by Murray Pura
“If you can tear yourself away from them I wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes with you.”
He bowed. “An honor. So long as I don’t keep saying the wrong thing.”
“You haven’t said anything wrong. Thank you for your compliments. I just wish I felt as whole on the inside as I apparently look to you on the outside.”
She drifted away to one of the far corners of the yard by the high stone fence, where it was completely dark. He followed her after pouring a second glass of punch. He offered it to her once she turned to face him.
“Oh. Danke.”
“If I can say your dress looks very nice as well—”
“Ja, ja. Go right ahead. It’s Bavarian.”
“I like it.”
“So I’m glad. Somehow it ended up in the baggage Harrison brought with us from Germany.” She extended her arm. “Traditionally, it should be short-sleeved.”
“It’s a warm evening, isn’t it? What’s chilled you that makes you wear long sleeves?”
“I’m not chilled. When I joined the Nazi Youth, I had tattoos put on my arms. Here on my left shoulder is an eagle with a swastika. On my right is a death’s head like the SS use. I’m ashamed of them both, but I can’t take them off without ripping the skin off, can I? I’m stuck with them. So I had the long sleeves sewn onto my dress.”
“I don’t care.”
“You should care. Two years ago I was proud of them. Doesn’t that make you change your mind about me?”
“I have Jewish blood. So does my brother, Colm. So does my mother. Does that make you change your mind about me?”
Eva’s mouth opened halfway. “I….didn’t know.”
“It’s true. My mother told us last year.” Eva let her arms hang down by her side. “So we both have our secrets.”
“Not all secrets are the same.”
“No. But I will have to think about this.”
Owen nodded. “Of course.” He drained his glass of punch. “Sorry to have spoiled your evening.”
He walked away. Eva remained in the dark, crossing her arms over her chest.
Jane had wandered to another dark spot in the yard with Peter.
“Can anyone see us?” she whispered.
“Not unless they have the eyes of a cat.”
“I just want a few minutes of privacy.”
“No one’s watching. No one cares where we are.”
“Except James.”
Peter shrugged. “Except James. But he’ll get his five minutes later.”
“Five minutes? I’m going to give each of you more than five minutes.”
“You’ll have to choose between us one day, you know. You can’t have both of us at the altar.”
“I know that.”
“No one’s getting any younger.”
“Oh, heavens, Peter. I’m just twenty-two.”
“Yes, you are.” Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he tugged a small box from his pocket. “Happy birthday.”
“Really?” She took the white leather box. “This looks expensive. Please, Peter, don’t spoil things by giving me a diamond ring. It’s much too soon for anything of that sort.”
“It’s not a diamond ring.”
“Cross your heart?”
“Cross my heart.”
“All right then, I’ll open it.” It was a ring with a dark stone. “Oh, my heavens, what is it?”
“Hold it up to the light.”
“There is no light, Peter.”
“Hold on.”
He brought a lighter from his pocket and flicked it. “My handy Zippo.”
“Oh!” The stone turned to a fiery green. “Is it emerald?”
“Yes.”
“Where on earth do you get the money for these things? Why emerald?”
“It goes with your eyes.”
“My eyes aren’t green.”
“They don’t have to be green for emerald to go with them, do they?”
She slipped it on the ring finger of her right hand. “It’s elegant. It’s beautiful. I love it.”
“Beauty for beauty.”
She put her arms around his neck. “I’m in love with you.”
“I feel the same way.”
“Oh, you have to do better than that if you’re going to give a girl an emerald ring.”
“I love you, Jane. I’ve loved you a long time.”
“I knew that.” She kissed him slowly on the lips. “But there’s James too.”
“Yes, but you can bring James up when James is the one in your arms. It’s my go at the bat this cricket match. Let’s just talk about you and me, shall we? No one else interferes. That’s the rules, right?”
She smiled. “Right.”
And then Peter put his arms around her, and they kissed again.
Libby held Terry’s hand as the backyard emptied and led him underneath the long strings of paper lanterns.
“I’ve loved these since I was a girl,” she said.
“It’s new for me, but I quite like the effect. I’d like to hang a thousand of these on the Hood. It would look majestic.”
“Did you see Jane? She must be the happiest girl in England.”
“Why? What’s happened now? Did one of the boys pop the question?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. But they both gave her birthday rings tonight. Take a look at her right hand later on. One of the rings has an emerald stone and the other is jade.”
“How will this all end? Someone’s bound to get hurt.”
“Well, I hope it will sort itself out over the next year or two. I don’t envy Jane that task. There should be two of her. Then everything would turn out right.”
Libby glanced about. The yard was empty, the table with its food and drink removed, the guests indoors. She wrapped her arms around Terry’s back.
“I’ve never been kissed under paper lanterns,” she said, smiling up at him.
His hand smoothed back her ginger hair. “You’re letting it grow out.”
“Glad you noticed.”
