Commander Amanda Nightingale

by George Revelli

  Annotation

  AMANDA ADORES HER CAPTORS

  Within hours of landing in occupied territory Commander Amanda Nightingale is captured. She becomes the prisoner, victim and plaything of three perverse and sadistic Germans. Amanda enjoys every minute of it…

  Everything happens to Commander Amanda — the beautiful but inexperienced English spy who leaves her sexpertise marked on the history of occupied France.

  * * *

  George Revelli

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  * * *

  George Revelli

  Commander Amanda Nightingale

  To A. R.

  OCR Mysuli: denlib@tut.by

  * * *

  Just before D-Day in 1944, a young British Army Intelligence officer posing as a French schoolteacher is flown into occupied France with three comrades. Within a few hours she is captured and imprisoned in an abandoned schoolhouse by two German Army officers and their female companion. Thus begins the grand career in espionage of Commander Amanda Rosemarie Nightingale, nee Hastings. Swiftly and with derisive humour, Mr. Revelli turns the standard relationships of war upside down and creates a story that is both horrifying and funny.

  "Vintage stuff… Candy never had it so good."

  Washington Star

  "The novel that would make Bond blush and de Sade salivate — outsexes all others."

  Publisher's Weekly

  Chapter One

  The only reason I begin my story as I do is because in a film I saw not long ago, Miss Lilli Palmer could be seen wearing what the British call stiletto heels. That would have been all very well, except that it happened to be a war film in which Miss Palmer played an Allied spy, as does the heroine of this book; and, as almost everybody knows, spiked heels did not begin their work of destruction on the Axminsters and parquets of the Western world until the mid nineteen-fifties.

  And I wondered at the problem of all historians who, like myself, seek to be serious, to present time and place, words and music, book and score, in one unified and accurate whole. Would Tiberius recognize himself and his time in Gibbon? Would Marie Antoinette contemplating Miss Shearer, or Cleopatra contemplating Miss Taylor, find themselves on familiar ground at any point, or would there be the utter incomprehension of, say, a cat contemplating its own photograph? Who can correctly sense the anachronism? In the period of the 1939–1945 war, the principal concern of this story, who really knows when the autumnal sun tan fell from that classical slang of the RAF, after the Battle of Britain; and when Parisian girls ceased to garland their American liberators with flowers and kisses, and started suggesting money instead? Was it in November of that year? September? July?

  Further, if even these well-defined areas of history are hard to place, how close can the historian get in times of flux, when the rivers of great events meet, eddy and change course?

  Take the scene that begins this story, and imagine some expert of the period conjured out of the twenty-first century, and asked to date it. First of all, it involves a celebration of more than conventional moment, taking place in a large market town in England, and the night air has a primeval sweetness that suggests the south. The flags of Great Britain, France, and the United States are hung from the municipal buildings, and the town's principal inn has red carpet leading to the door. The cars parked outside mark a confident society in a gracious and virile age: Railtons, Bentleys, Rovers, Alvises and, of course, Rolls Royces; but one might notice that almost none are new. There is a weariness about them, like that of fading football stars who continue to play from memory because there are none to take their place.

  That suggests wartime, when no cars were manufactured. But no, the lights are on in the streets. Deduction: the blackout is ended, and thus the war is over. The guests in the great banqueting hall indicate conflicting periods. The women have their hair piled up in front and falling in foaming cascades at the sides, down to their shoulders — a wartime style, a soldier's dream of beauty. But there is an occasional whiff of modern French perfume, and the men have flounces of silk about their evening dress shirts, and cuffs on their sleeves, suggesting a society emerging slowly and painfully from a long, dark night of austerity. The meal is starchy to a degree that could be stomached only by the British (though by them with relish). That is really all we need to know. The scene takes place in Northminster, Essex, a few years after the ending of the war. The importance lies not so much in the precise placing of the scene as in its quality. This gathering is very important indeed.

