The FitzOsbornes at War

by Michelle Cooper

  I’m not sure Rupert’s copy of Advanced Canine Surgery would provide much distraction during labour, but it was a kind thought of Davey’s.

  ‘Right,’ Toby said. ‘Now, shall we go downstairs? See if the hens have left us some eggs?’

  ‘Yes! I doing it. I finding the eggs.’

  ‘What would I do without my helpful boy?’

  Davey shook his head. ‘I dunno,’ he said.

  I don’t know, either. It was only when Davey was born that Toby gave up drinking, more or less. For a long time before that, Simon and Julia had been quite worried about him. He was elated by Montmaray’s liberation, and even proposed leading some commando raids on the Channel Islands. But in the end, all he could manage was to get Churchill to agree to the Red Cross delivering food boxes to the Channel Islanders. And then the war kept dragging on, for months and months, and Toby sank back down into despondency. It wasn’t helped by the continuing raids on London, the robot bombs having been replaced by enormous V-2 rockets that travelled faster than sound and blasted open craters big enough to swallow a couple of houses.

  It was one of those rockets that killed Aunt Charlotte. She and Barnes had come up to London for a WVS meeting and were doing some shopping beforehand, when a rocket landed next to the building Barnes had just entered. Aunt Charlotte, waiting across the road in a tea room, ran straight outside and shoved past an ARP warden who tried to stop her entering the tottering ruins. As she was searching through the rubble, a brick wall collapsed on top of her, killing her instantly. Poor Barnes was carried out ten minutes later with a broken arm and terrible cuts and bruises, but it was the loss of Aunt Charlotte that caused her the greatest agony. They’d been each other’s closest companion for more than thirty years. I still worry sometimes about Barnes feeling lonely. We did ask if she’d like to move to London to live with us, as Rupert and I have plenty of room in our flat, but she said she prefers country life. I think she’s happier having all those familiar people around her in Milford, and her friend Harkness, our former butler, runs a gentleman’s outfitter’s in Salisbury, not far away. Aunt Charlotte left Barnes a lifetime lease on the Milford Park gatehouse and a generous pension, so she’s quite comfortable, and we visit her whenever we drive down to Astley.

  The main house at Milford Park has been leased to a girls’ school now. It was too much bother to try to convert it back into a house, and it wasn’t as though any of us were planning to live there in the near future. Aunt Charlotte bequeathed most of her fortune – which was even larger than I’d realised – to Veronica, Toby and me, with an insultingly small allowance to be paid to Simon, on the condition he continue to manage her estate. None of us felt that was fair, so Veronica arranged for everything to be transferred to a family trust, with the four of us as equal beneficiaries. As it’s turned out, Simon does most of the work involved with managing it, anyway. Aunt Charlotte cannily bought up a lot of bomb-damaged properties during the war, and we are gradually fixing them up and selling them, or tearing them down and rebuilding. Our first project was Montmaray House, which we converted into four big apartments. (Rupert and I live in the top one, and if I peer out our kitchen window, I can just about see where our poor old garage flat used to be.)

  It’s turned into quite a business, restoring all these properties. I take care of most of the paperwork, and show potential buyers around the new places. That’s the best part – talking to the couples who come in, often with a baby or toddler in tow. They exclaim over the fresh paint and the shiny white stove and the large windows, and immediately start planning where their furniture will go. They tell me their stories, too – how they lost everything in the Blitz and have been staying with her parents ever since and never have a moment’s privacy, or about the outrageous rent they’re paying for a basement bedsit with nowhere for the children to play – so I always feel as though I’m doing a really worthwhile, helpful job. Not that I’m doing it single-handedly, of course. Simon arranges all the council permits and deals with the builders; Julia liaises with the architects and designs the interiors; and Toby provides a sympathetic ear when we’ve had a hard day, and looks after the children. Our office is in Julia’s Belgravia house, where Toby, Simon and Julia live together very harmoniously – although Toby prefers Montmaray to London, and periodically tries to talk us all into moving here.

  ‘Oh, darling, I adore our island summers,’ Julia said yesterday, ‘but what would we do here for the rest of the year?’

