by Lee Jackson
When he entered, he was surprised to find the major stretched uncomfortably on a wooden chair in front of the secretary’s desk with his arms crossed. Vivian’s eyes shone with excitement. As Paul looked from one to the other, he noticed that even the major seemed to struggle to contain a smile.
“You wished to see me, sir?”
Crockatt stood and placed his hands on his hips sternly. “Have you given any more thought to my offer?”
Bewildered, Paul just stood there. “Sir, I—”
Vivian giggled and the major chuckled. “I can’t do this,” he told her. Then he faced Paul seriously. “We have news for you, Lieutenant, of the mixed variety. You must prepare yourself.”
“Is it one of my brothers?” Paul breathed. “Which one?”
“Jeremy,” Vivian burst out while Crockatt frowned at her. She pointed at the office door. “He’s in there.”
At first speechless, Paul whirled around to look at where Vivian pointed. “In there?”
“He’s asleep,” Crockatt said. “You can look in on him, if you like, but I’d let him be a while longer. He’s been through several ordeals.”
Together they crept to the door and opened it slightly. Paul peered inside. He studied the figure lying on the cot in the half-light, then drew back and closed the door.
“Is that a baby with him?”
Crockatt nodded and gestured toward a chair. “A little boy. Have a seat. Vivian will tell you his story as she heard it.”
Paul listened in awe.
When Vivian had finished, Crockatt showed him the document Captain Savage had signed.
Paul inhaled and let his breath out slowly. “Unbelievable.” He leaned his head back. “Unbelievable,” he repeated.
“We tried to find your sister, Claire, so we could let her know as well.”
Paul swung around, startled, and checked to see if anyone else was listening. “She’s at Bletchley Park, sir.”
Crockatt stared a moment and then tossed his head back. “I should have guessed.”
“She wanted to do something more active in the war effort, but I convinced her that having two sons already in the combat areas, her going into danger might be enough to push our parents over the edge. She agreed but wasn’t happy about it. I’m hoping this job she has out there will be enough of a challenge for her.”
“Well,” Crockatt said. “Let’s see if we can get the three of you together.”
“Thank you for bringing me in, sir,” Paul said. “At risk of sounding ungrateful or opportunistic—”
“I know what you’re going to ask.” Crockatt stood and paced. “We have no news of your other brother.”
33
Jeremy had been in a half-sleep, dozing in and out of consciousness while his aching body protested against every toss and turn. He came to with a start and whirled around on the bed. “Timmy,” he called.
From across the room, a female voice replied reassuringly, “I have him.”
Jeremy looked in that direction through bleary eyes. Recognizing his sister, he dropped back into the sheets and instantly dozed off again. When he reawakened a few minutes later, she stood over him, smiling. She held little Timmy asleep in her arms.
His mind still numb, Jeremy sat up and pivoted awkwardly to sit on the edge of the bed. Claire sat down next to him. He took Timmy and held him close, recalling as though through a fog that he had woken up in a strange office with Paul and his sister there. He remembered nothing past that.
“I thought I had dreamed you,” he murmured to Claire.
“No, I’m real,” she said, wrapping an arm over his shoulder and brushing a shock of hair from his face.
“Where are we?” His voice sounded distant as he looked about the room, the furnishings a blur.
“You’re at a place called Bletchley Park. We moved you here by gurney and ambulance, and a staff doctor checked you out.” She dropped her hand to his shoulder and squeezed him. “You’ve lost a lot of weight, and I gather you’ve been through one ordeal after another. You’ll need some time to recover.”
Timmy stirred.
“He’ll be hungry,” Claire said. “I have a bottle ready for him. He’s a little old for it, but in his condition, he might just take it.” She handed it to Jeremy, who slipped the nipple between Timmy’s lips just as the tiny boy began to cry. Timmy quieted, and his eyes fluttered and closed as he drank.
Jeremy circled his free arm around his sister’s waist and leaned into her. “Was Paul there too, or did I imagine that?” His voice sounded low and hoarse.