“If you keep on looking more and more beautiful I really will start kissing you in the most unusual locations—backyards, seashores, on the deck of the Hood…”
“On the deck of the Hood? Really? Why don’t we start with the backyard?”
“You want to kiss right now? Out in the open?”
“No one’s here.”
“They could take a look out a window.”
“Since when do you care about that, Commander Fordyce?”
“I thought you did.”
“Not tonight. Maybe not any other night ever again.”
Their lips came together. Her grip grew stronger and stronger and she refused to let him break off. The paper lanterns swayed above their heads. The soft light painted them amber and orange.
“Never leave me,” she finally whispered.
“I could be ten thousand miles away on the farthest ocean from England and I’d never have left you.”
She began to kiss him again. “That’s a pleasant thought.”
The families had returned to their London homes. Those who were staying at Kensington Gate had turned in, and all the squares and rectangles of windows were dark. A small light glowed on the top floor, where Albrecht and Catherine had chosen to live for the time being. Edward looked up at it from the backyard.
“Do you suppose he’s working on a book?” he asked.
Owen shrugged. “If what he says is true, he hasn’t had much of a chance to say what he’s wanted to say. Now he can.”
Edward glanced at his son. “Did something happen tonight?”
“No.”
“It’s like you have a cloud over you.”
Owen shrugged again. “Things didn’t work out the way I expected.”
“Is this about Eva?”
“A bit.”
“I thought you said you were holding off on that for another year?”
“I don’t know, Dad. She came up to me. I didn’t seek her out.”
“What did she want to talk about?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t get very far.”
Father and son moved away from the light of the lanterns and into the darkness against the stone walls.
“Well, son,” Edward said, “she is a beautiful woman with a magic all her own. I can’t blame you for getting caught up with her. And the age thing doesn’t bother your mother or me at all. It’s only a few years. What I have a hard time getting around is her commitment to the Nazis.”
“That weakens with each month that goes by. Charles is the one clinging on to the whole Nazi thing and marching with the British Union of Fascists.”
“Right.”
They were silent a few moments. Owen found they could see the stars clearly by the wall and thought about them being strings of paper lanterns high up in the night sky.
“She said she was ashamed of being a Nazi,” he told his father.
“Did she?”
“She was wearing a dress with long sleeves. I guess the dress is supposed to be short-sleeved, but she had the long sleeves put on to cover her Nazi tattoos. She hates them.”
“I see.”
“After she shared that secret, I felt I should share one. I expect I wanted to find out what she thought.”
“About what?”
“My Jewish blood.”
“You told her?”
“Yes. I just wanted to know.”
Edward put his hands in his pockets and looked at his son. “How did she react?”
“Not well. She didn’t get upset or anything, but I could see it bothered her.”
“All the Nazi isn’t out of her yet.”
“I don’t think it ever will be.” He ran his hand over the rough surface of the stone wall. “I want to go to sea, Dad. Get away from all this. Get away from her. Clear out my head. See other parts of the world like you have.”
“Run off to sea, eh? Well, many a young man’s done that before you. You have your mother’s and my permission to enlist once you’ve turned eighteen and finished school. I would be a very proud father to see you in a naval uniform.”
Owen smiled. “Do you think they would ever put me aboard your ship?”
“It might happen. Meantime, finish up your last year. Concentrate on your studies. That will help drive Eva from your head.”
“Not so well as a vast ocean will.”
“No. But read some sea stories. That will help you out even more. I’ve put the three C.S. Forester books on your shelf—The Happy Return, A Ship of the Line, and Flying Colors.”
“When did you do that?”
“Just before we came over here. You could say I had a feeling you might need them. They’ll fill your head up with the adventure you crave. Next thing you know you’ll be an admiral.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Owen took a step toward his father, hesitated, and then put his arms around him.
“I’ll miss you,” he said.
Edward patted his son’s back as they embraced. “Won’t be long and I’ll be back in port again. We’ll catch up on your life then.”
The paper lanterns swayed in the night breeze alone for another hour before Tavy and Skitt unplugged them and brought them down, Skitt climbing a ladder while Tavy held it steady.
In bed, Edward lay in his wife Charlotte’s arms and told her what he and Owen had talked about, playing with strands of her raven black hair as he spoke.
In the bedroom at their London house, Libby nestled her head on her husband Terry’s chest and listened to the strong rhythm of his heart while he smoothed her ginger blonde hair with the palm of his hand.
A few weeks later, at the end of July, Charlotte, Owen, and Colm watched HMS Rodney leave Plymouth. In August, Jane and Libby traveled to Portsmouth, where the Hood had been undergoing its refit, and stood almost at attention as it slipped its moorings and headed out to sea.
Rodney arrived at Scapa Flow in northern Scotland before any of the other warships. Once the Home Fleet, including Rodney and Hood, had assembled, it left Scapa Flow on the last day of August. The next day the German Army and Air Force attacked Poland. Britain and France demanded that German forces withdraw, but Berlin didn’t respond. Edward was on the bridge of Rodney late Sunday morning, September third, the Fleet three hundred miles south of Iceland, when a signal was received from the Admiralty.