  There is not an empty seat in the banqueting hall, and on a raised platform sit the guests of honour, the Mayor, the Bishop, the Member. There is also a Minister from Whitehall and a gentleman wearing the rosette of the Légion d'Honneur, who proves to be none other than the French Ambassador himself. Fleet Street reporters lend authority, yellow socks, and suede shoes to the local press contingent, and there is even a man from Agence France-Presse. The town's press lord sits at the edge of the table of honour, from which coign of vantage he can make sure that the reporters on his own payroll do not partake too freely of the claret before the speeches.

  The banquet is in honour of Northminster's most distinguished citizen, Mrs. Amanda Rosemary Nightingale (nee Hastings), MP, GC. The George Cross does not, of course, grow on the rosebushes of East Anglia. It holds equal place with the Victoria Cross and is awarded to those who perform deeds of the highest valour outside the conventional battle lines. The fact that Mrs. Nightingale had won the George Cross had been known for years. The King had presented it to her himself, and the scene had been shown on film in the news theatres. Nor had it done any noticeable harm to Mrs. Nightingale immediately after the war, in 1945, when she had stood as Conservative candidate for Northminster and won easily in the teeth of the Labour landslide of that year; her predecessor's majority of 10,847 dropping by no more than a thousand. But for years, on orders of those who control the Official Secrets Act, no one had been permitted to know why. It had been considered a matter of such international importance that even in peacetime it would be potentially detrimental to the nation's security to reveal it.

  In the meantime, and, so far as was known, without any connection with Mrs. Nightingale whatever, a story had grown up about a courageous and beautiful English heroine who had operated in German-occupied France under the code name of Yvette. The exploits of Yvette were so fanciful that legend and fact had become hopelessly confused. Because she apparently disappeared from the face of the earth as soon as the war was over, no one knew whether she had ever existed, or whether Allied propaganda had simply, for its own inscrutable ends, invented her. At any rate novels were written about her, a rather bad film made by the Rank Organization starring Miss Margaret Lockwood, and there had even been a successful comic strip called "Yvette — Girl Heroine", which was widely syndicated in the Commonwealth and the United States.

  But a Cabinet reshuffle had led to a reappraisal of the Official Secrets Act by the Minister of War, and the astonishing, incredible fact was revealed, that Yvette was no figure of imagination or Allied propaganda. Mrs. Nightingale herself, of Northminster, Essex, was Yvette, one of the war's supreme heroines. The longing of the community to pay her tribute had led her to this day, Amanda Nightingale Day. She had presented the Amanda Nightingale Cup to the local hockey
club, inaugurated the Amanda Nightingale Prize at the grammar school, and tonight was the climax of the festivities.

  Mrs. Nightingale's wartime feats were amazing by any standards. She had smuggled intelligence out of occupied France, which she presented to General Eisenhower himself, intelligence of such importance that it changed the entire plan for D-Day. In France she had been captured by the Germans, horrendously tortured and hideously ill-used, without revealing the secrets she knew. She had escaped, single-handed and alone, then saved the entire réseau of the French Resistance in Normandy from capture by the Gestapo. In addition to the G.C, Mrs. Nightingale possessed the O. B. E., a considerable American order of merit, the Légion d'Honneur, and the Order of Stalin.

  It is always a question on such occasions whether the hero, or heroine in this case, is put on exhibit for honour or for show. Certainly the gathering of East Anglian notables at the banquet tonight regarded her with a new fascination, rather as would ichthyologists discovering a swimming coelacanth. The men regarded her with an admiration not unmixed with perplexity. Amanda Nightingale was truly beautiful, a silver-blonde woman with skin as creamy as vellum, and the rich natural complexion that only the English possess — and not many of them. She was also elegant. Her dress, from Stiebel, was cut so deeply at the bosom that it could be worn only by a woman totally confident of her own moral decorum. Her jewels were from Van Cleef, pre-war; and from waist to shoulder she wore the red, white, and blue sash of the Légion d'Honneur. But it was a beauty to awe rather than to attract, a beauty which induced not so much a leer as a. stammer, a beauty that belonged not so much to a clinch as to a straight left. Mrs. Nightingale, in other words, was formidable.

