The Way Ahead

by Mary Jane Staples

  ‘Good,’ said Roget, ‘although I’ve known trustworthy sources that have proved regrettably unreliable.’

  ‘Ah, what a miserable France we have,’ said Lise, ‘pigeons are eating pigeons, dogs are eating dogs. No-one agrees with anyone else about how to redeem our country.’

  ‘Redemption will only begin when de Gaulle has thrown out Hitler’s tyrants and French puppets,’ said Roget.

  ‘De Gaulle is a long time coming,’ said Lise. ‘The Communists are already here, waiting, skulking, murdering. They are assassinating our friends as well as our enemies. Where are our new friends?’

  ‘Maurice and Lynette?’ said Roget. ‘With the truck.’

  ‘And where is the truck?’

  ‘Hidden,’ said Roget, watching people. One watched instinctively. The Gestapo planted their agents in every town and city. ‘Tonight I’ll be driving it to the appointed place.’

  ‘Trucks cost a fortune,’ said Lise.

  ‘Yes, old trucks as well as new,’ said Roget.

  ‘Has anyone seen a new truck lately?’ asked Lise.

  ‘Not lately,’ said Roget, ‘but Maurice and Lynette have enough funds to buy either old or new.’

  Two uniformed SS men strolled by, thumbs in their belts.

  Roget, regarding their backs, issued a little dart of spit. It struck the pavement beside his chair.

  ‘That is disgusting,’ said Lise.

  ‘Not on this occasion,’ said Roget.

  ‘Spitting is always disgusting,’ said Lise, while believing nothing was more so than Himmler’s Gestapo.

  A few miles east of Epernay, a man and a woman climbed down from a capacious old truck that was standing in a clearing deep in a long stretch of woodlands adjacent to a dirt road. The truck had been purchased through the medium of shady and shadowy black marketeers, the equivalent of London spivs. It was still in good working order, with reliability guaranteed. Guaranteed, it must be said, by exhaustive tests over two days, since assurances from any spivs were about as valuable as a bucket of sand in the middle of the Sahara.

  The doors locked, the man and woman sat down with their backs against the broad trunk of a tree. The woman unwrapped food. She broke a stick of French bread in half, handed one half to the man, and followed that with a wedge of cheese. They began to eat hungrily. They were alone in a cavern bounded by trees and roofed by the sky.

  ‘Buying this truck and testing it have almost shredded my nerves,’ said Helene. ‘You are a good negotiator, but a terrible driver.’

  ‘The tests had to be gruelling,’ said Bobby, ‘I had to throw the truck about before being satisfied it could carry a full load of people up into the hills without breaking down.’

  ‘I feel fortunate to still be alive,’ said Helene. ‘But I forgive you. I will always be forgiving to you, Bobby.’ When they were alone, affectionate intimacy induced them to set aside their code names. ‘But I hope Roget will be kinder on my nerves when he drives us out of here tonight. Ah, how I wish this vicious war was over and we could make a home for ourselves.’

  ‘Well, we should aim for that, of course, as a married couple,’ said Bobby.

  ‘It will make me very happy,’ said Helene. She would not mind living in England, she said, since she was used now to the fact that most of the English were either stuffy or crazy. Bobby said that was a very helpful and civilized attitude, which would encourage him to do his best to knock the stuffiness out of their future neighbours, even if nothing could be done about their peculiarities. ‘No, no,’ said Helene, ‘we must not do anything that will mean a quarrel with people living next to us.’

  ‘Let them stay stuffy, you mean?’ said Bobby.

  ‘I am to take you seriously when you speak of knocking them about?’ said Helene.

  ‘It was just a thought,’ said Bobby.

  ‘A joke, you mean,’ said Helene. ‘Bobby, perhaps we can buy a farm.’

  ‘That’s another thought, an interesting one,’ said Bobby, and they talked on about their future, and their wishes and inclinations. That kind of dialogue did much to ease the strains that were the constant affliction of their work for the French Resistance.

  Later, when the sun went down and dusk arrived, Roget arrived with it. Within ten minutes, they were on their way, Roget driving the truck, since he knew the area so well and how to stay off the main roads. They headed for their next rendezvous, where they were to meet Roget’s group and would have a week to prepare for one more enterprise of risk and danger.

