No Tears For Tomorrow

By TONY NASH

From Norfolk to Normandy - a family goes to war.

The 16-year old twins, David and Emma, in the carefree world of the mid-30s, joke about becoming spies.

To Commander Gregory, head of what will become the SOE, espionage is no joke, and he already has his eye on them.

Despite strong opposition from their father, they, their younger brother, James, and their Belgian friend, Nicole, become major players on the great stage that was the Second World War.

Life becomes a stampeding kaleidoscope of horrific hardship and imminent danger; of incredible courage and unbelievable achievement, of daily death and ghastly disfigurement, of diabolical atrocity and incredible political stupidity… and of moments of incredible joy and of hot, despairing tears.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TONY NASH
• Release date: Aug 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201681364

TONY NASH

Tony Nash is the author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels. He began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

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Other works by this author:

THE TONY DYCE/NORFOLK THRILLERS:

Murder on Tiptoes

Murder by Proxy

Murder on the Back Burner

Murder on the Chess Board

Murder on the High ‘C’

Bled and Breakfast

THE JOHN HUNTER THRILLERS:

Carve Up

Single to Infinity

The Most Unkindest Cut

The Iago Factor

Blockbuster

Bloodlines

Beyond Another Curtain

HISTORICAL/WWI NOVELS:

A Handful of Destiny

A Handful of Salt

A Handful of Courage

WWII EPIC:

No Tears For Tomorrow

THE HARRY PAGE THRILLERS:

Tripled Exposure

Unseemly Exposure

So Dark, The Spiral

THE NORWEGIAN SERIES

CNUT – The Isaiah Prophesies

CNUT – Paid in Spades

CNUT – The Sin Debt

CNUT – They Tumble Headlong

CNUT – Night Prowler

CNUT – Past Present

CNUT – Cry Wolf

CNUT -  Mind Games

CNUT -  When The Pie Was Opened

CNUT -  The Man Who Did It Doggy Fashion

CNUT -  Cut And Come Again

CNUT -  Deadly Premise

CNUT -  The Bottom Of The Pot

CNUT -  The Man From Next Week

CNUT -  Nemesis

LOOT – (A Viking tale)

OTHER NOVELS:

The Last Laugh

The Sinister Side of the Moon

Hell and High Water

The Thursday Syndrome

ESPIONAGE:

‘Y’ OH ‘Y;

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 4.

CHAPTER 1

MAY 1st 1936 Norfolk, England.

Now, my darling, I know that our love will last forever.

His mind screaming rebellion, Frederick typed the banal last words of the novel on the old L.C.Smith, sit-up-and-beg typewriter.

The deliberate affront to his art was unavoidable. His publisher, the genre, and the likely readership demanded the trite ending.

He ripped the sheet of paper out of the rollers, read the words once more, shaking his head in disgust, and sighed heavily as he laid it down on the desk top.

Boots, the only cat allowed in his study, coal black apart from her snow white paws, and mother and grandmother to the small legion of moggies that roamed the farm, immediately rose from her usual position – curled up in front of the typewriter - and setttled herself down on the latest item that held Frederick’s smell.

Though fussed over by every member of the household, he, the alpha-male, was her chosen human.

He chuckled, ‘If you’re giving that load of rubbish your seal of approval, Boots, your judgement is way off beam.’ He tickled the cat behind the ears.

Every line of his twenty-six successful murder mysteries had been pure pleasure to write, the characters coming alive as the words flowed effortlessly from his brain to his flashing fingers, but writing this latest novel had been nothing but a drag.

It had begun as a purely mental exercise as he lay in bed cuddling Annie, after a delightful half hour of gentle lovemaking, and when he’d sat down at the typewriter after breakfast he had written a first chapter, read it through, decided the genre was not for him and left the eight pages on top of his desk.

Unluckily for him, his agent, Mike Graham, had visited that morning for a chat.

He stopped by the desk and asked, ‘You’ve started the new book?’

Before Frederick could answer, Mike had picked up the pages, glanced at the first and snorted, ‘Romance, Frederick? Not you, surely! What name are you going to publish this under – Cora Codswallop?’

He suddenly stopped speaking, looked at Frederick with deep admiration, and gushed, ‘Ah! I get it now! You devious old so-and-so! It’s a clever new lead-in to a whodunit, where the sultry love interest gets her unjust, bloody rewards in the second chapter, isn’t it? It’s a different way of doing it, but it might just work at that.’

‘It’s nothing like that, Mike; it’s a load of vapid rubbish.’ Frederick protested, ‘I was trying something out, but I’ve changed my mind. Chuck it away; I’m going back to the blood and guts.’

‘So it was intended as a romance? D’you mind if I keep these – as a memento? I’ll have them framed.’

Not realising the danger, Frederick had told him, ‘Be my guest. It doesn’t matter who dumps them.’

The problem was that Mike, still chuckling at what he thought was a huge joke, had shown the sample to their publisher, Roger Dalton.

The joke backfired - in spades: Dalton read the sample and raved about it, wanting to see more.

‘Can’t you see, Mike? This is different – strikingly different and unusual. It’s love written from a man’s perspective, and in a way that hasn’t been done before. We’ll be on a sure winner with it. Women can’t get enough of this love business, bless ‘em. How soon can he finish it?’

Mike, knowing what Frederick’s response to that question would be, murmured hopefully, ‘Six months.’

Dalton shook his head, ‘Tell him three – at the outside. I want the full MS on my desk by the first of September.’

Frederick was appalled when Mike passed on the message, but he had no option; to a writer, his publisher’s word was law - he had to finish the novel.

It had drained him.

Annie, sitting at her Singer sewing machine just six feet away from him, took her foot off the pedal and with a smile murmured, ‘That sigh sounded as if it came up from your boots, darling.’

He grinned shamefacedly, ‘All the way up. Murder is much easier than love.’

With difficulty, she kept a straight face, ‘I hope you don’t mean that personally.’

He blew her a kiss, ‘You know better than that, my love.’

‘So writing about romance is hard, is it? And I’ve always believed you were a romantic.’

