Bobby's War

by Shirley Mann

  She called out to Raoul and he made his way down, holding a candle.

  As Bobby lay down, suddenly exhausted, Raoul covered her with the rough blanket. He pushed her hair out of her eyes and for the first time ever, Bobby felt safe, secure and totally accepted. She closed her eyes, feeling his dry, rough hand gently stroke her hair.

  *

  Raoul stayed with her until he thought she was asleep then he moved towards the steps again. He paused to look back at the girl curled up on the mattress. He had seen men destroyed and sobbing on his kitchen table, he had seen his wife die in the bed upstairs and he had seen neighbours dragged screaming from their own doorways but the sight of that young woman, exhausted but so brave, brought him to tears quicker than he could have ever imagined.

  He covered the trapdoor with a rag rug and pulled the table back over while he pondered on another war that again was bringing him so many unexpected experiences. He thought he had been through every possible emotion in 1918 at the sight of the red-haired child by his wife’s side at the front door when he finally made it home. But after a week of Gallic anger, where he paced furiously up and down the yard at the back of the house, he tried to put himself in his wife’s position. She had believed he was dead. The last she had heard was that he had ‘died’ on the field at the Battle of Marne and it had been a long silence before he had been able to tell her he was alive. Isolated in another country, Raoul’s home life in Normandy began to feel like another world and while pacing up and down outside the house, it occurred to him that Nicole had been plunged into grief believing her husband had died and could perhaps be forgiven for reaching out to this man for comfort. But there was one more nagging memory that he could not, in all conscience, ignore. The young maid at the Belgian doctor’s had been fascinated by the tall Frenchman and, one cold night, she had come to find him in the loft where he lived. Her warm voluptuous body had been too tempting to resist and there followed a liaison that continued for months until she contracted pneumonia. Raoul had sobbed his heart out the night she died, burying his head into the wet straw that served as a pillow during the nights of passion that he had shared with the young girl. He was never sure whether it was grief at her death or the final admittance that he had broken his wedding vows that made the tears flow so freely. He begged Le Bon Dieu for forgiveness but when he came home to find a strange little boy in his house, to begin with, he saw it as punishment for his betrayal.

  His resentment was appeased by his wife’s unbridled joy at seeing him again and once the boy was told that this strange man was his papa, the boy’s adoration made him realise he had been granted a very special gift. Shot in the groin, he knew he had no chance of having any children, so Michel had been like an unexpected treasure to him and he decided he was not going to waste time in anger and bitterness. From that moment, he had never doubted he was, in all but creation, Michel’s father. It was he who had nursed him through measles, he, Raoul, who had advised him on how to deal with bullies at school when they made fun of his red hair and it was he who had explained to the cringingly embarrassed young man, about girls.

  Oh, yes, he thought, as he climbed into his rough, straw bed, it was he, not this cold man in England, who was the true father of Michel and now he had a young woman who was a part of Michel to wrap in his safe arms as well. He realised he was prepared to give his life to get her safely home to England.

  Chapter 18

  Bobby was woken by a loud banging on the door upstairs. For a moment, she could not remember where she was and there was no light in the cellar to help her, but then she felt the cold stone floor next to her and the events of the previous night came back. Her head thumped from the effects of the wine but not as hard as her heart as she listened to a loud voice above barking orders.

  The voice was yelling something in German but Raoul answered in a calm, quiet voice. She heard heavy boots pounding over the floorboards above her head and held her breath.

  She dared not move in case a noise gave away her presence. She heard some pots clanging in the kitchen and the boots march back over the floorboards above and then there was silence.

  In a heart-stopping moment Bobby heard the rug being moved and the table scratching back. She closed her eyes and thought of her parents, safe in Norfolk and ignorant of her plight. They had already lost one child, surely they were not about to lose the other? She stood up, shaking, partly because of the cold and partly because of terror. Was this to be her last moment of life before she was dragged out into the street and shot?

  ‘Bobbee, Bobbee, are you there?’

  Raoul’s voice came down the steps.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied weakly.

  ‘It is OK, it is OK.’

