Double Cross Blind

by Joel N. Ross

  “My dear,” he said as she stepped from her little MG. “What a lovely surprise.”

  “Father.” She kissed his cheek. “I see from your shoes you’ve been in the garden.”

  “I’m considering building a ruined abbey on the rise.”

  “What folly!” she said, and they smiled as they always did. “Or are you really building it this time? I passed two men who could be builders, or—or what would one call a man who constructed ruins?”

  “Ruiners, of course,” he said. She must have seen Rugg and Renard leaving the grounds. Ruiners suited them as well as any title, and better than most. “A pair of men with a sad tale and an exemption from duty. I’ll find something for them.”

  Harriet’s tired smile brightened. She appreciated his efforts at employing those in need. It was very near an insult—as if she thought he could not be trusted to care for his people. Quite unfair; he might demand respect, but he knew his duty. One was impossible without the other.

  “I am not an ogre,” he said.

  “Father,” she said, “I need your help.”

  IT WAS TOO EARLY for tea, but Father insisted. Harriet knew he enjoyed watching her pour—it reminded him of her mother, whom he had bullied and cosseted and finally lost in childbirth when Harriet was eleven. She often wondered what sort of man he’d be now had her mother survived. She had blunted his sharp edges.

  They were in his library, surrounded by leather-bound books. There was the clink of a spoon against the warmed Sèvres porcelain, the smell of steeping tea and of Mrs. Godfrey’s scones. Rationing hadn’t come to Burnham Chase.

  Father sipped and visibly relaxed. “Now we can talk.”

  She pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Earl hasn’t been home for days. Over a week, actually. I’m being alarmist, I suppose.”

  “You phoned the embassy?”

  “They said there was no cause for concern. Precisely what they’d say if there were.”

  “Harriet, you knew his business when you married.”

  “Yes, I simply—I’ve an uncomfortable feeling.”

  “I see.” Father’s gray eyes were watchful above his teacup. “Tom visited you?”

  “You heard he left the hospital?”

  “The police called.”

  “Of course. He smashed a window. He was in the front room, waiting for Earl.”

  “Or you.”

  “Mmm. He told me Earl was gone. Not merely gone but missing, as well.”

  “Tom is hardly reliable.”

  “He said—he said Earl had evanesced. Evanesced.” She turned her teacup on its saucer. “It’s not the sort of thing he’d say. It— I know it’s ridiculous, but that one word . . .”

  That one word had kept her awake past midnight, had awakened her from fitful sleep before dawn. She’d arrived at the office and worked for six hours before Mr. Uphill came. Another five hours, and she’d pleaded exhaustion and driven directly to Burnham Chase to ask Father for help.

  “That word,” she said. “And an uncomfortable feeling I can’t seem to ignore.”

  “Feminine intuition, Harriet?”

  “I’d like you to ask after Earl. If you know anyone at the American embassy who might quietly inquire. Just to know he’s safe.”

  “Me? I’m sure your contacts are far superior to mine.”

  “Not among Americans of a . . . a certain type.” She set her teacup gently down. “I know very well that you’ve been cultivating”—she groped for an inoffensive word—“individuals at the embassy.”

  “Of a certain type,” he said.

  “I’m asking for your help, Father.”

  “Which type? The honorable type? The patriotic type?”

  “The fascistic type.”

  “You needn’t say the word as if it leaves a sour taste in your mouth. There is nothing to be ashamed of in supporting fascism. The Britons, the British Fascists, the Fascist League—British patriots all. The British Union of Fascists is fifty thousand strong.”

  “Hardly that any longer.”

  “And why not, Harriet? Because—”

  “The Battle of Cable Street? The Blackshirt bullies who attacked protesters at the Olympia rally?”

  “Because,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “the Public Order Act made it illegal to wear the fascist uniform. Illegal to rally. Because Rothermere was frightened into inconsequence by the warmongers.”

  Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail, had initially supported the BUF. “Rothermere,” she said, “changed his own mind, due to his ability to distinguish between conservatism and fascism.”