“You didn’t dream it. He’s just outside. I’ll fetch him.” She left and returned with Paul, who crossed the room and stood in front of Jeremy. Wordlessly, the two men regarded each other, and then Paul hugged Jeremy around the shoulders.
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” he whispered. “We worried that we had lost you.”
After an extended moment, Jeremy pulled away. “Any news of Lance?”
Paul shook his head.
“How are Mum and Dad?”
“The last we heard, they were doing well,” Claire interjected, “but we haven’t been able to reach them in several days.”
“What is this place?” Jeremy asked around mid-afternoon as the three siblings took Timmy for a stroll about the stately gardens and ponds of the Bletchley Park estate.
The front of the mansion looked like a row of six two-story town homes, each with its own roofline and colorful façade. Wide lawns and meticulous gardens surrounded the building.
“The historical version is that this estate was built in 1883 for a prominent financier and politician of the time, Sir Herbert Leon,” Claire said.
“And what are those?” Jeremy pointed to a row of similar squat, single-story buildings on both sides of the manor. Most were built of brick halfway up their exteriors, with horizontal wooden siding interrupted by windows in the upper parts of their structures, and steepled roofs. Others looked like they had been thrown in as an afterthought. Despite being clean and orderly, their presence struck a discordant note on the otherwise elegant estate.
“We call those buildings ‘huts,’ but I’m not allowed to say much about them or what we do here,” Claire said apologetically. “That’s a standard rule, which my boss emphasized before agreeing to let us bring you and Timmy to stay out here.”
“Claire’s work is very hush-hush,” Paul interjected. “I’m not allowed to know anything about it either.”
“My job is not any more hush-hush than yours,” Claire responded, bumping against Paul playfully.
“Why were we brought here, in particular?” Jeremy asked.
“That was Major Crockatt’s idea,” Claire replied. “I work here. Anyone can see that you need time to recuperate, and Timmy needs constant care, like any child that age. At my flat in town, that would be impossible. London’s a good hour from here by train.
“The apartment we’re staying in was not being used, and since it opens onto the gardens, there’s plenty of room for Timmy to play outdoors. I hired a nanny this morning to take care of him while I’m working, and I’ll be close by.” She laughed. “My co-workers are mainly women, and they’re all excited to help out. Timmy won’t lack for attention. Your job now is to get back your strength.”
Jeremy smiled, his eyes and body feeling heavy. “We have to find Timmy’s family. He belongs with them.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Paul said. “Major Crockatt’s secretary, Vivian, is checking with the Foreign Office. They’ll have the list of embassy staff. Like all the other departments, they’re still trying to figure out who made it back to shore in France, who got on the ships, and who…” He caught himself, leaving the remainder of the thought unsaid.
Jeremy nodded without replying.
They wended their way back to the apartment. While Claire put Timmy down for a nap in a back bedroom and Paul made tea, Jeremy sat on a divan looking across the landscape through the massive window. Eventually, he doze
d, and the cycle of memories that had plagued him while evading across France started up again, now in dreams.
He woke up in a sweat and saw Amélie, her soft smile, her musical voice, just beyond his reach. He stretched his fingers out to touch her, and then realized dimly that he was still asleep, still dreaming.
He came fully awake, breathing hard, perspiration streaming down his face.
Paul stood in front of him, bearing a tray. He stared down at Jeremy. “Are you all right? You were having a nightmare.”
Jeremy closed his eyes, his face pained. “I’m tired.” He sat up, blinking to clear his vision. “I’ll have some of that good English tea,” he said with forced enthusiasm.
Claire joined them. “Timmy should sleep for a while.”
After a time, Jeremy asked, “Who is Major Crockatt?”
Paul set his cup down. “He’s the head of MI-9. That was his office you went to in the middle of the night and his cot you slept on. How did you know to go there?”
