Chapter Seventeen

Phantoms

Dower House, Downton, Yorkshire, England, late April 1937.

Earlier today, and not for the first time in her life, Cora had been decidedly displeased with Mary.

This morning, on her way down to the railway station to catch the train into Ripon and then the express to York, Mary had called by and, among other things, had let it be known, in no uncertain terms, that she did not approve of her mother's intention to travel out to Austria later in the year, returning home to Downton with Friedrich, Edith and their two boys in time for Christmas.

As Mary had quitted the Drawing Room of the Dower House, seated in her customary chair beside the fireplace, beneath her usually placid exterior, Cora had been quietly seething with indignation. She was not an old woman and, in her last letter, Edith had made it abundantly clear that Friedrich and she were looking forward immensely to seeing Cora at Rosenberg later in the year; Edith initially having extended the invitation to her mother to come and stay towards the end of last year, shortly before the king's abdication.

Then, receiving no firm answer from her mother, Edith had repeated the invitation early this same year. Of course, what Cora did not know was that, given the worsening political situation in Europe, sometime ago Friedrich had quietly begun transferring funds to Switzerland and, just as surreptitiously, ensuring that choice pieces of furniture, along with pictures, and objects d'art were packed up, and despatched again to Switzerland or else to France, where Friedrich also had property. That both Friedrich and Edith were now fully resigned to the fact that the time was fast approaching when the family would be left with no alternative to quit not only Rosenberg, but also leave Austria.

The last time Cora had visited Austria had been back in 1933, not long after little Kurt had been born. Given how things stood there, as well as in Germany, Matthew had strongly countenanced Cora against going; that it was exceedingly unwise to contemplate such a journey. However, while thanking her son-in-law for his advice, as a scion of the Levinsons of Cincinatti, Ohio, Cora Crawley was fiercely independent, and had proceeded to go all the same. For, as she had made abundantly clear to Matthew, she saw her Crawley grandchildren regularly; Tom and Sybil's brood less often. And now, with another chance to see darling Max and little Kurt having presented itself, the offer was not to be spurned; nor would it be. Cora was expected at Rosenberg towards the end of October and, just as she had done before, go she would.

Cora glanced briefly again at the newspaper lying beside her on the small table and sighed. That, of course, was yet another reason to go. The grandchildren were all growing up as exemplified by this truly awful business of Danny. How dearest Tom and Sybil must be feeling, Cora could not begin to imagine. She should write to them immediately. In fact, she would write two letters: one to Tom and Sybil, and another to Friedrich and Edith accepting their renewed invitation to come and stay at Rosenberg.


After she had written her two letters, Cora spent a while consulting her invaluable copy of Bradshaw's - as to the best way to travel out to Austria. Thereafter, Egglestone, her dependable butler, could be relied upon to verify that she had not misunderstood anything and, in due course, make all the necessary arrangements as to times, tickets, the conveyance of luggage, and so forth, just as he had done before.

Long ago, dear Mama had said to Matthew's mother, Isobel, when Mary had refused to marry Matthew even though he was the heir to the estate, that her quarrel was with Violet's daughter Rosamund and not her, and that Isobel could put that in her pipe and smoke it! Well, as far as Cora was concerned, as regards her forthcoming trip to Austria, Mary could jolly well do the same.


Rotunda Lying-In Hospital, Parnell Street, Dublin, Irish Free State, late April 1937.

Over by the ornate cast iron railings, as Tom stood waiting for Sybil to emerge from the hospital, he found himself thinking, and not for the first time too, that with its hipped slate roof, finely dressed stone work, rendered chimney stacks, copper domed stone cupola, lead-clad cornice, Ionic pilasters, Doric columns, and sash windows, the magnificent building standing on the north side of Parnell Street looked much more like an Irish country house than a hospital.

Not, of course, that here in the Free State there were many country houses still left standing as most of them, especially those in the south of the country, such as Castleboro in County Wexford once the property of Baron Carew, or closer at hand, and to the north of Dublin, Summerhill in County Meath and which had belonged to the Langfords, as well as Tom's much more modest own family home of Skerries House down near Cork and close to Kinsale, had been burned by the IRA during the Irish Civil War. While Tom himself might, and indeed did, regret the loss of a significant part of Ireland's architectural heritage, he would not deny that the days of the Anglo-Irish gentry were over and done with and, not for an instant, did he regret their passing.

Since the burning of Skerries, Tom and Sybil had visited the blackened, burned out shell of the house but once. That had been back in the summer of 1924, when Ireland had first competed as an independent nation in the Olympic Games, the VIII Olympiad being held in Paris at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir. At the time, there had been some talk of Tom going over to Paris to report on what was taking place but, in the event, that did not come to pass. Instead, Tom having proposed some time earlier writing a piece on reconciliation between those who had supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty and those who had opposed it, with his editor's blessing, in search of background information for his article, along with Sybil, accompanied by darling Danny then aged four and three year old Saiorse, the Bransons had travelled en famille down to the far south west of Ireland.

Their journey had taken them first by train as far as Cork, where Tom had rented a motor, a green, open topped, 16/20 Cubitt Tourer from a garage off the Lower Glamire Road, in which they had driven out to Skerries, and then onwards by train to Bantry where Tom rented another motor for their journey over to Allihies which lay on the far western tip of the Beara Peninsula. Here, he had met up again with Mrs. O'Sullivan who had sheltered and tended Tom following his close brush with death at the hands of the Black and Tans in the aftermath of the burning of Cork. Had introduced her to both Sybil and the children.

All these years later, Tom had still not vouchsafed to Sybil what had happened to him during those terrible days when she had believed him dead; nor had he any intention of ever doing so. For, despite what is said, time does not heal all wounds; some last forever.

