Edelweiss

by Madge Swindells

  Ingrid plucked up the courage to go down into the town and push her way through the waiting queues of men towards where she thought the harbour lay.

  ‘Can’t go to the harbour, Miss . . . bombed to ruins,’ a soldier told her. ‘The Huns took care of that. Our boats can’t get into shallow water to pick us up. We’re trapped.’

  Ingrid turned away hopelessly.

  There was nowhere to go. No escape. She wanted to dig a hole in the sand and crawl into it like a small animal to await either deliverance or death. What was she supposed to do? Did Hugo think she could swim the Channel?

  Instinctively she followed the soldiers down on to the beach, her knees trembling with every step, for it was taking the brunt of the Luftwaffe’s attack. The Messerschmitts never left them alone. They came in low, wave after relentless wave. Ingrid dodged from one dug-out shelter to the next, clawing her way towards the sea.

  She felt dizzy and tired, she was reaching the end of her strength. Faint with hunger, she at first thought the roar in her ears was her imagination. Shaking her head to try and clear it, she looked up and realised the sound was from hundreds upon hundreds of men cheering their lungs out.

  Out to sea, Ingrid saw that the English Channel was covered with tiny black specks on the grey water, like mosquitoes, and they were moving towards the shore. She rubbed her eyes and looked again. The black dots were small craft bobbing on the ocean, and they were advancing steadily. As they neared the shore, she could see that there were yachts, tugs, barges, motor boats, fishing vessels, pleasure steamers . . . forming a great tide of private craft advancing steadily through the hailstorm of bombs and bullets.

  The Stukas saw them, too, and began to dive-bomb the armada of mosquitoes, but it was unsinkable. It’s like swatting at flies, Ingrid thought, and just as ineffective. There were far too many of them. As the first line of boats reached the surf, the cheering soldiers began to surge forward.

  Ignoring the shells and the dive-bombers and the bombs falling on every side, the men began to advance into the sea until they were standing chest-deep in water, buffeted by waves. The first boats hauled the men aboard until they were perilously laden, then turned back into the cauldron of milky foam, churned by bullets and exploding bombs, and sped towards the waiting ships lying at anchor. The next wave of boats came bobbing and wobbling to the beach.

  Ingrid saw with astonishment that queues were forming and she hastily got to the back of one and stood there, hoping that they would take her with the soldiers. Every time a small boat put to sea, the men walked forward a few yards. She calculated it would take this day and the night before she would reach the sea. To her surprise, the Tommy in front of her turned and spoke to her.

  ‘I reckon we’re going to make it, Miss. We’re going to cheat Jerry out of his spoils. He thought we was trapped here like rats in a cage, ready to be shipped into one of his damned camps. I suppose you’ve heard what happens there.’

  ‘I’ve been in one,’ Ingrid said, feeling desperate. ‘Look.’ She held up her wrist displaying the tattoo with her number on it.

  The soldier’s eyes filled with incomprehension and pity. ‘You look all in,’ the man said. ‘Here!’ He called to the others. ‘Are you going to let this little lady, who’s escaped from one of them concentration camps, stand here until she drops from exhaustion? Come on mates, let’s push her up front.’

  A small wooden boat was approaching. She stared at it pleadingly. It would take thirty, perhaps, but more than fifty were ahead of her. The next minute strong arms pushed her out towards the boat. She was chest-deep in the waves. Choking and half-drowned in the foaming spray, she was picked up and pushed towards the front. She felt herself being lifted and shoved from behind, and for a moment she was poised, spread-eagled, half-in and half-out. The soldier behind her gave her legs a mighty shove. Someone in the boat grasped her armpits and she found herself sprawling on the deck.

  It was a private fishing boat, she discovered, with two outboard engines. An old weather-beaten man of about seventy was sitting by the tiller, his face impassive as the soldiers were loaded on board. Two youngsters, not more than sixteen, were helping the troops. She guessed the old man was their grandfather. The boys were counting: ‘Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. That’s enough,’ one said. The last soldier hung on sobbing, and tried to haul himself aboard, but he was pushed back. ‘We’ll be back soon, mate, don’t you worry,’ the other boy called out.

