He felt himself hauled to his feet. ‘What’s—’
Strong arms twirled him round and Frank found himself looking into Ben’s face. The attendant’s expression was hard, the mouth below the broken nose a thin line. Ben spoke very quietly, but in a deadly serious tone. ‘You’ve tae to come with me, Frank, right now. I’m taking you somewhere safe. Come on. But don’t say anything, don’t pick now to start talkin’, please. Or I’ll have to knock ye oot. I don’t want tae, but I will.’
Frank blinked at him, still in a stupor. Ben took him firmly by the arm and led him out of the room, into the corridor. He blinked again, his mind swimming. The corridor was dark, only the nightlights on. He let Ben lead him away. He thought, this is it, he’s taking me to the Germans. But there was nothing he could do and nothing that could shift the muzziness in his head. It was the big pills, it must be, they had knocked him out. He let himself be led through the dim corridors, stumbling once or twice. They passed another attendant and he felt Ben’s grip on his arm tighten. The attendant, a young man, looked bored and tired. He gave Ben a curious glance.
‘Where are you taking him at this time of night?’
‘He’s no’ well. I’m taking him to the duty doctor.’
‘Good luck. Blackstone’s on duty tonight.’
‘Aye, he’ll be stocious by now.’ They passed by.
Ben led him on, past wards where rows of drugged men slept, each with an attendant sitting at his table, reading by the dim light of a lamp. Then Ben opened a side door and freezing cold air hit Frank, who was dressed only in a hospital pullover. He gasped.
‘It’s all right, we’ve just tae walk tae the gate.’ Ben started taking Frank down the path, quickening his pace. Frank stared muzzily round him. It was a clear, cold, moonlit night; frost sparkled on the grass. He began to shiver. They walked right down to the porter’s lodge, by the closed gates. Frank glanced through the little window of the lodge, which was open on the inner side. He caught a glimpse of a man lying sprawled on the floor, unmoving, and saw with horror that his arms were tied behind him with rope, and that there was a streak of blood on the man’s face. He jerked back, terrified. Ben said, ‘He’s okay, Frank. Honest, he’s okay. I’m getting you out of here, Frank, I’m helpin’ ye escape. For fuck’s sake, come on.’
Frank groaned, but let Ben lead him to the gate. His legs were shaking badly. He thought he might fall as Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, a big one, not one of those he carried on his chain. Still holding Frank with one arm, Ben opened the gate. Frank looked back at the dark, blank windows of the asylum.
Ben hauled him through the gate, into the roadway. Their breath steamed in front of them. It was very dark; the road seemed deserted.
Then, a few yards away, headlights came on and Frank saw a car, a big car. A door opened and a tall man in a hat and coat got out and started walking rapidly towards them. Another followed, then a woman. Frank thought, it’s the Germans, they’ve come to take me, I won’t be able to keep quiet. Then his legs did give way and he would have fallen to the ground if Ben hadn’t grabbed him and held him up.
The man halted a couple of feet away. Frank didn’t want to raise his head and look at him. It would be one of the policemen, the German perhaps. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder and a familiar voice said, ‘It’s all right, Frank, it’s me. Geoff’s here too, we’ve come to help you.’
He looked up. ‘David?’
David smiled. His look was full of concern, as it had been when he came to visit. But there was something different about him. In the light lancing from the headlights his face looked years older.
Chapter Thirty-Five
DAVID AND GEOFF HAD SPENT two nights in a flat above a grocer’s shop in Brixton. Natalia had left them there, saying she would come and fetch them on Sunday, when they would drive to Birmingham. Sunday the thirtieth, David thought, the last day of November. It seemed a long time since the demonstration on Remembrance Sunday.
