by Jules Wake
She squeezed his arm. ‘You always take care of me, Walther.’
He was the perfect gentleman and not only made her feel safe but also treasured. There was no other feeling like it and she hugged it to herself, feeling grateful that she had met such a wonderful man and not someone like Betty’s awful Bert. She wished she could confide in Walther about Betty’s problems with Bert. She was sure that, in his quiet, thoughtful way, he would come up with a suggestion or a solution, but Betty had sworn them to secrecy and Judith was nothing if not a woman of her word.
‘Would you like to come with me to the dance at RAF Bovingdon? They’ve arranged transport for the evening and it might be fun.’
‘Can you dance?’ she asked with a sudden teasing smile, thinking of the steps she’d learned with Evelyn and Betty and how much fun they’d had.
‘A little, and I might have a surprise for you, there,’ said Walther with that quiet caution she loved so much about him. There it was again, that word. Loved. She loved lots of things about him but did that mean she was in love with him? She had nothing to gauge against apart from what she’d seen in operas, and that picture of love never looked terribly satisfying.
‘A surprise? Tell me.’ She shocked herself by being almost flirtatious as her eyes gleamed at him.
‘It wouldn’t be a surprise then, would it?’
‘I suppose not.’ She gave a mock sigh and the barest hint of a pout. ‘Well then, I shall have to go with you. Only because you can dance a little.’
He laughed at her unexpected playfulness and she liked the way it sounded. ‘That’s very kind of you.’
‘I thought so.’ Judith gave him a prim, sweet smile and he laughed again and put his arm around her.
‘And if I’m not very good, what will you do then?’ he teased back.
Betty probably would have told him with a flirtatious smile that she’d find a new partner, but Judith couldn’t quite bring herself to do that. Instead she said, ‘I’ll have to teach you.’
‘I can’t imagine anything more delightful than being taught by you, my dear Judith. I’ll do my best not to stand on your toes.’
‘How long have you been here?’ asked the German prisoner. Judith adjusted the heavy, uncomfortable earphones, her nose wrinkling at the familiar damp smell of the M room, perfumed with paraffin fumes, and held her pencil poised, all of her focus on the conversation to which she was listening. She’d been on shift for over three hours and had listened in to several unhelpful, dull conversations. This sounded promising. When a new cellmate was introduced into a cell with an existing prisoner, in that initial get-to-know chat, they usually divulged new information.
‘A week and a half,’ replied the second man. ‘I’m Oberstleutnant Van Hoensbroeck, Peter.’
‘Oberstleutnant Fischer, Wilhelm.’
Judith could imagine the two men shaking hands and summing each other up in their cramped cells. From what she’d gathered over the weeks, there were two bunks in each cell as well as a small table, two chairs and a wardrobe. As her mind wandered, it went back and picked over that name. Van Hoensbroeck. Peter Van Hoensbroeck. She’d heard that name before and recently. Now it rubbed at her. Where? Had another prisoner mentioned him? Had he been talked about as someone to listen out for in one of their briefings?
‘You look well.’ There was suspicion in the first man’s voice.
‘I am well.’
‘But… You haven’t been mistreated. Tortured?’
There was a short bark of a laugh in response. ‘No. Contrary to all the rumours. The British, it appears, do not believe in torture. Not directly anyway.’ With this addendum he snorted and Judith sensed a tone of derision in his voice. ‘Besides, there are far worse things than torture.’
‘Really?’ The first man sounded alarmed. Judith had grown used to picking up on emotion in people’s voices. It was amazing when you listened, how much you heard. Like the despair in poor Evelyn’s voice at the moment.
‘Don’t worry, the torture I’m talking about is personal. They don’t hurt or humiliate people here, that’s left to the SS and the Gestapo.’ Lieutenant Colonel Van Hoensbroeck sounded bitter.
Why did she know that name? Van Hoensbroeck? It was unusual.
‘Is it safe to say such things here?’ asked Fischer, with a touch of wonderment.
‘Who are the British going to report us to?’