In broken sentences expressing disorganized thoughts, Jeremy told them, and spoke of Jacques and Nicolas, and the trek from Dunkirk; of Amélie and her sister and father. “She plays the piano, you know,” he told Claire. “She plays Chopin like you do.”
His siblings listened quietly, sometimes with moist eyes, sometimes aghast at the atrocities he described, and then angered at the abandonment of the soldiers in France. At one point, Claire crossed to the divan and sat close to him, holding onto his arm as the story unfolded.
“It’s not over,” Jeremy rasped when he had finished, his eyes sunken. “I have to go back.”
Claire leaped up from her seat. “What? You can’t possibly go back.” Her eyes blazed. “You’ve done your part. You’ve done more than your share.” She spun around to Paul. “Tell him. Tell him he’s not going anywhere.”
Paul stared at Jeremy, stunned. “After everything you went through to get here, you want to go back?”
Jeremy sat still, his eyes closed, breathing deeply. “Strangers risked their lives for me,” he whispered at last, his lips trembling. “I saw horrors that should never have happened. Hitler’s war machine is ruthless. It’s wanton. It enjoys killing and kills anything.”
Claire sat back down and leaned into him with one arm around his back. Paul remained quiet, speechless.
“They need our help. The French government surrendered. The people didn’t. And if we don’t fight, France and all the countries the Nazis occupy will be raped and ravaged, and then that monstrosity will come here.”
He leaned against the divan and rested his head on its back, his eyes closed. Suddenly, he sat forward. “What happens to the Channel Islands when Germany occupies France?”
Neither Paul nor Claire uttered a word.
“What will happen to them?” Jeremy demanded. As realization dawned, he stood abruptly, red-faced with anger. “We’re not going to defend them, are we?”
From the back of the house, Timmy wailed. Claire rushed to quiet him.
Jeremy sat back down and leaned toward Paul. “Tell me. What is being done for the islands? Mum and Dad are there.”
“The Channel Islands were declared an open territory a week ago.” Paul spoke slowly, reluctantly.
“Left unprotected?”
Paul nodded. “They’ve been de-militarized, all our forces moved out. Somehow, the Foreign Office failed to inform Berlin. The Germans bombed Jersey and Guernsey two days after the decision was made. There’s a big row about that at the highest levels.”
Jeremy’s lips curled with disgust.
Paul continued. “Our government sent ships there to evacuate anyone who wanted to be taken off the islands.”
“And have they come?”
Paul shook his head. “If by ‘they,’ you mean the good citizens of the Channel Islands, seventeen thousand were evacuated from Guernsey in a single week. If you mean our parents, I haven’t spoken to them in nearly a fortnight. I couldn’t get through on the phone, and by now, those lines have probably been cut. Mum’s and Dad’s names have not been listed among the arrivals. I check daily.”
Jeremy took a deep breath and exhaled. “And we know nothing of Lance.”
“I’ve tried tracking his unit. It was supposed to deploy to the north of France to reinforce there, but that was before the German blitz through Belgium.
“We’ve had no news of his unit. I’m sure he was not evacuated at Dunkirk, or we would have heard. Reports are coming in from partisan groups about British soldiers making their way across France to other ports, like you did, but so far, he’s not among those listed as arriving here. The reports also say that some of our men are making their way overland to Spain in hopes of getting home from there, but so far none have arrived, at least none that we know of.”
While he spoke, Jeremy toyed with the three faded ribbons still tied around his wrist. Paul noticed.
“Do you mind if I ask what those are?” Paul asked. “We started to cut them off last night when we cleaned you up, but you wouldn’t let us.”
Jeremy stopped toying with the ribbons and stared at them as if just discovering them. “These,” he said at last, “might have made the difference between whether I lived or died. They were the recognition signal that put me near the bow of the Lancastria, where I had a greater chance of survival. They got me through to Major Crockatt’s office.” He stood and walked to the window, peering out at waning rays of sunlight as dusk approached.