The grocer, Mr Tate, was a middle-aged man with sandy hair and a brusque, cheerful manner. He warned them to keep quiet during the hours the shop was open and David and Geoff spent much of their time in the bedroom assigned to them, reading and playing cards. The room was cold with a sharp smell, a mixture of cheese and bacon, wafting up from below. The grocer brought them food. On the second day he told them how his son had been killed fighting nationalist guerrillas in Burma, and his wife had died from a stroke shortly after. He had joined the Resistance then. ‘We have to stop it, all the killing,’ he said. ‘Make some sort of settlement with those people out East. You can’t even always get good Indian tea any more, because of the strikes on the plantations.’ David asked if there were any news of Sarah but there was nothing yet.
On the first evening, when the shop was shut, David and Geoff sat and talked quietly. Geoff spoke about the woman he had known in Kenya. ‘Her husband was a doctor. He’d come out to work for charity, do good work among the natives. He was a decent enough chap, except he took his work too seriously, he didn’t really consider Elaine. She was left – well – adrift. Local white society looked down on her as a do-gooder’s wife. The irony was she hated the blacks, was really frightened of them, she’d been brought up to that like most people. I think I educated her a bit on that one. A bit.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘I suppose we were drawn to each other because neither of us quite fitted in. I asked Elaine to come back to England with me, divorce her husband. But she wouldn’t; she was a Catholic, she didn’t believe in divorce.’ He sighed. ‘So we agreed to chuck it, and I applied for a transfer home. You know what the strange thing was? After we broke up, heaven knows why, she told her husband about us. Why do it then, when it was finished?’ Geoff shook his head wearily. ‘It was all over the town, during my last weeks.’
‘Didn’t she ever tell you why?’
‘I never spoke to either of them again. They avoided coming into town after the news got out. I think Ron – the husband – must have told his colleagues. I saw Elaine, once. I was at one end of the street and she was at the other. She saw me and turned and went into a shop. I thought, well, that’s that.’ He laughed sardonically again. ‘Still, coming home with a broken heart made good cover for me when I started spying for the Resistance.’
‘Have you got over her?’ David asked.
Geoff shook his head. ‘You know, I never believed in that romantic stuff about everyone having just one person specially for them—’
‘I don’t either—’
‘But I haven’t met anyone else since.’ He frowned, his face suddenly severe. ‘I suppose it’s made me bitter. I think that’s why I was ready to join the Resistance.’
David said, ‘I was angry after Charlie died. That was part of it for me.’ He looked at Geoff. ‘Did you see it, back then? How angry I was?’
‘I saw you getting slowly angrier after the 1950 election. Talking more about politics. I didn’t connect it to Charlie. Do you regret it?’ he asked. ‘What we’ve done?’
‘I regret deceiving Sarah. And now where is she? God knows what will happen to her.’
Geoff leaned forward and touched his friend’s arm. ‘They’ll find her. They’re good at that.’
‘And Carol, you know what I did to her. Strung her along. Yet she saved me in the end.’
‘There’s loyalty for you.’
David looked at his friend. ‘Maybe she feels for me what you felt with Elaine. It can be a bit frightening sometimes, I tell you.’
‘Yes,’ Geoff said slowly. ‘I suppose it can. So, what about Natalia?’
David shifted uncomfortably. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve just wondered – if there’s something there? Between you two?’
David said sharply. ‘This is hardly the time for something, is it?’
‘No. No, it isn’t.’
On their second day, Sunday, the shop was closed. It was raining, hard, steady rain. David watched as an elderly couple in their best clothes walke
d up the street, huddled under their umbrellas. They looked as though they were going to church. David thought, it’s just a week since the Jews were taken.
The grocer, Mr Tate, came in with some lunch. There was still no news about Sarah. Mr Tate seemed a little more relaxed now the shop was closed. He said, ‘The Chinese have launched a new offensive against the Japs. Place called Zhijang. The news says the Japanese are rallying for a counter-offensive but it’s like the Germans in Russia, in a lot of areas they only hold the towns and the roads between them. It’s getting like that in parts of India, too, from what I hear. Like the strands and knots in a net. Break enough strands and the whole thing falls apart. The German army knows that, that’s why they’ll make peace with Russia if Hitler dies.’
‘Any more word from America, about what Adlai Stevenson will do when he takes over as President?’ Geoff asked.