He rose, crossed to her and lifted her chin.

‘Something like this, you mean?’

He gave her a long, lingering kiss, his tongue tickling hers delightfully.

She gazed up fondly, ‘That will do nicely for a start. If writing romance gets you into that kind of mood, I’m all for it. You’d better start on another.’

‘Oh, no!’ He insisted, ‘One was more than enough.’

‘What if Dalton and Ambrose insist?’

Before he could answer, the door burst open.

Ernest, their twenty-one year old son, blew in like a gale of wind, his grin as wide as the Thames Estuary.

‘That’s the last!’ He exclaimed. ‘My God, I thought she would never drop it. I’m starving, Mum. Must have something to eat before I go to bed.’

He had been in the barn with Tom Baker, their shepherd, since seven the previous evening, waiting for the last six ewes to lamb, and Bertha, a Blue-faced Leicester – a breed that usually produced its young with ease - had resisted all their efforts until half an hour earlier.

Annie had taken mugs of cocoa out to her son and Tom at ten and a jug of tea at seven that morning, but the men had had nothing solid since dinner the previous evening.

‘Is Tom coming in for breakfast?’

‘He says not. He’s going home. Peggy is close to her term.’

‘At least someone else will be looking after that birth.’ Annie murmured.

Frederick asked, ‘Are the lambs all right?’ Though he had handed the farm over to his son, he still liked to keep an interest in its affairs.

Ernest nodded, ‘One is a bit of a runt, but they’re all feeding.’

‘That’s good. Are the twins out there?’

‘You bet, Dad. Emma is fussing over the lambs and making all those cooing noises like she always does when animals are new-born, and David is taking photograph after photograph. Oh, and the cuckoo is back. I just heard him for the first time this year.’

He held his hands up, still wet with slime, despite his attempts to clean them with dry straw.

‘Got to wash, Mum.’ He left in the same manner as he had entered the room, in his usual rush, and still grinning.

Frederick shook his head, ‘Good job it’s Sunday or they’d have been late for school, and they can’t afford that, with the School Certificate Examinations coming up shortly. They really ought to be studying.’

Annie smiled indulgently, ‘Give them a little leeway, Frederick. It is 1936, after all, and the educational grindstone is not quite as rough as when you had your nose pressed hard down on it.’

He slapped his game leg, ‘And look where it got me, and those hundreds of thousands that didn’t come home. The war to end all wars! If we believe what we hear on the radio and read in the newspapers, it could all happen again. Our idiot Government let them rearm, and now this man Adolf Hitler sounds just maniac enough to plunge us right back into the same sort of mess we were in back in 1914.’

‘Oh, Frederick. I’m sure they would never allow that to happen.’

‘That’s what everyone was saying in 1913. I wasn’t so worried about it until I read the letter we got from Reggie Slater yesterday. He said he is quietly selling up all his businesses in Belgium, Holland and Germany and transferring the money to a bank in this country, so that he can start up again here. He should know what he’s talking about - he has fingers in a lot of pies, including aircraft production and armaments. He believes that Europe is about to blow up, and intends to get out before it does, and bring his family over here with him.’

Annie felt a pain in her heart, ‘But surely, if what he says does happen, our boys will be safe, won’t they? Tony will be, of course, he’s just a baby, and James is only fifteen, but can we keep David on the farm?’

Frederick echoed her fear, ‘If he agrees, we can register him as a farm worker, though we both know that’s not what he intended for himself. If it comes to a call-up they’ll have something like they had in the last lot – ‘reserved occupations’ – jobs so important to the national need that they are not included; farmwork being one of them.’

‘It didn’t stop you though, did it?’

‘It could have done, if I hadn’t been so stupid.’

And if I’d kept my fly buttons done up.

Annie saw his expression and knew what mental picture he had formed: his baby son, murdered by Imelda. As always when that happened, Annie quickly made him think of something else.

‘What if he gets caught up in the same sort of national euphoria that we saw in 1914? Remember those posters: Your country needs YOU!’

Frederick took her hand and squeezed it, ‘We must hope he has more sense, but it will be down to him. We can suggest, but we can’t interfere.’

‘Will you sit down with him and tell him how bad it was?’

Frederick sighed. He had never spoken to his children of the horrors he’d seen and lived through and did not believe that he could even now. They were still too vivid in his mind.

‘I can’t, Annie. You know that.’

‘Then I will.’ She said determinedly. ‘I saw enough of it, God knows: bloody, torn pieces of what had been men lying all over the dirt floor, trampled on or kicked out of the way by doctors desperately trying to save just a few more; men blinded for life; men coughing their innards up before they died; others whose minds had been utterly destroyed, just as yours was until the miracle....’

He took her in his arms, ‘Sshhh! Go and make breakfast for your starving eldest son, darling. We’ll cross that other bridge when and if we have to. There’ll be other things David can do in safety if he is called up, and the same goes for James. I’m glad now that I began teaching the boys German when they were still not much more than babies, though I never thought it would be of practical use to them. David has done five years of it at school now, as well as French, and he’s better at it than I ever was, thanks to their teacher, Herr Weintraub. James is running David a close second, and he’s done a year less.’

Annie nodded, her eyes alight with love, ‘They take after their clever father with languages, as well as everything else. I’m as proud of them as I am of you, but how will the languages they’ve learned help them if it comes to war? They sent you to the front, even though you spoke German.’

Frederick shrugged, ‘Things have changed now, and the powers-that-be will have learnt lessons from the last mess. They’ll want interpreters, and that job would keep both of the boys out of the action. In any case, worrying about it now will not help a bit, and it may never happen.’

But he knew in his heart that it would.

––––––––

CHAPTER TWO

Persan-Beaumont, near Paris

Frédérique Marreaux tightened the last bolt on the cylinder head of the inverted de Havilland Gipsy engine he had fitted in the Morane-Saulnier MS341 to replace the Renault power unit the company usually fitted in that type of aircraft, just as Robert Cartouche rounded the corner and walked into the hangar.

