Coney burst into tears at this rebuke. Frankie held her ground. “Exquisite, doomed, damning, with an expiring voice,” she said. “It sounds more like the heroine of Major Ludovic’s dreadful Death Wish.”
Then another bomb droned overhead and they fell silent until it passed.
The same bomb passed near Eloise Plessington’s little house where she was sitting with Angela Box-Bender. Directly overhead, it seemed, the engine cut out. The two women sat silent until they heard the explosion many streets away.
“It is a terrible thing to admit,” said Eloise, “but, whenever that happens, I pray, ‘Please God don’t let it fall on me.’ ”
“Who doesn’t?”
“But, Angela, that means, ‘Please God let it fall on someone else.’ ”
“Not necessarily. It might land on Hampstead Heath.”
“One ought to pray, ‘Please God let it fall on me and no one else.’ ”
“Don’t be a goose, Eloise.”
These two women of the same age had known each other since girlhood. Charles Plessington had been one of the young men who seemed suitable for Angela to marry. He came of the same little band of landed recusant families as herself. She, however, had confounded the match-makers of the Wiseman Club by preferring the Protestant and plebeian Box-Bender. Eloise married Charles and became not only a Catholic but a very busy one. Her sons were adult and well married; her only family problem was her daughter, Domenica, now aged twenty-five, who had tried her vocation in a convent, failed, and now drove a tractor on the home farm, an occupation which had changed her appearance and manner. From having been shy and almost excessively feminine, she was now rather boisterous, trousered and muddied and full of the rough jargon of the stockyard.
“What were we talking about?”
“Virginia.”
“Of course. I’d got very fond of her this winter and spring but, you know, I can’t regard her death as pure tragedy. There’s a special providence in the fall of a bomb. God forgive me for thinking so, but I was never quite confident her new disposition would last. She was killed at the one time in her life when she could be sure of heaven—eventually.”
“One couldn’t help liking her,” said Angela.
“Will Guy mind awfully?”
“Who can say? The whole thing was very puzzling. She’d begun the baby, you know, before they were re-married.”
“So I supposed.”
“I really know Guy very little. He’s been abroad so much. I always imagined he had completely got over her.”
“They seemed happy enough together that last bit.”
“Virginia knew how to make people happy if she wanted to.”
“And what is to become of my godson?”
“What indeed? I suppose I shall have to look after him. Arthur won’t like that at all.”
“I’ve sometimes thought of adopting a baby,” said Eloise, “a refugee orphan or something like that. You know the empty nurseries seem a reproach when there are so many people homeless. It would be an interest for Domenica, too—take her mind off swill and slag.”
“Are you proposing to adopt Gervase?”
“Well, not adopt of course, not legally, not give him our name or anything like that, but just look after him until Guy gets back and can make a home for him. What do you think of the idea?”
“It’s wonderfully kind. Arthur would be immensely relieved. I’d have to ask Guy, of course.”
“But there would be no objection to my taking him to visit me while we’re waiting for an answer.”
“None that I can see. He’s a perfectly nice baby, you know, but Arthur does so hate having him at home.”
“Here comes another of those beastly bombs.”
“Just pray, ‘Please God let it be a dud and not explode at all.’ ”
It was not a dud. It did explode but far from Westminster in a street already destroyed by earlier bombs and now quite deserted.
*
“You’ve read The Death Wish?” Spruce asked.
“Bits. It’s pure novelette.”
“Novelette? It’s twice the length of Ulysses. Not many publishers have enough paper to print it nowadays. I read a lot of it last night. I can’t sleep with those damned bombs. Ludovic’s Death Wish has got something you know.”
“Something very bad.”
“Oh yes, bad; egregiously bad. I shouldn’t be surprised to see it a great success.”
“Hardly what we expected from the author of the aphorisms.”
“It is an interesting thing,” said Spruce, “but very few of the great masters of trash aimed low to start with. Most of them wrote sonnet sequences in youth. Look at Hall Caine—the protégé of Rossetti—and the young Hugh Walpole emulating Henry James. Dorothy Sayers wrote religious verse. Practically no one ever sets out to write trash. Those that do don’t get very far.”
