The FitzOsbornes at War (63 page)

21st August, 1948

M
Y EYES HAVE BEEN FIXED
upon my work for the past hour, but I just now glanced up from my desk to find the mist rolled away and the window awash with blue – the clear, pale blue of the sky, floating above the pure, deep indigo sea. Why
is
the sea here such an intense colour? Why is it so powerfully evocative? During our years in exile, I’d sometimes catch sight of a silk dress or a piece of glass of a similar hue, and feel an unexpected pang of sorrow and happiness and longing, before realising why. It’s funny how that works. When Rupert gave me my engagement ring, he said he’d chosen it because the sapphire was the blue of my eyes. To me, it was the colour of home, of Montmaray. Although perhaps they’re all the same thing – perhaps that’s how my eyes turned out this way, from all that childhood gazing out of castle windows at the sea. The view is still so utterly mesmerizing that I’m compelled now to push my typewriter aside, in order to stare out the window . . .

No, that’s not true, not entirely. (And if I can’t be honest with myself, here in the privacy of my own journal, what hope is there for my work?) The truth is, I’ve stopped typing because I can’t quite bring myself to translate the next few pages of my old wartime journal, not just yet. Simply reading the first sentence brought back such a rush of emotions that I had to close the book and fumble for my handkerchief. Admittedly, I
have
been rather weepy lately. Pretty much anything can set me off – I burst into tears the last time Rupert brought home another of those starving, flea-infested kittens that lurk about London’s alleyways, waiting to ambush him. (‘The poor thing never even knew its mother!’ I wailed to Rupert, sobbing into his shoulder as he tried to make up a bottle for it in the kitchen.)

But my memories of that first trip back to Montmaray after its liberation are even more heart-rending than orphaned kittens. Oh, how tiny the island looked from the air! How pathetic, really. That poor little rock, struggling to keep its chin above water in the midst of all that heaving ocean. Even after we’d landed, it seemed so much smaller than I remembered. And then there was the starkness of the landscape – such a contrast after those gentle verdant hills of Dorset. Montmaray was jagged black rock sparsely covered with shrubs, stiff grass beaten flat by the wind, and no trees at all. The Americans who flew us there seemed quite baffled by our interest in the place.

‘Ma’am, you
sure
you don’t want to come back with us?’ one of them asked Veronica, after the prisoners had been loaded into the plane. ‘That castle seems awful cold. And bare.’

‘No, thank you, Sergeant,’ she said brightly. ‘We have enough supplies for a week, and now that you’ve set up the radio system, we can contact the authorities if we need anything. We’ll be absolutely fine.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said dubiously, with a glance at my tear-smeared face and Simon’s grim expression. And we hadn’t even seen the
worst
of it, then. After the plane departed, we walked back up to the castle, where Toby was kicking the last of the swastika banners into the bonfire he’d kindled in the courtyard. I had a moment of wishing I could set the whole
castle
on fire – not to destroy it, but to purify it. Of course, the soldiers had already done a fairly thorough job of burning its contents. They’d long ago run out of fuel, so they’d chopped up anything that would ignite – the family portraits that lined the walls of the Great Hall, our grand piano, the kitchen chairs, the wardrobes upstairs and our sandalwood chest full of heirlooms. Anything of value had been stolen, of course, carted off to Germany even before the war began.

The only thing they’d left untouched was Bartholomew’s longsword, Benedict, which remained hanging over the chimneypiece in its scabbard, and it was several months before we understood the reason for this. When Daniel interrogated the soldiers at their prisoner of war camp, one of them reported that he’d read about the sword before the war. Apparently, our old friend Otto Rahn had gone back to Berlin and published an article about Montmaray, and it included a garbled version of the legend about Benedict protecting the FitzOsbornes for eternity. It seems that this was interpreted to mean that a curse would fall upon anyone outside the family who touched the sword. Veronica said this was further evidence that Nazis were complete idiots in thrall to a lot of superstitious nonsense, but Toby said there must be something in the legend, because he really
had
needed the sword to disarm that last, unexpected Nazi soldier, and things could have got very dicey indeed if Benedict hadn’t been in its regular place and still razor-sharp. The other thing we discovered was that a couple of the soldiers believed the upstairs rooms were haunted, and refused to sleep up there. I like to think that was the Blue Room ghost doing her bit for the war effort.

But all of that came later. Our first hours at Montmaray were spent wandering about in a daze, gaping at the destruction. The chapel, with all its windows blown out and seagulls nesting in the rafters. The library tower, reduced to an unsteady pile of broken stone. What had taken minutes to destroy would take years, perhaps decades, to rebuild. Still, the Germans had already made a start on repairs, if only to make their lives easier. There was a sturdy bridge across the Chasm; the curtain walls and gatehouse had been reconstructed in solid concrete; and the castle sported a new roof, complete with guttering and a large water tank. But just as I was feeling a little more friendly towards the soldiers, I noticed Veronica and Daniel having an urgent-sounding conversation in the courtyard.

‘No, don’t,’ said Daniel, grabbing her arm. ‘Veronica, please, you don’t need to see it now! Leave it to the military investigators.’