He nodded towards the engine and asked, ‘How goes it, Frédérique?’

‘Almost finished, Robert. I need to connect the spark plug leads and a couple more wires and then I can run her up on test.’

‘She will be ready for tomorrow?’

‘Oh, yes.  I shall make sure of that.’ He hesitated before asking, ‘Robert, is there a possibility...?’

Cartouche pretended not to know what the nineteen-year-old mechanic was talking about, and forced a false look of anxiety into his eyes, ‘A possibility? Something wrong with the engine?’

Frédérique was embarrassed, ‘No, of course not. You know...what we spoke about.’

The test-pilot frowned, ‘What we spoke about? No, sorry. You’ll have to remind me.’

It had taken the young man weeks to gather the courage to ask for the favour in the first place, and now it seemed the older man had forgotten.

He stuttered, ‘We...we...’

Cartouche could contain himself no longer and burst out laughing, ‘Spit it out, Frédérique. Come on – say it.’

‘Would you...could we...?’

Cartouche put him out of his misery, ‘Of course we could, mon ami.’

Frédérique gasped with delight, ‘You will teach me to fly?’

The pilot nodded, ‘Yes, I will teach you to fly. That way I shall know my engine will never fail me. Tomorrow – at seven o’clock on the dot, mind. A second late and I’ll be up in the wide blue yonder without you.’

He knew the young mechanic would be there at least an hour before the scheduled time, chafing at the bit.

With what passed for a grin on what was left of his lips he murmured, ‘À demain.’

Frédérique revered the older man, a veteran of the Great War, despite his terrible facial disfiguration from the last time he had been shot down, his Neuport-11 in flames, after walking away unscathed from three previous crashes during the conflict. He had one normal looking ear – his left, but on the right he had merely a distorted lump of red and purple flesh, and his nose was a blob-like travesty. What little light brown hair he had began halfway back on his skull; he had no eyebrows or eyelashes, and no hair grew on his face.

Despite his looks, he had many friends, who appreciated his fine sense of humour, and though his minor facial expressions were badly distorted and unreadable, his bright blue eyes always seemed to radiate a sense of fun.

He was one of the finest pilots in France, with thousands of flying hours behind him. Strangely, he was married to one of the most beautiful women Frédérique had ever set eyes on, Marie-Claire Saint-Voule, who had given up her career as star of stage and screen to set up house with the test pilot.

They were known throughout the French aviation industry as ‘La Belle et la Bête’, though never in Cartouche’s presence.

The man was a legend, both in l’Armée de l’Air and as a test pilot.

Frédérique began to whistle Mon légionnaire, the latest Edith Piaf song that was on everyone’s lips, while he finished connecting and checking over the engine, bursting with a joy that he so urgently wanted to share with his mother.

At six on the dot, he jumped on his beloved Monet-Goyon 250cc motorcycle and rode with panache out of the Persan-Beaumont aerodrome, his white silk scarf flying in the wind, allowing him the allusion that he was in the cockpit of an aircraft.

When he arrived home at the café in the Rue Pascalle, run by his mother, Martine, and the man Frédérique had always called ‘Papa’ - Henri Calvard, the two large dining rooms were beginning to fill up with citizens wanting to stoke up with calories before heading off for their evening’s entertainment, and both his mother and Henri were working flat out in the kitchen, while the two waitresses, Edith and Renate, both of whom were in love with Frédérique, bustled from table to table, taking orders and delivering to customers the delicious traditional dishes for which the café was deservedly famous.

Frédérique knew he would have to wait until the rush eased before he could tell his mother the news. He removed his heavy leather motorcycling coat and hung it up in the hall of their private quarters behind the café, took his waiter’s waistcoat from the hook where he kept it and pushed open the door into an atmosphere heavy with smoke, both from the kitchen and from the dozens of Gauloises and cheap cigars being smoked by the guests who were waiting for their meals, and those who were dawdling over coffee.

As he collected the first plate of food from his mother at the counter he noticed her wince and place her hand on her stomach.

She saw his glance, removed the hand and forced a smile. Her son was the light of her life, and she did not want him to know how near death she was. Not yet, anyway.

At a quarter to one, when the last guests finally left, having spent more than an hour over their coffees and cognacs, Frédérique was at last able to impart his information.

He embraced his mother, who was hiding from him her utter fatigue and pain, and told her excitedly, ‘Today I am going to fly, Maman. Robert is to teach me.’

‘That is wonderful, mon cher, just wonderful.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

‘Off to bed with you then.’

‘Oui, Maman.’ He remembered her appearing to be in pain earlier and asked, ‘Are you ill?’

She forced a laugh, ‘Non, mon fils, non. Pas du tout.’

‘That’s all right then.’

He gave her a kiss on the forehead and exited into their private quarters.

Henri took Martine in his arms.

‘You must tell him soon, ma chère.’

‘I know – soon, but not yet. You have the letter to give him, if he is not here when...’

‘Of course. It is safe.’

She winced, and he asked, ‘Is it bad?’

‘I can still bear it, and the morphine helps.’

‘Will you see Doctor Déclan again today?’

She nodded. ‘Perhaps he can give me a more accurate timing.’

‘You should not still be working. I can hire a chef.’

‘Nonsense, Henri. I can work till I drop. I owe you so much still.’

‘You owe me nothing, and never have, chérie.’

Henri meant what he said. He had seen his favourite little prostitute’s belly begin to swell and had taken pity on her, offering marriage. His wife had died early in the war and he was lonely.

Martine had refused marriage for one reason only: she was still in love with the English Tommy who had made her pregnant, hoping against hope that he had lived through the war and would return to France to make her his wife, but she had gratefully accepted a place in Henri’s bed and under his roof, with one condition: that she did not become pregnant again, in case her white knight made an appearance. Their partnership had been a great success. Henri had been a wonderful father to her son, a considerate lover and a good provider. She had never come to love him, but adored him for having saved her from a penurious life of degradation, which could only have been one step up from the gutter. That is, if she had even survived.

