The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  I sighed.

  ‘But perhaps she is here,’ said Veronica, tucking her arm into mine. ‘Or at least, with Toby. I think she’d find this sort of thing hard to stay away from, don’t you?’

  It was a kind thing to say, because I know she doesn’t believe in any sort of afterlife. I squeezed her arm gratefully, and then we walked slowly to the hut with Simon, while Rupert and Mr Briggs followed the path back to the farmhouse.

  And that was . . . let’s see, nearly seven hours ago. Simon has returned from his chat with the pilots and has just squashed the stub of his third cigarette into the ashtray beside the telephone. I can tell it’s annoying Veronica, but so far she’s refrained from snapping at him. Now Simon’s fiddling with his lighter.

  ‘How long have you been keeping those journals, anyway?’ he says abruptly, looking at my book.

  ‘Um . . . eight years,’ I say, after a short calculation.

  ‘Eight years!’ he says, eyes widening in either mock or actual horror. ‘Oh God, and you’re writing down this conversation, too, aren’t you? Is there any aspect of our lives that’s managed to escape your scrutiny?’

  Veronica laughs. ‘In a hundred years’ time, there’ll be copies of Sophie’s journals kept in libraries,’ she says. ‘People will study them to try and understand our quaint, old-fashioned ways.’

  ‘All I can think is, thank God they’re written in code,’ says Simon. ‘My secrets are safe.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll probably have invented decoding machines by then,’ says Veronica airily. ‘I mean, if we can have robot bombs now, then surely they’ll have invented robots that do helpful things in a hundred years’ time.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ll have abolished war by then,’ I say.

  ‘One would certainly hope so,’ says Veronica, rubbing her arms. ‘Heavens, it’s freezing in here, isn’t it? Or is it just because I’ve stopped pacing up and down? I’m going to walk across to the car to get a blanket. And to get some fresh air.’ She gives the ashtray a meaningful look, then walks out . . .

  AS SOON AS VERONICA WAS OUT OF EARSHOT, Simon leaned over the table towards me.

  ‘Sophie,’ he said, ‘I want to apologise to you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For leaving,’ he said. ‘For not even telling you I was leaving. And for not being here when you . . . Well, I don’t know if you ever really needed me. But I should have stayed – or at least stayed in touch – and I didn’t. I behaved very badly.’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ I said. ‘But you were having a pretty awful time too, as I remember it.’

  ‘I just felt I had to get as far away as possible,’ he said. ‘Not from you, particularly, but from everything here. I hated my job, and I felt so guilty about Toby. And in a way, it did help, going abroad . . .’ He trailed off, apparently lost in unhappy memories.

  ‘Was it very dangerous, what you were doing there?’ I asked, after a moment.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Dangerous enough that I had to stop thinking about the past, because the present was so overwhelming. And dangerous enough that I realised I wanted to live. That if I died, it still wouldn’t bring Toby back. I honestly did believe he was dead, you know, so when I heard the news . . .’ He glanced at me. ‘It seemed like a miracle. As though I’d been given another chance. I still haven’t quite taken it in, and of course, he’s so changed . . . But Sophie, the thing is – and I don’t mean this as an excuse, although it sounds that way – I always figured you’d be all right. I knew you were stronger than me, and that you’d . . . endure. Despite everything.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘That does sound like an excuse.’ Then, as his face fell, I couldn’t help smiling. ‘Oh, Simon. It was all such a long time ago. I was angry at you, but I got over it.’

  ‘And now you’re . . . happy?’

  ‘With Rupert? Oh, yes! I didn’t think I could be this happy. Although it’s difficult when he’s away all the time, but that’s just for a bit longer. When the war’s over . . . well, we’ll all be happier then, won’t we?’

  ‘Will we?’ he said.

  Poor Simon! I’m not stupid enough to think that everybody in the world wants or needs the same things in life, but I can’t help wishing he could have a person of his own to love, and to love him back, the way I found Rupert. Although perhaps that would be too simple for Simon. He is a rather complex person. Perhaps he’d need two people of his own.