‘But if word got out.’
‘When?’ Scorn filled the word from end to end.
‘Well, soon. You know. When we go back to Germany. As soon as we win the war, we’ll be repatriated.’
Peter laughed bitterly. ‘You think we’re going to win this war?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘Not anymore. We’re beleaguered on all fronts and we’re being fed a stream of untruths. I saw London with my own eyes. It’s not the bombed-out ruin that Hitler, Himmler, Göring and Goebbels would have us believe. Which makes you wonder what else they’ve been telling us. The defeat at Stalingrad was a catastrophe that could have been avoided if Hitler hadn’t been so determined to hold the city at all costs, ignoring the Generals. It became an unattainable objective. We lost the entire 6th Army through sheer stubbornness and overconfidence.’
‘You think he should be replaced?’ There was well-advised caution in the question, thought Judith. Just saying such things, she knew, could give grounds for arrest for treason in Germany.
‘Once the war is over, I believe the old-school Generals, the original members of the Wehrmacht, have plans to create a new government.’ Judith curled her lip at this and listened with interest. Like many, he was hedging his bets, neither denying nor confirming his personal view, but it wasn’t the first time she’d heard such views expressed.
‘Well, let’s hope the war is over soon, otherwise we’ll be prisoners for a long time. What’s it like here?’
‘Good. Comfortable.’
Judith glanced over at Walther, grateful that he’d taken her under his wing so early on and given her a good dose of common sense. She realised now she would have been eaten up with bitterness if she’d allowed herself to hate these men. She noted a few points rising from their comments and added an addendum with her view that Van Hoensbroeck sounded as if he might be amenable to co-operation. Sometimes it was possible to persuade certain prisoners to become stool pigeons, where they pretended to be prisoners of war with German sympathies to elicit specific information but reported everything back to their captors. As the English Sergeant Major was wont to say, this one sound ripe for plucking.
‘Oh.’ The man sounded pleased until Peter added:
‘But don’t get too comfortable. It’s a holding station. We’ll be moved on before long.’
‘You seem to know a lot.’
‘I have a good relationship with my interrogator.’ Judith frowned and listened intently. Hearing voices every day, without the accompaniment of facial expressions, had made her sensitive to the slightest rise or fall in pitch or tone. ‘Lieutenant Brooke-Edwards.’
The point on her pencil snapped, the tip firing across the table, and Walther looked up.
With a quick, bland smile she managed to hide her sudden confusion and had to hold back a gasp. Peter Van Hoensbroeck. Evelyn’s former fiancé! That’s where she’d heard the name before. When Betty had singled out the photograph over lunch at Evelyn’s house.
And Evelyn was the one interrogating him. Judith turned cold and then hot immediately after, the shock running through her. It would certainly explain why Evelyn was so quiet and anxious at the moment. If it was the case, Judith couldn’t begin to guess what sort of turmoil she must be going through.
Listening carefully, Judith gripped her pencil even more tightly, the rough lead tip scuffing the paper, hoping that her quick tremor didn’t give her away and that he wouldn’t say anything more about Evelyn. If he did, what would she do? Would she faithfully record his words? Could she do that to Evelyn?
Judith’s stomach churn
ed with nerves as she prayed that Peter wouldn’t say anything incriminating. That was the key thing.
‘Good relationship. What does he do?’
‘He’s a she.’ Her fingers tensed around the pencil. She bit her lip, listening with dread.
‘Female. Interrogator?’
‘Yes.’ Judith caught Walther’s eye and realised she was in danger of giving herself away with the taut, nervous faces she was pulling. She’d have to make something up and she was terrible at thinking on her feet like that. Lying did not come easily to her.
‘They use women? Because they have run out of men, I daresay.’
‘They use women because they’re very good at getting under your skin.’ Judith wondered if she were reading more into Peter’s quick laugh. ‘They make you want to talk to them. There are men too. Everyone is very reasonable. They make it seem worthwhile to co-operate. It certainly makes for an easier life. I go for walks with my interrogator.’