  The old man twisted the throttle and they were speeding off towards the waiting convoy of ships.

  Ten minutes later, Ingrid was helped up a rope ladder. She reached the deck and gratefully felt the weight of a blanket across her shoulders.

  ‘Safe at last, Miss,’ one of the soldiers called to her. Ingrid burst into tears. Safe? Oh God, she would never be safe again.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The following morning at dawn, Ingrid filed down the gangway at Dover harbour, amongst the exhausted British troops. The stretcher cases were lying side-by-side, filling the roads and pavements all around the docks. What seemed like the entire local population were moving amongst the bedraggled survivors, handing out hot drinks and blankets. Someone handed Ingrid a cup of tea. Her sex and lack of uniform soon attracted an official. ‘Are you a French citizen?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m not sure where I should go . . .’ she began.

  He gave her a quick, hard glance. ‘Come this way, Miss,’ he said. Shortly afterwards she was in a hastily converted school, awaiting an interview with the ‘appropriate authorities’ alongside a collection of Frenchmen, who looked in an even worse state than she.

  The first time she was questioned she was terrified and she didn’t have to act the part of a shell-shocked refugee. She regressed into the lost waif who had been dumped on the von Burgheim family. It was weeks and several more interviews before she was sent to London and passed to a volunteer welfare worker, who issued her with a ration book, an identity card and a temporary permit, establishing her right to live and work in the area, until she gained more permanent status. She was given some secondhand clothes and a room in Camden Town.

  Her welfare officer was middle-aged, overweight and smelt of gin. ‘You will have to earn your own living, er, Princess Ingrid.’ She hesitated in awe over the title.

  Ingrid nodded.

  ‘Have you earned your living before?’

  Ingrid shook her head. ‘I had a private income,’ she stammered. ‘I think the capital was held in Switzerland. The money used to come into my French bank every month. I can give you the account number.’

  This seemed to disconcert her questioner. ‘I’ll ask someone to look into that. Meantime, we must find you a job.’

  Ingrid held out her wrist. ‘I nearly died . . . most of my family have perished . . .’ The tears were rolling down her cheeks. ‘Please . . . you must understand . . . I long to do something worthwhile. I want to help defeat the Nazis.’

  An expression of relief swamped the woman’s fat features, this attitude she could understand. ‘Then that’s exactly what you will do. I can’t think of anything more important than helping to build Spitfires. Can you?’

  *

  Three days later, Ingrid arrived at a series of large asbestos-roofed buildings covered in camouflage netting, beside a field where cows grazed. She was shown how to clock in by the foreman, a short, myopic balding man with an apologetic manner, whom she dismissed at once as a fool.

  She was directed to a long white-washed shed, housing rows of work benches. A canteen, toilets and a sick bay were situated in an adjacent shed, while a more sturdy two-storey brick building housed the manager’s planning office with a window overlooking the plant. She was introduced to ‘the girls’ and given an overall and a scarf to wear.

  Within half an hour she was standing at a bench being taught how to do her small, but essential job, which although repetitive required a good deal of skill, she discovered.

  She was faced by a clamp into which she
fixed part of the nose cone of a Spitfire. On her right was a lathe and her task was to cut a groove into the inside edge of the cone. Her soft fingers soon grew raw from the metal filings and her hands were ingrained with the oily lubricating fluid.

  When she had finished cutting, the cone passed on to an attractive young brunette, with rosy cheeks and glowing brown eyes, who manned the workbench next to hers, and she polished it.

  Above the continuous hum of the machinery, her neighbour introduced herself as Gwen who, despite her aristocratic background and her private income, was one of the two million British women who had volunteered to work in munitions factories.

  *

  On Saturday morning, Ingrid visited the bank and found herself richer by five hundred pounds from cash transferred from Switzerland. Her morale immediately boosted by the amount, she decided to look for better accommodation and after some searching she found a delightful mews cottage in Knightsbridge, whose owners had departed to Canada as war was declared. Their agent took her minimal deposit in relief, and she was able to move in straightaway.

