The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  ‘I’ve kept your secrets before,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘Yes, you have. But this one isn’t pretty.’

  ‘If you think that just because I’m a girl, I can’t cope with –’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, Sophie. But I do think you’re an idealist. And if you’ve managed to hold on to any ideals, after all you’ve been through, I’d hate myself if I tore them away from you.’ He pushed back his hat brim and stared off across the park. ‘“Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” Is that what you believe?’

  He didn’t seem to be mocking me, so I said, ‘Of course I think truth is important. That isn’t to say I believe it’s always beautiful. But given a choice, I’d rather know than not know. Ignorance isn’t bliss.’ Then I added, ‘Anyway, why agree to meet me here, if you had no intention of telling?’

  He sighed. ‘Well, you asked me a question. I was worried that if I didn’t respond soon, you might get impatient and go looking for your own answers. And I didn’t want you getting tossed into Holloway for prejudicial acts against the defence of the realm and having to share a cell with Lady Mosley.’

  I suspected he was exaggerating, but nevertheless, I felt a thrill of fear. ‘This is bad, isn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Fairly bad, yes.’

  ‘I still want to know. I won’t tell Julia.’

  ‘Or anyone else. Anyone, including Simon and Veronica. Promise me, Sophie.’

  ‘I promise,’ I said.

  He scrutinised me for a moment. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘But let’s walk, it’s freezing out here.’

  I’d started to shiver, but I didn’t think it was from the cold.

  ‘Anthony did bail out of his plane before it crashed,’ the Colonel said, after we’d walked in silence for several minutes. ‘His parachute worked perfectly, so you needn’t worry about any other pilots being in danger from that. He very nearly reached the ground safely, but he was shot at close range, just before he landed.’

  ‘By a German?’ I asked, picturing a recently downed Luftwaffe pilot hiding in a nearby bush.

  ‘No,’ said the Colonel. ‘By the local Home Guard.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Keep walking,’ he ordered, taking my arm as a couple appeared on the path ahead of us. They were young and utterly absorbed in one another, but the Colonel waited until they were far out of earshot. ‘The village Home Guard happened to be patrolling, and they watched the whole dogfight. One of the German fighter planes got hit, too, and crash-landed at about the same time as Anthony’s plane. Apparently, it’s fairly difficult to distinguish between an RAF uniform and a Luftwaffe one, when the man is dangling from a parachute twenty yards above your head.’

  ‘And that’s why they’re not allowed to shoot anyone!’ I said. ‘They can only take prisoners. That’s what Henry told me, and she spent all summer trailing after the Milford Home Guard.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what the regulations say.’

  My head was still reeling. ‘But how did they get hold of any ammunition, when there’s such a shortage? Even the army doesn’t have enough! The Milford Home Guard has to make do with sharpened hayforks.’

  ‘Well, these men were very well-equipped, it turns out. They all worked and lived on the estate of a marquess, and he’d personally armed and trained them.’

  I shook my head. ‘And they . . . they shot Anthony? Before he hit the ground? Couldn’t he see them? Wouldn’t he have shouted out to them?’

  ‘Yes, he did. But they were given a direct order to fire, so they did.’

  I closed my eyes. I’d wanted the truth. All right, there it was. At least Anthony hadn’t suffered – apart from that moment of terror when he realised what was about to happen. But a bullet was what pilots prayed for, Toby had said. Better than getting stuck in a cockpit, choking on black smoke, as the flames roared in . . .

  ‘Oh, poor Anthony,’ I said. ‘What a horrible mistake. But those Home Guard men disobeyed regulations and . . . wait. You said there was a direct order to fire. Who gave the order?’

  ‘Their commander.’

  ‘The marquess? Well, has he been arrested?’ The Colonel’s face told me the answer. ‘What? He’s not going to be arrested? Why not, for Heaven’s sake? It’s not as though he’s an army officer, battling the Nazis in North Africa! He’s a civilian and he murdered a British pilot! All right, he might argue that it was a mistake . . . but why isn’t he being sent to trial?’

