He gave a reluctant grunt. ‘Oui.’
For the second time that day, the teaching nuns of Our Lady’s came to her aid. ‘Je suis l’officier de section Angelica Caton-Walsh de la force aérienne britannique. Vous m’attendez?’
He scrutinised her face, looked at the box of food and then at her again. ‘J’ai dit à l’officier anglais: non!’
I told the English officer: no. ‘Did you indeed,’ she muttered under her breath. She was starting to lose her temper, standing in the rain. She gestured to the sky. ‘Je suis désolé,’ she said firmly, ‘mais je suis ici!’
He glared at her for a few more seconds, then sighed, unfastened the chain and opened the door.
The hall reminded her of her grandmother’s house – a black-and-white tiled floor with a threadbare rug, heavy wooden furniture, a dinner gong, a metal crucifix, pictures of saints and various embroidered religious texts around the walls, the tick of a long-case clock, and an obscure smell of something…not dead exactly, but mouldy, ancient, of another time. It was colder than it had been in the jeep. She put down her suitcase but kept hold of the box of food.
Dr Vermeulen closed the door and locked and bolted it. He was bald and bony, sixty-something, with liver spots on his hands and skull. A bottle-green cardigan hung loosely from his sloping shoulders. He called up the stairs, ‘Amandine!’
The wooden boards creaked and at once a woman began to descend. She must have been listening from the landing, dressed as if she was about to go out, in thick shoes and a dark coat. Her grey hair was cut in a mannish helmet. She inspected Kay through wire-framed spectacles. Vermeulen said something to her in Flemish, then turned to Kay and shrugged: ‘Ma femme.’
Kay held out the food. ‘This is for you,’ she said in French. ‘I am sorry for the imposition.’
The woman took the carton and peered down into it. She looked up with a slightly friendlier expression and replied, also in French, ‘You had better come into the warm.’
Kay followed them past the ticking clock and into the kitchen. Dr Vermeulen’s slippers slapped against the flagstone floor.
A big dresser was filled with blue-and-white china. Two high-backed wooden chairs with cushions and blankets were drawn up in front of an iron stove. On the table was a pile of old cloth-bound books and some woollen socks that were being darned. Mrs Vermeulen pushed the sewing out of the way and set down the box. She began taking out the contents and examining them with an expression of wonder. Two red tins of Fray Bentos corned beef. An army-ration tin of meat and vegetable stew. A packet of tea. Three rashers of bacon wrapped in greaseproof paper. A tin of condensed milk. A small loaf. An egg box. A slab of chocolate. She lined them up carefully as if they were pieces of treasure. She opened the egg box to reveal three small white eggs and showed them wordlessly to her husband.
‘It isn’t much,’ said Kay. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Vous êtes très gentil,’ said Dr Vermeulen. He looked forlorn. ‘Forgive us,’ he said suddenly in English. ‘We told them we would prefer not to take you. My wife has – how do you say it?’ He tapped his heart. ‘Angine.’
‘Angina?’
‘Oui, angina – of course, from the Latin. And my son is also not in good health. But, as you say, here you are, and we must make the best of it. Perhaps it will not be for long.’ He gestured. ‘Your coat, please. Sit. Be warm.’
She took off her coat and handed it to him, then perched on one of the chairs and held out her hands to the stove. So he could speak English after all, she thought, and quite well by the sound of it. She wondered why he had pretended otherwise.
There was a loud tapping behind her. She turned and let out a cry of surprise. At the window of the back door a man’s distorted face was pressed close to the frosted glass.
‘Do not be alarmed,’ said Vermeulen. ‘It is only my son.’
He unlocked the door. A young man limped in carrying a small sack. He dumped it on the table, turned immediately to Kay and took off his cap, releasing a mop of thick dark hair, cut short at the sides but long on the top.
Vermeulen said, ‘This is Arnaud.’ He said something quietly to him in Flemish.
