Over Here

'I think we'd already worked that out, Darling. Pete needs to talk to you so why don't I make the tea.'

Clifford went into the kitchen and an embarrassed Karl started to speak.

'This really could have waited. I only called in because I was passing. I should go.'

'You are here now, so what did you want to talk about.'

'You asked me to find out why guys were dropping out of the dance classes. I checked out the names you gave me. They didn't quit, they didn't come back.'

'So many? I had no idea your casualty rate was that high.'

'Not all of them are casualties, some will be taken prisoner but either way, the guys know there is a one in ten chance they won't be coming back. That's why life here must be as good as we can make it.'

'I think it's even worse for our chaps in bomber command,' said Clifford as he came in with the tea. 'If a spitfire goes down it's only one man lost, but a Lancaster has eight crew and there are ten in a B17.'

'I see, I hadn't thought of it like that. When will this beastly war end?'

Clifford put his arm around her shoulders.' That's a question we'd all like the answer to, but I think it's moving in the right direction now and with the help of our American friends we are turning the tide.'

Daphne turned and buried her head in her husband's chest as she threw her arms around him. Karl could watch no more, he made his excuses and left.

Back at the base, with the image of Daphne hugging Clifford still on his mind Karl sat in his quarters and started writing a letter to Peg. She'd been pleased that his was not a combat role. After the conversation at the Mortimer's, he was beginning to feel the same way.

The letter did nothing to dispel the feelings he had for Daphne Mortimer and he felt guilty about some of the thoughts going through his mind. Clifford was a Spitfire pilot, flying combat missions. Although their losses were not as high as the bomber crews there was still a good chance he would be shot down, maybe even killed. He would be there to offer succour. He gave no thought to what would happen to Peg in such a circumstance.

***

It was another week before he saw Daphne again. He'd deliberately tried to stay away yet time after time, he found himself driving past The Gatehouse. It was on one of these drive-byes that he saw a telegram boy parking his bicycle outside the house. He felt his chest tighten at the sight of the lad walking up to the front door. In peacetime telegrams meant an urgent message from a loved one but since 1939 usually meant one thing and Karl knew it would not be good news. He leapt from the Jeep almost before it had stopped moving. He was striding towards the door when it opened. Daphne took one look at the telegram boy and brought both hands up to her mouth.

'Oh no, please God no.'

Karl eased past the lad who stood with his hand extended. In his hand was a small buff envelope, which he offered to Daphne. Karl put his arm around her shoulder.

'It's okay, it may not be bad news.'

He took the telegram from the boy.

'Have you got to wait for a reply?'

'No sir. Sorry, sir.'

He turned Daphne around and started to walk her inside.

'Let's go back inside, you'll feel better after a cup of tea.'

He walked her in and sat her down on the sofa. She was turning the envelope round and round in her hands too frightened to open it. Karl had seen this before when he'd had the painful duty of informing relatives of the loss of their loved ones. On many occasions, they'd tried to stop him saying what he had to say. It was as if they could prevent death by not hearing the news.

'Would you like me to wait while you open that?' he asked as he watched her play with the envelope. Daphne nodded and he sat down next to her.

'Whatever is in that message has already happened. It's not going to change just because you know about it.'

She stopped turning the envelope, lifted the flap, pulled out the telegram and unfolded it. She looked at the message and shook her head.

'Missing in action, what do they mean by that?'

'It means that they don't know what has happened to him, they just know that he didn't come back from a mission.'

'So he may be alive?'

'Sure, any number of things could have happened.'

She turned and threw her arms around him.

'Thank God. He's still alive I know he is.'

Karl wrapped his arms around her.

'Yeah, baby, you believe that if it helps,' he murmured as he held her tight.

After several minutes, Daphne pulled back. She looked into Karl's eyes with her face only an inch away from his. Karl had to fight the urge to kiss her. He was about to give way when she pushed herself away from him.

'You're right, we need a cup of tea...or would you prefer coffee?'

She got up and walked to the kitchen. Karl followed and found her wiping tears from her eyes.

'This is ridiculous, hundreds of women are losing their husbands every day yet here I am blubbering when mine has only been declared missing.'

'Daphne, it's alright to cry. Any woman would be upset after getting news like that.'