  Bobby’s knees gave way and she fell back down onto the mattress, wondering how she could ever have thought this was an exciting adventure.

  Raoul and Michel appeared, haloed in the light from the trap door as they peered anxiously down.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I think so. Is it safe?’

  ‘Yes, he has gone,’ Raoul said. ‘They come regularly to take our food and we have to give them what we have, but it was good Michel was here, when he came last week, the soldier wanted to know where Michel was and I had to say he was ill with a fever. Something very catching,’ he smiled.

  ‘So you see, this week I am pale and thin and that is good,’ Michel added, with a grin that lit up his pallid face. He went on, ‘My father is a doctor so sometimes he is able to treat the Germans. It means they leave us alone.’

  ‘Here is an old dress of . . .’ Raoul paused, lovingly fingering the faded print frock in his hands, ‘my wife’s. You can get dressed and then you may come up for the breakfast. We have some bread hidden that the Germans do not know of,’ Raoul added.

  Their heads popped back out of the trap door and Bobby gave a huge sigh of relief, reaching for the clothes. This was going to be a very long week.

  Minutes later, Bobby emerged from the cellar. Michel was standing by the window next to the front door, keeping guard, and she was ushered into the kitchen where no one could see her. Raoul drew in a sharp breath as he caught sight of Bobby in his wife’s dress and then motioned to Claudette to serve the coffee.

  ‘It is chicory, it is terrible,’ Michel said. Claudette handed him a chipped cup. For a moment, the two young people shared a shy smile. Claudette let her hand linger for a second under his fingers but by now, Michel was looking with disgust at the weak liquid in the cup. She walked away with her shoulders slumped.

  He pulled a face towards Bobby. ‘We have – had – such good coffee. But now . . .’

  ‘It will end, all this,’ Raoul told him. ‘We thought the last one would never end, and it did.’

  ‘Yes, but will we ever be free again?’ Michel asked.

  It was a question that hung in the air between them.

  Michel went back to his post at the window. His eyes narrowed when he saw their neighbour, Paul Cloret, walking up the street, glancing in windows. He drew back from sight but was puzzled. Monsieur Cloret had been a neighbour for years, he and his wife, Simone, had helped Raoul when Nicole was ill but recently, Cloret had been more withdrawn and become far too nosy for Michel’s liking. Michel made a mental note to make some checks.

  Bobby sipped on her coffee and munched on the tiny piece of stale bread, ignoring the hunger pangs in her stomach. She suddenly had a vision of hot porridge and a mug of tea, but such thoughts were not helpful, she crossly told her brain. Looking around the kitchen, she tried to imagine it when Raoul and Nicole were just married. Did he ever twirl her round the pine table in a waltz, she wondered? She could imagine the fresh-faced Nicole as being a good dancer and Raoul certainly looked like someone who would have had a romantic twinkle in his eye. The kitchen would have been a warm, cosy place, she decided, looking over at the now cold range in the corner. Bobby closed her eyes and thought of the kitchen at home, the most welcoming room in the house, with Mrs Hill
bustling around and Aunt Agnes giving her mother instructions. A feeling of homesickness overwhelmed her, and she made a promise to herself that when, and if, she ever got home, she would make all her family face their demons and they would tackle the future together as a team; something they had never been.

  In the meantime, she had six days to get through. She would have to occupy herself for hours in the house, but apart from a brief time out of the cellar for meals while Michel kept watch on the street at the window, she would have to stay hidden until after curfew. Never one to waste a moment, Bobby’s brain was already forging a plan to mentally commit to memory every single aircraft she had ever flown and every aeroplane she was yet to fly to prepare for her next level of ability with the ATA. She also decided she would use the time to practice her French.

  Claudette bustled around behind her, glancing from time to time between the foreign interloper and Michel in the living room. Bobby was not fooled for one minute by Claudette’s lowered eyes and once Raoul had gone to talk to Michel, she decided she would tackle the girl’s suspicions head-on. She took the tea towel from Claudette‘s hands and started to wipe up the dishes, smiling at her.

