The Night Before Morning

by Alistair Moffat

  IX

  29 December 1944

  When we reached the old Tolbooth in the centre of Crail, we found that Alistair Charters had somehow become detached from our group. He was nowhere to be seen. Had he simply slipped away? As we were ushered into what seemed like a rather grand council chamber, no one made any comment on his absence. Had it been him who betrayed us?

  The rest of the Vigilantes simply disappeared, no doubt pleased to get to their beds. This strange set of circumstances prompted me to challenge our captor, who seemed quite at ease to be alone with three people he had just arrested. I noticed that he was armed with a British Army issue Webley revolver. I also noticed the cap badge of the Royal Scots on his black beret and asked him why a soldier from a cavalry regiment that fought at Waterloo was now collaborating with the German army of occupation.

  ‘Just following orders, old boy. No change, really. Same old thing.’ His manner was languid, almost effeminate. ‘By the way,’ – he held out his hand – ‘I’m Jamie Griffith-Smith. I know who you are. Sorry I had to take you in in the middle of the night. Orders from up the road.’

  After we had shaken hands, I decided to press a little harder, test his new allegiance. ‘These people didn’t hesitate to obliterate London, kill hundreds of thousands of people, including the king, the man to whom you swore loyalty as a Royal Scot.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, the RAF didn’t hesitate either, Captain Erskine. The firestorm raids on Hamburg and Dresden were pretty severe.’

  For a few minutes, we exchanged arguments until Griffith-Smith appeared to tire of the conversation. ‘Look here. There’s no real debate worth the name. They have the bomb, and that is, sadly, that. Nothing else to be said.’

  ‘There’s a great deal more to be said.’ For some reason my time at the Château de la Muette swam into my head. ‘They’ll do much worse and have probably already done much worse.’ Even though I had only ever discussed it before with Squadron Leader Godwin, I told Griffith-Smith about the memoranda I had seen from Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann, with their vague talk of mass deportations of Jews from Hungary, earlier that year. There was also a list, compiled by him, of the number of Jews in each European country. For England (meaning Britain), there were 335,000. Estonia was Judenfrei, Jew-free.

  These revelations immediately caught Griffith-Smith’s interest, the charm peeling away like a mask, but he made no comment.

  ‘I think the Nazis are killing many Jews or working them to death in their labour camps. And they could do the same here. What is to stop them?’ I made this last point as emphatically as I could.

  There was a pause and Griffith-Smith looked hard at me for a moment. ‘Well, can’t stand here chatting all night. I’ll see you all bright and early.’ And with that, he turned on his heel, closed the chamber door and locked it.

  *

  Careful to keep hidden in the shadows of the medieval lanes leading up from the harbour, Katie and Eileen had followed us.

  Noticing that when Griffith-Smith left the Tolbooth, he did not seem to lock the main door, they decided to take a chance. They waited until he had walked some way down the Marketgate, got into a little sports car and driven off up the St Andrews road, and then the women walked quickly across to the old building. Were any of the posse of Vigilantes guarding their prisoners? Probably, but Katie and Eileen had concealed shotguns under their overcoats. If they surprised any guards, they might be sleepy and would not make trouble if they were staring down two double barrels. But there might be bloodshed, or possibly worse, loud bangs in the middle of the night that would bring people running. Katie turned to her mother and smiled grimly, ‘Just do what I do.’ She turned the huge wrought-iron door handle.

  At the same time, just a few hundred yards away, Griffith-Smith braked, did a rapid three-point turn and drove back close to the Marketgate, hoping that the two women who had followed them up from the harbour had taken the bait. He concealed himself in the pillared portico of one of the grand townhouses opposite the Tolbooth and waited.

  Katie and Eileen found no guards at the Tolbooth, the main door unlocked and the key still in the lock of the council chamber, where Griffith-Smith had left it. It seemed that the Vigilantes in Crail were very relaxed about their duties.

