Ambulance Girls At War

by Deborah Burrows

  The men stood, including Moray, who walked around his desk heading for the door.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Moray said to the bullish one. He nodded at me and closed the door behind him as he left the room.

  The bigger man introduced himself as John Casey, his companion as Dan Lowell. They handed me cards similar to the one Michael had shown me, but which said they were Special Agents of the US Department of State. I wondered what the difference was between that department and the War Office, where Michael worked.

  We all sat down. I was wide awake now, and told myself that these men might be colleagues of Michael’s from the American Embassy, but I didn’t have to trust them. He hadn’t wanted the negatives to go to the embassy, so I thought I’d tread carefully. They were not British police, so I didn’t have to tell them the truth, either.

  ‘Miss Halliday,’ began Mr Casey, ‘I’ll get straight to the point. We have been charged with investigating the looting of the body of our former associate, Mr Harold Egan, after the bombing at the Café de Paris nightclub last Saturday night. We understand that he gave you his watch fob. We want to know why he would do that.’

  ‘He was dying,’ I said. ‘People do strange things when they’re dying.’

  ‘We understand that you spoke to Harry Egan before he died on March eight. Is that correct?’

  ‘Yes. But he was very ill. He didn’t say much at all.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He asked if he was dying. That’s all. He never told me that he was going to give me the locket.’

  ‘You knew Mr Egan?’

  ‘No. I’d never seen him before.’

  ‘And he removed his watch fob from the watch chain and gave it to you?’

  Put like that it did sound ludicrous. Even I wouldn’t have believed my story.

  ‘It’s the truth, Mr Casey,’ I said coldly.

  ‘You say you didn’t know you had the fob until Monday?’

  ‘As I told Inspector Wayland when he interviewed me, I found it in my pocket on Monday afternoon, when I was about to do my washing. The inspector and I agreed that I would bring it to Scotland Yard yesterday, when I was off duty. Only your Mr Harker took it from me before I had a chance to take it to Scotland Yard.’

  Mr Lowell inserted himself into the interrogation – because that is what it was – with a smooth fluidity.

  ‘Miss Halliday,’ he said, ‘let me put it this way. When we took possession of the body, certain other personal items that Mr Egan was known to carry were not found, such as his wallet and a pocket watch. These other items have not been located. You told the inspector from Scotland Yard that you saw his body being looted. We understand that other bodies were looted that night. But somehow Mr Egan’s watch fob ended up with you. You must admit it’s peculiar.’

  I became very cold. They thought I’d stolen the locket and the other items, the ones that Michael had taken. All at once I realised just how bad it all looked for me. Only I had seen Egan’s body being looted and I had ended up with his watch fob. It did look shady. I took a breath and tried to calm myself down.

  ‘I honestly don’t know how I ended up with the watch fob,’ I said, pleased at how level my voice sounded. ‘All I can think is that Mr Egan must have slipped it in my pocket when I was distracted.’

  ‘You must see our dilemma. Why would Egan give it to you?’

  ‘As I said, dying people do odd things.’ I stared at Mr Lowell blandly. ‘Maybe it was very valuable to him, and he was scared that someone would take it. Maybe he thought I was trustworthy.’

  Mr Casey gave a snort of derision. Mr Lowell’s expression was politely disbelieving.

  Annoyed, I said with some heat, ‘I told the police that I had it. I didn’t try to hide it. I was going to hand it in to them.’

  ‘You didn’t tell anyone you had it until the police asked you about it,’ said Mr Casey brusquely. ‘You’re spinning a pretty story, little lady.’

  I glared at him, although what he had said about the police was absolutely true. Again, I forced myself to calm down.

  ‘I wanted to talk to Mr Moray, our station leader, first. Find out what he thought I should do to make sure the locket was returned to its rightful owner.’

  Casey’s lip lifted in a sneer. ‘You think we’re fools?’

  I turned to Lowell who looked down at a sheaf of papers in his hands. ‘You say that Mr Harker took the fob from you before you could give it to the police?’

  ‘Yes. He used a nasty trick. Ask him about it.’

