In Farleigh Field: A Novel of World War II Page 6

  Before Lord Westerham could answer, the door opened and Olivia, the eldest of the Sutton sisters, came in. Although she was only twenty-six, she was already starting to look matronly. She was wearing a navy dress with a white round collar and pin-tuck pleats at the front, which emphasised her ample bosom. And she wore her hair rolled in a coil at the back of her neck, which didn’t really suit her round face.

  “Charlie has a bit of a cough,” she said. “I hope he’s not coming down with something. Has the post arrived yet, Pah? Is there anything from Teddy?”

  “Nothing but a couple of bills and a letter for your mother from Mrs. Churchill,” Lord Westerham said. “Your husband is probably having far too good a time to think of writing.”

  “Don’t say that, Pah. He’s only doing his duty. He had to go where he was sent.”

  “And the Bahamas is not exactly a hardship posting.” Lord Westerham looked at his wife, who smiled vaguely.

  “How nice for him. I hear they have lovely beaches.”

  They all looked up as Dido came in. There were goose bumps on her bare shoulders and arms, but her face was glowing from being outside. “Golly, the whole clan is here. What are you doing up, Mummy? I thought you told me one of the few luxuries of being a married woman was breakfast in bed.”

  “Darling, I used to look forward to my fresh brown egg and thin soldiers of lovely fresh bread. Having toast and margarine somehow hardly makes it worthwhile staying in bed.”

  “I hear you went out looking for the body, Dido,” her father said. He was eyeing her critically. “Don’t tell me you went outside looking like that? You need your head examined—all those bloody soldiers hanging around with too much time on their hands. You’ll come a cropper, my girl.”

  “The soldiers were very sweet to me, Pah. And besides, I was too late to see the body,” Dido said, helping herself to the last of the kedgeree. “Oh goody, hooray for Mrs. Stubbins. She found kippers for us again.”

  “Never did I think there would come a day when we would all rejoice over kippers,” Lord Westerham said. “I suppose a mere taste is better than nothing, but I really miss my pair of kippers, all to myself.” He turned to wave a warning finger at his daughter. “But in future, Diana, I do not want you wandering all over the property alone, especially not dressed like that. It looks as if you’re wearing your pyjamas.”

  “It’s the height of fashion, Pah. Or at least it was when there was still Vogue. Not that there is any point in trying to be fashionable when one is stuck in the depth of the countryside.” She put her plate down next to Phoebe’s, then reached over to pat the setter’s head before she picked up her napkin. “If you’d let me get a job up in London, I’d be safely out of your hair, Pah. And I wouldn’t have any time on my hands, would I?” she replied bitterly. “I’m dying of boredom, you know. There’s a war on. Plenty of excitement. I want to be part of it.”

  “We’ve been through this before, Dido,” Lord Westerham said. “You are too young to go and work on your own in London. I don’t mind you helping out with the animals on the home farm, or even helping teach the children at the village school, but that’s it. And that’s my final word on the subject. Don’t bring it up again.”

  Dido sighed and took her place at the far end of the table. They all looked up at the sound of a heavy, measured tread, and Soames came in, bearing a silver salver.

  “A letter for you, my lady,” he said. “Hand delivered.”

  Lady Esme looked surprised as she took it. “Goodness. What an eventful morning. Who can be writing to me now?” The rest of the family waited as she took the envelope, noted the crest on the back, and smiled. “Oh, it’s Lady Prescott. I wonder what she wants? I thought we were too impossibly dowdy and old-fashioned for them.”

  “Perhaps she wants to borrow a cup of sugar,” Lord Westerham replied with a snort. “Times are hard for all at the moment, even the Prescotts.”

  “Oh, not the Prescotts, I think,” Livvy said. “Every time I take Charlie out in his pram, I seem to see a delivery van pulling up at their house.”

  “What does it say, Mah?” Dido asked.

  Lady Esme looked up, a pleased smile on her face and began to read aloud:

  Dear Lady Westerham,

  I wanted to share our good news with you before you heard it through the village grapevine. Our son Jeremy has arrived home safely against all odds. He is naturally weak, recovering from an infected gunshot wound, but we have every reason to hope he will make a full recovery.

