Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

7

1940 (II)

Erik von Ulrich spent the first three days of the Battle of France in a traffic jam.

Erik and his friend Hermann Braun were part of a medical unit attached to the 2nd Panzer Division. They saw no action as they passed through southern Belgium, just mile after mile of hills and trees. They were in the Ardennes Forest, they reckoned. They travelled on narrow roads, many not even paved, and a broken-down tank could cause a fifty-mile tailback in no time. They were stationary, stuck in queues, more than they were moving.

Hermann’s freckled face was set in a grimace of anxiety, and he muttered to Erik in an undertone no one else could hear: ‘This is stupid!’

‘You should know better than to say that – you were in the Hitler Youth,’ said Erik quietly. ‘Have faith in the Führer.’ But he was not angry enough to denounce his friend.

When they did move it was painfully uncomfortable. They sat on the hard wooden floor of an army truck as it bounced over tree roots and swerved around potholes. Erik longed for battle just so that he could get out of the damn truck.

Hermann said more loudly: ‘What are we doing here?’

Their boss, Dr Rainer Weiss, was sitting on a real seat beside the driver. ‘We are following the orders of the Führer, which are of course always correct.’ He said it straight-faced, but Erik felt sure he was being sarcastic. Major Weiss, a thin man with black hair and spectacles, often spoke cynically about the government and the military, but always in this enigmatic way, so that nothing could be proved against him. Anyway, the army could not afford to get rid of a good doctor at this point.

There were two other medical orderlies in the truck, both older than Erik and Hermann. One of them, Christof, had a better answer to Hermann’s question. ‘Perhaps the French aren’t expecting us to attack here, because the terrain is so difficult.’

His friend Manfred said: ‘We will have the advantage of surprise, and will encounter light defences.’

Weiss said sarcastically: ‘Thanks for that lesson in tactics, you two – most enlightening.’ But he did not say they were wrong.

Despite all that had happened there were still people who lacked faith in the Führer, to Erik’s amazement. His own family continued to close their eyes to the triumphs of the Nazis. His father, once a man of status and power, was now a pathetic figure. Instead of rejoicing in the conquest of barbarian Poland, he just moaned about ill-treatment of the Poles – which he must have heard about by listening illegally to a foreign radio station. Such behaviour could get them all into trouble – including Erik, who was guilty of not reporting it to the local Nazi block supervisor.

Erik’s mother was just as bad. Every now and again she disappeared with small packages of smoked fish or eggs. She said nothing in explanation, but Erik felt sure she was taking them to Frau Rothmann, whose Jewish husband was no longer allowed to practise as a doctor.

Despite that, Erik sent home a large slice of his army pay, knowing his parents would be cold and hungry if he did not. He hated their politics, but he loved them. They undoubtedly felt the same about his politics and him.

Erik’s sister, Carla, had wanted to be a doctor, like Erik, and had been furious when it was made clear to her that in today’s Germany this was a man’s job. She was now training as a nurse, a much more appropriate role for a German girl. And she, too, was supporting their parents with her meagre pay.

Erik and Hermann had wanted to join infantry units. Their idea of battle was to run at the enemy firing a rifle, and kill or be killed for the Fatherland. But they were not going to be killing anyone. Both had had one year of medical school, and such training was not to be wasted; so they were made medical orderlies.

The fourth day in Belgium, Monday 13 May, was like the first three until the afternoon. Above the roar and snarl of hundreds of tank and truck engines, they began to hear another, louder sound. Aircraft were flying low over their heads and, not too far away, dropping bombs on someone. Erik’s nose twitched with the smell of high explosives.

They stopped for their mid-afternoon break on high ground overlooking a meandering river valley. Major Weiss said the river was the Meuse, and they were west of the city of Sedan. So they had entered France. The planes of the Luftwaffe roared past them, one after another, diving towards the river a couple of miles away, bombing and strafing the scattered villages on the banks where, presumably, there were French defensive positions. Smoke rose from countless fires among the ruined cottages and farm buildings. The barrage was relentless, and Erik almost felt pity for anyone trapped in that inferno.

This was the first action he had seen. Before long he would be in it, and perhaps some young French soldier would look from a safe vantage point and feel sorry for the Germans being maimed and killed. The thought made Erik’s heart thud with excitement like a big drum in his chest.

Looking to the east, where the details of the landscape were obscured by distance, he could nevertheless see aircraft like specks, and columns of smoke rising through the air, and he realized that battle had been joined along several miles of this river.

As he watched, the air bombardment came to an end, the planes turning and heading north, waggling their wings to say ‘Good luck’ as they passed overhead on their way home.

Nearer to where Erik stood, on the flat plain leading to the river, the German tanks were going into action.

They were two miles from the enemy, but already the French artillery was shelling them from the town. Erik was surprised that so many gunners had survived the air bombardment. But fire flashed in the ruins, the boom of cannon was heard across the fields, and fountains of French soil spurted where the shells landed. Erik saw a tank explode after a direct hit, smoke and metal and body parts spewing out of the volcano’s mouth, and he felt sick.

But the French shelling did not stop the advance. The tanks crawled on relentlessly towards the stretch of river to the east of the town, which Weiss said was called Donchery. Behind them followed the infantry, in trucks and on foot.

Hermann said: ‘The air attack wasn’t enough. Where’s our artillery? We need them to take out the big guns in the town, and give our tanks and infantry a chance to cross the river and establish a bridgehead.’

Erik wanted to punch him to shut his whining mouth. They were about to go into action – they had to be positive now!

But Weiss said: ‘You’re right, Braun – but our artillery ammunition is gridlocked in the Ardennes Forest. We’ve only got forty-eight shells.’

A red-faced major came running past, yelling: ‘Move out! Move out!’

Major Weiss pointed and said: ‘We’ll set up our field dressing station over to the east, where you see that farmhouse.’ Erik made out a low grey roof about eight hundred yards from the river. ‘All right, get moving!’

They jumped into the truck and roared down the hill. When they reached level ground they swerved left along a farm track. Erik wondered what they would do with the family that presumably lived in the building that was about to become an army hospital. Throw them out of their home, he guessed, and shoot them if they made trouble. But where would they go? They were in the middle of a battlefield.

He need not have worried: they had already left.

The building was half a mile from the worst of the fighting, Erik observed. He guessed there was no point setting up a dressing station within range of enemy guns.

‘Stretcher bearers, get going,’ Weiss shouted. ‘By the time you get back here we’ll be ready.’

Erik and Hermann took a rolled-up stretcher and first aid kit from the medical supply truck and headed towards the battle. Christof and Manfred were just ahead of them, and a dozen of their comrades followed. This is it, Erik thought exultantly; this is our chance to be heroes. Who will keep his nerve under fire, and who will lose control and crawl into a hole and hide?

They ran across the fields to the river. It was a long jog, and it was going to seem longer coming back, carrying a wounded man.

They passed burned-out tanks but there were no survivors, and Erik averted his eyes from the scorched human remains smeared across the twisted metal. Shells fell around them, though not many: the river was lightly defended, and many of the guns had been taken out by the air attack. All the same, it was the first time in his life Erik had been shot at, and he felt the absurd, childish impulse to cover his eyes with his hands; but he kept running forward.

Then a shell landed right in front of them.

There was a terrific thud, and the earth shook as if a giant had stamped his foot. Christof and Manfred were hit directly, and Erik saw their bodies fly up into the air as if weightless. The blast threw Erik off his feet. As he lay on the ground, face up, he was showered with dirt from the explosion, but he was not injured. He struggled to his feet. Right in front of him were the mangled bodies of Christof and Manfred. Christof lay like a broken doll, as if all his limbs were disjointed. Manfred’s head had somehow been severed from his body and lay next to his booted feet.

Erik was paralysed with horror. In medical school he had not had to deal with maimed and bleeding bodies. He was used to corpses in anatomy class – they had had one between two students, and he and Hermann had shared the cadaver of a shrivelled old woman – and he had watched living people being cut open on the operating table. But none of that had prepared him for this.

He wanted nothing but to run away.

He turned around. His mind was blank of every thought but fear. He started to walk back the way they had come, towards the forest, away from the battle, taking long, determined strides.

Hermann saved him. He stood in front of Erik and said: ‘Where are you going? Don’t be a fool!’ Erik kept moving, and tried to walk past him. Hermann punched him in the stomach, really hard, and Erik folded over and fell to his knees.

‘Don’t run away!’ Hermann said urgently. ‘You’ll be shot for desertion! Pull yourself together!’

While Erik was trying to catch his breath he came to his senses. He could not run away, he must not desert, he had to stay here, he realized. Slowly his willpower overcame his terror. Eventually he got to his feet.

Hermann looked at him warily.

‘Sorry,’ said Erik. ‘I panicked. I’m all right now.’

‘Then pick up the stretcher and keep going.’

Erik picked up the rolled stretcher, balanced it on his shoulder, turned around and ran on.

Closer to the river, Erik and Hermann found themselves among infantry. Some were manhandling inflated rubber dinghies out of the backs of trucks and carrying them to the water’s edge, while the tanks tried to cover them by firing at the French defences. But Erik, rapidly recovering his mental powers, soon saw that it was a losing battle: the French were behind walls and inside buildings, while the German infantry were exposed on the bank of the river. As soon as they got a dinghy into the water, it came under intense machine-gun fire.

Upstream, the river turned a right-angled bend, so the infantry could not move out of range of the French without retreating a long distance.

There were already many dead and wounded men on the ground.