  Chinese Lady came out of the kitchen just as the phone rang in the hall.

  ‘Oh, that contraption,’ she murmured. However, after years of suspecting the new-fangled thing could electrify a body – she meant electrocute – she had at last accepted it had no dark designs on her, and put herself on friendlier terms with it.

  She lifted the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi. Who’s this?’

  Chinese Lady took the receiver away from her ear and looked blankly at it before responding to the peculiar question.

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know who you are,’ she said, ‘and I don’t do guessing games. Myself, I’m Mrs Finch.’

  ‘Hi, Granny. Patsy here.’

  ‘Patsy?’

  ‘Patsy Kirk. Is Daniel there?’

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Miss Kirk.’ What a funny girl, thought Chinese Lady, asking who’s this instead of who’s that. ‘Yes, Daniel’s just come in from his work. I’ll get him.’

  Daniel came on the line after a short while.

  ‘Hello, Patsy girl, how’s your good old Pa?’

  ‘Get you, smarty,’ said Patsy. ‘My good old Pa’s in town, broadcasting to the folks back home, as usual. How about taking me to the movies this evening? There’s a great fillum on. Double Indemnity, with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. Yeah, and Edward G. Robinson as well. Sky-high ratings. You’ve heard about it, I guess.’

  ‘Actually, no,’ said Daniel, ‘my life just lately has been revolving round the demanding responsibilities of my job by day, and my new potatoes, spring onions and lettuces by evening. Then there’s the news on our wireless, which sort of glues my ears to the set.’

  ‘Daniel, stop being a freak,’ said Patsy.

  ‘Beg pardon?’ said Daniel.

  ‘Any guy in love with spring onions is a freak,’ said Patsy. ‘Call for me at twenty after seven. The programme starts at seven forty-five. I’ll ride you there on my bike. It’s that cinema by Camberwell Green.’

  ‘OK,’ said Daniel, ‘but I’ll do the riding. You sit on the carrier.’

  ‘Listen, handsome,’ said Patsy, ‘don’t push your luck.’

  ‘Listen, saucy,’ said Daniel, ‘in this country fellers are still on top. Got it?’

  ‘No,’ said Patsy, ‘it’s Stone Age stuff, you dope.’

  ‘Now look here, Topsy—’

  ‘Patsy.’

  ‘Well, Patsy, stop answering me back and take note of our customs. Fellers are on top and, accordingly, treat girls kindly. Got it?’

  At the other end, Patsy shrieked with laughter.

  ‘Oh, I like you, Daniel,’ she said, her voice a gurgle.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Daniel, failing to interpret the gurgle.

  ‘You’re cute,’ said Patsy.

  ‘That’s for kittens, not fellers,’ said Daniel. ‘Right, call for you later and we’ll go by bus. You can’t leave your bike outside the cinema. It’ll get nicked by some bloke with a sister who wants one for Christmas.’

  ‘But it’s not Christmas,’ said Patsy.

  ‘In this country,’ said Daniel, ‘Christmas is always coming.’

  ‘You’ve got some screwy customs,’ said Patsy. ‘Still, OK, Daniel, we’ll bus there and you can sit next to me.’

  ‘Can’t wait,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Glad you’re thrilled,’ said Patsy.

  The film was a classic, packed with incidents and suspense. It built up to a terrific climax, and Patsy and Daniel
enjoyed it immensely.

  Summertime meant twilight was only just beginning to give way to dusk when they left the cinema and walked to the bus stop, but because of the blackout dusk would lead to dense darkness. They talked about the film and how good it was. The night was cool, and there was moisture in the air. Along the South Coast rain was coming down, and the forecast for the immediate future was worrying Churchill and General Eisenhower. Weather for the transport of thousands of troops and tons of armour across the Channel needed to be kind, and it had been finally agreed by the Allies that the last day in May ought to offer the kindest conditions. May was being perverse, however.

  A bus pulled up almost as soon as Patsy and Daniel arrived at the stop. They boarded with several other people. Patsy buoyantly climbed the stairs to the upper deck, Daniel following. She put herself in the rear seat. Daniel put himself next to her, and warm hips and shoulders made cosy contact.

