‘What did you do to help?’ Frank asked.
David looked him in the eye. ‘Passed government secrets on to the Resistance.’
‘Did you get found out because of me?’
‘No. No, that was because of a mistake I made.’
‘And your wife didn’t know?’
‘I couldn’t involve her. She’s a pacifist, you see.’
‘I suppose I am too,’ Frank said. ‘But these days – it can be just an excuse not to get involved, I suppose.’
David frowned. ‘Sarah’s no coward.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean – I meant, I’m the coward. I always have been.’
‘I don’t think so, old chap.’ Geoff looked at Frank squarely. ‘Not after what you tried to do in the hospital.’
Frank changed the subject. He turned to David. ‘Well, if we get away, you and your wife will be reunited.’
‘Yes. Yes, I suppose we will.’ He sighed.
‘It’s odd being here, isn’t it?’ Geoff said. ‘Being on the run makes you feel – isolated.’ He frowned. I’ve been isolated all my life, Frank thought. Yet he felt less alone here than he had anywhere, ever.
On the third day at the Brocks’ house, when he was sitting playing chess with Ben, Natalia, the European woman, knocked at the door and came in. Frank thought she seemed to be avoiding the men. She hardly spoke to David, she seemed to avoid his eyes. Maybe she didn’t like David, though Frank couldn’t see why. He knew that Natalia was the leader.
She sat down at the table opposite Frank. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘we’re off tomorrow. We’ve just heard over the radio. We are to drive down to London, there’s a place for us to stay south of the river until things are ready for us on the south coast.’
‘Great,’ Ben said. ‘I’m fed up sitting roond here. What d’you think of that, Frank?’
‘All right.’ Frank thought, when will I get a chance to do it, to kill myself? His heart began to pound as he realized he didn’t want to go through with it now. But he must. Natalia was looking at him keenly.
‘Do you feel up to travelling, Frank?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you trust us?’ she asked, in her disconcertingly direct way. ‘Do you believe we’re trying to get you out?’
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I do now.’
‘Good. You have to be ready to do just as we tell you.’
‘Because the Germans will be after us?’ He met her look.
‘Yes. But the heat’s died down now. And we’ve got our new identities, a cover story.’
‘They could still catch us.’
‘There’s always a risk. But we’re confident, or we wouldn’t be taking you away from here now.’
Ben said, ‘That’s right.’ He turned to Natalia. ‘He’s talkin’ a lot more now. Quite chatty sometimes, aren’t ye, Frank?’
Natalia looked at Frank. ‘If by any chance we were captured,’ she said seriously, ‘they wouldn’t take us alive. We’ve made plans to make sure of that.’
‘What plans?’
‘We’ve decided to tell you, we think it’s better you know. If we’re taken, we have pills to take. Poison.’
‘What about me?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry.’ Frank thought, they’re frightened I’d take my pill the first chance I got. She said, ‘I’d take care of it, Frank, I promise.’ She looked into his eyes. ‘If it comes. Do you trust me?’
He didn’t answer. He believed Natalia, but he desperately feared she might fail; the whole mission might fail. The forces ranged against them were so strong. He thought of the German policeman who had visited him in the asylum. Whatever happened, he couldn’t fall into that man’s hands again.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
THEY LEFT ON THE MORNING OF Friday, the fifth of December. The weather was still cold and frosty; it felt strange to Frank to be out in the open air again. The car they had arrived in was brought out of the garage; the previous evening Geoff and Colonel Brock had fixed on new number plates. David was to drive, Natalia sitting beside him in the front passenger seat, a map on her knees. Colonel Brock and his wife came out to see them off. Frank was about get into the car, Ben’s hand on his arm, when the colonel unexpectedly leaned forward and shook his hand, very gently. ‘Good luck, old chap,’ he said awkwardly.
A weak sun was starting to melt the frost covering the trees and hedgerows. Geoff had told Frank they planned to take quiet country roads for the first part of the journey, then join the motorway near Northampton. Frank stared out of the window at the empty countryside. He found himself thinking about what had happened to the Jews. He wasn’t surprised by what the government had done; he’d always known those in charge were capable of anything now. He remembered there had been a Jewish boy at Strangmans, Golding. There was actually less anti-Semitism at the Presbyterian school than in other places Frank had been; their religious prejudices were directed at Catholics, not Jews. All the same Golding had stood out as different, not attending assembly or religious knowledge classes, but otherwise he had always conformed, been good in class and always part of a crowd of boys. He had sometimes shouted ‘Monkey!’ and ‘Spastic!’ after Frank like the others. Frank had asked himself how Golding, an outsider, had been able to belong while he couldn’t. What was it about him? They had gone for him since the first day; it had been like a snowball that rolled on, getting bigger and bigger, nothing and no-one to stop it. Well, he thought with heavy desperation, it doesn’t matter now.
Following the circuitous route Natalia had traced on the map they passed through a village called Sawley and then came to a fork in the road. To his horror Frank saw a Black Maria turned sideways to block the entrance of the right-hand turning, the one they were going to take. Two young Auxiliaries in heavy blue greatcoats, rifles slung over their shoulders, stood blocking it, stamping their boots in the cold. Frank felt everyone in the car tense.
David turned the wheel to take the left-hand turning, but one of the Auxies waved them to stop. He approached the car, slouching across the road, the barrel of his rifle gleaming in the winter sun. David slowly wound down the window and the Auxie leaned in, nodding to him. He didn’t examine their faces closely, he didn’t seem that interested. His chubby face was red with cold.
‘Where are you headed for, sir?’
‘Northampton,’ David answered, emphasizing the upper-class drawl in his voice. ‘We’ve come from Sawley. Is there a problem, Constable?’
‘No, sir, only this road’s shut off now. We’re guarding the new residential camp for the Birmingham Jews.’
Frank stared up the closed-off road. It was fringed by trees, their bare branches a skeletal latticework, brown ploughed fields on either side. In the distance he thought he made out a row of high poles, what might have been wire strung between them.
‘Is it?’ Something in David’s tone made the policeman look at him sharply.
Ben leaned forward. ‘Sae long as we get the Yids out of the towns, eh?’ he said cheerfully. ‘It’s all right, we can take the longer route.’ The constable looked at David again, then nodded and stepped away. David steered the car left and they drove in silence till they had crested a hill.
Geoff let out a long breath. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ David said. ‘I couldn’t help my tone.’
‘You need tae be able to act in this job, pal,’ Ben spat angrily. ‘Our fucking lives could depend on it.’
That policemen could have asked for our papers, Frank thought, taken us back to his post, and then – ‘I need to wee, I’m desperate,’ he said. ‘Can we stop?’