‘Let’s pick this one up,’ Hermann said decisively, and Erik bent to the task. They unrolled their stretcher on the ground next to a groaning infantryman. Erik gave him water from a flask, as he had learned in training. The man seemed to have numerous superficial wounds on his face and one limp arm. Erik guessed he had been hit by machine-gun fire that luckily had missed his vital areas. He saw no gush of blood, so they did not attempt to staunch his wounds. They lifted the man on to the stretcher, picked it up, and began to jog back to the dressing station.

The wounded man cried out in agony as they moved; then, when they stopped, he shouted: ‘Keep going, keep going!’ and gritted his teeth.

Carrying a man on a stretcher was not as easy as it might seem. Erik thought his arms would fall off when they were only halfway. But he could see that the patient was in greater pain by far, and he just kept running.

Shells no longer fell around them, he noticed gratefully. The French were concentrating all their fire on the river bank, trying to prevent the Germans crossing.

At last Erik and Hermann reached the farmhouse with their burden. Weiss had the place organized, the rooms cleared of superfluous furniture, places marked on the floor for patients, the kitchen table set up for operations. He showed Erik and Hermann where to put the wounded man. Then he sent them back for another.

The run back to the river was easier. They were unburdened and going slightly downhill. As they approached the bank Erik wondered fearfully whether he would panic again.

He saw with trepidation that the battle was going badly. There were several deflated vessels in midstream and many more bodies on the bank – and still no Germans on the far side.

Hermann said: ‘This is a catastrophe. We should have waited for our artillery!’ His voice was shrill.

Erik said: ‘Then we would have lost the advantage of surprise, and the French would have had time to bring up reinforcements. There would have been no point in that long trek through the Ardennes.’

‘Well, this isn’t working,’ said Hermann.

Deep in his heart Erik was beginning to wonder whether the Führer’s plans really were infallible. The thought undermined his resolution and threatened to throw him completely off balance. Fortunately there was no more time for reflection. They stopped beside a man with most of one leg blown off. He was about their age, twenty, with pale, freckled skin and copper-red hair. His right leg ended at mid-thigh in a ragged stump. Amazingly, he was conscious, and he stared at them as if they were angels of mercy.

Erik found the pressure point in his groin and stopped the bleeding while Hermann got out a tourniquet and applied it. Then they put him on the stretcher and began the run back.

Hermann was a loyal German, but he sometimes allowed negative feelings to get the better of him. If Erik ever had such feelings he was careful not to voice them. That way he did not lower anyone else’s morale – and he stayed out of trouble.

But he could not help thinking. It seemed the approach through the Ardennes had not given the Germans the walkover victory they had expected. The Meuse defences were light but the French were fighting back fiercely. Surely, he thought, his first experience of battle was not going to destroy his faith in his Führer? The idea made him feel panicky.

He wondered whether the German forces farther east were faring any better. The 1st Panzer and the 10th Panzer had been alongside Erik’s division, the 2nd, as they approached the border, and it must be they who were attacking upstream.

His arm muscles were now in constant agony.

They arrived back at the dressing station for the second time. The place was now frantically busy, the floor crowded with men groaning and crying, bloody bandages everywhere, Weiss and his assistants moving quickly from one maimed body to the next. Erik had never imagined there could be so much suffering in one small place. Somehow, when the Führer spoke of war, Erik never thought of this kind of thing.

Then he noticed that his own patient’s eyes were closed.

Major Weiss felt for a pulse then said harshly. ‘Put him in the barn – and for fuck’s sake don’t waste time bringing me corpses!’

Erik could have cried with frustration, and with the pain in his arms, which was beginning to afflict his legs, too.

They put the body in the barn, and saw that there were already a dozen dead young men there.

This was worse than anything he had envisaged. When he had thought about battle he had foreseen courage in the face of danger, stoicism in suffering, heroism in adversity. What he saw now was agony, screaming, blind terror, broken bodies, and a complete lack of faith in the wisdom of the mission.

They went back again to the river.

The sun was low in the sky, now, and something had changed on the battlefield. The French defenders in Donchery were being shelled from the far side of the river. Erik guessed that farther upstream the 1st Panzers had had better luck, and had secured a bridgehead on the south bank; and now they were coming to the aid of the comrades on their flanks. Clearly they had not lost their ammunition in the forest.

Heartened, Erik and Hermann rescued another wounded man. When they got back to the dressing station this time they were given tin bowls of a tasty soup. Resting for ten minutes while he drank the soup made Erik want to lie down and go to sleep for the night. It took a mighty effort to stand up and pick up his end of the stretcher and jog back to the battlefield.

Now they saw a different scene. Tanks were crossing the river on rafts. The Germans on the far side were coming under heavy fire, but they were shooting back, with the help of reinforcements from the 1st Panzers.

Erik saw that his side had a chance of winning their objective after all. He was heartened, and he began to feel ashamed that he had doubted the Führer.

He and Hermann kept on retrieving the wounded, hour after hour, until they forgot what it was like to be free from pain in their arms and legs. Some of their charges were unconscious; some thanked them, some cursed them; many just screamed; some lived and some died.

By eight o’clock that evening there was a German bridgehead on the far side of the river, and by ten it was secure.

The fighting came to an end at nightfall. Erik and Hermann continued to sweep the battlefield for wounded men. They brought back the last one at midnight. Then they lay down under a tree and fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion.

Next day Erik and Hermann and the rest of the 2nd Panzers turned west and broke through what remained of the French defences.

Two days later they were fifty miles away, at the river Oise, and moving fast through undefended territory.

By 20 May, a week after emerging unexpectedly from the Ardennes Forest, they had reached the coast of the English Channel.

Major Weiss explained their achievement to Erik and Hermann. ‘Our attack on Belgium was a feint, you see. Its purpose was to draw the French and British into a trap. We Panzer divisions formed the jaws of the trap, and now we have them between our teeth. Much of the French army and nearly all of the British Expeditionary Force are in Belgium, encircled by the German army. They are cut off from supplies and reinforcements, helpless – and defeated.’

Erik said triumphantly: ‘This was the Führer’s plan all along!’

‘Yes,’ said Weiss, and, as ever, Erik could not tell whether he was sincere. ‘No one thinks like the Führer!’

(ii)

Lloyd Williams was in a football stadium somewhere between Calais and Paris. With him were another thousand or more British prisoners of war. They had no shelter from the blazing June sun, but they were grateful for the warm nights as they had no blankets. There were no toilets and no water for washing.

Lloyd was digging a hole with his hands. He had organized some of the Welsh miners to make latrines at one end of the soccer pitch, and he was working alongside them to show willing. Other men joined in, having nothing else to do, and soon there were a hundred or so helping. When a guard strolled over to see what was going on, Lloyd explained.

‘You speak good German,’ said the guard amiably. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Lloyd.’

‘I’m Dieter.’

Lloyd decided to exploit this small expression of friendliness. ‘We could dig faster if we had tools.’

‘What’s the hurry?’

‘Better hygiene would benefit you as well as us.’

Dieter shrugged and went away.

Lloyd felt awkwardly unheroic. He had seen no fighting. The Welsh Rifles had gone to France as reserves, to relieve other units in what was expected to be a long battle. But it had taken the Germans only ten days to defeat the bulk of the Allied army. Many of the defeated British troops had then been evacuated from Calais and Dunkirk, but thousands had missed the boat, and Lloyd was among them.

Presumably the Germans were now pushing south. As far as he knew, the French were still fighting; but their best troops had been annihilated in Belgium, and there was a triumphant look about the German guards, as if they knew victory was assured.

Lloyd was a prisoner of war, but how long would he remain so? At this point there must be powerful pressure on the British government to make peace. Churchill would never do so, but he was a maverick, different from all other politicians, and he could be deposed. Men such as Lord Halifax would have little difficulty signing a peace treaty with the Nazis. The same was true, Lloyd thought bitterly, of the junior Foreign Office minister Earl Fitzherbert, whom he now shamefully knew to be his father.

If peace came soon, his time as a prisoner of war could be short. He might spend all of it here, in this French arena. He would go home scrawny and sunburnt, but otherwise whole.

But if the British fought on, it would be a different matter. The last war had continued more than four years. Lloyd could not bear the thought of wasting four years of his life in a prisoner-of-war camp. To avoid that, he decided, he would try to escape.

Dieter reappeared carrying half a dozen spades.

Lloyd gave them to the strongest men, and the work went faster.

At some point the prisoners would have to be moved to a permanent camp. That would be the time to make a run for it. Based on experience in Spain, Lloyd guessed that the army would not prioritize the guarding of prisoners. If one tried to get away he might succeed, or he might be shot dead; either way, it was one less mouth to feed.

They spent the rest of the day completing the latrines. Apart from the improvement in hygiene, this project had boosted morale, and Lloyd lay awake that night, looking at the stars, trying to think of other communal activities he might organize. He decided on a grand athletics contest, a prison-camp Olympic Games.

But he did not have the chance to put this into practice, for the next morning they were marched away.

At first he was not sure of the direction they were taking, but before long they got on to a Route Napoléon two-lane road and began to go steadily east. In all probability, Lloyd thought, they were intended to walk all the way to Germany.

Once there, he knew, escape would be much more difficult. He had to seize this opportunity. And the sooner the better. He was scared – those guards had guns – but determined.

There was not much motor traffic other than the occasional German staff car, but the road was busy with people on foot, heading in the opposite direction. With their possessions in handcarts and wheelbarrows, some driving their livestock ahead of them, they were clearly refugees whose homes had been destroyed in battle. That was a heartening sign, Lloyd told himself. An escaped prisoner might hide himself among them.

The prisoners were lightly guarded. There were only ten Germans in charge of this moving column of a thousand men. The guards had one car and a motorcycle; the rest were on foot and on civilian bicycles which they must have commandeered from the locals.