  ‘Oh, Sophie, why do you think?’ said the Colonel wearily. ‘Because he sits in the House of Lords. Because a marquess can’t be tried in front of a jury, only in front of other peers of the realm, and the last time a peer was actually convicted of murder was in about 1760. Anyway, he didn’t fire any shots, he merely gave the order. If it did go to trial in the House of Lords, he’d simply swear that he hadn’t said anything of the sort – that if the men said otherwise, it must be because they were uneducated and easily confused. At most, the police would arrest some poor old villager who’d worked for the marquess all his life, someone whose wretched family are tenants on the estate and depend on the marquess’s good will for their daily bread.’

  ‘Who is it?’ I said. ‘Which marquess?’

  ‘What does that matter?’

  ‘Who? Tell me.’

  ‘No, this is pointless. You aren’t going to get anywhere by –’

  ‘Lord Elchester,’ I said. I’d suddenly remembered where he lived – where Anthony’s plane had been found. ‘It is, isn’t it? It’s that bloody Fascist!’

  Elchester! That foul, loathsome, evil man who’d conducted a vicious campaign against the poor Basque refugee children we’d helped, who hated Veronica because her letter to The Times about him had made him look an utter fool . . . Well, after all those years of singing the praises of Hitler, he must have had a very nasty shock when war was declared. So, what better way to restore his reputation and demonstrate his patriotism than to sponsor his own private Home Guard platoon, and have them take pot-shots at anyone remotely resembling a German?

  ‘What happened to the Luftwaffe pilot?’ I said, my voice shaking. ‘Did they shoot him, too?’

  ‘He landed half a mile away, in the middle of a field, and broke his ankle. The farmer rang the police, and they took him to a prisoner of war camp.’

  ‘A broken ankle?’ I cried. ‘That’s all? He gets to spend the rest of the war in a nice safe camp, while Anthony –’

  ‘Sophie,’ said the Colonel, grabbing my arm. ‘Calm down! Now you know why I didn’t want to tell you.’

  I shook off the Colonel’s grasp and stepped back so I could glare at him more effectively. ‘And you’re happy to watch that bloody . . . to watch Elchester get away with murder?’

  ‘I’m not happy about any of this! I wish to God I’d never heard anything about it!’ The Colonel sounded so angry that I took another couple of steps backwards. He put his hand to his forehead. ‘Sophie, I’m sorry. But there’s nothing I can do. Revealing the facts wouldn’t make things any better. Believe me, Elchester would escape punishment. I know he would. And then he’d use all his RAF contacts to track down whoever raised suspicions, and he’d make their lives a complete misery. That poor WAAF radio operator, for one, and Simon. As for Anthony’s mother – well, she’s out of her mind with grief right now, but at least she has the consolation of knowing he died battling the enemy. If she found out what really happened, I wouldn’t be surprised if she went completely mad and tried to kill Elchester. And then there’s poor Julia . . . Sophie, haven’t the people who loved Anthony suffered enough?’

  I clenched my hands into fists, whirled on one heel and marched back down the path. I’d left my gloves in the office, but I scarcely noticed the cold, I was so filled with burning rage. I stomped along, my heels striking the ground so fiercely I imagined they must be giving off sparks. Gradually, though, the blaze began to die down, until all that remained were embers of frustration. I slowed my pace, allowing the Colonel to catch up
with me as we neared Marble Arch.

  ‘You’ll find some way of reassuring Simon, without telling him the truth,’ the Colonel said.

  It wasn’t phrased as a question. I nodded sharply, averting my gaze from his.

  ‘Sophie, I truly am sorry. Are you angry with me?’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. Then, because we’ve all become adept at resolving quarrels without delay, for fear we might not have a later chance to do so, I added, ‘I hate what’s happened, but I’m not angry at you. I know it’s not your fault.’

  ‘Well, that’s something,’ he said, with a sigh.

  But as I stalked up the stairs at the Ministry of Food ten minutes later, my fury rekindled. It was all so wrong! So . . . unfair! I considered telling Simon about it. Or Veronica, she’d have some idea about how to force an official investigation . . .