  ‘Turn the castle into a hotel,’ Toby said promptly. ‘We could set up a diving resort, get that Cousteau chap involved. Think of all those exciting shipwrecks off South Head!’

  ‘Darling, there’s a reason all those shipwrecks are there. Those waters are far too treacherous for divers. Anyway, don’t divers prefer nice, warm tropical reefs?’

  ‘Well, then, we can make Montmaray a very exclusive retreat for rich people who want to get far away from everything.’

  ‘I think this island ought to be a puffin sanctuary,’ said Rupert. ‘I don’t think you realise how unique this habitat is.’

  ‘It can be a special haven for puffins and rich Americans,’ said Toby. ‘We’ll get Daphne to send us all the rich Americans she knows.’

  Julia continued to look doubtful.

  ‘Perhaps later,’ she said, ‘but we’re far too busy at the moment with this new project in Bethnal Green. I don’t think Daniel realises how difficult it is, designing low-cost houses that are nice to live in.’

  ‘I still don’t understand how he managed to talk Simon into that,’ said Toby.

  ‘Oh, Simon realised that if he didn’t agree, Veronica would start in on him next,’ Julia said. ‘Anyway, Daniel can be awfully convincing. I suppose that’s how he got into Parliament.’

  Daniel was elected as Member of Parliament for Whitechapel a few years ago, during that general election that saw Labour sweep into power. Churchill may have been a stirring leader at the height of battle, but he didn’t have much interest in building a new England, so it’s no wonder he got tossed out. I’m quite fond of Mr Attlee, the new Prime Minister. He looks like a bank clerk and doesn’t talk very much, but what he does say always seems sensible and fair. Britain was – still is – in such a mess after the war, but Mr Attlee’s brought in a lot of good reforms to do with education and health and welfare. I also approve of him nationalising the coal mines and railways, because I think that’s more efficient and better for the workers – although I’m careful not to say that aloud in Lord Astley’s presence.

  Rupert’s father hates absolutely everything about the new government, of course, but especially the taxes. If he died tomorrow, the death duties on his estate would be so high that Astley Manor would probably have to be sold. He could avoid that by signing over the manor to Rupert now, but I can’t see that happening. Lord Astley does approve of me (especially now, with a baby on the way), but he wasn’t too pleased about Rupert ignoring his advice and enrolling at the Royal Veterinary College, and he’s utterly scathing about the Animal Hospital that Rupert and his friends have set up in Stepney. They only charge those who can afford to pay, and subsist largely on donations, so I doubt Rupert will ever make a living wage from it. I told him it was lucky he’d married an heiress, and he said, ‘You mean, I’m lucky to have married a beautiful, clever, kind-hearted heiress,’ and I said, ‘Yes, exactly,’ and gave him a kiss, because really, I’m the lucky one, to have such a lovely husband. It’s also fortunate that Rupert has become quite good at disregarding his father’s outbursts – which, oddly enough, seems to have earned him some grudging respect from Lord Astley. Anyway, they will have to make peace sooner or later, because Rupert will probably be the next Lord Astley. Charlie survived the war, but wants nothing to do with his father or the estate, and sailed back to Canada as soon as he was released from hospital. He was in a dreadful condition when the Allied troops freed him from his prison camp. The Nazis had kept all the Allied prisoners of war chained up and hadn’t fed them p
roperly, and then forced them to march from Poland to Germany as the Russians moved closer.

  And Charlie’s suffering, as awful as it was, was nowhere near as terrible as what happened to all those millions of people in the Nazi concentration camps. We were all stunned by those first horrific photographs of Belsen and Buchenwald, and it just got worse and worse as more facts emerged. It didn’t even help much when the Nazi leaders were tried at Nuremberg. It’s true that I felt a moment of grim satisfaction when Ribbentrop and Gebhardt and the others were sentenced to death. At least they’d been given a trial, forced to account for their actions in front of the judges and the world. Some of the Nazis even showed signs of remorse. But it would have been better if those acts had never taken place; better if those Nazi leaders had never been born. And what about the tens of thousands of lower-ranked Nazis who will never be prosecuted, the ones who worked in the concentration camps and enforced Hitler’s terrible laws throughout the occupied territories? What about the Soviet soldiers who massacred all those Polish prisoners at Katyn? What about the British and the Americans – who knows what any of them might have done? The very notion of ‘war crimes’ seems absurd – as though war can ever be conducted without killing and stealing and destroying! War itself is a crime, by the standards of normal, civilised society.

