Eve Anders peered through the blizzard, the heavy windscreen-wipers battling against the build-up of frozen snow, so that every few minutes she had to lean out of the side window and scrape some of it away with her fingers clad in thick driving gloves. She wore a heavy skirt that met the tops of her solid lace-up boots two sizes too large to allow for the wearing of seaman’s thigh-length socks. These she had recently received from home along with a much-delayed letter in which her brother Ray had written rapturously about the baby. She smiled. As if there was only one baby in the world. To Ray and Bar there probably was.
We have named her Bonnie. She has dark eyes, long eyelashes and thick black curling hair just like her Mummy’s. Apart from the baby, we’ve been so busy moving to Wickham. It’s coming up to Christmas, so we shall take baby Bonnie over to see her Granny and Grandpa Barney. Duke came up to the farm one day. I was on duty and he was gone before I got home. Bar reckons he’s really in the money. Got some horses at stud apparently, and also got a training stable and looks after racing horses for rich owners, most of them Indians and the like who only come to England for the big meetings. You can guess how Aunt May is, you would think that there wasn’t another baby in the world like Bonnie – well of course there isn’t. We talk about you a lot. Bar doesn’t say too much about it, you know her, she always looks on the bright side. She says it’s good that you are leading the life you chose for yourself, but I know she misses you. We talk about our Ken too. We were sent a photo of him. Ted has bought it a frame to put on the mantelshelf. Nobody would recognize him. We were only saying, he looks so different that even though you are both out there, you could easy pass him in the street and not know he was our Ken.
The tyres of her heavy vehicle lost their grip on the icy surface for a second, sending her heart racing and forcing her to forget the lovely letter that held Ray’s voice in every line.
Letters from Ken were sporadic and came without any reference to where he was. Over the last few weeks she had seen a lot of casualties, men and women who would never walk again, talk again or have children or be able to think straight. It would be so easy to lose heart. Too often now she would awaken in the early hours feeling low in spirits. Then she would tell herself what a wet she was and push herself into another day.
When she was being realistic, Eve could see that what had appeared to be such an idealistic and noble cause had become a muddle in which people’s lives were tossed away. And yet, there was no way to stop the fascists taking over what was left of the democratic Spanish Republic except by fighting back. She hated the impossibility of the situation. It was in her nature – as her family used to say – to go off like a fire-cracker in all directions, but that had been when problems came singly and it was in her power to do something about them.
People like me won’t make an atom of difference between winning and losing. So why stay? Perhaps what mattered was the presence of outside support to boost the morale of the Spanish people. Why not? I love it when I meet Italians of the Garibaldi regiment. It makes my day to be with Americans of the Abraham Lincoln.
The roads were treacherous and busy with every sort of military vehicle. The battle for Teruel was different, she had felt the optimism everywhere she went. At Teruel the Republic had taken the offensive. Tanks had recently arrived from Russia, raising the spirits of everyone who saw them roaring towards the front.
She no longer hankered after an ambulance or mobile hospital. The one she had been driving until recently had been hit by a shell and hauled back to Albacete. Now she was on almost permanent call, driving one of the big trucks she loved. There was never enough time, enough food, enough sleep; she was for ever being de-loused and had cut her hair again; she had chilblains and she was so thin and her diet so unbalanced that her periods had almost stopped and her skin often erupted. She did a regular run to some places, so that her truck with its crudely painted ¡No pasarán! along the sides was easily recognizable.
People greeted her with warmth and enthusiasm. If, as they said, it made their day to see her arrive with much-needed supplies, it certainly made Eve’s; she had never felt so fulfilled in her young life.
As she peered out through the ever-reducing clear area of windscreen, she saw a name-board and direction arrow.
Thank God. In spite of the blizzard and dreadful road conditions, she had made good time. As she drove into the makeshift vehicle compound, a line of ambulances was leaving. She never quite knew how to take that sight – a lot of casualties, or a lot of saved lives? It was the other trucks she hated, the ones taking away the dead. Nobody had yet given her that task. She hoped they wouldn’t, but if they did then that is what she would do.
As she opened the cab door, she heard sounds of gunfire and shelling coming from the direction of Teruel. At least the loyalists were on the attack this time, and an attack was a good sign. The Russian tanks on the road, and the battle being taken to the Nationalists were good signs.