All the same, escape seemed hopeless at first. There were no English-style hedgerows to provide cover, and the ditches were too shallow to hide in. A man running away would provide an easy target for a competent rifleman.

Then they entered a village. Here it was a little harder for the guards to keep an eye on everyone. Local men and women stood at the edges of the column, staring at the prisoners. A small flock of sheep got mixed up with them. There were cottages and shops beside the road. Lloyd watched hopefully for his opportunity. He needed a place to hide instantly, an open door or a passage between houses or a bush to hide behind. And he needed to be passing it at a moment when none of the guards was in sight.

In a couple of minutes he had left the village behind without spotting his opportunity.

He felt annoyed, and told himself to be patient. There would be more chances. It was a long way to Germany. On the other hand, with every day that passed the Germans would tighten their grip on conquered territory, improve their organization, impose curfews and passes and checkpoints, stop the movement of refugees. Being on the run would be easier at first, harder as time went on.

It was hot, and he took off his uniform jacket and tie. He would get rid of them as soon as he could. Close up he probably still looked like a British soldier, in his khaki trousers and shirt, but at a distance he hoped he would not be so conspicuous.

They passed through two more villages then came to a small town. This should present some possible escape routes, Lloyd thought nervously. He realized that a part of him hoped he would not see a good opportunity, would not have to put himself in danger of those rifles. Was he getting accustomed to captivity already? It was too easy to continue marching, footsore but safe. He had to snap out of it.

The road through the town was unfortunately broad. The column kept to the middle of the street, leaving wide aisles either side that would have to be crossed before an escaper could find concealment. Some shops were closed and a few buildings were boarded up, but Lloyd could see promising-looking alleys, cafés with open doors, a church – but he could not get to any of them unobserved.

He studied the faces of the townspeople as they stared at the passing prisoners. Were they sympathetic? Would they remember that these men had fought for France? Or would they be understandably terrified of the Germans, and refuse to put themselves in danger? Half and half, probably. Some would risk their lives to help, others would hand him over to the Germans in a heartbeat. And he would not be able to tell the difference until it was too late.

They reached the town centre. I’ve lost half my opportunities already, he told himself. I have to act.

Up ahead he saw a crossroads. An oncoming line of traffic was waiting to turn left, its way blocked by the marching men. Lloyd saw a civilian pickup truck in the queue. Dusty and battered, it looked as if it might belong to a builder or a road mender. The back was open, but Lloyd could not see inside, for its sides were high.

He thought he might be able to pull himself up the side and scramble over the edge into the truck.

Once inside he could not be seen by anyone standing or walking on the street, nor by the guards on their bikes. But he would be plainly visible to people looking out of the upstairs windows of the buildings that lined the streets. Would they betray him?

He came closer to the truck.

He looked back. The nearest guard was two hundred yards behind.

He looked ahead. A guard on a bicycle was twenty yards in front.

He said to the man beside him: ‘Hold this for me, would you?’ and gave him his jacket.

He drew level with the front of the truck. At the wheel was a bored-looking man in overalls and a beret with a cigarette dangling from his lip. Lloyd passed him. Then he was level with the side of the truck. There was no time to check the guards again.

Without breaking step, Lloyd put both hands on the side of the truck, heaved himself up, threw one leg over then the other, and fell inside, hitting the bed of the truck with a crash that seemed terribly loud despite the tramp of a thousand pairs of feet. He flattened himself immediately. He lay still, listening for a clamour of shouted German, the roar of a motorcycle approaching, the crack of a rifle shot.

He heard the irregular snore of the truck’s engine, the stamp and shuffle of the prisoners’ feet, the background noises of a small town’s traffic and people. Had he got away with it?

He looked around him, keeping his head low. In the truck with him were buckets, planks, a ladder and a wheelbarrow. He had been hoping for a few sacks with which to cover himself, but there were none.

He heard a motorcycle. It seemed to come to a halt nearby. Then, a few inches from his head, someone spoke French with a strong German accent. ‘Where are you going?’ A guard was talking to the truck driver, Lloyd figured with a racing heart. Would the guard try to look into the back?

He heard the driver reply, an indignant stream of fast French that Lloyd could not decipher. The German soldier almost certainly could not understand it either. He asked the question again.

Looking up, Lloyd saw two women at a high window overlooking the street. They were staring at him, mouths open in surprise. One was pointing, her arm sticking out through the open window.

Lloyd tried to catch her eye. Lying still, he moved one hand from side to side in a gesture that meant: ‘No.’

She got the message. She withdrew her arm suddenly and covered her mouth with her hand as if realizing, with horror, that her pointing could be a sentence of death.

Lloyd wanted both women to move away from the window, but that was too much to hope for, and they continued to stare.

Then the motorcycle guard seemed to decide not to pursue his enquiry for, a moment later, the motorcycle roared away.

The sound of feet receded. The body of prisoners had passed. Was Lloyd free?

There was a crash of gears and the truck moved. Lloyd felt it turn the corner and pick up speed. He lay still, too scared to move.

He watched the tops of buildings pass by, alert in case anyone else should spot him, though he did not know what he would do if it happened. Every second was taking him away from the guards, he told himself encouragingly.

To his disappointment, the truck came to a halt quite soon. The engine was turned off, then the driver’s door opened and slammed shut. Then nothing. Lloyd lay still for a while, but the driver did not return.

Lloyd looked at the sky. The sun was high: it must be after midday. The driver was probably having lunch.

The trouble was, Lloyd continued to be visible from high windows on both sides of the street. If he remained where he was he would be noticed sooner or later. And then there was no telling what might happen.

He saw a curtain twitch in an attic, and that decided him.

He stood up and looked over the side. A man in a business suit walking along the pavement stared in curiosity but did not stop.

Lloyd scrambled over the side of the truck and dropped to the ground. He found himself outside a bar-restaurant. No doubt that was where the driver had gone. To Lloyd’s horror there were two men in German army uniforms sitting at a window table with glasses of beer in their hands. By a miracle they did not look at Lloyd.

He walked quickly away.

He looked around alertly as he walked. Everyone he passed stared at him: they knew exactly what he was. One woman screamed and ran away. He realized he needed to change his khaki shirt and trousers for something more French in the next few minutes.

A young man took him by the arm. ‘Come with me,’ he said in English with a heavy accent. ‘I will ’elp you ’ide.’

He turned down a side street. Lloyd had no reason to trust this man, but he had to make a split-second decision, and he went along.

‘This way,’ the young man said, and steered Lloyd into a small house.

In a bare kitchen was a young woman with a baby. The young man introduced himself as Maurice, the woman as his wife, Marcelle, and the baby as Simone.

Lloyd allowed himself a moment of grateful relief. He had escaped from the Germans! He was still in danger, but he was off the streets and in a friendly house.

The stiffly correct French Lloyd had learned in school and at Cambridge had become more colloquial during his escape from Spain, and especially in the two weeks he spent picking grapes in Bordeaux. ‘You’re very kind,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

Maurice replied in French, evidently relieved not to have to speak English. ‘I guess you’d like something to eat.’

‘Very much.’

Marcelle rapidly cut several slices off a long loaf and put them on the table with a round of cheese and a wine bottle with no label. Lloyd sat down and tucked in ravenously.

‘I’ll give you some old clothes,’ said Maurice. ‘But also, you must try to walk differently. You were striding along looking all around you, so alert and interested, you might as well have a sign around your neck saying “Visitor from England”. Better to shuffle with your eyes on the ground.’

With his mouth full of bread and cheese Lloyd said: ‘I’ll remember that.’

There was a small shelf of books including French translations of Marx and Lenin. Maurice noticed Lloyd looking at them and said: ‘I was a Communist – until the Hitler-Stalin pact. Now – it’s finished.’ He made a swift cutting-off gesture with his hand. ‘All the same, we have to defeat Fascism.’

‘I was in Spain,’ said Lloyd. ‘Before that, I believed in a united front of all left parties. Not any more.’

Simone cried. Marcelle lifted a large breast out of her loose dress and began to feed the baby. French women were more relaxed about this than the prudish British, Lloyd remembered.

When he had eaten, Maurice took him upstairs. From a wardrobe that had very little in it he took a pair of dark-blue overalls, a light-blue shirt, underwear and socks, all worn but clean. The kindness of this evidently poor man overwhelmed Lloyd, and he had no idea how to say thank you.

‘Just leave your army clothes on the floor,’ Maurice said. ‘I’ll burn them.’

Lloyd would have liked a wash, but there was no bathroom. He guessed it was in the back yard.

He put on the fresh clothes and studied his reflection in a mirror hanging on the wall. French blue suited him better than army khaki, but he still looked British.

He went back downstairs.

Marcelle was burping the baby. ‘Hat,’ she said.

Maurice produced a typical French beret, dark blue, and Lloyd put it on.

Then Maurice looked anxiously at Lloyd’s stout black leather British army boots, dusty but unmistakably good quality. ‘They give you away,’ he said.

Lloyd did not want to give up his boots. He had a long way to walk. ‘Perhaps we can make them look older?’ he said.

Maurice looked doubtful. ‘How?’

‘Do you have a sharp knife?’

Maurice took a clasp knife from his pocket.

Lloyd took his boots off. He cut holes in the toecaps, then slashed the ankles. He removed the laces and re-threaded them untidily. Now they looked like something a down-and-out would wear, but they still fit well and had thick soles that would last many miles.

Maurice said: ‘Where will you go?’

‘I have two options,’ Lloyd said. ‘I can head north, to the coast, and hope to persuade a fisherman to take me across the English Channel. Or I can go south-west, across the border into Spain.’ Spain was neutral, and still had British consuls in major cities. ‘I know the Spanish route – I’ve travelled it twice.’