'No it's not alright, I'm married to the heir to the estate that employs most of the local people. People look to me to set an example. How can I expect them to hold it together if I can't do it myself?'

Karl took hold of her arms and looked at her.

'Who can see you now? Only me. It's okay to cry in front of me. Keep your British stiff upper lip for those people out there but when you're with me it's okay to cry.'

She fell into his arms once more and as she sobbed into his chest, Karl stroked her hair. This wasn't the way he wanted it to happen, but to be there holding her close was more than he could have dreamed of. After several minutes, Daphne pulled away from him. She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dried her eyes. Looking up at Karl, she took his face in her hands and stretched up to kiss him. It was not a passionate kiss just a light touching of lips but to Karl it meant everything.

'Thank you,' she said. 'Now this tea isn't going to make itself. You go and sit down and when I come in with the tea you can tell me all about America and what it's like to live there.'

***

A taxi pulled up outside. Peggy was the first one to notice.

'He's here,' she shouted to her daughter. 'Oliver is here.'

The man climbing out of the taxi was tall with broad shoulders. He wore a blue uniform and as he got out of the cab, he covered his dark hair with a blue cap.

'He's very handsome,' Said Peg as Oliver pulled his overnight bag from the cab and walked to the front door. Anne had the door open before he reached it. She ran out and greeted him with a kiss. She put her arm around his waist and the two walked up the path to be met by Karl and Peg at the front door.

'Mom, Dad, this is Oliver. Ollie, these are my parents.

'Pleased to meet you, Ma'am...Sir.' Oliver said and shook them both by the hand.

'Oh, let's have none of that stuffy Ma'am and Sir. I'm Peg and this is Karl.'

'Well, I am very pleased to meet you both. Annie has told me so much about you. All good I hasten to add.'

As they walked into the house, Peg kept nudging Karl.

'What is it, woman?'

'I can certainly see what she sees in this one. So handsome, he reminds me of you in your younger days...and so polite.'

'Yeah, that's the British for you, it's all, please and thank you, even when they are robbing you blind.'

'Now you stop that right now Karl Brockman. You haven't even given him a chance. I know she's your baby girl but sooner or later, there will be another man who takes your place at the centre of her world. You have to accept that and hope she chooses the right one. I may be wrong but I think you just met him.'

Anne led Oliver upstairs and showed him to the guest room.

'Sorry about this but I'm in my old room just down the passage. Dad still thinks I'm his little girl and he has to protect my virtue.'

'You could never lose your virtue, I see it in you every day. Don't worry about your Dad, I think it's good that he wants to protect you. I take it they don't know about our living arrangements in Washington.'

'Well, no, I never saw any reason to tell them and they never asked. It's not important is it?'

'No, of course not. We've got the rest of our lives, what difference does one weekend make?'

Anne held him tight and looked into his eyes.

'I love you.'

'That's good because I love you too.'

She moved to his side and put her arm around his waist.

'Come on, let's go down so you can all get to know each other. I want them to love you almost as much as I do.'

Down in the family room, Peggy greeted them again and asked them to sit down

'Dinner is almost ready, sit down and talk to Karl while I finish in the kitchen.'

'I'll give you a hand Mom,' Anne said as she followed her mother into the kitchen. Karl sat back in his chair and looked at his daughter's boyfriend.

'Annie tells me you've been in Langley for the last couple of days, I wouldn't have thought there was much to interest the RAF there.'

'No, Sir, there isn't, but that's not my job at the moment. I'm working as an attaché out of our embassy in Washington. I help with the military cooperation between our two countries.'

'Peg said you were a flyer, but it sounds like you're more into the James Bond stuff.'

'Your wife is right, flying is what I was doing up until I was drafted to Washington. As far as James Bond goes, I think we both know that is just fantasy. As I say I'm involved in military cooperation.'

'You must be pretty high up in the service to do that.'

'Not really, Sir, I was a squadron leader before being sent here. That's high enough to know how the service operates but low enough to have a detailed knowledge of our real capabilities. I expect to go home to a rank of Wing Commander.'

'That's a pretty high rank for a man of your age.'

'Yes, it is. I guess I've been lucky.'

Karl fell silent and sat watching the young man opposite. Oliver felt the need to break the silence.

'Annie tells me you were in the air force, what did you fly?'

