War:A Love Story

by Jason argo

      

When he first heard the aircraft in the night sky above Tom Soames stepped out from the back door of his cottage breathing heavily with excitement. He tried to contain things and breathe slowly, but it was only natural to feel elated. He had put so much effort into this moment.

He had seen the twin-engined Luftwaffe reconnaissance aircraft pass overhead in daylight two days previously, necessary because of course Jerry would want before-and-after photographs to estimate the damage done in a full scale raid. Detected by British radar it had only been minutes before a flight of Spitfires scrambled out from North Weald had arrived to chase it off over the sea, but by then it had done its job.

When that had happened he was assured that the people on the other side of the Channel were taking him seriously. And now he was there in person to witness the execution of the plan he had personally designed; it was his own triumphant creation, the destruction of an entire brigade of tanks, his personal contribution to the Fuehrer's contempt for England. Overhead in the night sky a large formation of Junkers Ju 88s were wheeling and swooping onto the target area that the Lorenz beams of Y-Geraet had led them to.

For safety's sake he should have got out of the area of course, but his calculations were so precise he didn't believe there could be any danger to himself, and with eyes hot and hard with the fury of the hunt he wanted to watch.

Bombs soon began crashing and flashing in a great show, like fireworks on New Years Eve, erupting in orange ferocity and strafing the trees just a mile away with shards of scalding metal. He rung his hands together in jubilation at the power he had released.

The arteries in his temples swelled and throbbed, and his nostrils flared. But then after just a few moments he became increasingly exasperated, meshing his jaws together and scowling furiously. Flames snapped and wood popped while great belches of smoke rose up blacker than the night. But the German bombs were falling in entirely the wrong place. They were dropping into the farmland and uninhabited woodland instead of onto the target area he had so diligently specified.

Something had gone wrong, there was no need to emphasis that. Unknown to Tom Soames British radio jamming research had found a way of injecting false ranging signals into the German guidance system with the result that the pilots conducting the raid that night were receiving all sorts of odd information to offset their true position.

At that moment there was an enormous explosion nearby and a hot blast seared his face with the force of a hurricane. The bombing was getting nearer, moving in his direction. A string of explosions was creeping towards him. The air began to reek of fertiliser and cordite mixed with the sweetness of old hay.

Deafened by the explosions and all but blinded by dust and debris he turned and ran towards the cottage… the motorcycle! He could get away on that. No, there wasn't time to kick-start it. Instead he ran back inside the house and slammed the door, aware that each successive detonation was becoming louder and more threatening. His head rolled to one side and he closed his eyes as he pressed his back against the woodwork. His heart was pounding in his neck as he stood without moving, barely breathing. A vicious hot blast blew in the windows and knocked off half the roof above him. There was no escape. Nowhere else to go…what was he to do?

Those poignant urgent thoughts were Tom Soames last considerations on earth. He felt a momentary absence of atmosphere, a vacuum, the fine hairs on the back of his head lifted away from his skin. Then the air shuddered with light and he was no more.

***

When early morning light began to filter into the room Willy turned on his side and looked at Jimmy Hyde. He was sound asleep and lying on his stomach, the sheets pushed down to his waist. His face was turned towards him and a lock of hair had fallen across his forehead in a way he would never have tolerated if he were awake, and for a second Willy could see the boy in him.

He departed Jimmy's bed quietly, leaving the man still slumbering. Having completed his ablutions he dressed and went down the stairs to find Captain Troughton standing in the drawing room gazing up at the painting of the old man wearing the tropical topi.

"Toby, how nice to see you again." he greeted.

"Nice to see you too, Willy. You look absolutely the ticket this morning, and a damn sight nicer to look at than all the blasted sergeant-majors I've had to deal with lately."

"Do you like the portrait of Sir Neville?"

Captain Troughton glanced up at it again. "The gentleman is a mite Kiplingesque, isn't he? You know; like a character out of Gunga Din."

"Kipling wrote a lot about soldiers, so he must have loved war."

Toby shrugged lightly. "I don't think he did. He admired the courage and comradeship that war can inspire, but his writings about it were invariably tinged with pathos."

"Even such things as that conspire to make war glamorous and a thing for heroes, while they ignore the plight of weeping women and terrified children. Did the bombing cause any damage to your Camp last night?"