“Jacques tied them there,” he said. “I owe him my life, as I do Nicolas, Claude, Ferrand, Chantal, and Amélie. So many. They are my family now too, as close to me as you and Claire and—" His voice trembled. “And Lance.”
He remained silent a moment, and then continued. “I wasn’t the only one. You’ll hear stories of French families helping our soldiers by the thousands.” He breathed deeply and turned toward Claire, who had just re-entered the room. “Don’t you see?” He spoke in a hoarse whisper. “We must help them.”
“And we will,” Paul said. Rising from his seat, he crossed to Jeremy and grasped his shoulder. “Until you have proper clearances, I can’t tell you more, but I will tell you that England is not defeated, and we will not desert our French brothers and sisters.”
Claire also crossed the room and embraced him. “I’m so glad you’ve come safely back to us.”
“When can I speak again with this Major Crockatt?” Jeremy asked. “I have a message to deliver.”
“He wants to debrief you,” Paul replied. “He’s already notified your unit of your whereabouts, and you’ve been transferred to his organization…”
Jeremy’s eyes flashed in surprise.
“…at least temporarily,” Paul continued. “It was part of an arrangement he made with your headquarters so you could be with Timmy. He wants you to rest up for a day or two, and to be interviewed by a psychologist.”
Again, Jeremy reacted.
“Sorry,” Paul said, hands extended in a placating gesture. “Standard procedure, to make sure you don’t have underlying anger or some other disorder that could endanger yourself or others.”
“I’m solid.”
“I’m sure you are. It’s routine.”
“And what of Mum and Dad?”
“I put in calls to them. I’ll keep attempting to call and checking the arrivals from the islands. The Red Cross is putting the mechanism in place to send messages back and forth. Hopefully, that’ll be up soon.”
34
Jeremy studied Major Crockatt, who in return, studied him. They sat in the front room of the apartment at Bletchley Park, awaiting the arrival of one Lord Hankey. Paul and Claire were both at their jobs, and the nanny played with Timmy on the front lawn.
Jeremy felt his physical strength and mental acuity returning, but his muscles still ached, and he found putting coherent thoughts together difficult. A tray with a pot of fresh tea was on a low table in front of the divan, and the two men held cups of the steaming brew and sipped it.
“Sir, if you don’t mind,” Jeremy ventured, “I’m not accustomed to such high-level attention. I really know nothing about your organization other than I was directed to seek out MI-9, and I’ve never heard of this Lord Hankey, although with that title, he must be something exalted. What’s his interest? For that matter, what is yours? You both came out a distance from London to see me on this grand estate I’m allowed to know nothing about, and I know less about the purpose of your visits.” He smiled. “That said, I’m grateful that you took in Timmy and me. Thank you.”
Crockatt smiled. “You can thank the resourcefulness of your French friend in Saint-Nazaire. He stayed on his shortwave radio until he convinced a loyal citizen to seek out a contact inside British intelligence. Fortunately, my group is new and small enough that we could give the matter some attention. Working out and communicating the identification signal with the ribbons was a little dicey, but, well, here you are.” A look of curiosity crossed his face. “I’m a little puzzled, though. With all the thousands of troops to be rescued, why did you receive such special attention?”
“Luck of the draw, I suppose.” Jeremy sighed. “Nothing more than that. This wonderful French family in Dunkirk helped me. A nephew of the father took me across France, and Jacques, the shortwave operator, was his contact. They had already set up a network, and I was fortunate enough to be their first customer.”
“I get that,” Crockatt said, “but I sense there is more to it. This man, Jacques, has been in touch since the Lancastria went down. He wants news of your safe arrival, and he insists that you have a message for me. Your brother told me the same thing.
“By the way, Jacques moved on from Saint-Nazaire to join a group in Marseille that had already been in contact with MI-6. We haven’t told them your status.”
Jeremy rose and went to stand by the window looking out to where Timmy played. “I’ll tell you honestly. I’m a poor emissary. The message is simply that the Free French are ready to fight. You already know that from de Gaulle’s speech. My brother told me about the radio address.”