However, while the trip south had thus enabled Tom to renew his acquaintance of Mrs. O'Sullivan and thank her properly for all that she had done for him, it had been overshadowed by what had happened earlier, at Skerries. This not so much for seeing at first hand what had become of Skerries House, which Tom had last seen back in December 1920 before it had been fired by the IRA in January 1921, although that had been bad enough, but rather for the singularly unpleasant, unlooked for encounter with Tom's second cousin, Fergal. This being so, it was not a visit which Tom remembered with any especial fondness.

Fergal was convinced - mistakenly so - thanks to what Fergal had been told by his mother, Maeve, that Tom was his father, and, had abandoned both Fergal and his mother, who was Tom's cousin; as opposed to the truth of things, that being Fergal was in fact the outcome of an incestuous passion between Maeve and her brother Christopher who had been killed on the Marne in July 1918.

Thereafter, Fergal had been a thorn in Tom's flesh - had kidnapped Danny in Fiesole in Italy and, had it not been for Matthew, would doubtless have killed both Tom and Danny in Florence, and taken inordinate pleasure in the doing; was now, as he had been for many years, living over in Germany, working for the Foreign Ministry on the Wilhelmstrasse. And also, not that Tom knew it, was deeply implicated in the plot to kill the new British king, George VI.


Skerries House, County Cork, Irish Free State, July 1924.

Faintly, born on a gentle breeze from off the sea, Tom thought he heard the strings of a harp; the tune instantly recognisable: Crossing to Ireland. Maybe it was just wishful thinking on his part. After all, it had been played at the cèilidh held after their wedding in Clontarf in the summer of 1919; was the first waltz Sybil and he had danced to as man and wife. They had waltzed to it again, more recently, here at Skerries That had been one autumn night when they had ventured into the house's long abandoned Drawing Room - they only used a handful of rooms of the old place - and discovered a long forgotten phonograph, along with a collection of old recordings, among them one of Crossing to Ireland.


Skerries House, October 1920.

"What on earth are you doing?" Sybil asked as Tom dragged the heavy chair unceremoniously across the floor, its carved feet screeching in protest, leaving two parallel trails in the dust, before he did the same with its compatriot.

"What's it look like? I'm moving the furniture".

"But whatever for?" Tom having said nothing to her about the recording he had found.


With some of the ancient, threadbare furnishings pushed back hard against the walls, there was now sufficient space in which to dance. Tom wound up the phonograph and as the notes of the familiar tune trilled through the room, he grinned and held out his hand.

"May I be havin' the singular honour of this dance, Mrs. Branson?"

Sybil dimpled with pleasure; sketched a curtsy, before taking Tom's proffered hand.


Skerries House, July 1924.

A moment later and the music had faded away, if in fact, Tom had ever heard it at all. He now shook his head in disbelief at the sight which greeted him.

The very last time he had seen Skerries House, his family's ancestral home, before its deliberate destruction by the IRA one cold night in January 1921, had been the December morning he had ridden away from here on his beloved Triumph motorcycle, bound for Cork. That had been some four years ago. Later that very same day, while Tom was yet still in city, rumours had reached him that a detachment of Auxiliaries, housed in the Victoria Barracks, were planning retribution for the IRA ambush carried out at Dillon's Cross in which one Auxiliary had been killed and a dozen wounded. Thereafter, they had looted and set fire to the centre of Cork; in the resultant confusion Tom being kidnapped by the Black and Tans.

But while some of the destruction wrought in Cork had since been rebuilt, here, close to Kinsale, Skerries House remained a burned out shell; the main walls and the massive brick chimney stacks, all much smoke blackened, still stood, the chimneys towering over the roofless building. However, the outbuildings, including what had been the stable block, while derelict, still remained; the gardens too, although wildly overgrown, more so than they had been four years ago when Tom and Sybil, along with little Danny, were living up at the Big House.


Outside The Rotunda Lying-In Hospital, Parnell Street, Dublin, Irish Free State, late April 1937.

It was Tom who saw her first, her figure still slender, even after the birth of four children, smart and trim in her matron's uniform worn beneath a grey cape, as Sybil stepped out of the front door of the hospital directly below the building's green, copper domed, stone cupola. Catching sight of Tom, she raised her hand in friendly greeting, waved, and hurried towards him across the busy forecourt.

"What is it?" Sybil asked on reaching Tom, half fearful of what he might say.

"Not here".

"It's not bad news, is it? Danny?" Sybil's hand flew to her mouth in alarm.

"In the sense ya mean, no".

"Oh, thank God! But it is to do with him?"
"It is, for sure".
"Then what?"

"All in good time. Let's find some place where we can be private".

"Private?" Sybil gave a brief smile as, fleetingly, in her mind's eye she conjured before her a mental image of the garage, their garage, at Downton which despite the passage of the intervening years yet still stood although the last time the Bransons had visited England, the building was somewhat dilapidated.

Tom eyed her curiously.

"I haven't seen you smile like that in a very long while. So, penny for them".

"For what?"

"Whatever it is that made you smile so".

Sybil grinned; shook her head.

"I'll tell you later".

"Promise?"
"Promise!"

Sybil squeezed Tom's arm by way of reassurance.

"What about the gardens behind the hospital?"
"Grand!"


Tom dutifully offered Sybil his arm and then together, arm in arm, seemingly without a care in the world, the two of them strolled companionably along what was now called Parnell Street, out onto Cavendish Row, passing by the Parnell Monument with its statue of the uncrowned king of Ireland, Charles Stewart Parnell, with his left hand resting on a table and his right extended, standing resolute in front of a towering granite obelisk crowned with a tripod and eternal flame both fashioned from bronze, and so into what had been Rutland Square. This too had been renamed, again for Parnell, and was surrounded with what in former times had once been elegant terraces of fashionable town houses belonging to families of the British aristocracy that had once held sway here. However, like so many of its kith and kin, the square had long since seen better days; the neat, regular coursed brickwork laid with such infinite care and patience was grimy and smoke-stained, the heavy front doors scuffed, their brass work tarnished, the delicate fanlights and elegant sash windows dirty, with many cracked panes of glass and peeling paintwork; the age in which and the society for which the houses had been built, along with their former grandeur, like their erstwhile owners, were both long since departed.

