Chapter Nineteen

Bad Tidings All Around

Bath Place, Blackrock, Irish Free State, April 1937.

Standing beside her, Sybil was acutely aware of Tom fiddling nervously with his hat which he had removed as a mark of respect. Something to do with its brim seemed to have claimed his attention. Not that it was that at all for, even though he was, through and through, a hard bitten journalist and now Deputy Editor of The Irish Independent, he was never at all good in this kind of situation. To be fair, of course few people ever were, but for his part Tom was far too emotional; wore his heart on his sleeve, which was why Sybil had insisted that they break the dreadful news to Jimmy's parents together. Now, on meeting Mrs. McCloughin's moist eyes with her own, Sybil slowly nodded her head; saw Clodagh's hand fly instantly to her mouth.

"Oh, Jaysus! No! No! No!" Despite the best efforts of her husband, Seamus, there on the well scrubbed front doorstep of her own modest home, Clodagh McCloughin sank heavily to her knees, doubling over, clutching her stomach, rocking back and forth incessantly, and incapable of consolation.


Downton Abbey, Yorkshire, England, October 1913.

Once, long ago, Sybil had seen someone else do very much the same thing as Clodagh had just done now. It was something which she had never forgotten. So it was, if only just for a moment, that before Sybil's eyes the years suddenly rolled back, to a time shortly before the Great War. For his part, Tom had not long then come to work at Downton as chauffeur to the Crawley family and in this capacity had driven both Lady Grantham and her youngest daughter, Lady Sybil, down to an estate cottage in the village. In her mind's eye Sybil saw again the gleaming Renault drawn up beyond the neat white paling fence by the gate and Tom, smart in his livery, sitting upright in the driver's seat, staring steadfastly ahead, seemingly unaware of the drama now unfolding a matter of but a few steps away up the narrow brick path from where he was now seated.


As it turned out, Tom did know precisely what it was that had brought the countess of Grantham and her youngest daughter down here to one of the tied cottages on Church Lane and this thanks to Thomas Barrow who had been only too eager to spill the beans to the neophyte Irish chauffeur of what it was that had happened. Given the fact that Thomas was someone who always enjoyed being the harbinger of bad tidings, this was hardly surprising.


On learning what it was, owing to the singular indiscretion of Thomas, that was being noised openly below stairs, Mr. Carson had been exceedingly displeased. What had come to pass was bad enough, without the pertinent details of the most tragic occurrence becoming the stuff of common gossip. So, when the butler was appraised of who it was who had been regaling the staff with the gory details of what had happened, this led, and not for the first time, to Thomas being summoned to the Butler's Pantry for a verbal dressing down. Not, of course, that it made the slightest difference; it never ever did. Thomas stood stock still and listened in stony silence, which in itself amounted to dumb insolence, to what the butler had to say until the old boy - as Thomas considered him to be - at last fell silent.

"Will that be all, Mr. Carson?" Thomas asked crisply.

"Is that all you have to say, Thomas?"

"What else is there to say?"

"Some expression of contrition on your part? Or would that be too much to expect?"

Thomas stared resolutely ahead into the middle distance at a point somewhere on the whitewashed wall behind Mr. Carson's grey head and roughly in line with the row of photographs of past members of the domestic staff.

In the lengthening silence that now ensued, realising that this particular conversation was going nowhere, Mr. Carson shook his head, and without even looking up, applied himself to considering once again the contents of the letter lying before him on the desk.

"By your continuing silence, I must take it that it is. You disappoint me, Thomas. You really do. And not for the first time. Now, as you can see, I have certain matters to attend to. If you would please return to your own duties".

"Yes, Mr. Carson".

As the door closed behind the valet, the butler's head snapped up. Linking his hands together behind his head, he sat back in his chair and sighed. Put simply, short of dismissal, and it might just come to that, there seemed to be no way of getting through to Thomas Barrow.

Outside in the passage, the smirk on Thomas's saturnine features broadened into a grin. That hadn't been as difficult as he thought it might be. The old boy was losing his authority.