  ‘Are you going to be staying in England now?’ I asked him.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘Depends on what happens with this.’ He looked at the clock. ‘Oh God, it’s been nearly seven and a half hours. That should have been more than enough time for them to –’

  The telephone rang, and we both jumped. Simon recovered first and snatched up the receiver.

  ‘Chester speaking,’ he said. ‘Yes. What? Really? Are you sure?’

  ‘Is that Rupert?’

  ‘Shh!’ Simon said, grabbing a pencil. ‘Yes,’ he said into the telephone, ‘yes, I know you’re familiar with his handwriting, but they could have forced him to write it. Did he use the code? If it’s a genuine message, it should contain the word “Benedict” . . .’

  Veronica came pounding in.

  ‘Is that Rupert?’ she cried.

  ‘Shh!’ I said, pointing at the message Simon was scribbling down.

  ‘Right,’ said Simon. ‘Yes . . . Oh, is there? I’ll wait.’ He moved the receiver from his mouth and said, ‘A second pigeon’s just arrived.’ He started scribbling again. ‘Yes, got that. See you soon.’

  Simon hung up the telephone. Then he looked at us, an enormous smile spreading across his face.

  ‘They did it,’ he said, and he started laughing.

  And as we whooped and threw our arms around each other, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor and was crumpled underfoot. I retrieved it later, though, and this is what it said:

  Safe arrival at 1030, found 6 soldiers, all surrendered weapons & were handcuffed. One extra Nazi turned up when searching Great Hall. Lucky for me, Benedict in customary place & still sharp. No life-threatening wounds inflicted on Nazi, but pls arrange immediate collection of 7 German POWs. Also, bring champagne. Airstrip cleared for use, recommend easterly approach. Swastika torn down, Montmaray flag now flying over castle. Currently cloudy, gusty NW winds, predict late afternoon rain, but it is a GLORIOUS MORNING AT MONTMARAY.

  King Toby

  21st August, 1948

  MY EYES HAVE BEEN FIXED upon my work for the past hour, but I just now glanced up from my desk to find the mist rolled away and the window awash with blue – the clear, pale blue of the sky, floating above the pure, deep indigo sea. Why is the sea here such an intense colour? Why is it so powerfully evocative? During our years in exile, I’d sometimes catch sight of a silk dress or a piece of glass of a similar hue, and feel an unexpected pang of sorrow and happiness and longing, before realising why. It’s funny how that works. When Rupert gave me my engagement ring, he said he’d chosen it because the sapphire was the blue of my eyes. To me, it was the colour of home, of Montmaray. Although perhaps they’re all the same thing – perhaps that’s how my eyes turned out this way, from all that childhood gazing out of castle windows at the sea. The view is still so utterly mesmerizing that I’m compelled now to push my typewriter aside, in order to stare out the window . . .

  No, that’s not true, not entirely. (And if I can’t be honest with myself, here in the privacy of my own journal, what hope is there for my work?) The truth is, I’ve stopped typing because I can’t quite bring myself to translate the next few pages of my old wartime journal, not just yet. Simply reading the first sentence brought back such a rush of emotions that I had to close the book and fumble for my handkerchief. Admittedly, I have been rather weepy lately. Pretty much anything can set me off – I burst into tears the last time Rupert brought home another of those starving, flea-infested kittens that lurk about London’s alleyways, waiting to ambush him. (‘The poor thing never even
knew its mother!’ I wailed to Rupert, sobbing into his shoulder as he tried to make up a bottle for it in the kitchen.)

  But my memories of that first trip back to Montmaray after its liberation are even more heart-rending than orphaned kittens. Oh, how tiny the island looked from the air! How pathetic, really. That poor little rock, struggling to keep its chin above water in the midst of all that heaving ocean. Even after we’d landed, it seemed so much smaller than I remembered. And then there was the starkness of the landscape – such a contrast after those gentle verdant hills of Dorset. Montmaray was jagged black rock sparsely covered with shrubs, stiff grass beaten flat by the wind, and no trees at all. The Americans who flew us there seemed quite baffled by our interest in the place.

  ‘Ma’am, you sure you don’t want to come back with us?’ one of them asked Veronica, after the prisoners had been loaded into the plane. ‘That castle seems awful cold. And bare.’