Mr Tate shook his head. ‘No. Not on the BBC, anyway. They’ve been very quiet about the Jews, as well. I think they’re hoping we’ll all forget about them.’
David thought, in time, if the government encourages us, perhaps everyone will.
Natalia arrived shortly after three that afternoon. She had brought a change of clothes for Geoff and David: cheap suits, trilby hats and dark overcoats. David was still wearing his dark jacket and pinstripe trousers from the office, a little creased and crumpled now.
She was in a brisk, businesslike mood, telling them they needed a shave, they must look respectable. Geoff went to the bathroom first. Left alone with David, Natalia said, ‘I’m sorry, there’s still no news of your wife. But one of our radios is down, it’s very possible she is safe, that whoever has her can’t get through.’ She gave him a quick, uncertain smile. ‘Quite likely, in fact.’
‘So much for modern technology.’
‘We will get her to safety. We’ll get you all to America.’
David said, ‘I don’t think she’ll want to be with me. Why should she, now? She always thought I was safe, stable, honest. She didn’t know about all these layers of deceit.’
Natalia looked him straight in the eye. ‘From what you have told me of her, she will understand what you have done.’ She smiled, sadly. ‘I know it’s been hard for you to do the things you have. It’s easier for me. In an odd way, I’m free. Where I come from people never had the sort of secure identity you British middle classes have. My part of the world was always mixed, people shifting their roots. Perhaps that makes things easier for those of us who have got out. We’re not so tied down.’
‘Easier? Despite everyone you’ve lost?’
‘Yes. Even so. Easier than for you with your ties,’ she said, with sudden tenderness. ‘When we get you away you will have the chance to rebuild those again.’ She hesitated, then asked, ‘Do you want that chance?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You should try.’
He looked at her. ‘And you?’
‘I go where the struggle takes me. That is my life now.’ She looked at him tenderly again. ‘You must understand that. And now, get ready. We have an important job to do.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
GEOFF OFFERED TO DRIVE THIS TIME. Natalia sat in the front with him, David in the back again. As Geoff put the car into gear David looked at his watch. Past six already. They must arrive at the asylum by eleven; Ben would come out at a quarter past. The porter’s lodge should be lit; Ben would have dealt with the porter. Jackson had told them that once they collected Ben and Frank they were to drive at once to a safe house in the countryside, fifteen miles from the hospital, in case the alarm was raised quickly. Once they arrived there, they would be sent further instructions about getting back to London; they would stay in London at least one night before driving on to the south coast. If Ben and Frank did not appear by midnight they were to drive to the safe house anyway.
They said little in the car. Geoff put the radio on and they listened to the Light Programme, cheerful music and, every hour, the news. The announcer said in his clipped, even voice that the threatened rail strike had been called off. Ben Greene, the Minister of Labour as well as Coalition Labour Leader, had reached agreement with the railwaymen’s unions.
‘Didn’t think that would happen,’ Geoff said.
Natalia agreed. ‘They were talking yesterday about using troops to run the railways, arresting men who didn’t turn up for work. Public sector strikes are illegal.’
David said, ‘Maybe they think they’ve got enough on their plate just now, without taking on the railwaymen as well.’
They drove on through the dark, along almost empty roads. Near Stratford they saw that one of the exits from the motorway was blocked off; armed Auxiliary Police standing beside a hastily erected wooden guard-post. David wondered if one of the new camps for the Jews was down there. He put his hand in his pocket where the tiny rubber pellet was. He knew he shouldn’t fiddle with it, but his hand was drawn to it like a tongue to a bad tooth. He thought of the gun Natalia was carrying, somewhere under the big trenchcoat she wore. He was very conscious of her presence, as well as his terrible anxiety about what might be happening to Sarah. But he knew he didn’t feel her loss, her absence, in his heart as a lover should.
The journey went without a hitch. There was no sign they were being followed and the narrow wooded lanes leading to the hospital were deserted, lights from farmhouses the only sign of life, everyone indoors on the cold, frosty evening. The rain had stopped outside London and it had got steadily colder as they drove north. They came in sight of the hospital, its big dark shape outlined against the top of the hill, only a few pinpoints of light visible within. It was well past ten o’clock now; the patients would be in bed, in their sad drugged sleep, with only a few night staff on duty.
