into his, and said in accented English, ‘Just in case we get asked for identity cards for any reason, this is your name. Look at it and remember it. Do you think you can do that, Frank?’
‘Yes, yes, I can.’ He wondered where she came from. The accent didn’t sound German, thank God.
‘I’ve a doctor’s letter as well, not a real one but it looks authentic enough. It says you’ve got TB and we’re friends taking you to a sanatorium in London. If anyone asks us to show them our ID cards they’re likely to let us past quickly, people are frightened of TB. There’s more of it around every winter now.’
‘Pretty clever, eh?’ Geoff said.
Frank said, ‘Yes, it is.’
Natalia turned to him, a little apologetically. ‘Before we go we’d like to wash your hair and tidy it up. Would you mind?’
‘No,’ Frank said, touching his uneven fuzz. It sounded a good idea. ‘Are we likely to get stopped?’
‘No,’ Geoff said reassuringly. ‘But you never know these days.’
‘Especially with what’s happening with the Jews,’ Natalia agreed.
‘What have they done with them?’ Frank asked. ‘I heard they’d all been taken away.’
‘We don’t know,’ David answered bleakly. ‘They’ve put them in resettlement camps outside the towns. But we don’t know what’s going to happen from there.’
‘Maybe they’re going to take them by train to the Isle of Wight. Maybe the Germans will kill them there,’ Geoff said. ‘Perhaps Beaverbrook will keep them where they are for now, dangle them in front of the Germans as a bargaining chip.’
‘They’ll hand them over to the Germans, all right,’ David said bitterly. ‘They’ll take them to Eastern Europe and finish them off.’
‘Barbarians!’ Colonel Brock burst out suddenly, standing up. ‘Never had too much time for the Israelites myself, but this – it’s barbarism, barbarism!’
The door opened and his wife came in, excitement glowing in her face. She looked at David. ‘I’ve just had news over the radio,’ she said. ‘From our people in London. Your wife’s safe, our people have got her!’
David’s whole body flooded with relief. Colonel Brock came over and shook his hand vigorously. ‘Thank God! Congratulations, old chap!’ Geoff clapped him on the shoulder. Frank saw David look over at Natalia. She gave him a tight little smile, and a nod.
Mrs Brock continued, ‘You’ve all to stay here a few days.’ She had seemed nervous last night but the news seemed to have energized her. ‘There are roadblocks round Birmingham. That’s good, though, because they must think Dr Muncaster’s been taken there.’ She gave Frank a quick look; like her husband she seemed a little frightened of him. ‘The submarine will be off the south coast to pick you up at the weekend. In the meantime, when it looks quieter, you’ll all go down to London.’
Her husband asked, ‘Do we know where on the south coast?’
‘No, they’re not telling us yet.’
Colonel Brock nodded. ‘That’s wise.’ He looked around the group. ‘Well, looks like you’ll be here for a while. Please don’t go out, and stay away from the first-floor windows. Passers-by can see up there from over the wall.’
‘We’re safe here?’ Geoff asked.
‘Yes. So far as the neighbours are concerned we’re just a couple of retired local worthies.’ He nodded at his wife. ‘Mrs Brock’s the producer of the village Christmas panto.’
Natalia said, ‘We ought to hide the car. Just in case.’
Colonel Brock nodded. ‘Quite right. I’ll put it in the garage, under a dust sheet. So,’ he said emphatically. ‘We all know where we are then, eh?’
They stayed there four days, not leaving the house. The weather remained cold and dry, with frosts each night. Frank spent most of the time in his bedroom. There was always someone with him, usually David or Ben. He said as little as possible and to his relief they kept their word and didn’t ask him about what had happened with his brother. Sometimes they played chess, a game for which Frank had always had a gift. Ben gave him his drugs regularly, and always watched carefully to make sure he swallowed the pill. At night, as at the hospital, he had a double dose to make him sleep. He wondered how much Ben had given him on the night of their escape. He saw little of Natalia or the Brocks, though from his window he would see Mrs Brocks going out from time to time, presumably to the village, and twice a day Colonel Brock took the black Labrador, like its master stiff and elderly, for a walk. When they met for meals Ben would sometimes try to provoke the colonel into an argument. One evening the colonel showed them a gold-gilt carving of the Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesha, a beautiful thing. ‘Picked it up in Bombay for a song,’ he said proudly.