The strangest things could change one’s mood.
She jumped down and stamped her feet, trying to get her circulation going. No matter how well she tried to insulate her boots, her feet were always cold and covered in chilblains.
Her dream of bliss at this moment was a footbath of warm salt water. The load she was carrying was medical supplies. A small load for such a large truck – if only it could have been stacked to the roof.
She stopped a man wearing glasses; he might have been anyone, for glasses were his only feature in the huddle of mixed scarves he wore. ‘Do you know who I see about this load of medical stuff?’ These days she always tried English first; it was surprising how many other nationalities understood at least some English.
For half an hour she trudged back and forth between her truck and the first-aid station. ‘Eve? That you under that gorgeous hat?’
‘Kea! You’re only jealous.’ The two young women hugged. ‘Things sound pretty rough out there.’
‘For certain it’s not a Labor Day parade. Hope you’ve brought in some sort of anaesthetic, we’re getting low.’
‘And some spirit for your sterilizer. Novac said you’d be down to sterilizing with candle-flames if I wasn’t nippy.’
‘Candles? We should be so lucky. Have you got a bit of turn-around time?’
‘I can find a bit. You want me to do something?’
‘Would you, hon? Just for ten minutes, then we should be over this flush, and there might be a mug of Oxo and maybe we can steal ten minutes just to say hello.’
Salaria Kea was one of the many nurses Eve met briefly but constantly on her supply trips. Trained in the Harlem School of Nursing, she was a devout Christian who had come straight to Spain from Ethiopia. Eve had met her soon after she had returned from her honeymoon with her white International Brigader husband. Many nurses were a bit sniffy and protective of their position, but Eve had found that most Americans, although very professional, did not put up barriers against an amateur like herself when help was needed. She had held up many a bottle of blood in an emergency transfusion, and finished off the dressing of a wound so that the nurse could go on to a patient more in need of medical expertise.
‘A guy along there,’ Salaria pointed, ‘he’s waiting to be taken into Madrid. He’s lost some fingers and a lot of blood and he’s in shock. Just keep an eye on him, talk to him, don’t let him talk back. He’s English.’
Eve pushed her fur cap back off her face, but didn’t remove anything, for even inside, her breath steamed in the cold. She halted a few steps away from the man, lying rigid, a field-dressing like a huge white fist already stained with fresh blood held to his chest. Her stomach clenched with distress, and she went cold with shock.
Moving to where she could see him better, she said gently, ‘David?’ There was no response. ‘David. Wake up. I’ve come to sit with you till the ambulance arrives.’ She wanted to weep. His handsome face was drawn and thin, a smear of blood was wiped across one cheek and there was a line where tears had dried. She wanted to hold him in her arms, he looked very ill indeed, but there was no mistaking his beautifully-shaped nose and lips. It seemed impossible that those lips had once pressed hard on her own, or that that nose had been buried in her neck as they lay on the grassy downs, both breathless with passion.
Taking off her gloves and kneeling beside him, she gently smoothed his brow. ‘David, you shouldn’t sleep just now. You can sleep when you’ve had your hand seen to. David.’
His eyes flickered, opened, focused and then closed again. A faint smile parted his lips. He had lost one tooth and another was chipped. He was still smiling when he opened his eyes again and spoke, his voice heavy with exhaustion. ‘Odds of fifty to one that your name is Louise.’ Confusion. Her hand was stilled on his brow. The voice was not David Hatton’s, she had never seen this man before, yet he had called her by her old name. He looked at her a long time, searching it seemed every inch of her face. ‘Take off your hat, please.’ She did so, and shook out her short curls still streaked gold from the summer sun. ‘He said it was over your shoulders. He’s a bugger for nice hair, is Davey.’
‘Davey?’
‘You called me David. He’s the other half of the Hatton twinship. Now people will be able to tell us apart. Richard, the twin with only seven fingers and one thumb. Did your hair get lousy?’
Eve nodded. ‘But I now have a secret weapon, so that when I can do without a hat again, I’ll let it grow.’