  The bus, its headlights masked, moved off. Daniel looked at Patsy. Patsy looked at him. The upper deck was semi-dark, for no lights were on, and the few other passengers had their backs to them.

  All the same, Patsy made her apparent reservations known by whispering, ‘No, you can’t, not here.’

  ‘Can’t what?’ said Daniel.

  ‘Kiss me,’ she whispered.

  ‘Is that correct? I mean, I could. What you mean is I mustn’t, don’t you?’

  ‘Did I say you mustn’t?’ she asked.

  ‘I said I could,’ murmured Daniel.

  ‘Well, go on, then.’ Her lips pursed.

  ‘Patsy, you said not here.’

  ‘D’you know you’ve got a silly smirk on your face?’

  ‘You’ve got a cute nose on yours.’

  ‘Leave my nose out of it,’ said Patsy.

  ‘Well, it’s not in the way,’ said Daniel, and kissed her. Very nice it was too, her lips fresh and girlish and co-operative.

  ‘My stars,’ breathed Patsy, ‘you did it.’

  ‘Well, I said I could and you didn’t say I mustn’t.’

  ‘It didn’t mean you had to,’ said Patsy.

  ‘But you told me to go on, then.’

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ said Patsy, ‘that was a dare, not an invitation. You’re not going to do it again, are you?’

  ‘Do I look as if I am?’ whispered Daniel.

  ‘No, you still look kind of smirky,’ said Patsy.

  ‘Is it the kind of look you like?’

  ‘How could anyone like a smirky look?’

  Up came the conductor, a clippie, a lively lady of forty or so doing her best with the aid of hydrogen peroxide to hang on to the allure of her blonde hair. GIs fell over themselves to get close to English blondes, whether they were twenty-odd or forty-odd, as long as they hadn’t lost control of their figures.

  ‘Fares, if yer please, me lords and ladies,’ said the clippie, cap worn at a rakish angle. She turned to Daniel and Patsy.

  Something happened to Patsy’s skirt. It resulted in a small purse coming to light. She dug into it. Daniel, however, stuck to the custom that as fellers were on top, it was his privilege to stand treat, as he had with the cost of the cinema seats. He pulled coppers from his pocket, and bought two tickets to Danecroft Road. The clippie punched them under the light of a little torch fixed to her dispenser, looked at Patsy, gave Daniel a wink and moved on.

  ‘Wasn’t it my turn to pay?’ asked Patsy.

  ‘My grandma’s against that,’ said Daniel. ‘Listen, where did that little purse of yours come from?’

  ‘Leg of my panties,’ whispered Patsy.

  ‘D’you mean you keep it in your knickers?’

  ‘Yuk. You English guys talk funny about a girl’s panties.’

  ‘Where’s the purse now?’

  ‘Where it came from.’

  ‘Well,’ said Daniel, as the clippie returned to the lower deck, ‘I’ve got to admire how you manage it. Never saw a thing.’

  Patsy put her lips to his ear.

  ‘You’re not asking to see, are you?’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘Don’t play dumb.’

  ‘Look, I’ll take your word for it that they’re pretty.’

  At that point, the air raid sirens blasted off, warning of the approach of German night raiders.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE SUDDEN IMPACT of the sirens on unready ears made passengers jump. Patsy, startled, sat bolt upright. Daniel, tensing, wished he’d got her home first. The bus driver, adhering to air raid regulations, brought his vehicle to a stop.

  ‘Air raid, air raid!’ yelled the clippie from down below. ‘All orf, all orf!’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said one well-dressed top deck passenger, ‘I thought the buggers had given up, but they’re back.’

  Daniel thought the same, since London hadn’t suffered any bombing raids for some time.

  In fact, Germany had been transferring more squadrons to their hard-pressed Eastern front, where huge Russian armies, backed by countless bombers of their own, were causing certain German generals to curse the day Hider had launched the invasion of the Soviet Union.

  ‘My stars,’ breathed Patsy, ‘is it really going to happen?’ She and Daniel, with the other top deck passengers, descended and alighted. Lower deck passengers were already scurrying off into the night, towards the nearest public shelter as the staccato wail of the sirens continued. The bus, now carrying only the driver and clippie, moved off to make for its depot at top speed.

  ‘Let’s get across the road,’ said Daniel. ‘We’re a bit far from home, and I know where there’s a private shelter.’

