Sister Agatha to Amanda’s mind. It was all too confusing. She didn’t want to think about the chalet right now. She didn’t want to think about Ramsay. She didn’t want to think about whether divorce was right or wrong. She didn’t want to think about the future. She just wanted to feel English soil under her feet.
A soldier came walking down the aisle toward her, limping, one leg heavily bandaged and with a soiled white bandage wrapped around his forehead. Amanda glanced from the window toward him.
Suddenly with horror she realized that his right arm was missing!
The sight of the empty sleeve of his uniform hanging from his shoulder filled her with strange revulsion and she turned away. The look in his eye—he was younger than she, a mere boy of nineteen or twenty—was of lostness, aloneness, sadness, and pain.
Who was he? she wondered. Was he going home?
Amanda’s thoughts turned to her brother, George. She had not thought of him in so long. She was glad he didn’t have to be in this war. The thought of George involved in the fighting was too awful. She could not hold it in her brain for long.
The young man sat down just in front of Amanda. She could not keep from staring at his misshapen and armless body. She wanted to weep for him. But the season for Amanda’s tears had not yet come, and though her heart ached, her eyes remained dry.
Beside her as they approached the station in Troyes, a man got up to disembark, leaving behind the day’s newspaper in his seat. Amanda picked it up. It was full of war news about troop movements and U-boats, ships and battles, the Schlieffen Plan and the Battle of the Marne, the Russian invasion and the trench warfare in Belgium. Amanda understood a little of what she read and skipped about among the headlines and leading captions.
FIGHTING INTENSIFIES NEAR RHEIMS, read one.
GERMAN AND ENGLISH SHIPS SUNK IN MEDITERRANEAN, read another.
A short article about German submarines located in the North Sea between Scotland and Norway interested her and she read half of it.
ALLIES BEAT BACK GERMAN LINE, PARIS SAFE FOR NOW, read one of the large captions. Amanda began to read the text of the article.
“After penetration by German infantry troops in September, the Allied trench line roughly along the French-Belgian border now appears secure. The inhabitants of the great French capital are breathing much more easily now than during the panic of only a few short months ago. . . .”
Paris, thought Amanda. Had France really been so nearly overrun and defeated!
An article about spies now caught her eye and she began to scan it. As she did, words and phrases jumped off the page into her brain with a strange sense of familiarity, “ . . . infiltration into France and Britain, apparently a network capable of moving spies in and out of Britain at will. It is thought that some coastal location . . . British Army and Royal Navy command continues mystified how their messages are being intercepted. . . .”
Memories of the Fountain and her hazy and unpleasant days in Vienna began to rise into Amanda’s consciousness. Why did something seem familiar here . . . what was the connection between this article and Vienna?
Now came back to her words and phrases she had overheard at the house on Ebendorfer Strasse, “ . . . said he knew about the lighthouse operation . . . might know about the signals.”
What kind of signals? she wondered. But there was more. As her consciousness slowly awakened she found echoing in her brain confusing reminders and bits of conversation she overheard when no one thought she was paying attention.
“ . . . change the code . . . Morse . . . U-boats . . . land an invasion . . . the lighthouse cannot be compromised . . .”
The lighthouse, thought Amanda. What lighthouse . . . and where?
Didn’t she remember hearing Ramsay mention something like that too . . . or was it his mother?
Was it connected—the spies infiltrating England, and what she had heard in Vienna?
And why not? The house on Ebendorfer Strasse had been associated with the very assassins who had started the war—whether directly or indirectly she still didn’t know. But there must be a spy network along with it. Gavrilo Princip had hinted to her about such things. That must have been what she had overheard Muhamed Mehmedbasic talking to Hartwell Barclay about.
Why had she not paid more attention? How could she have allowed herself to fall into such a state? What was it she had heard Mehmedbasic say?
Yes, now she remembered!
He had said to Barclay, “ . . . and I know about your lighthouse.”
And Barclay had instantly become serious at the words. It must have been important.
Whatever was going on, a lighthouse somewhere must be at the bottom of it!
She had to get back and tell English authorities what she had heard.
But then Amanda’s thoughts sobered. What would she tell them? What did she really know? She didn’t know where this supposed lighthouse was. Great Britain had thousands of miles of coastline and hundreds of lighthouses.
Maybe it wasn’t on the coast of Britain. For all she knew, it might be a lighthouse in Greece. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t really have any information that would do anybody much good at all.