Toby shook his head with an expression of secret delight. "Those blighters couldn't hit a barn door with a brick at five paces, but I'm afraid they've ruined Sir Mortimer's little bit of wildwood. They dropped a land-mine and the trees there have been blown to bits. I expect you heard it."

"Yes, it was very loud and frightening. It made the earth move."

He stroked his moustache thoughtfully. "I expect Jimmy as told you we're due to move out shortly, the whole cat'n'caboodle of us from down the road. 'Fraid this will be the last visit here we make for some time."

Willy nodded. "He did say. Do you know where you go?"

"We haven't been told, and we wouldn't be allowed to say anyway. But judging by the kind of stuff they're giving us I reckon we're likely to have sand in our shoes before long, and it won't be from the beach at Brighton."

"I'm worried about Jimmy."

"You're not alone there. Most fellows that go to war never imagine going to their own death. They always reckon it will be someone else who will catch the bullet and die, never themselves. Jimmy is different. Since that time in France he sees things the other way round."

"You must help him, Toby. You are near to him in spirit and you must use your influence with him. He is not well in his mind, so you must insist with him that he visits a doctor."

Toby frowned and made a helpless gesture with his hands. "I've already tried that, and he won't have it. Says if I mention it again he'll cut me dead forever." A faint look of despair showed on his face. "He means it, Willy, and I couldn't bear that. He and I have been chums since our schooldays, and I love him."

A second later his moustache twitched with delayed embarrassment. "I say, I didn't intend for the words to come out quite like that. It probably sounds awful, doesn't it? Does saying I love him sound strange? Does it sound… erm… suspicious? What I mean is, does it sound a little bit, y'know…odd?"

Willy grasped his hand and held it for a moment, scrutinising him as if he were a Vermeer. Eventually he gave it a reassuring squeeze, a simple expression of friendship. "In the narrow minds of most men to say you love your friend would be unacceptable. But I believe that to love someone, no matter what kind of love it is, can never be a bad thing."

After a further moment he took hold of his hand and tucked it into his elbow. "Come with me. Mrs Whippet will not have expected you to arrive so early, and we must persuade her to arrange an extra place for breakfast."

Captain Troughton pulled a face. "Goodness! Do we really need to face that frightful old dragon? She'll make an awful fuss about the food ration."

"We shall not let you starve," Willy promised, "If we are allowed an egg this morning, you shall have mine."

Together they exited the drawing room on their quest to confront a common foe, Toby Troughton at Willy's side bravely chanting: 'We're marchin' on relief over Injia's coral strand, Eight 'undred fightin' Englishmen, the Colonel, and the Band.'

***

At breakfast Willy was pleased to find Jimmy Hyde in a calm frame of mind, calm enough to quiz his friend about the air raid the previous night.

"They were undoubtedly trying to bomb the tank brigade," Toby said, "But they missed their mark. They caused considerable devastation, but only to a tract of countryside. As far as I know there were no casualties."

"Apart from the young RAF gentleman who lives in Lilac Cottage," Mrs Whippet couldn't resist putting in, "That poor man's place received a direct hit, nothing much left of the house, or of him."

Willy stirred his tea absently, even though there was neither milk nor sugar in it. Tom Soames was a clever individual, but clearly there had been a mistake, either in the sending of information or the receipt of it, and the mistake had caused his doom. He felt oddly apathetic to the fate of a man who had proved he had never cared for anything born, or anything made, or anything grown. He was more concerned as to why Sir Mortimer hadn't taken his usual place at the table that morning.

He asked Mrs Whippet, and the woman gave a grumpy response. "He knows when he wants to eat. He went straight into the Gun Room when he received the mail this morning, and he hasn't come out yet."

When several more minutes had passed Willy left Jimmy and Toby eating toast and marmalade and went in search of him, and as soon as he had gone Mrs Whippet stepped forward a second time.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," she murmured in a quiet deferential voice, "May I say something?"

The two men both looked up. "Well, you've grabbed our attention, Mrs Whippet." said Jimmy Hyde "Is it something important? Is it something Sir Mortimer can't deal with?"

The woman offered a slightly smarmy smile. "It's probably not that important, but I feel I need to speak to someone, sir. It's about the young Dutch lady, you see."

"Go on."

