Shadows of War (35 page)

If that’s what they thought, Theo knew they were wrong. The Wehrmacht had practised in the woods of the Eifel Mountains. They knew it could be done.

Dreadful though it was to him as an officer of the Wehrmacht, Theo still believed that a swift victory over France would be a disaster. Hitler would be firmly entrenched. Europe would become a National Socialist continent for years, decades, maybe even centuries to come.

He could not allow that. Even though he was risking his comrades’ lives, including that of his own brother, he somehow had to get a message to Conrad to tell the British what was about to happen. Conrad might be a lowly lieutenant, but Theo admired his resourcefulness.

Besides. It was the only thing he could think of.

Suffolk, 6
–7 May

It was late. Conrad decided to take a stroll around the football field of the prep school in which he was billeted before turning in. He needed fresh air after the all-too-familiar boiled-cabbage-and-bleach smell. After returning to England from Spain, he had spent a grim six months as a teacher at another school about fifteen miles away. He thought he recognized this school as one a team he had been coaching had played at football. It had rained hard and his school’s side had lost 4–1.

The battalion was a mobile reserve, ready to rush to the site of a landing should the Germans decide to invade East Anglia, an eventuality which seemed to Conrad unlikely, but not impossible. The Royal Navy was the first British line of defence, supported by the RAF. It would be extremely difficult for German invaders to get through to the beaches all the way from northern Germany, out of range of air support.

It was a dark night. Although the moon was almost full, it was shrouded by thick cloud. Conrad thought again about how he could try to return to London to ask more questions. As far as he was aware, the CO had heard nothing yet about his last visit. Would this weekend be too soon to try his luck?

It was infuriating that he was stuck here in the wilds of Suffolk when he had been making such good progress in London. It looked highly likely Alston had killed Freddie Copthorne. And if Alston was willing to kill his own friend, then it was quite possible that he had arranged for Millie’s death through Constance. Then there was the question of Bedaux and the Duke of Windsor. Was there a link between them and Alston? And if there was a link, what were they planning? His father had admitted that he and Alston had had lunch with the duke in February.

He wished he could discuss all this with his father. Lord Oakford knew Alston well, and he had access to everyone in power in London. He could ask questions and get answers. If Alston had indeed arranged for Millie’s death, then Conrad should be able to rely on his father to help him. But Oakford and Alston were not just colleagues, they were friends, and Polly Copthorne hadn’t given Conrad absolute proof that Alston had killed her husband – certainly nothing that would persuade Lord Oakford that Conrad’s accusations weren’t fantasies.

If only his father trusted him! Conrad was certain that Lord Oakford would never do anything to betray his country or his son, but who knew what he might say to Alston in the mistaken belief that his fellow director was harmless? Lord Oakford was a fine man in so many ways, he was the man Conrad admired most in the world, yet he couldn’t trust him. It was so frustrating.

He would just have to rely on Anneliese and McCaigue. Anneliese was doing well; what McCaigue was up to, he had no idea.

‘Sir! Mr de Lancey, sir!’

He turned to see a lance corporal running towards him.

‘Yes, corporal?’

‘Message from Lieutenant Dodds, sir. Three Home Guard have wandered into a minefield. They need sappers to get them out.’

Conrad swore under his breath.

The minefield was only ten minutes from the school on a stretch of boggy pasture half a mile in from the sea. The minefield was clearly marked, although in the dark it was impossible to make out the writing on the wooden signs. Dodds was there with the Home Guard platoon commander and he had alerted the engineers who were on their way. Even in the gloom, Conrad could see three figures in the field about a hundred yards away waving towards them. One of them was shouting for help. He sounded more like a child than a man.

‘How did they get in there?’ said Conrad to the Home Guard officer, who was a middle-aged man with the rank of captain. ‘I thought you people were supposed to know the local terrain. That was the whole point.’

‘They come from a village ten miles away,’ said the captain meekly. ‘They have never patrolled here before.’

‘Well, can’t they just keep still and wait?’ Conrad said. ‘The sappers will be here in twenty minutes.’

‘That’s Cobbold shouting,’ said the Home Guard officer. ‘He’s only seventeen. He’s just joined up.’

