The Face of Eve

by Betty Burton

  People grumbled, but nobody gave up.

  The Bureau trainees gained more information from their evenings in the pubs than from reading newspapers, none of which said anything about London children returning home from the safety of the country.

  ‘My gel Alice went and got her kids back. They was more scared of all the bloody cows and horses than the chance of a bomb.’

  ‘Our young Nobby said it put the frit up him. “It’s all empty, Grandpa,” he said. “Ain’t nothing there except empty fields.” He’s right. What do you reckon they do with theirselves… all that empty space with nobody there?’

  ‘Only time we ever saw the country was hop-pickin’. You wouldn’t get me living there. Same with me, their nan went down Sussex way to see the little’ns. They wanted to come home with her. She told them, people pays good money to have holidays, go camping and that in the fields. My son says they should come back.’

  ‘Schools is all closed.’

  ‘If enough comes home, they’ll have to open up again.’

  Considering none of them had met before they arrived at the Scrubs the recruits got on well – friendly, easy to talk to and eagerly listened to; ordinary, likeable people of whom Eve guessed she must be the youngest. All were as earnest as herself to make good, to be accepted to go on to the next stage of training. She paid attention and watched the ways other than in words they expressed themselves. It was rather like her journalist experience all over again. For a while, whilst she was in Spain, she had written some columns for some of the more liberal journals about ordinary lives, trying to give readers more than a report; people in their variety and with all their quirkiness was what she tried to give.

  Sometimes Eve and DB went around together, roaming the London stores which Paul and Frances Haddon found boring, leaving those two talking maths too advanced for Eve and DB to comprehend. Other times they went out as a foursome.

  Occasionally they were allowed a day off in the week and decided to have breakfast at the Lyons Corner House at Marble Arch, which still served decent food, and this simple fun together affirmed their friendship.

  DB was always entertaining – ‘good sport’, she called it. ‘I’ll tell you what would be good sport. Let’s all go to Joe Lyons at Marble Arch, go in disguise, and see how long it takes to find one another.’

  Eve went for simplicity. She got Vee to find her an old mac and hat, and wore her own shoes muddied up a bit, then queued for a cup of tea and a bun in the basement brasserie. By midday, the appointed time, she had detected none of the others. Then she saw how people were looking up, but, as the English do, trying not to watch as Paul, with a greasepaint Groucho Marx moustache, and copying the famous bent-kneed walk, carried a cup and plate to her corner and sat at her table.

  A waitress put some coins by his plate. ‘You forgot your change, sir.’

  ‘Thanks, Fran.’

  ‘Oh, damn you, Paul, I went to such lengths to get them to let me do this.’

  ‘How about me?’

  ‘Oh, you were good, Eve. If I hadn’t bribed Vee to tell me about the old mac and hat, I think I’d have taken ages to get you.’

  Fran went off to the manageress’s office to return her borrowed uniform.

  ‘DB’s the winner. Let’s join forces and find her.’

  But although they went to every floor of the Lyons Corner House they couldn’t.

  ‘Come on then,’ Fran said, ‘let’s go buy her a trophy. I saw a lipstick chap on my way here.’

  Even this early in the war, everyday things were becoming unavailable in shops. Small-time street-traders appeared from nowhere with little cases containing unobtainable objects of desire, selling at speed until crowds gathered and policemen approached, when the traders would vanish.

  ‘Vi’lets, dearie, lovely sweet vi’lets.’ Although she was disguised by only a shapeless hat and shoulder blanket tied across her bosom, a truly unrecognisable DB thrust posies at them. ‘This is my friend, Kath, who has let me stand with her all morning. You’re a sweetie, Kath.’

  ‘Don’t you want your flowers, dear?’

  ‘Naw, you just sell’m again.’

  With Paul still wearing his Groucho moustache, they went off down Oxford Street. ‘You cheated, DB.’

  ‘Of course I cheated. What did you all expect? We’re Bureau people, I thought we would all cheat.’ She thumped Paul playfully on the arm. ‘As for you, you silly bugger…’

  They had become a foursome – unlike the other six, who hadn’t been able to find the trick of working as a team in the same way.