"I was talking to Mrs Groves at the Post Office yesterday, and I happened to mention to her that Miss Naarden came through the Refugee Centre at Ramsgate. Mrs Groves remembered something about the place, and she went through the postal information circulars she gets. And well, apparently the Centre in Ramsgate closed in February. It's been shut down for ages."

The woman took a pace back. "There's probably a perfectly good reason for what Miss Naarden said, I expect she's got confused with place names…her being foreign, as it were. But I thought I should tell someone."

"Thank you, Mrs Whippet. We will look into the matter." Jimmy replied, and he and Toby looked gravely at each other.

Willy's mind was tranquil that morning, but a shock greeted him when he entered the Gun Room. He found Mortimer slumped inert in his chair, head bent and leaning on the back of his right hand, his elbow on the desktop. For all intents he seemed like a graven image.

"Is something wrong?"

The elderly man looked up and slowly ran thick fingers through his thinning hair. "There was a heavy raid on Liverpool two nights ago. The area around the docks was severely damaged and there were a lot of casualties."

Willy caught his breath. "Deborah went to Liverpool to meet her friends off the boat from America."

Mortimer nodded. Harrowed and stricken he looked Willy full in the face. "They were all caught in the bombing and killed." His face was gaunt. "I received notification in the post this morning." Immediately his gaze changed to a baffled, dismal expression that held as much understanding of the world as an infant. "Deborah is dead, Willy. What am I supposed to do now?"

For a moment he struggled to keep from bursting into tears. He had not realised how emotional he was until Willy had arrived, but now the weight of tragedy seemed too much for him to bear.

Willy's hands flew to his face as he groped for words that would convey a fraction of his feelings. When he spoke all lightness had gone from his tone and the words were mingled with a sudden feeling of sickness in his stomach. "Oh no! Deborah was my friend. She called me her little sister."

Mortimer grimaced. "She was my wife in all ways possible. I know she wasn't entirely faithful, but her indiscretions were infrequent and I know she loved me. I certainly loved her. Everyone thinks I'm just a depraved old coot who enjoys being with men who wear dresses, but Deborah was the best thing that ever happened to me."

He slapped the top of his desk with an open palm hard enough to send papers flying.

"I can't do as you wish any longer Willy. I won't do it." he scowled amid a mixture of grief and accumulating fury. "You are naïve. Hitler as no honour or respect for human life."

He clearly wished to be alone to mourn, but rather than demand Willy leave the room he decided to leave himself. As he brushed past, Willy reiterated his sympathy.

"I understand your feelings, and I don't expect you to continue with any peace initiative."

"Peace!" Mortimer's face became near manic and his voice had all the power of a shout, "I can't encourage people to seek peace with a madman such as Hitler. He's something more than a ruthless dictator, he's a monster in human form, and he must be stopped."

He paused as he passed through the door, tears brimming in his eyes. "I've been a pacifist all my life, but if the only way to stop him is with guns, then so be it."

Left alone in the room Willy's heart seemed to sink. He had failed in his mission. There was no possible chance now that Sir Mortimer would pursue the policy of a peaceful settlement with Germany. It had all been going so smoothly. He had Sir Mortimer convinced and enthusiastic about the merits of an early agreement. But now in one morning all hope of such a thing had withered like grapes on the vine in unseasonable frosty weather.

Two years previously Eduard had been killed, and then Felix Haushofen had been murdered. Now Deborah was dead, Jeremy had gone, and Jimmy Hyde was going. Every person he had ever had feelings for was being taken from him. Even Sir Mortimer had deserted him, and the war was the cause of it all.

He stood in front of the gun cabinet, and could think of no alternative to what he must do next. The adrenaline in his system was working overtime and tears of rage threatened to spill from his eyes, but he controlled the urge to cry with a steely resolve. He had made a decision.

A small key lay in the lock of the gun cabinet, so there was no problem about swinging open the glass that fronted it. His hands shook. On the lowest tier of the display were hooked a number of hand guns and he pulled one out, selecting it because it looked a little bit like the cowboy six-shooters he'd seen in American movies, which gave him a rough idea of how such things worked.

Exasperated and angry at his failure he scrabbled around in the draw beneath the cabinet, emptying out cartridge boxes until he found some bullets that seemed to fit the five chambers in the revolvers cylinder. Five bullets! Only five, but that gave him five chances to kill Winston Churchill!

There was a sudden clatter of footfalls in the hall and a gruff interchange outside the door. Willy dropped into the chair behind the desk and buried the pistol between his knees.

