A Gathering Storm

by Rachel Hore

  These were occasions of fun and laughter. A group of them would start the evening at one of several favourite restaurants, then after dinner they’d go on to a nightclub or two, sometimes not returning home until the small hours. They were an ever-changing party, its members conversing usually in English, and known by whichever names they volunteered. Sometimes a face would be seen regularly for a couple of weeks, then simply vanish, sometimes without a goodbye. If they appeared again weeks later, they’d be greeted warmly, but no one asked where they’d been or what they’d been doing. She was always on the look-out for Rafe, but never saw him, and it was frowned upon to ask questions.

  Geneviève, the sturdy-looking girl she’d met in Scotland, was a regular for a while. Beatrice knew little about her, except that her family were French refugees, but she was a pleasant companion who spoke fluent English and was an excellent mimic. She had them in stitches when she portrayed Hitler, Churchill or Lord Haw-Haw.

  But there came an evening in early April when she took Beatrice aside and said, ‘It’s my turn again tomorrow. Wish me luck. I’m awfully nervous.’

  ‘Oh, Genny,’ Beatrice sighed, embracing her. ‘Keep yourself safe, dear.’

  It was the last time she ever saw her.

  Her friends talked very little about their personal lives, but sometimes she’d glean little bits of information. In turn, some seemed to know that she had a child, though she’d taken care not to tell anyone except, finally, Vera Atkins. Somebody asked after him once and she said, ‘He’s very well, thank you,’ in surprise, half-expecting him to raise the question she constantly asked herself: How could she bear to risk her life when she had a son? She had privately rehearsed an answer. It was for his future. She guessed each agent had their own reasons for being part of these special operations, each had their own private anguish, was making their own sacrifices in the fight against this great evil that lay like a poisonous cloud over the world.

  There was always a majority of men in the party, and Beatrice was never short of dancing partners, but when invited to dine à deux she usually politely demurred, and, indeed, as the news spread that she had a child, the invitations became fewer. She supposed it put some of the men off or they made some assumption or other about her in order to placate their vanity. Respect or disdainfulness. Whichever it was she didn’t care. There was none who particularly appealed to her anyway. For the truth was that that part of her, the part that enjoyed flirting and being wooed, was in suspension. She was waiting for Rafe.

  It was strange to her that they never met, if, indeed, he was definitely involved in this kind of work, which she still thought he might be. Gerald said that their mother received occasional notification that he was alive, but no more. Of course, he might have been sent anywhere in Europe – or the world, for that matter.

  Chapter 28

  It was early in May 1943 that she was surprised and not a little disturbed to receive a telephone call asking her to go to the offices in Baker Street. She’d only ever seen these from the outside – that time she’d driven there and seen Peter Wincanton. The policy to keep agents away from the nerve centre of the organization was really very strict, so it must be something quite serious for them to summon her there.

  When she announced her arrival, the receptionist sent her to an annexe across the road, where she was met by another FANY and taken up to the second floor. The lift stopped and through the latticed gate she could see a man waiting. When the FANY wrenched back the bars, Beatrice was astonished to find herself face to face with Peter.

  ‘Peter . . .’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Bea, good heavens!’ he replied. They waited for the FANY to step past. ‘I work here – F section. I know all about you, of course.’

  ‘Oh! I’d no idea.’ All sorts of little clues and hints started to slide into place in her mind like so many drawers in a Chinese box. This was the mysterious job that Peter was doing. It could have been another kind of ‘hush-hush’ department he was working for, but by a miraculous coincidence, it was hers. But was it coincidental? she asked herself, as she said goodbye and followed the FANY down the corridor. There would be no point in even asking.

  The other girl stopped and knocked on a door and Beatrice was admitted to a cramped office where the head of F-section, Major Buckmaster, welcomed her with a vigorous handshake and introduced two colleagues – a man named John Hudson, who wore a Major’s stripes, and one of the clerical staff, Yvonne Andrews, a graceful girl with an expression of appalling misery on her intelligent face.

  ‘Do have a seat, Miss Marlow. Yvonne, be a good girl and go and see that the latest message has been sent.’