  Claudette glared at her but Bobby started to chatter on as naturally as she could in her rusty French. She could not put the girl at risk so she avoided any details, but she could put her mind at rest that she was not a threat for Michel’s affections, so she told her that she was related to him through a family in England and that he was like a brother to her. The young Frenchwoman’s face cleared and she took a dried plate from Bobby’s hand with a beaming smile. She did not question how the relationship came about, all she cared about was that this English girl was not a romantic rival after all.

  By the time Michel and Raoul came back into the room, Claudette was chattering excitedly to Bobby like a long-lost friend.

  ‘You must hide now, Bobbee,’ Raoul said, steering her towards the cellar trap door.

  Bobby nodded and went without comment.

  Four hours later, she was bored to tears. She had mentally been through every dial and switch on five aeroplanes, translating them all in her head into French. Forced to use the porcelain pot, which she had tried to put out of sight in the corner of the room, she paced up and down and did some press ups to keep warm. It made her think of Christine, the athletic girl who always did exercises in the restroom in Hamble and she wondered what they would all think if they knew she was in France. The thought of Sally’s indignation at being left out, in particular, made her smile. Bobby had been in France only a couple of days but already she felt a million miles away from her life as an ATA pilot.

  She was about to start sit-ups, when she heard footsteps and a murmured conversation above her. As always, she stood looking up towards the rafters as if they would give her a clue as to what was happening above her but all she could do was wait.

  Finally, she heard the rug being pulled back.

  A small child was guided down the steps. It was a young girl of about eight with dark, lank hair. Her coat was torn and tattered and her shoes were muddy, but the first thing Bobby noticed was a big yellow star of David with the word ‘Juif ’ on the left-hand side of her coat.

  Her stomach turned over. This child was a Jew.

  Raoul came down the steps behind the child.

  ‘This is Elizé. She is going to stay here for a while.’

  Bobby smiled reassuringly at the child, who looked absolutely terrified.

  ‘Bonjour, ma petite,’ she said crouching down next to her.

  The child looked at Raoul.

  ‘It is OK,’ he said in English. ‘Bobby is one of us.’

  ‘Does she speak English?’ Bobby asked, surprised.

  ‘Yes, her father was English. Her mother is French but she speaks both languages fluently.’ He indicated with a shake of his head that she should not enquire any further and Bobby took his lead.

  ‘So, we are going to be roommates,’ she said to the little girl.

  She took the child’s hand and led her over to the mattress.

  ‘Which side do you like?’

  Elizé looked up through long, wet eyelashes. Her eyes were dull and lifeless.

  ‘Well, never mind, you can choose later. I don’t mind,’ Bobby told her.

  Claudette appeared at the top of the steps and an already familiar smell permeated the cellar. She held a dish and a spoon. Bobby thought she would remember the smell of turnip soup for the rest of her life. She moved forward to take the bowl and gently passed it over to the little girl, who paused for a moment and, ignoring the spoon, slurped it hurriedly straight from the bowl. Drops of it fell to either side of her mouth and she licked them eagerly.

  Claudette came down with a valuable piece of bread, and slowly fed it to the child. Bobby moved over to Raoul, who whispered, ‘Her father was shot as an alien in front of her eyes two months ago and this morning, her mother is taken. As she is herded onto the railway trucks, she throw Elizé into the arms of one of ours, a woman who put a blanket over the badge and claims she is her daughter. The child is all alone. We are trying to get her to safety but she has to stay here for a while.’

  The hairs on the back of Bobby’s neck seemed to stand on end. She looked over at the small, pathetic figure and clutched at her heart with her hand, as if trying to protect it from the piercing pain that Raoul’s words had just inflicted on her. She remembered with a chill the newsreels suggesting that Jews were being sent to camps. It had seemed so far-fetched she had been sceptical but here was a child who was a victim of a regime whose brutality exceeded anything people at home could contemplate.

  The rest of the morning, Bobby did everything she could to make the child feel more comfortable, but she had little experience of children and suspected she was doing everything wrong. She wished she had played more with Archie’s nephews and nieces but in her determination to fly, she had had little time for anyone else. Bobby was beginning to suspect that this week in France was going to change her more deeply than anything she had ever done. All she had to do was survive it.