Frédérique found sleep almost impossible; the excitement was too great, and he rose at quarter to five, relieved himself, pulled on his clothes and tiptoed down the stairs and into the kitchen to make himself breakfast.

Before half past five he was on the motorcycle, heading out to the airfield in the pre-dawn chill.

He was so cold when he reached his destination that he lit the stove and sat by it until Robert came in to join him.

‘What? No coffee for me?’ His friend quipped. ‘You do not want to delay the start, hein? Come along then. You do the pre-flight check while I watch, and then we shall be up and away.’

Five minutes later they were ensconced in the two cockpits of the little single-wing aircraft and Robert asked through the voice tube, ‘Do you want to do the take-off, Frédérique?’

‘The take-off, Robert? Do you think I can? What if I make a mistake? We could crash.’

‘Yes, of course we could, but you will only learn by doing it, and I am sure you have read enough manuals to be able to write one. You know the theory forwards, backwards and sideways; now put it into practice. Just concentrate on the revolutions and the stick. I will work the flaps. Taxi her to the start now.’ He’d watched the young man surreptitiously so many times as he sat in the cockpit of one aircraft or another on the ground, his hand on the stick, and the flaps working, practising every manoeuvre in the book over and over.

Frédérique was terrified for moments long until reason overcame his terror.

Robert would make sure that if he made a mistake it would be corrected, and this was the moment he had lived for during his entire childhood and adolescence.

He eased the throttle forward and the machine began to taxi.

At the end of the grass strip he turned the aircraft into the wind, gulped three times and increased the engine speed to full revs for the take-off.

He felt the sheer acceleration as his back was forced into the seat, and he watched the indicator needle creeping towards take-off speed.

Robert’s hand was hovering near the stick but not touching it, watching to see if his pupil was as good as he imagined he would be. Book learning and static practice was all very well, but he had seen it fail in so many pupils. This take-off was the acid test.

He watched the revs piling and the ground rushing past, waiting for the moment when he would have to take the stick, but suddenly they were in the air. He exhaled loudly, only then aware that he’d been holding his breath.

Frédérique had judged the take off to the split second. Robert knew that he could have done no better himself. It was a good start. Now to see if the lad could fly the machine.

The rate of climb was good – not too fast and not too slow.

At a thousand metres Frédérique levelled the aircraft out and asked, ‘What would you like me to do, Robert? Straight and level, climb, dive, turn...what?’

The older man did his lopsided grin, ‘You do exactly what you want to do, but no dramatic stuff and no aerobatics.’

For the next half hour the aircraft climbed, dived, turned tighter and tighter circles to left and right; every action performed perfectly, and Robert had not touched the stick or the pedals once since take-off.

He sat shaking his head; this young lad must have been born with wings; he was  bird personified.

For a first lesson they had already been airborne a long time, but Robert wanted to see just how much of what Frédérique had studied in books he could put into practice.

‘You have read of the aileron roll, oui?’

‘Yes, Robert.’

‘Left first then.’

It was perfectly executed.

‘Now right.’

‘And the two point roll.’

‘The slow roll.’

‘And now a barrel roll.’

He could not fault the manoeuvres. Dare he progress? He wanted Frédérique to make a mistake, to prove to him that a little learning is dangerous.

‘Now, you know what a stall turn is, I’m sure. Do you want to try one, or shall we leave that until tomorrow.’

‘Let me try.’

‘Very well. Try.’

Once again the manoeuvre was flawlessly executed.

‘An inside loop.’ That had to be too much for the lad.

It was not, and Robert shook his head in disbelief.

‘A tail slide now, but if you are...’ He was going to say ‘afraid’, but knew it was the wrong word, and changed it to ‘unsure’.

‘No.’ Came the laughing reply, ‘If we are going to crash, you will save us.’

‘Go ahead then.’

Their stomachs went into their boots as the little aircraft’s nose was pointed straight upwards, the speed diminishing...diminishing...diminishing...to a stop, and then the dreadful sensation of falling towards the earth tail first.

Frédérique again chose exactly the moment to level the aircraft out and turn the tail slide into a normal dive. Robert was astounded.

There was one more manoeuvre that he just had to try: one that had cost many enemies their lives when he and others had performed it during the Great War.

Without offering any advice he ordered, ‘An Immelman Turn.’

It was what Frédérique had been longing for and dreading. Would he be able to pull it off? He would do his damndest!

He began the dive as if attacking another aircraft and then went into a stiff climb, almost to the point of stalling as he had with the tail slide, but this time he put the aircraft into a yaw by giving full rudder and bringing the machine back onto level flight again.

Robert was speechless for over a minute. He had tried to teach that manoeuvre to so many pilots, and a large proportion of them had never perfected it. Frédérique would have made one very fine fighter pilot had he been in that conflict.

‘Take her home, Frédérique.’ He ordered, and added, ‘Well done.’

The light breeze they had enjoyed at take-off had strengthened considerably, and at the landing field the windsock was horizontal, indicating a wind of at least thirty kilometres an hour; a tricky, gusting wind, dangerous to novices, but Robert did not take the stick as they came in to land, merely watched as it and the pedals moved, not in the least surprised when the wheels touched down as softly as thistledown in a one knot breeze. It was only as they taxied towards the hangar that he realised he had willingly put his life in danger in allowing this young man who had never flown before to bring the aircraft onto the ground.

Of the scores of pilots Robert had instructed over the years he had come across only one other natural, Marcel Guiniack, a young man who had gone on to score over a dozen victories in the skies over France and Belgium and seemed to be invincible before Fate decided to take a hand.

His plane was hit by ack-ack, and he had to carry out a forced landing in a field close to, but on the wrong side of, the front line. He brought the badly damaged Bleriot down with great skill, jumped out, his hands in the air and a smile on his face. Downed airmen were always treated well on both sides of the line, but his timing could not have been worse.

A German Feldwebel, standing in a trench two hundred metres away, hot tears streaming down his cheeks for the best friend he had seen blown to pieces by an English shell just minutes before, raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger.

At least, Robert thought, this young man is flying in peace time, and hopefully that peace would continue. With luck he could continue emulating the birds throughout a long and successful life.