‘Davey lost you.’ His voice had grown fainter, so she sat on the floor close beside him, her back against the chilly wall. ‘Awfully cut up about that. Going about like Cinderella’s prince looking for his lost Louise, ’cept that Davey has no glass slipper, not a single clue. Pity. Don’t you want him to find you? OK with me. Shame for Davey.’
It would be so easy to ask about David, to make contact again. A word. A message. An address. Did she really want to know? What sense was there in opening up all that again? Her mind raced around like a rat in a cage.
He seemed to be drifting off again. Salaria had said, keep him aware, try not to let him sink into unconsciousness. ‘You called me Louise.’
He responded with a faint smile. ‘Davey’s a good chap. Better than me. Younger, got more up top.’ His speech had become slurred.
If Richard Hatton chose to tell his brother of this encounter, then it wouldn’t be difficult for David to seek her out. Maybe that was what she would like. Duke’s mother believed that people made their own destiny when they made a choice, and she had chosen to follow up on his mention of Louise. God knows, she thought about David, he still came into her best dreams. She even welcomed him to them. But God knew, too, how much she liked being Eve Anders, an independent, uncommitted young woman. Even the people she used to be so close to, so loving towards, even they had receded. It was hard to credit, but it was a fact that she was no longer a Wilmott. Indeed, she was no longer working-class. It seemed fanciful, but a kind of power had come to her: she wanted sex, but not love; she wanted men, but not a man.
Louise Wilmott, who had been as ambitious as hell, and had wanted the keys to the whole world, had found – in the guise of Eve Anders, and as E. V. Anders – a niche, a place where she belonged. She was alone yet part of something she could not yet understand fully. For the present she had found fulfilment in her driving and writing. If and when that was not enough, then she would look for something else. For the present she did not want any complications, not an affair, a romance, a permanent lover. She wanted her truck, to know that her reporting was effective in making people aware of the plight of Spain, the country she was beginning to love and feel that she had a stake in. She didn’t care if that seemed smug – there was only Eve and Louise to know.
A big sigh from Richard Hatton brought Eve back. ‘Are you all right?’ He didn’t look all right. She felt the pulse at his neck and watched his chest rising and falling hardly at all. She found Salaria disposing of a pile of soiled dressings on a little bonfire. ‘You’d better come.’
Kea moved fast. She felt his pulse and looked under his eyelids. ‘He needs a transfusion.’
‘Can you do it here?’
‘No, we aren’t equipped.’
‘Who is?’
‘The main hospital, but we’re fresh out of ambulance space. There’s an amputation and a bullet in the lung which should get priority.’
‘Couldn’t I take him? The road’s too iced up to drive at speed, but I’d try to see he didn’t get a rough ride. We should be there well before dark.’
‘I’ll see what Doc says.’
‘I’ll warm up the engine. Find someone to travel in the back with him.’
Bearers slid Richard Hatton on to the bed of the truck, tied the stretcher to rope rings and covered him with a pile of coats and blankets, and requested that the coats be put on any ambulance coming back. Eve tucked her knitted knee-blanket around his head. ‘You’ll be OK, Richard. Do you hear?’ He grunted a reply. ‘You’ll soon be tucked up in a warm bed.’ She hoped that was true. She checked the petroleum carriers. There was enough.
Salaria Kea came back as Eve was revving up the engine. It sounded fine. ‘I’ve got just the guy to travel with you.’
‘Tell him to put a move on.’
‘He’s doing his best on his frost-bite. OK, Captain?’ He confirmed that he was, in English.
For which, thought Eve, many thanks.
Kea, her head ducked against the shrieking flurries of snow, banged on the side of the truck and waved Eve out of the compound.
Once out on the road, Eve leaned her head against the little window at the back of the cab and yelled, ‘All right back there?’
‘OK, love.’
‘Just try to see that the stretcher doesn’t move. The roads are bad, but I’m used to them. Just hold on to your hat.’
She drove for half an hour, hardly aware of anything except the hundred yards or so in front. From time to time she asked if everything was all right back there and was told ‘Yep!’ Was the patient all right? ‘Yep!’ She caught a whiff of smoke and was suddenly hungry for the lift and a few moments of relaxation that a cigarette gave. ‘I say, Captain,’ she called, ‘I’ve left my back-pack on your side, it’s got my cigarettes in it. Can you see it? Hanging on the…’
‘I see it.’