  ‘No, thank you, Sergeant,’ she said brightly. ‘We have enough supplies for a week, and now that you’ve set up the radio system, we can contact the authorities if we need anything. We’ll be absolutely fine.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said dubiously, with a glance at my tear-smeared face and Simon’s grim expression. And we hadn’t even seen the worst of it, then. After the plane departed, we walked back up to the castle, where Toby was kicking the last of the swastika banners into the bonfire he’d kindled in the courtyard. I had a moment of wishing I could set the whole castle on fire – not to destroy it, but to purify it. Of course, the soldiers had already done a fairly thorough job of burning its contents. They’d long ago run out of fuel, so they’d chopped up anything that would ignite – the family portraits that lined the walls of the Great Hall, our grand piano, the kitchen chairs, the wardrobes upstairs and our sandalwood chest full of heirlooms. Anything of value had been stolen, of course, carted off to Germany even before the war began.

  The only thing they’d left untouched was Bartholomew’s longsword, Benedict, which remained hanging over the chimneypiece in its scabbard, and it was several months before we understood the reason for this. When Daniel interrogated the soldiers at their prisoner of war camp, one of them reported that he’d read about the sword before the war. Apparently, our old friend Otto Rahn had gone back to Berlin and published an article about Montmaray, and it included a garbled version of the legend about Benedict protecting the FitzOsbornes for eternity. It seems that this was interpreted to mean that a curse would fall upon anyone outside the family who touched the sword. Veronica said this was further evidence that Nazis were complete idiots in thrall to a lot of superstitious nonsense, but Toby said there must be something in the legend, because he really had needed the sword to disarm that last, unexpected Nazi soldier, and things could have got very dicey indeed if Benedict hadn’t been in its regular place and still razor-sharp. The other thing we discovered was that a couple of the soldiers believed the upstairs rooms were haunted, and refused to sleep up there. I like to think that was the Blue Room ghost doing her bit for the war effort.

  But all of that came later. Our first hours at Montmaray were spent wandering about in a daze, gaping at the destruction. The chapel, with all its windows blown out and seagulls nesting in the rafters. The library tower, reduced to an unsteady pile of broken stone. What had taken minutes to destroy would take years, perhaps decades, to rebuild. Still, the Germans had already made a start on repairs, if only to make their lives easier. There was a sturdy bridge across the Chasm; the curtain walls and gatehouse had been reconstructed in solid concrete; and the castle sported a new roof, complete with guttering and a large water tank. But just as I was feeling a little more friendly towards the soldiers, I noticed Veronica and Daniel having an urgent-sounding conversation in the courtyard.

  ‘No, don’t,’ said Daniel, grabbing her arm. ‘Veronica, please, you don’t need to see it now! Leave it to the military investigators.’

  Which was how I found out about the slave labourers, the men the Nazi soldiers had brought to the island to build the concrete fortifications and the gun emplacement at South Head; to enlarge the airstrip and keep it in good repair; to tend the castle’s vegetable gardens. These men were left to house themselves in the ruined cottages in the village, and to try to feed themselves with whatever fish or rabbits or seabirds they could catch after their long days of back-breaking labour. They starved, of course, some of them to death, and the bodies were piled up to rot in one of the cottages. The survivors were collected at the beginning of 1944 and taken to a German concentration camp, where they were forced to make the rocket bombs that later devastated London. It turned out nearly all of the men were Spanish Republicans who’d escaped to France after the Civil War, and then were interned after the Nazi invasion in 1940. None of them lived to see the end of the war.

  That was the hardest thing of all to bear – the knowledge of how those men had suffered at Montmaray. It turned the destruction of our property, even our years in exile, into something almost inconsequential. And there seemed nothing we could do to make it any better. But the Nazis kept meticulous records of all their prisoners, and so Veronica, with the aid of her Foreign Office colleagues, managed to trace many of the men’s families. At least we could tell them the truth, if they wanted to hear it. And they did, for the most part. Some of the families even came out here last year, to watch the new commemorative stained-glass window in the chapel being unveiled. Julia commissioned one of her artist friends to design it, and I’d worried it might be a bit too modern and abstract, but it’s absolutely beautiful, especially when the light streams through it. All the men’s names are in it, so no one can ever forget them . . .