‘The Channel is a lot nearer than Spain,’ Maurice said. ‘But I think the Germans will close all the ports and harbours.’

‘Where’s the front line?’

‘The Germans have taken Paris.’

Lloyd suffered a moment of shock. Paris had fallen already!

‘The French government has moved to Bordeaux.’ Maurice shrugged. ‘But we are beaten. Nothing can save France now.’

‘All Europe will be Fascist,’ Lloyd said.

‘Except for Britain. So you must go home.’

Lloyd mused. North or south-west? He could not tell which would be better.

Maurice said: ‘I have a friend, a former Communist, who sells cattle feed to farmers. I happen to know he’s delivering this afternoon to a place south-west of here. If you decide to go to Spain, he could take you twenty miles.’

That helped Lloyd make up his mind. ‘I’ll go with him,’ he said.

(iii)

Daisy had been on a long journey that had brought her around in a circle.

When Lloyd was sent to France she was heartbroken. She had missed her chance of telling him she loved him – she had not even kissed him!

And now there might never be another opportunity. He was reported missing in action after Dunkirk. That meant his body had not been found and identified, but neither was he registered as a prisoner of war. Most likely he was dead, blown up into unidentifiable fragments by a shell, or perhaps lying unmarked beneath the debris of a destroyed farmhouse. She cried for days.

For another month she moped about Tŷ Gwyn, hoping to hear more, but no further news came. Then she began to feel guilty. There were many women as badly off as she or worse. Some had to face the prospect of raising two or three children with no man to support the family. She had no right to feel sorry for herself just because the man with whom she had been contemplating an adulterous affair was missing.

She had to pull herself together and do something positive. Fate did not intend her to be with Lloyd, that was clear. She already had a husband, one who was risking his life every day. It was her duty, she told herself, to take care of Boy.

She returned to London. She opened up the Mayfair house, as best she could with limited servants, and made it into a pleasant home for Boy to come to when on leave.

She needed to forget Lloyd and be a good wife. Perhaps she would even get pregnant again.

Many women signed up for war work, joining the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, or doing agricultural labour with the Women’s Land Army. Others worked for no pay in the Women’s Voluntary Service for Air Raid Precautions. But there was not enough for most such women to do, and The Times published letters to the editor complaining that air raid precautions were a waste of money.

The war in Continental Europe appeared to be over. Germany had won. Europe was Fascist from Poland to Sicily and from Hungary to Portugal. There was no fighting anywhere. Rumours said the British government had discussed peace terms.

But Churchill did not make peace with Hitler, and that summer the Battle of Britain began.

At first, civilians were not much affected. Church bells were silenced, their peal reserved to warn of the expected German invasion. Daisy followed government instructions and placed buckets of sand and water on every landing in the house, for firefighting, but they were not needed. The Luftwaffe bombed harbours, hoping to cut Britain’s supply lines. Then they started on air bases, trying to destroy the Royal Air Force. Boy was flying a Spitfire, engaging enemy aircraft in sky battles that were watched by open-mouthed farmers in Kent and Sussex. In a rare letter home he said proudly that he had shot down three German planes. He had no leave for weeks on end, and Daisy sat alone in the house she filled with flowers for him.

At last, on the morning of Saturday 7 September, Boy showed up with a weekend pass. The weather was glorious, hot and sunny, a late spell of warmth that people called an Indian summer.

As it happened, that was the day the Luftwaffe changed their tactics.

Daisy kissed her husband and made sure there were clean shirts and fresh underwear in his dressing room.

From what other women said, she believed that fighting men on leave wanted sex, booze, and decent food, in that order.

Boy and she had not slept together since the miscarriage. This would be the first time. She felt guilty that she did not really relish the prospect. But she certainly would not refuse to do her duty.

She half expected him to tumble her into bed the minute he arrived, but he was not that desperate. He took off his uniform, bathed and washed his hair, and dressed again in a civilian suit. Daisy ordered the cook to spare no ration coupons in the preparation of a good lunch, and Boy brought up from the cellar one of his oldest bottles of claret.

She was surprised and hurt after lunch when he said: ‘I’m going out for a few hours. I’ll be back for dinner.’

She wanted to be a good wife, but not a passive one. ‘This is your first leave for months!’ she protested. ‘Where the heck are you going?’

‘To look at a horse.’

That was all right. ‘Oh, fine – I’ll come with you.’

‘No, don’t. If I show up with a woman in tow, they’ll think I’m a softie and put the price up.’

She could not hide her disappointment. ‘I always dreamed this would be something we did together – buying and breeding racehorses.’

‘It’s not really a woman’s world.’

‘Oh, stink on that!’ she said indignantly. ‘I know as much about horseflesh as you do.’

He looked irritated. ‘Perhaps you do, but I still don’t want you hanging around when I’m bargaining with these blighters – and that’s final.’

She gave in. ‘As you please,’ she said, and she left the dining room.

Her instinct told her that he was lying. Fighting men on leave did not think about buying horses. She intended to find out what he was up to. Even heroes had to be true to their wives.

In her room she put on trousers and boots. As Boy went down the main staircase to the front door, she ran down the back stairs, through the kitchen, across the yard and into the old stables. There she put on a leather jacket, goggles and a crash helmet. She opened the garage door into the mews and wheeled out her motorcycle, a Triumph Tiger 100, so called because its top speed was one hundred miles per hour. She kicked it into life and drove out of the mews effortlessly.

She had taken quickly to motorcycling when petrol rationing was introduced back in September 1939. It was like bicycling, but easier. She loved the freedom and independence it gave her.

She turned into the street just in time to see Boy’s cream-coloured Bentley Airline disappear around the next corner.

She followed.

He drove across Trafalgar Square and through the theatre district. Daisy stayed a discreet distance behind, not wanting to be conspicuous. There was still plenty of traffic in Central London, where there were hundreds of cars on official business. In addition, the petrol ration for private vehicles was not unreasonably small, especially for people who only wanted to drive around town.

Boy continued east, through the financial district. There was little traffic here on a Saturday afternoon, and Daisy became more concerned about being noticed. But she was not easily recognizable in her goggles and helmet, and Boy was paying little attention to his surroundings, driving with the window open, smoking a cigar.

He headed into Aldgate, and Daisy had a dreadful feeling she knew why.

He turned into one of the East End’s less squalid streets and parked outside a pleasant eighteenth-century house. There were no stables in sight: this was not a place where racehorses were bought and sold. So much for his story.

Daisy stopped her motorcycle at the end of the street and watched. Boy got out of the car and slammed the door. He did not look around, or study the house numbers; clearly he had been here before and knew exactly where he was going. Walking with a jaunty air, cigar in his mouth, he went up to the front door and opened it with a key.

Daisy wanted to cry.

Boy disappeared into the house.

Somewhere to the east, there was an explosion.

Daisy looked in that direction and saw planes in the sky. Had the Germans chosen today to begin bombing London?

If so, she did not care. She was not going to let Boy enjoy his infidelity in peace. She drove up to the house and parked her bike behind his car. She took off her helmet and goggles, marched up to the front door of the house, and knocked.

She heard another explosion, this one closer; then the air raid sirens began their mournful song.

The door came open a crack, and she shoved it hard. A young woman in a maid’s black dress cried out and staggered backwards, and Daisy walked in. She slammed the door behind her. She was in the hallway of a standard middle-class London house, but it was decorated in exotic fashion with Oriental rugs, heavy curtains, and a painting of naked women in a bathhouse.

She threw open the nearest door and stepped into the front parlour. It was dimly lit, velvet drapes keeping out the sunlight. There were three people in the room. Standing up, staring at her in shock, was a woman of about forty, dressed in a loose silk wrap, but carefully made up with bright red lipstick: the mother, she assumed. Behind her, sitting on a couch, was a girl of about sixteen wearing only underwear and stockings, smoking a cigarette. Next to the girl sat Boy, his hand on her thigh above the top of the stocking. He snatched his hand away guiltily. It was a ludicrous gesture, as if taking his hand off her could make this tableau look innocent.

Daisy fought back tears. ‘You promised me you would give them up!’ she said. She wanted to be coldly angry, like the avenging angel, but she could hear that her voice was just wounded and sad.

Boy reddened and looked panicked. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

The older woman said: ‘Oh, fuck, it’s his wife.’

Her name was Pearl, Daisy recalled, and the daughter was Joanie. How dreadful that she should know the names of such women.

The maid came to the door of the room and said: ‘I didn’t let the bitch in, she just shoved past me!’

Daisy said to Boy: ‘I tried so hard to make our home beautiful and welcoming for you – and yet you prefer this!’

He started to say something, but had trouble finding his words. He sputtered incoherently for a moment or two. Then a big explosion nearby shook the floor and rattled the windows.

The maid said: ‘Are you all deaf? There’s a fucking air raid on!’ No one looked at her. ‘I’m going down the basement,’ she said, and she disappeared.

They all needed to seek shelter. But Daisy had something to say to Boy before she left. ‘Don’t come to my bed again, ever, please. I refuse to be contaminated.’

The girl on the couch – Joanie – said: ‘It’s only a bit of fun, love. Why don’t you join in? You might like it.’

Pearl, the older one, looked Daisy up and down. ‘She’s got a nice little figure.’

Daisy realized they would humiliate her further if she gave them the chance. Ignoring them, she spoke to Boy. ‘You’ve made your choice,’ she said. ‘And I’ve made my decision.’ She left the room, holding her head high even though she felt debased and spurned.

She heard Boy said: ‘Oh, damn, what a mess.’

A mess? she thought. Is that all?

She went out of the front door.