‘Looted it from the subject peoples, eh?’ Ben said.
The colonel reddened and Frank thought he would explode, but he only snapped, ‘I paid the fair market price.’ Frank wished Ben wouldn’t do things like that.
He still intended to do away with himself if he got the chance, but they watched him constantly. Meanwhile he tried to find out as much as possible about what was going on. In their room he asked Ben about his past, how he came to be working in the asylum.
‘I was already there when you came,’ Ben said. ‘There’s a lot of people in the Resistance now, we’re everywhere. There’s sympathizers, and activists, in most of the bigger asylums.’
‘How did you come to be in that job?’
Ben smiled, showing crooked teeth. ‘A few years ago I’d been in trouble up in Glasgow. Fighting the Fascists. They decided I needed a new identity and a new job. I’d got into trouble when I was a lad, too. So I got a new name and applied to train as a mental health nurse. It’s easy to get into, even these days, the job disnae exactly attract thousands of applicants. And I can handle myself, that’s important in the job.’
‘So Ben’s not your real name?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Mind, I’ve been Ben Hall for so long I’ve near forgotten my old one.’
‘What sort of trouble did you get into when you were young?’
Ben shrugged. ‘I got put in a Borstal when I was seventeen, I got radicalized in there. Afterwards I was a union organizer in Glasgow, for the Party, trying to get people to stand up for themselves. A few fights, too, when they sent the Auxies in.’
‘The party – you mean the Communist Party?’
‘That’s right.’ He looked at Frank. ‘We’ve never been frightened of getting our hands dirty.’
‘Killing people, you mean,’ Frank said.
‘Ye cannae make an omelette without breaking eggs.’
Frank thought of Russia, all the prison camps the Germans had discovered. ‘Poor eggs,’ he said.
‘Ye’ve nae idea what life’s like for poor people.’ Ben glowered. ‘Prices going up, wages going down, locked up if you protest or strike. That last strike I organized, in the shipyards. We marched into Glasgow, a peaceful demonstration, plenty of Labour and non-political people wi’ us, but as soon as we got near the city centre the Auxies came out with batons, just hitting out at anybody, and when we tried to run they had a crowd of SNP thugs waiting for us in the side-streets. They laid into us with knives and knuckledusters while some cunt in a kilt stood on some steps playin’ the bloody bagpipes. One of them hit me on the head. I’d’ve been a goner if some of my pals hadnae got me away. That’s when it was decided I needed a change of identity. They’d had me marked out.’
Frank looked at him. ‘We had a teacher at Strangmans who was a Scottish Nationalist. History teacher, always going on about the English landlords and the Highland clearances.’
‘He wasnae much good then. It was mostly Scottish landowners who cleared the Highlanders out of their crofts for sheep. The SNP.’ His face wrinkled with distaste. ‘There were some Fascist sympathizers among them that founded the SNP. Everything for the glorious nation. Some romantic-minded left-wingers too, but they got kicked out after 1940. You know, the Nats opposed conscription in 1939, sayin’ it wis against the Act of Union for Scots to be conscripted into the British army. That was more important to them than fighting the Nazis.’ Ben laughed bitterly. ‘Whenever a party tells you national identity matters more than anything else in politics, that nationalism can sort out all the other problems, then watch out, because you’re on a road that can end with fascism. Even if it doesn’t, the idea that nationality’s some sort of magic that can make other problems disappear, it’s like believin’ in fairies. And of course nationalists always have to have an enemy, the English or the French or the Jews, there always has tae be some other bugger that’s caused all the problems.’
Frank didn’t answer. He was a little scared by Ben’s passion.