  The time had come to contact Fernando and that same afternoon she set off by tube, found the newsagents and walked in smiling nervously.

  The man behind the counter had his back turned. ‘I’m looking for Czech newspapers . . .’ she began nervously.

  ‘You’re Ingrid, I assume.’ When he turned she tried to hide her surprise. With his side whiskers, his droopy moustache and his dark, curly hair, the newsagent looked as if he had walked out of a Dickens novel. He was very pale, with shadows under his eyes. He had large, soft brown eyes, his nose was bulbous, his ears large and sticking out, and there was a dark shadow of beard on his cheeks. She sensed a veiled menace behind his soft manner and involuntarily shivered. He introduced himself as Paddy O’Connor, proprietor of the shop. ‘Call me Paddy. Welcome to London, Ingrid. The freak is back there.’ He gestured over his shoulder.

  The freak . . .? She pondered over that as she walked to the back and found Fernando on his knees, undoing bales of newspapers. At first she hardly recognised him, for his face was thinner and more sallow, his hair greasy and unwashed and he looked tense and haggard. ‘It took you long enough to get here,’ he snarled when he saw her.

  ‘I’ve only just got my papers. I was lucky to get out so soon.’

  ‘Don’t let the pimp shove you around. If you have any trouble, just remember, I’m his boss.’ Paddy had followed her into the backroom. ‘Get those bloody papers on the van,’ he snapped at Fernando.

  Fernando cringed, leapt to his feet and hauled two bundles out of the door.

  ‘Queer bastard,’ Paddy said. ‘Now, Princess let’s get to work. It’ll be lessons every night for you, for a month at least, depending on how fast you learn.’

  He took her upstairs to a door in the loft, hidden behind some boxes. She walked through it, into a neat, functional room containing a photographic laboratory, a darkroom, and a well-stocked workshop.

  ‘Now, concentrate,’ Paddy said. ‘I don’t like saying things twice. You ever taken photographs?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Well this little beauty will be your best friend. I’ll show you how to use it,’ he said, handing her a small, complicated camera with a flash attachment. She began to enjoy herself.

  There were so many new skills she had to acquire, she discovered during the next few weeks, but she was an attentive pupil and Paddy liked teaching her. He never made a pass at her and she was thankful for that.

  ‘A good-looking girl like you should be able to get her hands on all sorts of information,’ Paddy said at the end of her training. ‘You’ve got to use your title and your connections to infiltrate the British establishment. That way you’ll reach the kind of men who know what’s going on. Be careful not to get emotionally involved with any of them. That would be suicide for you, and besides, you’d miss out on the others.’

  He seemed not to notice her expression of fury.

  The air-raid siren sounded as she walked slowly home that evening. German bombers were pulverising London every night. The invasion must come soon, thank God. Ingrid felt sick with loathing for the life she had been forced to lead. But at the end of it was wealth . . . unimaginable wealth . . . Not long now, she reassured herself.

  *

  Paddy began nagging Ingrid for results. His first demand was for her to photograph drawings on Spitfire design from the manager’s office.

  Impossible, surely? Ingrid became tense with fear as the days passed. There was only one vague possibility and that was tea break, that unbreakable British tradition, when the manager joined the girls in the canteen. But he always locked his papers away so carefully when he left his office.

  Her chance came unexpectedly when the plant had a sudden, unwelcome inspection by three men from the Air Ministry. They left at last and fired with relief the manager rushed to his cold tea and buns, leaving the papers out.

  Trembling, Ingrid hurried to fetch her camera which she hid in her overalls. Her hands were shaking, her breath coming in short pants, her heart beating loud enough to be heard in the canteen. Oh God! Anyone could come in. She would be dragged out, arrested and shot as a spy. ‘Oh God help me,’ she prayed.