'B17s mainly but that was a long time ago. Wartime you know, it was a different world back then.

'So my dad says, he flew Spitfires. It must have been hell for you chaps. It's bad enough playing cat and mouse with the soviets, but flying missions with all and sundry shooting at you must have been hard.'

'Well if you guys had come in with us in Vietnam, you'd have some idea what it was like.'

'Decisions like that are made by politicians not common servicemen like me. Were You in Britain during the war?'

'Yeah I was stationed in a little place call Warby in the Marsh, do you know it?'

'Indeed I do, Sir, the base has been abandoned now, but it's still there. It's not far from my family home of Granby Hall, perhaps you know it.'

Karl fell silent as memories flooded his mind.

***

Clifford looked around himself and wondered if he would ever get back to Blighty. At times, he felt like a prisoner having to spend all his time in the dark cellar. His hosts fed him as well as they could but the door was always locked. He had a chamber pot to piss and shit in and his hosts emptied it regularly. Communication was difficult. Clifford had a little French and even less German. Most of his hosts spoke neither. He presumed the enemy must have thought he'd perished in the crash and there would be no chance of them digging up the wreck to find out. One thing he did know was that if they knew he was still able to report what he'd seen at Peenemunde they would leave no stone unturned to find him.

His Spitfire had been specially equipped with wing tanks in place of the armaments and a slipper tank below the fuselage. Even with the extra fuel getting to the target and back would be a close-run thing. The RAF had put a Catalina on standby in case he ran out of fuel and had to ditch in the sea. By flying in over the sea at two hundred feet, he'd managed to take them by surprise and his cameras had captured every detail of what they were doing on the ground. Just in case he had to ditch, he tried to memorize all he could see. The lack of fuel meant that his return trip had to be by the shortest route, which meant flying over Germany and occupied countries. Height would have kept him safe from ground forces but meant he would show up on enemy Radar that in turn meant he'd be attacked by enemy fighter aircraft. Without any weapons himself, that was something he couldn't risk. By skirting around major cities, he managed to avoid being shot at for most of the flight. Three times, he came under fire and he thought he'd managed to avoid being hit. However, as he crossed into Belgium he noticed the temperature gauge was in the red. Another gauge told him the coolant tank was empty.

His hosts had found him hiding out in a barn. After climbing to two thousand feet he'd put the plane into a nosedive and bailed out. He heard the crash as his old girl hit the ground and hoped no one had seen him slowly descending with his chute. When they'd discovered him, he didn't know whose side they were on. Both men carried rifles and the relieved him of his service revolver. Not until a woman came to see him did he find out he was in the hands of the Belgian resistance. It was a relief to find someone who spoke English.

'I say, it's vitally important that I get back to England as quickly as possible, can you do that?'

'We can do that but it will take some time. We have a route through to Spain.'

'Spain? I thought you could just put me on a fishing boat.'

'No that is far too dangerous, both to you and to us. You go overland.'

'But Spain? Switzerland is nearer.'

'All routes through to Switzerland are heavily guarded and if you go there they will intern you until the end of the war. Is that what you want?'

'Okay, Spain it is, but that's going to take time. Can you get a message to England for me? There are things I must tell them.'

'That will have to wait, we have no radio or operator until the British supply us with another. We have a very high turnover of both. I don't think you understand what it's like to resist occupation. Merely by letting you stay here, people are risking their lives and the lives of their families.'

'I'm sorry, but it is vitally important that I report back to London, thousands of lives depend on it.'

'I've told you that is impossible. If it is as important as you say we'd better get you to Spain as soon as possible. It is twelve hundred kilometres. It will take at least sixty days. We move you out of town tonight and tomorrow we head for France. Here are your papers. Memorise your identity, you will be asked about it many times. There are clothes in the corner, you will leave your uniform here so that we can make use of it.'

For the first time in his adult life, Clifford found himself in a situation he had no control over. He had no option but to do as he was told.