Jimmy and Toby came in, and Jimmy started towards him. "I'm sorry to startle you," he said, "but I have something to put to you that needs an answer. You see, Toby and I have been chatting with Mrs Whippet. She made some enquiries yesterday and discovered that the Refugee Centre in Ramsgate closed down months ago; everyone fleeing from the continent is processed elsewhere now. That means I have to ask you a few questions, Willy."

It didn't require a wise man to explain to Willy that he was about to become ensnared in a trap of misinformation relayed in his own words. Knowing of no way out from it he sprang to his feet and levelled the gun at arms length, pointing it directly at Jimmy Hyde's chest and using both hands to hold it steady.

"Mrs Whippet is a very correct lady and very smart."

The soldier looked at the pistol in astonishment. "What on earth are you doing with that?"

"I'm going to shoot Prime Minister Churchill." Willy replied candidly.

Jimmy took a step forward. "But you have always been opposed to violence."

It was Toby who first noticed the manic look in Willy's eyes, and how his voice was not at all steady. "Careful, old chap. The lass looks rather pent-up and emotional."

Jimmy then noted the wildness in his eyes too. "Yes, you are emotional, aren't you Willy? You're an emotional person always wanting to do the best for people, but although I don't know why you came here, I certainly think it's impossible for you to be an assassin. The instinct for murder isn't in you."

"Are you sure about that, Jimmy Hyde?"

"Fairly sure." he said, taking another pace forward.

There was a slow click, the sound of a revolver being cocked, or the safety catch being released. "Keep back or you'll find out how wrong you are. I have to bring the war to an end. I've tried persuasion and it hasn't worked, so I'm left with no choice."

"I see. And do you know where to find Mr Churchill and how to get to him?"

"I have to find out those things and make a plan. I'm not stupid, I can do it."

Ignoring the impracticalities of any scheme Willy may dream up Jimmy tried a different tack. "If you kill him Halifax or Eden, or someone else will take his place. It will change nothing. The struggle against Hitler will continue."

Tears finally began to form in Willy's eyes and the muzzle of the gun started to tremble, but when he spoke his voice was firm and resolute.

"You're wrong. Things will change. No one else inspires people like Churchill. No one else as the same grip on things that he has, and no one else has the same insane determination to keep on punching each time he's knocked over. Lesser but more reasonable men will seek an honourable end to all the butchery."

Slowly Jimmy kept moving forward. "You picked a good pistol. It doesn't need to be cocked for every shot. It as a double-action mechanism and can be fired faster than a Colt."

He took a final step and pressed his chest against the muzzle of the gun, but his hands remained down by his side, making no attempt to snatch at the weapon. "You're going to have to kill me before you can carry out your plan, Willy. I've been walking in the shadow of death ever since Toby saved my life last year, so maybe you are the one to do the deed. It will be a good test. If you can't kill a volunteer like me you won't be able to kill Churchill."

Willy sighed, letting his breath out as his narrow shoulders sagged forward. Tears at last spilled from his eyes. "I don't wish to kill anyone. I just wished for all the slaughter to stop, but everything has gone wrong."

The pistol drooped in his grip and Jimmy gently lifted it out from his hands and held it at arms length until Toby came up to take it from him and make it safe. Then he leaned forward and pulled Willy close, conscious only that Dutch girl was thin and seemed to be all arms and legs at that moment. Her elfin frame, wracked with sobs felt unbelievably delicate in his arms.

"You've got yourself into a mess, Willy."

"Yes."

"People can be vicious in wartime; you could get into nasty trouble for just thinking the way you do. Toby and I can forget about this nonsense business with the gun and you won't be turned in as a spy, but we shall have to declare you to be an unregistered alien. That will mean you may be interned until the end of hostilities. Can you accept that?"

Willy nodded miserably and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. "I'll pack some things now. I'm ready to go at once."

Drawing back he offered a wan smile at Jimmy's apprehension. "Don't worry about me trying to escape. I have nowhere to run to anymore."

When Willy had gone from the room, Toby expressed a note of relief. "You played things pretty close to the wind there old friend. This Dean and Adams is a dinosaur of a weapon, but it could still have done you harm." He began to unload the gun and for a moment struggled in ejecting the bullets.

"Dash it! It's a .44 calibre, and she's forced the wrong ammunition into it."