‘Take them out, will you, and hand them through. Have one yourself.’
He did so and she lit up expertly, keeping one hand and her knee on the steering wheel. It was difficult to hold any sort of conversation over the roar of the engine and the noise of the wind, but nobody ever missed the chance of talking to another person in their own language. ‘You got frost-bite?’ she shouted.
‘Just two toes, maybe three.’
‘At Teruel?’
‘A building fell on me, my feet got left in the cold.’ His voice was strong and deep, and although he was having to shout above the noise of the labouring engine, she detected a Wessex broadness in his nice voice that reminded her of her brothers. Their mother had never let any of them get away with the city whine. When they reached the hospital, she would ask him what other Hampshires he knew.
As soon as Ken Wilmott had heard her say, ‘Tell him to get a move on,’ he knew that the truck-driver was his sister. Until now, he had not imagined that she would be involved in this kind of front-line work, for supplies trucks were popular targets for the pilots who liked to dive and strafe. His heart thumped at the thought of it. Maybe they had been this close before and not known it. If he hadn’t said that he would travel down to the hospital, leaving the first-aid men on duty, how would they ever have found out later that they had both been involved in the fate of the man who, as the black nurse had said, was missing coagulants in his blood and could bleed to death?
There was no point in disturbing her while she was driving. In any case, he hugged to himself the enjoyable anticipation of surprising her. How did she do it? This wasn’t the first time that he had admired the skilful way the drivers handled their big ambulances and mobile hospitals, but he had never seen a woman behind the wheel of one of the huge supplies trucks. She had swung up into it as though it was a light van. He was proud and thrilled at the way she handled herself. And her voice… She had been a bossy kid, but her grown-up voice had authority.
She had never exactly been a shrinking violet, and she could pack a good punch, but this was something else entirely. Such confidence. You could tell that she knew that she was good at what she did; she oozed certainty in her own ability.
He would have loved to have watched her, but as soon as he moved away from the stretcher it slewed slightly. The soldier wouldn’t stand much buffeting. So he sat and savoured the moment when they would reach the hospital, answering her questions briefly. He wondered whether she had received any letters from him since he had taken on the rank of captain. Not that it meant as much in this army as it would have in the Coldstream Guards. Even so, she would be pleased when he said that he was an officer.
Mile after mile of rutted roads, but it was easier in the ruts than it had been earlier in the freshly fallen snow. She drove on silently. What could the soldier answer but ‘Yep’ to her enquiry about their sick charge? He could hardly say, ‘It looks as though he’s had it’ – even if he had. She felt no more responsible than she would have for the life of any other man in his situation, but the thought of how the death of his twin would affect David certainly made her aware that she wanted to hand him over as soon as she could.
‘About five miles now,’ she called back. There was no reply. She knew how easy it was for most soldiers to fall asleep on a knife edge if there was five minutes to spare.
It was almost dark when they drove through the hospital gates but the blizzard had blown itself out. She knew this hospital, having delivered medical supplies many times before. When she tooted her horn outside the Emergency doors, a male orderly came out.
‘Eve! Hi to you. I know is you under big fur hat? You been making winks with Soviet comrades? I do a good deal with lipstick and notepad for such a hat. What you do here at front door? You go trade people door.’
She jumped down and gave the Italian a friendly thump on the shoulder as she moved quickly round to the back and let down the tailboard. ‘Milio. Move fast. Big emergency.’
Already he had hauled himself up over the tailboard and into the truck. ‘I know. Blood transfusion. All ready.’ He had released the ropes and in less than a minute he and another porter had transferred Richard Hatton to a wheeled trolley and were hurrying down a corridor, calling back, ‘Lipstick, Eve. Good deal because I like you.’
Laughing both because she liked the tall Italian who was never out of humour, and because she wasn’t sorry to be here, she leaned against the tailboard. ‘Phew! I’m glad to hand him over. Thanks for your help, Captain. Hand me down my bag. Come on, I know this place and it knows me. I’ll bet I can rustle up a Marmite sandwich and some English tea. Hand down the bags and I’ll get somebody to keep an eye.’ He passed the bags and she piled them inside the Emergency doors. ‘How about your toes, do you want to get them seen to first?’
