Secret Letters

by John Willis

  I attended Capon’s funeral today… Our train crawled along through an air raid. No lights on. One of us said he saw a bomb drop as we approached London. We arrived at Liverpool Street station just before midnight. We went down the tube. Every corner on the stairs and in the passages crammed with sleepers wrapped in blankets or lying on newspapers spread out on the concrete floors. London tubes are full every night. Air raid wardens, Red Cross nurses and police in steel helmets keep watch. The escalators had stopped running. We walked down and passed by scores more bundles of sleepers. Apart from heavy breathing there was practically no sound.

  The tubes had stopped running for the night. We groped our way out of the station to a bus. The city was still smoking after the great fire caused by the rain of incendiary bombs a few nights previously. Like blind men, lined up on either side of us, gutted business houses, with only their outside structure still standing could be distinguished by the light of the overcast moon. The eyes of the buildings, which used to twinkle with reflected lights from street lamps and passing cars, were now black and hollow. The adjutant shuddered and remarked, ‘A city of the dead.’

  Perhaps that night the streets would be ablaze with incendiary bombs, and more business houses and churches would crackle and crash under high explosives. I placed my head against the bus window to catch a glimpse of it, because next time I passed by it might be a ruin.

  Myers and Freddie Wallis, the adjutant, had been joined at the last minute by the Canadian, Jimmy Cochrane, and Charles Frizzell. They had only been released two days before from many months in hospital and in convalescence, following the drunken car accident the previous year which had also taken Myers himself out of service for three weeks. Both Cochrane and Frizzell had been posted to RAF Debden as non-effective for the next three months.

  Jimmy can’t see properly out of his left eye and his star turn is to raise his eyebrow alone several times in quick succession. The other brow remains motionless.

  We went to the Regent Palace Hotel. The air of first-rate efficiency and second-class luxury was still there, but faces had changed. The reception clerks no longer bowed you in and out of the hall with hasty smiles, but asked you to fill in identity forms with the tired, dry manner of state officials. ‘Take it or leave it’ was written on their faces. Enough bombs had fallen in Piccadilly to justify their attitude more than enough.

  Nobody seemed to care. Why should hotel guests expect good waiting? Could they not see there were only old men left there? Could guests not realise that meals were being served in and out of air raids night after night? No, they could not. Well, so much for them, and if they complained they would be ignored. The superficial appearance of everything inside the hotel was the same. Drinks were served all night in the lounge, an orchestra accompanied the meals, chambermaids answered bells, the decorations were still garish. But war had crept into the building.

  Jimmy Cochrane and Charles Frizzell had booked in at the hotel but had gone out. We met them at the neighbouring Corner House. Jimmy sat down with us and entered into a long monologue of self-accusation. I was struck by the resemblance to the Red Indian which he had painted on his aircraft. Jimmy passed his hand over and over again through his black silky hair and said, ‘I’ve been a shit. I know. Look at the rest of the squadron. I know. Bumped off. And I’ve been out of it. Honest to God, I didn’t want it to happen like this.’

  Myers and Wallis tried to reassure him, ‘Of course you didn’t. Everyone knows that.’

  ‘It’s a shit’s trick all the same,’ he said, ‘but I don’t feel right yet.’ He moved his one eyebrow up and down earnestly to show how fixed the other one was. ‘I need a long rest and I want to get back to Canada for a few months before I start again. I want to see my little wifie and my mother.’ Jimmy called his young girl his ‘wifie’.

  Jimmy Cochrane and Wallis stayed up drinking until 4am and the next morning headed to the funeral which was to be held near Capon’s house at Surbiton in Surrey.

  Jimmy and Charlie looked dismally shabby and dirty when we drove over for the funeral. Charlie had a guilty look about him and apologetically quoted poetry about not breaking faith with the war dead.

  There were a few prayers, a commonplace sermon, and a hymn in a bare chapel. An aunt broke down. We bore the coffin to the grave and saluted.