CHAPTER THREE

Namur, Belgium

Gaston Aldeste shook his head. ‘Mais non, Reginald, je resterai ici, en Belge.’

‘Then you are a bloody fool, Gaston.’

‘But the business...’

‘Will disappear along with you, your wife and your son in a puff of explosive smoke if the Boches walk in through the open front door, and you know they will.’

‘I do not...’

‘Though she converted when she married your father, your mother was Jewish, which, in the eyes of the Nazis, makes you, your young wife and your son, Guy, Jewish too. My God, are you blind as well as deaf, Gaston? I never took you for a fool. Here, read this – I know you read German.’ He pushed the newspaper across the desk.

Aldeste glanced down at it, but did not attempt to read. He protested, ‘We have no reason to believe it will come to a war.’

‘Merde!’ Reginald exploded, ‘How can I convince you? You know how I keep my ear to the ground and how I have become successful in business; I have foreseen future trends and used them to our benefit. You’re too young to have been in the last debacle, but I was not. I went through the whole war in the trenches, and Gaston, believe me, you would not have wanted to be there. The writing is clear on the wall. This article in the Berliner Zeitung repeats the phrase that is being deliberately used in every newspaper in Germany at least once every week, ‘The removal of the enemies of the Reich to concentration camps’. Do you know what they mean by ‘the enemies of the Reich’? You, my friend, for one. At the top of that list is every Jewish man, woman and child in Germany and any other country they will occupy. Hitler is a madman; you need only to listen to one of his speeches - he almost foams at the mouth - to assure yourself of that, and his henchmen – all of them - are just as bad.

This article is reporting the visit of Heinrich Himmler and his family, including his young daughter, to what they euphemistically refer to as ‘Dachau Protective Custody Camp.’

Himmler, I have on good authority, has been charged with exterminating every so-called ‘enemy of the Reich’ and he has already started with the inmates of that camp. Men, women and children are put to death there every day.’

Reginald’s ‘authority’ was a right-minded senior officer in the Wehrmacht, one close to the leadership, but appalled at the direction the Party was taking, a man whose life would later be forfeit with Claus von Stauffenberg and four hundred and fifty other officers after the failed assassination attempt on the Fūhrer’s life.

‘Oh, now you are talking newspaper-hyped nonsense, Reginald. Extermination? That would be physically impossible - there are millions of Jews in Europe – millions of them. That really is ridiculous.’

‘Is it now? Very well, Gaston. Have it your way. I shall cry for you and your family when you suffer that fate. In any case, since I know what’s coming, I have sold my majority share in this business to Rancourt Frères. They have offered to buy your minority share in the company at the same rate as they are paying me, and if you so wish they will keep you on in your present capacity at the same salary. Or you may keep your holding and remain as a junior partner. The decision is yours.’

Gaston gasped, ‘You did not tell me you were considering this transaction.’

‘I’m telling you now. I had to keep it under wraps in case the competition learnt of it. You are extremely lucky - you have a choice, and I’ve just explained why you should take the money and run. You have until five o’clock this afternoon to decide. Either way you can carry on as normal, but if you sell and want to continue working, it will be with a different boss and more money in your bank account. I was thinking of you when I decided to sell and made it my one condition of sale that you were looked after. I did hope to persuade you to come to England and save your family.’

Gaston was not convinced. ‘I shall have to ask Claudine.’

Reginald nodded, ‘Go home and do that now. If you decide to stay, your new boss is called Gérard Rancourt; one of the younger brothers.’

‘When are you leaving?’

‘The business? Today. The country as soon as the house sale is complete and the rest of my holdings transferred.’

‘What about the German businesses?’

‘They were the first to go, two years ago.’

‘The Lille aero engine factory?’

‘A month ago.’

‘I knew nothing of any of it.’

‘Of course you did not, and for the best of reasons. Secrecy was necessary all along the line. Even my private secretary was kept out of the picture. I handled all the correspondence and meetings myself. If my prospective buyers had known I was desperate to sell I would not have received the top prices that I did.’

Gaston nodded, ‘It was because you were such a good businessman that I came in with you in the first place.’

Reginald laid his hand on his junior partner’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘And I have enjoyed every minute of our partnership.’

‘You have made me quite a rich man, I have to admit.’

‘And you could protect those riches and your family at the same time. Take the offer and come to England with me. You speak passable English.’

‘As do you, Reginald.’

Reginald Salatier, born Reggie Slater in Norwich, smiled enigmatically, ‘Yes, mon ami, that is very true.’

As did all his children, including Hugo, now seventeen and, Reginald had to admit, an ill-mannered lout so different from the other three children.

He sighed as he thought back to the breakfast table that morning, when Hugo declared, ‘If we were in Germany with Herr Hitler I would have you denounced and arrested. You are an enemy of the people! A money-grubbing exploiter. You are worse than a Jew!’

Those words caused Reginald, who had a well deserved reputation as a first class boss who went out of his way to ensure his workers’ wellbeing, to finally lose control of his temper, held in check for months while his eldest son’s daily comments grew steadily worse.

‘Then you had better bloody well go and join him!’ He shouted.

Hugo had jumped out of his chair, ‘Then I bloody well will!’

He stormed out of the room and they heard his footsteps clatter on the stairs.

In the dining room there was silence, the three girls with their heads down, apparently appalled but secretly praying Hugo would go. For more than a year he had displayed himself lewdly and groped their breasts and lower bodies at every opportunity, and they no longer dared to be alone in the house with him or go to the bathroom on their own. Nicole, the eldest, was sure he would ravish either her or one of her sisters before long. They had come to hate him.

Colette, their mother, sat staring at the door, horrified and speechless, until she cried, ‘Oh, Reginald, what have you done?’

She began to rise from her chair, but Reginald urged sternly, ‘No, Colette! He is old enough to make his own decisions. If he wants to go to Germany and try his luck, then let him.’ He hesitated for only a second before making a pronouncement that wounded her far more than anything else he could say, ‘He is no longer my son.’

