The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  I was trudging through the wood, basket dangling from the crook of my arm, when it struck me how like the awful bits of a fairy tale my life had become. Here was the impoverished princess, banished from her kingdom, deprived of family and home, bidden to wander the forest in search of twigs and pine cones. What enormous shaggy wolves might lurk ahead, or be stalking in her wake? (Well, none actually, because I’d sent Carlos back to the house with Barnes when I’d met her at the gate).

  What I really needed was a prince on a white horse to gallop to my rescue, I thought, as I set down my basket and knelt to gather handfuls of twigs scattered around a stout oak. It had stopped raining, but each gust of wind shook a hail of icy droplets from the branches onto my bare neck. I’d just scrambled to my feet, clutching an armful of kindling, when I happened to glance through the trees to the driveway – and my heart seemed to stop. I thought I was going mad. I was surely seeing things.

  For cantering across the grass came a beautiful white horse, and astride it was a man, fair and lean and graceful. He held the reins lightly in one hand, as though they were simply for show – as though he had only to murmur a word and the animal would obey. He caught sight of me, and I dropped my burden and started to run, and by the time I’d reached the drive, he’d swung down from the saddle and taken a few steps in my direction, and I threw myself into his arms.

  It felt as though I’d come home. This was where I belonged – with Rupert. We clung to each other, words tumbling out about how much we’d missed the other and how glad we were to be together again. Soppy, Henry would have said, rolling her eyes – but she always did like Rupert, so I think she’d have secretly approved. Rupert finally drew back and smoothed my hair behind my ear, his fingers trailing down to trace my cheek. It might have progressed to kissing then – except the horse had grown very bored by that stage, so it stuck its nose in my ear and gave a loud snort.

  ‘She’s just jealous,’ said Rupert, laughing as he reached past me to take hold of the reins. ‘She knows I love you far more than her.’

  Which was pretty much the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me, even though I’m aware that being placed ahead of a horse in someone’s affections is not exactly the same as, say, being serenaded on a moonlit balcony.

  Rupert took my hand in his free one, and we walked up the drive, towards the stables. The emotions bubbling up inside me were making me quite light-headed, so although I knew there was much to discuss regarding the two of us, I was content, for the moment, simply to be with him. I sensed he also needed some time to become used to the idea that there was an ‘us’ – he’d turned a bit pink and seemed to be having a sudden attack of shyness – so to put us both at ease, I asked about the horse. He explained she was Lady Bosworth’s, sent over to be trained at Aunt Charlotte’s school.

  ‘There’s hardly any petrol to spare, so I said I’d ride her over. We came through the fields and back lanes, and it only took a couple of hours. I tried to ring first, but your telephone seems to be out of order. Of course, I was hoping like mad that you’d be here.’

  And then he squeezed my hand and I squeezed back, and we beamed at each other. Perhaps some things didn’t need a lot of talking, after all. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so bathed in warmth.

  He’d had a few unexpected days off work over Christmas, he went on to say, which he’d spent at Astley. Then that morning, he and his mother had driven over to visit Penelope and her daughter, who both live with the Bosworths now. The little girl is nearly two and a half.

  ‘She’s very sweet,’ said Rupert. ‘She talks non-stop, although I can’t say I actually understood any of it. Penelope dotes on her.’

  ‘Does she look like David?’

  ‘Well, my mother thinks she does, but Lady Bosworth insists the child takes after her side of the family. Poor old Lady Bosworth, she was in a fearful temper when we got there. The War Office has just requisitioned their big farm in Devon, you see, the one near the coast – along with about thirty thousand acres of the surrounding lands. All the villagers have had to be evacuated. I passed streams of US Army lorries driving south this morning, so I suppose that’s where they were headed.’

  Getting ready for the big invasion of France, no doubt, but we’d arrived at the stables by then, so we didn’t have to talk about the horrible war any further. Rupert handed over the mare to the stable girls, the youngest of whom definitely tried to flirt with him. I suppose they’re a bit starved of male company, and he’s so nice and so good-looking (those beautiful hazel eyes, that firm jaw, his hair burnished gold where the light hit it) that I couldn’t really blame her. I was surprised at how irritated I felt, though – in a sort of ‘Hands off, he’s mine!’ way. I didn’t say anything, of course, but I realised I’d experienced a muted version of that feeling several times in the past. What an idiot I’d been, to fail to understand the reason behind it!