  *

  ‘I think we should split up,’ I said. ‘A group of five wandering around the countryside will be noticed.’ I suggested that the three Grants should go together, and Campbell and I would follow. I wasn’t looking forward to the hike: my leg was painful, but at least the wound had closed and the bandaging on it seemed to be holding everything together; when it didn’t, I would have Campbell to support me. ‘We should try to get a couple of hours’ sleep before these people come back. And before first light, we’ll all become pilgrims on the path of righteousness that leads to the holy city.’

  When we were students, Katie and I had walked part of the pilgrim road to St Andrews. In the university library, it had been my first real research project and I read everything I could find. Endowed by the earls of Fife in the twelfth century, a ferry brought the faithful from North Berwick across the Forth to Earlsferry. From there, bands of psalm-singing penitents made their way north, to be close to the relics of St Andrew. He was a man who knew Christ, and to pray in close proximity to his bones made those prayers powerful.

  Katie and her parents joined the path near a farm about three miles south of the town, and Campbell and I stayed back, about half a mile behind them. Since the Reformation and the ban on pilgrimage, the path had withered, sometimes become entirely lost, its route broken where it had been ploughed over. That was what recommended it to me. Few knew of it and even fewer would be walking or watching it.

  Until bands of pilgrims reached the summit of Wester Balrymonth Hill, the spires of St Andrews Cathedral, St Regulus’ Tower and the many other churches remained hidden from sight. From the hill, a wide panorama of sanctity was at last revealed to those who had made their weary way from the ferry. The vast cathedral, ruined by the Reformers must have seemed as though it perched on the edge of eternity, for beyond stretched the vast horizons of the North Sea. I had asked the Grants to stop on the hill, and if they were unobserved and the path ahead seemed clear, Campbell and I would catch up.

  ‘It looks as though the Germans have indeed fortified the place, just as Jenny said.’ Alan Grant pointed to what seemed to be a timber palisade on the far bank of the Kinnessburn. Flowing into the sea at St Andrews harbour, the stream marked a southern boundary. The good thing was that Aunt Jenny’s house was to the west of the town centre, beyond the medieval walls, and we should be able to find our way there if we were careful.

  But we were not careful enough. We had no way of knowing it at the time, but Jamie Griffith-Smith watched us as we stood on that hill. He hoped that we would lead him to our destination. And there, perhaps, all of the rats would be caught in one trap.

  *

  Colonel Kritzinger did not deal well with anxiety or pressure from his superiors. When he summoned Griffith-Smith to his headquarters at College Gate, the former administrative centre of the university, he banged on his desk several times and marched around the room, glancing out of the windows that looked up North Street to the ruins of the cathedral. Commandant of the German garrison in St Andrews, he was a small, fidgety, excitable, irritable, highly intelligent man with flawless English.

  ‘Erskine will try to become the focus of a resistance movement. I am certain of this. Stories about him and his friends will spread. But before we arrest him and – unlike those bunglers in Berwick – execute him, we need to understand something of his network. Before it grows, we can, as you say, nip it in the bud. Find out who his contacts are. And why he has come here.’

  *

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea what a yardarm is, but I am certain that somewhere in the world the sun is over it.’

  Katie’s Aunt Jenny and Uncle Robert were dispensing drinks from a sideboard that seemed unaffect
ed by wartime shortages. Even in the chill of a deep December, Jenny radiated sunshine, warmth and excellent manners. John Campbell was the only bedraggled arrival she did not know, and she took great trouble to make him feel welcome and at ease. Asking him about himself, she topped up his glass of whisky and sat next to him during an improvised but excellent supper. Her smile seemed to bring him to life. When younger, she had been a great beauty, and she still was. But unlike most beautiful women, Jenny did not keep her distance. Naturally and instinctively, she touched people, a reassuring hand on an arm, or a hand held. After a hot bath and having my wound redressed, and an hour or two of conviviality, good wine and Jenny’s good food, it was possible to believe that all of our troubles were out there, far beyond the walls of the MacDonalds’ hospitable house.

  ‘I have an announcement.’ I tinkled a glass with a knife. ‘I would like to introduce you to my fiancée, your niece, the most beautiful, kind, clever . . .’

