Welcome Home (21 page)

‘Act as a courier between me and Antoine. I understand he visits the farm at night when it’s safe?’

Beth nodded.

‘And also communicate with London for us. You’ve got your wireless safely hidden?’

‘Yes, we—’ she began, but Rob held up his hand.

‘Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.’

Beth was quickly realizing just how secretive everything had to be for the safety of them all.

‘How do I get messages to you?’

‘We’ll both use a drop box. There’s a big oak tree between here and the village. It’s on a stretch of road that’s got a clear view all round so as long as
you’re careful, you shouldn’t be seen. Not unless someone’s got a pair of binoculars trained on you and that’s a million-to-one chance. I’ve made a hollow in the back
of it. Just leave any messages there. And I’ll leave you mine either for Antoine or for you to transmit. By the way, I presume you’ve no lemons for writing the notes invisibly. What
about trying onion juice or milk?’

Beth laughed. ‘I’ll experiment to see what works the best.’

‘Or there’s vinegar,’ Rob went on, trying to remember all the liquids they’d used on the training course. ‘But now you’d better go. You’ve been here
quite a time for just buying bread.’

With the two loaves sticking conspicuously out of the basket on the front of her bicycle, Beth left the town. This time the two soldiers nodded and smiled at her and waved her straight through.
She smiled back rather shyly as she hoped a young French girl would do – not flirtatious or over friendly, but just enough to prove she wasn’t hostile. It was such a difficult and
potentially dangerous line to tread!

She didn’t breathe easily until she had reached the farm. On the way, she had spotted the oak tree on the road between the town and the village that Rob had told her about. She
hadn’t stopped to investigate it, but at least now she knew exactly where it was.

‘Oh, you do look smart, Shirley,’ Edie said, holding out her arms in welcome. It was two weeks since their trip to White Gates Farm and Archie was back at sea.
Though they’d enjoyed seeing the family, it had unsettled Edie even more. She was mortified to see how much Reggie was growing up without her and both she and Lil were missing such important
years in Tommy’s life. They hadn’t been there to see him cut his first tooth, take his first faltering step and to hear his first words. She knew Archie was right – the youngsters
were safer in the countryside – but the moments of loneliness wouldn’t go away. Although she spent most of her waking hours with Lil, it was night time, when she went to bed, knowing
that she was completely alone in the house, that accentuated her solitude. But it was the one thing she couldn’t talk to Lil about. Poor Lil had been alone in her house every night since
Irene had gone to the country. She could talk to Lil about everything else under the sun, but not this one thing. It made Edie feel even more isolated than ever.

But now Shirley was home, even if only for a few days, and Edie welcomed her with open arms.

The girl’s eyes were shining and she looked more – now what was it? Edie wondered – yes, alive, than she’d ever seen her. Her hair, cut short now, curled out from beneath
her cap. When she removed the cap, she explained: ‘I’ve had a light perm, Mam. What do you think?’

‘It looks lovely and it shines so.’

Shirley took off her jacket and hung it carefully over the back of a chair. ‘One of the girls on camp showed me how she rinses her hair with vinegar. It lessens the grease in it.
That’s why mine always looked so drab and lifeless.’

‘Have you made some friends, then?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. One or two, but they’re all a friendly bunch. There’s a whole gang of us that stick together.’

‘I’m glad.’

‘How’s Ursula? Has she popped in now and again like she promised?’

‘Oh yes. She’s called in once or twice when she knows your dad’s at sea and I’m likely to be on my own, though me and Lil spend a lot of our time together.’

Shirley laughed. ‘As if you haven’t always.’

Edie had the grace to smile and say, ‘Well, that’s true. I don’t know what I’d do without your Aunty Lil.’

‘I know, Mam,’ Shirley said softly. ‘I know.’

Edie glanced at her. She was suddenly seeing a much nicer side to her youngest daughter. Perhaps being in one of the services, feeling she was ‘doing her bit’ and meeting new people
– even making some friends – was giving Shirley a new confidence and consequently honing her into a nicer person. Living amongst a group of young women, Shirley would soon be sat on
from a great height if she trotted out one of her sarcastic remarks.

‘So, how long have you got?’

Shirley chuckled. ‘Right question, Mam.’

‘Eh? What d’you mean?’

