Maggie Bright (12 page)

“We
need
to laugh in times like these,” said Butterfield.

“Helpless children are killed. Experimented on. I’ll never laugh again. And oh, by the by, Hitler’s monstrous army overtakes ours as I speak, and with the fall of France, there goes our only chance to defeat him. America won’t hear from us for months, and then find us dead and colonized by Nazis. Oh, it’s just a laugh riot, Fred.”

The teacup burst in his hand.

He cursed, and after recovering from the brief shock, Clare seized his hand. She examined it, and began to pick out teacup pieces from his bleeding palm. He jerked at the touch of one particular piece, but she gathered his hand back and tried more gently.

The feel of his hand in hers, and now she caught his scent as she bent to her work
 
—it was distracting. Her cheeks warmed.

“There.” She placed the last bloody piece on the saucer. “You should have it checked, you may need stitches. Especially that one. Do you have a handkerchief?” she asked Butterfield.

“I don’t want it,” Percy said emphatically.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I
know
this man, I’ve
heard
him blow his nose, I will
not
have his handkerchief on my hand. It will catch pneumonia.”

“Where’s yours?”

He hesitated. “I have a cold.”

“Oh,
honestly
.” She wiped her fingertips on her forearm, and reached across the table to rummage about in his front coat pocket. She didn’t miss the flaming color on his very cross face, and suppressed a smile. “Where do you keep it? I will
not
look for it in your trousers, you can bloody your pocket first.” But she found it in the other front coat pocket. She shook out the folded square of white cloth and neatly bound his bleeding hand, tying it off tightly.

“Everything all right, guv?” said a waitress brightly.

Percy put his hand under the table, and Butterfield, collecting broken pieces from the tabletop, said, “Awfully sorry about that. Please put it on our tab.”

“I saw you do it,” the woman said to Percy with a sly little smile. “I’ve got a problem with anger, too. Try smoking Luckies. Don’t know what it is, but they work wonders. Better than Player’s.”

“Luckies, eh?” said Percy.

“Work like a charm.” She winked, and left.

He watched her go. “I better get some Luckies.”

Clare picked up the photograph of Erich von Wechsler. She wanted to wake up on
Maggie Bright
in a lonely place far away where nothing like this existed. But there was no going back to the usual world, and usual included daydreams.

“It was surreal, what the vicar was saying,” she said, “as if a black snake had suddenly poured from his mouth. And now to see his words in these photographs . . . I feel perfectly foolish, running out on him like that. How very alone he must feel.” What a child she was. Yet how could anything have prepared her for such a thing? She suddenly said, “I detest this using of him as
bait
. It’s like you’re lying to him.”

“We
are
lying to him,” said Percy.

“That seems to make you happy. It doesn’t bother you, if he’s the hero you say he is? Do you know his wife just had a baby?”

Percy took the photograph of Waldemar Klein, studied it for a moment, then tucked it in the envelope. He pocketed the notepad and pencil. “That’s not my concern. My job is to get Klein. If it means lying to a priest, if it means detaining him ’til the world’s end, which apparently is coming sooner than we think
 
—a song in my heart, Miss Childs.” He looked at Butterfield. “Laughter in my soul.”

“I’m not sure you have a soul, to keep him locked up,” Clare snapped. “It’s monstrous. He should be home.”

“Home?” Percy said bitterly. He plucked the picture of Erich from her hand. “Home is invaded.”

He rose from the table, and took his hat. “I have to . . . have a talk with that desk sergeant.”

“William,” said Butterfield, looking up. “We can always hope that
 
—”

“Fred, I don’t have any hope! Not anymore, not for us. But if I can find Klein and find that packet
 
—if I can go down like Arthur Vance, warning others
 
—well, that’s something, isn’t it? We’re done for. But maybe America will listen. And if they don’t, I gave them a chance.” He started off, looked at his bandaged hand, started to say something to Clare, then turned to Butterfield, and said in that private tone, “Don’t tell her all, Fred. Not that.” He put on his hat and left.

They watched him walk out of the restaurant, and then watched out the window as he crossed the street to the police station.

“Don’t tell me what?”

“He’s had a low time of late,” Butterfield murmured unhappily.

I don’t have any hope.

She picked up the photograph of Grafeneck Castle.

Hitler was no longer some caricature in political cartoons. No longer a mere bully. No longer over there.