Neat and trim, Sybil had stood beside her mother, outside the front door of the cottage which, like all the others in the row, belonged to the estate, as indeed did nearly every single property in the village. Not that Sybil had ever questioned why this was so. It was just the way things were, and, she supposed, always would be.

By rights, given what it was that had brought both Sybil and her mother here to the little house in Church Lane, it ought to have been Mary, as the eldest, who should have accompanied Mama. However, at the time, Mary had been up in London, staying with Aunt Rosamund, and attending a seemingly never ending succession of social events, tea dances, balls, and so forth. This was to be the occasion when she first met Friedrich von Schönborn, then a Military Attaché at the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Belgrave Square, in London; long before his path and that of dear Edith crossed in the Valley of the Kings out in Egypt late in 1922.

Next in line to attend upon Mama had been, of course, darling Edith herself. However, for some reason which, try as she might, Sybil could not now recall, Edith, too, had been unavailable. Possibly, like Mary, she too had gone up to town to stay with Aunt Rosamund. Reflecting on the matter later, Sybil thought this to have been extremely unlikely. For, just like that later literary creation of Margaret Mitchell, the Southern belle, Scarlett O'Hara, Mary always did love being the Queen Bee with a succession of admirers and would be suitors paying court to her. So, the presence of Edith in tow at a series glittering social occasions, where the cream of High Society would be present, someone who Mary had once described to Lady Evelyn Howard, when she had shown her a photograph of the three Crawley sisters, as the drab little creature standing next to me on my right, seemed unlikely to say the least.


There had been an accident; a terrible one, which had occurred on the second afternoon of a long-arranged weekend shoot on the Downton estate. Somehow, in circumstances which were still not yet entirely clear, and which, Papa had said, would be determined in due course by a Coroner's Inquest, one of the beaters had blundered into the the line of fire, sustaining a shotgun discharge to his head. There was nothing which could be done for the poor, unfortunate man and, with the wound being fatal, in a very short space of time, cradled in Papa's arms, he had expired on the leaf covered ground in Covert Wood. With the beater's lifeless, bloodied body having been born away on an improvised stretcher made out of branches and coats, on Papa's instructions, the shoot was cancelled immediately; this, it must be said, was not without some open murmurings of displeasure, indeed not to say annoyance, being expressed by several of those who had been invited to Downton to take part in the week-end's sport, among them a recently ennobled Peer of the Realm who owned an estate over in North Wales which was well renowned for the excellence of its excellent shooting.

Thereafter, a swift exit from the great house had ensued, with a succession of brightly polished motors all lined up outside the front of the abbey waiting to be loaded with luggage and thereafter employed to convey those who had come to Downton for the shoot down to the railway station or else to be driven directly home if they lived closer at hand. Indeed, if all these years later, Sybil herself was not mistaken, a distant cousin by the name of Matthew Crawley was to have been present. However, for reasons which Sybil did not know at the time, he had never put in an appearance. Given that Matthew had a lifelong detestation of blood sports, this was probably just as well, although this facet of his character would not become known until long after this sad event.

In answer to Mama's gentle tap at the front door of the cottage, that now swung open to reveal a middle aged woman whose eyes were red, presumably from weeping, along with a gaggle of wide-eyed, inquisitive children, and beyond the dimly lit interior of the cottage.

"May we both come in?" Mama asked softly.


Bath Place, Blackrock, Irish Free State, April 1937.

"May the two of us come in?" Sybil asked, just as gently as her mother had done all those years before.

Having helped Clodagh to her feet, Seamus nodded.

"For sure," he said quietly.


On Board the London Express, April 1937.

Having at last found her quarry, what on earth, Mary wondered, should she do now?