  That such evil exists – that so many of the men on trial at Nuremberg looked so ordinary, like teachers or doctors, that some of them actually were doctors – well, it’s terrifying, when one thinks about it. That’s why I kept putting off having a baby. I told Rupert it would be better for us to wait till he’d finished his vet training, but really, I didn’t feel it was right to bring a helpless child into a world full of war criminals and atomic bombs.

  So, having this baby will be the bravest thing I’ve ever done – or the most foolhardy, although I suppose it’s a bit late to worry about that now. But it’s heartening, really, how optimistic most people are – that so many of them are picking up the threads of their lives and knitting them together as best they can. And then there are the really bold ones, those embracing entirely new futures – Daphne, for example, moving to New York, and Rebecca, joining the convent. I keep wondering how Henry would have fared in this tumultuous new world. I think she would have loved it. I miss her all the time, especially here at Montmaray, but I’m consoled now, a little, when I remember she died doing what she loved, that she didn’t suffer, probably didn’t even have time to realise what was happening. Like poor dear Kick, killed with her boyfriend in that plane crash a few months ago, on their way to a romantic weekend in Cannes. Perhaps that would be the best way to die. I can’t even contemplate life without Rupert, and he feels the same about me, so it would be very sensible of us to die together, quite suddenly – but in about fifty years or so, when our children are completely grown and capable of getting along without us.

  Well, regardless of when we shuffle off this mortal coil, at least my own daughter won’t have the same experience I had, of being faced with her mother’s frustratingly indecipherable diary. I’ve only translated my old journals up to 1944, but I still (hopefully) have a few more months to work on them before the baby arrives, and at least all of my recent journals are in English. (I haven’t the same need for secrecy these days.) Of course, it is quite complicated, figuring out what to include in my translations. Apart from trying to edit out the boring bits, there are facts that I promised not to reveal – about Anthony’s death, for example – as well as secrets that never truly belonged to me. It’s all very well to order myself to tell the simple truth, but everyone’s version of the truth is different, and mine is no doubt even more peculiar, protracted and personal than most . . .

  OH, RUPERT HAS ARRIVED TO escort me to luncheon. Actually, he offered to bring a tray up to me, but Davey is tugging insistently on my hem, urging me downstairs so I can admire the new chicken that’s unexpectedly hatched. So, in a minute or two, I will rise and make my way out of the Solar, which Toby insisted Rupert and I have as our room this time, and along the gallery, spotlit with those clever skylights that Julia devised. I will inch down the tower steps, each bump and hollow of the stones as familiar to me as my own hands, and into the bright, clean kitchen, where something delicious will be simmering on Vulcan’s burnished stovetop. Then, after luncheon, I might – no, I will – walk through the Great Hall (magnificent now the clutter has been cleared away) and sit in the chapel for a while. It’s a very calm, peaceful space, bathed in jewel-coloured light, and I often go in there for a bit of a think. And later, when the sun begins to sink and the infinite sky is streaked with red and gold, I’ll stroll out into the courtyard – perhaps even climb the steps to the gatehouse. And I’ll gaze across the Chasm to the other side of the island, where I can still sometimes catch sight of a curly-haired urchin running joyously through the tall purple grass, her faithful dog at her heels.