  Charles Frizzell thought that Freddie Wallis was still hung-over. ‘On the occasion of the funeral, not only did he nearly fall into the grave while attempting a salute, but he introduced me to the bereaved mother as Carl Capon. However, as I recall, all was forgiven at the wake afterwards.’86

  After the funeral, before they got their train back, the four men went round to Capon’s home. Frizzell recalled, ‘Carl was very young. I remember going to his funeral, which, for his parents, must have been very sad. This for several reasons – the fact that he was killed by accident must have seemed such a waste.’

  We taxied round to Mr Capon’s house, had a few drinks with him and talked about the boy who was in all our thoughts. Then we talked vaguely about the war and said goodbye. Mr Capon shook hands warmly with the adj and said, ‘Thank you. You’re a Briton.’ He looked at us earnestly.

  On the way back to the station they stopped in a pub. Cochrane and Frizzell, although now out of hospital and convalescence, were not yet back on active service and were certainly not going back to Coltishall to rejoin their squadron.

  The adjutant was in a cantankerous world of his own but Jimmy and Charlie did not realise it for a while. ‘You boys must come back with us,’ the adj insisted, pointing at Jimmy and leering at him. ‘You’ll be a disgrace to the Air Force if you don’t come back with us,’ he insisted. ‘You bloody little fool. Of course you’re a shit. You won’t come back with us. You’re afraid. You’re afraid. You’re just a little shit.’

  The adjutant poured out a volume of invectives which roused Jimmy to a frenzy, especially as he had also been drinking hard. ‘You’re just a coward!’ yelled the adj. Jimmy hurled his leather gloves in Freddie’s face but he took no notice and turned on Charlie. ‘You little twerp,’ he yelled, ‘Why did you join the RAF?’

  Finally, the unhappy quartet went their separate ways. Wallis and Myers made it back to Liverpool Street.

  After I somehow persuaded the adj to get into the train for Norwich, he sat down and sobbed. Then he fell asleep. When he awoke towards the end of the journey he couldn’t remember a thing. He asked me what had happened. ‘How awful, Geoff,’ he said ‘I don’t remember that ever happening before. I blacked out completely. I can’t remember a thing.’

  Myers reflected on the unhappy funeral. Not only had he buried a young pilot he especially liked and respected but he had been a witness to an unpleasant falling-out between colleagues who were basically on the same side. Naturally, this made him more anxious about his family again.

  I get sudden terrors when I think about you and the babies. We are fighting for hope, and as long as we are fighting, hope cannot be destroyed. Oh my Ducky, soon I’ll have the courage to take your photo out of my wallet and look at my babies… There is something that binds us together that’s so strong that not all the bombs in Europe can smash it.

  86Letter to Author, March 26 1982

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The relentless silence from his wife in France tormented Geoffrey Myers. Six months had passed now since he had received any news. The last thing he wanted to hear was what he read in the papers. He wrote to his wife that night.

  January 17 1941

  My Beloved,

  I have been struggling all afternoon and evening. Now I feel numbed. Here’s the article that did it.

  ENGLISHWOMEN AS TARGETS FOR THE RAF (Daily Mail, January 14 1941):

  British women of all ages, rounded up by the Germans from occupied France, are being sent to concentration camps near military objectives which are frequent targets of the RAF. Sites for some of these camps have been specially chosen near bases such as Lorient. The detention at first on
ly applied to men of military age and young boys and older men who were mere prisoners on parole. But in December the measure was generalised and boys of fourteen years and men of sixty-five and over were taken first to prison and then to concentration camps. On December 5 the measure was made applicable to women, including those of French birth who were married to Englishmen.

  In most cases only one hour’s warning was given, and the women, young and old – I have heard of one case of a woman of eighty-eight being interned – were taken away with only 30lbs of luggage. In Normandy, for instance, eight British women were taken to the gaol of the country town and kept there for two days. An informant, who has visited these camps, expressed his admiration at their wonderful spirit and absolute confidence in their country. But he added the urgent appeal that an American or other neutral committee be formed to supply these camps whenever possible with extra comforts and to obtain the right for these women to correspond with their families.