In fact, as things turned out, the decision on that score was taken out of her hands. For, but a moment later, having had no time to have noticed, let alone recognised, Mary standing there in the corridor outside his compartment, quite unexpectedly, Armitage suddenly stood up and in a trice had reached for the communication cord. Grasping it firmly, he pulled down hard on the red links of the narrow chain. Scarce a moment later, and the speeding express began to slow down. In fact, so quickly did it do so that, standing here in the corridor, and with no means of support, Mary all but lost her footing as the heavy train swiftly slackened speed, lurching and swaying, first this way and then that, passing over a seemingly never ending succession of points, before thundering onto a long steel bridge over the River Ouse where, finally, with its whistle screaming fit to wake the dead, belching smoke and wreathed in steam, the engine brought its long train to a noisy stand amidst the lattice web of metal girders of the bridge. Even before this had come to pass, Armitage had wrenched open the sliding door to his compartment and hot footed it out into the corridor. Fortunately for Mary, the nearest outside door of this particular carriage was to be found by heading away from where she was standing and this being so and this also being the route Armitage now took, thankfully he did not come face to face with her. Quite what would have happened if he had, Mary didn't care to contemplate for as Matthew had made abundantly clear to her Armitage was a ruthless killer who, should the need arise, thought nothing of murdering those who had the misfortune to cross his path.

Powerless to prevent him doing so, Armitage now turned the opposite way from where Mary was standing. A moment later, down at the far end of the carriage, he opened the door of the coach, and jumped down onto the steel decking of the bridge before clambering over the railings and disappearing out of Mary's line of sight. A moment later, having made her way along to the open, swinging door, glancing up and down the length of the stationary train, Mary observed heads popping out of windows, those of fellow passengers who were trying to ascertain just what the devil was going on and why the express had come to an unexpected stand here in the middle of nowhere. But of Armitage, there was now no sign; none whatsoever.

As she turned away from the open door, it was now that Mary saw the ticket inspector, in the company of another uniformed railway official, making their way purposefully along the corridor of the stationary carriage in search of whoever it was who had pulled the communication cord. It was then, and only then, that Mary realised the precariousness, not to say seriousness, of her own position; finding herself in what Matthew, with his decidedly middle class values, would have called something of a quandary. As far as Mary herself was concerned it was too appalling.

"Oh, damn' and botheration! Bloody hell!"

Of course, Tom would no doubt have found the situation in which Mary now found herself too funny for words, but then by his own admission he had, in his mis-pent youth, blithely hopped on and off trains in both Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland without ever paying his fare and had not given the matter a second thought. Given that when she had first learned of Tom's repeated indiscretions in this regard, with dearest Papa at the time being a director of the old North Eastern Railway Company, Mary had been singularly unimpressed and had taken Tom to task for his misdemeanours. Now here she was in much the same predicament as, so intent had she been on following Armitage onto the express back in York that Mary had not given a single thought to the fact that she had not purchased a ticket for her impromptu journey up to town. Dear God! For the countess of Grantham to be found travelling on a train without a railway ticket. Oh, the ignominy of it all!

And now here was the ticket collector. Mary braced herself for the inevitable question which came scarce a moment later.

"May I see your ticket, madam, please".


Entrance Hall, Downton Abbey, Yorkshire, England, autumn 1919.

With afternoon tea now over, everyone was seated in the Entrance Hall beside a roaring fire.

"So, if ever either of yous are caught without a ticket, play for time," Tom said, "Or else make the guard believe ya half-witted. Do whichever comes easiest". He winked conspiratorially at Edith, Then, sporting a cheeky, infectious grin, and playing the idiot, Tom now lolled his head, rolled his eyes, and gave the impression of being afflicted by a nervous twitch, his superlative performance sending Matthew, Edith, and Sybil into paroxysms of laughter.

Mary's eyes narrowed.

"Well, I for one have no intention of ever travelling on a train without a ticket. As for pretending to be half-witted..."

"But darling, if the need arose, I'm sure you'd rise to the occasion quite splendidly," said Edith woodenly, doing her very best both to sound sincere and to keep a straight face.

Mary grimaced.

"Coming from you, sister dear, I'm not at all sure if I should take that as a compliment".

The corners of Matthew's mouth twitched, Sybil tried desperately not to giggle, and Tom did his very best to stifle a laugh.

Mary was decidedly unamused.

"Well, thank you all very much!"


German Embassy, Carlton House Terrace, Westminster, London, April 1937.