Which was how I found out about the slave labourers, the men the Nazi soldiers had brought to the island to build the concrete fortifications and the gun emplacement at South Head; to enlarge the airstrip and keep it in good repair; to tend the castle’s vegetable gardens. These men were left to house themselves in the ruined cottages in the village, and to try to feed themselves with whatever fish or rabbits or seabirds they could catch after their long days of back-breaking labour. They starved, of course, some of them to death, and the bodies were piled up to rot in one of the cottages. The survivors were collected at the beginning of 1944 and taken to a German concentration camp, where they were forced to make the rocket bombs that later devastated London. It turned out nearly all of the men were Spanish Republicans who’d escaped to France after the Civil War, and then were interned after the Nazi invasion in 1940. None of them lived to see the end of the war.

That was the hardest thing of all to bear – the knowledge of how those men had suffered at Montmaray. It turned the destruction of our property, even our years in exile, into something almost inconsequential. And there seemed nothing we could
do
to make it any better. But the Nazis kept meticulous records of all their prisoners, and so Veronica, with the aid of her Foreign Office colleagues, managed to trace many of the men’s families. At least we could tell them the truth, if they wanted to hear it. And they did, for the most part. Some of the families even came out here last year, to watch the new commemorative stained-glass window in the chapel being unveiled. Julia commissioned one of her artist friends to design it, and I’d worried it might be a bit
too
modern and abstract, but it’s absolutely beautiful, especially when the light streams through it. All the men’s names are in it, so no one can ever forget them . . .

And now I think I might as
well
have translated those journal pages, after all, given how long I’ve dwelled on all that heartbreaking tragedy. Goodness, I’d really better write something more cheerful next. What has been my happiest experience since the war ended? Well, our wedding, I suppose – yes, that was lovely. Walking out of the church at Milford into the dazzling sunlight that morning, arm in arm with Rupert, knowing we’d be spending the rest of our lives together. Veronica had pointed out that a civil wedding in London would be quicker and easier to organise, but I had my heart set on wearing a white dress, with the Reverend Mr Herbert officiating, and the Colonel giving me away, and Veronica as my bridesmaid. So that’s what we had, even though the occasion wasn’t
quite
as grand as Aunt Charlotte had always dreamed. Rationing was still in force, so my dress was one of Julia’s old debutante gowns with lace sleeves added, and the cake didn’t have any icing, and we couldn’t manage to buy any camera film so there weren’t any photographs. And Barnes wept all the way through the ceremony, although she assured me afterwards that that didn’t mean she disapproved of it. And we missed Henry dreadfully, of course (I could just imagine her refusing to wear a bridesmaid’s frock, and insisting on Estella being appointed a flower sow, or page pig, or something). Dear old Carlos had passed away in his sleep by then, but his two sons made their presence known at the church hall reception by stealing all the sausage rolls. Still, it was a
wonderful
wedding. I suggested to Veronica and Daniel that
they
might like to have one, too, but they remain firmly attached both to each other and their anti-wedding principles.

Anyway, if Veronica got married, she’d have to resign from her job – and she’d never do that, especially as she was one of those who helped convince the Gowers Committee that women should be allowed to take up permanent positions in the Foreign Office. Of course, women are still restricted to only ten per cent of its annual intake and have to remain single. Overturning that ruling is the aim of Veronica’s
current
campaign, although I don’t know when she ever finds the time to work on it, between her job, and doing evening courses at the London School of Economics, and helping Daniel with –

I
WAS JUST INTERRUPTED BY
D
AVEY
, who toddled through my open door with an armful of blanket.

‘I making a nest,’ he announced.

‘Are you, darling?’ I said. We make concerted efforts not to spoil him, but he has such a sweet, serious nature and is so utterly adorable (those big dark eyes of Simon’s in Julia’s heart-shaped face, that mop of chestnut curls) that it’s rather an uphill battle for us.

‘Yes, I making a nest,’ said Davey, nodding emphatically. ‘For you.’

Davey thinks the recent appearance of four kittens in that dark cupboard under our kitchen sink is the most fascinating thing ever – certainly more interesting than the arrival of his own little sister six months ago. We have explained to him that humans, unlike Sooty the cat, tend to give birth in hospitals, or at least bedrooms, and that my baby isn’t due for several months. I reminded him of this, and he listened with his usual solemn courtesy. Then he said again, very patiently, ‘I making a nest for you,’ and dragged his blanket over to the cramped space between the wardrobe and the dressing table. I decided to let him get on with it. (He seems to have inherited more than his fair share of the FitzOsborne stubbornness, although I suppose that
could
just be how two-and-a-half-year-olds
are
.) He was busy adding some cushions he’d taken from the windowseat, when Toby poked his head around the doorframe.

‘Have you seen . . .?’

I tilted my head at the wardrobe.

‘Ah,’ said Toby. He raised his voice. ‘Well, I’m looking for someone small. Someone light on their feet.’

‘Not me, then,’ I said.

‘Someone who can tip-toe into the henhouse and pick up the eggs with careful little hands –’

‘
I
doing it, Daddy!’ said Davey, scrambling out of his blankets and dashing over to Toby. ‘I doing it!’

‘Oh,
there
you are,’ said Toby, scooping him up. ‘I wondered where you’d got to.’

‘I making a nest,’ Davey explained, pointing.

‘Yes, you did mention your plans for that. Lucky Auntie Sophie, getting such a nice nest! I’m not sure she needs your sister’s teddy, though, so we’ll take that back. What’s this? Oh, a book. Well, yes, Auntie Sophie
does
love books.’