  ‘Daniel, I don’t mind waiting to see where the bombs are going to drop,’ said Patsy. ‘Well, it’s kind of tingling spooky.’

  ‘It’ll be kind of tingling blotto if one drops on your head,’ said Daniel, standing on the kerb with her. The warning sirens stopped. ‘And what would your good old Pa say if all that was left of you were your shoes? Or even only one? Come on.’ Darkness had descended, but there was no traffic, and Daniel knew exactly where he was. He took Patsy straight across the road, and edged his way around the remains of a flattened house. They heard the bombers arriving, the heavy drone of Heinkels unmistakable. It was a reminder to Churchill from the Luftwaffe chief, Hermann Goering, that he still had an iron fist, even if it was covered with plump flesh.

  ‘Where are we?’ asked Patsy, holding Daniel’s hand as he skirted the ruins.

  ‘This is my family’s old house,’ said Daniel. ‘That is, it was. A German bomb blew it to pieces over two years ago. That’s why we’re living with our grandparents. Dad’ll have a rebuilding job done after the war.’

  ‘Daniel, it really happened, your house got bombed?’ said Patsy, trying to make out exactly what was left of it.

  ‘Fact,’ said Daniel, peering ahead in his quest for the now overgrown garden. ‘Fortunately, Mum, Dad and Paula were in the shelter. That saved them, and that’s where we’re going now. By the way, Dad’s on standby ARP duty tonight and so is my Uncle Tommy. They’ll have put their helmets on and be out by now, I should think.’

  The bombers were swarming, the sky vibrating, the noise merging with muffled booms as the first cascades of high explosives struck. The raid was taking in the inner suburbs, the London boroughs and the City: Ack-ack blazed away, the sky too dark for effective action by RAF night fighters. Daniel brought Patsy carefully down some stone steps into the old Anderson shelter at the front of the garden. The shelter was pitch dark, and there was small-sized rubble underfoot. Patsy was awestruck. The shelter and its dark, damp embrace, the riven night sky, the droning bombers and the knowledge that bombs were actually falling, all contributed to a feeling that Satan was lurking and fiendishly grinning. But Daniel’s hand was warm and firm around her own.

  ‘Oh, good grief,’ she whispered.

  ‘They’re getting a lot of this in Germany,’ said Daniel. ‘Day and night.’ Talking, he thought, was better than staying silent. Staying silent
was like listening for the bomb that was going to drop on you through the shelter roof. ‘I wonder if it’s making them think building sandcastles is better than building an empire, after all? That was Hitler’s idea, y’know, to build a great German empire. Patsy, are you old enough to remember what the Germans said to that?’

  ‘Wasn’t it something like, “Sieg Heil, Oh Mighty Fuehrer,”?’ offered Patsy.

  ‘Sort of “Lead us to it”?’ said Daniel. ‘Grandpa said to me once that people blind enough to worship the devil end up in hell, the devil’s kingdom.’ He grimaced in the darkness. ‘I suppose they’re halfway there now. Should we feel sorry for them, Patsy?’

  ‘Sorry for them?’ Patsy sounded slightly overwrought. ‘Daniel, at a time like this, we’ve got to feel sorry for people who stood and watched Hitler’s gorillas beating up Jews and smashing their shops? Listen to all that.’ The noise of the bombers was so thunderous and menacing that the shelter seemed absurdly inadequate. ‘I think I’m a coward,’ she said.

  ‘I know I am,’ said Daniel, and talked about life in the West Country as an evacuee in company with sister Bess and brother Jimmy. They were still there. Patsy said she’d been in the West Country herself, at the boarding-school, but braving a raid here was a lot more real than braving the principal there. It made one realize what this sick war was all about.

  They talked on, Patsy giving Daniel something to laugh at now and again, and Daniel giving her cause to giggle. It was a courageous dialogue beneath the deadly threat of the laden sky.

  ‘Pa and I were caught in an air raid when we were in London Town one evening,’ said Patsy. ‘It was during our first week over here. We went down into a deep shelter and never heard a thing, but the raid made Pa send me to that boarding-school well away from London. I hope tonight’s bombs won’t make him send me back, especially now you’re set on taking me to the cinema once a week.’