And never was. Colette had been heavily pregnant when he married her. Her husband, Claude, in one of the many ironies of the Great War, had been killed the day after peace had been declared, when he stepped on an unexploded mine.

Colette needed a husband, and unattached men were few and far between after the devastation of a war that had killed so many millions; Reggie Slater was looking for a wealthy widow to further his aims of becoming a rich man and to give him a credible background as a Belgian citizen. It had not been a match made in Heaven, but had worked well for both of them, and they had become as close as many traditionally married couples.

The boy had been born two months after the marriage, a ten and a half pound fatty, with jet black hair. He had kept that heavy build as he grew, and now had the bulk of a brick outhouse. The black hair was matched with thick black eyebrows over dark brown eyes, a bulbous nose and fleshy, petulant lips. He looked and was an ugly brute; a bully feared by many boys at school.

Relenting slightly and angry with himself for losing his temper for the first time in eighteen years, Reginald sighed heavily, reached into his inside pocket for his wallet and removed all the banknotes he had on him, a small fortune at that time, ‘Here, ma chère, go to him to say your goodbyes and take this to him. He’ll come back with his tail between his legs, I’m sure. The greatest likelihood is that those ignorant monsters will give him a bloody nose and tell him to go and lose himself, but in any case he’ll need money, and I’m sure his high principles will not cause him to refuse blood money from an exploiter of the masses.’ He shrugged, ‘I don’t know - perhaps his right place in the world is with those brown-shirted louts – if they’ll have him.’

~~~oOo~~~

The noise of the front door slamming was a huge relief. Pray God, Nicole thought, he never comes back.

Throughout their childhood Hugo had terrorised all three girls, punching them hard in the stomach for fun, giving them arm burns by twisting the flesh and pulling their hair, knowing that his mother would never listen to complaints from them. She would always say, ‘He’s only being playful. He doesn’t mean it.’

The terror became worse after his sixteenth birthday, when his parents had decided it was time to tell him the truth about his birth.

It was then that the sexual harassment began, and it had become almost unbearable. Not that Nicole had anything against sex – quite the contrary, in fact - she had been experimenting with it for almost a year, with several different boys, but had not gone the whole way yet. Heavy petting sessions had often had her on the very brink, but she always insisted ‘No!’ when things almost got out of hand, and with one exception she had got away with it. On that one occasion it had been with Marcel Girondé, two years older than she, Head Boy and desired by all the girls.

They’d kissed and fondled for several minutes, but when he suddenly pulled his erect penis out, she panicked and squealed, ‘No, Marcel’.

Much the stronger and in no mood to listen, he had held her down with one hand, used the other to pull the crotch of her knickers aside and would have succeeded in penetrating her, had not one of the teachers strolled around the corner of the boiler house just in time.

Both of them had been carpeted and given a severe dressing down by the Directeur, who seemed inclined to believe that she was responsible for the incident.

She had avoided Marcel ever since, and had learned that boys were just as happy with hand relief, or, better yet, with oral sex, which she had only recently experienced herself.

In private, she worried that she was becoming a loose woman, and had decided that she must marry as soon as possible, in order to have a respectable outlet for her passion, and would try to retain her virginity until that time.

She was not sure about the move to England, but felt it necessary to back up her father, with things as they were. She could always return to Belgium on her own if she wanted to. It was not as if England was on the other side of the world, and the female friends she had in Namur were in the main more like acquaintances. An innate fear had made her always keep them at arms length, despite their attraction, and in the case of Corinne Valsonne, her best friend, the openly expressed wish to be close.

Unaware that it was a natural thing in the late teen years for many girls to go through a period when other female bodies were sexually attractive to them, Nicole felt deeply afraid of her desire to hold and fondle another woman’s naked body, afraid that she was one of those women who were inclined ‘the other way’, like the women in "We Too Are Drifting", a book by Gale Wilhelm that Corinne kept hidden but had showed her a few pages of, some of the lines making her blush to the roots of her hair. In erotic dreams, it was often another woman she was with, not a man.

In the showers and when the girls undressed for bed, she found it hard not to stare.

Her mother returned to the dining room, her eyes red rimmed from crying, and Nicole rose and rushed across to take her beloved parent in her arms.

With fingers crossed, she assured her, ‘He will come back, Maman.’

Colette shook her head, ‘Non, ma chère, he will not. You have lost your brother.’

Nicole held back the whoop of glee, managing to keep a look of sorrow on her face.

‘Come, sit down and drink a cup of coffee.’

She guided Colette back to her chair and helped her onto it.

CHAPTER FOUR

As he waited for the train, Hugo bitterly regretted his outburst that morning. He suddenly felt far younger than his years and unsure of himself and the action he had taken.

It was cold on the platform and it made him think of the warm house he had left. His sisters he despised, though he lusted after them, particularly Estelle, the youngest, and since he had been told, on his sixteenth birthday, that Reginald was not his true father, he had come to hate him, without reason, but he loved his mother. Would he ever see her again? The family would be living in England, out of reach, and if it came to a war he would not even be able to contact her.

A worse worry was whether he would be accepted as a volunteer in Germany. The members of Hitler’s party were the Nationalist Socialists. He was not a national. Why should he be taken into their ranks?

What did he have that would be useful to them? German had been taught as a first foreign language at school, and he had found it easy to learn. The money in his pocket would no doubt get him an entrée, but that would not last. He did have one thing to thank his stepfather for that might be useful: Reginald had taught all the children English from birth, using it all the time in the house. But would the Germans be fighting the English? Herr Hitler was making out that they were his friends.

Hugo was not even sure which German city he should go to. The train he was catching went via Aachen to Köln and then on to Berlin.