He was here.

“May I?” said Butterfield, holding out his hand.

Clare gave him the photograph. He slipped it inside his jacket.

“I wish I was the same person as when I woke up this morning,” Clare said thinly.

“We never will be again. Needless to say, my dear, keep it all quite close. And take heart
 
—our good vicar should be on his way home soon. I think Klein is long gone, and hope Percy may soon come to that conclusion. Nevertheless, there
is
a possibility Klein may come back if he can’t find the packet elsewhere. Which is, of course, a polite way of saying that your boat could be in danger, Miss Childs. Which is, of course, a polite way of saying that
you
may be in danger.”

“Not with the Shrew about,” Clare said vaguely. “She shrieks. Can you tell me anything about the retreat? There’s a soldier, son of a friend of mine. I don’t know what section he’s with
 
—division, whatever you call it. His name is Jamie Elliott. I believe he’s a private.”

Butterfield shook his head. “There’s half a million men over there, hightailing it from a lightning rout. Your friend won’t learn anything for days. Weeks, perhaps.” Then the amiable face seemed to sag. “I will say this
 
—I wouldn’t hold out hope. Things have gone very badly. The unfortunate thing is that I am one of those dreadful optimists, and if I should admit there is not much hope, quite
depressingly you can take that to the bank. Only a miracle will save them now, and my heart is too low to believe for one.”

“What exactly is going on?”

Butterfield glanced about, and leaned in. He said very quietly, “Look, I’d be hanged for saying this, and I mean that quite literally, so you didn’t hear it from me and don’t ask how I know: Admiral Ramsay is working like a lunatic to pull together the entire Royal Navy and send them over to rescue the lads. Dover is in an uproar. But it’s a complete logistical nightmare. Soldiers are converging from all over France upon a coastal town called Dunkirk, a little holiday place straight across the Channel from Dover; but here’s the tricky part: there, the shore is very shallow, for a mile or so out. Destroyers won’t be able to maneuver in for a mass embarkation. They’re sure to have a deuce of a time, sending out cutters to collect our men one spoonful at a time from an enormous kettle. Promises a painfully slow evacuation.” He paused, and said heavily, “Which is to say, Hitler will beat us to them. Our lads are sitting ducks.”

Clare covered her mouth with both hands.

Poor Captain John! Surely the state she had left him in meant he knew what was going on with the BEF
 
—he was an old navy veteran; he had friends in the navy.

“German panzers and artillery and infantry on their heels, to say nothing of the Luftwaffe, already mounting a bombing campaign. Our boys will arrive at Dunkirk with no idea what they’re in for, surely thinking they’re going to be rescued when the truth is, Dunkirk is their last stand. The situation is unbelievably grim, Miss Childs. I hesitate to say ‘catastrophic,’ it’s like whistling for the devil, but I find no other word. Ramsay
hopes
to save forty-five thousand men . . . out of nearly half a million.”

A deep shadow passed over his good-natured face, and for a moment he seemed to have forgotten Clare.

“And now we have no allies. We tried to come to the rescue of
others, and find there is no one to come to ours. We stand alone, and small, before the great oppressor of our time, who brings something hideous to our island, something that will never be compatible with who we are. I have never felt such despair, never dreamed to see a day like this. The thought of losing the entire army is unbearable itself, but if our boys are not here to protect hearth and home, Britain is finished, and all that is lovely and good.”

She took in the words as she looked around the café. Two women chatted at a table nearby. An elderly couple shared a dish of pudding. A young mother spooned pablum into her baby’s mouth, cooing as she did.

“Look at them,” Clare said, voice hollow. “They don’t know everything’s changed.”

“Let them be innocent awhile longer.”

For a time, neither spoke.

Butterfield glanced down. His stomach touched the table edge. “Gracious. I
am
getting tubby.”

Clare looked out the window to the police station.

“No matter. Rationing will soon take care of that.” He contemplated the last biscuit on the plate, and as if guarding against future hunger, took and bit it. “Who knows
 
—perhaps even I, at my age, will take up arms for king and country.” He chewed meditatively. “Do you know, I’ve never felt this before, this underlying unity
 
—I feel connected to the man on the street like I never have. Even to thugs, for whom I now feel a great beneficence. Perhaps because at last, there are no more politics and principles. There’s not rich or poor, high or low, clean or dirty. We’ve been beaten. We’re alone. But we’re together.” He gave a bitter but somehow quite lovely smile. “The end of all things has a rather clarifying edge, don’t you think?”

