Dominion

Chapter Fifty-One

THE CAR DROVE ALONG DEEP Sussex lanes, between high banks lined with trees. They had made good time driving south from Chartwell; it was early on Monday morning and the roads were almost deserted. David remembered his first journey to Birmingham to see Frank. Only a fortnight ago, it seemed like another world. He had still worked at the Office then. He thought of its routines and customs, people like Dabb and Hubbold. He understood now how stifled and crushed he had felt without realizing it, before Charlie died even. His stomach lurched as he thought of Carol, her career over, too, and his dead friend, Geoff. He was sitting next to Natalia, her warmth pressed against him. He glanced at her and she smiled. His heart had lifted when he saw her from Churchill’s window. Now he felt desire again. Why did the sexual urge, which God knew hadn’t troubled him that much before in his life, keep returning now? Was it partly because, as Ben had said, you looked for solace in times of danger? But it was more than that, he knew; he was, like Natalia, in the end, rootless, in a time when rootlessness was dangerous: rootless and alone.

After the meeting with Churchill, they had spent a day resting at Chartwell. They had not been allowed to leave their room, so David had not seen Natalia again. Outside, they heard a constant murmur of voices, ringing telephones, sometimes running feet. At sunset the thick curtains had been drawn over the windows again.

In the evening they had a briefing meeting with an officer they had not met before. They were told that the following morning they would travel by car to Brighton. They were given yet another set of identities. The four of them – David, Ben, Natalia and Frank – were to be a funeral party, going to Brighton for the interment of an elderly aunt. They would stay in a boarding house while final arrangements were made for the American submarine waiting in the Channel to pick them up; they weren’t to be told exactly where from yet. David and Ben and Frank were all to be cousins, and Natalia David’s wife; with her accent, she could hardly pass as an Englishwoman’s niece. David supposed Frank wasn’t in a fit state to pass as anybody’s husband, and maybe they knew Ben’s secret and thought him unsuitable for the part. Sarah, they were told, was already in Brighton, and the boarding-house owners had just been contacted to say the party was on its way. Sarah would be told, but they must pretend not to know her.

They had set off from Chartwell at nine on Monday the eighth, in a big black Volvo. David realized that the reason they only phoned their people in Brighton yesterday was because, until Churchill’s decision, they might not have been going at all. Frank might have been under interrogation now, or even dead. Churchill had made his decision partly because Frank had touched his sense of honour; he wondered if that had been the deciding factor, the turning point. He looked at the back of Frank’s head; like the other three men he wore a dark, heavy coat and black bowler. He still found it incredible that Frank had stood up to Winston Churchill, actually told him to his face that he wouldn’t reveal his secret.

‘What did ye think of Churchill, then?’ Ben asked the company. ‘I could’ve fallen off my chair when he came in.’

‘He is very old,’ Natalia said. ‘I saw him in the corridor yesterday and it brought it home. Old and very tired.’

‘He’s almost eighty.’ David thought she was right, he had looked ancient, desperately burdened and weary.

Ben said, ‘It’s working people that carry the burden of getting rid of these Fascists. One of our leaders should be in charge, Attlee or Bevan. Or Harry Pollitt.’

‘Churchill has been a leader against Fascism since the thirties,’ Natalia replied quietly.

‘To preserve the Empire. Though even he knows that one’s lost now.’

‘He understood,’ Frank said suddenly.

Ben looked at him. ‘What d’ye mean?’

‘He understood me.’

There was silence; nobody quite knew how to answer. The car crested a hill and in the distance, across miles of undulating downland dotted with sheep, David saw the sea, blue and sparkling under the wide sky. Frank leaned forward, stared at it and smiled.

They arrived at the hotel, parking the car outside. They got out and took their suitcases from the boot, looking carefully round the narrow street. The weather was very clear and cold, no wind. The sea was at the end of the road, blue and dead calm. Ben came and stood beside David, leaning close. He said, very quietly, ‘There aren’t going to be any problems involving your wife and Natalia, are there?’

David turned, frowning. Ben met his gaze firmly. ‘You ken what I mean. She’s probably waiting for you inside. We can’t afford any problems among ourselves, not till we’re safe away.’

David picked up his suitcase. ‘There won’t be any,’ he said stiffly.

There was no sign of Sarah in the gloomy little reception hall of the Channel View Hotel, only a weary-looking middle-aged woman behind the desk. David gave their cover names in low, serious tones, appropriate for mourners. He knew the woman was with the Resistance but you could never be sure who might be listening. She leaned over the desk, smiling nervously. ‘It’s all right. Our last commercial traveller has just gone. And we’ve taken no bookings for tomorrow. Though you need to keep to your cover identities, just in case.’