Pulling down his balaclava helmet and winding a scarf round and round his neck, Ken said, ‘Tea and Marmite sounds good.’
‘Come on, let me help you down, even if you can’t feel your feet you can still do a lot of damage to them if you jump.’
He let her help him down, holding on to the moment when she would realize who the captain with frost-bitten toes was.
‘Not in there, round the back where the kitchens are.’ She led the way along a wall where warm steam was melting the snow which the frost at once turned to ice. Pushing open a door they received a wonderful blast of warm air. ‘Mind you don’t skid, there’s a slope here, it’s treacherous underfoot.’
Inside, she stamped her feet and whipped off the big fur hat, banging it to remove drops of water. She was smiling at him in such a warm and friendly way. When he removed his peaked cap and woollen helmet, her smile froze. She put a hand to her mouth and bit her lips. She hardly knew whether to laugh or cry. ‘Kenny?’
He nodded, unable to speak as he took her into his arms and hugged her for a long time against his damp greatcoat. ‘Well then, kid, how’s tricks?’
‘Kenny, I can’t believe it.’ She brushed flakes of snow from his beard and laughed excitedly. ‘You’re terrible. You knew I was the driver, didn’t you?’
He grinned. ‘Not until we were under way. I thought it best to wait.’
She grabbed him round the neck with great affection and kissed him. ‘I can just imagine you savouring the moment when you would whip off your disguise, just like you used to like jumping on us girls to make us scream.’
‘Did I ever do that?’
‘You know you did.’
‘I’ve always imagined my suave young self as being much too aloof and grown-up to play such tricks on my little sister. Now, come on, I’ve got my mouth all ready for a Marmite hunk. You’d better come up with the goods.’
She was concerned at the way he limped and hobbled as they made their way to the kitchens where she was greeted by the Spanish cooks and helpers.
‘Any Marmite, Pet?’
The grey-haired Spanish woman turned up her nose and held her head away from the smell as she cut large chunks of bread and smeared them black with the salty, yeasty spread that so many of the English aid-workers rhapsodized over. They would do any kind of a deal to get hold of a jar. ‘How you eat this stuff?’
‘It’s good for you, Petronella, you should know that with all your experience of cooking. Full of good vitamins.’
‘You need vitamin, eat tomatoes, eat pimentos, eat onion. This your chap?’
Eve laughed. ‘You know I don’t have chaps, Pet.’
‘Not because chaps don’t try. That Emilio, he love you to bits.’
‘It’s my hat he loves. If I ever let him have it, he’d forsake me. Any tea? This is my brother, he’s dying for some tea.’
‘Tea, tea, tea.’ The cook put the plate of bread and Marmite in front of them, then stood back with her hand on one hip looking as though she couldn’t decide whether this was just a bit more banter. She had taken to this tall English girl. Not that she was anything like her own Carmen who had gone with the militia, but she loved her almost as a daughter. She looked closely at the IB captain who hadn’t shaved for days. ‘Brother?’
‘Yes, Pet,’ Eve said, her mouth full of the dry but delicious sandwiches. ‘La hermana… Captain Kenneth Wilmott.’
Petronella gave him a kiss and ruffled his hair. ‘Is very hairy chin, this sister, need shave.’
‘OK, OK, el hermano…’ Eve grinned at her brother. ‘I still don’t know my els from my las. My God, Ken, I can hardly take my eyes off you.’
‘So how’d you think I feel?’ He took her hand and held it tight. ‘You were just a kid when I left. What happened to the dancing, are you still the Queen of the Tango?’
She took a glimpse into the past. ‘What flirty butterflies we were – especially you.’
‘Ah, we had some good times. Do you miss it?’ He noticed the dark rings round her eyes and her lips, although still young and full, were as dry and cracked as his own. Her mouth was set in a serious line. When she held a flame to their cigarettes, her hand trembled. He knew how it was: you held yourself together with your mouth, if you let it tremble you were done for.
‘That’s like saying do you miss your childhood, it’s just something you look back on. Oh, but your feet, we must get somebody to look at them.’
