A Kiss for the Enemy (24 page)

Which might, of course, involve anybody thought to be particularly close to her. If these people, Toni said to himself thoughtfully, once got suspicious they never let a matter drop. They were as implacable as they were boorish. And Marcia had the quality – endearing in many ways – of seeming wholly indifferent to dangers once she had given her heart: and he thought, with a mixture of complacency and uneasiness, that she had certainly given her heart to him.

He knew she wept at the anomalies of her position. He consoled her for that in the only way he knew. He enjoyed using his somewhat limited stock of English with her.

‘Darling, I am very, very loving of you.'

‘No, Toni, that's not entirely right. But never mind.'

But Toni didn't think Marcia realized fully ‘What
they're
capable of!' Her naïveté, enchanting so often, had power also
to irritate. And, alas! there could be no question of any lasting relationship. Their communication with each other was as limited as it was delightful. He thought of it with strong emotion. But he thought also of Anna Langenbach.

What a charming woman! So intelligent, so cultivated, so amusing! Her figure, tall, slender, graceful was a delight. She had the skin of a young girl. Her eyes, her smile, her expression were enchanting. And he knew she liked him. He had been careful, very respectful. If there was really something to play for here it would need adroitness, patience. But he'd sensed it from the first moment.

And then – (Berckheim knew everything about people in this part of the world) –

‘There are very generous provisions for the mother. It's a splendid property.'

Toni had little money and was conscious of the fact. He also felt – the feeling had, as far as he could tell for he was not introspective, come both suddenly and recently – that married life might bring certain compensations for the loss of liberty it officially entailed. He was, he thought, rootless. He had let his small flat in Vienna. His mother was dead. He had no brothers or sisters – a plethora of cousins but nowhere to call home, no place in which to feel an interest, an involvement. He was, he reflected, a nomad: something, too, of a parasite for all his officer's uniform and military responsibilities. Somewhere, some time, he could surely start to build foundations for a more settled life.

He told himself, of course, that for an officer it was absurd to have such notions in wartime. Nobody knew what would happen, who would survive or in what sort of society. On the whole Toni lived from one week to another. He was efficient, quick-witted, enterprising. He knew he was well regarded in the Army, although no doubt classed a light-weight by the more pedantic. His natural aptitude was for military service. He liked the challenges, he enjoyed danger. He took his pleasures when and where he could. He was happy-go-lucky. He was only thirty-one, still young, there'd come a time to settle down after the War. God knew how old he'd be after the War.

But now, out of the blue, came the idea of Anna Langenbach,
an irresistible creature, decorative, intelligent, of good family, available – and rich. From what he'd seen Lower Saxony wasn't too bad. There was the religious question of course, but he didn't expect her Protestantism was immovable. Anyway he felt indifferent on the subject. The Viennese were more tolerant in matters of religion than these northern relics of the Thirty Years' War!

There was, of course, Marcia. That sweet, sweet girl. Suddenly he saw the beloved curves of her body before the eyes of his imagination and sighed deeply. How complicated was life! Never mind, he had arranged to take Marcia back to dinner to the hotel that evening – and after that! He sighed again, breathed a little faster. He was sitting in the garden at Arzfeld in the late afternoon, the day before leaving for France. Anna was with him. This would be his last hour with her. This was going to be the last evening with Marcia. Another sigh.

‘You sound sad, Toni.'

‘This has all been so peaceful, so like Heaven,' he murmured. ‘To leave it – ah, Anna!' He took her hand gently and pressed it to his lips.

‘How long were you out of action after getting bombed, you careless oaf?'

‘Only six weeks. It wasn't much of a war wound. Lots of blood from some head cuts and a broken leg. What they call superficial. What about you?'

‘Untouched. I took as few risks as possible. The whole thing was rather a mess, wasn't it? But all one felt was relief at getting back.'

‘Here we go again!'

The sirens began to wail. Anthony and Robert were in London, sitting in a night club off Regent Street. On the table was a bottle of whisky marked, ‘Mr Robert Anderson'. They had consumed half of it. The place was crowded, noisy and companionable, a cellar decorated with a number of suggestive posters, a deafening band, a tiny space for dancing, virtual darkness and a clientèle largely known to each other, the men mostly in uniform.