  ‘Mr Harker handed in Egan’s watch fob yesterday. When he did so, he told us that he tricked you in order to get it.’ Lowell looked up, into my eyes. ‘He was not authorised to do that, and we apologise on behalf of the US government. He will be severely reprimanded.’

  ‘So he should be,’ I said, with as much righteous indignity as I could muster.

  ‘Mr Harker told us that he wanted to get the fob back quickly to give it to Egan’s widow.’

  ‘Has it been given to her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I managed a sunny smile. ‘Oh, I am glad to hear that. Mr Harker said he would give it to her, but I didn’t really believe him.’

  Mr Lowell leaned forward and looked at me again. ‘We are interested in finding the man you saw looting Mr Egan’s body. Did you get a good look at him?’

  ‘No. It was very dark.’

  Lowell stared at me, pinned me with his gaze, much as Michael had done only the afternoon before. I had given myself away to Michael, but I didn’t seem to be able to keep things from him. Mr Dan Lowell was an entirely different prospect.

  Mr Lowell stared at me a moment longer, then leaned back in his chair. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  For the first time, a smile touched the corner of Lowell’s mouth.

  I continued to stare into his eyes, and when I spoke, it was the truth.

  ‘I had never met Mr Egan until that night,’ I said earnestly. ‘I had no idea he had slipped the watch fob into my pocket. I’m telling the truth. I swear it.’

  Of course, I hadn’t mentioned a few things, but as I didn’t like either of them, why should that count?

  Lowell kept my gaze for what seemed like a long time, then flicked a glance at Casey, who shook his head. Both men stood.

  Casey said, gruffly, ‘I’m not going to thank you, Miss Halliday, because I think you’ve been playing us for fools. If I find you stole anything else from Harry Egan, I’ll make sure you’re properly dealt with. You can bet on that, little lady.’ He pulled the door open and stomped out of the room.

  Mr Lowell held out his hand and I shook it. ‘Thanks for your time. Sorry about John’s rudeness. Mr Egan was a friend of his. More importantly, Harry Egan was an American citizen and his widow is most upset that his body was looted. We take such matters very seriously. Please feel free to telephone me if you think of anything else.’ His smile was easy, very appealing, and I smiled back reflexively. ‘It’s been a real pleasure to meet you, Miss Halliday.’

  He left the office. As they crossed the common room I saw Lowell peel off from Casey and walk over to Celia, who must have returned from her errand. He greeted her cordially, and then his expression became solemn. I assumed that he was offering condolences to her about Cedric Ashwin’s death. They chatted for a minute or so, and he followed Casey out of the room.

  I looked down at Lowell’s card. Like Michael’s, it gave his name – Daniel Lowell – and the address of the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. I wondered what Special Agents of the US Department of State actually did at the embassy. Michael had not wanted the negatives to go to the embassy, by which he must have meant Casey and Lowell. If Michael Harker did not trust those men, then I decided I would not trust them either.

  Later that day I accompanied Celia on a transfer of patients from one hospital to another. As we drove back to the station I decided to play spy myself.

  ‘Um, you seemed to know Mr Lowell,’ I said
, as she turned into Euston Road. Heavy Rescue was hard at work, demolishing a teetering building. As we passed by, they bulldozed a wall into a heap of bricks and plaster. Dust whirled around the ambulance.

  ‘Dan Lowell?’ she said, driving unperturbed through the cloud of dust. ‘Yes, he was a friend of Cedric’s before the war. Came across to offer his condolences.’

  ‘A friend of your husband’s?’ It seemed fishy to me that Lowell would be friends with a high-ranking British fascist.

  ‘Yes. He’s some sort of security bod at the American Embassy, or so Cedric told me. All very hush-hush.’

  I laughed. ‘And yet you’re telling me?’

  ‘Dan was a friend of Cedric’s, so I don’t care for his politics. Why should I keep his secrets?’

  ‘What do you mean, don’t care for his politics?’

  ‘The group who gathered around Cedric before the war were fascists. They might not all have declared themselves to be so, but they were. They admired Hitler and they wanted to avoid war with Germany.’

