The Dark of the Moon, page 17
‘Come with me now,’ I said, clinging to her hand.
She shook her head. ‘There’s no room in the plane. But we’ll follow soon, I promise.’
Then I was carried through the woods to the edge of the lavender field, where more shadowy figures waited in the light of the half-moon. Moments later, I heard the unmistakable sound of a Lysander’s engine in the distance and three of the Resistance fighters stepped forward with their torches to mark out the landing strip among the silver furrows. The plane landed, turned, rumbled back to where we stood. The prop blades glinted as they continued to turn in the moonlight, ready for a quick getaway.
I tried not to cry out in pain as the stretcher was manhandled up the ladder and hurriedly lifted into the passenger compartment, where a man was waiting. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Very glad to meet you, Miss Buchanan. I’m an RAF medic, here to take care of you until we can get you to the hospital back home.’
The plane was already moving down the furrowed field, gaining speed, and then I felt the familiar surge as we broke free of the gravity that held us earthbound and the release as we lifted off into the night sky and were airborne.
As the medic busied himself, fixing up a makeshift drip and filling a syringe with some blessed pain relief for me, the pilot’s voice came through the intercom.
And I wept again as I heard Ben say, ‘It’s all right, Philly. We’ve got you, now. I’ve got you.’
Dawn was breaking when we landed at Tangmere, where an ambulance waited alongside the runway. Major Bertram was there, ready to help the medic lift me on to a trolley. But before they could do so, Ben had climbed down from the cockpit to gather me in his arms and hold me. Resting my head on his shoulder was the best medicine by far for all I’d been through. He came with me in the ambulance, never once leaving my side on the short journey to the hospital in nearby Chichester.
‘Don’t you have a plane to put away?’ I said, smiling through my tears as I clung to his hand as if I’d never let go again.
Very gently, he brushed a strand of hair away from my eyes with his free hand, letting the palm rest alongside my cheek. ‘Don’t worry, our Lizzie’s being taken care of,’ he replied. ‘And now I need to make sure you are too.’ Then the ambulance was stopping, the back opening. But Ben kept hold of my hand the whole way as the trolley was wheeled along the corridor to the ward.
My rehabilitation took months. In spite of the makeshift conditions under which my leg had been amputated in France, they’d managed to do a pretty good job. The doctors repeatedly told me how lucky I was, that it was the care of the French surgeon and my Polish friends who’d saved my life. So, even on the days when I had to struggle through the pain and frustration of physiotherapy, and the indignity of trying to adapt to wearing a prosthesis, I was still grateful to be alive at all.
Once they’d cleaned up my wound and just as soon as I’d had a few days in the hospital to recover, Major Bertram came to see me. ‘You’ve probably heard the news already,’ he said. ‘The Americans have invaded North Africa. In response, Germany has abolished the zone libre in France, occupying the whole of the country.’
‘What news of the team in Cadix?’ I asked.
‘They got out. But it was cutting things a bit fine. At present, they’ve split up into smaller groups and are still on the French side of the Pyrenees, as far as we know. But at least they’re a lot closer to Spain now. As soon as Bolek’s people can arrange guides to take them through the mountains, they’ll be making the next stage of their journeys. Things are pretty hot there just at the moment, as you can probably imagine. The Nazis have been clamping down hard on any Resistance activities, in retaliation for the invasion of Morocco and Algeria.’
‘There was a woman called Janina who was about to have a baby,’ I said. ‘Is there any news of her?’
‘Yes, there is,’ he said. ‘I remember seeing something about that in the intelligence report. She and her husband got as far as Toulouse when she went into labour. She’s had a baby girl. Mother and daughter doing well. They’re in a safe house, staying put for the time being until she and the baby are strong enough to attempt the journey through the mountains on foot.’
I felt a surge of conflicting emotions – joy that Janina and Jakub’s baby had arrived safely, but concern that they weren’t yet out of France, that there would inevitably be another delay, which would put them at greater risk.