‘The girls were saying that when you go home on leave, everyone asks you, “When are you going back?”, almost as if they want you gone again. But if they ask, like you did, it
sounds as if they really want you home but just want to know, to make the most of the time you have. See?’

‘Yes, I do. I must remember that when Frank comes home on leave.’

Shirley’s eyes widened. ‘Have you heard from him?’

Edie shook her head. ‘Only indirectly, through Lil. Irene hears from him, of course, but he never was much of a letter writer. I – I don’t expect him to write to me.’

‘Well, he should. He ought to write to his mam, even if it’s only now and again. I fully intend to write to you every week. D’you know where he is now?’

‘Abroad, we think. Irene has to write to a BFPO address.’

‘Oh yes, British forces posted overseas. I didn’t know what it stood for until recently. If he is abroad, Mam, that’ll be why he can’t get back home. Oh, they’ll
get leave, but it might not be long enough for them to get back to England.’

Edie was silent for a moment before asking quietly, ‘Are you likely to be sent abroad?’

Shirley shrugged and avoided her mother’s gaze. ‘I really don’t know yet, Mam, I’ve only just completed basic training.’ She glanced at the mantelpiece where Edie
put all the recent letters for Archie to see when he came home. She could see that there were three of her letters there. ‘Any news from Beth?’

‘Only those stupid postcards and we haven’t had one at all since your birthday party when she couldn’t come home.’

‘Mm,’ Shirley said thoughtfully as she took down the last two cards from Beth and scrutinized them. The writing on them certainly looked like Beth’s, but there was something
strange about the last one that had arrived – the one that had told them she would be unable to come home for the birthday party. For a moment, Shirley couldn’t think what it was and
then she realized. It was the way Beth had ended her message. Usually she put: ‘
Lots of Love to Everyone – Stay safe
’. The first part was there, but the last two words were
missing. Would Beth have forgotten to write what had become a kind of talisman to the whole family? It was a ritual which had gained the status of a superstition. Thoughtfully, Shirley replaced the
cards on the mantelpiece.

The first time the German vehicles visited the farm after Beth’s arrival, she was cleaning out the pigsty in one of the farm buildings at the side of the crew yard. Over
her shoulder she saw a large open-topped German staff car swing into the farmyard carrying a driver and an officer sitting in the back. She felt her heart quicken, but she carried on with her task.
Behind the first vehicle came a truck painted in camouflage colours and carrying two soldiers with the German rank equivalent of the British Army’s private. As the officer got out of the car
and strode towards her, she brushed the slurry towards the drain with a strong sweeping action. He stopped a few yards from her and smiled. In perfect French, though she noticed he kept the German
form of address, he said, ‘I had better be careful not to get in your way, Fräulein.’

She glanced up at him, her heart thumping so loudly in her chest now that she thought he must hear it.

‘Good morning,’ she managed to say politely, though she couldn’t stop her voice from sounding cool. No doubt he was used to it for he smiled sardonically and gave a little bow.
‘My name is Major Kurt Hartmann. We have come to collect supplies. I have not seen you here before.’ The statement invited an answer.

Beth met his steady gaze. He was undoubtedly a handsome man with a strong, firm jaw line, piercingly blue eyes and fair hair that showed just below his peaked cap. His uniform was immaculate and
his polished boots glinted in the wintry sunlight.

Beth smiled at him. It wasn’t so hard if you ignored the uniform he was wearing and everything it represented, she told herself.

‘Then I will fetch Monsieur Détange.’ She dropped the brush she had been wielding.

‘What is your name, Fräulein?’ he called after her.

‘Leonie,’ she said over her shoulder, crossing her fingers that both Monsieur and Madame Détange would remember it.

‘A pretty name,’ the officer murmured, watching her trim figure in the working clothes of a farm labourer as she walked away from him and disappeared into the house, ‘for a
pretty Fräulein.’

Raoul Détange appeared and nodded briefly to the major. ‘It’s all ready for you in the barn,’ he said, as he crossed the yard. The major clicked his fingers and the two
soldiers, who looked extraordinarily young, Beth thought as she watched from the kitchen window, clambered down from the truck and hurried to obey.

Major Hartmann became a frequent visitor to the farm, always on the pretext of collecting food and supplies for his troops from the reluctant farmer, but as soon as he alighted from his vehicle,
he looked around for Beth.