  Barnes had been right all along, it turned out – and I must say, she positively radiated smugness when Rupert and I arrived back at the gatehouse, still holding hands. She ushered us into the sitting room (fortunately, she’d already whisked away the clothes horse dripping with underclothes), and brought us cups of tea, then took herself off to the kitchen to start dinner, even though it was my turn to cook. Aunt Charlotte had been unable to resist going over to the stables to inspect the new horse, so Carlos was our only chaperone (and a sleepy one, at that). Rupert and I had a lovely long chat, in which he said a lot of admiring things about me, and I said similar things about him. He said he’d fallen in love with me ages ago, so I asked why he hadn’t said anything, and he admitted that, for a long time, he’d felt it was hopeless.

  ‘I mean, the first time we met, I made you cry,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Oh, so you did!’ I said, remembering the scene in his pigeon loft. ‘Except that wasn’t really your fault. And I needed a good cry at the time. I felt much better afterwards.’

  ‘And then your aunt was determined to find you some rich, titled husband, and didn’t seem to approve of me at all. And also . . .’ He trailed off and looked down at our clasped hands.

  ‘What?’

  He glanced up at me. ‘Well, sometimes I got the impression that um, you and Simon . . .’

  ‘Heavens, if you think Aunt Charlotte disapproved of you, you ought to hear her on the subject of Simon!’ I said. ‘Anyway, whatever I felt about him, it’s over now.’

  ‘Good,’ said Rupert, his gaze clearing.

  ‘I’ll tell you about it some day, if you like,’ I added.

  ‘I don’t need to know. But you can always tell me anything you like.’ And he gave me one of his sweet, serious smiles.

  ‘And you can tell me anything,’ I said, because regardless of how muddled the notion of truth seems to be in the wider world, I feel Rupert and I ought to be completely honest with each other. But just as he was saying that he didn’t have anything very interesting to tell, Aunt Charlotte walked in with Mr Herbert, who said he was driving to Salisbury the next morning and could give Rupert a lift back to the Bosworths’. Mr Herbert also kindly offered to ring Lady Astley from the vicarage to tell her, as our telephone hasn’t been working all week (I suspect the wires have succumbed to the perpetual damp).

  So Rupert stayed for dinner, and was absolutely charming, and showed admirable composure when Aunt Charlotte started interrogating him about his ‘prospects’. (There’s a war on, for Heaven’s sake – no one knows anything about his prospects! We could all get wiped out tomorrow by that secret weapon the Nazis are rumoured to have invented!) Still, it was nice to see a return of the old Aunt Charlotte, because she’s been so very sad and weary and diminished of late. She did object to Rupert staying overnight in Toby’s room, though. She regards it as a sort of shrine, and we’re only supposed to go in there to clean. Henry’s room is also a shrine, albeit to a slightly lesser deity, but Barnes and Aunt Charlotte weren’t comfortable with Rupert staying in there anyway, as it’s separated from
my room by a mere plywood partition and curtained doorway, so he could easily sneak in and ravish me. (Mercifully, this ridiculous conversation occurred in the kitchen, out of earshot of Rupert.) But I couldn’t see why poor Rupert should have to sleep on the sofa and put up with Carlos’s snoring all night, when Toby wouldn’t have minded his best friend borrowing his pyjamas or sleeping in his room. I had my way in the end.

  After Aunt Charlotte and Barnes had gone upstairs to get ready for bed, Rupert and I remained in the sitting room a while longer, and there was kissing this time, and it was blissful. Rupert is so sweet and gentle and considerate. The only problem was that Carlos kept trying to climb onto our laps, so we finally gave up on the kissing (probably a sensible move, as Barnes and Aunt Charlotte kept thumping downstairs to do completely unnecessary tasks like fetching glasses of water and checking that the back door was latched) and we let Carlos drape himself over us. I asked Rupert about dogs and arthritis, because Carlos seems so much slower than he was even a few months ago. But Rupert thought we were already doing as much as we could.