David asked, ‘Is my wife here?’

She smiled again. ‘You’re her husband? Yes. She’s fine. She’s here under the name Mrs Hardcastle, a widow. She doesn’t know you’re coming, we were instructed not to tell her in advance. She’s gone out for a walk. She often goes for walks during the day, it gets her out of her room. She’ll be back for lunch.’ She smiled. ‘We’ve been a bit lax, letting her come and go. But we didn’t want to keep her cooped up here, she looked so sad.’

Ben asked, ‘Do you know how long we’re staying?’

‘My husband has just gone out. He’ll be back soon, he might have some more information. Go upstairs and unpack, I’ll call you when he gets back.’ She handed out keys from a pegboard on the wall behind her. ‘I’m Jane, by the way.’ She smiled again. ‘I think you’ll all be away very soon.’

They carried their bags up the dark, creaking staircase. Frank was beside David. ‘How are you?’ David asked him.

‘I’ll be all right.’ He nodded with a kind of wonder. ‘The sea. I’ve always liked the sea. It made me think, we’re nearly there, after everything. We might just do it. Mightn’t we, David?’

David had been given a key with the number 16 on it, for him and Natalia. The two of them stopped outside the room, while Ben and Frank went into the one next door. Natalia smiled at David uncertainly.

‘I suppose we’d better go in,’ she said.

The room was small and dingy, the window giving a view of the backs of neighbouring buildings. It was dominated by a large double bed with a candlewick bedspread in an unpleasant shade of yellow. David put his suitcase on it and looked awkwardly at Natalia. She smiled tightly. ‘So, Sarah is out.’

‘Yes.’

‘How do you feel now, about seeing her again?’

David sat on the bed. ‘I don’t know. Scared, I suppose.’ He laughed sadly. ‘Ironic, isn’t it, according to our papers you’re my wife now.’

‘You will go back to her, won’t you?’

‘We’ve been through so much, I’ve put her through so much. She needs me. But . . .’

Natalia sat beside him, looking at him with those slightly Oriental, green eyes. ‘You will go back to her in the end,’ she said sadly. ‘Because you are loyal.’

‘I don’t know.’

She didn’t answer. He asked, ‘If we get to America, have they planned anything for you?’

She looked at him, the sun shining through the window on that lustrous brown hair. ‘They told me, before I came to join you at Chartwell, that I am to go to America with you. I need to rest. Perhaps I will do some more painting. I have been doing this work for a long time. They said I am in danger of becoming burnt out.’

‘Are you?’ His heart leapt at the thought that Natalia was coming too.

‘This mission has been different,’ she said. ‘You know, all these years since my husband died I have had nobody. Oh, little affairs here and there but nothing serious, just work. But then I met you.’ She stood up. ‘People like me are especially useful to the Resistance. People without nationality, identity, family. I have been full of hate, anger, it has been all that’s kept me going for years.’ Tears came into her eyes. ‘Now – yes, I’m tired. Meeting you helped me realize that.’

‘I’ve realized a lot since I met you.’

She smiled. ‘Perhaps you are a little in love?’

‘Yes, yes I am.’

‘I used to look forward so much to seeing you, those evenings in Soho. Your people, you especially, seemed so – honest. Many of those I have had to deal with these last seven years were not, they wanted money and power. You just wanted freedom, the end of all this evil.’ There were tears in her eyes. She leaned over and took his hand lightly. ‘But your wife was in the way then, as she is now.’

A knock made them both jump. They looked at each other. David went and opened the door. He feared it would be Sarah, that she would see Natalia with him in tears, but it was Ben. He looked at them sharply. ‘Jane’s husband’s back. He wants to see us. We’re all next door. Come on through.’

‘Give us a minute.’

Ben shut the door. Natalia went over to the little washbasin and quickly washed and dried her face. ‘He’s worried, isn’t he? About – complications?’

He reached out his hand but she only shook her head and walked past him, touching his arm gently before opening the door.

Ben and Frank’s room was identical to theirs except that there were two single beds. A fat man in shirt sleeves, a lick of brown hair drawn across his bald head, stood by the window. He looked at David and Natalia with a touch of impatience. Frank and Ben were sitting side by side on one of the beds. Opposite them, on the other bed, a large map of the coastline was spread out.

The man said, ‘I’m Bert. We need to get on at once. I don’t like leaving Jane downstairs alone, not when there’s something like this on.’

‘All right, pal,’ Ben said soothingly.