  Author Notes

  THIS NOVEL IS A BLEND of historical fact and imaginative fiction. Real people, groups and organisations mentioned include: Neville Chamberlain; Adolf Hitler; Joseph Stalin; Joachim von Ribbentrop; the League of Nations; the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS); Air Raid Precautions (ARP); the Women’s Institute; the Royal Air Force (RAF); the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS); the Auxiliary Air Force (AAF); the Women’s Royal Naval Service, also known as the Wrens; the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF); the Air Transport Auxiliary; the Mechanised Transport Corps; the Red Cross; the Foreign Office; the Ministry of Food, headed by William Morrison and then Lord Woolton; the Kennedy family; Billy Hartington and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire; the Duke and Duchess of Windsor; Unity and Deborah Mitford; Oswald and Diana Mosley; the British Union, the Right Club, the Nordic League, the Anglo-German Fellowship and The Link; Tyler Kent, Anna Wolkoff and Archibald Maule Ramsay; Oliver Cromwell; Winston Churchill and his daughters, Sarah, Diana and Mary; King George the Sixth and Princess Margaret; Clement Attlee; King Leopold of the Belgians; the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), later known as the Home Guard; Lord Beaverbrook; Francisco Franco, the Falangists and the Guardia Civil; President Franklin D. Roosevelt; Sally Norton; Cecil Beaton; General de Gaulle, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, Doctor Beneš of Czechoslovakia and General Sikorski of Poland; Rudolf Hess; Douglas Bader; Michael Creswell at the British Embassy in Madrid; Leslie Hore-Belisha; Samuel Hoare, the British Ambassador to Spain; the Ladies of Llangollen; Lady Astor; Charles White; Richard Hillary; General Eisenhower; Lea Rayner, head of the Air Ministry Pigeon Service; Mrs A. V. Alexander, wife of the First Lord of the Admiralty; John ‘Cat’s Eyes’ Cunningham; and Jacques Cousteau. Where real, historical people appear in the novel, I have used their biographies, their own writings and other evidence to try to make their actions and words as true to their known lives as possible. However, the FitzOsbornes, Stanley-Rosses, Bosworths, Elchesters, Blooms and other characters are figments of my imagination.

  While Montmaray does not exist, most of the world events described in the novel actually occurred. These include: the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany; Germany’s invasion of Poland and the subsequent declaration of war by Britain; the evacuation of city children to the British countryside and to North America; the sinking of the SS Athenia; Britain’s internment of Enemy Aliens, including Jewish refugees from Germany; food, clothing and petrol rationing; the conscription of British men and women during the Second World War; the requisition of British property and businesses by the War Office; the ‘Phoney War’; the Soviet Union’s invasion of Finland; Germany’s invasion of Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the Channel Islands; the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk; the spy scandal at the American Embassy in London; the imprisonment of Oswald and Diana Mosley; Italy’s declaration of war; the attempted kidnapping of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor by German agents; the British bombing of the French navy at Mers-el-Kébir; the Battle for Britain; the Blitz; the sinking of the City of Benares pas
senger liner while evacuating children to Canada; Hitler’s meeting with Franco at Hendaye; the Battle of Barking Creek; the People’s Convention; the North African and Middle East campaigns; Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union; Japan’s bombing of Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war by the United States; Japan’s invasion of China, Burma, Malaya, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines; the interrogation of German prisoners of war at the ‘London Cage’ in Kensington Palace Gardens, and the imprisonment of captured German generals at Trent Park; the failed Dieppe raid; the Beveridge Report; the Katyn massacre; the death of General Sikorski; the Allied invasion of Normandy; the Belgian and French escape lines for Allied servicemen, and the imprisonment, torture and execution of French and Belgian Resistance workers by the Nazis; the U-boat campaign in the Atlantic; and the V-1 ‘flying bomb’ and V-2 rocket raids on England. The island of Montmaray, Montmaray House, Milford Park, the village of Milford and Astley Manor are fictional, but most of the other places mentioned in the novel are real.

  Information about home life in England during the Second World War came from: Wartime: Britain 1939–1945 by Juliet Gardiner; Keep Smiling Through: The Home Front 1939–45 by Susan Briggs; Voices from the Home Front: Personal Experiences of Wartime Britain 1939–45 by Felicity Goodall; and The Home Front: The British and the Second World War by Arthur Marwick. Debs at War 1939–1945: How Wartime Changed Their Lives by Anne de Courcy and The Call of the Sea: Britain’s Maritime Past 1900–1960 by Steve Humphries contained helpful descriptions of women’s experiences during the war, while Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord 1940–45 by Max Hastings and Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, The End of Civilization by Nicholson Baker provided useful political and military context. The story of Bamse came from Sea Dog Bamse: World War II Canine Hero by Angus Whitson and Andrew Orr.