  ‘He’s not overweight, which helps, and you say he’s still going for walks. He’s got a warm, comfortable bed, but I suppose you could give him a hot water bottle as well. Does he have a good appetite? Carlos? Do you enjoy your dinner?’

  Carlos grinned and said, ‘Ha ha ha!’, the way he always does when anyone mentions food. He hadn’t had two people’s undivided attention for quite a while, and he was enjoying every second of it.

  ‘Yes, he loves his food, and everyone else’s food, too,’ I said. ‘But I’ve noticed him limping, and some mornings, it takes forever for him to get going. I hate the thought of him in any pain, but it’s even worse to imagine him being . . . you know, put down. I realise he’s very old and that it’s silly to be fussing over a dog when we’re in the middle of a war, but . . . well, he was Henry’s dog.’

  And my eyes unexpectedly filled with tears and I found I couldn’t say anything else. But Rupert was very understanding, and after I’d wiped my face, he talked a bit about Henry and, more importantly, asked me about her. And I realised I hadn’t talked about her death to anyone. I hadn’t needed to tell people in the family, because they all knew about it, obviously, and Veronica was the one who’d let all our friends and acquaintances know. Then, at the funeral, I’d been so angry and spiky that no one had wanted to broach the subject with me afterwards.

  So, when Rupert asked me how I was feeling, it all surged out: how I still had moments when I forgot Henry was dead and how awful it was when I remembered; how I hadn’t ever appreciated her properly until it was too late; how guilty I felt because I hadn’t kept her safe. Rupert was a very good listener. It wasn’t that he agreed with me, just that he didn’t dismiss what I said as irrational or stupid, even though some of it probably is. In fact, he said it sounded quite natural, in the circumstances. As I spoke, I began to feel lighter. Sad rather than anguished, not quite so filled with fury and bitterness when I thought of her . . .

  Then Barnes came in for about the fifth time and suggested that Rupert should get some sleep, because Mr Herbert was leaving very early the next morning. So we obediently went upstairs, to Carlos’s great disappointment.

  14th January, 1944

  I’VE COME UP TO LONDON for a week, because Veronica is back from Spain, and already it’s been far more eventful than I could possibly have anticipated. I’d planned to arrive before her, so that I could make the flat a bit more welcoming – turn on the electricity and gas, go out to buy some food, that sort of thing – but my train was late. Well, to be honest, I missed the train. After Aunt Charlotte dropped me off outside Salisbury station, I sat down on a bench to read Rupert’s latest letter again, and I sort of lost track of time. But then the next train was late, and when I arrived in London, I couldn’t find a taxi for ages, and all the buses were packed.

  Anyway, when I eventually climbed the steps to our flat, I saw that the front door was ajar, with Veronica’s suitcase blocking the way. I could also hear what sounded like Daniel’s voice. I nudged the door open and stepped over the suitcase, then noticed the filled kettle sitting on the stove and the gaping cutlery drawer. Veronica and Daniel seemed to be having a loud debate in the sitting room – although there was nothing unusual about that. Probably politics, I thought, as I set my own suitcase down. Then I heard Veronica say,

  ‘But what about Sophie? Should I tell her or not?’

  I gasped and rushed into the next room.

  ‘Tell me what?’ I demanded. ‘What’s going on?’

  Veronica leapt to her feet and flung her arms around me. ‘Oh, Sophie!’ she cried, in a muffled way, into my hair.

  ‘Hello, Sophie!’ Daniel said. ‘Um . . . I’ll just finish making that tea then, shall I?’ And he hastened into the kitchen.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, tugging away from Veronica so I could search her face for clues. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’

  ‘Oh, it’s not bad news,’ she said. ‘Truly, it’s not. Here, sit down. It’s just . . . well, I didn’t want you getting your hopes up and having it all come to nothing. I thought it would be better if I kept quiet until I knew for certain . . . but now I suppose I have to tell you.’

  Then she stopped and chewed her lip, gazing at me with anxious intensity. I was ready to strangle her from sheer frustration.

  ‘Veronica! Just say it!’

  ‘Well, it’s a long story. It’s about . . . That is, it may be about . . . about Toby.’

  I stared at her, all the words in my mouth drying up.