  It took only minutes, but it seemed like hours. She thrust the camera out of sight and rushed out. She could still hear their loud voices in the canteen as she hurried there. Someone was telling a joke and she joined in their laughter, a sense of euphoria making her giggle loudly, although she hadn’t heard the punchline. It was pure relief. How foolish the British were, how careless! No wonder they were losing the war. With Western Europe occupied by the Nazis, Britain was fighting on alone, and everyone expected the invasion at any time. Civilians and troops were working frenziedly to put up cement blocks and rolls of barbed wire along every beach and cliff. Nightly, London was pulverised by bombs and each morning the BBC news broadcast told of more ships lost at sea. Rationing tightened, for food could not reach the British ports. Britain was being bombed and starved to death. Even the King was learning to shoot. He had publicly said that if necessary he would die fighting, and the Queen had refused to leave him, but was staying at his side, with their daughters. Britons from all walks of life were pulling together to survive.

  Ingrid had deliberately set out to become friends with her well-connected workmate and, at the beginning of August, Gwen invited her home. ‘My parents have a place in the country and you must be lonely away from your family. Come for the weekend, there’ll be plenty of people to meet. We usually have a party on Saturday night . . . for the boys, of course. They deserve some fun.’

  Ingrid’s eyes glistened, and her face brightened. She’d missed the good life bitterly.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Clasped in the arms of a young naval captain, Ingrid danced barefooted on the lawn to the distant strains of ‘Moonlight Becomes You’. This weekend she had become close to feeling relaxed. The weather was hot, the sky cloudless, the evenings long and filled with dancing and drinking on the terrace and just fooling around. She had drunk too much, but so had almost everyone at the house party. Entertaining ‘our boys’ on leave was a patriotic duty, she had discovered. She had played tennis that morning, attracting compliments on her athleticism and collecting enough invitations to last her the season.

  Her partner interrupted her reverie. ‘I say, look at Stephen. He’s really letting his hair down. You’d never guess that a rapier mind lurks behind that fuddy-duddy exterior, would you?’

  ‘Does it?’ she asked, feeling bored.

  ‘He’s in some intelligence outfit . . . brilliant fellow . . . bit of an odd-ball. Works all hours in a seedy office in Baker Street pretending to be an importer, but everyone knows he’s one of the richest men in England.’

  A plum had fallen into Ingrid’s lap. It didn’t take much guile to lose the naval captain and make her way towards her quarry, her eyes glinting with zeal.

  He was quite old, easy game, she guessed, as
she smoothly introduced herself, flirting, probing and teasing.

  By midnight she had got nowhere. In desperation, she allowed herself to be seduced. Surprisingly, Stephen proved to be a considerate and skilled lover and Ingrid enjoyed herself, but she didn’t extract a single item of interest for Paddy.

  Ingrid woke to the first light of dawn seeping through the curtains. Next to her, Stephen Schofield was still asleep, gently snoring. What a wasted night. She sat up and studied him. He was old . . . at least fifty-five, she could see. He had receding grey hair and a furrowed brow, but his face looked kind and caring. He’s sort of craggy, she thought, but in an attractive way.

  His eyes opened. They were large, grey eyes and they scanned her. It was a disconcerting feeling. ‘Good-morning,’ he said. ‘I’m Stephen Schofield. Who are you?’

  ‘If you can’t remember, then you don’t deserve to know,’ she snapped, feeling humiliated.

  ‘Is this your bedroom or mine?’

  ‘Mine!’ She laughed lightly, but in truth she was seething with rage.

  He was naked and when he got out of bed she was surprised at how fit he looked. He was almost six foot tall and slender, but wiry. He began to get dressed with cool self-confidence which annoyed her. Obviously he was used to this. He paused at the door. ‘How was I?’

  ‘Terrible,’ she lied.

  ‘I can do better, I promise you.’

  ‘No second chances.’

  He shrugged. ‘If you say so.’ The door closed softly behind him.

  At Sunday lunch she sat next to a naval commander who immediately began chatting her up. He was flying to Scotland that evening, he told her. Already well-oiled by aperitifs, the wine loosened his tongue further and he regaled her with a rambling account about a convoy of submarines hidden away in Cromarty Firth, which were being fitted with a new type of radar.

  ‘Of course, I shouldn’t tell you this,’ he added belatedly. ‘But I know how hard you’re working for the war effort. Gwen told me about you. You’re the bravest girl I’ve ever come across, and quite the loveliest. Let me have your address in London, I’ll be back as soon as I can.’