‘Shouldn’t you be trying to escape?’
‘Where to? As far as I can see, we’re in the middle of nowhere.’
‘But it’s our duty to try.’
‘You can do your best but I think you’ll find life is simpler if you accept your fate. We’re given cigarettes, whisky, comfort, you can work in the gardens if you like to be outside.’
‘Slave labour.’
‘No, you idiot. We volunteer. It’s better than being stuck inside your cell all day.’
‘It is our right to receive Red Cross parcels.’
‘You can wait for them, but I promise you there are plentiful supplies here.’
‘Bribery.’
‘Not bribery. But don’t you want the war to end? What if we help to do that?’
Judith relaxed, relieved that the conversation had moved away from the danger zone and that she wasn’t officially going to be put in an awkward position.
‘I am loyal to the motherland. I will not co-operate.’
‘I have my reasons.’
‘Doesn’t that make you a traitor?’
‘Not to my heart,’ he said cryptically but Judith knew exactly what he meant. Don’t say anymore. Don’t say anymore. She wondered if she dared to switch to listening to another cell.
‘I shan’t tell them anything about the secret weapons we have. They will turn things around in our favour.’
‘You fool. They already know about them.’
‘How?’ The man sounded shocked.
‘I don’t know, but they talked to me about them. They know where they’re being developed. That there are launch sites in Holland and France.’
‘You mean the V1s? They can’t.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean.’
The other man lapsed into silence and Judith made some quick notes for whoever would be interrogating Oberstleutnant Fischer. They’d caught many out by intimating that they knew more than they did.
Someone tapped Judith on the shoulder and she jumped and removed her earphones.
‘Tea time. I’ve come to relieve you.’
‘Er…’ She gripped the phones tightly in her hand. ‘It’s all right. I don’t need a break.’
‘Come on, Judith,’ said Walther. ‘It’s not good to go without a break.’
Her stomach bubbled with sudden acid and she looked anxiously at the switch, wondering if she could transfer the line to a different cell before she left.
What if Peter talked about Evelyn being his fiancée while she wasn’t there? The other person would be duty bound to report it.
‘I think I’ll stay,’ she said, putting her earphones back on.
‘Nonsense. You need tea and biscuits.’
She really didn’t. Her stomach was turning over and over so much she didn’t think she could manage either, but Walther and her replacement were insistent and it would have raised suspicion if she’d continued to resist.
With a reluctant backward glance at her station, she followed Walther out down to the canteen.
Thankfully they joined a group of other listeners and translators who were talking about the imprisonment of Mussolini, which had been announced on the radio earlier that afternoon. She kept her head down and sipped at her tea, barely able to get it down, every now and then glancing up at the clock on the wall above the serving hatch, which seemed to tick impossibly slowly. Walther cast her a few worried looks and she had to force herself to listen to the conversation. If he pressed her she couldn’t lie to him but neither could she give Evelyn’s secret away.
When the clock hand reached eleven minutes past, she rose, deciding that eleven out of fifteen was ample time for a break.
‘Just going to the toilet,’ she murmured to the girl next to her, who acknowledged her words with a vague wave, and she forced herself to walk slowly out of the room. The minute the doors closed behind her she scurried back to the M room, fumbling with the keys as she unlocked the two doors which led into the room. Such was the secrecy surrounding the operation that the keys had to be handed back to the Warrant Officer at the end of every shift.
Gerda, who had taken over from her, took off the headphones. ‘That was quick.’
Judith gave her an absent-minded smile. ‘Did I miss anything?’
‘No. They’ve been talking about what units they served with, where they come from and sharing details of their families. I’ve noted it all down.’ She rose and tapped the paper and pencil on the desk.
‘Super. Thank you. That’s good.’ All the time her mind was on Evelyn. Judith remembered her radiant face in the photograph and the picture beside her bed. Now she understood why it had disappeared. She was probably concerned about anyone seeing it, not that anyone ever came up to their room but the three of them.