‘They’ve waited this long, they’ll wait a bit longer.’ Petronella brought two mugs of black tea and again he submitted to a hair ruffling. He didn’t mind, it was a long time since anyone had done such a thing. Probably not since his sister had done it just to annoy him when he was ready to go out. They had never been close, not in the way that she and Ray had been close. What they had said about dancing wasn’t how it had been, they had rarely gone to the same dance-halls.
But now? Now he felt very close to her.
As he looked at her from the other side of the trestle-table he thought how splendid she was, how fantastic to have a sister who was so full of life. She had a way with her, that was obvious. People responded to her, without her trying to impress them.
Wanting to be nearer to him, she moved to his side of the table. Theirs had not been a family which expressed their feelings for one another openly. Without the awkwardness she would have once felt, she took his hand and held it to her cheek. ‘We got away, Ken.’
‘Ah, we did, and look where it got us.’ Briefly he kissed her fingers. Only the two of them knew what an extraordinary gesture that was. They weren’t people like that.
‘But you’re not sorry.’
‘You’re joking! If I were to die tomorrow, I’ve lived more in these few years than the rest of the lads in Lampeter Street put together. God knows how it happened, but I’m a captain, I’ve got command ofblokes, they respect me, look to me to know what’s what.’
‘And you do know. I can tell you do. Capability is written all over you. I’m so proud of you, Kenny.’
Raising one eyebrow, he said, ‘You reckon? If I’m honest there’s times when I don’t seem to know my arse from my elbow.’
Eve laughed. ‘Oh, Kenny, modesty doesn’t suit you. Sometimes when I look back on those days, I think I see that you always knew where you were going.’
‘Not where, only that I was.’
‘Yet we were all dumbfounded when you went off.’
‘It was seeing Dad after they fished him out of the harbour that really started me thinking serious. He might have been a bloody bad father – he was a bloody bad father – but he had been all over the world. I wanted to do that, but not leaving a wife and kids to fend for themselves like he did. And I could see all that looming up.’
‘Marriage?’ Kenny had always had a girl in tow, one after the other. It was the way most of his classmates had gone: the girl got knocked up, the families insisted on the wedding.
‘It was called “settling down”, wasn’t it? God, how the thought of that depressed me.’
They sat for a few moments silently caressing one another’s fingers until Eve turned their hands back and forth touching broken nails, hard pads, torn quicks and chapped skin, then she grinned at him. ‘We could have stayed in Lampeter Street and got hands like these.’
He leaned away and looked at her for what seemed ages. ‘I sometimes can’t help thinking what a narrow escape I had, do you?’
She shook her head. ‘I always intended leaving. Now, come on, I must get your feet seen to.’
‘Stop fussing, Lu. I’ve been looking after my feet for ages all on my own.’
She flushed and buried her face in the steaming tea. As soon as he’d called her Lu, he remembered the long letter of explanation about why she wanted to change her name.
‘It’s Eve, Kenny.’
‘I know, kid, I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Thanks. Is that why you’re calling me kid?’
‘I reckon I’ll be less self-conscious about it. Eve’s another person altogether, I have to get used to her. Don’t worry, I will. I want to, it’s just that she’s bowled me over. Eve Anders is amazing.’
‘You don’t think it’s, well, immature or something, pretending to be somebody you’re not?’
‘Are you pretending?’
‘I don’t know any more. In the beginning it was vital that I had to concentrate on making Eve live. I don’t think I could have borne it if somebody had come up and said, “Hello, aren’t you Lu Wilmott?” I knew who I wanted to be, how I wanted to look, dress and talk. Have you ever thought how much people of our age have picked up from the films? I never really had any qualms about which knife to use, or how to enter a room, book in at an hotel or hail a taxi, and I’ll bet you didn’t either. We were getting lessons in it twice nightly and matinees on Saturdays.’
‘You could always put it over, I’ll say that.’
‘It isn’t hard, just playing the part I’ve written for myself.’ She looked at her brother who had always been overshadowed by Ray, the responsible one, the mature and serious one who had taken care of everything. She said, ‘Nothing much wrong in making the best of what you’ve got.’
He smiled, his strong teeth shining in contrast with his grime and beard. ‘Which is why I’m sitting here with nits in my hair and my toes going black.’
‘Oh, come on, drink up your tea and bring that sandwich with you. I’m quite friendly with one of the doctors here.’