‘You want to keep out of his way,’ Raoul warned her after one visit when the German officer had seemed particularly friendly, smiling and bowing courteously towards her and trying to
engage her in conversation.

‘I wish I could,’ Beth said grimly, ‘but don’t you think it would look even more suspicious if I’m missing
every
time he comes? I mean, if he sends his men
to look for me, they might find things I really don’t want them to find.’ She was thinking of the radio hidden in the little barn in the fields.

‘I see your point, but be careful, Leonie.’

‘I will,’ Beth said solemnly, knowing that the kindly farmer only had her interests at heart. ‘Besides, I’m supposed to be only fifteen.’

Raoul snorted. ‘Huh! That won’t bother the likes of him.’

The next time Major Hartmann arrived, Beth hid in her bedroom.

‘He asked where you were,’ Raoul told her worriedly. ‘He’s getting far too interested in you for my peace of mind.’

‘I’ll be careful, Uncle.’

So, on the following visit, she made sure she spoke to the major.

‘I missed you last time, Fräulein,’ he said, touching his cap in a mock salute.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said cheerfully, leaning on the sharp-tined pitchfork she was carrying. ‘I must have been out in the fields.’

‘The farmer – he is good to you? You seem to work very hard.’

‘Uncle Raoul?’ She widened her eyes, as if in surprise. ‘Oh yes, he’s wonderful. And Aunt Marthe too. I don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t been
able to come here after we . . .’

She stopped and dropped her gaze to the floor as if embarrassed to continue.

‘After what, Fräulein?’

Beth bit her lip, pretending that she was reluctant to tell him. ‘After –’ she whispered, ‘after we were bombed.’

There was a pause before the major said, ‘I’m sorry.’

Beth was surprised; he sounded as if he really meant it.

‘The war is a dreadful thing,’ he went on, softly. ‘It separates people who might otherwise have become friends.’ He was gazing at her intently as he said, strangely
hesitantly, ‘Would – would you do me the honour of allowing me to take you out to dinner?’

Beth’s heart quickened. This is what she – and Raoul – had been afraid of. She blinked, feigning surprise. Then she smiled and simpered as she believed a girl of her supposed
age might have done. ‘Oh Major, I’m flattered, but I couldn’t. I’m only fifteen, you see, and – and . . .’

The major frowned. ‘You look a little older than that.’

‘Do I?’ Beth said eagerly, as if delighted. She remembered that at that age she had always been in a hurry to grow up. Then she feigned a pout. ‘I wish I was, then I could join
up and . . .’ She stopped, pretending to be appalled at what she had been about to say.

He smiled ruefully. ‘Then it looks, Fräulein, as if we are destined never to become friends. It’s a shame, because I would have liked that – very much.’

He saluted her once more, turned and strode back to the car. But he did not, Beth noticed especially, use the Heil Hitler salute. She frowned as she watched him go. Was that the last time she
would see him? She rather thought that it was not. Though he had acted like a true gentleman, she had seen the look in his eyes; a look that said he liked her, that he was attracted to her and that
he would not give up the pursuit whatever her age might be.

He came again three days later. Beth tried to disappear but the truck swept into the yard before she could escape from the barn into the house. Luckily, Raoul was with her. ‘Stay with
me,’ she urged. She’d confided in the older man what had happened. She hadn’t wanted to tell him – hadn’t wanted to worry him – but she’d felt she had to
be honest with him. The safety of them all lay in them being completely open with each other.

‘I wish Emile was here,’ Raoul muttered.

‘I don’t,’ Beth whispered back. ‘And it’s Antoine now.’

Raoul grunted. ‘How am I expected to remember to call my own son by a different name? It’s all so ridiculous.’

‘I know,’ Beth soothed. ‘But it’s to protect us all. If he was caught using his own name, it would lead them straight to you and Aunt Marthe.’ She saw Raoul shudder
at the thought. ‘Anyone who works underground must have an alias. Even me.’ She grinned and, as Major Hartmann came towards them, whispered, ‘You’re doing very well –
just don’t forget I’m Leonie.’

But it seemed that this time it was not Beth whom the major had come to see, though his glance flickered towards her and he gave her a brief nod. At that moment several German soldiers jumped
from the rear of the vehicle and began to run to different parts of the yard, into the buildings and even into the back door of the farmhouse.