***

After receiving the telegram Daphne lived in hope, but as the weeks went by with no news of Clifford she started to fear the worst. Karl did nothing to dispel that fear. He knew that it was rare that a surviving airman didn't turn up on either the casualty or the prisoner list. His visits became more frequent and he managed to get Daphne included on a panel he set up to keep both the airmen and the locals entertained and cooperating with each other. On the days Daphne was at her lowest, he offered a shoulder to cry on and what support he could. The one thing he did not offer was hope. He told himself that it was cruel to offer what he thought was false hope. In truth the more convinced she became that Clifford was dead the more she needed him. With the canvas top up he drove through the rain. The windscreen wipers barely kept the screen clear and the wind blew the rain in through the open sides.

He pulled up outside the gatehouse and ran to the front door. Daphne welcomed him with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. She took him through to the parlour and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Karl looked around him. Everything was as he expected. On the way over he'd seen the telegram boy riding back to the post office and wondered where he had been. There was no sign of a telegram and he thought she would have told him if there had been any news. She set the coffee down on the table and started to pour.

'How have you been?' he asked.

'Oh, you know, some days are better than others.'

'Still no news?'

'No, I suppose it's time I accepted the fact that he's not coming back.'

'Well, if he had been taken prisoner you'd know by now.'

'I know, but if he was dead they inform us don't they.'

'Only if they find the body, but if a fighter plane goes down it often buries itself.'

'You think I should let go don't you?'

'It's not up to me, I just don't want to give you false hope. If the news ends up being bad news it will only hit you so much harder.'

She put her hand on his.

'You are such a dear, I don't think I'd manage without you.'

'Then it's good that you don't have to, not for a while that is.'

'Is that why you are here, are you being sent home?'

No, no, nothing like that. We've got the chance of doing something really big and I think I'm going to need your help. We've got an air force band coming to the base. We plan to use one of the hangars as a venue so we are going to have to throw it open to other bases and, of course, the local people.'

'You think that many people will want to see a military band?'

'Oh, believe me, these guys are no ordinary military band. When I say they can swing I mean they can really swing.'

'So what do you want me to do?'

'Well, the idea is that the guys all have a good time and they're not going to do that if we don't have any dames, sorry I mean girls. I was hoping you could help with that. The bases all have buses but we need you and your ladies to get the word out and arrange pickup points.'

'I think we can manage that. All the farmers know each other and they all have Land Girls working for them. If you can arrange transport I'm sure we can get them there.'

'What about you, will you be coming?'

'Oh, I don't think so. You don't want married women like me there. Let the girls have there fun.'

'That gives me a problem. My C.O. has ordered me to ensure that you attended. He wants to thank you personally for all you've done to make us feel welcome.'

'Well, I suppose if it's an order I will just have to go. Is the C.O. providing an escort?'

'Yes Ma'am he certainly is. Our liaison officer has been ordered to be your escort.'

'Oh, I couldn't possibly go with a man who has been ordered to take me.'

She smiled at him enjoying the little game they were playing.

'In that case Ma'am I would be honoured if you would accompany me to the event.'

'How could I refuse such a gracious offer?'

By the time he left the rain had stopped and Karl felt as though the sun was shining just for him, as he drove back to the base.

***

It had taken many days and numerous guides to get him into Spain. Every time he moved from one territory to another, a new guide took over. With every new guide, he tried to get a message to London but had been told it was too big a risk. His guides had treated him well, he was always hungry but noticed that his resistance host had no more to eat than he did. Transport had been haphazard from riding in a farm truck to shanks' pony. More often than not, he'd been riding a bicycle. They'd used canal towpaths and forest tracks and occasionally roads. It was on the roads that they were most vulnerable. He'd only been stopped five times and on all but one, his story had been accepted. When the soldiers were suspicious, they were quickly disposed of by his resistance escorts.

He'd known they were approaching the Spanish border when the entered the foothills of the Pyrenees. His escort had simply told him, 'I go no further. Spain is that way,' she said, pointing down the forest path. At first, he didn't believe she would just leave him, but she turned and walked away leaving him feeling alone and very vulnerable. He walked on in the direction she'd pointed and soon came to a fork in the path. He decided to take the left fork but as he did, he heard someone whistle. He stepped back and looked down the path to the right. A man stepped out from the trees and beckoned him. The man couldn't have been more than five foot six and the rifle slung over his shoulder seemed to make him look smaller. He waved again at Clifford 'Con rapidez' he called and gestured for Clifford to come to him. 'Tu papeles' he said holding his hand out. Clifford handed him the papers the Belgian girl had given him.