"You mean it wouldn't have fired if she'd pulled the trigger?"

"Oh, it would probably have done something. It may have blown her hands off or blown your backbone across the room. Hard to say which."

***

The police enquiry concerning the identity of Wilhelmina Naarden eventually reached an office in the Central Register for Refugees, where it remained among a batch of similar notes for a week before being moved to a desk for crosschecking. It lay on top of a pile for a further day before a harassed, over worked official inadvertently skimmed it onto the floor with the sleeve of his coat. There it stayed to be trampled on by sundry shoes until the following evening when it was scooped up and stuffed into a waste bin. Nothing else was heard of it.

It made little difference to Willy anyway. On presenting himself at the police station in Nuttsford as an unregistered foreign national he was immediately locked up. Two days later he went before a tribunal, and despite testimonials from two serving officers as to his good character he was adjudged a 'Category A' alien and interned.

Some time later, despite Sir Mortimer's loss of interest, a Vote of Censure was placed on the Order Paper in the House of Commons by Sir John Wardlaw-Milne, an influential member of the Conservative Party. It stated:

'That this House, while paying tribute to the heroism and endurance of the Armed Forces of the Crown in circumstances of exceptional difficulty, as no confidence in the central direction of the war.'

It was seconded by Admiral Sir Roger Keyes, and supported by, among others, Mr Hore-Belisha, the former Secretary of State for War, and Lord Winterton, the Father of the House.

It was the way things were done. A Vote of Censure required a full debate, and then a vote to reflect the feelings of all the Members present. A majority vote of No Confidence in this instance would oblige Winston Churchill to stand down as Prime Minister.

All the critics had a chance to make their views known, and in the end Churchill gave his response. He was a war-horse that was in no way humbled. During forty years in politics he had been head of each of the Service Ministries, of the Home Office, the Colonial Office and the Board of Trade, and he had once been Chancellor of the Exchequer. Such wide experience enabled him to pour scorn on ill informed presumptions and lack of martial savvy, and he destroyed each point raised against his administration with measured precision. At one point he duly reminded Mr Hore-Belisha… who had heavily criticised the poor performance of British tanks and their inferior armour protection… that it was he himself as the former Secretary of State for War who had approved the design and manufacture of those tanks.

"We have a National Coalition Government," he ended, "which came together to try and pull the nation out of the sombre plight into which inaction by all political parties over a number of years as landed it. Twice in my lifetime the Teutonic race as disturbed the peace of the world, but we do not make war with races as such. We war against Hitlerite tyranny and we seek to preserve ourselves from destruction. Until that is achieved there is no sacrifice that we will not make, and no lengths in violence to which we will not go. Risks must be run and chances taken, and if sometimes the results fall short of our desire we should still not regret having tried them.

"My hope is that when called on by victory to help shape a peaceful world, we shall do it stoutly and show the same poise and temper we do now in these times of mortal peril."

When the House divided, the motion of No Confidence in the leadership was defeated by 475 votes to 25.

Adolph Hitler had been a brave man in his youth and displayed bold if warped ambition in maturity, but egotism compounded by years of success wouldn't allow him to leave the war in Russia in the hands of his generals. He refused to consult them seriously and instead surrounded himself with yes-men, eventually nominating himself as Commander-in-Chief despite having little knowledge of foreign countries and having had no General Staff training.

He had planned for the conquest to be completed during the summer and had that happened he may have achieved his aims, but the start-date had been delayed by a need to assist his Italian ally in the invasion of Greece and the Balkans. The timetable never caught up, and no provision had been made to continue the fight into a winter that was fated to be the worse on record for 140 years.

The very scope of the Germans' advance, the depth of their armoured drives, and the manner they forced the pace threw a great strain on both the men and the machines they were using. Armies needed to be maintained and things needed to be replaced, but that was far from easy. The primitive Russian roads became quagmires in wet weather, and their railways ran on a different gauge of track to the rest of Europe.

Hitler and his sycophant planners had failed to appreciate the vastness of the country they were dealing with, and they had also underestimated the Soviet Unions ability to absorb massive casualties and replace them. German armoured units once came within twenty miles of Moscow, but that was as close as they ever got.