A short walk now brought Tom and Sybil to what had once been the pleasure gardens of the Rotunda, the large domed assembly rooms from which the adjoining hospital took its name. These days, the gardens were neglected, unkempt, even overgrown, explained at least in part by the fact that there were plans to replace them with a memorial hereabouts commemorating all those who had died in the name of Irish freedom, but so far any such proposals had come to nought.

Here, among the overgrown trees and once pristine lawns, out of earshot of the constant clatter of the trams, the roar of traffic, the sound of footsteps, and the hustle and bustle of Dublin's fair city, even if in reality they were but a stone's throw away from it all, Tom and Sybil found themselves in a small park, with winding paths, ornate gas lamps, cast iron benches, and flowerbeds, much as one might find in an elegant Georgian square in London, save for the fact that here all was very much neglected. Except for the odd passer-by, there was no-one else about. They found a secluded seat and sat down.

"So?" Sybil asked.

"It's this," Tom said quietly, and handed her the folded newspaper which he had been carrying under his arm.


Rosenberg, Lower Austria, April 1937.

Here at Rosenberg, with a magnificent view northwards of the distant, snow capped Alps, sitting out in the April sunshine, below the terrace, in her beloved rose garden, Edith watched as close by young Kurt played happily with Fritz on one of the several gravel paths. All the same, this morning she had had to intervene several times when the now elderly, ever irascible, little dachshund had growled, snapped, and then finally bared his teeth at Kurt. These days the little dog couldn't walk very far; all he seemed to want to do was eat and sleep. No doubt he was also missing Max, just as much as was Edith herself who wished with all her heart that both Friedrich and darling Max had returned here to Rosenberg as scheduled although she understood well enough the reason for their extended stay out there in Palestine.

There was nothing Edith could do other than to accept with good grace how things now stood and wait, admittedly with growing impatience, not to say a sense of growing unease, the new date set for their return. Although Friedrich had let Edith know that they would be sailing from Alexandria instead of from Haifa, he had not vouchsafed to her the reason for the change of plan which seemed, on the face of it, inexplicable. After all Haifa was far closer to the site of the excavation at Samaria than was far distant Alexandria which could only be reached by undertaking a long journey south by train, on the Taurus Express, this as far as el Kantara on the Suez Canal and thence onwards through Ismalia to Cairo's Misr station where Friedrich and the boys would catch yet another train northwards, this time to Alexandria to take ship for Trieste. Of course, Edith knew of all these places as a result of the time Friedrich and she had spent on archaeological digs out in the Near East. That Robert had been more than content to remain out in Palestine for an extended stay gave her some peace of mind over Max; had prompted too a most unexpected letter from Mary which had arrived here at Rosenberg a matter of a day or so ago, thanking Edith, in advance, for the hospitality afforded to Robert. Mary went on to say that from the one letter and hastily written postcard which Matthew and she had received from Robert, it was obvious that he was enjoying himself immensely. Edith smiled. No doubt Robert was; well away from Mary's constant chiding and prying eyes.

Edith would have been far less sanguine about Friedrich and the boys staying on in Palestine had she known the true extent of the ongoing uprising against British rule. However, just now, another matter claimed her attention, namely the outcome of her second meeting with M. Alphonse which had taken place yesterday at Isabel Henderson's spacious flat in Vienna overlooking the Michaelerplatz.


Michaelerplatz, First District of Vienna, Federal State of Austria, April 1937.

"If you're quite sure, what I mean is, that you don't wish me to stay with you while the..."
"I am. Perfectly". Edith smiled at Isabel.

"Well, as it happens, I have some notes to finish preparing for one of my English students for this evening but should you, at any time, feel uncomfortable, I'll only be in the next room..."
"I won't, but thank you all the same".

Edith nodded; watched as Isabel now rose gracefully from where she had been seated by the tiled stove and quitted the room.


As the door closed behind her friend, Edith turned her head, looked directly at the Frenchman seated opposite her on the sofa. Even with the windows of the third storey apartment firmly closed, from outside, familiar sounds drifted up from the square below: scurrying footsteps down on the pavement, the clip clop of hooves, the rumble of wheels, the clang and rattle of the trams, and the growl of motors. She sensed that M. Alphonse's eyes were upon her and looking up, she found in this she was not mistaken.

"Forgive me. What you told me the last time we met, intrigued me, which was why, through Miss Henderson, I suggested this further meeting".

"Indeed?"

"That..." M. Alphonse paused. "And the fact that you are clearly a sensitive".

"But how do you know that I..."
"There is an English phrase, I think. It takes one to know one?"
Edith nodded.

"You also".

"Exactly so..."

"And when you had your first such experience..." Edith paused. "You were, forgive me, monsieur, I think... just a child".

"Yes. You see?" M. Alphonse smiled. "Indeed. At the time, I was scarce seven years old; growing up in a remote hamlet in the Auvergne. Not, I grant you, the most enlightened of places. Indeed, it is still not. A backward, mountainous area situated in the centre of France. And when I experienced what I did, a premonition that there would be an accident, down at the parish church - there were builders, undertaking repairs to the spire - the scaffolding was poorly erected, it collapsed as we came out from Mass. A school friend was killed by falling debris..."

"How awful for you. But, your parents were... disbelieving, fearful".

"Quite. It did not, you see, sit well with their Catholic faith. Especially that of my mother. At the time what I saw frightened me. And then, as the years passed, until I grew to manhood, when I experienced other such premonitions, I did my best to ignore them".

"But why me? Why now? And the people, those in the 'plane, I'm certain they are not known to me; any of them".

"It is an ability which most of us possess, at least to some degree, but which also most reject out of hand because, I suppose, it unnerves them".