  “He was afraid, Harriet. Mosley was interned and the BUF banned.” He shook his head. “And people have the presumption to say we repress dissident voices.”

  She didn’t like that “we.” She met her father’s gaze; his eyes were precisely the same gray as her own.

  “You admire the Americans,” he said. “Yet you fail to emulate them. There are seven hundred and seventy fascist groups in the United States. Father Coughlin has fifteen million loyal listeners, the Bund half a million members. The most popular magazines—Reader’s Digest, The Saturday Evening Post—endorse what you call ‘isolationism.’ The question is simple: Do you prefer fascists to Communists?”

  “I prefer democrats to tyrants.”

  The conversation deteriorated further. Harriet had been wrong to ask for his help. Still, she couldn’t ask the SOE, for which she worked, or the Americans. Such a thing wasn’t done, and the Americans wouldn’t help in any case. Two years of fighting, and the best they’d offered was the Lend-Lease Act, while the British and Soviets died fighting fascism. They could hardly be expected to help one worried wife.

  She stood to leave. “I should be getting back.”

  “I’ll ring you as soon as I hear,” Father said.

  “Hear?”

  “About your husband—my son-in-law.” He rose to escort her to the door. “Family is family.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose it is.”

  “Speak to Mrs. Godfrey before you leave. She’s put steak and kidney aside.”

  “Father . . .” He knew she disliked his largesse as much as she liked—to his amusement at her low tastes—steak and kidney pie.

  “Please, Harriet. It will do me good. The parcel already waits.”

  “As a favor to you,” she said.

  “Very kind.” He smiled, and it lightened his face. “And Harriet—I’m concerned about Tom.”

  “Poor Tommy. He’s a disaster. Safely returned to the Rowansea by now, I hope.”

  “Safely?” Father said. “Then you haven’t heard?”

  TOM WALKED a circuit around the room. Walking in a circle, going nowhere. He sat in the chair at the window and made no less progress. The door opened and the orderly with the walrus mustache stepped inside with the newspaper.

  Tom read that the German thrust at Sidi Rezegh had failed. The Brits destroyed eighteen enemy aircraft. The Red Army abandoned Tikhvin on the Leningrad–Vologda railway but scored a victory at the Sea of Azov.

  He folded the page, looking for news from home. Ah. TENSION IN THE PACIFIC—MUCH ACTIVITY IN WASHINGTON. Japanese envoys spoke with Hull and Roosevelt at the White House, said they’d continue negotiations for at least a fortnight. In Japan, the Tojo cabinet’s decision to keep talking renewed hopes of a peaceful settlement, and the stock market soared. The next column told him the Japs still insisted on “Asia for the Asiatics, under the leadership of Japan” and rejected the American principles of nonaggression and the “open door.”

  Nothing he could do. He turned to the crossword puzzle. One down was “This lordling has very much the makings of a regal aunt.” Ten letters. What the hell was “a regal aunt”? A queen ant?

  The door opened and Harriet stepped inside. Not her
day to be beautiful—her eyes were smudged, her face haggard.

  “I heard you were attacked,” she said.

  “Mugged, if you believe it.”

  “You don’t?”

  He shrugged.

  She walked around the room, touching the door frame and the wallpaper. Using her hand to see, like a blind woman. She touched the edge of the mirror. She touched the cold metal bed frame. She stood five feet from him.

  “I heard it was serious,” she said. “You look better than I expected.”

  He grinned. “Flatterer.”

  “Though still appalling. The nurse said all you need is one good night.”

  “Is that an offer?”

  A spark of a smile flashed in her eyes but didn’t reach her lips.

  “They weren’t muggers, Harry,” he said. “Muggers don’t inquire into your social life.”

  She said offhandedly, “Did they ask about Earl?”

  He laughed, and two spots of color appeared on her cheeks. Rarely was Harriet so clumsy. “No, Harriet. They didn’t ask about Earl. You’re here to ask about Earl.”

  “That’s one reason.”

  “You called the embassy.”

  “This morning.”

  “They told you not to worry your pretty little head?”

  “Yes.”

  “Makes you wonder how deluded I am. Getting hard to tell. You checked Earl’s club?”