Conrad stood up and roared. ‘Private Cobbold! Stay calm and wait for the sappers! They won’t be long.’

Private Cobbold shut up.

‘I could go through the minefield and lead them out, sir,’ said Dodds. ‘It’s quite muddy. You can see their footprints in the field. If I tread in them exactly, I shouldn’t blow up a mine.’

‘Don’t be silly, Dodds. Just wait for the sappers.’

‘He was shouting about running for it earlier,’ said Dodds.

‘Why would he do that?’ said Conrad. ‘If he’s that scared he will just stay put.’

‘Message from the sappers, sir.’ It was Lance Corporal Fowler. ‘Their vehicle has broken down.’

‘They are engineers, aren’t they?’ said Conrad impatiently. ‘Can’t they fix it?’

‘Fan belt has snapped.’

‘All right, you men out there!’ Conrad shouted. ‘There’s been a delay with the sappers. Hold tight, we’ll sort it out!’

He turned to send his own vehicle to head back to pick up the sappers. Just then there was a cry from the field. Conrad turned to see a figure sprinting towards them. ‘What the hell?’ said Conrad. ‘Stop!’ he yelled. ‘Private Cobbold, I said—’

There was a loud explosion and Private Cobbold was sent flying into the air, landing hard on his shoulder.

Then there was silence. The watching soldiers held their breath, straining to hear sounds of life. Then it came, a long low moan.

‘Are you all right, Cobbold?’ the Home Guard officer shouted.

His request was met by another moan.

‘I’m going to get him,’ said Dodds.

‘Wait for the sappers. It’s his own bloody fault he’s in there. There is no reason he should get you killed too.’

The moan rose to a scream. And then another.

Conrad turned to Corporal Fowler to give him orders to drive off and pick up the sappers.

When he turned back, Dodds was in the minefield. He had a torch and he was sweeping the ground in front of him, stepping gingerly from footprint to footprint.

‘Mr Dodds! Come back here at once!’ Conrad shouted, but Dodds ignored him.

The screams continued.

Conrad held his breath as he watched Dodds pick his way through the field. At any moment he expected to hear another explosion and to see Dodds turned into a rag doll flying through the air. But perhaps Dodds’s theory would hold true. Perhaps by sticking to the footprints he would dodge any mines.

Conrad liked Dodds, and he was turning into a very good officer. This would be a very stupid way to lose him.

He reached the point at which the Home Guards’ path into the minefield was closest to Cobbold’s moaning body. But there was still ten yards distance between the two men, ten yards of virgin minefield. Dodds hesitated. For a moment Conrad thought he would chance his luck by stepping on to untrodden grass, but then he eased himself on to the ground, and began to crawl. It was hard to see in the dark, but standard operating procedure when forced to traverse a minefield was to crawl on your stomach, using a bayonet to probe ahead for mines, and that was what Conrad assumed Dodds was doing.

It was still dangerous, though, and Private Cobbold was still yelling.

Those last ten yards seemed to take an age. Then the moon appeared from behind the clouds, and a few seconds later Dodds’s tall frame was silhouetted against the grey horizon above the sea in the distance. Conrad could hear the officer talking soothingly to the fallen man, whose screams decreased to whimpers. A barn owl shrieked.

Dodds bent down, slung Private Cobbold over his shoulders and stepped back the way he had come. The screams intensified: Dodds had given no consideration to Cobbold’s wounds – he couldn’t afford to.

Carefully, slowly, Dodds picked his way to the edge of the minefield where four men and a stretcher were waiting for him.

He ambled over to Conrad and stood to attention. He was breathing heavily and his tunic was covered with blood.

Conrad felt the fury explode within him. ‘Mr Dodds! I gave you a clear order not to go in there! Are you trying to get yourself killed?’

‘Yes, sir! I thought we had discussed this before, sir!’

‘You’re an idiot, Mr Dodds.’

‘Yes, sir! No doubt at all about that, sir!’

Conrad stared at the tall, blood-spattered, nineteen-year-old officer with the rosy cheeks, standing to attention in front of him. A wave of relief rushed through him, extinguishing the anger and replacing it with a sort of giddy euphoria. He felt his lips twitch into a grin. Dodds smiled too. Very soon they were both bent over laughing, as the Home Guard captain looked on bemused.