"Shouldn't we begin by closing the curtains?" Edith asked, nodding towards where the bright afternoon sunlight spilled into the room through several full length plate glass windows. "Sit at the table?"

M. Alphonse smiled; shook his head and laughed softly, almost to himself.

"No, that won't be necessary. Any of it. Now, given what I have already learned from you, what I need you to do is this..."


Skerries House, July 1924.

Here, in the decaying splendour of the long abandoned drawing room at Skerries a sudden draught caused the candles to flicker, then gutter, and a moment later, they went out completely, plunging the room into darkness. Undeterred, as they drifted together, the memories of what had followed the first time they had danced to the same tune came crowding back; Sybil laughed softly.

"Why, you waltz delightfully, Mr. Branson!"

in the darkness, Tom leaned in towards Sybil.

"So do ya. May I say something intimate?"
"Sir, you presume too much!" Sybil giggled. "Well, if you must!"
"Sybil I adore ya!"


Former Pleasure Gardens, rear of Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, Irish Free State, late April 1937.

Now, thirteen years, and a what seemed a lifetime later, Sybil took the newspaper from Tom. There, on the front page was a black and white photograph; one which showed a scene of utter devastation - taken of a town in Northern Spain. Of course Sybil was only too well aware of what had happened to Guernica. After all, over the last couple of days, the newspapers had been full of reports of the destruction of the small market town, carried out by aeroplanes acting in support of the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco and which had systematically pounded the buildings of Guernica into dust.

Standing amid the ruins of the town was a young man in uniform; his face haggard, begrimed, and streaked with dust. The caption beneath the photograph was stark in its simplicity:

A Republican soldier surveys the destruction of Guernica

Maybe.

But for Sybil, there was no doubting as to just who that young man was:

Danny.

"My God! How could anyone live through that?" she said softly, unconsciously all but echoing the words of her English brother-in-law, Matthew Crawley.


Michaelerplatz, First District of Vienna, Federal State of Austria, April 1937.

Earth, fire, water, air...

Just as M. Alphonse had predicted it would, the repeated refrain possessed a spell-like, almost hypnotic quality and wove its own magic; the sounds echoing up from the square below gradually faded away and as they did so, for no reason which she could divine at the time, Edith found herself thinking back to something which had happened years ago. To an incident - trivial in itself - and which she had not thought of in years, which had occurred in the summer of 1927. That, thought Edith, was perhaps one of the few advantages of growing older; the past had further to travel before it caught up with one.

Accompanied by Friedrich, along with Max who was then aged but five, at the invitation of Reiner Günther one of Friedrich's German friends from the days of the Great War, the Schönborns had made a short trip to Germany. Reiner was now a professor of history at Heidelberg University, the oldest such institution in Germany. Out of term, he lived in Darmstadt, an old world place, the capital of a small German state called Hesse which, down to 1918 and the collapse of the German Empire, had been a Grand Duchy. And it was here that, for a short while, the Schönborns had come to stay.

It had been a particularly hot afternoon, the still air heavy, almost leaden, prescient with the threat of thunder, but for all Edith's much vaunted Second Sight - even Friedrich, while respecting it, at times teased her about this - she had no inkling of what was about to happen. As Günther had to attend urgently to some unexpected correspondence from the university, the Schönborns had taken the opportunity to stroll unaccompanied into town. With Max dawdling behind them, arm Friedrich and Edith were walking across the Schlossplatz, the square in front of the former Grand Ducal Palace. In the centre of the square there stood a circular fountain, in the middle of which was a small obelisk, the pyramidion surmounted by a carved stone ball. Like most small boys, Max was drawn instinctively to water and, unbeknown to his parents, he now paused to trail his hands in the basin of the circular fountain. The water was ice cold, deliciously so.

And then...


Lower Hall Farm, Little Enderby, Yorkshire, England, May 1937.

At the very same time, here in England, hopefully unobserved, aided in their endeavours by a thick mist, Matthew and his group of hand picked men numbering no more than half a dozen, all of whom had served with him during the Great War and upon whom he could rely upon implicitly, quietly finished surrounding the isolated buildings that made up Lower Hall Farm.

From their vantage point, lying hidden amidst a brake of sodden bracken, Matthew surveyed the huddle of buildings through his binoculars; these, a relic of his time spent on the Western Front. Below him, the farm lay silent, save that was for the occasional, plaintive bleating of sheep from the fold and the lowing of cattle down in the byre. The farmhouse itself appeared to be in total darkness; not so much as a sliver of light showed from any of the windows but, from an earlier recce, made a short while ago, one of his compatriots had reported hearing voices inside the house; those of a man and a woman.

The time had come to make a move. Matthew gave the pre-arranged signal and, despite the enveloping murk, still keeping out of sight, he and his compatriots began edging their way cautiously down the damp, grassy hillside, towards the distant farm.


Excavation site, Samaria, Northern District, British Mandated Palestine, late March 1937.

Later that same day, after supper was over, as the chill of the desert night descended on the encampment, with Friedrich, Robert, Max, Tibor and Harriet seated companionably together on camp stools around the fire, Tibor explained how he had come to meet Matthew Crawley, of what had happened in Hungary a few years earlier, telling too of how he had first met Robert's mother, when she had fallen, almost literally, at his feet in the square outside the Oktogen Underground station in Budapest. Tibor made the whole incident sound very amusing; especially when he let slip what Robert's mother had blurted out, having been knocked to the ground by two men, complete strangers, who had jumped down from a tram, intent on avoiding paying for their fare.

"Foreigners, that's what they are. All of them. Bloody foreigners!"

Robert grinned. That sounded so like Mama.