Having taken every precaution to ensure that his absence from the embassy would not be noticed, and just as importantly that he was not being followed, to which end he took a circuitous route to his intended destination, Prince Louis of Hesse made his way briskly past The Athenaeum and The Reform Club, crossing over Pall Mall, and through St. James's Square, thence along King Street, until he reached the northern end of Crown Passage, a narrow, gas lit thoroughfare, little more than an alleyway, which lay between King Street and Pall Mall and on which stood the Red Lion Public House.

On his way, Lu was mulling over in his mind that other matter.

Back in the embassy, on his desk, beside the photograph of Margaret, among several others of his parents, of Don and Cecilie and their brood - she was expecting another child which was due in the autumn - there stood another, of the Schlossplatz, in Darmstadt. Of course, Lu had looked at it many times before, but this morning as he had done so, he was suddenly reminded of something - inconsequential in itself - which had occurred in that very square, some ten years ago. A runaway lorry the brakes of which had failed had careered into the Schlossplatz and collided with the stone fountain. Along with Don, and just in the nick of time, Lu had helped pull a young boy out of harm's way and so saved the lad's life. The little boy's parents, an Austrian and his English born wife had been profuse in their thanks. Lu hadn't thought of the incident in years but this morning, suddenly, and for no discernible reason, the memory of that long gone summer's day - it had been in 1927 - had come back to him as if what had taken place had happened but yesterday.


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

The night time attack on the camp was over before it had even started for, a moment later, all hell broke loose, as, completely unexpectedly, out of the starlit darkness, the contingent of British soldiers, whom Tibor, and no doubt the others too, would have expected by now to have been in Jerusalem, swept back into the camp, tumbling rapidly out of their trucks, and ordering the dozen or so Arabs to lay down their weapons immediately or face the consequences of not so doing.

With what was happening here in Palestine, it never did do to take chances, and that being so, acting on intelligence received as to what was unfolding in Nablus, it transpired that Eccles had merely taken his men off into the hills hereabouts, well aware that their departure was no doubt being watched by hostile and unfriendly eyes. It was simply a matter of then biding his time until he received word from the look-outs he had left close by the camp that something was about to happen. Given the presence of the boys and Harriet in the camp, it was a risky stratagem, but then being swiftly executed, with the advantage of the element of surprise, it was one which had paid off handsomely and without incurring a single casualty.

After the Arabs had surrendered and been taken into custody, the site made secure with British sentries now guarding and patrolling the perimeter, standing by the flagpole in the middle of the camp, having assured his own native workforce that all would be well, Friedrich was profuse in his thanks to Eccles, observing that the return of the captain and his men could not have come more timely. Eccles protested; indeed was dismissive, saying that his actions were merely those which any officer in his position would have undertaken. In due course, he would make arrangements for a detachment of his soldiers to remain behind here at the camp until the end of the week in order so as to deter any repetition of what had happened, while Friedrich and Horst closed down the excavation. As for the rest of the men under his command, Eccles said that he and they would resume their interrupted journey back to Jerusalem in the morning. Given the present situation, it would have been singularly ill advised to try and attempt to make the passage through the hills to Jerusalem during the hours of darkness.

Eccles' remaining counsel was brutally stark; much as Steer's to Danny would be a month later standing amid the ruins of Guernica. It was, said the captain, unwise for any of them to remain here in Palestine a moment longer than was absolutely necessary. At the end of the week, he would no longer be able to provide soldiers to guard the camp and the dig and his advice was that they should all leave the country as quickly as possible as the situation here was likely to become a great deal worse than it was now. And that was bad enough. This being so, before making their own way to Jerusalem, the soldiers who were staying on would provide an armed escort for all of them back to the railway station at Tulkarem, there to catch the express southwards to Cairo and, at least for Friedrich and the boys, thence to Alexandria to board a steamer to Trieste.