  The thoughts of the women who stared at her were even more complex than those of the men. Not even the basest among them would have denied her courage, beauty, or taste. But that was the trouble. Mrs. Nightingale was too beautiful, too intelligent; it was all very well to be able to speak French, but no Englishwoman should be allowed to speak it as well as she did. The papers said she even spoke German. Her seat at the hunt was a little too perfect. Her golf handicap was six, and she could do the Times crossword in half an hour, without the help of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Her kindness was too kind, not that it was false or assumed in any way, quite the contrary. It was so sincere that her acceptance of the idea that you were as good as she made you feel all the more intensely that you were anything but. Her devotion to good causes was carried along on a torrent of such genuine concern for the poor and under-privileged that half the Tory ladies of Northminster, it seemed, were forever knitting, visiting or giving flowers to the sick, taking children on picnics, or serving on committees — all under Mrs. Nightingale's unflagging chairmanship — often at the very times when they wanted nothing so much as to be home with their feet up and their hair in curlers. Nobody begrudged or belittled Mrs. Nightingale's achievements. Here and there, however, there may have occurred an unworthy thought that the Germans who had the temerity to lay a finger on her possibly deserved a medal themselves.

  If the armour of Mrs. Nightingale's shimmering, silver-blonde perfection had any chinks, none but presumably her husband knew of them, and Major Guy Nightingale showed precious few himself. He was not as good to look upon as his wife, but that would have been almost impossible. His triumphs had been those of will power rather than beauty. He wore the small, pale, ginger moustache that has an incomprehensible attraction to small, pale, ginger men, but his mild appearance was deceptive. He had won the D.S.O. at Cassino. War wounds had terminated what was once predicted to be a first-class career as an amateur cricketer. He had raced Formula Two cars at Silverstone and Brand's Hatch. His bulls walked away yearly with the agricultural prizes. He was rich. The Nightingales had three children, two sons and a daughter, who had appeared at intervals of the greatest exactness. No, if the women of Northminster faced the fact frankly and decided that they did not really like Amanda Nightingale, who, in all sincerity, could blame them?

  At the table of honour she sat to the right of the Mayor who seemed to be saying something most amusing because Mrs. Nightingale's laughter rang mellifluously, showing fine white teeth and pink gums. She was completely unconscious of the attention, the admiration, the resentment, the envy she was attracting. Or so it seemed. Actually, Mrs. Nightingale missed little. The gathering would have been startled to know the thoughts that were running through her mind even at that moment.

  She was talking to the Mayor, but the cross-rhythm of secret, silent thought passed her flashing teeth as through the thorax of a ventriloquist. As she talked she was saying something else quite different to herself, and whatever she was saying to herself was giving her immense inner satisfaction. What she was actually saying to the Mayor was "Tom, this is the most exciting night of my life, really."

  What she was saying to herself was, "Dear, dear ladies of Northminster, what a lot of hypocritical, canting witches you all are. Look at them staring. I know just what they are thinking. And I'm not going to tell them. Let them wait to see it in the cinema."

  Laughing, she replied to something the Mayor said. "Don't use this table, Tom Tracey, to try and push any of your socialist propaganda down me."

  "Amanda," said the Mayor, "socialists we may be, but the name of our party is not Socialist Party but Labour Party, which is the class we represent, the labouring class. That is what you Tories hate to admit. Say it. Lay-burr: Slowly in your own incomparable Cheltenham Ladies' College accent."

  Amanda said, "When you say that, smile."

  "When I think of Cheltenham Ladies' College how can I do otherwise?"