  Chapter 19

  Edward Turner was usually a very mild-mannered man, always courteous and kind, but for the past few days, Mavis Arbuckle, his secretary, had witnessed an impatience and, if she did not know him to be a consummate professional, she would say, an anger in his manner. Mavis listened to his brusque voice on the intercom and grabbed her pencil and notepad to go and knock on the panelled door to his War Office room on the corner of Horse Guards Avenue.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ she said, looking at the bent head in front of her. Edward was seated at his desk, fiddling with his tortoiseshell fountain pen. He was studying some papers in front of him, his forehead furrowed into a frown. He waved his hand at Mavis to get her to sit down and she sat with her pencil poised over her notebook, calmly waiting.

  Several minutes of silence passed while Mavis studied the man she had worked for over the last four years. To begin with, she had thought him cold and, to be honest, a bit slow, but she very soon reappraised her opinion of him. The first month as his secretary had led her to believe he had been elbowed into a desk job to keep him out of harm’s way but then she had seen him galvanise into action during the evacuation of Dunkirk and she began to discover that his role in the War Office was of a much deeper importance than many people knew. She also suspected that before his role in Whitehall, he had been an operative out in the field. He always looked so out of place behind a desk, like a coiled spring desperate to unwind. His decisiveness – and inventiveness – during that Dunkirk week had taken her by surprise. She knew from her years with the Secret Service that his knowledge came from personal experience of being on the ground. She also knew that Edward was frequently consulted by the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, who would call him in when he wanted to know what might be happening with intelligence information. Once Dunkirk was over, Mavis Arbuckle was fully briefed about her boss’s true role. From that day, Mavis had watched Edward from the sid
elines and had finally acknowledged, she would follow him to the ends of the earth.

  ‘Take a letter, will you, Miss Arbuckle, to be sent immediately,’ Edward finally said. ‘Obviously, it’s top secret,’ he added unnecessarily. ‘To Group Captain Patrick Markham, you know the address. Dear Patrick, I have a particular interest in a mission that left T . . . on twentieth inst. under your command. I would be grateful if you could inform me of any developments. Please advise at your earliest convenience. Give my regards to Marjorie. Yours etc,’

  Mavis waited but it seemed her boss had gone into a trance, staring out of the windows of the trapezium shaped Whitehall building at one of the four distinctive domes.

  ‘Is that all, sir?’

  ‘Yes, yes, sorry. Take it for coding if you would, and oh, a cup of tea might be nice.’

  Mavis hurried out of the room. She kept her notebook with her for security while she made the tea but while the urn got back up to boiling point, she pondered what it was that was bothering Edward. She knew he was distracted and wondered whether it was simply the pressures of war work or whether there was something else troubling him. She had witnessed the young man flick off the attentions of women at the War Office parties and she had given up hope of ever seeing him succumb to the wiles of the female sex, but having watched her nephews grow up, her sixth sense picked something up in Edward’s demeanour. She racked her brains to think which woman might have finally ignited his interest but there were no phone calls or letters that came through the office that might have given her a hint. She wondered whether the letter she was about to type held a key to Edward’s distraction. She peered over her pince-nez at the cup and saucer in front of her and added the condensed milk. She might try to find him a nice biscuit, she decided.

  Edward paced up and down his office. He glanced back at the pile of papers on his desk. Anthony Eden had asked for that report on the situation in Changi prisoner of war camp in Singapore by the morning and he had to study the deeply disturbing reports that were coming in from the areas near Auschwitz. He really needed to concentrate but his imagination was being fuelled by disturbing reports from France. The Special Operations Executive on the ground in Normandy had used the usual complex messaging network to inform them that a small Jewish child had been unexpectedly delivered to the safe house where he knew Bobby was being held. With the normal escape routes jeopardised, he was concerned about the increased danger that it put on the Bisset family and, of course, Bobby. He looked at the papers in front of him and focused on the ones marked ‘Top Priority’ but as soon as his office day ended, he raced back to his bachelor flat in Kensington to try to formulate a plan that might help.