Even though it pained him to admit it, Friedrich could see the sense in what Eccles had just said. Besides which, for all that they both liked to be thought of as young men grown, Robert, groggy from his scorpion bite, and darling Max, had been very shaken by what had happened, having been roughly awakened, dragged out of bed in their pyjamas at gunpoint, lined up barefoot along with the others, and threatened with being shot. Friedrich would do nothing to jeopardise their safety as should anything happen to either of them, he would never forgive himself. So far, despite what had happened up on Mount Carmel, along with the explosion at the station, the ambush on the road, and now this, they had all been remarkably lucky. Even Robert's scorpion sting had been mild compared to what it could have been had it come from another more deadly species. However, sooner or later, their luck was bound to run out.

Once he had seen the boys settled back down in bed, even if not to sleep, with a British soldier standing guard outside their tent, Friedrich held a hurried conference with both Tibor and Harriet who had already decided that, at least for the present, they too would be better off leaving Palestine, and travelling south by train with the others.


Crown Passage, off King Street, Westminster, London, April 1937.

Of course, Louis's clandestine, surreptitious journey would have been that much shorter, and indeed far more quickly accomplished, had he taken the direct route from the embassy to where he was bound. However that might have been to invite discovery, even if taking the longer path meant that he would be gone from the embassy for a greater period of time, and so for his absence to be have been noted. He could only hope that it had not; was ready with his story were he to be asked, that Margaret had come up to town unexpectedly, and he had slipped out to see her. Of course, if enquiries were then to be made... Louis hoped fervently that they would not.

Now, standing outside the Red Lion, Louis paused and looked up and down the passage. Satisfied that he had not been followed, he turned and walked directly into the public house where, having ordered himself a pint at the bar - which he had no intention of drinking - he asked for the whereabouts of the public telephone.


On Board The London Express, April 1937.

"My ticket?" Mary enquired weakly.

"Yes, madam, your ticket".

"Well, I..."

Unbidden, Mary felt her left eye began to twitch.


Northern Spain, late April 1937.

Here, in what, at least for the moment, was still Republican held Northern Spain, the brutal tide of the increasingly bloody civil war swept remorselessly ever onwards, with the Nationalist forces tightening their iron grip and seeking to capture Bilbao. Irrespective of the propaganda being broadcast, as well as disseminated by other means, by the Republican government, as Danny and George Steer had stood side by side amid the shattered, smoking ruins of Guernica, the young Irishman realised that what the journalist had said to him some weeks earlier was the plain, unvarnished truth of how things really stood. For, it was not if Bilbao fell, merely a matter of when.

With the fall of both Irún and San Sebastián in the late summer and early autumn of last year, here in the north the area held by the Republicans, as well as the Basque Country, were now both cut off from the French border, across which there had flowed hitherto a steady supply of men, munitions, and other commodities. And with the Nationalist naval blockade of Bilbao now beginning to bite, food and other essential supplies were becoming increasingly hard to find, even on the flourishing black market - something which the Republican government also denied existed.

Yet, while readily admitting to having a poor grasp of the realities of the military situation, Danny said that he understood Bilbao was well defended. Hadn't Steer heard of "Bilbao's Iron Ring?" At that, Steer had shaken his head, gave a scornful laugh, and said that the bunkers, the tunnels, and trenches, all of which had been hastily and poorly constructed, supported by artillery - what little of it the Republicans possessed - hadn't a hope in hell of stopping the Nationalist onslaught, backed as it was by superior air power and a seemingly limitless supply of munitions of all kinds.

All this apart, there were rumours - being denied of course by the Republican government's own propaganda machine - that scarce a couple of months since, the engineer who had designed the fortifications around Bilbao, a monarchist by the name of Goicoechea, had defected to Franco's forces, taking with him, his plans of the city's newly built defences. The matter of Bilbao apart, said Steer, while the civil war here in Spain might well drag on for several more months, perhaps a year at most, eventually the Nationalists would prevail. And when that happened there would a bloodbath. This being so, the journalist had some advice for his young Irish friend.

"Go home, Danny. Go back to Ireland. There's nothing either you or your pals can do here, except die. And, if you stay here, you will. Be sure of that. Horribly. All of you. So I suggest that you try and make it over the mountains into France, while there's still at least a chance of you winning through".