After a short spell at a converted former Holiday Camp at Clacton, Willy Froehlich found himself on the Isle of Man, a place in the Irish Sea midway between England and the Irish coast. The Churchill government took no risks when it came to the possibility of having a filth column develop in their midst and several thousand internees lived there, most of them entirely innocent of any pro-German activity but considered suspect because of their inconvenient German or Italian family background.

Like many others he found himself sharing an existing property in Port St Mary on the south side of the island. It was a women's camp. The regulations there were strict and rather cruel; the married women were only allowed to meet their husbands for a few hours each month, and no provision was made for the continuance of sexual relationships. But for Willy it was bearable. He lived quietly as a female but neither sought lovers nor paid attention to anyone's desire to know him intimately.

The accommodation was mostly requisitioned boarding houses and hotels and internees were given the same scale of food ration as everyone else in the population. The only real problem was how to fill in great stretches of time.

Willy ached. He was sad and angry, but that was all kept beneath a convincing show of serenity. He learnt to read the English language to benefit from the books that were passed around, and when needing a rest from that he spent time in long academic discussions with retired professional people or scrounged artist's materials in order to take up creative work.

He had arrived there as an angry and unhappy person, but over the weeks the anger departed and his sadness lifted. The war, its cruelty and inhumanity and its futility, he dismissed from his thoughts, and although there remained a certain mantle of melancholy over him, it became subdued and in time began to let through glimpses of his gentle and sensitive nature.

He never lost hope for better times. Hope like his arms and legs, was a structure of his body.

He'd been there some while when he received a brief note from Toby Troughton:

'Dear Willy, You were a good friend to Jimmy Hyde when we were in England. He spoke about you a lot and I think he was a little bit in love with you, so I think you should be told that dear old Jimmy is dead. We had a sharp scrap with some Panzers a couple of days ago and his tank was hit. When I had the chance I tried to pull him out from the hatch again like I did that time in France, but he'd copped it outright on this occasion.

We buried everyone together the following morning, all the bits we could find. Jerrie's and Brits all in one hole; no time to do anything else. It was strange the way all the bodies looked much the same. Brothers, but only in death! You and I knew what was going to happen to Jimmy one day; the silly beggar knew it himself but refused to quit. God Bless him. He was my best friend and I'm fairly cut-up about it. Hope you don't mind me sharing my grief with you.'

Willy folded the letter and placed it between the pages of the book he was reading. As a bookmark he knew he would keep it for a long time.

Early in 1942 his Category was reduced to 'B' when Sir Mortimer Brascombe MP took up his case and offered to stand as a guarantor. A 'B' category meant he was not libel to internment and was allowed to live once more on the mainland, but he was still subject to restriction. He was not allowed to travel more than five miles from his place of residence and he was forbidden to own a car, a camera or a large scale map.

Willy was met at the railway station in Nuttsford by Sir Mortimer driving the Daimler tourer. There was a brief peck on the cheek for him, and then Mortimer drove home at his best speed, which was slow, and by his own route, which was a very narrow country lane he could easily follow.

"You are looking very well." Willy told him.

"There are three stages in life," the man remarked cynically, "Youth, middle-age and 'You're looking very well.'" He gave a brief glance sideways. "Do you know about Jimmy?"

"Yes, Toby wrote to me."

"Bad business! His family are mortified. Jeremy de Vere travels a lot these days and he's rarely in England. He's in Cairo now someone told me, but he doesn't keep in touch."

"No, he's not one to keep in touch."

Mortimer gave him a guilty look. "I'm sorry I've ignored you for so long, Willy. It took me quite some time to accept the lose of Deborah and I've not been good at concentrating on other things. I hope you'll stay with me for a while. The house feels empty these days and I badly need the comfort of a friend."

"When you lose someone you love deeply it comes as a heavy blow." commiserated Willy solemnly, "I've suffered that experience myself, so I know. But the dance of life goes on. Deborah would not wish for you to be sad. She would want you to fall in love again."

"Love is a game for young people," Mortimer said in a tone that was obstinate and final, "From now on I intend to stick with growing cabbages in my spare time."

"Spare time!" murmured Willy glumly, "I've had too much of spare time lately. You have shown great kindness in bringing me back to the mainland but I will not be a millstone round your neck, as the English say. I will make arrangements to move as soon as I am able."

"Willy, I know you to be slight in body, but you're sometimes amazingly strong in your mind, and I know how independent you wish to be. But for once put yourself first. You need a break. You need time to relax and reflect, to pick up the threads of your life and weave them into a new pattern. You need breathing space! I want to give you that space and I shall feel hurt if you refuse."