Of course, when their parents, along with Uncle Tom, had all arrived back at Rosenberg, Uncle Friedrich and Aunt Edith's home in Lower Austria, by aeroplane from Hungary, both Robert and Simon had plied them fiercely with all manner of questions. But, while Papa, and to be fair, Mama also - she being far more forthcoming than would normally have been the case - had done their level best to answer their sons' questions, from what Robert had now learned, there was evidently a very great deal more to tell of which neither of them had ever spoken. Tibor told something of what else had occurred, but modestly played down his own role in all that had transpired, extolling instead the part played by Robert's father; seconding what Eccles had said, that Matthew Crawley was a very brave man. What Tibor had to relate was, at least in one sense, only to be expected because as Robert knew only too well his father was an extremely modest man and hated any fuss. Much later, when, finally, Tibor drew his tale to a close he looked directly over at Robert and smiled.

"So, young man, what Captain Eccles said earlier is but the half of it. Your father is an honourable, very brave, and resourceful man".


With Tibor and Harriet having said their goodnights and disappeared inside their tent, clearly thinking about something, Friedrich sat gazing thoughtfully down into the dying embers of the fire. Then, his head snapped up.

"Well, it's been a very long day. I think I'll turn in too. But before I do, aren't you going to tell me?" he asked, softly, looking directly across at Max.

"About... what?" Max asked hesitantly.

"About what happened in Haifa".

Max and Robert exchanged glances; something which, in the flickering light of the fire, did not go unnoticed by Friedrich.

"Ah, so it's like that, is it?"

"Well, it's..."

"My boy, if it concerns young Alaric's admiration for Herr Hitler and the Nazis, then I know all about that".

"You do?" Max swallowed hard. He did not like to be reminded of the unpleasantness of what had happened up on Mount Carmel.

Friedrich nodded.

"Yes, Alaric's father told me. So, did it?"

This time it was Max who nodded. With his father now having made up the fire, taking a deep breath, as the night drew down, with several interjections from Rob, Max sat and told what had happened up on Mount Carmel. When he came to the part about how, with no thought at all for himself, Robert had put himself in danger to shield Max from being hit in the face by Wernher, Friedrich smiled. Evidently, Robert was very much his father's son. No wonder then that Max thought the world of both Danny and Rob. At length, having concluded his tale, Max fell silent.

Friedrich nodded.

"It's very much as I suspected. Thank you, my boy, for having had the courage to tell me," he said quietly. "Alaric's father told me that although there is good in him, as indeed there is in everyone, that Alaric and many of his friends have let themselves be seduced by the evils of Nazism".

Friedrich glanced up at the blackness of the night sky, to see the firmament was scattered with stars.

"Now, I really think it is time that the three of us turned in". Friedrich rose to his feet.

"Goodnight, Papa".
"Goodnight, my boy".
"Goodnight, Uncle Friedrich".

"Goodnight, Robert". Friedrich turned to go. Then, abruptly, he swung back on his heel; looked down at his nephew. "Everything Tibor told you tonight about your papa is true. And, with what you did for Max there up on Mount Carmel, you have proven yourself to be your father's son".

Robert flushed red and not from the heat of the fire.

"Thank you for saying so, Uncle Friedrich," he said softly.


Lower Hall Farm, Little Enderby, Yorkshire, England, April 1937.

Here, on the edge of the deserted farmyard, Matthew and his men fanned out among the cluster of stone buildings. Quite what then happened next, no-one ever knew, but it seemed that despite all of the precautions they had taken in their descent to the farm, their approach had not gone unobserved. Suddenly there came the sound of breaking glass and several ragged fusillades of shots rang out, first from one window, from another, and from a third, causing those outside to take cover, and then return sustained fire.


The shooting from the farmhouse ceased as abruptly as it had begun and an ominous silence now descended whereupon Matthew decided to risk moving in closer to the building. Signalling to those about him to do so, but in case the cessation of fire from the farmhouse was but a feint, keeping out of sight, the small group moved slowly forward. A short while later, with there still being no sign of life from within the darkened building, having taken hurried counsel, it was agreed that one of their number should try and make it as far as the front door. Blakeley, who when a corporal had been Matthew's orderly during the war, volunteered to be the one to go, but Matthew was having none of it. For, unlike so many of his class, when the chips were down, as he had done in France, and more recently in Hungary, Matthew always led from the front; something which had endeared him greatly to those who had served under his command out in the trenches. For, as betimes he had told Robert and Simon, one should never order someone to do something if one was not prepared to do it oneself. This being so, Matthew said that he himself would go.

All the same, it did not do to take unnecessary chances. Calling for covering fire, crouching low, zig-zagging his way towards the front of the house, taking shelter first behind a farm cart, before ducking down and running, bent double, in the lee of a low brick wall, a quick sprint brought Matthew to the porch, inordinately pleased with himself that he could yet, when the situation so demanded, put on a good turn of speed. The front door was riddled with bullet holes but while Matthew had no qualms about kicking it open, nonetheless he reached cautiously for the door knob; softly turned it. To his infinite surprise, the door swung silently back on well oiled hinges. Employing a tactic which he had once used on the Western Front, in gaining access to a well defended German dugout, Matthew dived head first through the open doorway, rolled across the paved floor within, and at once took took cover behind a table which he overthrew so as to afford him some protection. The only light came from the grate of the range and, as Matthew's eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he saw that the room, the kitchen, had been wrecked; the woodwork splintered, the walls peppered with bullet holes, the etched globe and glass chimney of the oil lamp on the heavy table which occupied the centre of the room smashed, the panes of the window broken and crazed, and the china on the shelves of the dresser shattered to smithereens by the hail of gunfire.

And in the gloom, Matthew noticed something else too.

Using his elbows to propel himself forward, twisting first this way and then that, Matthew squirmed his way, snakelike, across the cold flagstones, towards a dark form lying immobile on the floor and found to his horror, Daisy Mason lying at the foot of the stairs. She had been shot through the head, at close range, yet was still alive. But of Armitage, there was no immediate sign.