  She nodded curtly.

  “He’s not at the Waterfall, either. Hasn’t been since Tuesday, maybe Wednesday.” Earl had a room at the Rapids, had girls at the Rapids. Tom felt the words, the knowledge of Earl’s betrayal, bright and hard on his tongue. “Why not ask your boss to— Oh. Can’t mess with American intel. No, you spoke with your father and he told you to bugger off. So you want to know what I know about Earl. Is that why you came?”

  “Certainly not for your irresistible personality.”

  He laughed, but it didn’t sound like much. “I guess not.”

  “Who told you Earl was missing?”

  “Man named Rupert. You do two things for me, I’ll take you to him.”

  “Which two things?”

  “One, get me out of here.”

  “You know I can’t do that.”

  “I know you can.”

  “I won’t, then.”

  “Your decision.”

  It was her decision, and she spent twenty minutes making it. She came back half an hour after that with the clothes from his duffel bag and a daily pass.

  “You haven’t asked the second thing,” he said as he dressed.

  “I’d rather not know.”

  “Ten letters. ‘This lordling has very much the makings of a regal aunt.’”

  “Fauntleroy,” she said, unsmiling. “Come along.”

  THE SKY CLEARED before they were halfway to Hennessey Gate. Tom told Harriet there would be an old white church at the next junction, with a small graveyard. There was no church and no graveyard. He said perhaps the next junction. Wrong again.

  She pulled into the drive of an ivy-covered building with a timber frame and a peaked roof. A sprinkling of golden leaves clung to the sycamore behind her, like the halo on a Russian icon.

  “I’ll ask inside,” she said, opening the door. “Back in a kick.”

  He put his hand on her arm. “You believe me, don’t you? That Earl is missing.”

  “I believe Earl knows where he is, and knows what he’s about.”

  “Working for the COI.”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “With or against the Nazis?”

  “You know Earl better than that.”

  “The United States and Germany aren’t at war.”

  “It’s not Earl who worries me. The nurse said you’d never get your rest at the Rowansea.”

  “He could be running a private party. With Wild Bill Donovan in charge of the place, gunslingers are encouraged.”

  “When you speak like that, Tom . . .” She shook her head. “Wild Bill and gunslingers and Earl’s treachery. Your delusions help nobody.”

  “Earl betrayed me, Harry.”

  “More than I did?”

  Tom turned his head. He was tired of talking. He looked out the window. The red-gold leaves were pinned to a latticework of bare branches. Harriet waited a long moment, then stepped out of the car for directions.

  Tom called after her, “Hey, Harry. Why ‘a regal aunt’?”

  “Fauntleroy,” she said. “F. Aunt Leroy.”

  Tom watched until she disappeared into the house. He slid behind the wheel, hit the self-starter, and drove off. He had to warn Davies-Frank about the Blackshirts who’d stomped him, had to get a new line from Sondegger to Earl. Three turns and ten miles, and there was the old white church. He turned left. The road was distantly familiar. He was watching for landmarks when a car gunned past, horn blaring.

  He started, heart pounding, then realized he was driving no faster than he walked. He breathed, focused, and stepped harder on the accelerator.

  He was tired; he was spent. The road in front of him blurred.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  May 1941

  STILL THEY CAME. In waves of bombers and waves of men.

  The Mediterranean sun was dim behind the haze of smoke. The Krauts had rallied in the Tav riverbed west of the airfield. Their air superiority was unanswerable; they’d reduced the ack-ack batteries to blood and rubble. Nazi paratroopers who’d been surrounded signaled with white-and-yellow strips for bomb runs and machine-gun cover, for medical supplies, mortar ammo, reinforcements. The Krauts owned the sky. They would own the island, too, if they took Máleme. It all came down to Hill 107.

  Communications were dead. Every move was watched from above; every thrust was parried. Half the defenders were pinned in trenches, low on ammo, low on hope. At least Tom’s squad was mobile in the trees. . . .