‘You did a great job, Miss Buchanan.’ Major Bertram noticed my worried expression and tried to reassure me. ‘Without the money and papers you managed to get to them, they wouldn’t have got as far as they have. They’re not home and dry yet, but at least they have a chance. Don’t worry, the powers that be here are still doing everything they can to get them safely to Britain.’
Ben visited me at the hospital every day during the dark moon periods when he wasn’t flying. He’d come down from the base on his motorbike and stay in one of the RAF cottages in Tangmere so he could be close by. He was there to push my wheelchair, to bundle me up in blankets so that we could go outdoors into the crisp winter air and I could lift my face to the weak sunshine. He was there to encourage me to take my first few steps without my crutches. And he was there to cheer and reward me with a hug on the day I managed to walk the length of the ward unaided.
I slept well during those fortnights. But I tossed and turned through the anxious nights either side of the full moon when he was away, continuing to fly the Lysander missions into France.
As the weeks went by, I slowly regained my strength and, as I did so, I thought more of Janina, Jakub and their newborn daughter. I hoped they were growing strong enough too to make the journey on foot into Spain, although I knew it was very unlikely they’d be able to carry their baby through the mountains in the middle of winter. There’d be deep snow on the high passes now. The route was fraught with danger at the best of times. But every day they remained in France increased the risk of them being arrested. I was desperate for news of them, but, although I repeatedly asked Ben to check with Major Bertram, there was no word yet.
It was January before any more news of the Poles finally came through. There were no details, but we heard two groups of four had left Toulouse on the fourteenth, and a party of others were expected to leave a week later. I breathed a small sigh of relief, praying that Janina and her baby daughter would be able to make the dangerous journey safely and that one day soon I’d hear they’d arrived in Britain.
One cold, bright day in February, during a new moon period, Ben and I were married in the church at Tangmere, right beside the airfield. Back in Dundee, my mother was now too infirm to make the trip and my brother Frank couldn’t leave her or the factory, but they’d sent me some sprays of the white winter heather from Teddy’s grave. My friend Jess came down from Bletchley and, to my delight, Agnieszka arrived in style in a Spitfire that she was delivering. She’d managed to wangle it with Miss Gower at White Waltham, she told me. All the Attagirls sent their congratulations, along with a case of champagne gleaned from heaven knows where. My long white dress disguised my wooden leg, and I managed to walk up the aisle on Major Bertram’s arm with scarcely a limp. I carried a posy of holly and ivy, which I’d picked from the churchyard, with the sprigs of white heather tucked into it.
Ben smiled at me as he waited beneath the Gothic archway framing the altar, looking especially dashing in his uniform, and when he read the poem that had come to mean so much to us both there was a sudden flurry of handkerchiefs among the small congregation.
As he placed the ring on my finger, my wedding present to him glinted in the golden light streaming through the stained-glass window. I’d given it to him that morning – a signet ring engraved with his initials: BCD, those same letters that he’d written in my ATA logbook on the day we first met, more than three years before. On the inside of the band were inscribed the words from the poem: I’ll always be yours. P. He’d laughed as he read them, saying, ‘Great minds think alike!’ Then he’d shown me the wedding band he’d had inscribed for me with the same words and his initials. He slipped the ring I’d given him on his little finger, saying, ‘I’ll never take it off. You’ll be with me everywhere I fly.’
Some of the other Special Duties boys were there too and they formed a guard of honour for us as we emerged into the winter sunshine as man and wife, while a Spitfire roared overhead, just clearing the point of the steeple.
We didn’t have far to go afterwards. Ben and I had been allocated one of the RAF cottages in the village as our married quarters, so we all walked there together for the wedding breakfast.
Ben would be able to continue his duties from our new home, and I would be taking on a new role. Major Bertram had asked me to join the team looking after the Resistance workers when they were brought over. I would help train them for their return to France, teaching them how to set up and use the radio transmitters they’d be taking back with them and briefing them on the use of the other equipment the Special Intelligence Service had developed for agents in the field.