A short while later, with his men having completely secured the house and thereafter made a cautious but thorough search of all the rooms, including both the attic and the cellar, it was clear that, somehow, Armitage had contrived to make good his escape. There being no telephone at the farm, it had fallen to Blakeley to run back up to the telephone box on the road and to call for an ambulance. Whether it arrived in time and whether anything could then be done for Daisy, only time would tell, but, in Matthew's view, the auguries for her survival did not look at all good.


Downton Abbey, the following morning.

On learning the dreadful news of what had happened out at Lower Hall Farm, Mary said she would put off her planned trip into York on the morrow, but Matthew wouldn't hear of it; said that she should go. After all, what was done was done. So, after breakfast, the following morning, having called in at the Dower House on her way down to the station, a short while later Mary found herself standing on the platform waiting the branch train to Ripon.


Railway Station, York, later that same day.

Despite the pall of gloom cast of everything by Daisy being shot and taken to hospital and Armitage having escaped, the day itself was bright and sunny and Mary's subsequent journey by train into York proved completely uneventful. Nonetheless, she was very grateful to have a First Class compartment all to herself in which to be alone with her thoughts. She was certain that no blame attached to Matthew but all the same what had happened was truly awful.

However, several hours later when at last Mary emerged from the premises of Messrs. Leek and Thorpe and onto Coney Street, one of the city's oldest thoroughfares, already garlanded and be-flagged for the Coronation, being well pleased with her purchases, all made necessary by the impending Coronation, Mary's mood quite matched the spring weather. Whether Matthew would be quite as enamoured by the cost of them remained to be seen but, as she had told him countless times, as the countess of Grantham she had a position to maintain both here in the county as well as further afield, and up in London too. Nonetheless, not even under pain of torture, would Mary ever admit to Sybil - who had told of her trips into Cleary's in Dublin - and certainly not to Edith, who had spoken in glowing terms of similar expeditions into Vienna - that shopping for outfits in a department store in York would prove to be such an agreeable experience. For, to her infinite surprise, within the premises of Leek and Thorpe Mary had found all that she needed for her forthcoming trip up to town for the Coronation. With her purchases at last concluded the manager of the department store had insisted on hailing a taxi for her and saw to it that Mary's purchases were brought out to the waiting cab by one of his junior members of staff.

At the railway station, one of England's busiest, having paid the cabbie, with a porter having taken Mary's purchases to the Left Luggage office from where she was assured they would be reclaimed and placed on the for her shortly before the departure of her train, Mary took a late luncheon in the Royal York Hotel, adjoining the station, and which possessed gardens stretching down to the River Ouse along with a magnificent view of the Minster.

As it turned out, the hotel's Dining Room was all but deserted and, recognising the beautiful, elegant countess of Grantham from when she had dined here with her husband, the impeccably attired Head Waiter was assiduous in his attentions. From the menu - which Mary was glad to see did not include steak and ale pie - she chose Mulligatawny Soup, followed by Dover Sole, lightly poached with vegetables, washed down with a glass of white Bordeaux, and for dessert Charlotte Russe, and coffee, all for the outrageous price - as Mary viewed it - of 5s. 6d., with the coffee costing her an extra 4d.

At length, with her meal over, having paid her bill, and still with plenty of time to catch the mid afternoon train back to Ripon and from there the branch service onwards to Downton, intending a brief stop at the Dower House en route to the abbey to pay a call on Mama and show her the clothes she had purchased, Mary walked sedately out through the tiled octagon entrance of the hotel which led directly onto the the concourse of the station. However, as things turned out, the rest of her afternoon did not go at all as Mary had expected.


Beneath its enormous, curved, glass, iron roof, York station was, as usual, all bustle and noise: a discord of competing sounds, with a myriad of passengers hurrying across the concourse of the vast building towards one or other of the fifteen platforms, there to catch a train which was shortly to depart or else, perhaps, meet with friends and family; while others, having arrived in the city by train were just as intent on making their way in the opposite direction, walking briskly out of the station, hailing a taxi, or else making their way on foot across the River Ouse and into the centuries old labyrinth of streets which made up York which, in their plan, at least in part, dated back to the time of the Romans when what later would become York was known as Eboracum and the site of a legionary fortress.

Here in the station, with trains constantly arriving and departing to all parts of the country, the air was sulphurous, thick with smoke and steam, punctuated by the shrieks of whistles, the rumble of empty and laden barrows and trollies, the scurrying footsteps of countless passengers, while from overhead there came the disembodied voice of the station announcer calling out both arrivals and departures and the relevant platforms:

The train arriving at Platform 10 is the 1143 from Newcastle upon Tyne.

Platform 7 for the 2.10 all stations to Beverley calling at Warthill, Stamford Bridge, Pocklington, Nunburnholme, Market Weighton, Londesborough, Earswick, Cherry Burton, and Beverley. Platform 7 for the 2.10 to Beverley.

The next departure from Platform 9 will be the 2.20 to Leeds Central calling at Copmanthorpe, Bolton Percy, Ulleskelf, Church Fenton... and Leeds Central.

The train now standing at Platform 1 is the 2.45 for London King's Cross calling at...

Glancing up at the ornate station clock, Mary saw there was still half an hour until her own train departed. Nonetheless, she buttonholed a young porter telling him that she had packages to be collected from Left Luggage for the afternoon train to Ripon. The porter touched his cap respectfully; said that he would ensure that the packages were duly collected and placed in Mary's compartment on the Ripon train. Then, just after he had turned and walked away from her, it happened.


As if from out of nowhere, a man brushed past Mary at very at close quarters, in such a tearing hurry that he all but fell over a heavily laden luggage trolley which was being manhandled slowly along the platform by another of the building's many porters. The incident reminded Mary instantly of her first meeting with Tibor in distant Budapest when circumstances had conspired so that she had all but fallen at his feet.

"'ere! Look out! What's the bleedin' rush?" demanded the flustered, startled porter.