Then she looked up.

The sky was full of planes.

The sight made her shake with fear. They were high, about ten thousand feet, but all the same they seemed to block the sun. There were hundreds of them, fat bombers and waspish fighters, a fleet that seemed twenty miles wide. To the east, in the direction of the docks and Woolwich Arsenal, palls of smoke rose from the ground where the bombs were landing. The explosions ran together into a continuous tidal roar like an angry sea.

Daisy recalled that Hitler had made a speech in the German parliament, just last Wednesday, ranting about the wickedness of RAF bombing raids on Berlin, and threatening to erase British cities in retaliation. Apparently he had meant it. They were intending to flatten London.

This was already the worst day of Daisy’s life. Now she realized it might be the last.

But she could not bring herself to go back into that house and share their basement shelter. She had to get away. She needed to be at home where she could cry in private.

Hurriedly, she put on helmet and goggles. She resisted an irrational but nonetheless powerful impulse to throw herself behind the nearest wall. She jumped on her motorcycle and drove away.

She did not get far.

Two streets away, a bomb landed on a house directly in her line of vision, and she braked suddenly. She saw the hole in the roof, felt the thump of the explosion, and a few seconds later saw flames inside, as if kerosene from a heater had spilled and caught fire. A moment later, a girl of about twelve came out, screaming, with her hair on fire, and ran straight at Daisy.

Daisy jumped off the bike, pulled off her leather jacket, and used it to cover the girl’s head, wrapping it tightly over the hair, denying oxygen to the flames.

The screaming stopped. Daisy removed the jacket. The girl was sobbing. She was no longer in agony, but she was bald.

Daisy looked up and down the street. A man wearing a steel helmet and an ARP armband came running up carrying a tin case with a white First Aid cross painted on its side.

The girl looked at Daisy, opened her mouth, and screamed: ‘My mother’s in there!’

The ARP warden said: ‘Calm down, love, let’s have a look at you.’

Daisy left the girl with him and ran to the front door of the building. It seemed to be an old house subdivided into cheap apartments. The upper floors were burning but she was able to enter the hall. Taking a guess, she ran to the back and found herself in a kitchen. There she saw a woman unconscious on the floor and a toddler in a cot. She picked up the child and ran out again.

The girl with the burned hair yelled: ‘That’s my sister!’

Daisy thrust the toddler into the girl’s arms and ran back inside.

The unconscious woman was too heavy for her to lift. Daisy got behind her, raised her to a sitting position, took hold of her under the arms, and dragged her across the kitchen floor and through the hallway into the street.

An ambulance had arrived, a converted saloon car, its rear bodywork replaced by a canvas roof with a back opening. The ARP warden was helping the burned girl into the vehicle. The driver came running over to Daisy. Between them, they lifted the mother into the ambulance.

The driver said to Daisy: ‘Is there anyone else inside?’

‘I don’t know!’

He ran into the hall. At that moment the entire building sagged. The burning upper storeys crashed through to the ground floor. The ambulance driver disappeared into an inferno.

Daisy heard herself scream.

She covered her mouth with her hand and stared into the flames, searching for him, even though she could not have helped him, and it would have been suicide to try.

The ARP warden said: ‘Oh, my God, Alf’s been killed.’

There was another explosion as a bomb landed a hundred yards along the street.

The warden said: ‘Now I’ve got no driver, and I can’t leave the scene.’ He looked up and down the street. There were little knots of people standing outside some of the houses, but most were probably in shelters.

Daisy said: ‘I’ll drive it. Where should I go?’

‘Can you drive?’

Most British women could not drive: it was still a man’s job here. ‘Don’t ask stupid questions,’ Daisy said. ‘Where am I taking the ambulance?’

‘St Bart’s. Do you know where it is?’

‘Of course.’ St Bartholomew’s was one of the biggest hospitals in London, and Daisy had been living here for four years. ‘West Smithfield,’ she added, to make sure he believed her.

‘Emergency ward is around the back.’

‘I’ll find it.’ She jumped in. The engine was still running.

The warden shouted: ‘What’s your name?’

‘Daisy Fitzherbert. What’s yours?’

‘Nobby Clarke. Take care of my ambulance.’

The car had a standard gearshift with a clutch. Daisy put it into first and drove off.

The planes continued to roar overhead, and the bombs fell relentlessly. Daisy was desperate to get the injured people to hospital, and St Bart’s was not much more than a mile away, but the journey was maddeningly difficult. She drove along Leadenhall Street, Poultry, and Cheapside, but several times she found the road blocked, and had to reverse away and find another route. There seemed to be at least one destroyed house in every street. Everywhere was smoke and rubble, people bleeding and crying.

With huge relief she reached the hospital and followed another ambulance to the emergency entrance. The place was frantically busy, with a dozen vehicles discharging maimed and burned patients into the care of hurrying porters with bloodstained aprons. Perhaps I’ve saved the mother of these children, Daisy thought. I’m not completely worthless, even if my husband doesn’t want me.

The girl with no hair was still carrying her baby sister. Daisy helped them both out of the back of her ambulance.

A nurse helped Daisy lift the unconscious mother and carry her in.

But Daisy could see that the woman had stopped breathing.

She said to the nurse: ‘These two are her children!’ She heard the edge of hysteria in her own voice. ‘What will happen now?’

‘I’ll deal with it,’ the nurse said briskly. ‘You have to go back.’

‘Must I?’ said Daisy.

‘Pull yourself together,’ said the nurse. ‘There will be a lot more dead and injured before this night is over.’

‘All right,’ said Daisy; and she got back behind the wheel and drove off.

(iv)

On a warm Mediterranean afternoon in October, Lloyd Williams arrived in the sunlit French town of Perpignan, only twenty miles from the border with Spain.

He had spent the month of September in the Bordeaux area, picking grapes for the wine harvest, just as he had in the terrible year of 1937. Now he had money in his pockets for buses and trams, and could eat in cheap restaurants instead of living on unripe vegetables he dug up in people’s gardens or raw eggs stolen from hen-coops. He was going back along the route he had taken when he left Spain three years ago. He had come south from Bordeaux through Toulouse and Béziers, occasionally riding freight trains, mostly begging lifts from truck drivers.

Now he was at a roadside café on the main highway running southeast from Perpignan towards the Spanish border. Still dressed in Maurice’s blue overalls and beret, he carried a small canvas bag containing a rusty trowel and a mortar-spattered spirit level, evidence that he was a Spanish bricklayer making his way home. God forbid that anyone should offer him work: he had no idea how to build a wall.

He was worried about finding his way across the mountains. Three months ago, back in Picardy, he had told himself glibly that he could find the route over the Pyrenees along which his guides had led him into Spain in 1936, parts of which he had retraced in the opposite direction when he left a year later. But as the purple peaks and green passes came into distant view on the horizon, the prospect seemed more daunting. He had thought that every step of the journey must be engraved on his memory, but when he tried to recall specific paths and bridges and turning points he found that the pictures were blurred, and the exact details slipped infuriatingly from his mind’s grasp.

He finished his lunch – a peppery fish stew – then spoke quietly to a group of drivers at the next table. ‘I need a lift to Cerbère.’ It was the last village before the Spanish border. ‘Anyone going that way?’

They were probably all going that way: it was the only reason for being here on this southeast route. All the same, they hesitated. This was Vichy France, technically an independent zone, in practice under the thumb of the Germans occupying the other half of the country. No one was in a hurry to help a travelling stranger with a foreign accent.

‘I’m a mason,’ he said, hefting his canvas bag. ‘Going home to Spain. Leandro is my name.’

A fat man in an undershirt said: ‘I can take you halfway.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Are you ready now?’

‘Of course.’

They went outside and got into a grimy Renault van with the name of an electrical goods store on the side. As they pulled away, the driver asked Lloyd if he was married. A series of unpleasantly personal inquiries followed, and Lloyd realized the man had a fascination with other people’s sex lives. No doubt that was why he had agreed to take Lloyd: it gave him the chance to ask intrusive questions. Several of the men who had given Lloyd lifts had had some such creepy motive.

‘I’m a virgin,’ Lloyd told him, which was true; but that only led to an interrogation about heavy petting with schoolgirls. Lloyd did have considerable experience of that, but he was not going to share it. He refused to give details while trying not to be rude, and eventually the driver despaired. ‘I have to turn off here,’ he said, and pulled up.

Lloyd thanked him for the ride and walked on.

He had learned not to march like a soldier, and had developed what he thought was a fairly realistic peasant slouch. He never carried a newspaper or a book. His hair had last been cut by a brutally incompetent barber in the poorest quarter of Toulouse. He shaved about once a week, so that he normally had a growth of stubble, which was surprisingly effective in making him look like a nobody. He had stopped washing, and acquired a ripe odour that discouraged people from talking to him.

Few working-class people had watches, in France or Spain, so the steel wristwatch with the square face that Bernie had given him as a graduation present had to go. He could not give it to one of the many French people who had helped him, for a British watch could have incriminated them, too. In the end, with great sadness, he had thrown it into a pond.

His greatest weakness was that he had no identity papers.

He had tried to buy papers from a man who looked vaguely like him, and schemed to steal them from two others, but not surprisingly, people were cautious about such things these days. His strategy was therefore to steer clear of situations in which he might be asked to identify himself. He made himself inconspicuous, he walked across fields rather than take roads when he had the choice, and he never travelled by passenger train because there were often checkpoints at stations. So far he had been lucky. One village gendarme had demanded his papers, and when he explained that they had been stolen from him after he got drunk and passed out in a bar in Marseilles, the policeman had believed him and sent him on his way.

Now, however, his luck ran out.