‘This is like any war, there’s periods when it’s quiet and nothing’s happening, but everyone needs to be ready at a moment’s notice. Just like that.’ Bert clicked his fingers sharply, then looked at David. ‘Where’s your wife?’

‘Jane said she went out for a walk.’

Bert sighed. ‘All right.’ He sounded annoyed. ‘We’ve all been waiting for days, with no word from London about when you were coming, then everything goes mad yesterday. You’re on your way tonight.’

‘The American submarine knows we’re here?’ Natalia asked quietly.

‘Yes. They’ve been wondering what the hell’s going on, too.’

‘How do you contact them?’ Natalia asked.

‘We’ve a radio. Not here, in the town.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘It’s fixed now, you all travel to Rottingdean tonight, after dark. The sub will be waiting out at sea. You get picked up at one a.m. The weather forecast’s good, it’s going to stay cold and dry with a calm sea.’ He stepped over to the map lying on the bed. ‘Come and look here.’ David and Natalia went and stood at the foot of the bed. He glanced at her; she looked composed and concentrated again.

Bert asked, ‘Does anyone know this coast at all? No? Well, see those grey areas? That’s the cliffs, a sheer drop to the sea, there’s just a path between them and the water at high tide, it’s called the Undercliff Walk. The cliffs start just east of Brighton, here, and carry on to this gap in the cliffs – see, there? That’s Rottingdean village, three miles east. There’s a bay there, a cove, Rottingdean Gap. Then the cliffs rise again on the other side.’

‘What sort of place is this Rottingdean?’ Ben asked.

‘Small, an old fishing village, tourists come in the summer and there are people who’ve retired there. Posh, some of them; Rudyard Kipling lived there. It’ll be very quiet late on a Monday night. You get down to the cove, where there’s a small beach between the cliffs, a little before midnight. There’ll be a boat ready to row you out to sea.’

David said, ‘And then they take us away.’

Bert nodded. ‘It’s a spy sub, the Americans are often nosing around the Channel, seeing what messages they can pick up. They don’t usually risk taking any of our people off, though, in case something goes wrong and there’s a diplomatic incident.’ He looked at Frank, his face puzzled. ‘But they seem to want him very badly.’

‘Yes.’ Frank’s voice sounded composed. ‘They do.’

Ben asked, ‘Do you know where we’re goin’ tae, in America?’

Bert shook his head. ‘No idea. Somewhere along the East Coast, I suppose, to start with.’

‘What if there’s patrol vessels?’ Ben pressed.

‘We’ll have people watching the sea from the cliffs either side of Rottingdean. We haven’t noticed any increased naval activity in the Channel – in any case, the Germans wouldn’t tell the British authorities about this one. The waters off the coast are quite shallow, so the sub will have to come in on the surface and wait for you about a mile offshore. It’ll be risky for them, and it means it’s important you row out and reach them on time. Anyway, our people should be able to see any boats out at sea. If that happens, the mission gets called off and you come back here.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Everyone understand?’

‘All clear,’ Ben said. The others nodded. Bert took the map and folded it.

‘Right. We’ll have another briefing later; my contact in town will have some more details this afternoon. Thank God it’s getting too near Christmas for the shops to bother with reps, the last one’s gone home now. All the same, I want you all to stay in the hotel. Keep to your cover stories. We do get casual visitors occasionally even at this time of year and we don’t want anyone noticing anything unusual. All right? Now, I’ve got to go and help Jane get lunch.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘It’s best to keep to normal routines so far as we can. Lunch will be ready in an hour.’

Natalia asked him, ‘Have you done this many times before?’

‘We’ve put people up for a few days. Some Jews, week before last. Nothing as big as this though.’

Natalia looked at David, took a deep breath. She said. ‘I didn’t sleep last night. I wouldn’t mind getting some rest now. David, perhaps you could go to the lounge for a couple of hours. Then you can meet your wife when she returns.’

‘Yes,’ Ben said. ‘Good idea.’ He spoke lightly but gave David a determined nod. Frank too was looking at him, a concentrated stare.

‘I’ll show you where the lounge is,’ Bert said. ‘You can see the street from there.’ He smiled. ‘You can watch for her.’

Bert took David downstairs. At the bottom he glanced back up, then said quietly, ‘That Muncaster, he was in a loony bin, wasn’t he? Will he be able to go through with this? He won’t go nuts or anything? This is very important for some reason, to us and the Yanks.’

‘No,’ David said. ‘I think he’s all right.’

‘I hope so.’ Bert raised the flap in the desk and headed through to the back room.

David went into the lounge. There were several armchairs, well worn, the arms greasy, a writing desk, a television, and a bookcase with an assortment of pulp novels. He went and looked out of the window, trying to calm himself, to think.