On the day of our wedding, once the final guests had downed the last of the beer (the champagne having long since been polished off) and meandered a little unsteadily down the path from our little cottage, Ben scooped me into his arms – just as he’d done in the pale light of dawn when he’d flown the rescue mission to bring me back from Uzès – and carried me up the narrow stairs to our bedroom under the eaves. I felt self-conscious, suddenly, and I turned to stop him, burying my face in his shirt front. He reached out a finger and gently tilted my face upwards, looking into my eyes.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Delaney?’ he asked.
I nodded, then shook my head. ‘My leg . . .’ I said. Although he was used to seeing the stump of my knee, in the intimacy of that moment I became acutely aware of how ugly it looked. I felt unworthy of him.
‘You have never looked more beautiful to me, Philly,’ he whispered. ‘I love you more than I ever thought possible, body and soul, exactly as you are. My courageous wife. For the days without number, I’ll always be yours.’
‘By the dark of the moon and the light of the sun,’ I whispered back.
I reached over to turn out the lamp beside the bed. And then I smiled as he stilled my hand and we began to kiss again.
Finn
‘What did they do with the bit of your leg they cut off?’ I asked. I was more interested in that than in the romantic bits of Philly’s story, but when she’s remembering her Life Story she seems to like talking about them, so I just let her. I know Mum will like them too and will probably want to put them in her book. We were walking to the shops the next day, because Dad was off helping to run the sailing camp and we needed to buy some food for our lunches and suppers. There wasn’t much in the fridge after Mum left.
‘I never asked,’ she replied. ‘I think they probably buried it somewhere.’ She tapped her false leg with her walking stick. ‘There is a corner of southern France which is forever England. Or Scotland, I suppose, with just a bit of Poland thrown in for good measure.’
We walked up the lane, past the smallholding with the beehives and the donkeys in the orchard. ‘That’s where the old man from the cemetery lives,’ I told her. ‘Sometimes I see him there wearing his beekeeper’s suit and a white hat with a veil.’
One of the donkeys wandered over to the fence when we got closer. Philly stopped to stroke its nose and feed it a handful of the greener grass that grows on this side of the fence. ‘Do you want to give it some?’ she asked, holding out another handful.
‘No thank you,’ I said. I don’t think I’d like the feeling of the donkey’s mouth on my hand. ‘They’re very old, these donkeys. They used to carry baskets of salt from the marshes.’
‘They’re in retirement. Like me,’ she said.
We carried on up the lane for a bit. Then I said, ‘Would you like to go back to the south of France and try to find your leg?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t feel the need to do so. I did feel the need to track down Jim Elliot’s grave, though, after the war. He was the Lysander pilot who was shot, remember? The maquisards had buried his body in the woods beside the sunflower field.’
‘Like the remains of his plane,’ I said. ‘Is he still there?’
‘No. He was given a proper burial in a military cemetery. His family wanted it. It’s very important to do what we can to find the remains of those lost in the war. To bury them with the honour and dignity they deserve. I think it gives the families closure. We all need a place to go to feel that connection with those we’ve lost. Amy’s disappearance made me realise that.’
‘Do you have a place to go to feel a connection with her?’ I asked.
‘Not really,’ she said. Her smile had gone. ‘I always think of her, though, when I’m in a plane. Because we never managed to find her, it’s as if she’s still up there in the sky. So I suppose that’s where I feel closest to her. Her spirit will always be flying free.’
We got to the shop, and I put on my ear defenders. ‘Would you like to wait outside?’ she asked, making a gesture so I’d understand. She was folding up her walking stick so she had both hands free to push one of the miniature-sized trolleys they have.
I nodded. Even though I’m meant to be helping her, the shop looked too crowded. ‘Can you get a packet of Prince biscuits too, please? The chocolate ones.’ They are the ones I like, and you can only get them in France.
When she came out, she had 2 pretty heavy carrier bags full of food. I took one and she carried the other, but it made her walk in a very lopsided way, even with her walking stick. Then I had a Good Idea. We were walking past the bike hire place and there was a tricycle there, but it wasn’t a child’s one, it was the size for an adult to ride. It had a basket on the front, big enough to fit one of the shopping bags.
