Chapter 3: Mrs Jones

I READ through all of Bradford Gold’s letters from England to his wife in America that late afternoon and evening. They covered a period of about 17 months, about 72 weeks in all, and there were 59 letters, all of them were either two or four pages long, but mostly they said little or nothing.

There was certainly nothing of any meaning that threw light on why he would consider deserting from his commitments to the Military. He carefully avoided mentioning any airfields or even what counties he did his training or those he was posted to.

The first couple of letters, shortly after his arrival in London, were much more candid than the later ones, containing amusing accounts of his travel via Newfoundland, Ireland, a ferry across the Irish Sea and train journey onto London.

The letters rarely mentioned names, only a few nicknames, which I jotted down in my notebook to ask Miss la Mare about at some time.

All through the letters he underplayed what war work he undertook. He mentioned dropping leaflets over German cities early on, but when they switched to dropping bombs, as Bob had informed me they had, Gold simply led her to believe by omission that he was still delivering leaflets.

Even writing about the crash landing he had was made light of, though it directly led to his promotion and transfer away from bombers. Nor did he mention thinking about or actually transferring to a fighter squadron, nor referred to his move to Military Intelligence, with Special Branch, although he must have written several letters during that two or three month period when I understood he was serving with them.

At Liverpool Street station, early the next day, Thursday morning, I really didn’t recognise Miss la Mare at all, in fact I doubted she had managed to get here in time for departure.

I have always been considered particularly observant by my peers but none of the three- or four-dozen people standing around me, waiting patiently for the next train to come into this platform, looked likely candidates.

There was one mousey-looking girl, too young and too short to be Miss la Mare and very plainly dressed, with no make-up and wearing spectacles. I only noticed her because she was rather fidgety, flitting about the area like a nervous bird, and exchanging pleasantries with most people around, except me. Besides, if she was my client, she’d have approached me, as I looked exactly like I usually did.

Only this time, being unsure of the rural pavements, if they even existed at all in the middle of nowhere, I had elected to carry one of my stout walking sticks.

The train, when it came, reversed into the platform, belching white steam, and the twelve carriages bumped gently to a stop at the buffers, and the guard yelled out the familiar and unnecessary phrases, “mind the doors” and later, when ready to depart, “all aboard!”

The carriages were empty, clearly just driven in from the nearby marshalling sheds, with steam leaking from below the carriages as hot water was pumped to the radiating heaters warming up the carriages from under the seats. All the carriages were dripping, the exterior having just been washed, the windows sparkling. Ideal, I thought, to see out of for someone who had never seen the English countryside in daylight before.

I had a long last look around, but could see no sign of Miss la Mare, even though I had purchased her ticket.

It had been a relatively quiet night last night, overcast with thick cloud and the ground frost free for a change, the bulk of the German bombers were probably hitting ports along the south coast or the industrial midlands, where the cloud cover affected the aim of the defending ack-ack gunners.

The air raid warning sirens, triggered by the coastal watchers, had gone off in Mile End at about eight pm, shortly after I got home, but the lack of any action brought the all-clear signal at about five-past-nine.

That meant a full night’s sleep in my own bed at my digs for a change after finishing off reading the last of Gold’s letters. I had slept well.

This morning, instead of the air being filled with cordite and smoking wood, everything was coated in a slippery, dark grey sooty mess brought down by the low clouds, which at some point during the night must have almost rested on the ground. It is not for nothing that London is often nicknamed “The Smoke”.

I finally resigned myself to travel to the countryside north east of London alone and was about to board the empty second class carriage I had selected, when the mousey girl in spectacles that I had seen earlier squeezed past me to be first into the carriage.

“Thank you so much for holding the door open for me, kind sir,” she said, in one of those Home Counties’ accents from some anonymous but pretentious ladies’ finishing school in Hertfordshire or Surrey somewhere; you know the type, shrill high pitched voices, all rounded vowels and overly pronounced consonants.