  Yvonne Andrews nodded obediently and left the room.

  ‘I know this is a little irregular,’ Buckmaster said, taking up a sheet of paper and perching on the edge of the desk. ‘Miss Atkins would not approve, if she were here, but she isn’t. We wanted to ask your advice.’

  ‘Of course,’ she murmured. ‘What is it you want to know?’

  ‘This came in yesterday,’ he continued, passing her the paper. It was a teleprinter message, already decoded. ‘We believe it’s from our man Georges, who you met with Henri out in Rouen, but Hudson here is casting some doubt on it and we wanted to ask your opinion since you know the local set-up.’ She read it quickly.

  ‘He should have used the check code,’ Major Hudson told Buckmaster. There was clearly a disagreement rumbling on between the two men.

  ‘He should have done, I agree,’ Buckmaster said smoothly. ‘But the question is, was he in a hurry and simply forgot?’

  ‘He’s never forgotten before. And we issued a particular instruction about check and bluff codes only last week. You know the Germans have picked up a few people in the operation since the depot went sky high. He missed his last two scheds, too.’

  ‘So I say he simply forgot.’

  Letterbox unsafe stop, the message read. New letterbox address 19 rue de Beauregard, repeat, 19 rue de Beauregard stop. Monsieur Vincent. Otherwise all well. Ta ta for now goodbye.

  ‘How do you think I can help?’ Beatrice said, uncertain. The message implied that Henri’s circuit was basically safe, just that new agents and equipment arriving would have to report to a new address. The question to ask was, of course, would they find the Gestapo there waiting for them?

  ‘For a start, do you know Monsieur Vincent and the address mentioned?’ Buckmaster asked. ‘You spent enough time in the town.’

  ‘I remember the street.’ Off a sleepy square, lined with plane trees. ‘It had several shops.’ Was number 19 the boulangerie, perhaps? ‘But the name Vincent doesn’t mean anything to me.’ She looked at him, anguished. If she made the wrong judgement she might be responsible for sending agents straight into the Nazi net.

  ‘You probably wouldn’t have been told his real name,’ Buckmaster said briskly. ‘At least if the address is genuine . . .’

  ‘What did Home Station say about the Morse-code transmission?’ Hudson broke in.

  ‘Ah. They think it was Georges sending it all right, but his tapping was hesitant.’

  ‘So maybe someone was standing over his shoulder.’

  ‘The Gestapo?’ Beatrice asked, with a prickle of unease.

  ‘He wouldn’t have used the sign-off we gave him if that were the case,’ Buckmaster said.

  ‘He might have had to, if they’d found out he was supposed to use it,’ Beatrice put in.

  ‘Possibly,’ was all Buckmaster said to that. There was silence in the room. The seconds ticked past.

  Finally he declared, ‘Well, I say the message is genuine,’ and put out his hand for the paper. Beatrice returned it to him, feeling unhappy. Major Hudson, she saw, was having difficulty suppressing his rage.

  ‘Someone had better speak to Hugh about getting something organized,’ Buckmaster said, picking up a phone. ‘Hello?’ he said into the receiver. ‘Will you show Miss Marlow out, please?’ A moment or two later, the FANY rea
ppeared.

  On the way to the lift Beatrice asked the girl, ‘Would you mind if I visited the cloakroom?’ She was hoping she’d have an opportunity to slip away and speak to Peter. Surely he wouldn’t mind her asking about Rafe?

  ‘Of course not. It’s down this way.’

  She was washing her hands, when the woman she’d been introduced to earlier, Yvonne, came out of one of the other cubicles.

  Beatrice glanced at her, and saw that she’d been crying. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ she asked. ‘I noticed in the office that you didn’t look very happy.’

  ‘What did they decide?’ Yvonne burst out.

  ‘I . . . I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.’

  ‘Buckmaster thinks it’s genuine, doesn’t he?’ She appeared to read the answer in Beatrice’s face. ‘He’s wrong, I know he is. It wasn’t Georges’s style. He always puts something in for me – I always see it when I file the messages. You know, something personal that only I’ll understand. And there wasn’t anything.’