The other man snarled something which, perhaps fortunately, Mary did not hear, and without checking his pace, pounded on along the platform, evidently making for the footbridge which led over to the far side of the station. Mary followed the path of the man as he raced across the bridge and came down the steps on the other side where he vanished out of sight behind the carriages of a train pulling out of the station. Then, with the train having departed, she saw the man again. Mary had a very good memory for both names and faces and, despite having his cap pulled down low, and the stubble, the man she had glimpsed was undoubtedly Jacob Armitage.

A moment later, Mary caught up with the porter still struggling with the loaded luggage trolley who informed her that the only train shortly to depart from the other side of the station, from Platform 15, was the London express, due to leave York at 2.45pm. Mary glanced up at the station clock; it was now 2.15. The London and North Eastern Railway prided itself on the punctuality of its expresses, so the London train would depart in precisely half an hour and not a minute later.

Instantly, Mary became practical.

Scanning the crowded concourse for a police officer and finding none - one never could when one had need of an officer - what Mary did see was a row of bright red Public Telephone boxes whereupon she made her way purposefully over to them. Although she had never used a public telephone before, Mary was confident that she would be able to master how one made a telephone call. After all, she was a Crawley and certainly not slow witted.

However, on reaching the row of brightly painted boxes, Mary pushed the door of the first to gain entrance; but nothing happened. Perhaps it was stuck. So, she tried again. The door still refused to open. Clearly it was jammed. Why on earth didn't people check these things? Mary moved to the next booth but was no more successful in gaining entry than before until that was a passer-by called out to her that she needed to:

Pull the door, not push, yer silly bint!

Without even deigning to turn round, ignoring the rudeness of the unknown man, doing as he had advised, did the trick. A moment later now inside the musty smelling booth, and with the door firmly closed behind her, Mary found herself confronted by a telephone receiver with its fabric insulated lead, a set of telephone directories, and two large buttons, one marked "A" and the other "B". The next problem to surmount was how on earth did one actually use one of these things? It was now that Mary recalled to mind something which, of all people, Edith had once said, and that years ago, when the telephone had first been installed at the abbey, Granny had asked her if it was an instrument of communication or torture. Presently, Mary was inclining firmly to the latter view.


Obviously the call would have to be paid for. So, Mary picked up the receiver, then pressed the button marked "A". Nothing happened. From beyond the confines of the booth, muffled by the glass, there came the habitual noises of the station: whistles continued to blow, announcements to be made, along with the ever present sound of footsteps. Mary replaced the receiver in its cradle, then picked it up again. This time she pressed the button marked "B". That, unexpectedly, produced a small shower of coins into the metal tray at the bottom of the large black box. Quite why that had happened, she could not begin to fathom. Presumably, the user paid for the telephone call and not the GPO, so why on earth...

"Oh, damn and botheration!" In her frustration, Mary slammed the receiver down hard.

It was then that a slight sound behind her caused Mary to half turn, only to find herself confronted by two young boys, one dark haired, the other freckle faced and with a shock of ginger hair, both wearing blazers, shorts, long socks and black shoes; the uniform of the Minster School and with pencils and notebooks in hand, their faces pressed hard against the glass of the booth. Annoyed that she was making a spectacle of herself, Mary shook her head; motioned the boys away with an angry wave of her left hand. However, instead of doing as she had requested, the dark haired boy gently pulled open the door of the telephone box and, lifting his school cap politely, asked if they could be of any assistance to her. Mary had been on the point of ordering the boy to leave when, standing slightly behind him, his compatriot, the ginger haired boy, evidently the shyer of the two of them but with a cheeky grin, also touched the brim of his cap in a gesture which so reminded Mary instantly of darling Tom standing beside the Renault in his chauffeur's livery outside the front door of the abbey. It was this simple act that won Mary over.

"I'd be most grateful if one or other of you can. You see, boys, I've never had to use one of these before," explained Mary, at the same time bestowing a dazzling smile upon her two pint-sized would be knight-errants. It turned out that the boys - Rhys Jones and Angus Fraser - were train spotters which explained their notebooks and pencils and why it was that they were here at the station. Both were in the choir at the Minster; this afternoon they would normally have been playing football but their games master was, unexpectedly, indisposed, gone down with some lurgy, so they had snuck out of school and come down here to the station. However, with choir practice in the Minster at 3.30, they would, explained Angus, the one with the freckles, have to be back at school well in time for that.

Quite why it was young boys found steam engines so fascinating, Mary could not imagine. She found herself reminded of something which had happened several years ago, in Florence, when the Bransons, the Crawleys, and the Schönborns had been waiting to board the train for Paris. Danny, Robert and Max had insisted that, along with Matthew, Mary came with them down to the end of the platform to inspect the engine of their train.


Santa Maria Novella Railway Station, Florence, Kingdom of Italy, August 1932.

"Are ya any the wiser, for sure?" Tom asked, lofting an inquisitive brow towards Mary as, together with Matthew, Danny, Robert, and Max, along with Fritz still trotting along on his improvised leash, the countess of Grantham now re-joined them beside the door of their carriage.

Matthew grinned at Tom. For her part, Mary merely grimaced.

"Apparently, it's..." she began, and through gritted teeth.

"An E626," put in Robert helpfully.

"Built in 1930," chimed Danny enthusiastically.

"In Italy," added Max proudly.

"Yes, that's right. An E626, built in 1930, in Italy," repeated Mary tonelessly. "Boys, I feel so much better for knowing all of that".


Railway Station, York, Yorkshire, England, April 1937.

A moment later with the two boys crammed beside her in the telephone box, Mary was given swift instructions on how to make a telephone call which turned out to extremely simple.

"So, that's how it's done! Thank you, boys! Both of you!"

In a lilting Welsh accent, Rhys went on to explain that he used the public telephone at the school quite often to, as he put it, 'phone his parents in somewhere or or other; Mary's knowledge of Wales was sketchy to say the least and, even though Rhys assured her, having repeated its name, the town was well known, she had never heard of it. Apparently, whatever it was called, the place was not that far from Shrewsbury. Then, while Mary proceeded to make her call, the two boys slipped outside the booth where they remained standing patiently beside the telephone box, in case the lady she find herself in any further difficulty. That and the fact that both of them hoped that, in due course, their assistance would not go unrewarded.