  ‘Like Ambassador Kennedy.’

  ‘Yes. Like Joe Kennedy, Dan is a committed isolationist. If he had his way, the US would keep right out of the European war. Why did he want to see you?’

  ‘Oh, it was about an American who died in the Café de Paris. His name was Harry Egan. Did you know him?’

  She thought about it.

  ‘Name rings a bell, but I can’t place him. I met so many at those embassy soirées before the war.’

  Celia swung the ambulance into Upper Woburn Place, past St Pancras Church with its six elegant columns.

  ‘I’ll tell you this,’ she said. ‘Dan’s a charmer, but I doubt he’s any friend to Britain.’

  ‘What about John Casey?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Bullish looking creature with ridiculously short hair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ill-mannered and boorish. I tried to avoid his company.’

  It was a busy night and I had no time to consider what Celia had said. As I walked home early the next morning, crunching over broken glass, I ran over it in my mind. I trusted Michael Harker, who had assured me that he supported Britain’s interests in this war. Michael said that the microfilm could be embarrassing to America but disastrous for Britain. If President Roosevelt was forced to resign, and the new president was an isolationist, then it would be a disaster for Britain, because we couldn’t withstand the Nazis without the American goods and weapons and war items that came across in the Atlantic convoys.

  Somehow I’d become involved in difficult and dangerous dealings. I sighed. And it was not just the microfilm. I had let myself get far too fond of Michael Harker, who was married, and American, and a spy. Madness, Maisie. Forget the man.

  I sighed again as I turned into Manette Street. Michael Harker was not there waiting for me. Had it really only been two days ago that he had found me here and had taken the locket? Was it only the night before last that he had tunnelled into debris to save the couple? Only yesterday morning that I had seen him walk away from me?

  Time seemed to be playing tricks. Shakespeare would have said that it was out of joint. I wondered what was next in store for me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. Or so the saying goes.

  Hitler must not have heard of it, because he stepped up the air raids through March and into April. Every night came the Warning, followed by the drone of planes, the clatter of incendiaries, the screech of falling bombs, the dull crash of explosions and the inevitable smell of cordite mixed with smoke.

  The bombs the Germans began to use in April seemed to be particularly heavy, so that when they fell they echoed along London’s streets like the roar of a dynamite charge in a deep mine. Daylight always revealed more devastated and burned-out shops and houses, more glassless windows and smashed walls. And on the streets lay hosepipes that stretched out in wild loops, like gigantic snakes ready to lunge.

  Londoners carried on, scarcely remembering a time without raiders every night and new destruction every morning. At Bloomsbury Ambulance Station we faced mercy dashes in darkness, under a rain of incendiaries and a hail of bombs. In daylight we undertook mortuary runs, the sombre task of collecting the remains of what had been a human being the day before.

  I was so busy there was no time to think about Z. Michael Harker.

  Not much time, anyway.

  ‘It’s cold in here,’ grumbled Squire as I entered the common room to begin my shift on a rainy morning in early April. He crossed his thick arms across his chest and hugged himself.

  ‘It’s always cold in here,’ said Celia. ‘Don’t be a baby, Squire. My parents’ place in Kent was colder than this.’

  ‘Ah, the trials and tribulations of a grand country house,’ said Lily, as she came through the door carrying a tray. On it she had placed a big brown teapot, a chipped china milk jug patterned with red roses and a green glass sugar pot. Next to them was a tin of biscuits.

  ‘Shall I be mother?’ said Squire, in a mincing voice. It did not match his somewhat beefy exterior. ‘I’m parched.’

  ‘Please,’ said Lily, unloading the tray on to the common room table.

  Squire picked up the jug, which looked tiny in his enormous hands and carefully added milk to each cup.

  ‘When did the family heirloom get chipped?’ Celia asked Lily as Squire poured the tea.

  ‘Last night, apparently. McIver told me this morning that when the bomb took out the place down the street – you know, the one next to the hospital – it rocked the station so hard that the old jug danced off the table. Was it valuable?’