The man bowed to her, took her hand and kissed it. He was about her own age, middle twenties, very pale but good-looking. His face was wet from the rain. Hunger had given him sharp features, she thought. His eyes were dark and full of life. In a thick accent he said in English, ‘A pleasure to meet you.’ He rummaged through the sack and held up four potatoes still covered in wet soil. He winked and smiled in triumph: ‘Voilà!’
Kay smiled back. He has stolen those from someone’s garden, she thought.
At the prospect of food, the Vermeulens became almost merry. Arnaud took off his wet jacket, sat and started tugging off his boots. Mrs Vermeulen washed the potatoes at the sink, put them in a saucepan and set it on the stove. She opened the can of meat stew and tipped it into a second saucepan. The doctor went next door into what looked to be a freezing, darkened parlour and returned with a bottle of advocaat. He poured four tiny glasses and handed them round. He proposed a toast – ‘À l’amitié!’ – and Kay clinked her glass with each of theirs. The sweet and eggy drink reminded her of custard, and therefore for some reason of Christmas, which made her briefly maudlin.
They sat around the stove and watched the potatoes boil. Vermeulen said bitterly, ‘The Nazis took all our potatoes before they left – as if they don’t have potatoes in Germany!’
Mrs Vermeulen served the stew and potatoes. The doctor poured another thimbleful of advocaat. They ate in hungry silence, Arnaud with his head down over his plate. When he had finished, his mother gave him what was left of her own meal and he wolfed that down as well. Once or twice Kay looked wistfully at the rest of the food she’d brought, but it seemed the Vermeulens wished to keep it for another day. At this rate of consumption, it would last them for a week. She reproached herself for even thinking about it: she could always find something at the officers’ mess tomorrow. When they were finished, Mrs Vermeulen cleared the plates, then cut them each a square of the hard and milkless British army chocolate.
Arnaud said, in French, ‘Why are you in Mechelen, may I ask, mademoiselle?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not allowed to say.’
‘But you are based somewhere close to here?’
‘To be honest, I don’t know where it is. I’m supposed to be on duty at eight tomorrow morning and I’m not even sure how to get there.’
‘Why, then we can draw you a map! What is the name of the street – can you tell us that?’ He grinned at her. ‘Or is it also secret?’
‘I believe it’s called Koningin Astridlaan.’
‘But we know it, of course! The main road in the south. That’s where the Boche had their headquarters.’
‘They’re our headquarters now.’
A sheet of paper was fetched, a pencil produced, and the three Vermeulens – with occasional disagreements in Flemish – put their heads together and drew her a plan of how to get there.
She studied the neatly labelled streets. The route was arrowed. ‘Is it far?’
Arnaud shrugged. ‘A fifteen-minute walk – no more.’
‘Thank you.’ She folded up the map and stowed it in her pocket. ‘And now, I think, as I have to get up early, I should go to bed.’
‘Of course,’ said Dr Vermeulen. ‘Let me show you to your room.’
As she bent to retrieve her coat, she was aware of Arnaud eyeing her.
‘Goodnight,’ she said.
‘Goodnight. Sleep well.’
In the hall, the doctor insisted on picking up her case. She looked around at the high ceiling, the religious artefacts, the big wooden doors. It seemed too formal for an ordinary home. ‘Is this where you see your patients?’
He laughed. ‘Je ne suis pas ce type de docteur!’ He open
ed the nearest door and turned on the light. She followed him in. It was a large study, of a sort familiar to her from Cambridge – a working library, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves so crammed with volumes that they had overflowed into piles on the floor and desk. Heavy black velvet curtains, streaked with dust, were tightly drawn. There was a strong smell of old tobacco. ‘I taught at the University of Antwerp before the war. I am a doctor of philosophy – much use though that is these days.’
‘On the contrary, surely – we need philosophy more than ever.’
‘That’s true!’ He smiled at her – the first proper smile he had given that evening. It changed his face entirely. He was not as old as he first appeared, she realised.
On the desk were a few family photographs in silver frames, dating back to the last century: prosperous, solid citizens in fine clothes. In one, two boys posed on a beach, holding a football. She picked it up. The older she recognised at once by his thick dark hair as Arnaud. He looked about eighteen. His companion was a couple of years younger. The resemblance between the two was striking; even their expressions, squinting into the sun, were the same.