On hearing this stark pronouncement of the hopelessness of the situation, the young Irishman had been appalled. So, Danny demurred; said that surely things were not as bad as that. Besides, if he and his pals in the Irish Volunteers tried to do as Steer suggested, like as not they would all be caught, tried for desertion, and shot by their erstwhile comrades as an example to anyone else who might be tempted to desert. And even if they made it out of the ever shrinking area of territory held by the Republicans, they would probably end up falling into the hands of the Nationalists and be interned. Or, and which was far more likely, be shot by Franco's Fascists.

"Perhaps both sides will try and vie for the privilege of executing you: the Republicans for desertion and the Nationalists for having enlisted on the wrong side!" Steer grinned. What he had said, had been by way of a joke; to try and lighten the solemn mood their conversation had taken but he could see by the expression on Danny's face, or rather by the lack of it, that he had blundered. George Steer reached out and grasped Danny firmly by his shoulders; he would have hugged the lad to him for reassurance but thought that even if Danny considered him to be in some sense in loco parentis, the young Irishman might not appreciate the gesture, however kindly it was meant.

"Look, Danny, if you're set on doing what you believe, naively, to be the honourable thing, that is staying on to the bitter end, and mark my words it will be just that, then your only option is to try and make it further south, deep into Republican held territory, to Madrid, or better still down to Valencia or even Barcelona".

"Why to Valencia or Barcelona?"
"Because my young friend, Madrid is under siege. It has been since last year and is now desperately short of food; the more so ever since the bloody Fascists cut the route to Valencia a couple of months ago. No more rice or fruit. And from what I've heard tell, there are no cats left in the city either. And very little fuel".

"No cats left," Danny echoed. He gulped. "Ya mean that they..."

Steer nodded.

"Apparently cat meat tastes very much like rabbit. As for dog, well, that's a tad more tasty. A bit like lamb, or so I've been told".

"They've been eating the dogs too?" Danny forced back a rising urge to be sick. None of this was what he had expected when, along with the others, he had joined the Volunteers back in January, scarce four months since, and which now seemed a lifetime ago. There was no denying the fact that he had been a very different young man then to the one he was now; idealistic and, as Steer had said, and indeed by his own admission too, for all the impression Danny liked to create of being worldly wise, very naive. It was at this point that Danny suddenly found himself thinking of both Rob and Max. Wondered where they were and how they were faring. Recalled what Da had said in the letter which Danny had recently received from his parents through Steer, that Rob and Max had both gone out to Palestine with Uncle Friedrich to close down the archaeological dig there on which Max's father had been working.

And with Da's letter, there had come another - from Ma.


Again the journalist nodded.

"With their money running out, those poor sods cut off there in Madrid have been reduced to taking all manner of household items down to the Torrijos market to swap for whatever food there is to be had: a clock for a slice of bread, a packet of fags for a bag of lentils, or so I've heard. There's no meat to be had for love nor money - hence what I told you about the cats and dogs. But, as they say, every cloud has a silver lining. On the bright side, the cinemas are still open and pulling in the crowds - even if all that's being shown are the propaganda films put out by the government. Did you know that every last member of the Republican government in Madrid has now fled to Valencia, so putting them, but not the poor bastards they've left behind trapped in the city, well out of reach of Franco and his thugs when the city eventually falls".

Danny shook his head in disbelief.

"And that's for sure, that Madrid will fall too?"
"Definitely. So best try for Barcelona or else Valencia. Both are down on the south coast, so giving you and your pals another way out of Spain when the Republican cause finally collapses. Of the two, Barcelona is closer to the border with France".

"Grand". Danny paused. "Ya certain then, that the Republicans are finished?" Danny asked, searching his friend's face for a sign that Steer might have been exaggerating just how bad things were but found no solace in what he saw.
The other nodded.

"It's only a matter of time. But how many more lives have to be lost, just as they were here in Guernica, before the reality dawns for the Republicans that their demise is inevitable... I wouldn't say it was so if I didn't believe it to be the case. You should know that by now. It's not my style".

Danny nodded. He grinned.

"Ya very like my Da".