  * * *

  On the last Saturday of the course, after yet another lecture about surveillance, Vee congratulated them all and said that although Colonel Linder couldn’t be with them, he had arranged with the landlord of The Star and Garter to have a round of shorts on him.

  The shorts turned out to be generous doubles of whisky. The Scrubs contingent drank and played darts noisily against the locals until closing time. The landlord had no idea what these rowdies were doing at the old prison – although he told his regulars, in confidence, that they were doing emergency planning. He was shrewd enough to guess that they might not be the last, so he put up with their loud voices because they didn’t seem short of money.

  Afterwards, the Bureau recruits went back to the Scrubs to take a look at the telephone exchange that was now installed. They felt pleased that the place they had worked on finally looked important and complete. The ten gathered in the kitchen, which contained only an electric kettle and a tiny electric oven with two rings. They stood around, sharing the few bottles of stout and beer they had persuaded the landlord to part with, drinking from their coffee mugs.

  Mary-Rose, now rosy-cheeked to suit her name, stepped out of character and raised her voice. ‘Listen a minute. I know I’ve had too much to drink, but I want to say something before I get any squiffier. All my life I have been a solitary and studious person. I shunned social contact, believing myself to be self-sufficient with my books and studies, but here, with all of you, for the first time, I have learned what it is like to live and work close to people. I expect it’s gone to my head, but I want to tell you before we all go our separate ways that I would never do or say anything against any of you. I have found you all to be good and nice people and I was brought up never to say anything behind a person’s back that I would not say to their face.’ She bowed her head shyly. ‘That’s all. Could I beg a cigarette?’ Offers came from all round the table.

  Mel, the most senior of the men in terms of age – probably in his early forties – squeezed Mary-Rose’s hand. ‘That’s really sweet, Mary-Rose. We’ve all enjoyed ourselves, haven’t we, gang?’ They clinked their mugs and agreed. Eve guessed that ‘gang’ wasn’t a word he would have used in his past life. There were little things about each of the others that didn’t ring true.

  Maybe they felt as she had done when she had cut herself loose from home, joined the Communists and gone to Spain – they were experiencing an entirely different game; an entirely new set of rules; a strange kind of freedom.

  Mary-Rose looked at each of them very seriously. ‘I don’t just mean enjoy, I mean… you have become more to me than… well, pals. Mel, would you do the honours?’ She took a bottle from her shoulder-bag. ‘It’s good stuff… the best.’

  Mel held up the bottle. ‘And you’re not kidding there, Mary-Rose.’

  They drank well into the early hours, then dispersed when Mel said, ‘Well, gang, I’m off, got things to do, places to visit.’ There were no goodbyes, no references to when they might see one another again.

  Paul, DB, Eve and Fran came out into a gloomy, foggy, London, and started to walk in the direction of their digs.

  Fran said, ‘Blow this for a lark, I’m not ready for bed.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Eve.

  ‘Good,’ said Fran. ‘You want to know what I think?’

  ‘Yeah, we deserve a treat.’

  ‘I absolutely agree,’ Pa
ul said. ‘I’ll stand one if anybody knows where to go. No pubs open. How about Joe Lyons? What time do they open, Eve?’

  ‘Not for a couple of hours yet.’

  Paul shrugged his shoulders. ‘That’s my entire knowledge of London high life. No use asking the lad from the sticks.’ He often referred to himself like this, but if he was once a country boy, it had been some time ago. Eve thought he might be an army man.

  ‘Come on,’ Fran said, ‘I know where. Top secret, no questions asked.’ And, guided by her, they walked through backstreets, ending up at an all-night cabbie stand from which came an enticing aroma of tea stewing and bread frying in lard.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Paul, always ready to eat, said, sniffing the air. ‘We’ve died and come to Heaven.’

  The prospect of food made them feel hungrier and even more cheerful, and their long walk had dispelled tiredness and cleared their heads.