They ended the journey in silence. A mournful, aging man and a failed spy, shell-shocked by events in their lives, raped by their emotions and stripped of any desire.

They had known one common theme; love, and it was their salvation. For although the human heart is selfish, they had learnt that a person may struggle against selfishness and learn humility; and because of that there was always hope that beauty lost can be recovered, and that which as been reviled can be redeemed.

And perhaps because of their enduring appreciation of love they had found their redemption, and also some kind of personal peace.

At a further tribunal later that month Willy was discharged as 'Category C', and fully liberated from the obligations of an internee, and at Sir Mortimer's behest the Ministry of Labour sent an official to help decide if he should be allowed a Work Permit.

The housekeeper, Mrs Whippet, regarded him without malice on his return and was in no way triumphant at his recent downfall. Having had her suspicions justified and, in her eyes, seen justice done, she became inoffensive and even helpful on occasions. Following a brief exchange between the two of them, it was she who brought to Sir Mortimer's notice that, while 'the girl' had no great objection to being gainfully employed, her most fervent desire was to complete her university degree course.

Sir Mortimer at once took on the father-figure role that had once been the province of Felix Haushofer and enquired on Willy's behalf for a place at Morden College in Oxford, a seat of learning that had catered for female students since 1908.

It was while they were awaiting a reply from Oxford that Dame Freda Lemming arrived at Brascombe Manor driving a 1936 baby Austin. She was the leading doyen of the Women's Voluntary Service in the area; a skinny, brisk, officious and rather snooty woman who expected events to revolve around the wave of her finger.

When Mortimer asked her to take tea she sat down rigidly in the uniform of her organisation; a grey-green outfit garnished with a ruby-red jumper and a felt hat. The WVS in Sir Mortimer's constituency had blossomed out of the Women's Institute, and some of the more caustic English referred to it as Widows, Virgins and Spinsters. Dame Freda was a perfect representative. Her white hair was cut into a kind of pageboy, with a fringe of bangs falling into a line so straight Willy thought they must have been trimmed with a ruler. The face under the hair might well have once been pretty, but the features were now lost in a mash of wrinkled skin. Mortimer joked afterwards that meeting her on a dark night would scare most Nazis to death.

"The Ministry of Defence are converting part of the disused army camp in Foxley Wood into a prisoner-of-war enclosure." declared the visitor. "Nothing to worry about we are assured, just a hundred men recovering from severe wounds who are unlikely to leap over the fences to murder us."

She stirred her tea and took a dainty sip, patting her mouth afterwards with a napkin. "They have asked me if I can initiate some recreational facility for them, a reading room perhaps. They are allowed no newspapers or radios, since its government policy not to allow them to know how the war progresses, but they are allowed books and magazines of a censored nature."

The old lady looked pointedly at Willy. She was rich and pampered, but she had given herself to the WVS as a patriotic sacrifice and she perched in her chair so stiff and ramrod straight he suspected that beneath her uniform she was corseted in impenetrable armour-plate from breast to groin.

"My ladies of the WVS are all good souls and have no wish to withhold small comforts even from vile Germans," she pushed her lips together and wrinkled her nose. "But I want to forestall problems that may arise through lack of communication, and I believe Miss Naarden has some understanding of their language."

Her eyes bored into Willy, her fingers now laced in her lap, her long fingernails flawlessly manicured and painted deep red. "How would you feel about dealing with the enemy, Miss Naarden? You don't have any overwhelming prejudice against Germans, do you?"

Willy seesawed his head. He pictured young men with bandaged eyes, and envisioned amputees struggling to get around on crutches. "I have prejudices against no living thing." he said.

And so began his brief attachment to the Women's Voluntary Service.

The POWs in Foxley Wood were housed in wooden buildings and Nissan huts cordoned off with fences of razor-wire, and fate brushed Willy Froehlich through the outer gate with an indefinable hand.

Coming down the steps from one of the huts he caught sight of a figure that seemed familiar, a man with his chin pushed up and who walked with an easy striding gait amid others who had lost arms and legs. Willy recalled that particular posture with startling vividness, it was indelible in his mind. It stood out like a mirage amid the other people around him.