He decided to stop off in the first city and try to meet up with members of the Hitler Youth or the Brownshirts. If that didn’t work, he would go on to Berlin the following day.

The Kölner Hauptbahnhof had a very different air to the peaceful Brussels-North main station he had departed from, where travellers chatted one to another, smiling as they spoke.

The citizens in the German city all had glum expressions and seemed to be in a hurry, their heads down, watched by more than twenty police officers in two different uniforms dotted around on the platforms and in the concourse, some of them the newly named Ordnungspolizei, the others members of the Kiminalpolizei. Hugo also noted at various strategic points eagle-eyed, hard-faced men in long leather overcoats, the ‘uniform’ of the Sicherheitspolizei, so he had been told. They were the SD and SS, much more to be feared than the uniformed men.

Even the Belgians who had travelled on the train with Hugo seemed affected by the atmosphere, and the lively banter they had indulged in during the journey was forgotten as they faced the realities of life in the Third Reich.

Hugo too kept his head down as he hurried through the barrier with his valise and handed in his ticket.

Crossing towards the main exit, he was unaware of the flick of the head towards him made by one of the leather-coated men he passed, his gaze directed to another man near the exit archway.

That man moved forward, and as Hugo drew close he stepped forward into the boy’s path.

Hugo stopped, his face showing fear.

The man asked, ‘Walloon?’

Hugo gulped and nodded.

‘Sprechen Sie deutsch?’

Again Hugo nodded.

‘Komm mit.’

He accompanied the man to a small office, bare but for a desk and three hard upright chairs, two on one side of the desk and one on the other.

The official ordered, ‘Sitzen Sie!’

Hugo sat and waited.

And waited.

Almost half an hour passed without another word being said, the SS man merely glaring at him.

Hugo felt his sphincter muscle working and knew he was close to messing himself. This was not what he had expected.

At last, another leather-coated individual, a taller man with steel grey eyes, entered like a gust of wind, nodded to the first man and both of them sat down opposite Hugo.

With a grim voice the new arrival demanded, ‘Your name?’

‘Hugo Salatier.’

‘Why have you come to Germany on your own?’

Hugo hardly recognised his voice. It sounded weak and totally unlike him,

‘I want to join the Brownshirts.’

It was as if he’d thrown a bomb at the two men, who had been expecting all kinds of excuses they had heard before.

They looked at each other with astonished expressions, both shaking their heads in disbelief, before the second man to arrive turned back to face Hugo.

‘Hah! And what makes you think they would want to have anything to do with a young Belgique bastard like you?’

‘Because I believe in what they do. The Jews and the other trouble makers should all be eliminated. Nothing is too bad for them.’

‘In that we agree with you, my lad, but we do not accept foreigners into our security forces. You could be a spy for all we know.’

‘I am not a spy! I walked out on my family this morning and told my father he was an enemy of the people.’ He hesitated, knowing that his liberty was possibly on the line, and then blurted, ‘I am ready to kill for you if necessary.’

His inquisitor’s eyebrows rose, ‘Oh, are you, indeed? And what gives you the idea that we would want anyone killed?’

‘Well, don’t you?’

The first man leant his head over and spoke urgently and low into his colleague’s ear.

Hugo tried to understand what he was saying, but the words sounded like a foreign language, with the odd one something like a German word and others completely different.

The second man listened and then replied in the same language.

Hugo was not to know that they were speaking Kölsch, a ripuarian dialect laced with Low German words and local expressions, incomprehensible even to most Germans not from that city.

The second man nodded and turned back to Hugo.

‘Can we believe you really mean that? You would kill a man to prove your allegiance?’

Hugo gulped. It had sounded all very well in theory, and he’d enjoyed plenty of practice beating up other schoolboys with his fists, but now he was faced with his moment of truth he was suddenly petrified. He dared not show it. These were dangerous men, and if they thought he had been fooling them there was no end to the humiliations and torture they could subject him to. He could quite easily disappear without trace. Could he really kill someone? He doubted it. But surely they didn’t mean it and were just testing him.

He tried to sound confident and full of bravado, ‘Of course. Two if you like.’

‘Two now, is it?’

‘If you want.’

The men exchanged glances and the taller of the two said something to his colleague in Kölsch before getting off his chair and telling Hugo, ‘You’ll have a chance to prove yourself this evening. I hope you are ready to shed blood, because if you are not, there will be dire consequences for having wasted the time of two senior officials of the Third Reich.’

Hugo wanted to ask how it would be done but did not dare.

‘Have you eaten lunch?’

He shook his head.

‘Go with Herrn Schantze. He will feed you at the state’s expense.’

In the station cafeteria he was not asked what he wanted and was presented with a beef and vegetable stew so disgustingly tasteless that his mother would have thrown it away rather than offer it to him, but he was hungry and ate every morsel, not sure when or even if he would get his next meal.

Afterwards, the man he was with drew out a notebook and began asking searching questions regarding Hugo’s upbringing, his family, and his education.

When he mentioned that he spoke fluent English, Schante’s expression showed his interest.

‘You learnt that at school?’

‘No, at home. My father taught us all.’

‘But your father is a Walloon.’

‘Yes, but he speaks excellent English.’

‘Where did he learn it?’

‘During the war, I understand.’

It was possible, Schantze thought. The Belgians had fought alongside the British, and if the boy’s father had spent four years with them he could well have learnt the language, but it would be something to check out later, if the lad came up to scratch. Once the armies of the Third Reich had walked into Belgium, the records of all of its citizens would be open to them.

That point of interest would have to be brought to the attention of his superior officer, Helmut Krainer, the other man who had been with him when he had interrogated the boy; a man Schantze hated and feared.

The head of their organisation, Heinrich Himmler, had laid out detailed plans for the coming years and had instructed them to look for likely foreign nationals they could use when their countries had been overrun. Hugo Salatier was one of the first.

CHAPTER FIVE

The twins sprawled on two of the lower branches of the huge oak tree at the bottom of Sarey’s Meadow, enjoying a lazy late Sunday afternoon, after finishing their chores and weekend homework.

David had his trusty .22 rifle with him, waiting for the rabbits to come out of the warren to feed.