She laid her hand on his arm. “I do, actually.”

“Hitler’s ways are new and bold and powerful. Ours are old and traditional and plodding. And not one of us will go down without a
fight for those plodding ways.” He blinked quickly. “I know in my heart that is not bully-boy rhetoric. We will not have him here. Not him, or his ways.” He gave a curt nod.

When the ache in Clare’s throat passed, she ventured, “How did Arthur Vance die?”

Butterfield realized he held a half-eaten biscuit. He laid it down, and looked out the window longingly, as if searching for a better day, a day long gone or a day far in the future.

“I’m not sure how much you want to tell Murray. His father was tortured, you see. I’ll not give those details. We made it to the hospital just before he went into surgery. He told us Klein didn’t get the packet, but that’s it
 
—never said where it was, because he saved his final bit of strength to pass on last words to his son.”

“What were they?”

“Do you know,” Butterfield mused, as if discovering something new, “his face was so white, he had no strength to even lift his head, but what struck me was that the man was dying, and he knew it, yet he was so calm. No panic. No desperation. There was some sort of rueful serenity about it, as if yes, the game was up, and he’d been caught as he knew he would be, but he also knew he’d done what he was supposed to do, as long as he could, best as he could, right to the end. No stout defiance about it. Just . . . rueful serenity.” A faint smile, and he focused on Clare. “It was the last we saw him alive. His final words were, ‘Tell Murray I’m sorry it all went to bilge.’ Sailor speak, I suppose, for ‘I’m sorry I left you and your mother.’”

“Bilge is awful,” Clare agreed, pressing the tissue to her nose. “It’s foul and nasty and part of my boat I pretend doesn’t exist. Look, are you quite sure he didn’t say something like ‘Tell him I love him’? Can’t I
please
pass along something a little more . . . ?”

“I’m sure those words were as good as, my dear,” Butterfield said soothingly. “They felt so. It’s how men talk, you see. We came to
learn that leaving his wife and child was Vance’s lifelong regret. ‘I’m sorry it all went to bilge’ meant ‘I’ve been an ass and if I had a chance to do it over, I’d do it differently. And PS
 
—I love you with all my heart, and I’m ever so proud of you.’ Yes, it meant all that.” He let the words lie for a time, and then, mustering a transitionary show of cheerfulness, which came off as something rather brave and sad, “So what is Murray Vance like, then? Arthur
was
proud of him. Certainly a clever lad. Love to get his autograph for my son.”

Clare fussed with her tissue. “I don’t know, really. Only met him yesterday.” She half smiled. “I feel as though I know you and your William better.”

If I can go down like Arthur Vance, warning others
 
—well, that’s something, isn’t it?

Such an intense man. His boyish face positively
deceived
.

She found that she had fussed the tissue to shreds.

Sounding very much like the Shrew, she collected the shreds and herself at the same time. You will take
hold
of your courage and your vision and your singularity of purpose and you will
divert
them to join ranks with men such as these and you will go down warning others. You will go down for ways that are plodding and good. That’s something, isn’t it?

For today, this day of days, her sailing dream had ended.

She suddenly said, “Mr. Percy said, ‘Don’t tell her all. Not that.’ What did he mean?”

“Oh . . . sometimes William is a little hard to read.”

“That sounds evasive, Mr. Butterfield.”

“He could have been referring to the nature of Vance’s death. It was quite brutal. Affected us deeply, since we’d come to know the man. It’s one thing to investigate a murder of a stranger, another when the victim is known to you . . . and known as a hero. But let’s set that aside for now.” He brandished a finger. “Right! You tell Murray Vance it’s time to get back on the bike. We must keep on
with whatever we’ve been given to do. We shall all of us go down in harness. I plan to go out ruefully serene, myself.” He flashed a quick smile, then took his hat and secured it on his head, rose from the table, and shook her hand. “Thank you for your time, Miss Childs. Here’s my card. Do ring us up if Waldemar Klein pops in for tea, though as I said, I’m sure he’s thoroughly searched the boat and is long gone. Nothing to worry about. Good day, Miss Childs.”