‘We're an odd nation, war or no war,' Robert shouted,
‘when one really has to come to somewhere like this if all one wants is a drink with a friend after midnight. And then one has to pretend that one's ordered the bottle beforehand and that they're holding one's stock for one!' This elaborate subterfuge was indeed necessary, with supporting documentation, in order to circumvent the licensing laws. An overworked police force made periodic raids to enforce compliance.

‘Well, if one has to go to a cellar this seems as good a one as any!' Anthony held his voice steady with an effort. The band had just been temporarily drowned by the mighty crash of an adjacent bomb exploding. Since the roof had come down on him at Vencourt he had found, to his shame, that the sound of sirens, the whistle and roar of bombs caused him to sweat.

‘I'll get over it,' he said to himself. ‘I'll get over it. I'm a little gun-shy, that's all.'

They talked of the times through which they were living. ‘I wouldn't have missed this summer in England for anything,' said Robert. ‘It's been a splendid sensation. Do you think we're going to be invaded?'

‘Somehow I doubt it now. It's mid-October. Although I don't see what the Germans can do
except
invade us. We're not going to give in. And they're not going to persuade us to give in by bombing us.'

‘I suppose the submarine thing may make life difficult.'

‘Difficult, yes. But in the end the Navy will cope. They always do.'

‘They always do.'

They poured more whisky into their glasses, a little drunk.

‘How long a leave have you got, Robert?'

They had met, purely by chance, at three o'clock that afternoon, walking in opposite directions along Piccadilly.

‘Week's leave,' said Robert. ‘I'm going to Scotland on Tuesday night. See the family. If there's a train running. How about you?'

‘I'm at home till next Thursday.' Anthony had, he said, been remarkably fortunate. Most of his battalion had got away from Dunkirk on the second but last day of the evacuation. Anthony had preceded them, moving by hospital ship before the main body of the British Expeditionary Force had begun their enforced departure from France. After a generous
fortnight of sick leave he had rejoined his battalion in early July, limping but fit, to find that he had not, as he might have expected, been omitted from the first list of short leaves they had enjoyed since Dunkirk.

‘We're lucky. Our rôle means we're to get some time off now. Then we relieve another division, and go without leave until God knows when. Until Hitler invades, I suppose, or rings us up to say he won't. But I've been idling in and out of hospital so long I really thought they'd keep me at duty. Jolly nice of them.'

So Anthony, for a week which had just begun, was again at home. Bargate was a wonderful oasis of peace. To return to it from hospital on sick leave had been sheer delight. It stood in particular contrast to the turmoil, the fear, the uncertainty of that extraordinary May in Belgium and France. Bargate had seemed like Heaven – but familiar, thought Anthony, as I suppose Heaven could hardly be. Or could it? And now he was profoundly grateful for the chance of another week there, after what had only turned out to be a short return to his battalion at the end of his sick leave.

The war had not left Bargate undisturbed and nobody wished that it should. There were evacuees – two families of London children, one co-operative and delightful, the other surly and suspicious. Hilda was coping with them skilfully and firmly. Preston, the butler, was beyond the age of conscription to any particular duty and was ‘managing' with loyalty and a good deal of complaint, zealous for air raid precautions, waging unremitting war against the evacuees: and Hilda's cook, Mrs Riding, grumbling a good deal at the exigences of the rationing system (generous as yet), was producing edible meals. Otherwise there was no domestic staff and rooms were shut save dining room and inner hall. But it was quiet at Bargate. It was almost as it had always been. There was no sense of crisis, no alarm.

Most of John Marvell's county and charitable activities continued to demand his time. It was a relief to be busy, although the trivial character of some of the business irritated him, so far was it from the great drama through which they were all condemned to live. ‘But somebody has to keep things going,' John thought, ‘and these little concerns make up life, after all. They are worth attending to as well as fighting
for. He had joined the Home Guard. The evening news was invariably listened to on the radio and John tuned in again at breakfast time: but the war had assumed its inevitable place in the background rather than the forefront of life.