  The stand, sheltered by a tarpaulin and lit only by an oil lamp, was underneath arches. A few London cabs without lights were parked close by. The only places to rest were a couple of benches made of empty drums and scaffolding planks. Cabbies, after stretching their legs, warmed their hands on steaming mugs, leaned against Thames Embankment wall, and sorted out the war strategy and a government who didn’t know nothing. Trains rattled overhead. Fran said to the other three, ‘Sit you down, this is my shout,’ and went straight to the stand. ‘Four sweet teas, Herb, and eight well-done slices.’

  The vendor peered. ‘Lor love us, miss, it’s you. Where you been keeping yourself?’

  ‘Here and there, coming and going… war work, Herb.’

  ‘Aw, miss, don’t say that. Don’t say you ain’t going to give your loving public no more—’

  Fran interrupted, ‘Now, then, Herb, you know better than to ask. Walls have ears. Don’t you know there’s a war on?’

  ‘So they keep saying when I try to get a bit of extra sugar. Sweet tea’s total necessary to my blokes – keeps ’m going. And not just cabbies. Now there’s the wardens and ambulance girls as well as the night-shift safety gangs off the lines.’ He pointed to above the arches where trains clattered and rattled over points. ‘But will the Min’stry a’ Food listen? Will they buggery.’

  When Fran returned to the others, carrying a tin tray holding four large mugs and a pile of thick, fried bread, their expressions were eager and curious.

  ‘Don’t ask! Or you’ll get none of this. I mean it.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ Paul said as they fell upon the bread, murmuring and groaning with pleasure as they bit into the crisp, lardy outer layer and munched the soft, steaming centre. ‘We won’t even ask how you come to know this amazing place and what it is Herb thinks he’s not going to get any more of.’

  DB whispered, mock conspiratorial, ‘Maybe it’s one of Lieutenant Hatton’s tasks.’

  Eve agreed. ‘It just might be – do you think this is what it might be like if it was a real operation?’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Paul answered lightly. ‘Herb just passed Fran a secret message, under cover of fried bread.’

  DB slapped Paul on the back, making him splutter into his mug of tea. ‘Oh my God, Paul! You just swallowed the message.’ Everything they said made them laugh like schoolkids.

  Herb leaned out of the serving hatch and said genially, ‘Oi, miss, watch it, or I’ll have to give you the old heave-ho for lowering the tone of my establishment.’

  Paul said, ‘DB, give Herb’s place a bit of style… sing.’

  ‘OK. What?’

  ‘“Strange Fruit”, DB. It has to be. Give Eve and Fran something to remember.’

  ‘And leave them crying?’

  Paul put his hands on her shoulders and looked her straight in the eye. ‘Hey, lady, you sing da blues, sure we gonna cry.’

  DB sang, stopping Herb’s customers in their tracks.

  * * *

  When daylight came and Herb had rinsed his last mug, the four hired one of the cabs which took them back to pack their bags.

  After she had packed her things, Eve sat down to write her report, which was quite long because there was much she thought worth mentioning, though not in detail. She ended: ‘It is my opinion that Toffler is already working within The Bureau and was a plant to induce reactions from us on our last day, as was the rumour that there was a clandestine relationship between the Chief and his assistant. E. Anders. 25 February 1940.’ Then, just as they had parted from the others, the four walked away from one another. There were no goodbyes and they did not look back.

  7

  When Eve returned to Portsmouth, it was not to Griffon House, but to WRNS quarters in a requisitioned building with high ceilings and hollow-sounding floors. There a surprise met her in the person of Phoebe Moncke, smart in a WRNS officer’s uniform that was the very opposite of her shawls and scarves at Griffon.

  ‘Sit down, Miss Anders.’ Phoebe smiled broadly and indicated her new look. ‘Surprising what a good scrub up will do, isn’t it?’

  ‘You look very good, Miss Moncke. I guess I should call you ma’am.’

  ‘Yep. For the present I am your senior officer. Poor Miss Anders, I dare say the place looks top heavy with brass. Some of us need rank to get on and off the Portsmouth shore bases – they’re like ships: civilians not allowed on board. This gold lace gives me clout. The same will go for you, although it isn’t likely that you will need to wear uniform. You will be kitted out, and given all sorts of passes.’

  ‘Right. So I am a WRNS officer too?’