  When he has regained his strength, we look forward to giving a little dinner party in his honour and hope that your family will be able to join us.

  Yours sincerely,

  Madeleine Prescott

  She folded the letter and looked around at her family, beaming. “Isn’t that wonderful? I must write to Pamela straight away. She’ll be thrilled.”

  “Why Pamma any more than the rest of us?” Dido demanded. “Or is she the favoured child?”

  “Dido, you know how sweet Pamma is on Jeremy. In fact, if there hadn’t been this stupid war, I rather think there might have been an announcement by now.” She gave an enigmatic smile.

  “Mah, you’re too keen to get your children married off, aren’t you? Jeremy Prescott never struck me as the faithful type.”

  “I’m sure lots of young men sow their wild oats but settle down when the time comes,” Lady Esme said. “Anyway, the main thing is that he’s home now, and all will be well.” She got up. “I must write to Pamma this very minute.”

  Dido watched her go. “I don’t know where I’m ever supposed to find a husband,” she said. “Stuck here in the country, it will have to be a pig farmer, I suppose.”

  This made Phoebe giggle. “He’d smell horrible,” she said. “But you’d get good bacon.”

  “That was supposed to be sarcasm, Feebs,” Dido said. “I was just reminding everyone that I didn’t get my season like my sisters.”

  “I didn’t order this blasted war,” Lord Westerham said. “And you’re still young. There will be plenty of chance for parties and dances when it’s over.”

  “If you know how to do German folk dances,” Phoebe said.

  Lord Westerham’s face turned beetroot red. “Not funny, Phoebe. Not in the least bit funny. The Germans will not win, and that’s final.”

  He flung down his napkin and strode from the room.

  Later that morning, the colonel’s adjutant, Captain Hartley, sought out his commanding officer.

  “We’ve checked the tags, sir, and they don’t match anyone in the West Kents. Furthermore, all were present and correct at roll call this morning, apart from Jones, who was given two days’ leave because his wife had a baby, and Patterson, who is in the hospital with appendicitis.”

  “So what do you think we should do now?” Colonel Pritchard scratched his head, pushing his cap askew. “Find out who this joker was and why he was wearing our uniform.”

  “One can’t rule out the possibility, sir, that he was a spy. Wearing the uniform of the West Kents would give him a good excuse to roam around this area, wouldn’t it?”

  Colonel Pritchard sucked air in through his teeth. “One hears about such things, but surely they are all rumour.”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure there are plenty of fifth columnists around.”

  “You think so?” Colonel Pritchard glared. “Englishmen deliberately wanting to work for the Hun?”

  “I’m afraid so, sir. If someone needed to contact them, what better way than to parachute a man in on a dark, moonless night?”

  Colonel Pritchard stared past him, out across the lawns. He found it hard to believe that this was England, Blake’s green and pleasant land, and yet they were no longer safe at home. Bombs were falling indiscriminately. And now, maybe spies were working among them.

  “Send the tags to army intelligence. They can come and take the body. It’s out of our hands,” he said, then looked up as a private approached them, walking fast. He stopped, cam
e to attention, and saluted.

  “Begging your pardon, Colonel, sir,” he said, “but I was one of the men sent to get that body today. And at the time, I thought there was something that wasn’t quite right. Then I realised what it was. He still had his cap tucked into his lapel, and the badge was wrong.”

  PART TWO

  BEN

  CHAPTER SIX

  Wormwood Scrubs prison

  Acton, West London

  May 1941

  The gate to Wormwood Scrubs prison closed behind Ben Cresswell with a clang of finality. Even though he had been coming and going through this particular gate for the past three months, he still felt an odd frisson of fear when he entered and an absurd sense of relief when he was safely outside again, as if he’d got away undetected.

  “Let you out early for good behaviour then, did they?” the policeman on duty asked him with a grin. The joke had now become old, but apparently the bobby still hadn’t tired of it.

  “Me? Absolutely not. I escaped over the wall. Didn’t you notice?” Ben replied, straight-faced. “Shirking on the job?”