  But then, the RAF seemed so determined to hide the truth. Elchester must know someone very high up in Fighter Command. And the Colonel would deny telling me anything. He’d have to, he’d probably signed an oath, promising to lie for the good of his country. I slammed my bag on my desk, making poor Anne jump half a foot in the air.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry!’ I said. ‘It slipped out of my hand.’ (More lies.) But it was horribly thoughtless of me, because Anne had been in the Café de Paris on Saturday night, when that bomb went through the roof and killed the whole band and most of the people on the dance floor. She was up in the gallery with her boyfriend and saw the entire thing, including the men who ran in from the street and stole wallets from the dead bodies and –

  Oh, bother, is that the siren?

  LATER, IN THE CELLAR. I spent half an hour trying to compose a letter to Simon that would manage to reassure him without giving away any facts or alerting the censor. After I’d crumpled up my third attempt, Veronica looked up from her book and said, with some concern, ‘Perhaps you ought to leave whatever you’re writing till tomorrow, when you don’t have bombs crashing round your ears.’

  ‘It’s not the bombs,’ I said. I’ve learned to shut out the noise, and I don’t get scared any more unless the electricity goes out. ‘No, I’m just writing to Simon.’

  ‘Oh, is that all?’ she said. ‘I thought perhaps you’d had a proposal of marriage from that pilot Julia was talking about, and you were trying to think of some kind way to turn him down.’

  I couldn’t help laughing at that – and then it struck me. ‘A proposal!’ I exclaimed. ‘What a good idea!’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ said Veronica. ‘It’s a very bad idea.’

  ‘No, I meant . . . Never mind.’ And I snatched up another piece of paper and worked away a bit longer, and finally came up with this:

  Dear Simon,

  I hope that you are well.

  Regarding your proposal at Christmas: please understand that I have thought about it very seriously. I even asked a wise and respected friend for his opinion. But my answer to your question is ‘No’. I’m sure you feel you are right, but you were quite mistaken in your feelings. That is understandable, given the circumstances; however, you must trust me to know best about this.

  I do hope that you will not persist with this matter, as that would be absolutely pointless. I feel sad about it, of course, but some things simply happen without any particular malevolent cause, and we must accept them and move on with our lives.

  Please take care of yourself, and try not to be dispirited by this. You know I have both our interests at heart, as well as those of our family, and I do hope we can remain friends.

  With fondest regards,

  Sophie

  6th April, 1941

  WE HAD A LUNCHEON PARTY today with two guests, Simon and Daniel. (We can’t invite more than two guests for a meal because there’s only room for four chairs around our table. Perhaps we should start having cocktail parties instead.) I made a Woolton pie – potatoes, carrots, swedes, cauliflower, parsley and one precious spring onion, mixed with oatmeal and topped with a mashed potato crust. As Simon said, it was exactly like steak and kidney pie, only without the steak or kidney. Fortunately, he brought a bottle of wine and a jar of honey, and Daniel contributed a bag of apples. Jam and treacle went on the ration last month, so I’d thought we’d have to do without a pudding, but I baked the apples with some honey and cinnamon, and they were delicious.

  Simon arrived first, just as I was putting my pie in the oven. Veronica was still up at the house, checking there weren’t any smashed windows or ominous new cracks in the walls after last night’s raid, so Simon helped me wash up and set the table.

  ‘Thanks for your letter,’ he said.

  ‘I was worried someone else might read it.’

  ‘I’m sure they did, but it was very cleverly done. So . . . you’re quite sure there’s nothing to worry about?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Absolutely certain.’

  He held my gaze for a moment longer, then picked up the saucepan to dry it. ‘Well, I was heartbroken to read that I’d been rejected, of course,’ he said. ‘But luckily, there were a lot of very pretty WAAFs around to console me.’

  ‘Not to mention the Prime Minister’s most glamorous daughter,’ I said.

  ‘How did you . . . Oh, Daphne Hamilton, I suppose.’

  ‘Is she a good dancer?’

  ‘Lady Daphne? Wouldn’t know. Haven’t ever danced with her. Anyway, what’s this I hear about you and some Polish pilot?’

  Veronica arrived at that moment with Daniel, both of them looking rather flushed and breathless.

  ‘You were a long time,’ I said. ‘Was there something wrong with the house?’

  ‘No, I just happened to meet Daniel as I was going in,’ she said. ‘I was showing him some of the architectural features.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you young people call it these days?’ said Simon, with a pointed look at Veronica’s jacket, the buttons of which were done up incorrectly.