Inside the telephone box, now possessed of the requisite knowledge, Mary lifted the receiver, pressed coins into the slot. The line crackled and a moment or two later, at the other end, Mary heard Barrow's measured tone. For the first time ever, Mary was very glad to hear his voice.

"Downton Abbey".

"Barrow?"

"Your Ladyship?" The butler sounded most surprised, as she supposed he might, Mary never having had cause to telephone the abbey before.
"Yes, Barrow".

"I must apologise for not recognising your voice, Your Ladyship". Barrow had, of course, but he could never resist an opportunity, should one present itself, of being difficult. "His Lordship? Down at the Estate Office; or so I believe. Do you wish me to try and connect you, Your Ladyship? Very well then, please hold the line".

Quite what that meant, Mary was not at all sure so she merely gripped the telephone receiver all the more firmly and waited, for what seemed an inordinate amount of time, even if by the station clock it was only but a couple of minutes, before, finally, she heard Matthew's voice.


Estate Office, Downton.

Both in and around Downton, news of what had happened out at Lower Hall Farm swiftly became general knowledge. With the police now involved in the search for Armitage, when the telephone down at the Estate Office rang, Matthew was holding an impromptu Council of War with his immediate confederates. Predictably enough, the debacle at Lower Hall Farm was the sole matter under consideration. That Armitage had got clean away was bad enough, let alone this deplorable business of Daisy Mason who, in a critical condition, had been taken at speed by ambulance to the General Infirmary in Leeds. Whether she would survive was in the hands of the Almighty or rather more to the point in the hands of the surgeon who was to operate on her. The bullet had missed her brain but was still lodged in her skull and it would take a surgeon of exceptional skill to extract it. If that could be done, then Daisy was in with a chance; if not, she was unlikely to survive. So far there had been no sightings of Armitage but it seemed reasonable to assume that he had gone to ground somewhere in the vicinity of Downton.


Ever since the Great War the telephone between the abbey and the Estate Office had never worked properly, so when Barrow put Mary through, while surreptitiously staying on the line to listen in, Matthew had some difficulty in hearing what Mary was saying. Eventually Matthew got the gist of it, that she was now at the station in York, that she had seen Armitage boarding the non-stop afternoon express up to London, that she...

"Yes, yes, I understand. Yes, perfectly. Thank you. No, I'll alert the railway authorities. No, Mary, don't even think about it! Hello! Hello! Mary!"

The line crackled; then went dead.


Excavation site, Samaria, Northern District, British Mandated Palestine, late March 1937.

Here in their tent, while Robert was finishing unpacking his case, Max lounged on his camp bed reading a piece in a magazine on the forthcoming flight of the Hindenburg from Germany across the Atlantic to the United States. While the article was in German, catching sight of a photograph of the enormous airship, it was clear what the piece concerned. After all, who had not heard of the Hindenburg? Rob smiled.

"Like to travel on her?"
"You bet. If only..."Max sighed. A moment later, Robert yelled out in pain.

"Bloody hell! What the..."

Its tail still raised, the scorpion scuttled out of the opened suitcase, across the camp bed, dropped to the ground, and scuttled away.


Max burst into his father's tent.

"Papa!

"What is it?"

"Rob! He's been stung by a scorpion!"

Author's Note:

Bradshaw's was a series of railway timetables and travel guides published throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They continued in publication until May 1961 when the last British guide was produced.

Opened in December 1757, the Rotunda Lying-In Hospital was named after the Rotunda in Parnell Square.

Summerhill House, County Meath, was burned by the IRA in February 1921 while two years later, in February 1923, Castleboro House, County Wexford suffered the same fate. It is estimated that between 1919-23 some 275 Irish country houses were destroyed, some during the Anglo-Irish War, the majority of them in the Irish Civil War which followed it.

For what else happened in Italy, see my story The Rome Express.

The tune Crossing to Ireland dates from at least 1816 (when it was first published). There are various recordings of it on the Internet.

Paris had beaten several other capital cities - Amsterdam, Prague and Rome - as well as Barcelona and Los Angeles to host the Summer Olympics of 1924. The Games opened on 4th May and closed on 27th July.

For the burning of Skerries House see my story Home Is Where The Heart Is and for more on what happened during the Bransons' journey down to the far south-west of Ireland, see my story Reunion.

For what happened to Matthew, Mary, and Tom in Hungary, see my story Alpine Interlude.

The Rotunda Pleasure Gardens, situated to the rear of the hospital, are now occupied by the Garden of Remembrance, a national memorial to those who gave their lives for Irish freedom, and which finally opened on Easter Monday, 1966, on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Rising.

Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-1891) was an Irish nationalist politician who "more than any other man...gave Ireland the sense of being an independent nation".

The University of Heidelberg was founded in 1386 and is the sixth oldest in Europe.

A contemporary photograph of Coney Street shows it bedecked with flags for the 1937 Coronation.

At the time of the story, many of the department stores in Vienna were Jewish owned, with the most fashionable ones being situated in the city's First District on Mariahilfer Strasse. Others, such as that belonging to the Rothberger family (who had opened branches in both London and Paris) were situated near the Judenplatz.

Opened in 1878, the Royal Station Hotel in York - now called the Principal York Hotel - is still in business today.

The Minster - York Minster - the name by which the city's cathedral is known.

5s. 6d. equates to about 27 pence. At today's prices the same meal would cost Mary about £20-00.

The Minster School was founded in 1903, although it claimed its origins lay in a "song school" founded in 627 by Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, with 180 pupils, 40 being choristers at York Minster. The school closed down last summer because of a significant funding shortfall caused by the COVID 19 pandemic.