  ‘Officially. I understand from Captain Faludi and Lieutenant Hatton,’ she tapped a manila file – different colour from the one David had had. How many files on her were there? – ‘that they agree you are right for The Bureau and that you have sworn allegiance.’ Eve didn’t show her amusement at the allegiance she had sworn before David with a G&T in her hand.

  Eve nodded.

  ‘How does your conscience sit on the oath?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but this is my country, I could never be anything other than loyal to it.’

  ‘Yet you would have stayed on in Spain?’

  Phoebe Moncke’s manner was disarming. Eve had not yet sorted out her ideas and strong emotions for the two countries she loved. Phoebe’s velvet-glove questioning, her gentle manner and soft voice, forced Eve to put her thoughts into words.

  ‘Had things turned out differently, I would have stayed on,’ Eve said, ‘because I believe that I could have contributed – no, that’s not the right word…’

  ‘It’s not bad.’

  ‘No, “contributed” sounds pious. I’m certainly not pious. I could have done something worthwhile. As regards loyalty, I suppose that I’m just honest to my ideals… or something along those lines.’ Eve ventured a smile and shrugged her shoulders. ‘It’s no wonder politicians sound so false. It’s hard to put into words something you feel strongly about.’

  Phoebe nodded, tilting her head to one side as people do when they are being noncommittal. Eve realised that it would be prudent to watch her words, but if Phoebe was to be her senior officer she should be straight-up with her.

  ‘You see, if the fascists hadn’t won the war, then I might have been of more use there than here.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I was working in a kind of refuge for women and orphans and I had managed to scrounge food, and we did bits of rough work for a fish or a few vegetables.’

  ‘Tell me about the children. I have one of my own.’ She smiled. ‘That’s classified information. I keep her well away from my own front line.’

  Eve hadn’t envisaged Phoebe in the role of a mother. ‘I may well finish this with tears in my eyes. I hope that they won’t count against me.’

  Phoebe leaned across and touched the tips of her fingers briefly on Eve’s wrist. ‘Tears may well count in favour.’

  ‘I used to write the occasional column, which some magazines published.’

  ‘Nothing much The Bureau doesn’t know about its p
eople.’

  ‘In one item, I used a phrase said to me, I think, by a Scottish woman: “This is not just a soldiers’ war”, meaning that almost the entire adult population was involved. Women and girls went to the barricades after work to give a bit of respite to the soldiers. I used to see them; they wore these soft espadrilles, caps and bandoliers, walking arm in arm five abreast through the rubble. They were super… they knew what they were fighting for. But the children didn’t! The very little ones who were undernourished couldn’t fight off the ordinary infections, and bombs and shells aren’t selective about who gets it. Some kids just wandered around until somebody took them in. There was one instance that really got to me. What was left of the population of an entire village that had been razed to the ground started walking north… I’m sorry… once I get started…’

  ‘No, go on. You’re the first person I’ve met who saw it first-hand.’

  ‘This refuge… a woman I had known through the International Brigade helped some Spanish women start up shelters. I went to work in one. It was devastating. These kids were lost and scared out of their little minds. What could we give them? Damned all, except a drop of milk from our scrawny nanny goat, and what could be scrounged.’ She drew breath and took a long drink of water. ‘You see, I said there might be tears.’ Looking up, she saw tight lines around Phoebe’s mouth and wretchedness in her eyes, but Eve ploughed on because she wanted her to know that she wasn’t some young woman who merely liked the notion of becoming a Bureau agent, who thought it might be glamorous. ‘We had two good sources of food: people on the fish quay and a Russian officer – whom, of course, you now know. They kept us going right to the end.’

  ‘Thank you, Miss Anders. I quite see why you would have been on the horns of a dilemma if that war had gone the other way.’

  ‘Ma’am, I will be a damned good agent, given half a chance. I could be very useful. This is where I was born and brought up. I see England from the underside. Not many Bureau people I have met so far are working class.’ She paused. It seemed that whenever she needed to say what made her tick, she couldn’t do it without the old devil ‘class’ coming into it. But that was how it was now that she had pulled herself away from her roots.