He heard the door open quietly behind him. He wondered if it was Natalia, if she had changed her mind, but it was Frank who entered. He closed the door and stood uncertainly against it.

He said, ‘I wanted to thank you for what you offered to do, yesterday. If – if it had gone differently, with Churchill.’

David smiled awkwardly. ‘I wouldn’t have let them break their promise.’

‘You might have had a problem, reaching me with the pill.’

‘I’d have done it, or Ben would.’

‘We’ve made it to Brighton,’ Frank said.

‘Yes. Yes, we have.’

‘I’ve always loved the sea, ever since I went to the seaside on holiday when I was small. You used to swim in competitions, didn’t you?’

‘When I was at school. I gave it up at Oxford, took up rowing, remember? But I still go to the pool sometimes – well, I did.’ He sighed. ‘I always used to like diving down into the deep water, into the silence.’

‘Yes. Silent, peaceful. Another world. Maybe I’ll learn to swim in America.’ Frank looked down for a moment, then back up at David. ‘Your wife should be back soon.’

‘Yes.’

Frank shifted nervously from foot to foot, then said, ‘Natalia – she’s a good woman. A very good woman.’

‘I know.’

‘I won’t say anything, about what I saw the night of the raid. But Sarah is your wife—’

‘It’s not your business, Frank,’ David said, quietly.

He sighed. ‘No. No, I suppose it isn’t.’ He paused. ‘I keep thinking about Geoff.’

‘I know.’

‘He paid the biggest price.’

They were silent a moment, then David said, ‘The secret, the nuclear secret your brother told you—’

‘I shouldn’t have told you it was that. I’m sorry—’

‘No,’ David said. ‘I’ve been thinking – what is it? What is this thing that’s cost us all so much? It’s just that –’ he groped for words – ‘I feel it would help me now, to deal with everything, with Geoff’s death, if I knew. After all, after tonight either we’ll be with people who know it all already, or—’

‘Or we’ll be dead. I know.’

David said, ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I’m not thinking straight today—’

‘Edgar was very drunk that night,’ Frank said, very quietly. ‘I didn’t want him in my flat, I didn’t want to see him again. But he had to show he was better than me, he always did. I remember he said, “Do you know what I do, what my work is?” Then he told me, leaning right in so I couldn’t avoid hearing. He said it was the atom bomb. I never believed they’d actually built it, you see, despite that film of the mushroom cloud. I thought for once our government and the Germans were right to say it had been faked. Because the uranium, the explosive material inside the bomb, the amount of ore you’d need would be colossal, unimaginable.’

David said, ‘The ore the Americans get from Canada.’

Frank looked startled. ‘How do you know about that?’

‘It was an issue that came up at the Dominions Office. It was one of the subjects I stole papers on, for the Resistance.’

Frank said, ‘Everyone who worked in science in the academic world had been talking about the atom bomb since they found it was theoretically possible, back in 1938. But Edgar told me the Americans have been experimenting for years, for most of the forties, and they’d actually refined a new type of uranium, an isotope, as it’s called, and a few suitcases full would be enough to destroy a city. He told me the basics and because I’m a scientist, too, I understood; it only took a few minutes. Just a few minutes.’ He shook his head. ‘You see, if anyone who wanted to build a bomb knew what Edgar had told me, it would save them years of research. Years and years. The Germans could do it. I remember Edgar boasted that just one of the bombs the Americans have got – just one – could destroy central London in an instant.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ David said.

‘Afterwards, he realized what he’d done and told me to forget it.’ Frank laughed, and for a moment David heard something wild, deranged in his tone. Then Frank said, his voice low, ‘That was what made me angrier than anything else, that was what made me lose control and push him away. But I pushed him so hard he went out of the window. And then I suppose I went mad.’

‘Hearing that would be enough to drive anyone mad, I should think.’

Frank smiled sadly. ‘But I was a little mad before. Not so much now.’

‘I think we’re all a bit mad in this terrible world.’

‘Perhaps,’ Frank said. ‘You can’t understand what a relief it is to tell someone everything. I know you won’t say a word. I think perhaps I’ll go and lie down for a bit.’ He laughed nervously. ‘We probably won’t be getting much sleep tonight, eh?’

‘No.’ David looked at him.

‘I’ll see you later.’ Frank hesitated, then added, ‘Good luck.’

David stood looking at the closed door for a moment, then turned back and stared out of the window. And then he saw Sarah, walking towards him up the street. She wore strange clothes and her hair was short, a different colour, red. Her strong-boned face looked exhausted, drained. What have I done to her? he thought.