Jeffrey Archer - As the Crow Flies

I locked the cabinet, returned the key to the top left-hand drawer of Miss Benson's desk, switched off the pen torch, left the study and walked quickly up the stairs to my dormitory. I put the pen torch back in its rightful place and slipped into bed. I began to wonder what I could possibly do next to try and find out who I was and where I'd come from.

It was as if my parents had never existed, and I had somehow started life aged three. As the only alternative was virgin birth and I didn't accept that even for the Blessed Mary, my desire to know the truth became irrepressible. I must eventually have fallen asleep, because all I remember after that is being woken by the school bell the following morning.

When I was awarded my place at the University of Melbourne I felt like a long-term prisoner who has finally been released. For the first time, I was given a room of my own and was no longer expected to wear a uniform—not that the range of clothes I could afford was going to set the Melbourne fashion houses afire. I remember working even longer hours at university than I had done at school, as I was apprehensive that if I didn't pass my first year general papers, they would send me back to spend the rest of my days at St. Hilda's.

In my second year I specialized in the history of art and English while continuing with painting as a hobby, but I had no idea what career I wanted to pursue after leaving university. My tutor suggested I should consider teaching, but that sounded to me rather like an extension of St. Hilda's, with me ending up as Miss Benson.

I didn't have many boyfriends before going to university, because the boys at St. Hilda's were kept in a separate wing of the house and we were not allowed to talk to them before nine in the morning and after five o'clock at night. Until the age of fifteen I thought kissing made you pregnant so I was determined not to make that mistake, especially after my experience of growing up with no family of my own.

My first real boyfriend was Mel Nicholls, who was captain of the university football team. Having finally succeeded in getting me into bed he told me that I was the only girl in his life and, more important, the first. After I had admitted it was true for me too and lay back on the pillow Mel leaned over and began to take an interest in the only thing I was still wearing.

"I've never seen anything quite like that before," he said, taking my little piece of jewelry between his fingers.

"Another first."

"Not quite." He laughed. "Because I've seen one very similar."

"What do you mean?"

"It's a medal," he explained. "My father won three or four of them himself but none of them's made of silver."

Looking back on it now, I consider that this particular piece of information was well worth losing my virginity for.

In the library of the University of Melbourne there is a large selection of books covering the First World War, biased not unnaturally towards Gallipoli and the Far East campaign rather than the D Day landings and El Alamein. However, tucked away among the pages of heroic deeds performed by Australian infantrymen was a chapter on British gallantry awards, complete with several colored plates.

I discovered that there were VCs, DSOs, DSCs, CBEs, OBEs—the variations seemed endless until finally on page four hundred and nine I found what I was searching for: the Military Cross, a ribbon of white watered silk and purple horizontal stripes and a medal forged in silver with the imperial crown on each of its four arms. It was awarded to officers below the rank of major "for conspicuous gallantry when under fire." I began to hypothesize that my father was a war hero who had died at an early age from terrible wounds. At least that would have explained his perpetual shouting as something that had been brought on by so much suffering.

My next piece of detective work came when I visited an antiques shop in Melbourne. The man behind the counter simply studied the medal, then offered me five pounds for it. I didn't bother to explain why I wouldn't have parted with my prize had he offered me five hundred pounds, but at least he was able to inform me that the only real medal dealer in Australia was a Mr. Frank Jennings, of Number 47 Mafeking Street, Sydney.

At that time I considered Sydney to be the other side of the globe, and I certainly couldn't afford to make such a long journey on my tiny grant. So I had to wait patiently until the summer term when I applied to be scorer for the university cricket team. They turned me down on account of my sex. Women couldn't really be expected to understand the game fully, it was explained to me by a youth who used to sit behind me in lectures so that he could copy my notes. This left me with no choice but to spend hours of practice on my ground strokes and almost as many on my overhead smash until I was selected for the ladies' second tennis team. Not a major achievement but there was only one match on the calendar that interested me: Sydney (A).

On the morning we arrived in Sydney I went straight to Mafeking Street and was struck by how many young men who passed me on the street were in uniform. Mr. Jennings himself studied the medal with considerably more interest than the dealer from Melbourne had shown.

"It's a miniature MC all right," he told me, peering at my little prize through a magnifying glass. "It would have been worn on a dress uniform for guest nights in the regimental mess. These three initials engraved down the edge of one of the arms, barely discernible to the naked eye, ought to give us a clue as to who was awarded the decoration."

I stared through Mr. Jennings' magnifying glass at something I had never been aware of until then, but I could now clearly see the initials "G.F.T."

"Is there any way of finding out who 'G.F.T.' actually is?"

"Oh, yes," said Mr. Jennings, turning to a shelf behind him, from which he removed a leather-bound book and flicked through its pages until he came to Godfrey S. Thomas and George Victor Taylor, but could find no trace of anyone with the initials "G.F.T."

"Sorry, but I can't help you on this one," he said. "Your particular medal can't have been awarded to an Australian, otherwise it would be catalogued right here." He tapped the leather cover. "You'll have to write to the War Office in London if you want any further information. They still keep on file the names of every member of the armed forces awarded any decoration for gallantry."

I thanked him for his help but not before he had offered me ten pounds for the medal. I smiled and returned to join the tennis team for my match against Sydney University. I lost 6–0, 6–1, being quite unable to concentrate on anything except G.F.T. I wasn't selected for the university tennis team again that season.

The next day I followed Mr. Jennings' advice and wrote to the War Office in London. I didn't get a letter back from them for several months, which was hardly surprising as everyone knew they had other things on their mind in 1944. However, a buff envelope eventually came and when opened informed me that the holder of my medal could have been either Graham Frank Turnbull of the Duke of Wellington's regiment or Guy Francis Trentham of the Royal Fusiliers.

So was my real name Turnbull or Trentham?

That same evening I wrote to the British High Commissioner's office in Canberra asking whom I should contact for information regarding the two regiments referred to in the letter. I received a reply a couple of weeks later. With the new leads I had acquired I dispatched two more letters to England: one to Halifax, the other to London. I then sat back again, and resigned myself to another long wait. When you have already spent eighteen years of your life trying to discover your true identity another few months doesn't seem all that important. In any case, now that I had begun my final year at university I was up to my eyes in work.