"Eduard!" he breathed softly. The man didn't hear so he shouted aloud, "Eduard, Eduard Dietz."

At this the figure glanced in his direction and smiled a grim smile. And it was Eduard…his Eduard… back from the dead.

"Willy! My God, what are you doing in this place?" he exclaimed in obvious astonishment.

"It's a long story. Your sister told me you had been killed."

"The message sent to Celina would have read, 'Missing in Action, BELIEVED killed', which is not quite the same."

Willy was unable to resist checking out the figure of his long lost lover. He had never forgotten him, never completely absented him from his mind, and he was relieved to find he was whole, two arms, two legs and for all intents and purposes normal. But fate wasn't being as kind as it first appeared. When Eduard turned his head he displayed a black patch over his right eye and a searing red rippling scar entirely covered the side of his face. His right ear was totally missing.

Stunned, Willy stepped back. What had happened to the beautiful face of that beautiful young man he had once known?

"I'm not such a good looking catch anymore I fear." Eduard murmured grimly, "The British have some aircraft nearly as good as our own, and one of them put a couple of canon shots into my engine and set it burning. I couldn't bale out quick enough to avoid the flames completely, and I've spent a good deal of time being patched up. The doctors took a lot of trouble with me and did quite a good job I think."

After a moment of surprise and panic Willy decided the disfigurement didn't matter. A person could become used to that kind of thing and love could make a person blind to it. But there had to be love. Could things pick up with Eduard from where they'd left off such a long time ago?

He felt uneasy and unsure of himself. It had been over two years since they had last spoken together. "The English would say that a lot of water as passed under the bridge since we last saw each other." he said in a subdued voice.

The heart of Eduard Dietz beat quick and his feet shuffled awkwardly. He wanted Willy Froehlich again, needed him more than ever, not just physically but mentally and emotionally too. He had never met anyone else who was so artless and so willing to surrender himself to passion, and yet showed such patience and understanding too. But he was a proud man and he was determined that Willy should feel no obligation to him. It was unthinkable that he should insist on a continuance of their previous relationship and encumber the sweet thing with a disfigured version of his former self.

"Yes, A lot as happened," he said blandly, "Nothing stays the same. Things move on. The soldiers who guard us tell how the Japanese are in the war now, and the Americans have come in on the side of the British."

"People call the war of 1914-18 the Great War, but this one is even bigger."

"Yes, it's all on track to be the bloodiest conflict in human history, but it should not concern you or I any longer. I think we are both out of it now."

"You must have suffered a lot of pain. Your wounds, do they trouble you still?"

"They ache a little in bad weather, but I'm told that will rectify in time."

"You seem to think and speak just as you always did. Your ordeal doesn't appear to have affected you on the inside."

"No, no. I'm exactly the same in my head. They would need to put a canon shot in my brain to change me there."

"Where are you going now?"

"I'm on my way to sit in on a lecture about modern art in Hut 9. Dry as dust stuff I expect, but it will help to pass the time. You should come along. You would probably enjoy it."

"I'm on my way there now. I'm giving the lecture you see, so don't be cruel. It won't be as dry as dust stuff. Cubists and surrealists like Dali and Duchamp are fashionable now, and I know something about them."

"You, giving a lecture! But you never finished at university."

"Blame the war for that. There will be no more than a dozen people there to enthral with what I know, and I'm sure I can do it."

Eduard smiled. "Hut 9 will be crammed with art philistines just attending to admire the beautiful lecturer."

Suddenly a tidal wave of emotion rolled over Willy's senses, and he thrust out his hand. "Shall we go together?"

Eduard Dietz grasped the offered hand and gripped it like he was holding on to save his life. "Yes, together would be nice."

A ray of spring sunshine washed over Willy's face as he looked up, and in his eyes shone with all the elements that made him what he was: trustful, strength without arrogance, a desire to give and receive pleasure… and honesty so pure that deception, if ever contemplated, could never succeed.

"If you have time afterwards I can borrow a gramophone and play some music. I'll teach you how to jitterbug." he said.

"Jitter-what?"

"It's a new kind of dance. It's fun. You'll enjoy it."

"I'm sure I will. Whatever you enjoy, I will enjoy too."

Unhurried, taking their time and oblivious to the men who whooped and wolf-whistled around them, the two of them walked hand in hand towards Hut 9.

And in Berkeley Square a nightingale began to sing.

  

  

  

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