‘You have another son?’
She regretted her curiosity at once. His smile disappeared. He took the photograph from her. ‘That is Guillaume. He was killed in the war.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Thank you.’ He laid the photograph face down on the desk and gestured to the door. ‘Shall we?’
She followed his stooping back up the stairs to the first-floor landing. A second, smaller staircase led into the upper reaches of the house, but instead of climbing further, he led her along a gloomy passage. At the far end he opened a door and turned on an overhead light. The room was large and bare, with a rug, a brass bedstead, a nightstand, a plain chest of drawers, a simple wooden chair and escritoire, and a wardrobe. A pair of heavy velvet curtains, similar to those in the study, were drawn across the window. A crucifix hung above the bed. The pink tasselled lampshade provided a weak light. It felt as if the room had not been used, or even visited, for years.
‘The bathroom is there.’ Vermeulen set down the case and pointed across the passage. ‘I am sorry: there is no hot water. But Amandine can heat a kettle in the kitchen if you like.’
‘Really, there is no need. I am very sorry to put you to this trouble.’
He hesitated and managed a brief smile. ‘Alors – bonne nuit.’
‘Goodnight. Thank you.’
She listened to his slippers shuffling away, along the passage and down the stairs. She closed the door and surveyed the room. It was dry, at least, unlike the hut at Danesfield House, and it was private, but she would have given a lot at that moment to be back in England with the others, gossiping after their shift. A stupid thought! She shook her head to clear it. She could forgive herself any sin except self-pity. She lifted her case up onto the bed, opened it, and began unpacking, transferring her spare uniform to the chest of drawers and wardrobe. She laid out her white cotton nightdress on the counterpane. The slide rule and logarithm tables she placed on the escritoire. She had brought no civilian clothes, no book or photograph to remind her of home. She wound up her travel clock and set the alarm for six thirty, then parted the curtains and cupped her hands to the window. She could make out nothing in the blackness.
She sat at the desk and opened the book of logarithms. Flight Officer Sitwell had given them a list of equations (‘Homework, ladies’) to practise on when they were off duty, and for half an hour she worked conscientiously with her slide rule until her eyes were too tired to focus on the tiny markings. A church bell sounded in the distance. She counted the chimes. Nine o’clock.
She removed her cap and unpinned her hair, took off her jacket and hung it up. She carried her sponge bag across the hall to the bathroom, searched among her make-up for a bar of soap, then rolled up her sleeves and washed her hands and face, wiping them on the small, thin towel, which at home they would have used to dry dishes. She brushed her teeth.
Back in her room, she took off her tie, shirt and skirt, removed her shoes, and unrolled her thick stockings. Her skin puckered into gooseflesh in the cold. She unclipped her suspender belt. As she reached behind her to unhook her bra, she paused, remembering the way Arnaud had kissed her hand and eyed her up when he thought she wasn’t looking. Should she keep her underclothes on, or even prop the chair against the door? She dismissed her fears at once. He had obviously been badly injured somehow. She could handle him. She took off her bra and the hideous WAAF-issue knickers, elasticated at the waist and legs, nicknamed Passion Killers, the sight of which had always made Mike groan. She wished very much he was with her now, lying in bed, watching her, waiting for her. She shook her head again. No point in thinking about him any more. She pulled the nightdress over her head, turned down the covers and piled the two thin pillows on top of one another. Then she went to the door, switched off the light and darted across the room into bed.
The unaired sheets smelled damp, like an old raincoat. She drew the blanket up to her chin. The ancient house was quiet. She could hear nothing, see nothing. Her head was a merry-go-round of algebraic calculations. She worried they would keep her awake. But within two minutes she was asleep. In her dreams, a rocket, at the tip of a spreading white plume of numbers and symbols, rose far in the distance against a pale blue sky.
11
‘CHECK,’ SAID SEIDEL.