  Early evening. Tillotson wrestled a wild-eyed boy in an Aussie uniform to the ground. The boy said D Company had been decimated and there was another Nazi charge on Hill 107—the Fliegerkorps pressing a fierce attack on the opposite flank. Tom helped the boy to his feet, asked who was defending.

  “What’s left of the Twenty-second,” the boy said. “Guess McCurcheon’s company and—”

  The boy stepped behind an overturned mule cart, and Tom never saw him again. They moved, keeping to the trees until hidden by the swirls of smoke shrouding the hill. Found a supply hut near an outcropping of rock. They had no mortars; they were out of grenades. They filled ration cans with concrete and nails, triggered them with gelignite.

  Tom was working deaf and blind. There was no coordination, no strategy. Unseen pockets of the Twenty-second—lone men and clusters, maybe an intact platoon—beat the Nazis bloodily back. Metallic shrieks hammered the air; the smoke surged in overheated waves. Tom was numb and hoarse. When he spat, it was pink. His Schmeisser was long gone; he had a rifle and a handful of rounds. The paratroops were dug into slit trenches, signaling the planes. Tom’s squad was in a trench, too. Someone was laughing. Two of the boys were singing a bawdy version of “With Plenty of Money and You.”

  More Germans came—they drove forward. The first Nazi rank was cut down by Staffo and Rosenblatt, behind a smoking Fallschirmjäger heavy machine gun juryrigged to a recoilless carriage. The second rank advanced. The gun exploded in Staffo’s arms; the squad fired blind and panicked and stopped the advance.

  The third Nazi rank swarmed the trench.

  Tom heard himself scream orders, felt himself slash his bayonet across a man’s face. He was knocked onto his stomach—rolled and stabbed a paratrooper in the back of the knee. He heard a shriek, pistol shots, and the slam of rifle butts. The boys were shit-terrified, fighting like animals in the blood-wet earth. The frenzy continued a full
minute after the last Nazi was dead, like a hanged man’s legs kicking at the gallows.

  There was a lull. Staffo and Tillotson were dead. Two Brits and an Aussie he didn’t know were dead. Corelli and Blondie needed stretchers. One of the Krauts was sucking air through a chest wound, drowning from the inside out. Tom rallied what was left of his squad to join C Company. The Nazis had established a toehold on Hill 107, dug in deep. The C Company lieutenant sent a message by runner to Creforce HQ:

  HEAVILY ENGAGED ON BOTH FLANKS. AMMUNITION LOW. NO MACHINE GUNS. NO HAND GRENADES. WOULD KINDLY APPRECIATE HELP.

  The sky was a soup of flak; the defense was FUBAR. One platoon, shit for weapons, and endless fucking Nazis. They fought until the sun set. With relative dark came relative quiet, and Creforce’s answer:

  REGRET UNABLE TO SEND HELP. GOOD LUCK.

  The men laughed. “And God bless.”

  “We who are about to die.”

  “Hey, Sarge,” Manny said, too quietly.

  “Yeah, Manny?”

  “Listen, Sarge.” Manny’s eyes were wet, his face caked with dirt. “The thing is, thing is . . .”

  “I know, son,” Tom said, his hand roughly on Manny’s shoulder. “I know.”

  They heard shots across the killing ground. The Twenty-eighth Maori, reinforcing them? No way to tell. Then silence. Tom squatted beside the C Company lieutenant in the slit trench. “We have to counterattack, in the dark. Clear the hill. If the Krauts have safe landing on the airstrip, it’s all over.”

  The lieutenant nodded. “Your men have hidden reserves of ammunition?”

  “My men have hidden reserves of guts.”

  “Reinforcements will come soon. They have to.” The lieutenant smiled an empty smile. “Your squad might scout for them. Establish contact, coordination. Use some of those reserves.”

  Tom roused the boys. They scouted along the Allied encampments and pieced together the news:

  The Twenty-eighth Maori had come, and found B Company already withdrawn, found A Company wiped out. Captain Winchell’s of the Twenty-third was nowhere. The command post of the Twenty-second was deserted; the Fifteenth Platoon had been decimated. The Maori had marched six hours to reinforce them, been immediately ordered to turn back toward brigade HQ.