  But before I could complete my string of adjectives, Jenny whooped and said, ‘About bloody time!’ and kissed us both. For some misplaced reason, Robert shook Alan’s hand, kissed Eileen and Katie and then remembered to shake mine.

  When we took our drinks through the double doors to the sitting room with its vast, pillowy sofas, and Robert had pokered the log fire into life, he and Jenny began to tell us what had taken place in St Andrews and what had happened at its ancient university. Robert MacDonald had held the chair of physics – or natural philosophy, as he preferred to call it – for ten years and had spent the war working on various research projects for the government. He had become used to soldiers, to the necessarily abrupt nature of military methods and the demands of deadlines, but when the Germans began to arrive in November, their behaviour shocked him: ‘Complete thugs. Always on the edge of violence, shouting, frenetic, and explaining nothing. They love uniforms as well, don’t they? Perhaps they think they’re intimidating, too, especially when dressed in black.’

  Robert took a sip of his whisky and carried on. ‘Completely out of the blue, unannounced, this SS colonel – Kritzinger is his name – came to the Bute and demanded a tour of the labs and the facilities. He spoke excellent English, even understood scientific terms. Claimed to have been a scientist before the war. Then, without any reason, any explanation at all, he threw us all out, the whole department, everyone. I was forced to leave behind all of my work, notes and correspondence in my office. All we were allowed to take were personal effects. And we were on no account to leave the town, any of us. What annoyed almost as much as anything was this man telling me not to worry. We’d all still be paid.’

  Jimmy MacRae, the university Bedellus – in effect, the head of security – told Robert that the Germans had also ejected the Principal and taken over his vast, rambling house and cordoned off North Castle Street. All of the residents of those beautiful old houses were summarily evicted, forced to leave their furniture and allowed to take only their clothes and other belongings. A few days later, a dozen or so Americans had arrived with, it seemed to the Bedellus, their families in tow. All of them were installed in North Castle Street or the Principal’s House. With no explanation and no idea who these people were, MacRae had to hand over all sets of keys for these university properties.

  ‘You can only get into town through the West Port,’ said Jenny, ‘or at the bridge over the Kinnessburn, below the cathedral precinct.’ She added that there were hundreds, perhaps a thousand, soldiers on patrol and that the Bute Building, St Mary’s Divinity College and the university library had been completely sealed off. The only access was through the old arch into the library quadrangle. ‘You know, the one with the quote above it, In Principio Erat Verbum.’ Parliament Hall and the university courtroom above it had been converted into offices, a huge radio mast had been erected in the corner of the quad and scores of telephone cables had been fed through the upper windows. ‘The town has become a fortress,’ said Jenny, ‘and the Bute Building seems to be its citadel. What on earth is going on? We have absolutely no idea.’

  *

  When Jamie Griffith-Smith returned to his car, parked not far from the short but secluded driveway that led to Jenny and Robert’s house, he felt very uneasy. His parents knew the MacDonalds, had done for many years. When his father sat on the university court, they had been dinner guests at their house near Kingsbarns and, as a boy, he had been dazzled by Jenny MacDonald. And kind as she was, she had made a fuss of him, making the boy blush.

  Suddenly, life had become a little more complicated than simply following orders.

  30 December 1944

  ‘I understand very well what your requirements are, Professor Feldman,’ Colonel Kritzinger snapped. ‘But I am a scientist, not a magician!’

  Small, balding, peering through spectacles with thick lenses and wearing a scarf wound twice around his neck, Feldman sat by the fire in the German’s office, warming his hands. ‘It is very simple, Colonel. If we do not have the materials, then we cannot do what you wish in the time that you wish it.’ The little professor seemed not to be at all flustered by Kritzinger’s anger and bluster. He stared at the yellow flames; there was no more to be said to this irritable man. Well, perhaps one thing. ‘It’s New Year’s Eve, tomorrow, Colonel. When I was a child in Vienna, and as an adult in New York, we celebrated St Silvester with a party. May we be permitted to do so here?’