  ‘You see, I’ve been in the northern bit of Spain – Basque country – for the past few weeks,’ she began. ‘Michael’s up there most of the time, now. It’s pretty much his full-time job, liaising with the people who bring Allied pilots across the mountains from France, then getting the pilots out of prison once the Spanish authorities catch them, which they generally do. We were based at the consulate in Bilbao, but we went to San Sebastián quite a lot. Anyway, a British intelligence person arrived last week and he needed to talk to one of Michael’s Basque contacts. The Basques aren’t just bringing pilots across the border, but all sorts of information valuable to the Allies as well. Michael was busy with something else, so I went along to introduce them and to interpret.’

  Daniel came in and handed us mugs of tea, then tactfully disappeared back into the kitchen. Veronica continued.

  ‘So, this intelligence officer – I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this, of course, but let’s call him Tom – sits down next to me at the agreed place, and we wait and wait, and finally, the Basque man – José – turns up, except he has a young man with him, someone I’ve never seen before. But José says, “No, no, it’s fine, he’s my wife’s cousin.” And you know how clannish the Basques are, so I nod at Tom and he starts asking his questions and I’m interpreting away, when suddenly the young man leans over to me and says, “Are you from Montmaray?”’

  I gaped at Veronica. ‘But how would he know that?’

  ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Everyone just calls me “Miss FitzOsborne” at the Embassy. Older Spaniards sometimes know about my mother’s family, but no one ever mentions Montmaray. So I looked about in a wild panic, expecting to see Gestapo agents running over to kidnap me or something. Tom didn’t have a clue what was going on, of course, but José hit the young man on the shoulder and said, “You idiot! You’re scaring her! Tell her properly!”’

  Veronica took a deep breath.

  ‘Anyway, it turned out his name was Zuleta. He’s the Basque captain’s nephew. And, oh, Sophie – Captain Zuleta’s alive! You know how we all thought he’d died at Guernica? But he was in the basement of a church with his youngest daughter when the bombing started, and they both survived. They were pulled out of the ruins the next morning. His wife died, though, and so did two of their children. Then, after the Fascists defeated the Basque Republic, he and his daughter escaped over the mountains into France. His wife had relatives there
, and he wanted to start a new life.’

  I shook my head, sad and happy and amazed all at once. But Veronica hadn’t even arrived at the most amazing bit.

  She went on to explain that the captain’s in-laws in France hated the Nazis so much that they decided to dedicate themselves to helping the Resistance. His wife’s aunt runs a hotel near the Spanish border, at the foot of the Pyrenees, and she’s an important part of an escape line for Allied servicemen – that is, escaping prisoners of war, as well as those who’ve managed to evade the Nazis entirely after getting stuck in occupied territory. They arrive from the north of France, and she finds them safe houses and organises Basque guides to take them over the mountains into Spain. Last month, a new group of men arrived, delivered by the usual Resistance workers, and she had her son take the men to a friend’s house to hide. They all seemed to be American aircrew, and they were exhausted after their long, stressful journey across France. They fell asleep at once, and had to be shaken awake when it was time to leave that night. But one of the men heard the woman’s son and the guides talking, and, still half-asleep, said hello to them in Euskara.

  Well, how many Americans recognise the language of the Basques – let alone know how to speak it? So they dragged the airman straight down to the basement and started interrogating him, worried that he was some sort of double agent. Most of the original leaders of that particular escape line had been captured by the Gestapo earlier that year, and it seems they were all betrayed by someone working within the movement. What if this man had been planted on them by the Spanish Fascists?

  But the man said he spoke just a few words of Euskera, and only because he used to know some Basque people. The guides were still suspicious, because they could see now that he definitely wasn’t American. All the airmen had been disguised in the same sort of rough farmer’s clothes, but the Americans looked as though they’d spent the war eating steak and buttery mashed potatoes and chocolate layer cake, which they probably had. This man was rake-thin, like everyone else in France. The Americans swaggered along with their hands in their pockets; he walked like a European. He spoke French very well, which none of the Americans did, but he didn’t sound like a native speaker. He said he was RAF, but he didn’t seem familiar with any of the latest RAF operations over France. He said he’d already given all this information to the people further up the escape line. Eventually, after the guides threatened to take him outside and shoot him, he said, ‘Look, I’m not English. I’m from Montmaray.’