He was passing through poor agricultural terrain. He was in the foothills of the Pyrenees, close to the Mediterranean, and the soil was sandy. The dusty road ran through struggling smallholdings and poor villages. The landscape was sparsely populated. To his left, through the hills, he got blue glimpses of the distant sea.

The last thing he expected was the green Citroën that pulled up alongside him with three gendarmes inside.

It happened very suddenly. He heard the car approaching – the only car he had heard since the fat man had dropped him off. He carried on shuffling like a tired worker going home. Either side of the road were dry fields with sparse vegetation and stunted trees. When the car stopped, he thought for a second of making a run for it across the fields. He dropped the idea when he saw the holstered pistols of the two gendarmes who jumped out of the car. They were probably not very good shots, but they might get lucky. His chances of talking his way out of this were better. These were country constables, more amiable than the hard-nosed French city police.

‘Papers?’ said the nearest gendarme in French.

Lloyd spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Monsieur, I am so unfortunate, my papers were stolen in Marseilles. I am Leandro, Spanish mason, going—’

‘Get in the car.’

Lloyd hesitated, but it was hopeless. The odds against his getting away were now worse than before.

A gendarme took him firmly by the arm, hustled him into the back seat, and got in beside him.

His spirits sank as the car pulled away.

The gendarme next to him said: ‘Are you English, or what?’

‘I am Spanish mason. My name—’

The gendarme made a waving-away gesture and said: ‘Don’t bother.’

Lloyd saw that he had been wildly optimistic. He was a foreigner without papers heading for the Spanish border: they simply assumed he was an escaping British soldier. If they had any doubt, they would find proof when they ordered him to strip, for they would see the identity tag around his neck. He had not thrown it away, for without it he would automatically be shot as a spy.

And now he was stuck in a car with three armed men, and the likelihood that he would find a way to escape was zero.

They drove on, in the direction in which he had been heading, as the sun went down over the mountains on their right-hand side. There were no big towns between here and the border, so he assumed they intended to put him in a village jail for the night. Perhaps he could escape from there. Failing that, they would undoubtedly take him back to Perpignan tomorrow and hand him over to the city police. What then? Would he be interrogated? The prospect made him cold with fear. The French police would beat him up, the Germans would torture him. If he survived, he would end up in a prisoner of war camp, where he would remain until the end of the war, or until he died of malnutrition. And yet he was only a few miles from the border!

They drove into a small town. Could he escape between the car and the jail? He could make no plan: he did not know the terrain. There was nothing he could do but remain alert and seize any opportunity.

The car turned off the main street and into an alley behind a row of shops. Were they going to shoot him here and dump his body?

The car stopped at the back of a restaurant. The yard was littered with boxes and giant cans. Through a small window Lloyd could see a brightly lit kitchen.

The gendarme in the front passenger seat got out, then opened Lloyd’s door, on the side of the car nearest the building. Was this his chance? He would have to run around the car and along the alley. It was dusk: after the first few yards he would not be an easy target.

The gendarme reached into the car and grasped Lloyd’s arm, holding him as he got out and stood up. The second one got out immediately behind Lloyd. The opportunity was not good enough.

But why had they brought him here?

They walked him into the kitchen. A chef was beating eggs in a bowl and an adolescent boy was washing up in a big sink. One of the gendarmes said: ‘Here’s an Englishman. He calls himself Leandro.’

Without pausing in his work, the chef lifted his head and bawled: ‘Teresa! Come here!’

Lloyd remembered another Teresa, a beautiful Spanish anarchist who had taught soldiers to read and write.

The kitchen door swung wide and she walked in.

Lloyd stared at her in astonishment. There was no possibility of mistake: he would never forget those big eyes and that mass of black hair, even though she wore the white cotton cap and apron of a waitress.

At first she did not look at him. She put a pile of plates on the counter next to the young washer-up, then turned to the gendarmes with a smile and kissed each on both cheeks, saying: ‘Pierre! Michel! How are you?’ Then she turned to Lloyd, stared at him, and said in Spanish: ‘No – it’s not possible. Lloyd, is it really you?’

He could only nod dumbly.

She put her arms around him, embraced him, and kissed him on both cheeks.

One of the gendarmes said: ‘There we are. All is well. We have to go. Good luck!’ He handed Lloyd his canvas bag, then they left.

Lloyd found his tongue. ‘What’s going on?’ he said to Teresa in Spanish. ‘I thought I was being taken to jail!’

‘They hate the Nazis, so they help us,’ she said.

‘Who is us?’

‘I’ll explain later. Come with me.’ She opened a door that gave on to a staircase and led him to an upper storey, where there was a sparsely furnished bedroom. ‘Wait here. I’ll bring you something to eat.’

Lloyd lay down on the bed and contemplated his extraordinary fortune. Five minutes ago he had been expecting torture and death. Now he was waiting for a beautiful woman to bring him supper.

It could change again just as quickly, he reflected.

She returned half an hour later with an omelette and fried potatoes on a thick plate. ‘We’ve been busy, but we close soon,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

He ate the food quickly.

Night fell. He listened to the chatter of customers leaving and the clang of pots being put away, then Teresa reappeared with a bottle of red wine and two glasses.

Lloyd asked her why she had left Spain.

‘Our people are being murdered by the thousand,’ she said. ‘For those they don’t kill, they have passed the Law of Political Responsibilities, making criminals of everyone who supported the government. You can lose all your assets if you opposed Franco even by “grave passivity”. You are innocent only if you can prove you supported him.’

Lloyd thought bitterly of Chamberlain’s reassurance to the House of Commons, back in March, that Franco had renounced political reprisals. What an evil liar Chamberlain had been.

Teresa went on: ‘Many of our comrades are in filthy prison camps.’

‘I don’t suppose you have any idea what happened to Sergeant Lenny Griffiths, my friend?’

Teresa shook her head. ‘I never saw him again after Belchite.’

‘And you . . . ?’

‘I escaped from Franco’s men, came here, got a job as a waitress . . . and found there was other work for me to do.’

‘What work?’

‘I take escaping soldiers across the mountains. That’s why the gendarmes brought you to me.’

Lloyd was heartened. He had been planning to do it alone, and he had been worried about finding the way. Now perhaps he would have a guide.

‘I have two others waiting,’ she said. ‘A British gunner and a Canadian pilot. They are in a farmhouse in the hills.’

‘When are you planning to go across?’

‘Tonight,’ she said. ‘Don’t drink too much wine.’

She went away again and returned half an hour later carrying an old, ripped brown overcoat for him. ‘It’s cold where we’re going,’ she explained.

They slipped out of the kitchen door and threaded their way through the small town by starlight. Leaving the houses behind, they followed a dirt track steadily uphill. After an hour they came to a small group of stone buildings. Teresa whistled then opened the door to a barn, and two men came out.

‘We always use false names,’ she said in English. ‘I am Maria and these two are Fred and Tom. Our new friend is Leandro.’ The men shook hands. She went on: ‘No talking, no smoking, and anyone who falls behind will be left. Are we ready?’

From here the path was steeper. Lloyd found himself slipping on stones. Now and again he clutched at stunted bushes of heather beside the path and pulled himself upwards with their aid. The petite Teresa set a pace that soon had the three men puffing and blowing. She was carrying a flashlight, but she refused to use it while the stars were bright, saying she had to conserve the battery.

The air got colder. They waded across an icy stream, and Lloyd’s feet did not get warm again afterwards.

An hour later, Teresa said: ‘Take care to stay in the middle of the path here.’ Lloyd looked down and realized he was on a ridge between steep slopes. When he saw how far he could fall, he felt a little giddy, and quickly looked up and ahead at Teresa’s swiftly moving silhouette. In normal circumstances he would have enjoyed every minute of walking behind a figure like that, but now he was so tired and cold he did not have the energy even to ogle.

The mountains were not uninhabited. At one point a distant dog barked; at another they heard a tinkling of eerie bells, which spooked the men until Teresa explained that mountain shepherds hung bells on their sheep so that they could find their flocks.

Lloyd thought about Daisy. Was she still at Tŷ Gwyn? Or had she gone back to her husband? Lloyd hoped she had not returned to London, for London was being bombed every night, the French newspapers said. Was she alive or dead? Would he ever see her again? If he did, how would she feel about him?

They stopped every two hours to rest, drink water, and take a few mouthfuls from a bottle of wine Teresa was carrying.

It started to rain around dawn. The ground underfoot instantly became treacherous, and they all stumbled and slipped, but Teresa did not slow down. ‘Be glad it’s not snow,’ she said.

Daylight revealed a landscape of scrubby vegetation in which rocky outcrops stuck up like tombstones. The rain continued, and a cold mist obscured the distance.

After a while, Lloyd realized they were walking downhill. At the next rest stop, Teresa announced: ‘We are now in Spain.’ Lloyd should have been relieved, but he just felt exhausted.

Gradually the landscape softened, rocks giving way to coarse grass and shrubs.

Suddenly Teresa dropped to the ground and lay flat.

The three men instantly did the same, not needing to be prompted. Following Teresa’s gaze, Lloyd saw two men in green uniforms and peculiar hats: Spanish border guards, presumably. He realized that being in Spain did not mean he was out of trouble. If he was caught entering the country illegally he might just be sent back. Worse, he could disappear into one of Franco’s prison camps.

The border guards were walking along a mountain track towards the fugitives. Lloyd prepared himself for a fight. He would have to move fast, in order to overcome them before they could draw their guns. He wondered how good the other two men would be in a fracas.

But his trepidation was unnecessary. The two guards reached some unmarked boundary and then turned back. Teresa acted as if she had known this would happen. When the guards disappeared from sight, she stood up and the four of them walked on.