  ‘You know him then?’

  ‘He’s . . . a friend, yes.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you tell them?’

  ‘There’d be no point. They wouldn’t listen to me. I’m not important, you see.’ She stumbled out of the room. Beatrice was horrified. If Yvonne was right, whoever was sent on the next mission to Henri’s circuit would be flying straight into a trap.

  Miraculously, the corridor was empty. The FANY who was supposed to see her out had disappeared. Beatrice saw her opportunity and took it. She walked quickly along the corridor, glancing at all the offices until, through a half-open door, she spotted Peter sitting in a small room sifting papers in a wire tray. She knocked and slipped inside.

  ‘Bea!’ He got up, put his head out into the corridor briefly, then closed the door. ‘What are you doing here?’ he said, nervous.

  ‘Shh. Listen. They’re making a dangerous decision,’ she said, and repeated what Yvonne had told her.

  Peter listened carefully then whistled under his breath, commenting, ‘Well, she’s right, they wouldn’t ask her. Not their style. And Hudson’s very dismissive of what he calls womanish opinions.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous. He listened to me.’

  ‘He had to. You’ve been there on the ground. He’d respect that.’

  ‘But not other women.’

  ‘Vera Atkins, maybe. But then wait until you hear him on the subject of Jews. Very unpleasant.’

  ‘Vera’s Jewish?’

  ‘Yes, though she wouldn’t thank anyone for noticing. A dicky bird told me she’s not yet a British subject and she’d be worried the authorities would force her out of her job if they knew.’ He thought for a moment and said, ‘But on the subject in hand . . . Tell you what, I’ll have a word with Buckmaster about it myself.’

  ‘Will he listen to you?’

  ‘I don’t know. If he gets a bee buzzing in his bonnet, well, it’s difficult to dislodge it. He’s always liked to believe the best, old Buckmaster, you need to know that.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll remember. Well, thank you, and good luck.’

  He went to open the door for her, but she placed a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Peter,’ she said, ‘there’s something else I need to know. Rafe – is he, you know, one of us? In the French section, I mean?’

  ‘Bea, you know I can’t tell you anything like that.’

  ‘He is then.’

  Peter said nothing.

  ‘Is he in awful danger? I can’t bear to think—’

  ‘Bea.’

  ‘No, of course you can’t tell me. It’s so awful, though, not knowing.’

  ‘They write to his mother. She’d hear if things . . . weren’t going well. You’re still very fond of him, aren’t you?’ He said this with some bitterness, and she saw, with sudden clarity, that he minded.

  I carry him in my heart all the time, she thought, but all she said was, ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

  He came along with her to the lift and shut her firmly inside. To make sure she was safely off the premises.

  ‘Goodbye, Peter,’ she said, through the diamond-shaped bars.

  ‘Take care of yourself, Bea,’ he said softly as the lift began to fall.

  She tried not to think about Rafe and Peter, just to get on with what she had to do. Naturally, she wondered what had happened in Rouen, but there was no one she could ask – or rather there was, but she wouldn’t have been given any answers. Sometimes, she knew, life was a waiting game. Her role was always vital, or at least she was led to believe this, but it was an unspoken rule that everyone involved recognized. You were only told what you needed to know. What you didn’t know you couldn’t betray.

  She was dispatched on another training course. Three weeks in the Hampshire countryside where the hedges were radiant with hawthorn blossom and the fields lush green. As she ran down the English country lanes a sense of exhilaration coursed through her, a delight in her strength and the beauty of the world around her. She slept well, too. The important thing, she was coming to learn, was not to think of what might lie ahead but to live for the minute. Only her dreams betrayed her – dreams of darkness, of suffocation, above all of trying to run and not being able to.

  She mentioned these dreams once to Miss Atkins when she visited as they walked in the grounds of the mansion.

  ‘It does not surprise me,’ Miss Atkins said. ‘It’s natural. But on the surface you are so calm. That is good. We cannot see what lies ahead, but we can best confront it when we are calm.’ Beatrice was surprised and pleased to see admiration in the older woman’s eyes. Some spoke of Vera Atkins as being self-contained, hard even, but Beatrice could sense warmth; that she cared deeply about the young girls she sent off into danger.

