Russian Front (11) One or two could still manage a proud, arrogant stride. Most also seemed to be officers, which surprised Swayne who had witnessed for himself the dedication and tenacity of Wehrmacht officers in Libya and Egypt. Where are the other ranks? He asked himself with a faint feeling of unease. Most of the populace, hardly less shabby than the wretched prisoners, simply stared at them with fascinated curiosity. Only one or two shook their fists. As the car rushed by he thought he saw a woman thrust what looked like a piece of bread at a very young German soldier who looked so wretched he could have come straight from the pages of Oliver Twist. Sergei and Tania were chatting in Russian, as ever. Swayne looked over Tania’s shoulder at the piece of paper, a propaganda leaflet. He had come across them in the desert. This one had a picture of a ruthless-looking German soldier with a scope-sighted rifle, carefully camouflaged, firing from behind the cover of a ruined wall. Swayne couldn’t read a word of the text but there was the inevitable exclamation mark in the headline. Didn’t propaganda copywriters ever employ understatement? ‘The Germans’ – Swayne noticed that Sergei never called them Fascists – ‘have been littering our front line with these for days. The headline reads, “Our telescopic sights are better than yours, Ivan!” It then goes on to sing the praises of a piece of kit called the Mauser Gewehr 98, the German’s favored sniper rifle, and I don’t doubt every word is true. It also states that a team of sniper experts, including an expert they nickname the Major, is coming to get what it describes as “that Slav Yuri and his cowardly band of assassins with their ill-made popguns.”’ Sergei looked at the flyer, assessing its quality. ‘I suppose my opinion can hardly be counted objective, but I really don’t think it’s as good as the billets-doux that our chaps produce. The Russian is correct, but rather pedestrian. There’s no trace of subtlety in either concept or expression. By coincidence, I happen to have met the man who runs their propaganda section in Sixth Army. Name of Ehle, splendid chap.’ ‘How did you meet him?’ asked Swayne, interested. ‘Well, it’s rather taboo to talk about it now, of course, but right through 1940 the Germans and ourselves operated what Comrade Staling fondly believed was a firm understanding that we wouldn’t start laying waste to each other’s real estate. During that time there were lots of joint military exercises, exchange of personnel, and so on and so forth. That’s when I met Ehle. Gave me a very fair lunch as I remember.’ ‘Needless to say,’ he continued after a moment, ‘their chaps were just quietly filing away everything they learned against the day when they would attack us.’ The dreamy tone came into his voice. ‘You’ve got to hand it to Hitler, you know. Utterly implacable. I thought Comrade Josef was ruthless, but the Fuhrer completely outfoxed him. Like a snake hypnotizing a rabbit.’ Swayne looked at Tania, who glanced at him with a trace of what might have been alarm. Even speaking in English, Sergei should not be expressing opinions like this. But Sergei was looking at the leaflet again. ‘Our leaflets and radio messages are all drafted by German communists and one of them told me that good propaganda should always be structured around material that is absolutely true. The recipients then come to rely on it as a source of information. For example, we carefully list the names and home addresses of all Germans taken prisoner on all our flyers, in very small print at the bottom. You would be amazed at how many find their way back to the Reich. Unfortunately for Ehle in his attempts to recruit literate Russians to write for him, the Germans don’t believe there is any such animal as a Russian intellectual, so they tend to shoot any they find on principle. To prove themselves right, as t’were. So he can’t call on any Russian academics to make his copy sound more convincing.’ ‘So the Germans are stepping up their counter-sniping effort,’ said Swayne, to move the conversation back to military matters. ‘Yes,’ agreed Sergei. ‘Which just goes to show what an effect our lads with their “ill-made popguns” are having.’ Sergei thought for a moment. ‘But the sooner you are seen at or near the front line the better.’ Chapter Nine EXMOOR It was a very pretty little place, Sally thought. But not pretty in the way that she was used to. It was wilder, less gardened somehow than the Home Counties. There was a sensation of open space beyond the hills that ringed the village. She had spent practically the whole of her life before the war on the South Coast, around Hove and Brighton, apart from a short spell working as a secretary at a book publishers in London before she joining up. Her parents, who were retired and lived in colorless Eastbourne, used to take her to Scotland on holiday before the war to visit relatives, but that was when she was very young. A Scottish loch or grouse moor was the fashionable, or at least conventional, place to go for a holiday then. Sally remembered beautiful scenery, but it always seemed to be raining. And, being an only child, she got rather bored. Hawkstone was near the southern edge of Exmoor, about a twenty-minute bus ride from Dulverton, the nearest railway station. She was dropped off next to the village post office just after mid-day. Across the road, a tea shop was open. The bell tinkled as she went in. It was the tiniest of establishments, like the front room of a small cottage. She ordered some sandwiches and coffee from the waitress who couldn’t have been a day under seventy-five. It was the sort of place where you wouldn’t dream of asking to use the toilet. The sandwiches came and were surprisingly good. They were filled with real ham and fresh tomatoes. She had expected pork luncheon meat. The bread was also fresh. The benefits of living in the country, Sally supposed, with friendly farmers’ wives just down the lane. The old biddy made a second trip to her table with a cup of coffee. ‘Is there a public telephone in the village?’ asked Sally. ‘Ooh, I don’t know. I’ll just ask …’ She shuffled away. Sally looked out of the window over the half-net curtains, strategically hung so that the village matriarchs could watch everybody’s comings and goings with a semblance of discretion. Despite the fact that most of the view was of the village street, the moor was always present – glimpses of rugged brown and green between stone houses - marching away up into the distance beyond the end of the main street. There had been rain in the night but the ground was drying fast. Small puffs of white cloud scudded over granite hills. She felt unaccountably happy. It was good to be alive, good to be a young woman. The elderly waitress worried back. ‘There’s a public telephone in the post office, apparently. I didn’t know, I’ve never had the occasion to use one myself, not being married.’ Ten minutes later Sally was leafing through the pages of the phone book, standing next to the telephone in the post office, her suitcase beside her legs. There was no cubicle, and the place seemed to be filling with oldish females. The word had been passed around the bush telegraph that an attractive young stranger had materialized. She found the number for Dr and Mrs Swayne and picked some pennies out of her purse. She caught the curious gaze of the post-mistress. If I just stood here for half an hour, Sally told herself, there would be a queue of tongue-tied young farmers with ruddy complexions asking me to the Saturday-night dance at the parish hall. The phone was ringing. Was anyone in? It didn’t matter if they weren’t, she told herself. Perhaps it was all a bit of a silly idea anyway. But, then again, she was here now. Somebody answered the phone. She pressed the button and her coins rattled down. ‘Hawkstone 248, the surgery.’ A woman’s voice. ‘Oh, good morning,’ said Sally. She realized that she had not prepared any kind of introduction. How could she explain herself? She certainly couldn’t begin by talking about spies and guns. ‘Good morning. Hello?’ ‘Oh, hello,’ Sally found herself saying. ‘Am I speaking to Mrs Swayne?’ ‘This is Helen Swayne.’ The voice was interested, pleased to be speaking to someone new. Not at all stand-offish. This gave Sally confidence. ‘You don’t know me. My name’s Sally Knott. You’ll be surprised to learn that I’m a friend of Hugh’s. I met him in North Africa. I’m home on leave.’ ‘Hugh! Is he all right?’ Definite alarm in her voice. ‘He’s fine. Or at least he was when I saw him a few-, when I last saw him. He’s still in North Africa, of course. He is. I’m home on compassionate leave.’ ‘Oh! I see! Where are you speaking from?’ This was better. The sweat had broken out on Sally’s forehead when she lied about Hugh’s whereabouts. That would have to come out sooner or later. She should have planned what to say more carefully. She hated lying, but what alternative was there? She could hardly tell Hugh’s mother about his secret mission to Russia. ‘I’m here, in Hawkstone. I wanted to get away to the countryside for a few days, and while I was in the area I thought I might look you up and say hello, so to speak.’ Before the war, young ladies certainly did not just drop in and say, “Hello, I’m your son’s girlfriend” But a lot had changed since Dunkirk. Britain was a mass of men and women in uniform on the move and there was a sense of obligation to show hospitality to anyone ‘in transit’. The pips went. Sally shoved in some coppers. ‘Well,’ said Helen Swayne, ‘you must come round! Are you at the post office?’ ‘Yes. I’ve just got here. I was hoping you could recommend somewhere to stay.’ ‘Look, my husband’s away on a course, but I’ve got the car, I’ll come round and pick you up … Sally? It is Sally, isn’t it? I’ll be there in ten minutes.’ She sounded pleased, welcoming. Sally said goodbye and rang off. The post-mistress, who must have heard the whole conversation, was giving her a quizzical stare. Sally looked out of the window and waited. Then she remembered that she was supposed to telephone Lesley every couple of days. How long had it been? Perhaps now was a good time, before Ma Swayne turned up. She turned back to the telephone and searched in her handbag for the number that Fortune had given her. She could sense the post-mistress in ecstasies. A strange young woman in smart city clothes making two phone calls, one after the other! Whatever next? The operator answered after what seemed ages. She placed the trunk call to London, and then there was another long wait. ‘Please place sixpence in the slot, caller.’ After some buzzing and clunking, Lesley’s brisk, sharp voice came on the line. ‘Hello? This is Lesley speaking.’ ‘Lesley, hello, this is Sally Knott. You remember me, don’t you?’ ‘Of course! Look Sally where the bloody hell are you.’ Was there whispering in the background? ‘I’m spending a few days in the country, as ordered. I’m just checking in.’ ‘Listen.’ Sally didn’t like her tone. ‘You must tell me where you are. It’s very important.’ A car horn tooted outside. Sally looked over her shoulder and there was a small Austin at the pavement. She could just make out a female figure smiling and waving in the driver’s seat. Lesley was saying something. ‘Look,’ said Sally. ‘I must go, that’s my lift.’ ‘Lift? What lift?’ Lesley sounded irritated. Good. Sally checked her hair in the small mirror above the phone. No time for lipstick. Damn. First impressions count. At least her clothes were right; presentable but not showy. ‘Some girls know how to get rides, Lesley. I’m-’ the line went dead. Had Lesley put the phone down? Sally didn’t think so. It was much more likely that the connection had failed. That happened all the time. The telephones, like the railways, were groaning under the strain of the war and military calls took priority. Oh, bother it, thought Sally, I’ll ring the tiresome cow tomorrow. She left the post office and walked to the car, smiling her sweetest smile. * * * * * Eichmann, sitting in the tea shop, watched her get into the car and greet the driver, an older woman. He slid out of his seat and pulled open the door of the shop, nearly wrenching the bell contraption out of its socket. Holding the door half-open, he stared at the car as it executed a careful three-point turn in the otherwise empty road and accelerated steadily out of the village to the South. He memorized the license number, but what good would that do him? If he was in Dublin he could get the owner’s address in half an hour, but here it was no good at all. What to do? A fruity female voice from behind him. ‘Excuse me, young man, were you born in a barn. There’s a terrible draught in here.’ Eichmann leaned over to put a shilling on his table and walked out, closing the door carefully behind him. This was a small place, potentially much more dangerous than London. He must not attract attention to himself. He stood on the pavement and bit his lower lip, thinking. Who was the woman who had picked Sally up? Her mother? Possibly. He felt his chin. It was a bit sore from shaving with that tart’s blunt cut-throat razor, but it was fortunate that he had found it in her raincoat. He would have been in real trouble if he had tried to move around without having shaved. Nothing looked more suspicious than stubble. He shifted from one foot to the other and looked across at the Post Office. Nothing else for it. He crossed the road and opened the door – another one of those damn tinkling bells – and pretended to choose a newspaper. The post mistress was chattering to another woman with a headscarf and a wicker shopping basket. ‘I don’t know who she thought she was! She comes in here and demands to know where the phone is, and then she wants the phone book and all sorts!’ ‘It’s the war. These young girls, they move away from home, go abroad and everywhere, money in their pockets. Dances every night.’ ‘Anyways. There she is makin’ all sorts of phone calls, includin’ trunk calls to London if you please, not that I listen in, you know I wouldn’t, and the next thing you know is Mrs Swayne pulls up in Doctor Swayne’s car and in she gets! An’ it’s only a mile or so to the surgery. Doctor’s wife never come to pick up when I had my trouble.’
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Copyright © 1998 Aidan Steer |