  Luckily, Margot Myers and her family had not been rounded up and were still hiding at Beaurepaire. They were safe but deeply anxious. The pressure on Jews in France was growing all the time. News reached Margot that three Jews had been arrested in the nearby town of Moulins which was at the border, the demarcation line, between the large part of France occupied by the Nazis and collaborationist Free France led by Marshal Pétain.

  To her horror, Margot discovered that one of her aunts was a supporter of Pétain. Even in her own family there was danger and so she kept her half-Jewish children well away from the aunt. She knew that even with the risks in so-called Free France, she had no choice but to cross the border and try to escape before the Nazis knocked on the farmhouse door.

  With no news from his wife for so many long months, the article in the Daily Mail had deeply unsettled Myers.

  Up till today I was sure you were at Beaurepaire. I don’t know what’s happening. Is it true or is it a nightmare that a journalist has created without caring? I’ve telephoned friends and written to the Red Cross and Foreign Office to try to find out the truth. For weeks I have been trying to train myself to be cheerful and calm. Now this. Men can keep up their spirits with their limbs shot away. This sort of torture is different.

  The snow on the ground, which had begun to thaw, has frozen and formed rivers of ice along all the paths of the camp. The wind cuts through one’s clothes and the officers shiver in their great coats. I’ve read that the temperature is much colder in France.

  When you were cold, my love, I used to warm you. I have central heating in my room and three warm blankets. Oh my Lovvie, how it all hurts. I can’t help thinking of the cold, of the separation from the babies, of your tears. My God, what have I brought upon you through our marriage?

  Geoffrey did everything he could to find out if the details outlined in the article were based on fact.

  I have been through nights of torture. I have had difficulty in controlling my body which kept trembling like a leaf on an oak tree in winter. I have been through convulsions, searching my mind to know what to do. It all happened at the same time. I wrote to the Red Cross and the Foreign Office asking for any information they could give me about the women interned in France. I kept on saying to myself that the Daily Mail article was a lie, but could not understand how it got past the censorship and so thought there might be something in it. My friend, whom I phoned the day I read the article, was unable to find out anything. I scanned every newspaper. Then I read this:

  REPRISALS ACTION IN FRANCE (Sunday Dispatch, January 19 1941)

  Berlin disclosed yesterday that about 3,000 British subjects, many of them women, have been rounded up in occupied France and placed in internment camps. The camps are situated amongst other places at Besançon and Le Bourget. At Besançon there are men, women and children.

  Diplomatic sources say they did not know the total number of British subjects interned in occupied France. The Germans said the reason for this latest round-up was ‘military necessity’. It was understood, however, that it was in part a reprisal for the internment of Germans in various parts of the British empire.

  It was partial confirmation of the article. I continued to read every newspaper in the mess and arranged to go to London for a few days’ leave in the hope of finding out more.

  Although her husband, naturally fearing the worst, didn’t know it, Margot Myers and their children were still safely hidden at the family home in central France, ‘I could feel the net closing in on us little by little,’ she recalled later.87 The Germans were all over Lucenay-lès-Aix and the surrounding area, making Margot afraid. She feared bring locked up in the notorious Mal Coiffée prison in Moulins before being shipped off to a concentration camp. She had already hidden the children’s British passports and destroyed all signs of any Jewish background. With her mother, she now worked the land even harder so that there was enough food to feed the family without having to travel into nearby villages to buy supplies.

  One day, Margot felt that the German noose had finally closed round her family’s neck. She saw in the distance a German soldier on a motorbike making his way up towards the house. Was he looking for Jews? Or English children? Margot’s heart pounded. Even her little son Robert could sense the tension amongst the adults and then the relief as the soldier smiled and asked in halting French if he could purchase some eggs.

  Myers was acutely aware during this time that he had a responsibility to his squadron as well as his stranded family.

  I’m going to try and talk to you tonight about us all over here and keep my thoughts from wandering away to you. I haven’t been able to write to you because I haven’t been calm enough. I think I have kept cheerful among the pilots. I haven’t moped in a corner, but have joked with them as usual, and they have been at ease with me.