She had grown so beautiful, he could hardly believe it. He grinned at her over the rim of his mug. ‘Bloody hell, who’d have thought our little old lanky-legs would have doctors for friends.’
Would it occur to him that she had had lovers? She took it for granted that Kenny would have. But what would he think of her affair with a Russian political commissar? And Ozz? How would Kenny view that eccentric relationship? She was convinced that once Ozz could get away from the codes of chapel (‘My little mam would just love it if I brought you home to Sunday tea’), they would become lovers. She longed to see Ozz again. If there was time, she would tell Ken about Ozz, but not about Dimitri. She wasn’t sure how Ken would handle a sexually active younger sister.
It was some months now since Eve and François Le Bon had come across one another again. He had remembered her at once, and even called her by name. She had said that she was surprised that he would remember her. ‘You shamed me. I discovered that there was a streak of prejudice in me that I would have denied. When you picked me up at Barcelona station, I had expected a man to be driving. I was sure that we’d all end up rolling down a ravine.’
She had said, ‘I don’t believe you. You were really nice, you read the map for me.’
‘Of course. I never expected that a brain capable of dealing with a lorry and a route map could be behind a lovely face.’
He hadn’t been wholly serious, but each had been pleased to be remembered by the other. He was the senior English-speaking doctor in this hospital.
‘François, this is my brother, he’s got frost-bite. Would you mind taking a look?’
‘Glad to know you, Captain Anders.’
‘Wilmott,’ Eve corrected. ‘Ken, Wilmott.’
‘Sorry. Right, let’s take a look.’ As he supervised the careful removal of boots and socks, he said to Eve, ‘Remember the nice lady who put us up for the night? Hey,’ he smiled up at his patient, ‘that isn’t how it sounds.’
‘You mean the teacher, Mrs Portillo?’
‘Asked us to keep her husband and son in mind in case we ever came across them.’
‘Eduardo and Paulo.’
‘You remembered. (Feel anything there, Captain?) So did I, father and son. I removed shell fragments from Paulo’s leg and he went back to Aragon. The father is a prisoner, either that or he’s been executed. He was a POUM official. I sometimes wonder who hates POUM most, the fascists or the other comrades. (That hurt? Good, not too much damage.) Before I enlisted, it all seemed so simple: if you were against fascism, then you were with the Republic.’ Her brother’s toes looked bad to her, but she could learn nothing from François Le Bon’s impassive, professional mask as he examined the damage. ‘I think we should have you in for a few days.’
‘No, I have to get back. I’m only here because we were bringing in a chap for surgery and there was no ambulance.’
‘Bit of luck for you then, Captain. If you had returned to the front line, then I’ll guarantee you’d have lost the foot with gangrene – even part of the leg. As it is, I think we might be able to salvage a full set of toes.’
‘So my dancing days might not be over, then?’
‘Probably not, if you’ll let us treat you. I’ve seen worse than this respond to treatment.’
Ken Wilmott looked up at his sister and sucked his teeth. ‘Have to keep the old toes in A1 trim for the fox-trot.’
He wanted her approval.
‘You were always light on your feet, Kenny.’
When he first entered Spain, Ken had felt that he had found his spiritual home. He would settle down here, in the south. Somewhere where the sun was warm. But seeing Lu – Eve – had awakened a stab of homesickness. He had a niece now, and that had hardly registered until they talked about the family.
He would write to them all. With nothing to do for a few days while they pumped him full of stuff, he would write.
David Hatton sat in the back of a slithering lorry, his bags containing the portable filming equipment held in place by his knees. It had been a dodgy landing, and there had been a moment on touch-down when he wondered whether scrounging a lift on a plane with a Mexican pilot had been such a good idea. For all he knew of Mexican pilots, they might all be mad stunters. He was trying to read again the information Archie Archer had sent on. On the flight he had been seated next to a talkative, friendly passenger, so he hadn’t really been able to take in the full meaning of the pages, but even so he had found them incredible, although their source was good. The lorry rocked and the light was bad. Even so, he was desperate to read and re-read the stark details of the woman who had flitted in and out of his life, but had become fixed in his heart and his head.
It was in the usual format, the details requested, but nothing more, no colour or speculation.