  ‘God, I don’t know. It was part of a set we got for a wedding present. To tell the truth, I always hated it, but as it alone managed to escape the bombing of the Mayfair house I felt it deserved respect as an orphan of the war. That’s why I brought it here.’ She sighed. ‘And now it’s joined its brothers and sisters as crockery bomb victims.’

  ‘It’s a flesh wound only,’ said Lily.

  Lily passed me a cup of tea and pushed the tin of biscuits into the centre of the table. ‘A present from Jim’s godmother. Fortnum and Mason.’

  I smiled at her, reached across and took one. ‘Yum.’

  ‘Do you sometimes wonder,’ Lily asked, musingly, ‘if one day, when this is all over, people will think that driving an ambulance in the Blitz was a glamorous job?’

  Purvis laughed. ‘If they see the newspaper photos of Halliday and Ashwin, the ones where they’re laughing together, showing some leg and putting on lipstick, no one would think it’s anything but jolly good fun.’

  ‘Ugh,’ said Celia. ‘I loathed that photographic session.’ She eyed me. ‘You seemed to enjoy it.’

  I bit into my biscuit, which crunched delightfully. ‘I did enjoy it. And to answer Lily’s question, they probably will think it’s glamorous.’

  Lily nodded. ‘My Jim thinks that when it is all over, Londoners will look back on the Blitz with affection. Remember it as something big and meaningful.’

  ‘I, for one, think that would be a good thing,’ said Doris Powell. ‘Keep fond memories of the comradeship, and forget the rest. No point dwelling on the horrors once they’re over.’

  Armstrong seemed unconvinced. ‘But we need to make sure that things are better afterwards. We don’t want to have gone through all of this for nothing.’

  ‘I watched the Jarrow hunger marchers come into London,’ said Harris, ‘and I can never forget the looks on their faces. After the war we need to make sure that there’s a proper fair share for everyone.’

  Purvis nodded. ‘Less privilege through possession of capital.’

  ‘I’d like to see the government accepting that it owes a decent life to all of us, the poor as well as the rich,’ I said.

  ‘No more slums,’ said Squire. ‘That’s what I want. No more half-starved kids, no more unemployed. A real national health service.’

  Armstrong chimed in a
gain. ‘We have to get rid of the class system. It’s wrong that people get things or don’t get them because of what class they were born into.’ He glanced at Celia, and ducked his head, as if worried how she would take his comments.

  Celia smiled at him and pretended to clap. ‘Bravo, ducky,’ she said. ‘I’m on your side. And so is Dr Levy, by the way. He says after the war he’ll work hard for a comprehensive hospital service that’s available to everyone who needs it, rich or poor.’

  ‘Bloody communists, the lot of you,’ said Sadler, but without any malice.

  Later that morning Moray sent me and Celia to what he said had been a serious incident at a block of flats near Tottenham Court Road. We were to pick up the bodies and take them to the nearest mortuary.

  ‘You may need a couple of trips,’ he said.

  Celia and I shared a grimace, nodded, and went to get ready.

  The usual diversions delayed our arrival at the incident. Bombs had ripped open gas lines, sewers and water mains. Broken tram lines trailed forlornly, while dangling electricity wires sparked dangerously. In desperation, I turned down a narrow street that was more of an alley and rounded a corner to find I was heading straight for a familiar notice: ‘Danger – Unexploded Bomb’.

  I put my foot down hard on the brakes and the ambulance stopped dead with a screech.

  ‘Not much room to turn around,’ said Celia.

  ‘Needs must,’ I replied, wrenching the wheel to turn towards the grimy brick wall on my right, pushing hard on the clutch, shoving the stick into reverse, moving a few inches back and repeating the manoeuvre.

  ‘It’ll be a ten-point turn,’ I said with a grim smile.

  I had reached a point diagonally across the road, with only a couple of inches between the front of ambulance and a grimy brick wall, and not much more space between the back of the ambulance and another grimy brick wall, when Celia gave a shriek.

  ‘Watch out.’

  A lorry was hurtling in our direction. I braced for impact.