  “Get outta here!” The policeman chuckled and gave Ben a nudge.

  MI5’s move to Wormwood Scrubs for security reasons was supposed to be strictly hush-hush, but everyone connected to the prison seemed to be fully aware of what the newcomers who had taken over one wing were up to. Even a bus conductor had been known to announce the stop by yelling down the bus, “All change for MI5.” So much for secrecy, Ben thought while he crossed the street to the bus stop. As the headquarters of a secret service division, the prison had proved to be a dismal failure. The cells they had been assigned were cold and damp; some doors had actually been removed, so it was easy to overhear what was going on in the next room. Furthermore, it was more inconvenient and difficult to get to than the former headquarters on the Cromwell Road.

  Recently, part of B Division, responsible for counterespionage, had been moved out to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, where rumour had it that, in spite of being in a stately home, the accommodations were even more primitive than at the prison. Even so, Ben wished he’d been assigned there and was actually doing something useful for the war effort. Since he had been recruited into MI5 a year ago, his spy catching had been confined to following up on rumours and tips in the greater London area. The rumours were nearly always a waste of time. Mostly they were false alarms or a chance to even old scores. A nosy old woman had peeked out of her blackout curtain and seen a furtive man slinking past her back garden. Definitely looked like an invading Nazi. Only it turned out to be the lover of the lady next door, sneaking in while her husband was away. Or a woman suspected that her neighbours were secret German sympathisers because they always played Mozart on their radiogram. When Ben pointed out that Mozart was actually Austrian, the woman had sniffed in annoyance. No difference really, she’d said. Wasn’t Hitler Austrian? And besides, they were always cooking with garlic. You could smell it a mile off. And if that wasn’t suspicious, what was?

  Ben turned to look back at the ornate red-and-white brick towers that housed the prison gate. Trust the Victorians to make even a prison look impressive! Then he walked down Du Cane Road to the East Acton tube station. He hoped the tube would be quicker into central London than a bus, but one never knew. One bomb on the line overnight and everything would grind to a halt. His gait was slightly uneven and jerky, thanks to the tin knee in his left leg, but he was still able to move quite fast. Just not able to play rugger nor bowl at cricket. He was about to cross to the tube station when a man came out of the tobacconists with a paper under his arm, stared at Ben, then frowned. “Here, you, son. Why aren’t you in uniform?” he demanded, waving an aggressive finger at Ben. “What are you, a bleeding conchie?”

  Ben had faced similar accusations many times since the war began. “Aeroplane crash,” he said. “One leg smashed up and no use to anyone.”

  The man’s face turned red. “Sorry, mate. I didn’t realise you were RAF. Shouldn’t have spoken like that to one of our brave boys. God bless you.”

  Ben no longer tried to correct anyone. Let them think he was RAF. He would have been, if he hadn’t been in that stupid plane crash at Farleigh. And if he had been? The thought danced around in his head. Shot down over Germany and now languishing in a Stalag Luft like Jeremy? What bloody use was that to the war effort? At least he was doing something vaguely useful in his current job. Or would be, if they’d give him a case he could sink his teeth into.

  Ben sighed. The trouble was, the whole country was on edge, fearing the invasion at any moment. He bought his ticket and hauled himself up the steps, up to the platform, as the Underground line actually ran above ground this far out of the city. The platform was crowded, indicating that a train hadn’t come for some time. He squeezed his way close to the line and waited, hoping that it would show up soon and wouldn’t be too full. He had to get to central London in a hurry. For once, he had what might be an important assignment.

  “You’re wanted by the powers that be,” his cellmate Guy Harcourt had said with relish when he returned from lunch.

  “The powers that be?” Ben had asked.

  “The grand pooh-bah Radison himself, no less. Most put out that you had the nerve to go off to luncheon rather than eat a cheese sandwich at your desk.” He was the sort of languid and elegant young man one would expect to find at a country house party, playing croquet with Bertie Wooster. Frightfully good fun, but not too many brains. Ben thought privately that he’d make an excellent spy. Nobody would ever suspect him. They had been at Oxford together, where Harcourt never seemed to do any swotting but managed to pass his exams anyway. They had never been friends. For one thing, Harcourt was too rich, too aristocratic for Ben to be part of his circle, so Ben was surprised when Harcourt had sought him out at the start of the war and recruited him for what turned out to be MI5. They were assigned the same billet at a dreary private hotel on the Cromwell Road and got along well enough.