Soon afterwards the mist lifted. Lloyd saw a fishing village around a sandy bay. He had been here before, when he came to Spain in 1936. He even remembered that there was a railway station.

They walked into the village. It was a sleepy place, with no signs of officialdom: no police, no town hall, no soldiers, no checkpoints. Doubtless that was why Teresa had chosen it.

They went to the station and Teresa bought tickets, flirting with the vendor as if they were old friends.

Lloyd sat on a bench on the shady platform, footsore, weary, grateful and happy.

An hour later they caught a train to Barcelona.

(v)

Daisy had never before understood the meaning of work.

Or tiredness.

Or tragedy.

She sat in a school classroom, drinking sweet English tea out of a cup with no saucer. She wore a steel helmet and rubber boots. It was five o’clock in the afternoon, and she was still weary from the night before.

She was part of the Aldgate district Air Raid Precautions sector. Theoretically, she worked an eight-hour shift followed by eight hours on standby and eight hours off duty. In practice, she worked as long as the air raid continued and there were wounded people to be driven to hospital.

London was bombed every single night of October 1940.

Daisy always worked with one other woman, the driver’s attendant, and four men forming a first-aid party. Their headquarters was in a school, and now they were sitting at the children’s desks, waiting for the planes to come and the sirens to wail and the bombs to fall.

The ambulance she drove was a converted American Buick. They also had a normal car and driver to transport what they called sitting cases – injured people who could nevertheless sit upright without assistance while being transported to hospital.

Her attendant was Naomi Avery, an attractive blonde Cockney who liked men and enjoyed the camaraderie of the team. Now she bantered with the post warden, Nobby Clarke, a retired policeman. ‘The Chief Warden is a man,’ she said. ‘The District Warden is a man. You’re a man.’

‘I hope so,’ Nobby said, and the others chuckled.

‘There are plenty of women in ARP,’ Naomi went on. ‘How come none of them are officials?’

The men laughed. A bald man with a big nose called Gorgeous George said: ‘Here we go, women’s rights again.’ He had a misogynist streak.

Daisy joined in. ‘You don’t really think all you men are smarter than all of us women, do you?’

Nobby said: ‘Matter of fact, there are some women senior wardens.’

‘I’ve never met one,’ said Naomi.

‘It’s tradition, isn’t it,’ Nobby said. ‘Women have always been home-makers.’

‘Like Catherine the Great of Russia,’ Daisy said sarcastically.

Naomi put in: ‘Or Queen Elizabeth of England.’

‘Amelia Earhart.’

‘Jane Austen.’

‘Marie Curie, the only scientist ever to win the Nobel Prize twice.’

‘Catherine the Great?’ said Gorgeous George. ‘Isn’t there a story about her and her horse?’

‘Now, now, ladies present,’ said Nobby in a tone of reproof. ‘Anyway, I can answer Daisy’s question,’ he went on.

Daisy, willing to be his foil, said: ‘Go on, then.’

‘I grant you that some women may be just as clever as a man,’ he said with the air of one who makes a remarkably generous concession. ‘But there is one very good reason why almost all ARP officials are men, nevertheless.’

‘And what would that reason be, Nobby?’

‘It’s very simple. Men won’t take orders from a woman.’ He sat back with a triumphant expression, confident that he had won the argument.

The irony was that when the bombs were falling, and they were digging through the rubble to rescue the injured, they were equals. There was no hierarchy then. If Daisy shouted at Nobby to pick up the other end of a roof beam he would do it without demur.

Daisy loved these men, even George. They would give their lives for her, and she for them.

She heard a low hooting sound outside. Slowly it rose in pitch until it became the tiresomely familiar siren of an air raid warning. Seconds later there was the boom of a distant explosion. The warning was often late; sometimes it sounded after the first bombs had fallen.

The phone rang and Nobby picked it up.

They all stood up. George said wearily: ‘Don’t the Germans ever take a ruddy day off ?’

Nobby put the phone down and said: ‘Nutley Street.’

‘I know where that is,’ said Naomi as they all hurried out. ‘Our MP lives there.’

They jumped into the cars. As Daisy put the ambulance in gear and drove off, Naomi, sitting beside her, said: ‘Happy days.’

Naomi was being ironic but, strangely, Daisy was happy. It was very odd, she thought as she careered around a bend. Every night she saw destruction, tragic bereavement, and horribly maimed bodies. There was a good chance she herself would die in a blazing building tonight. Yet she felt wonderful. She was working and suffering for a cause, and, paradoxically, that was better than pleasing herself. She was part of a group that would risk everything to help others, and it was the best feeling in the world.

Daisy did not hate the Germans for trying to kill her. She had been told by her father-in-law, Earl Fitzherbert, why they were bombing London. Until August the Luftwaffe had raided only ports and airfields. Fitz had explained, in an unusually candid moment, that the British were not so scrupulous: the government had approved bombing of targets in German cities back in May, and all through June and July the RAF had dropped bombs on women and children in their homes. The German public had been enraged by this and demanded retaliation. The Blitz was the result.

Daisy and Boy were keeping up appearances, but she locked her bedroom door when he was at home, and he made no objection. Their marriage was a sham, but they were both too busy to do anything about it. When Daisy thought about it, she felt sad; for she had lost both Boy and Lloyd now. Fortunately, she hardly had time to think.

Nutley Street was on fire. The Luftwaffe dropped incendiary bombs and high explosive together. Fire did the most damage, but the high explosive helped the blaze to spread by blowing out windows and ventilating the flames.

Daisy brought the ambulance to a screeching halt and they all went to work.

People with minor injuries were helped to the nearest First Aid station. Those more seriously hurt were driven to St Bart’s or the London Hospital in Whitechapel. Daisy made one trip after another. When darkness fell she switched on her headlights. They were masked, with only a slit of light, as part of the blackout, though it seemed a superfluous precaution when London was burning like a bonfire.

The bombing went on until dawn. In full daylight the bombers were too vulnerable to being shot down by the fighter aircraft piloted by Boy and his comrades, so the air raid petered out. As the cold grey light washed over the wreckage, Daisy and Naomi returned to Nutley Street to find that there were no more victims to be taken to hospital.

They sat down wearily on the remains of a brick garden wall. Daisy took off her steel helmet. She was filthy dirty and worn out. I wonder what the girls in the Buffalo Yacht Club would think of me now, she thought; then she realized she no longer cared much what they thought. The days when their approval was all-important to her seemed a long time in the past.

Someone said: ‘Would you like a cup of tea, my lovely?’

She recognized the accent as Welsh. She looked up to see an attractive middle-aged woman carrying a tray. ‘Oh, boy, that’s what I need,’ she said, and helped herself. She had now grown to like this beverage. It tasted bitter but it had a remarkable restorative effect.

The woman kissed Naomi, who explained: ‘We’re related. Her daughter, Millie, is married to my brother, Abie.’

Daisy watched the woman take the tray around the little crowd of ARP wardens and firemen and neighbours. She must be a local dignitary, Daisy decided: she had an air of authority. Yet at the same time she was clearly a woman of the people, speaking to everyone with an easy warmth, making them smile. She knew Nobby and Gorgeous George, and greeted them as old friends.

She took the last cup on the tray for herself and came to sit beside Daisy. ‘You sound American,’ she said pleasantly.

Daisy nodded. ‘I’m married to an Englishman.’

‘I live in this street – but my house escaped the bombs last night. I’m the Member of Parliament for Aldgate. My name is Eth Leckwith.’

Daisy’s heart skipped a beat. This was Lloyd’s famous mother! She shook hands. ‘Daisy Fitzherbert.’

Ethel’s eyebrows went up. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘You’re the Viscountess Aberowen.’

Daisy blushed and lowered her voice. ‘They don’t know that in the ARP.’

‘Your secret is safe with me.’

Hesitantly, Daisy said: ‘I knew your son, Lloyd.’ She could not help the tears that came to her eyes when she thought of their time at Tŷ Gwyn, and the way he had looked after her when she had miscarried. ‘He was very kind to me, once, when I needed help.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ethel. ‘But don’t talk as if he’s dead.’

The reproof was mild, but Daisy felt she had been dreadfully tactless. ‘I’m so sorry!’ she said. ‘He’s missing in action, I know. How frightfully stupid of me.’

‘But he’s not missing any longer,’ Ethel said. ‘He escaped through Spain. He arrived home yesterday.’

‘Oh, my God!’ Daisy’s heart was racing. ‘Is he all right?’

‘Perfectly. In fact, he looks very well, despite what he’s been through.’

‘Where . . .’ Daisy swallowed. ‘Where is he now?’

‘Why, he’s here somewhere.’ Ethel looked around. ‘Lloyd?’ she called.

Daisy scanned the crowd wildly. Could it be true?

A man in a ripped brown overcoat turned around and said: ‘Yes, Mam?’

Daisy stared at him. His face was sunburned, and he was as thin as a stick, but he looked more attractive than ever.

‘Come here, my lovely,’ said Ethel.

Lloyd took a step forward, then saw Daisy. Suddenly his face was transformed. He smiled happily. ‘Hello,’ he said.

Daisy sprang to her feet.

Ethel said: ‘Lloyd, there’s someone here you may remember—’

Daisy could not restrain herself. She ran to Lloyd and threw herself into his arms. She hugged him. She looked into his green eyes then kissed his brown cheeks and his broken nose and then his mouth. ‘I love you, Lloyd,’ she said madly. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’

‘I love you, too, Daisy,’ he said.

Behind her, Daisy heard Ethel’s wry voice. ‘You do remember, I see.’