  Geoff describes to his wife the squadron’s dance at the Lido in mid-January. In particular, he was interested to meet Cowboy Blatchford’s girlfriend, Betty.

  When the hall had filled up I noticed them both, running downstairs and then sailing off together on the dance floor, rather like a dinghy caught in a squall. She was plump and stocky, like him. She probably had light-brown hair but it was now bleached, golden and rather patchy. I was struck by the resemblance of their eyes. Hers, too, was a determined face. ‘I like you, Geoff, because you’re Peter’s friend,’ she said, ‘and I adore Peter.’

  We went into the bar and she tossed off two or three gin and limes, like a man. She pretended to be proud of the quantity she could drink, and bragged about being able to swallow a pint of beer in ten seconds. I began to understand things when somebody told me she could sail a yacht on the Broads as well as any man in Norfolk.

  Bob Stanford Tuck was there with his girlfriend and was determined that his entire squadron have a great time. Myers kept an eye on proceedings, supporting and encouraging as usual. One young pilot looked on jealously as a senior Polish flyer danced gaily with the man’s wife.

  ‘I’m glad you find her pretty in that dress, Geoff. She made it herself. I find she looks pretty too, Geoff.’ Hugh never felt quite sure of himself. He was only twenty and had not yet brought down an enemy plane, for all his keenness. He felt he was clumsy and that he did silly things.

  His wife, pretty, small and gay, thought it just as well that he continued to feel like that. ‘I’m glad you like her, Geoff,’ he said, and looked at me for approval.’ ‘I do old boy, I think she’s charming.’ Hugh smiled with satisfaction. He liked to hear that from a married man who loved his own wife.

  The crowd yelled for more music. The bar, which was open until midnight because it had been transformed into a ‘club’, was crowded with airmen eager to enjoy this privilege [to the full].

  The local police chief, transformed into a dance master for the night, acted as referee in the waltz competition. The girls from Smith’s spice factory were now warm and jolly. ‘The Blue Danube’ which the Nazis had first chased out of Austria and then from the whole continent still swayed the dancers here. Everyo
ne was in high spirits.

  Myers was a friend but also a great admirer of Peter Blatchford. He knew that he always had the interests of his men at heart. When the sector controller tried to get 257 to fly in the wintry dusk about a week later, Blatchford was having none of it. Many of the squadron still remembered Carl Capon’s futile death in a snowstorm a few weeks earlier.

  Blatchford went to the telephone with a big frown clouding his face. He grabbed the mouthpiece and started hammering out a few short sentences. ‘I flatly refuse to allow any of my chaps to go up after dark,’ he said, and laid his fist down on the desk. ‘I don’t want to be unpleasant with you, sir, but we have this fight every night.’ ‘I didn’t mean to be rude to him. Geoff,’ he said, ‘but I got so bloody angry.’

  Cowboy Blatchford and Myers were two of the men in 257 most respected and liked by David Hunt and his wife, Terry. They clearly cared about David and were concerned for his progress. David had been transferred from Billericay to the Centre for Plastic and Jaw Surgery at Queen Victoria Hospital in East Grinstead – the pioneering Burns Unit run by the legendary surgeon McIndoe. Here, badly burned patients were often treated with experimental techniques – and as a result, David and his fellow patients became members of the famous Guinea Pig Club.

  Happily, the plastic surgery worked and David could finally see again. Terry wrote, ‘There he was with heavy eyelids, red and gold… after a time he reached for the mirror and looked at himself for a long time. I asked him if he was pleased, and he supposed he would have to be. In any case, he was pleased to see again, even if things did quiver a bit and he had to hold open his eyes with his fingers because the lids felt so heavy. He found the Daily Mirror and began to read.’

  Despite the endless operations, the wards in East Grinstead were probably much livelier than 257’s base near Norwich. Coltishall was stiff and dull for the young pilots, so they did their best to create some fun. The social calendar continued with a cocktail party to brighten up the morgue-like atmosphere. Peter Blatchford decided to bring his girlfriend, Betty, to the party.