“Another bomb.”
It was the same bomb as had disturbed Angela and Eloise. Spruce and Frankie did not pray. They moved away from the windows.
X
Frank de Souza kept partisan hours, sleeping all the morning, talking at night. On his first day he appeared at lunchtime.
“Better quarters than I’m used to,” he said. “Until a few days ago I was living in a cave in Bosnia. But we shall have to do some quick work making them more comfortable. We’ve got a distinguished party coming to visit us. If I may, I’ll leave the arrangements to you. I put the General and the Commissar in the picture last night. You’ll find them very ready to help.”
“Perhaps you’d put me in the picture.”
“It’s a very pretty picture—an oil painting. Everything is moving our way at last. First, the Praesidium—that’s the new government—ministers of education, culture, transport—the whole bag of tricks. Officially, it is temporary, de facto, ad hoc and so forth pending ratification by plebiscite. I don’t suppose you saw much of them last night—they’re a scratch lot collected from Vis and Montenegro and Bari. Two of them are duds we had to take on as part of the deal with the London Serbs. The real power, of course, will remain with the partisan military leaders. The Praesidium is strictly for foreign consumption. Now I’ll tell you something highly confidential. Only the General and the Commissar know. It mustn’t get to the ears of the Praesidium for a day or two. Tito’s in Italy. He’s a guest of honor at Allied headquarters in Caserta and from what I picked up from Joe Cattermole I gather it’s on the cards he’s going to meet Winston. If he does, he’ll make rings round him.”
“Who’ll make rings round whom?”
“Tito round Winston of course. The old boy is being briefed to meet a Garibaldi. He doesn’t know Tito’s a highly trained politician.”
“Well, isn’t Winston Churchill?”
“He’s an orator and a parliamentarian, uncle. Something quite different.
“All we have to do now is to square the Yanks. Some of them are still a bit shy of left-wing parties. Not the President, of course, but the military. But we’ve persuaded them at this stage of the war the only relevant question is: who is doing the fighting? Mihajlovic’s boys were given a test—told to blow a bridge by a certain date. They did nothing. Too squeamish about reprisals. That’s never worried our boys. The more the Nazis make themselves hated, the better for us. So Mihajlovic is definitely out. But the Yanks don’t like taking our intelligence reports on trust. Want to see for themselves. So they’re sending a general here to report back how hard the partisans are fighting.”
“As far as I know, they aren’t.”
“They will when the Yanks come. Just you wait and see.”
Guy said, “The thing that’s been worrying me most is the refugee problem.”
“Oh yes, the Jews. I saw a file about them.”
“Two went out last night. I hope they get proper attention in Bari.”
“You can be sure they will. The Zionists have their own funds and their own contacts with U.N.R.R.A. and Allied Headquarters. It isn’t really an
y business of ours.”
“You talk like a partisan.”
“I am a partisan, uncle. We have more important things to think about than these sectarian troubles. Don’t forget, I’m a Jew myself; so are three of the brighter members of the Praesidium. Jews have been valuable anti-fascist propaganda in America. Now’s the time to forget we’re Jews and simply remember we are anti-fascist. You might just as well start agitating Auchinleck about Scottish nationalism.”
“I can’t feel like that about Catholics.”
“Can’t you, uncle? Try.”
When Guy went to church next morning at seven there were two partisans on watch. The priest in his black chasuble was inaudible at the altar. The partisans watched Guy. When he went up to Communion they followed and stood at the side, their Sten guns slung from their shoulders. When they were sure that nothing but the host passed between Guy and the priest, they returned to their places, watched Guy saying his prayers for Virginia, and followed him back to the mission headquarters.
At luncheon that day de Souza’s first words were: “Uncle, what’s all this about you and the priest?”
“I went to Mass this morning.”
“Did you? That won’t be any help. You’ve upset the Commissar seriously, you know. They made a formal complaint last night saying you had been guilty of ‘incorrect’ behavior. They say you were seen yesterday giving the priest rations.”
“That’s quite true.”
“And passing a note.”