‘Do you think we could rent that?’ I said. ‘We could push it back with the shopping on it. You could even put your collapsible walking stick in the basket, if you like.’
Her smile came back again. ‘Let’s go and ask.’
The man in the bike place was very helpful. He said he could certainly rent Philly the trike and he’d give her a special rate for the week. So that solved our problem of carrying the shopping and as we walked back to the house, pushing the trike with the bags hanging on the handlebars, Philly said she might even be tempted to have a go at riding it.
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I can get my bike out of the shed and we can go on some expeditions.’
‘I like that idea very much indeed,’ she said. ‘Let’s give it a whirl.’
We tried it out in the lane, once we’d unpacked the shopping. She was pretty good at it, even with her false leg, and she smiled a lot and said, ‘Not bad for a dinosaur.’
I said, ‘Much better. A dinosaur couldn’t ride a trike, not even a Coelophysis which was a biped and probably about the closest in size to a human being.’ And then we had lunch and afterwards we sat on the porch, and I recorded some more of her Life Story.
Philly
Ben had returned from a mission a few nights before, the last one in that moon period, and now we had the luxury of two weeks together before he’d be off flying again. I tried to keep my anxiety from him, but he could tell something was up.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked, as I cooked him breakfast in our cottage.
‘There’s been some news from Spain.’ I set a plate of eggs and bacon on the table in front of him and sat down, pouring myself a cup of tea. ‘It’s still pretty sketchy, but none of it is good. Antoni, Gwido and Maksymilian were betrayed by their guide as they tried to cross the border. They’re in the hands of the Nazis.’
‘That’s awful news,’ Ben said, shaking his head. ‘What about the others?’
‘There’s been no word of Janina and Jakub. As far as anyone knows, they’re still hiding out in France. But Marian and Henryk did manage to make it through the mountains. They crossed the border safely, but then they were robbed by their guide, who took all their money. The Spanish security police arrested them. They’re trapped there now, holed up in a Spanish jail, although I suppose that’s better than being in German hands. Our people are working behind the scenes to try to get them released, but it’s tricky with the Spanish.’
Ben set down his fork and knife and reached across the table to take my hand. ‘I’m so sorry, Philly. Maybe there’ll be better news soon, though. Don’t give up hope.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s all we can do . . . hope and pray.’
I was kept busy during that time, helping train the latest Resistance fighters who’d been brought over, so I spent the days with them at the farmhouse in a village a few miles away where they were accommodated.
Major Bertram’s wife, Barbara, was kindness personified. She’d welcome the agents arriving at Tangmere on the Lysander flights, no matter at what ungodly hour they appeared. She and Tony, along with their two young sons, cheerfully shared their four-bedroomed farmhouse with up to twenty guests at a time, somehow finding space for them.
As well as instructing the French agents on the skills they’d need to help operate makeshift landing strips in darkened fields, and set up and run new Resistance networks, we tried to make their time in England as homely as we could, knowing how hard it was for them to be away from their families in that time of war and knowing the risks they’d be facing on their return. Our ‘guests’ were always eager to help with the chores or bowl cricket balls for the Bertram boys on the lawn. I’d regained my strength by then and had got used to my wooden leg. When time and weather permitted, I’d take a couple of the visitors for walks down local lanes where we’d forage for food to help supplement the thinly stretched supplies. Our French visitors were often more adept than I was at spotting the supplies that grew in our natural larder. The Bertrams did a wonderful job of providing for them, but the full extent of the operations they were running had to be kept a close secret and so it was difficult to obtain extra rations without giving the game away. We put about the story that the house was a convalescent hostel for injured French officers who’d managed to get out of France, but I think some of the locals must have suspected a bit more was going on. Barbara’s chickens provided an ample supply of eggs, and the local butcher would add a few extra sausages to our order whenever he had any to spare. In the farmhouse kitchen we would make hearty stews supplemented with vegetables from the gardens of neighbours, which were quietly offered up as gifts.