(vi)

Lloyd was eating toast and jam when Daisy entered the kitchen of the house in Nutley Street. She sat at the table, looking exhausted, and took off her steel helmet. Her face was smudged and her hair was dirty with ash and dust, and Lloyd thought she looked irresistibly beautiful.

She came in most mornings when the bombing ended and the last victim had been driven to the hospital. Lloyd’s mother had told her she did not need an invitation, and Daisy had taken her at her word.

Ethel poured Daisy a cup of tea and said: ‘Hard night, my lovely?’

Daisy nodded grimly. ‘One of the worst. The Peabody building in Orange Street burned down.’

‘Oh, no!’ Lloyd was horrified. He knew the place: a big overcrowded tenement full of poor families with numerous children.

Bernie said: ‘That’s a big building.’

‘It was,’ said Daisy. ‘Hundreds of people were burned and God knows how many children are orphans. Nearly all my patients died on the way to hospital.’

Lloyd reached across the little table and took her hand.

She looked up from her cup of tea. ‘You don’t get used to it. You think you’ll become hardened, but you don’t.’ She was stricken with sadness.

Ethel put a hand on her shoulder for a moment in a gesture of compassion.

Daisy said: ‘And we’re doing the same to families in Germany.’

Ethel said: ‘Including my old friends Maud and Walter and their children, I presume.’

‘Isn’t that terrible?’ Daisy shook her head despairingly. ‘What’s wrong with us?’

Lloyd said: ‘What’s wrong with the human race?’

Bernie, ever practical, said: ‘I’ll go over to Orange Street later and make sure everything’s being done for the children.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Ethel.

Bernie and Ethel thought alike and acted together effortlessly, often seeming to read each other’s mind. Lloyd had been observing them carefully since he got home, worrying that their marriage might have been affected by the shocking revelation that Ethel had never had a husband called Teddy Williams, and that Lloyd’s father was Earl Fitzherbert. He had discussed this at length with Daisy, who now knew the whole truth. How did Bernie feel about having been lied to for twenty years? But Lloyd saw no sign that it had made any difference. In his unsentimental way Bernie adored Ethel, and to him she could do no wrong. He believed she would never do anything to hurt him, and he was right. It made Lloyd hope that he, too, might one day have such a marriage.

Daisy noticed that Lloyd was in uniform. ‘Where are you off to this morning?’

‘I’ve had a summons from the War Office.’ He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘I’d better get going.’

‘I thought you’d already been debriefed.’

‘Come to my room and I’ll explain while I’m putting on my tie. Bring your tea.’

They went upstairs. Daisy looked around with interest, and he realized she had not been in his bedroom before. He looked at the single bed, the bookshelf of novels in German, French and Spanish, and the writing table with the row of sharpened pencils, and wondered what she thought of it.

‘What a nice little room,’ she said.

It was not little. It was the same size as the other bedrooms in the house. But she had different standards.

She picked up a framed photograph. It showed the family at the seaside: little Lloyd in shorts, toddling Millie in a swimsuit, young Ethel in a big floppy hat, Bernie wearing a grey suit with a white shirt open at the neck and a knotted handkerchief on his head.

‘Southend,’ Lloyd explained. He took her cup, put it on the dressing table, and folded her into his arms. He kissed her mouth. She kissed him back with weary tenderness, stroking his cheek, letting her body slump against his.

After a minute he released her. She was really too tired to canoodle, and he had an appointment.

She took off her boots and lay down on his bed.

‘The War Office have asked me to go in and see them again,’ he said as he tied his tie.

‘But you were there for hours last time.’

It was true. He had had to dredge his memory for every last detail of his time on the run in France. They wanted to know the rank and regiment of every German he had encountered. He could not remember them all, of course, but he had done his homework meticulously on the Tŷ Gwyn course and he was able to give them a great deal of information.

That was standard military intelligence debriefing. But they had also asked about his escape, the roads he had taken and who had helped him. They were even interested in Maurice and Marcelle, and reproved him for not knowing their surname. They had got very excited about Teresa, who clearly could be a major asset to future escapers.

‘I’m seeing a different lot today.’ He glanced at a typed note on his dressing table. ‘At the Metropole Hotel in Northumberland Avenue. Room four two four.’ The address was off Trafalgar Square in a neighbourhood of government offices. ‘Apparently it’s a new department dealing with British prisoners of war.’ He put on his peaked cap and looked in the mirror. ‘Am I smart enough?’

There was no answer. He looked at the bed. She had fallen asleep.

He pulled a blanket over her, kissed her forehead, and went out.

He told his mother that Daisy was asleep on his bed, and she said she would check on her later to make sure she was all right.

He took the Tube to Central London.

He had told Daisy the true story of his parentage, disabusing her of the theory that he was Maud’s child. She believed him readily, for she suddenly recalled Boy telling her that Fitz had an illegitimate child somewhere. ‘This is creepy,’ she had said, looking thoughtful. ‘The two Englishmen I’ve fallen for turn out to be half-brothers.’ She had looked appraisingly at Lloyd. ‘You inherited your father’s good looks. Boy just got his selfishness.’

Lloyd and Daisy had not yet made love. One reason was that she never had a night off. Then, on the single occasion they had had a chance to be alone together, things had gone wrong.

It had been last Sunday, at Daisy’s home in Mayfair. Her servants had Sunday afternoon off, and she had taken him to her bedroom in the empty house. But she had been nervy and ill at ease. She had kissed him, then turned her head aside. When he put his hands on her breasts she had pushed them away. He had been confused: if he was not supposed to behave this way, why were they in her bedroom?

‘I’m sorry,’ she had said at last. ‘I love you, but I can’t do this. I can’t betray my husband in his own house.’

‘But he betrayed you.’

‘At least he went somewhere else.’

‘All right.’

She had looked at him. ‘Do you think I’m being silly?’

He shrugged. ‘After all we’ve been through together, this seems overly fastidious of you, yes – but, look, you feel the way you feel. What a rotter I would be if I tried to bully you into doing it when you’re not ready.’

She put her arms around him and hugged him hard. ‘I said it before,’ she said. ‘You’re a grown-up.’

‘Don’t let’s spoil the whole afternoon,’ he said. ‘We’ll go to the pictures.’

They saw Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator and laughed their heads off, then she went back on duty.

Pleasant thoughts of Daisy occupied Lloyd all the way to Embankment station, then he walked up Northumberland Avenue to the Metropole. The hotel had been stripped of its reproduction antiques and furnished with utilitarian tables and chairs.

After a few minutes’ wait, Lloyd was taken to see a tall colonel with a brisk manner. ‘I’ve read your account, Lieutenant,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘We expect more people to follow in your footsteps, and we’d like to help them. We’re especially interested in downed airmen. They’re expensive to train, and we want them back so that they can fly again.’

Lloyd thought that was harsh. If a man survived a crash landing, should he really be asked to risk going through the whole thing again? But wounded men were sent back into battle as soon as they recovered. That was war.

The colonel said: ‘We’re setting up a kind of underground railroad, all the way from Germany to Spain. You speak German, French and Spanish, I see; but, more importantly, you’ve been at the sharp end. We’d like to second you to our department.’

Lloyd had not been expecting this, and he was not sure how he felt about it. ‘Thank you, sir. I’m honoured. But is it a desk job?’

‘Not at all. We want you to go back to France.’

Lloyd’s heart raced. He had not thought he would have to face those perils again.

The colonel saw the dismay on his face. ‘You know how dangerous it is.’

‘Yes, sir.’

In an abrupt tone the colonel said: ‘You can refuse if you like.’

Lloyd thought of Daisy in the Blitz, and of the people burned to death in the Peabody tenement, and realized he did not even want to refuse. ‘If you think it’s important, sir, then I will go back most willingly, of course.’

‘Good man,’ said the colonel.

Half an hour later Lloyd was dazedly walking back to the Tube station. He was now part of a department called MI9. He would return to France with false papers and large sums in cash. Already dozens of German, Dutch, Belgian and French people in occupied territory had been recruited to the deadly dangerous task of helping British and Commonwealth airmen return home. He would be one of numerous MI9 agents expanding the network.

If he were caught, he would be tortured.

Although he was scared, he was also excited. He was going to fly to Madrid: it would be his first time up in an airplane. He would re-enter France across the Pyrenees and make contact with Teresa. He would be moving in disguise among the enemy, rescuing people under the noses of the Gestapo. He would make sure that men following in his footsteps would not be as alone and friendless as he had been.

He got back to Nutley Street at eleven o’clock. There was a note from his mother: ‘Not a peep from Miss America.’ After visiting the bomb site, Ethel would have gone to the House of Commons, Bernie to County Hall. Lloyd and Daisy had the house to themselves.

He went up to his room. Daisy was still asleep. Her leather jacket and heavy-duty wool trousers were carelessly tossed on the floor. She was in his bed wearing only her underwear. This had never happened before.

He took off his jacket and tie.

A sleepy voice from the bed said: ‘And the rest.’

He looked at her. ‘What?’

‘Take off your clothes and get into bed.’

The house was empty: no one would disturb them.

He took off his boots, trousers, shirt and socks, then he hesitated.

‘You’re not going to feel cold,’ she said. She wriggled under the blankets, then threw a pair of silk camiknickers at him.

He had expected this to be a solemn moment of high passion, but Daisy seemed to think it should be a matter of laughter and fun. He was willing to be guided by her.

He took off his vest and pants and slipped into bed beside her. She was warm and languid. He felt nervous: he had never actually told her that he was a virgin.

He had always heard that the man should take the initiative, but it seemed that Daisy did not know that. She kissed and caressed him, then she grasped his penis. ‘Oh, boy,’ she said. ‘I was hoping you’d have one of these.’

After that he stopped being nervous.