“I simply gave him the name of someone who’s dead—what we call a ‘mass intention.’ ”
“Yes, that’s what the priest told them. They’ve had the priest up and examined him. The old boy’s lucky not to be under arrest or worse. How could you be such an ass? He produced a bit of paper he said was your message. It had your name on it and nothing else.”
“Not mine. Someone in my family.”
“Well you can’t expect the Commissar to distinguish, can you? He naturally thought the priest was trying to put something over on them. They searched the presbytery but couldn’t find anything incriminating, except some chocolate. They confiscated that of course. But they’re suspicious still. You must have realized what the situation is here. If it wasn’t for our American guests they might have made real trouble. I had to point out to them that the general was not only going to report back about the fighting. He would also be asked what Begoy was like now it’s for the moment the capital of the country. If he found the church shut and cottoned on to the fact that the priest had just been removed, he might, I told them, just possibly get it into his noodle that this wasn’t exactly the liberal democracy he’s been led to expect. They saw the point in the end, but they took some persuading. They’re serious fellows our comrades. Don’t for goodness’ sake try anything like that again. As I said yesterday, this is no time for sectarian loyalties.”
“You wouldn’t call communism a sect?”
“No,” said de Souza. He began to say more and then stopped. All he did was to repeat “No” with absolute assurance.
*
The battle prepared for the visiting general was to be an assault on a little block-house some twenty miles to the west, the nearest “enemy” post to Begoy, on a secondary road to the coast. There were no Germans near. The garrison was a company of Croat nationalists, whose duty it was to send out patrols along the ill-defined frontiers of the “liberated” territory and to find sentries for bridges in that area. They were not the ferocious Ustachi but pacific domobrans, the local home-guard. It was in every way a convenient objective for the exercise; also well placed for spectators, in a little valley with wooded slopes on either side.
The general pointed out that frontal assault in daylight was not normal partisan tactics. “We shall need air support.”
De Souza composed a long signal on the subject. It was a measure of the new prestige of the partisans that the R.A.F. agreed to devote two fighter-bombers to this insignificant target. Two brigades of the Army of National Liberation were entrusted with the attack. They numbered a hundred men each.
“I think,” said de Souza, “we had better call them companies. Will the brigadiers mind being reduced to captain for a day or two?”
“In the People’s Forces of Anti-fascism we attach little importance to such things,” said the Commissar.
The General was more doubtful. “They earned their rank in the field,” he said. “It is only because of the great sacrifices we have made that the brigades have been so reduced in numbers. Also because the supply of arms from our allies has been so scanty.”
“Yes,” said de Souza, “I understand all that of course but what we have to consider is how it will affect our distinguished observers. They are going to send journalists too. It will be the first eye-witness report of Jugoslavia to appear in the Press. It would not read well to say we employed two brigades against one company.”
“That must be considered,” said the Commissar.
“I suggest,” said de Souza, “that brigadiers should keep their rank and their units be called ‘a striking force.’ I think that could be made impressive. ‘The survivors of the Sixth Offensive.’ ”
De Souza had come with credentials which the General and Commissar recognized. They trusted him and treated his advice with a respect they would not have accorded to Guy or even Brigadier Cape; or for that matter to General Alexander or Mr. Winston Churchill.
Guy was never admitted to these conferences which were held in Serbo-Croat without an interpreter. Nor was he informed of the negotiations with Bari. De Souza had all signals brought to him in cipher. The later hours of his mornings in bed were spent reading them and himself enciphering the answers. To Guy were relegated the domestic duties of preparing for the coming visit. As de Souza had predicted he found the partisans unusually amenable. They revealed secret stores of loot taken from the houses of the fugitive bourgeoisie, furniture of monstrous modern German design but solid construction. Sturdy girls bore the loads. The rooms of the farmhouse were transformed in a way which brought deep depression to Guy but exultation to the widows who polished and dusted with the zeal of sacristans. The former Minister of the Interior had been made master of the revels. He proposed a Vin d’Honneur and concert.
“He want to know,” explained Bakic, “English American anti-fascist songs. He want words and music so the girls can learn them.”
“I don’t know any,” said Guy.
“He want to know what songs you teach your soldiery?”