Eve Vera Anders nee Louise Vera Wilmott: b. Portsmouth, June 1917.
Anders travelled to Barcelona in the company of a CP-sponsored medical team, continued to Albacete Auto-Parc, British Ambulances, Section Organizer Mrs H. Alexander (LOLO).
Birth registered as Louise Vera Wilmott. Birth Certificate dated July 1917, shows Father, Arthur Wilmott, Able Seaman RN; Mother, Vera Wilmott. Address: no Lampeter Street, Lampeter, Portsmouth.
Education: Lampeter Church of England, Lampeter, Portsmouth. Portsmouth Grammar School – unfinished course.
Profession/career: Factory worker/machinist. Ezzards ‘Queenform’ factory to 1937. Dismissed for Trades Union activities.
Political Activity: None (except the brief affair with the T&GWu).
Joined CP 1937 prior to enlisting as Aid to Spain ambulance driver.
Sponsor: S. Anderson (active).
Subject sometime chauffeur to visiting officials to the Republic, MPs, Senators and var. VIPs. Good reports. Personable, intelligent and well-spoken. Transferred to Madrid area supplies transport, at own request.
Subject recently on LOLO lists as ‘Prospect Active’.
Subject’s brother – Wilmott, K. Captain 15th Battalion Int. Brigade.
Subject was questioned in Wineapple enquiry (see sep. sheet). Cleared of any involvement.
Archie had scrawled across the bottom: ‘Interesting, eh? Hope she doesn’t go off in your hand when you pull the pin. Have second thoughts about suggesting we take up some of her reports. A female war correspondent could be good for Herald. Keep in touch.’
David Hatton folded the report, replaced it in the envelope and put it inside his camera case. As soon as he had read it the first time, some things fell into place. She had supposed that he had thought she was a pick-up that time in Bournemouth, and being the respectable working-class girl that she was, she had left him high and dry. That made some sense. He thought through their next meeting. Again that had been total coincidence. He had just happened to be whiling away an evening in a strange town, when for a second time he discovered her in a dance-hall. She had been more confident this time, and had let him walk with her to the railway station and accepted an invitation to an RN social affair. How absolutely stunning she had looked. She worked in a factory. He had thought of everything imaginable as her reason for being so mysterious, except that. Nothing she did or said had led him in that direction. He thought he knew an act when he saw one. Not this extraordinary girl, she was a natural. That gown would surely have cost a year’s earnings.
Just before taking the flight back to Spain, he had gone to Portsmouth to satisfy himself about some of the details. He had seen the back-street school and the great prison of a factory. At lunchtime he had waited for the workers to come out. Had she really come out like the others, wrapped in an apron, scarf round her head, jostling and laughing, rushing to the house in that back-street? He had walked there, and been the object of curiosity; had tried to visualize the young Louise in the children he saw running up and down the street, playing hop-scotch, rushing into their homes for their lunch and coming out with hunks of bread. Had she come through that sagging door wearing the green silk gown? That seemed impossible to believe. There must be something else.
Was there a man? A man who had bought the gown? Did she have a place where she transformed herself from a girl in an apron to a woman not at all ill-at-ease with the high life? The more he went over those meetings with her, the more puzzled he became.
Where did the trades union activities fit into the picture? Why join the CP and enlist as an ambulance-driver? Rich had joshed him about her magic and mystery. Now that he had all this information about her, she was more magical and mysterious than ever.
It would be easy enough to find her now, but how should he handle it? If Helan Alexander had already approached her for LOLO, then Helan would have told her that her background would be checked. How would a woman like Louise react to that? He guessed that she would be as mad as all hell, as she had every right to be. It was a tricky one. Was he bound to pass on the information to Helan? No, why would it be necessary, just as long as Helan knew that Louise was genuine and not an informant for the other side, a plant. If he said simply, I’ve checked and she is OK, then Helan would accept his word.
OK. So what was his strategy when she discovered that he knew her true identity, and he came face to face with Louise. Straight away it became problematical. A potential explosion, as Archie had suggested.
The brother! He had quite forgotten that he knew him. The captain seemed to be the answer to his dilemma.
What the hell! All this work with undercover organizations had made him devious. He could find her and say simply, Hello, remember me?