She hastily plugged in her earphones but there was nothing but silence. Had they gone to sleep? It was early, only nine o’clock. She ought to check on the other cells she listened to, but was reluctant to leave this transmission channel. The indecision weighed on her and she forced herself to flip the switch to listen to some other prisoners. To her relief she heard the two men in this cell talking about switching out the lights for the night, and she relaxed. She waited a few minutes in case they carried on talking but there was no sound, so she flipped back to her original channel and heard Fischer talking again.
‘Have you been to England before?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Many times.’
‘I never came before. I would have liked to see London. Did you go there?’
‘Yes, a few times.’
‘Where did you stay?’
There was a lengthy pause. ‘I had an English girl… My fiancée was … is English.’
Judith’s heart sank as quickly and steadily as a stone tossed in the water. She swallowed and kept her eyes focused on the paper in front of her.
‘English!’
‘Yes, from a place near Henley on Thames.’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
Judith wanted to rip off her earphones and not listen to the answer but dread and duty kept her ears pinned. She closed her eyes, praying hard as Peter clearly considered his response.
‘A while ago.’
She released the breath she was hardly aware of holding.
‘Does she know you’re in England?’
‘Yes.’
‘When do you think you will see her again?’
Any moment now, Peter might confide in his cellmate. A trickle of sweat ran down her cleavage.
‘I’d rather not talk about her,’ he replied quickly. ‘Do you mind if we switch out the lights for the night?’
‘No,’ said Fischer, suddenly contrite. ‘Sorry. It must be difficult for you.’
‘You have no idea,’ said Peter and Judith understood only too well the dryness in his voice.
Her heart rate slowed and she listened patiently for another half hour until she heard soft snores. Relieved, she switched channels. It appeared that all her charges had turned in for the day and her shift was almos
t over. For now she was in the clear but she needed to talk to Evelyn as soon as possible. She checked the clock on the wall; another half hour until the end of her shift at eleven o’clock. Both Betty and Evelyn were on the daytime shift this week. Would they still be awake when she went back? And what was she going to say to Evelyn?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Betty
‘Betty, someone wants you.’
She looked around the Mess and down the table before putting down her cup of cocoa and rolling her neck. She wasn’t really in the mood for talking now, she’d been thinking about heading upstairs to bed.
‘No, outside,’ said the Sergeant Major, whom she often chatted to on her tea break in the mornings, shaking his head and indicating the front of the house with his thumb. ‘Out on the slope. Chap asking for you. Most insistent he spoke to you.’
Betty sighed and sagged in her seat. It had only been a matter of time. Bert was nothing if not tenacious.
‘You all right, love?’
‘Yes.’ She gave him her best dazzling smile. The last thing she wanted was anyone from the section taking a close interest in her and Bert.
Smoothing down her skirt, she pushed away her cocoa, feeling sickly and heavy in her roiling stomach. For a moment she considered running upstairs and grabbing Evelyn’s father’s service revolver but if she were seen with that in the grounds it would certainly raise questions.
If anyone saw her with Bert she could claim that her mum was ill and he’d come up with a message, as he’d done last time. She should have known he wouldn’t give up.
Making sure no one was taking any notice of her, she left the house through the front door and crossed the gravelled drive, walking over to the lawn now scarred by the deep bomb-burial site, which had been haphazardly filled in, leaving a mound of earth as a permanent reminder of the narrow miss. As usual the thought had her raising her hand to her face as if to reassure herself that all her features were still in place. There was no sign of Bert, so she walked a little further towards the bottom of the steps that curved down from the terrace, keeping an eye above on the doors of the Officers’ Mess. Luckily, in the dying throes of the day, they seemed to be content to watch the sunset from inside, although she thought she saw someone at one of the windows looking down curiously at her. She ignored them, hoping that as soon as she was out of sight they’d forget her. Once she was immediately beneath the terrace she breathed out a relieved sigh. No one could see her here, and right on cue Bert emerged from the shrubbery surrounding the doorway of the gardener’s room built into the wall underneath the terrace.