‘Are you still going to do it?’ Emma asked.

‘Join the RAF? Yes, if they’ll have me. Roger loves it. He’s almost finished basic training and will start flying training next month. He’s been up as a passenger twice and says it’s a fabulous experience. If my results are good enough, I should be accepted.’

‘Dad won’t like it.’

‘He’ll like it better than if I joined the Army.’

‘I doubt it. Mother says he wants you to stay and work on the farm if war is declared.’

‘I know. He hints at it often enough, but I want to go out and see the world. Everything’s changed since he was young. Ernest is the farmer of the family, not me. Oh, sure, I like farming well enough, but I don’t want to do it for my whole lifetime.’

‘Do you really believe there’ll be another war?’

‘Herr Weintraub is sure of it, and I believe him. He fled to this country after his family was attacked and his sister injured so badly that she lost her mind. He says that Hitler will stop at nothing.’

‘You’re lucky Dad hasn’t found out about the OTC. You’ll have to tell him soon, and if they form the Air Wing they say they are going to introduce next year it will be in the Eastern Daily Press, and he’ll read about it.’

David groaned, ‘Yes, I know.’

‘Will they really have an aeroplane?’

‘Not at the school and not their own. We’ll be taken to RAF Mousehold Heath to do the flying with the Norwich and Norfolk Aero Club. We’ve already been there once for a day at the Boulton and Paul works, where they build and convert aircraft for the RAF. They let us sit in the cockpits of several different sorts. The smell is something I dream of.’

‘Smell? Ugh! Sweaty armpits? Stuff like that?’

‘No, silly. I can’t really describe it – a mixture of leather, oil, wiring - almost like the smell after a thunderstorm.’

‘You really are a romantic. You’ll have to write another poem about it.’

David grinned, ‘I have.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I will when I’ve finished it.’

‘What will you call it?’

‘A Walk with God.’

Emma giggled, ‘I doubt He’s got much to do with it.’

David held up a finger, ‘Shush. Mr Bunny has just popped his head out of the burrow.’

‘Pass me the rifle then. It’s my turn.’

‘Is it?’

‘You know it is.’

‘Oh, go on then.’

He handed the rifle to her butt first.

Emma waited until the rabbit had convinced itself that there were no obvious enemies nearby and had progressed several feet out into the field. She took careful aim at a centre point a trifle above the shoulders and squeezed the trigger.

The rabbit dropped on the spot, its backbone severed. Both the twins tried to shoot rabbits in the neck rather than the head, because after a head shot the animal invariably managed to tumble back into the burrow before becoming still, and it meant half an hour’s work with the spade to recover it.

David grinned, ‘Good shot, but now you’ll have to gut and skin it.’

It was a rule their father had insisted on from the very first day they had been entrusted with a rifle.

‘You know I can do it better and faster than you anyway.’

He knew it was true. She was a real country girl and not afraid of a little blood and guts. She was as happy working in the slaughterhouse, taking the innards out of a pig, as she was at her dancing lessons in school, and her favourite meal was one of chitterlings and jot.

‘Have you seen Graham lately?’

‘That’s for me to know and for you to guess at.’

‘Are you going to let him?’

Emma blushed, ‘Be quiet, David.’

‘You are, aren’t you?’

‘No, I am not! I’m saving myself for my husband.’

He pretended to sneer, ‘How is an ugly mawther like you ever going to find a husband?’

Emma, his identical twin, apart from her feminine finer skin, longer eyelashes and hair style, was a natural beauty. Unusually for a teenager, she was quite proud of her looks and would not want to change a thing. She also knew David was joking.

‘You’ll be knocked off that branch in a minute, my lad.’ She lunged for him playfully, and he urged, ‘Careful with the rifle!’

They had never in their lives fallen out over anything and were soul mates, but until the spring of that year they had grappled with each other almost daily in fun, wrestling on the ground, until one day, when David had managed to pin Emma down and was lying on her, his arm around her, he found that he had a handful of breast and a nipple between his fingers. He had an instant erection, which Emma had felt pressing against her bottom.

David had jumped off as if she was on fire, and they had never fought physically since. Neither spoke of it, but both were fully aware of their sexuality for the very first time. Now, any battles they had were merely verbal.

‘Shall we wait to see if Mrs Bunny comes out to see where her old man is, or shall we go up and read before supper?’

‘Read, I think.’

‘Just William again for you?’

‘Mm.’

‘Which one now?’

‘"William the Detective", the new one. What about you?’

‘"Pride and Prejudice" for the second time; it’s one of the set books for the School Cert. I’d much rather read something else, but I want to make sure of a good grade in English Lit.’

‘Have you decided what you want to do yet?’

Emma shook her dark brown curls, ‘I’d like to be a vet or a doctor, but those occupations seem to only be open to boys.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. There are women doctors, aren’t there?’

Emma nodded, ‘But very few, and the bits I’ve read about them are all full of how much of a struggle it was to become qualified, and all the antagonism they’ve had to put up with from the male students and the doctors teaching them. Then, when they are qualified, men don’t want to be treated by them,’ She giggled, ‘Of course, if one is a vet the male animals don’t object. No, David, I don’t think I want to have to struggle every day for years to become qualified. I want to do something in which I’m accepted for my ability as an equal with men.’

David laughed, ‘Women equal with men? Don’t be daft, Emma.’

‘I think women should be allowed to fight in a war.’

‘Now you are talking rubbish. How would you go to the loo in the front line? Tell me that.’

‘The same way as the men. Oh, you’re making it trivial, David, and it isn’t.’

He saw the tears that formed at the corner of her eyes and was contrite. He loved his sister and never wanted to hurt her with even so much as a remark. ‘Sorry, Em. I know what you mean. It is unfair. So what can you do?’

‘I want to do something important. Maybe if there is a war it will open up more opportunities for women. In the meantime, I’m going to keep studying really hard to get good grades, and then perhaps go to university. I’ve looked at the Cambridge degrees and only men can have them. Women follow the same courses and take the same exams, but they are not awarded a degree; they can be conferred the title of the Degree of Bachelor of Art, but are not admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Art. It’s just not fair.’

‘You could be a secretary.’

‘No, thank you. Working for a man all day and expected to be at his beck and call. I want to be independent.’

‘That will happen one day, but not yet.’

‘A