They waited in a lay-by until almost eleven, then drove slowly along the asylum fence, towards the porter’s lodge. There was a dim light within, but no sign of any occupant. On Natalia’s instructions they drove past, drawing up a little way beyond and turning off the headlights. Natalia, briskly professional, said, ‘I’ll have a look. Geoff, if there is any trouble, drive away.’
She got out and walked steadily down the road. She had a hand in her pocket, holding onto the gun no doubt. David shifted to the middle of the back seat so he could see more clearly through the windscreen. He thought, how many missions like this has she done?
She approached the lit window of the lodge. She stood on tiptoe to get a good look inside, then turned and walked quickly back to the car, looking relieved as she got back in. ‘The porter’s tied up under his desk,’ she said. ‘He seems to be out cold. That means Ben is in the hospital now, fetching Frank.’ Unlike Jackson, she used his first name. ‘Put the headlights out for now, please.’
Geoff switched them off. ‘Will the porter be all right?’ he asked.
‘He should be. He’s gagged, if he wakes up he can’t move or shout.’
‘If someone’s gagged and unconscious there’s the risk of them being sick when they wake up, choking to death. There was a case in Kenya when I was there, a robbery that went wrong.’
‘Ben is a professional,’ Natalia replied steadily. ‘He knows how to do these things.’
‘I’m just saying—’
‘You know what’s at stake here,’ she answered sharply, her accent stronger. ‘There are risks we have to take – ’ She broke off. Something was happening at the gates. David saw one of them was slightly open. He leaned forward to look more closely. ‘Someone’s coming out – no, two people.’ As he watched a short, stocky figure slipped through, leading someone else, slight and stumbling, by the arm.
Natalia leaned over and switched the headlights on. Frank and Ben stared at the car, blinking. David opened his door and got out, Natalia and Geoff following as he walked over to them. He saw Frank sag suddenly, almost falling, but Ben held him. His head had flopped forward onto his chest. David touched him gently on the shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Frank,’ he said. ‘It’s me. Geoff’s here too, we’v
e come to help you.’
Natalia took the wheel. They drove through a sleeping village. Just beyond it she slowed the car. Frank seemed to have fallen asleep, his head lolling on his chest. David gave him a little nudge; he grunted but did not wake. The country road was very dark. Natalia said, ‘We’re looking for a long brick wall, with the name Rose Grange on a plaque by the gate.’
‘Who lives there?’ David asked.
‘A retired military man. Colonel Brock. He spent most of his life serving in India.’
‘One o’ thae types,’ Ben said disapprovingly.
‘He’s been with the movement since 1940. He’s too old for action now, but he has sheltered many of us before. Look, there it is, the plaque.’
She stopped the car. Geoff got out and opened a pair of creaky iron gates, and they drove up a short gravel drive with shrubbery on either side. They passed a palm tree, the leaves looking shrivelled and dead, and drew up outside a Victorian detached house, probably once a country vicarage. There were no lights. Inside, a dog began to bark. Natalia got out and opened the rear door. ‘Bring him out,’ she said gently.
Ben and David eased Frank out of the car. He muttered a little, shivering as the cold air hit him. He couldn’t stand unaided but between them Ben and David got him to his feet. They stood supporting Frank on the gravel, while Natalia went up to the front door and rang the bell. It was very cold; you could smell the frost in the air.
A light came on in the hall. The barking grew louder. A man’s voice shouted, ‘Nigger, shut up!’ David and Ben walked Frank up to the front door. It opened and a man stood looking at them. He was tall, with thin grey hair and a lined, stern face.
‘Colonel Brock?’ Natalia asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Aztec.’ It was the code word for their party.
The old man nodded. ‘Mission accomplished?’ he asked quietly.
‘Yes. We got him out safe.’
‘Hiya, pal,’ Ben said cheerfully.