He lifted his fingers from his knight and sat back in his chair with a smile of satisfaction. Graf leaned over the table to inspect the board. His legs were wide apart, his forearms rested just above his knees. His fingertips tapped nervously against one another. ‘So, what do we have here?’ Normally he was the victor in these regular contests, but tonight his mind was not fully engaged and he had allowed his position to deteriorate. His queen was gone. His king, with its little band of weak protectors, was besieged by Seidel’s rooks and knights.
‘Do you concede?’ asked Seidel.
‘Not at all.’ Seidel was offering his knight to be taken by white’s king, but the sacrifice would give him checkmate in three moves. ‘There is always hope.’ Graf moved his king behind the line of pawns.
‘You do know you’re only prolonging the agony?’ But when the lieutenant leaned over the board again, he folded his arms and frowned, worried he might have missed something.
Graf settled back. The officers’ mess was on the first floor of the Hotel Schmitt, in a small lounge that faced towards the promenade. The sea was invisible but noisy in the darkness beyond the drawn curtains. The atmosphere was sombre. Some evenings Colonel Huber would play the piano – ‘The Gendarmes’ Duet’ or a selection from The Merry Widow were his stalwarts – but tonight he was sitting quietly with Lieutenant Klein and a couple of other officers. The gramophone was silent and untouched. The chair by the window where Lieutenant Stock liked to read his westerns had been left empty as a mark of respect. In the corner, Obersturmbannführer Drexler, smoking a cigar, was entertaining a pair of SS men who had driven over from their headquarters in The Hague. Sturmscharführer Biwack was with them. Occasionally he would glance over in Graf’s direction. At the post-mortem into the accident that afternoon, he had demanded to know why Graf wasn’t at the launch site when the missile exploded.
‘Why? Would you have preferred it if I was incinerated?’
‘Of course not. I merely wonder why an SS patrol reported that at the time of the accident you were in the restricted zone beside the sea some distance away.’
‘Obviously, I was signalling to a British submarine.’
When Seidel had tried unsuccessfully to suppress a snort of laughter, Biwack had rounded on him. ‘There’s nothing funny about this, Lieutenant!’
‘I’m aware of that. Stock was a friend of mine. I require no lectures from you.’
‘Leave it, gentlemen,’ ordered Huber. He explained to Biwack: �
��Dr Graf has been sent by Peenemünde as a technical liaison officer, because of the number of modifications to the missile. He is not required to attend every launch – it would be physically impossible.’
‘I’m not suggesting Dr Graf was responsible, merely that if he had been present, he might have noticed a fault in the missile. Plainly there was a fault, was there not? Is it possible there could have been sabotage?’
‘Most unlikely,’ said Huber. ‘Indeed, impossible. But security is the province of the SS.’
All eyes turned to the SS commander. Drexler far outranked the National Socialist Leadership Officer, and beneath his well-cushioned exterior was known to have a sharp temper, but Graf noticed he was careful to keep his tone polite. ‘Security is very tight. The rockets are closely guarded from the moment they leave the factory – all the way from Nordhausen by rail – and then when they arrive here, they are never out of the custody of the technical troop. It’s true that at the start of the campaign there was some evidence of sabotage carried out by foreign workers at the factory, but we took severe measures to deal with that, and nothing’s been reported since.’
Severe measures, thought Graf. He preferred not to imagine what that might mean. He wanted to say, Listen, gentlemen, are you all crazy? This rocket is the most technologically advanced feat of engineering the world has ever seen, and no one involved in designing it ever expected them to be rolled off a production line at the rate of one every ninety minutes. Instead he said, ‘The rocket is checked and rechecked by the technical troop from the moment it’s delivered to the railhead, so unless Sturmscharführer Biwack believes there are saboteurs within the regiment…’
‘I did not say that!’
‘…then the accident was the result of a technical fault. Or, I should say, a series of technical faults that compounded one another. I have visited the scene with Lieutenant Seidel, but there is nothing physically detectable that can tell us what went wrong. We must just stick to our pre-launch procedures, and make sure these are never skimped in our understandable desire to fire as many V2s as possible each day.’
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