C. Sansom - Winter in Madrid

‘Get rid of it.’ For a moment, Taylor’s eyes seemed almost wild behind the gold-rimmed pince-nez. ‘And don’t tell anyone about this. Do you understand? You may go,’ he added brusquely.

AT WILL’S HOUSE the soup at dinner was tinned, heavy with watery vegetables. Muriel apologized as she passed it round.

‘I hadn’t time to make any, I’m sorry. Of course, I’ve no woman to help now. I have to deal with the cooking, looking after the children, the ration books, everything .’ She pushed back a stray hair and gave Harry a challenging stare. Will and Muriel’s children, a thin dark boy of nine and a little girl of six, sat watching Harry with interest.

‘It must be difficult,’ he replied solemnly. ‘But the soup’s fine.’

‘It’s scrumptious!’ Ronald called loudly. His mother sighed. Harry didn’t know why Muriel had had children; he supposed because it was the done thing.

‘How’s work?’ he asked his cousin to break the silence. Will worked in the Foreign Office, at the Middle East desk.

‘There could be problems in Persia.’ The eyes behind the thick glasses were troubled. ‘The Shah’s leaning towards Hitler. How was your meeting?’ he asked with exaggerated casualness. He had phoned Harry a few days before to tell him some people connected with the Foreign Office had spoken to him and would be in touch but had said he didn’t know what it was about. From his manner now, Harry thought he had guessed who the ‘people’ were. He wondered whether Will had talked about him in the office, mentioned a cousin who had been to Rookwood and spoke Spanish, and someone had passed the information on to Jebb’s people. Or was there some huge filing system about citizens somewhere, which the spies had consulted?

He nearly answered, they want me to go to Madrid, but remembered he mustn’t. ‘Looks like they’ve got something for me. Means going abroad. A bit hush-hush.’

‘Careless talk costs lives,’ the little girl said solemnly.

‘Be quiet, Prue,’ Muriel snapped. ‘Drink your soup.’

Harry smiled reassuringly. ‘It’s nothing dangerous. Not like France.’

‘Did you kill many Germans in France?’ Ronnie piped up.

Muriel set her spoon in her plate with a clang. ‘I told you not to ask questions like that.’

‘No, Ronnie, I didn’t,’ Harry said. ‘They killed a lot of our men, though.’

‘We’ll get them back for it, though, won’t we? And for the bombing?’

Muriel sighed deeply. Will turned to his son.

‘Did I ever tell you I met Ribbentrop, Ronnie?’

‘Wow! You met him? You should have killed him!’

‘We weren’t at war then, Ronnie. He was just the German ambassador. He was always saying the wrong thing. Brickendrop, we used to call him.’

‘What was he like?’

‘A silly man. His son was at Eton and once Ribbentrop went to the school to meet him. Ribbentrop stood in the quad with his arm raised and shouted, “ Heil Hitler! ” ’

‘Crumbs!’ Ronnie said. ‘He wouldn’t have got away with that at Rookwood. I’m hoping to go to Rookwood next year, did you know that, cousin Harry?’

‘If we can afford the fees, Ronnie, maybe.’

‘And if it’s still there,’ Muriel said suddenly. ‘If it’s not been requisitioned or blown up.’ Harry and Will stared at her. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and rose.

‘I’m going to get the steaks. They’ll be dry, they’ve been under the grill.’ She looked at her husband. ‘What are we going to do tonight?’

‘We won’t go to the shelter unless the siren goes,’ he replied. Muriel left the room. Prue had gone tense. Harry noticed that she had a teddy bear on her lap and was clutching it tightly. Will sighed.

‘When these raids began we started going up to the shelter after dinner. But some of the people there – well, they’re a bit common, Muriel doesn’t like them, and it’s pretty uncomfortable. Prue gets frightened. We stay at home unless Wailing Winnie starts.’ He sighed again, staring out of the French windows across the back garden. Dusk was deepening into night and a clear full moon was rising. ‘It’s a bomber’s moon. You go over, if you like.’

‘It’s all right,’ Harry said. ‘I’ll stay with you.’

His uncle’s village was on the ‘bomber’s run’ from the Channel up to London; the sirens often went as the planes passed overhead, but they ignored them. Harry hated Wailing Winnie’s swirling howl. It reminded him of the sound dive-bombers made: when he first came home after Dunkirk he would clench his teeth and clench his hands till they turned white every time the sirens went off.

‘If it goes in the night, we’ll get up and make for the shelter,’ Will said. ‘It’s just over the road.’

‘Yes, I saw it.’

‘It’s been bad. Ten days of it leaves you so bloody tired, and God knows how long it’s going to go on for. Muriel’s thinking of taking the children to the country.’ Will got up and drew the heavy blackout curtains. There was a sound of breaking glass from the kitchen, followed by an angry cry. He hurried out. ‘Better go and help Muriel.’

THE SIRENS STARTED at one a.m. They began in Westminster and, as other boroughs followed, the wailing moan rippled outwards to the suburbs. Harry woke from a dream, in which he was running through Madrid, darting in and out of shops and bars, asking if anyone had seen his friend Bernie. But he was speaking in English, not Spanish, and nobody understood. He rose and dressed in moments, as he had learned to do in the army. His mind was clear and focused, no panic. He wondered why he had been asking for Bernie, not Sandy. Someone had phoned from the Foreign Office at ten, asking him to go to an address in Surrey tomorrow.

He twitched the curtain open a crack. In the moonlight shadowy figures were running across the road, making for the shelter. Huge searchlight beams stabbed the sky as far as the eye could see.

He went out into the hall. The light was on and Ronnie stood there in pyjamas and dressing gown. ‘Prue’s upset,’ he said. ‘She won’t come.’ He looked at the open door of his parents’ bedroom. A loud, terrified child’s sobbing could be heard.

Even now, with the siren wailing in his ears, Harry felt reluctant to invade Will and Muriel’s bedroom, but he made himself go in. They were both in dressing gowns too. Muriel sat on the bed, her hair in curlers. She nursed her sobbing daughter in her arms, making soothing noises. Harry wouldn’t have thought her capable of such gentleness. One of the little girl’s arms hung down, still clutching the teddy bear. Will stood looking at them uncertainly; with his thin hair sticking up and his glasses askew he seemed the most vulnerable of them all. The sound went on; Harry felt his legs begin to tremble.

‘We should go,’ he said brusquely.

Muriel looked up. ‘Who the bloody hell asked you?’

‘Prue won’t go to the shelter,’ Will explained quietly.

‘It’s dark,’ the little girl wailed. ‘It’s so dark there, please let me stay at home!’

Harry stepped forward and grasped Muriel’s bony elbow. This was what the corporal had done on the beach after the bomb fell, picked him up and led him gently to the boat. Muriel gave him an astonished look.

‘We have to go. The bombers are coming. Will, we have to get them up.’ His cousin took Muriel’s other arm and they raised her gently. Prue had buried her head in her mother’s breast, still sobbing and holding the teddy bear tightly by its arm. Its glass eyes stared up at Harry.

‘All right, all right, I can walk by myself,’ Muriel snapped. They released her. Ronnie clattered down the stairs and the others followed. The boy switched off the light and opened the front door.