When they talked of Marcia it was with pain, but pain steadily endured. As much as could be had been done, by contacts with the American Embassy. There were, not unnaturally, a great many such problems put to the Americans. No direct word of Marcia had been received. At times the Marvells' fretting showed, though they took pains to be cheerful with Anthony.

The band in the cellar struck up a new and popular tune and people began to sing.

‘At home,' said Anthony. ‘At home at Bargate until next Thursday. I can always get up for a day or a night. The trains have been pretty good. I stay at the Club.' Anthony belonged to a large, many-bedroomed Club, a place of convenience rather than companionship, impersonal, useful, and so far undamaged.

‘Could you come up and have dinner on Monday night?' asked Robert. ‘There's a rather nice American who's just joined their Embassy here. He's been in touch with my mother. He's going to dine with me.' [Robert's mother was American].

Anthony nodded – ‘I think so, yes –'

‘Bill O'Reilly. William Standish O'Reilly, Junior. He was at Oxford – well before us. He's bound to be interesting. Before going back to the States last month, and now coming here, he was at their Embassy in Berlin! So he can tell us how people rate our chances – both in America and Germany.'

Their Embassy in Berlin! How extraordinary that people still
have
Embassies in Berlin!'

Robert considered this. ‘Well, I suppose the truth is that pretty well everyone does. Except us, of course!'

Anthony said that he'd be delighted. The ‘all clear' was sounding and they made their way a little unsteadily up the steep cellar stairs to a Regent Street lit only by a harvest moon.

‘Oh, there's not much doubt about it, we weren't good enough,' said Robert Anderson somewhat sharply. He and Anthony
exchanged glances. They had already discussed with each other their reactions to the fighting in France and Belgium with the sort of defensive self-mockery Englishmen adopt when confused or ashamed. Neither, however, relished the prospect of breast-beating before William Standish O'Reilly, Junior. His question had been courteous enough – what did they think primarily had gone wrong? He was, they had both decided, a nice man. But wounds were still raw.

‘I reckon,' Bill O'Reilly said, ‘that the French hadn't got their hearts in it, right from the word go.' They were dining in a restaurant immediately south of Leicester Square and so far the evening had been air raid free.

‘You're talking to two pretty junior officers,' said Anthony lightly. ‘I only saw things at worm's eye level. But I don't think it can all be blamed on the French. Neither they nor we were ready for the shock.' His mind went back to Arras. How did one convey to this agreeable American the paralysis of the will, the sheer numbness created by enemy air power and fast-moving ground forces, apparently irresistible, destroying any coherent pattern of defence, violating every preconceived notion? So that leaderless men, stunned, fearful, came to act only as if in a bad dream? There had been stories of French soldiers acting as unbidden traffic police, waving on German columns. To one such as O'Reilly this must betoken treachery or moral collapse. To Anthony – who had no idea whether or not the tales were true – such a thing was perfectly comprehensible.

‘Never mind,' said Robert. ‘There'll be a return match. Somehow. Some day. Now tell us about Berlin.'

O'Reilly told them.

‘Their successes have stunned the victors themselves. The generals – you don't get any whispers these days of the sort of disenchantment in the Army which was certainly there before they went into Czechoslovakia. Hitler mocked their fears. He's been proved right. He's riding high.'

Did this mean, Robert and Anthony wanted to know, that the Germans were confident about an invasion of Britain? Bill O'Reilly shook his head emphatically.

‘What's on Hitler's mind all the time is relations with Russia. They've got this pact. It's important to both sides. Germany's
getting her imports from the East, the Soviet Union's importing stuff from the rest of the world and exporting it straight to Germany. You'd be amazed. But the Soviets are fencing with the Germans all the time about their relative position in the Balkans – in Rumania, Bulgaria and so forth. Each wants to strengthen his hand vis-à-vis the other. Same in the Baltic States. The Soviets just marched in and occupied them when the Germans were busy elsewhere, and the Germans didn't like that one bit. They're having one hell of an argument about it.'