  A man had come to see her only the day before, and had taken her to lunch at the White Hart. He was from Hollywood and had offered her what seemed to be quite a fantastic sum to make a film of her exploits in France: when converted from dollars into devalued English pounds it came to £20,000. "Let me assure you, Mrs. Nightingale," he said to her with a sincerity she could not help but almost believe, "we plan to make this moving picture not for any commercial purpose, but as a testament to a woman's courage and dedication, and as a light to guide the youth of our respective countries, indeed the youth of the world — if we can get worldwide distribution — in these difficult times of readjustment." But it was what he said next that had such a lunatic appeal to her imagination. "We are prepared to pay your expenses, and what I am sure you would consider a generous honorarium, to come to Hollywood and assist us as technical adviser. Not for publicity, of course. Simply in the interests of accuracy."

  "Of course."

  Technical adviser! How can one be technical adviser to a torture chamber? "Excuse my butting in, Mr. Director, but Miss Dors is not doing it quite right. One does not scream at a moment like that. One snorts like a horse. Also she is not perspiring."

  "Thanks, Mrs. Nightingale. Joel Tell the make-up man to bring some more sweat."

  The speeches had begun. The Mayor introduced the French Ambassador and Amanda smiled an acknowledgment to his bow. The Ambassador, in execrable English, begged forgiveness for his execrable English, and resumed in French, while Amanda listened with modest intentness, and the others looked at Amanda to see if her expression betrayed any clue to what he was talking about.

  Or perhaps it would not be like that. Perhaps Amanda would be played by some real queen of the movies, a great star of the old school. "Why, gee, Mrs. Nightingale, or let me call you Mandy, and you just call me Ginnie. I've read all about you, and I'm proud, just proud to be playing you. At least my husband read about you, I can't read or write, and he said, 'You just gotta be the proudest girl alive to be playing the part of Eve-ette, the great heroine of the French ray-zees-tarnce. What was the name of the French guy who was with you in the ray-zees-tarnce?"

  "Lucien."

  "Yeah, Loossian. He was a great guy too. Pity he got killed. If he hadn't gotten himself killed, my husband would have played the part, but any part that my husband gets killed in is poison at the box office
."

  "Why don't you resurrect him, then? I'm sure Lucien wouldn't mind, where he is now."

  "Oh sure, if the producer doesn't object. He knows the B. O. But we are kinda worried about the bit where I… I mean you… I mean we… get tortured. The public doesn't like these scenes too gruesome. It will probably be just some screaming off-screen."

  "How about the rape?"

  "That's out. My husband is a very jealous man. Fourth husbands are always the most jealous, you know."

  "No, I didn't."

  "Oh, sure. Ask anybody in Hollywood."

  The French Ambassador sat down to baffled applause and the Mayor announced, "Mr. Rory O'Donovan."

  Amanda's dreaming stopped briefly, and she looked at her old comrade in arms with fleeting curiosity. Her view of him had been largely hidden, and she had not really seen him in years. She smiled happily at him, and said to herself, "Good God, Rory, you are gras comme un cochon." She found it difficult to believe that this stockbroker in his stiff collar, who should really be advised by his wife that a man of his girth should not wear a waistcoat, was once the dark-haired, Byron-eyed Irishman with whom she had risked so much. She recalled his kisses in the moonlight, and later his face, luminous with fear, his hands above his head, as in a cowboy picture. Amanda's Mediterranean-blue eyes were fixed on him with studious attention as he spoke, while the inner Amanda winced.

  "God, that accent! When I knew him he spoke like a gentleman. Now he has become a stage Irishman. He was always an actor, poor Rory. For a soldier he was a good actor."

  Amanda lost interest. Her thoughts returned to other more or less scabrous variations on the absurd theme of Hollywood.

  "Cut!" shouts the director.

  "What do you mean, cut?" asks Miss Dors. "What do you expect me to do between takes, hanging here by my thumbs. Somebody at least stick some chewing gum in my mouth."