  “I’d hardly call it luncheon,” Ben said. “Do you know they are making rissoles out of horsemeat these days? I’ve had to have the cauliflower cheese three days in a row because the alternatives were too ghastly.”

  “Never eat there myself,” Harcourt said. “I pop over to the Queen’s Head on the corner. Beer is nourishing, isn’t it? I plan to survive on it for the duration. I mean to say, horsemeat? These blighters have clearly never ridden to hounds in their lives. You wait, it will be dogs and cats next. Better lock up your Labradors.”

  “Did Radison say what he wanted?” Ben asked.

  “My dear chap, we’re supposed to be a secret service organisation, aren’t we?” Harcourt asked with a grin. “He’s hardly likely to come in here and tell me what he wants with another agent. There has to be some air of mystery about things.”

  “Did he seem annoyed with me?”

  “Why, have you blotted your copybook?” Harcourt was grinning now.

  “Not that I know of. I was rather short with that chap who wanted his Jewish neighbours locked up as Nazi spies.”

  “Better hurry up and see what he wanted, then, hadn’t you? And if you don’t come back, can I have your chair? It’s less wobbly than mine.”

  “Very funny.” Ben tried to sound more lighthearted than he felt. He couldn’t think what he might have done, but one never knew. Departments like this were all about the old-boy network, and he didn’t have connections.

  Mr. Radison regarded him suspiciously after Ben knocked and entered his office.

  “Been out to lunch, have we?” he asked.

  “I believe I am allowed a lunch break, sir,” Ben answered. “And I only went to the canteen. Horsemeat rissoles.”

  Radison had nodded with understanding then. “I’ve had a message from headquarters. You’re to report to this address on Dolphin Square.”

  “Dolphin Square?” He had heard vague rumours about an office in Dolphin Square. Again, nobody was supposed to know that MI5 maintained an office there or w
hose office it was, but he was fairly sure that it was that of a nebulous character known as Captain King or Mr. K. Someone who was outside the usual hierarchy of the various divisions. Ben felt excitement tinged with apprehension. What could this person want with him? He might have a leg that didn’t always work well, but none of his assignments had required cross-country sprints yet. As boring as his low-level assignments were, he’d fulfilled them perfectly. He had shown himself to be keen and willing. So perhaps this really did bode well—a promotion, a juicy assignment at last.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  London

  May 1941

  Ben snapped out of these thoughts as the loudspeaker announced the arrival of the train, with the warning to stand clear and mind the gap. Doors opened and the crowd surged forward, bearing Ben with them. He managed to grab a pole as the doors closed and the train rattled off. He felt lucky to have something to hang on to; his balance was none too steady, and his bad leg was apt to give way at inconvenient moments. But he made it to Notting Hill Gate Station and changed to the Circle Line to Victoria. The whole journey went remarkably smooth, and he heaved a sigh of relief as he set off down Belgrave Street toward the river. It was a pleasant summery day, warm for May, and Londoners who could escape from offices for a few minutes were sitting at any little square of green they could find, soaking up the sunshine. Dolphin Square rose in front of him, a giant rectangular block of luxury flats. Ben had never seen it before and wondered now how many of those flats were still occupied by rich people who needed a London pied-à-terre. He suspected that anybody who could afford to was staying well away from the Blitz.

  There were four big modern buildings around a central quadrangle; the address he had been given said 308 Hood House. He studied the bank of doorbells outside the front door and was surprised to find that 308 was listed as Miss Copplestone. Had he been given the wrong address? Was it someone’s idea of a joke to send him to confront an angry spinster? It was the sort of thing that Halstead might do to liven up a boring afternoon, but the directive had come from Radison, and Radison was the epitome of a civil servant with no sense of humour. With misgivings, Ben pressed the doorbell.