  And now I think I might as well have translated those journal pages, after all, given how long I’ve dwelled on all that heartbreaking tragedy. Goodness, I’d really better write something more cheerful next. What has been my happiest experience since the war ended? Well, our wedding, I suppose – yes, that was lovely. Walking out of the church at Milford into the dazzling sunlight that morning, arm in arm with Rupert, knowing we’d be spending the rest of our lives together. Veronica had pointed out that a civil wedding in London would be quicker and easier to organise, but I had my heart set on wearing a white dress, with the Reverend Mr Herbert officiating, and the Colonel giving me away, and Veronica as my bridesmaid. So that’s what we had, even though the occasion wasn’t quite as grand as Aunt Charlotte had always dreamed. Rationing was still in force, so my dress was one of Julia’s old debutante gowns with lace sleeves added, and the cake didn’t have any icing, and we couldn’t manage to buy any camera film so there weren’t any photographs. And Barnes wept all the way through the ceremony, although she assured me afterwards that that didn’t mean she disapproved of it. And we missed Henry dreadfully, of course (I could just imagine her refusing to wear a bridesmaid’s frock, and insisting on Estella being appointed a flower sow, or page pig, or something). Dear old Carlos had passed away in his sleep by then, but his two sons made their presence known at the church hall reception by stealing all the sausage rolls. Still, it was a wonderful wedding. I suggested to Veronica and Daniel that they might like to have one, too, but they remain firmly attached both to each other and their anti-wedding principles.

  Anyway, if Veronica got married, she’d have to resign from her job – and she’d never do that, especially as she was one of those who helped convince the Gowers Committee that women should be allowed to take up permanent positions in the Foreign Office. Of course, women are still restricted to only ten per cent of its annual intake and have to remain single. Overturning that ruling is the aim of Veronica’s current campaign, although I don’t know when she ever finds the time to work on it, between her job, and doing evening courses at the London School of Economics, and helping Daniel with –

  I WAS JUST INTERRUPTED BY DAVEY, who toddled through my open door with an armful of blanket.

  ‘I making a nest,’ he announced.

  ‘Are you, darling?’ I
said. We make concerted efforts not to spoil him, but he has such a sweet, serious nature and is so utterly adorable (those big dark eyes of Simon’s in Julia’s heart-shaped face, that mop of chestnut curls) that it’s rather an uphill battle for us.

  ‘Yes, I making a nest,’ said Davey, nodding emphatically. ‘For you.’

  Davey thinks the recent appearance of four kittens in that dark cupboard under our kitchen sink is the most fascinating thing ever – certainly more interesting than the arrival of his own little sister six months ago. We have explained to him that humans, unlike Sooty the cat, tend to give birth in hospitals, or at least bedrooms, and that my baby isn’t due for several months. I reminded him of this, and he listened with his usual solemn courtesy. Then he said again, very patiently, ‘I making a nest for you,’ and dragged his blanket over to the cramped space between the wardrobe and the dressing table. I decided to let him get on with it. (He seems to have inherited more than his fair share of the FitzOsborne stubbornness, although I suppose that could just be how two-and-a-half-year-olds are.) He was busy adding some cushions he’d taken from the windowseat, when Toby poked his head around the doorframe.

  ‘Have you seen . . .?’

  I tilted my head at the wardrobe.

  ‘Ah,’ said Toby. He raised his voice. ‘Well, I’m looking for someone small. Someone light on their feet.’

  ‘Not me, then,’ I said.

  ‘Someone who can tip-toe into the henhouse and pick up the eggs with careful little hands –’

  ‘I doing it, Daddy!’ said Davey, scrambling out of his blankets and dashing over to Toby. ‘I doing it!’

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ said Toby, scooping him up. ‘I wondered where you’d got to.’

  ‘I making a nest,’ Davey explained, pointing.

  ‘Yes, you did mention your plans for that. Lucky Auntie Sophie, getting such a nice nest! I’m not sure she needs your sister’s teddy, though, so we’ll take that back. What’s this? Oh, a book. Well, yes, Auntie Sophie does love books.’