It was a long night. The sappers eventually arrived and cleared a path to the two men still stuck in the field. The boy survived, but only just. He had lost a lot of blood and the surgeon said he would lose his leg below the knee.

When Conrad and Dodds eventually arrived back at the prep school for breakfast, there was an envelope waiting for Conrad, addressed in his father’s writing.

Conrad tore it open. It contained an unopened telegram with a covering note from his father saying it had arrived at Kensington Square and he had forwarded it immediately.

Good for him, thought Conrad.

The cable was from a Hubert Berger of a bank in Liechtenstein.
MEET
ME
IN
HOLLAND
11
MAY
AT
6
PM
MADVIG
’. Given the invasion of Denmark in April, Copenhagen was no longer operational as a letterbox, and so Theo had used a neutral Liechtensteiner to pass on his message. According to the code they were using, 11 May at 6 p.m. actually meant 8 May at 3 p.m., which was the following day.

It must be urgent. Probably something about an imminent invasion of Holland and Belgium, Conrad guessed. But how the hell could he get there in a day?

He could try to persuade Colonel Rydal to give him leave, but since he had only been back at the battalion for less than forty-eight hours, that was a long shot. If the colonel did agree, then Conrad might be able to book a seat on an aeroplane to Holland: it would be tight but it was possible he could get to the airport in time. But would they stop him getting on the aeroplane at passport control?

Probably. Given how Major McCaigue had somehow known about his trip to London the previous weekend, it seemed quite likely that someone would stop him.

He could try to get authorization from McCaigue or from Van. But that would take hours, or even a day. And even then the chances were he wouldn’t get it.

Was there anyone he knew who could or would just up sticks and get on an aeroplane to Holland? Someone he could trust and so could Theo?

Anneliese? No. Insurmountable border-control difficulties. His father? Definitely not. His brother Reggie? Worse. Veronica?

Veronica.

He found a telephone and gave Veronica’s number to the operator. Amazingly, she was already awake. Must be the war and the driving job.

‘Darling! How lovely to hear from you!’

‘Veronica, can you do me a tiny favour? It would involve dropping everything and getting on an aeroplane right away. The ticket’s about eleven pounds. I’ll pay.’

‘Oh, is it something cloak-and-dagger?’

‘As a matter of fact it is.’

‘How divine! Tell me.’

Ten minutes later Conrad composed a telegram back to Herr Hubert Berger in Liechtenstein: ‘
SORRY
CANT
MAKE
TRIP
STOP
WIFE
WILL
COME
INSTEAD
STOP
DE
LANCEY
’.

Clapham, South London, 8 May

Constance found the pub easily enough, just off Lavender Hill in Clapham. She ignored the hubbub coming from the public bar, and pushed open the frosted glass door of the saloon bar, which was empty, with the exception of a big man perched on a stool, accompanied by a half-empty pint of beer.

He grinned when he saw her. ‘Hello, Connie, my love! Good to see you!’

‘Nice to see you too, Joe,’ said Constance. Normally she hated people calling her Connie, but it somehow seemed all right coming from Joe Sullivan.

‘What will it be?’ asked Joe.

‘A glass of sherry, please.’

‘Ada!’ Joe yelled through towards the public bar. ‘A sherry for the lady.’

They sat down at a table. Joe Sullivan was a big man with a broad chest, a thrusting jaw and two distinct bumps on his nose. He was probably about thirty: old enough not to be called up yet. Constance had met him at a Nordic League rally and, despite his tough appearance, she found him remarkably easy to talk to. They shared an enthusiasm for the literature of the movement, and had become experts on the various theories of Jewish, Freemason and communist conspiracies. Constance knew that Joe had done some bodyguard work for the Nordic League and the British Union of Fascists. He could be firm. The truth was he liked a fight. And he believed in the cause. So, the right man to come to.

Within a couple of minutes they became involved in an intense discussion of a pamphlet they had both read:
The Rulers of Russia
by an Irish priest, which demonstrated that fifty-six of the fifty-nine members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Russia were Jews.