TOTAL GERMANY
The bridge was quiet. Edward looked at the faces around him. For months everyone had been expecting it, and now there it was. “Total Germany” was the Royal Navy code word for “Commence hostilities against Germany.”
The prime minister’s speech was relayed over the Tannoy system to the entire ship’s crew.
I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at Ten Downing Street. This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we hear from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
Up to the very last it would have been quite possible to have arranged a peaceful and honorable settlement between Germany and Poland, but Hitler would not have it. He had evidently made up his mind to attack Poland, whatever happened, and although he now says he put forward reasonable proposals which were rejected by the Poles, that is not a true statement.
The situation in which no word given by Germany’s ruler could be trusted, and no people or country could feel itself safe, has become intolerable. And now that we have resolved to finish it I know that you will play your part with calmness and courage.
Now may God bless you all. May He defend the right. For it is evil things that we shall be fighting against—brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression, and persecution—and against them I am certain that right will prevail.
The same signal was received aboard the Hood and the same speech from the prime minister transmitted to the ship’s crew. Terry held the signal in his hand.
“It won’t be a short war, will it, sir?” asked one of the young midshipmen. “I wouldn’t mind if we were all home for Christmas, but that’s a bit of a pipe dream, I’m thinking.”
He looked at Terry hopefully, wanting the Commander to refute him. Terry slipped the signal into a pocket of his uniform.
“It won’t be a short war, Mr. Midshipman White,” Terry replied. “You may count on it being just as long as the last one.”
“But we’ll win it, sir.”
“Aye. We’ll carry the day.”
Terry’s immediate thoughts were of Libby and Jane. It could be years before I see you.
Lord Preston listened to Prime Minister Chamberlain’s broadcast in the company of his wife and servants in the small library at Kensington Gate. Afterward he prowled the house and grounds, hands behind his back, head down. Now and then others could see his lips moving.
“He is consulting with the Almighty,” Lady Preston said to her daughter Catherine and Albrecht. “I hope it does some good.”
Albrecht turned away from the window, where he could see Lord Preston pacing the lawn.
“Now more than ever I must finish my book on a Germany that follows its Christian past rather than its Nazi present.” Albrecht picked up his cup of tea, finished it, wiped his lips quickly with a napkin, and bowed to Lady Preston. “Excuse me.”
“Of course. Each of us must fight the war in his own way. Some with prayers. Some with pens. Others with airplanes and ships.” Lady Preston looked at Catherine as Albrecht hurried from the room. “I greatly fear that harm will come to my children. Too many of them are in harm’s way. I fear also for my grandchildren. Too many of them are of an age where they may rush to enlist.” Her lower lip trembled.
Catherine knelt by her mother’s chair and took her hand. “We’ve got to hold together, Mum. We’ve been through a lot with the first war and Ireland. We can sti
ck together through this too. Can I pray for you?”
“You can. But don’t just pray for me. Pray for the entire family. Edward and Terry are already at sea. I know very well that Kipp and Ben will not wish to remain test pilots now that war is declared.”
“Don’t fret about Ben and Kipp, Mum. They’re too old to fly fighter planes in a war.”
“They will find a way around the restrictions—depend on it. And Owen is champing at the bit to serve on board a battleship like his father. To say nothing of Peter and James—they will do anything to win Jane’s favor. You can be sure they will jump at the chance to fly with the RAF, what with all the training they’ve been taking.” Lady Preston covered her eyes with her hand and rubbed it back and forth. “God help us.”
“We shall pray to that end, Mum.”
“Please do. If God hasn’t given up on me yet, we may see some light before we reach the end of the tunnel.”
Robbie was the first to cause Lady Preston to brace herself with further prayer, Catherine at her side.
A British Expeditionary Force had been set up over the past year with the express purpose of being deployed to Europe if war broke out with Nazi Germany. Now the troops were about to be sent over the Channel. Robbie had been asked to command a regiment even though colonels normally served as staff officers and not as field commanders.
“I was going mad brooding at that desk,” he told Lord and Lady Preston as they sat in the parlor at Kensington Gate. “When they made the offer I told them I needed twenty-four hours. It was not a direct order. Since I didn’t wish to trouble you I kept it to myself. I only told Jeremy and Emma. They prayed with me. We opened the Bible randomly and were at Psalm 144, even though Jeremy rarely reads that psalm or the ones before or after it. The first verse jumped out at all three of us: “Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight.” The second verse seemed just as meaningful to us: “My goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.” I take it as a sign that I am to do something about defending Britain and defending Europe. I was in Palestine for so many years and Ireland before that. It’s time to do something for my home country.”
Lady Preston ran her hand along the arm of her chair. “Have you thought about your daughter? Patricia cannot survive the loss of both of her parents at such a tender age.”