“We don’t teach them any. Sometimes they sing about drink, ‘Roll out the barrel’ and ‘Show me the way to go home.’ ”
“He says not those songs. We are having such songs also under the fascists. All stopped now. He says Commissar orders American songs to honor American general.”
“American songs are all about love.”
“He says love is not anti-fascist.”
Later de Souza emerged from his bedroom with a sheaf of signals.
“I’ve a surprise for you, uncle. We are sending a high observing officer too. Apparently it’s the rule at Caserta that V.I.P.s always travel in pairs, the Yank being just one star above his British companion. Just you wait and see who we’re getting. I’ll keep it as a treat for you, uncle.”
XI
Ian Kilbannock was the first journalist to be admitted to Jugoslavia. Sir Ralph Brompton had vouched for him to Cattermole, not as one fully committed to the cause, but as a man without prejudice. Cape had an unexpressed, indeed unrecognized, belief that a peer and a member of Bellamy’s was likely to be trustworthy. Ian listened to all that was told him, asked a few intelligent questions, and made no comment other than: “I shall just look about, talk to people, and then return here and write a series of articles.”
He intended to establish himself now and for the future as a political commentator, of the kind who had enjoyed such prestige in the late ’thirties.
During his passage through Bari he was taken to dinner to the clu
b by the Halberdier major. More direct than Guy, he said: “I’m afraid I didn’t get your name.”
“Marchpole. Grace-Groundling-Marchpole to be precise. I dare say you know my brother in London. He’s a big bug.”
“No.”
Colonel Grace-Groundling-Marchpole, like General Whale and Mr. Churchill and many other zealous fellow countrymen, was at that time becoming a smaller and smaller bug. But he had no sense of failure; rather of triumph. Everything was turning out as he had long ago expected. Every day he closed a file. The pieces of the jigsaw were fitting together and the whole was taking shape.
Crouchback, Box-Bender, Mugg, Cattermole—fascist, Nazi, Scottish nationalist, communist—all were part of a single, intelligible whole.
That morning he had resigned the Crouchback file to the cellars.
*
While they were at dinner, Brigadier Cape came into the room politely propelling a man in the uniform of a major-general, a lean, gray-faced, stiff old man, whose single eye was lusterless, whose maimed hand reached out to a chair-back to steady him as he limped and shuffled to his table.
“Good God,” said Ian, “a ghost.”
He had sailed with this man to the Isle of Mugg in the yacht Cleopatra in December 1941; a man given to ferocious jokes and bloody ambitions, an exultant, unpredictable man whom Ian had taken pains to avoid.
“Ben Ritchie-Hook,” said Major Marchpole, “one of the great characters of the corps. He hadn’t much use for me though. We parted company.”
“But what’s happened to him?”
“He’s on the shelf,” said Major Marchpole. “All they can find for him to do is play second fiddle as an observer. He’ll be in our party going across tomorrow night.”
*
Ostensibly the party which was assembled at the airfield next evening, was paying a call on the new Praesidium. It had grown since the simple project of sending an independent observer had first been raised and accepted.
General Speit, the American, was still the principal. He had a round stern face under a capacious helmet. He was much harnessed with plastic straps and hung about with weapons and instruments and haversacks. He was attended by an A.D.C. of less militant appearance, who had been chosen for his ability to speak Serbo-Croat, and by his personal photographer, a very young, very lively manikin whom he addressed as “Mr. Sneiffel.” Ritchie-Hook wore shorts, a bush-shirt and a red-banded forage cap. His Halberdier servant guarded his meager baggage, the same man, Dawkins, war-worn now like his master, who had served him at Southsand and Penkirk, in Central Africa and in the desert, wherever Ritchie-Hook’s strides had taken him; strides which had grown shorter and slower, faltered and almost come to a halt. Lieutenant Padfield was there. The Free French had insinuated a representative. Other nondescript figures, American, British and Jugoslav, made a full complement for the aeroplane. Gilpin was there with a watching brief for Cattermole, and an Air Force observer to report the promised cooperation of the fighter-bombers. He and the two generals specifically, and Gilpin vaguely, were alone in the know about the promised assault.