“You’re welcome, Miss,” I replied, a little annoyed, both at her and myself.

I had rather looked forward to sharing the carriage with my client and, as I had no time to find another carriage before the train moved off, was dismayed to find myself facing the prospect of sharing up to two hours with a likely vacuous teenager. I proceeded to pull myself up the couple of steps, taking most of the strain on my arms and left foot.

“Mrs,” she said, as she sat down primly, about three-quarters of the way across the carriage, her small valise and gas mask resting on her lap, “not Miss,” she continued somewhat haughtily.

I looked up from the doorway. She was waving her left hand at me, showing her ring finger adorned with a modest thin band of gold reflecting in the dim electric lights of interior of the carriage. I was immediately reminded of the first war, when a lot of young and too immature girls hastily married their beaux before they went off to the Front, many never to return. It almost happened to me.

I supposed that this war was no different to the previous one.

“My apologies, Madam, I didn’t realise,” I began dismissively. But then the little mousey girl turned on her smile and those bright, evenly spaced white teeth were unmistakably the ones I had seen in my office yesterday. Only that time they had been surrounded by ruby red lipstick, now her lips were insipid, a plain pale pink.

“You!” I exclaimed.

“Indeed, Mr Onslow ... Edgar, it is I,” she grinned, still using her affected ‘English’ accent. “Do you know, I have walked past you four times in the last 15 minutes, and even asked the couple standing quite close enough to you for you to hear every single word —”

“For change of a shilling for a couple of sixpences for the chocolate machine,” I interjected.

“Quite. And still you didn’t recognise me!” She had a very superior smile on her plainly unadorned face. “But I had your ticket.”

“I know, and I pointed you out to the ticket man at the barrier that you had my ticket and I wanted to sneak up to you, and he cheerfully waved me through.”

“All right, all right. You certainly fooled me,” I smiled as I stretched up to put my battered brown leather briefcase into the overhead luggage rack.

“Would you mind?” she asked, holding up her valise.

I shook my head, and swung the bag up using the handles, it was very light. As I was doing so, I heard the guard’s whistle again and almost immediately the train lurched forward, pushing me away from the rack. I just hung onto the luggage rack until the motion evened out before taking my seat. I had my back to the engine and she faced the way the train was proceeding.

I sat down in the middle of the bench seat, not wanting to impinge on her space. I had noted that she had scooted up to the opposite door and windows, away from the door we had entered.

This was one of those suburban carriages, with no corridor, designed for short journeys and able to accommodate a lot more seated passengers than the express trains. This was a slow train, stopping at all of the small and large stations en route. We were eventually to alight at one of the smaller connecting stations, and take a further, even smaller train on to stop at a tiny station, nothing more that a single platform halt covering a couple of hamlets and the isolated RAF airfield we were seeking.

On arrival at the halt, I was told there was a public telephone box, from which I was to ring the AOC’s office, especially if we arrived earlier than timetabled or unduly delayed, otherwise a driver would be waiting for us if by any chance we were on time.

Usually punctual in peacetime, railways in wartime have to contend with the effects of the night’s bombing, additional unscheduled military trains carrying ordnance, sailors or troops having priority and there may well be delays on the way caused by the upsetting of the timetables and trains not being where they were supposed to be at the beginning of each day. Some trains were subject to being commandeered by the Military without notice if deemed necessary.

I could see the reflection of her face in the dark window. It was still before dawn outside and, in the blackout beyond, there was absolutely nothing to see. Suddenly, the dim lights in the carriage went out and I could see her flinch and hear her sharp intake of breath. She may have looked serene and calm as we embarked on our journey into the unknown, but underneath it she was as apprehensive as anyone would.

“It is because of the blackout, Miss la Mare,” I explained gently, “the lights are only on while we are under the platform canopy to aid passengers’ ingress and egress, the guard turns them off as soon as we move off.”