  Kritzinger made no reply as he stood looking out of the window. It had begun to snow. There was no breeze off the sea that morning and big flakes floated gently down on the town, tilting and swaying as they came to rest on the roofs and the streets.

  ‘Colonel Kritzinger,’ said Feldman, jolting the German out of his reverie, ‘I’m sure that your family used to have sauerkraut, raclette, cakes and marzipan sweets on St Silvester. And perhaps a few bottles of Sekt or some fiery punch? May we hold our party in the Principal’s House? You are, of course, invited. We hope to foregather at the evening service at St Salvator’s Chapel.’

  Kritzinger looked for a moment at the little scientist’s round face and sighed. ‘Yes. Yes. I suppose we are all far from home. The families will of course have to be escorted. And your people will be at work in the Bute laboratories in the morning as usual.’

  ‘Thank you, Colonel. Forgive me, but I had another matter to raise with you. I hope you have a moment. We have yet to hear from our colleagues in Germany. We are anxious to consult with them. As I have explained, our facilities at Los Alamos were purpose-built for our work, but here we’re having to improvise. And that can be dangerous. As you know.’

  *

  The snow was lying now, piling precariously on the tops of gateposts and fence rails, falling in lazy flurries on the windless morning. Clutching a steaming cup of strong coffee in both hands, Katie watched her aunt’s garden transform. From the French windows in the kitchen, she saw the lawn blanketed white, and the high hedges and ring of sheltering trees seem to close in. So long as you were snug, warm and indoors, snow could be comforting, making the world shrink as everything outside fell silent and still. All of the people she loved were in this house and, closing her eyes, she offered up a prayer that the evil that lay beyond it would recede and that decency would somehow return.

  ‘I know, Father. I know this is a highly irregular request.’ Upstairs, in Robert MacDonald’s study, I was talking to Father MacKenzie of St James’ Church. ‘But we live in extraordinary times. I’m sure that God’s love will smile down upon us.’ I laughed when the priest qualified my certainty, perhaps with the German garrison in mind. And then he very kindly, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to my request.

  ‘Thank you, Father, thank you. We’ll see you there at 6 p.m. tomorrow.’

  31 December 1944

  Griffith-Smith was cold. Despite a cashmere pullover under his Vigilante uniform and his old army greatcoat over everything, his feet were like blocks of ice. Perhaps it would be better to get out of his car and stamp some warmth back into them. He had parked close to the univ
ersity playing fields, on the opposite side of the road from the driveway to the MacDonalds’ house. In the early darkness, he had been almost invisible inside the little sports car, but if he had stood out on the pavement, against the white background of the snow, he might have been more easily seen. However, he also needed to pee, urgently. No wonder, with such freezing feet. Once out of the car, he half-hid himself in some bushy rhododendra by the gates into the playing fields. Gasping with relief, Griffith-Smith turned to look at the MacDonalds’ driveway.

  ‘Bugger,’ he whispered, ‘bugger, bugger.’

  A car was moving down it, the headlights embarrassing him profoundly. He quickly turned his head away in case he was recognised.

  Once the car turned down Hepburn Gardens on its way into the town, Griffith-Smith rushed over to his vehicle, kicked the snow off his boots, fired up the engine and followed it. They were breaking curfew. What were they doing? No civilian cars were permitted to pass through the West Port, and so if this was the Grants, the MacDonalds and Erskine, they would have to find somewhere to park, discreetly. From there, he would follow them on foot.

  When he had rustled his way out of the rhododendron bushes, looking at the tail-lights of the car disappearing down the road, Griffith-Smith did not notice a figure in a dark overcoat slip out of the driveway and follow it. John Campbell had agreed with me that he would use all of his commando concealment skills while following us into town and keeping an eye out for anyone who might be on our tail.

  *

  When we walked under the arch of St Salvator’s Tower, Katie slipped her arm through mine and it seemed that the years fell away. Memory is often unreliable, it being almost impossible to recapture the atmosphere and myriad details that make a moment unique. Instead, it seems to me that places can be the deposit of experience and to go back to them triggers memory, often drawing up feelings – and even incidents long forgotten – from the deep.