  ‘Yes, Daniel’s terribly interested in early Victorian cedar panelling,’ said Veronica, calmly refastening her buttons. Daniel turned even redder, and handed me the bag of apples.

  Simon likes Daniel, I think – or at least, respects his intelligence and integrity. However, they have such different perspectives on life that even their most casual conversations have a tendency to spark into heated political debate. Today, it was over the ethics of buying up bombed houses cheaply, which Aunt Charlotte has asked Simon to arrange with Mr Grenville, the family solicitor.

  ‘And why not?’ said Simon, with an edge of belligerence. ‘The property owners aren’t covered by their insurance, and the government won’t be paying any compensation till the war’s over. In the meantime, these poor people are trying to maintain houses that are falling down round their ears – or round their tenants’ ears, if they can actually find any tenants when half of London’s escaped to the country. They want to sell, we want to buy. Where’s the problem with that?’

  ‘And you’ll repair these houses, and let them to people who’ve been made homeless?’ said Daniel, frowning.

  ‘There aren’t any building materials to be found, let alone tradesmen to do that sort of work,’ said Simon impatiently. ‘I expect a lot of the houses will have to be demolished. Then, after the war, we’ll build nice blocks of flats with proper plumbing and all modern conveniences.’

  ‘And sell them at a nice profit,’ said Veronica.

  ‘Yes, Veronica, that’s the way capitalism works,’ said Simon, rolling his eyes.

  ‘You know,’ said Daniel, ‘I can’t approve of your motives, Simon. But if one good thing comes out of all this terrible destruction, it will be that, after the war, we’ll have a new London. No more slums. Clean, affordable housing with lots of natural light, surrounded by parks and community halls and health clinics and well-designed schools . . .’

  ‘All paid for by people like Aunt Charlotte, out of the pure goodness of their hearts,’ said Veronica.

  ‘Oh, but Veronica, look at what most of
them are doing now,’ Daniel protested. ‘If they’re not in the services, they’re in the ARP or running canteens or helping at first aid posts. They’re working alongside ordinary people – even living with them, if they’re looking after evacuee children. Their food is rationed just as everybody else’s is, they’ve given up their motor cars, their servants have all joined up so they’re having to look after themselves for the first time in their lives. I tell you, this war will help people see that sharing is good and right – and that’s all Socialism is, making sure that everyone gets a fair share.’

  Simon snorted. ‘You think a mere world war will have any effect on the British class system? You really do have your head in the clouds. Didn’t you see that letter in The Times a few months ago? Some Lieutenant Colonel moaning about how useless working-class men are at being army officers. “Never was the old school tie more justified than it is today.” They all think that way, the ones in charge!’

  ‘Ah, Simon, we’ll make a class warrior of you yet,’ said Daniel, with a smile.

  My simmering rage over Elchester is already halfway to turning me into a Bolshevik, so it was probably a good thing the conversation then moved on to a happier subject, that of Daniel’s cousins finally being released from their internment camp. Then Veronica mentioned women having to register for war work now. But women aren’t actually being conscripted into the services yet, and they won’t be sent into combat. (Of course, far more civilians than servicemen have died at the hands of the enemy since the war began. There are no civilians in this war, really, not since the Blitz started.) Besides, all the women we know are already doing war work.

  After that, the others discussed the fighting in North Africa (the Allies seem to be winning some battles, for once), but nothing’s more boring to me than military strategy. So I don’t think I can be bothered to record it here.

  11th May, 1941

  I’VE COME TO DREAD THE approach of the full moon, and last night’s was enormous, as round and white as a spotlight, with not a single cloud to shade it. A real bomber’s moon, I thought, as I stared up at it from our front step. Then the siren went off. We were still arranging ourselves and our belongings comfortably in the cellar when there was a tremendous thump and the electric light died. Veronica groped for our torch and we managed to get the candles lit, uneasily aware of a harsh creaking somewhere far above our heads. Then came a crack like a rifle shot, followed by a crumpling roar and an almighty crash. The walls of our shelter trembled. The candle flames shook, and the dark lightbulb shivered on the end of its cord. Then everything went still.