  ‘Last time we met,’ Miss Atkins said, ‘you asked me about arrangements for your child.’ Beatrice bit her lip. The woman had encouraged her to be practical, to make a will, for instance. ‘Please rest assured that there would be money for him if . . .’

  Though she was told nothing more, there started up in her a thrumming tension, like an electrical charge.

  Miss Atkins touched her shoulder, pulling her out of her reverie. ‘Why don’t you go and spend a few days with your family when you’ve finished here? Then come back to London fit and refreshed.’

  She tried to read some hint in Miss Atkins’s steady eyes, but she saw there only concern.

  ‘Why don’t we all go to Cornwall?’ Angie said down the telephone. ‘Oh blast, the line is dreadful. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Just about,’ Beatrice said. ‘But where would you stay? There isn’t room with my parents for all of us, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, Mummy’s kept that rented house on. We’ll all come, there’s plenty of space. He’s such a big boy now, aren’t you, darling? I’ll put him on if you like. Oh – too late.’ They’d had the three minutes the authorities allowed, the pips had gone and the line went dead.

  St Florian in May. The sky an infinite blue across which sailed glorious puffs of pure white cloud, casting their shadows on a glittering sea. The beach, once so dear and familiar, was now spoiled by coils of barbed wire. An old sailor showed them a safe way down to the water.

  At eighteen months, her son was running for joy across the chilly sand to the sea. She chased after him, snatched him up and swung him round to dip his toes in the lapping waves, his excited shrieks lost to the wind. Precious days of joy before the lurking shadows fell.

  They all stayed in the rented house on the quay. Angie, round with pregnancy now, slept every afternoon, and Beatrice took that time to climb the steep steps with her child to visit her parents. Hugh had been ill, and still had a hacking cough. He looked ten years older than his age. He still shut himself in his study after breakfast.

  ‘What does he write now?’ she asked her mother, who fastened her with a long meaningful look and shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ was all she said.

  They didn’t press her about what she was doin
g, though she knew her employers must have requested their permission for her to go abroad, with her being under twenty-one. Her mother had heard nothing more of her family, but they must have been in her thoughts for she’d look at the boy and say, ‘He looks like my brother at that age,’ or ‘Viens, mon petit . . . Do you speak French to him? You should, you know.’

  The holiday was over all too soon. The little household was to stay on, but Beatrice must return to London.

  ‘Don’t upset him when you say goodbye,’ Angie told her. ‘It’s difficult to stop him crying sometimes after you go.’

  Beatrice stared at her, tears pricking her eyes, then turned away to hide her hurt.

  It was decided she would walk up to the station with her mother. When the time came she took her son in her arms and held him close. Angie was watching.

  ‘Mummy’s going for a ride on the train,’ she told him.

  ‘Train,’ he said, pushing himself back to look at her. ‘Train,’ he said, twisting to look at Angie. ‘Woowoo.’ He often played with the little wooden train she’d given him.

  ‘So you be a good boy, won’t you, and Mummy will see you soon.’

  ‘Mmm,’ he said, and for one last moment he laid his head against her collarbone, his fingers clutching her shirt.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said, distangling him gently, and passed him into Angie’s waiting arms.

  At the station her mother did something very rare. She hugged her. ‘Que Dieu te protège,’ she murmured into her daughter’s hair. ‘Please write if you can.’

  Chapter 29

  June 1943

  There were two men already sitting in the room in the flat in Orchard Court when Miss Atkins led her in, Major Buckmaster and a man she hadn’t met before, introduced only as Chrétien. Whether this was his first name or his surname she didn’t know, but he didn’t need to speak for her to know that he was French. He smoked American cigarettes throughout the meeting, lighting each one off the last, studying her with a thoughtful expression. He was a compact man of thirty or so, with thinning hair. Buckmaster didn’t explain what his role might be in this interview, for it was an interview, she felt it in the formal way that he greeted her, and the fact that the room was arranged so she sat facing the three, the big leather-covered desk between them.