Steer smiled.

"I'll take that as a compliment, shall I?"
"For sure!"


A short while later, when Steer and Danny had parted company, unsure of if or when they would ever meet again, Danny had sat himself down on a shattered lump of carved masonry - which looked for all the world as though it had come from a church - and for the umpteenth time, took out and re-read Ma's neatly folded, well-thumbed letter. The content, apart from being deeply loving, was also surprisingly both breezy and chatty; along with various admonitions to Danny to see that he ate properly and that, also, he made sure to wash his underclothes and to see that his other clothes, were kept clean. With a fleeting thought for the now non existent cats and dogs of Madrid, Danny grinned. As for his under things, even if Ma was not at all religious, Sybil having instilled in all her children that cleanliness was next to godliness, Danny had always done his very best to keep himself clean, insofar as that was possible while suffering the privations that one did during a civil war. Not that of course Ma would have known it, but the clothes he had been wearing and those which had been packed in his suitcase when he had sailed from Spain, were now mostly at the bottom of the Atlantic.


On Board The London Express, April 1937.

And then, most unexpectedly for Mary, Fate intervened and salvation was at hand in the guise of someone she had not seen for years. A friend of darling Papa's: Brigadier Percy Ferguson of Easthwaite Hall who, rather more importantly, given the present unfortunate circumstances in which Mary found herself, was a former Director of the old North Eastern and, since 1923, a Director of the London and North Eastern Railway, of which the North Eastern had become a constituent part. Fortunately, the Brigadier, who was a regular on the London express, was known to the ticket inspector, and, despite his protestations that he was only doing his job, waved the man into silence.

"Are you not aware of who this lady is, inspector?"

The ticket inspector shook his head; had to admit that he did not.

"No, sir".

"Why, this is the countess of Grantham, someone whom I may add, is known to me personally. And you are asking to see her ticket?"
To his credit, for which, although he did not admit it, the brigadier gave him full credit, the ticket inspector stood his ground.

"I'm only doing my job, sir".

"Yes, yes, of course you are, man. But, as for this lady, why, she'd no more travel on this train without a ticket than would I. Rather more importantly, why have we stopped?"

The inspector proceeded to explain to the brigadier what had transpired, that someone had pulled the communication cord; whereupon Mary interposed to say that the man who had done so, had left the train, and clambered down onto the bridge through the open door at the end of the corridor.

"Has he by Jove? If you'll excuse me, madam".

With all thought of requesting to see Mary's ticket now forgotten, the inspector touched the brim of his cap respectfully, and along with his compatriot, hurried off down the narrow corridor.


Later, on board the London Express, April 1937.

With the London express at last having resumed its interrupted journey, the search for the man who had pulled the communication cord having drawn a blank, the old brigadier and Mary were seated opposite each other, in the very same compartment - even though it was Third Class - which Armitage had so hurriedly vacated but comparatively a short while ago. The brigadier reached forward and patted Mary gently on the knee.

"Mary, my dear, I thought it was you there standing outside in the corridor, but to begin with I wasn't entirely certain".

"Why, have I changed that much?" Mary laughed.

"No, not at all, my dear. Not at all. But my rheumy, old eyes are not what they once were. So I had to come as close as I did to be quite certain. But now that I have, why, you look an absolute picture. Marriage obviously agrees with you".

Sparing a brief thought for Matthew, Mary smiled.

"Thank you. Yes, it does".

"What does?"
"Marriage. You said I'd looked well on it".
"Did I, my dear?"

"Yes, you did".

"Now, what's with all this Brigadier nonsense? There was a time you know when you used to call me Uncle Percy!"

"But that was years ago, when I was... well, younger than I am now".

The Brigadier sighed.

"Well, that's exactly my point".

"What is?"

"None of us are getting any younger. And so how is Maurice?"
"Maurice?"

"The chap you married".

"Matthew".

"What's that you say, my dear? You'll have to speak up".

"Matthew Crawley, my cousin". Not that that was strictly true of course, but to try and explain to the old brigadier exactly how she and Matthew were related would have taken a month of Sundays and besides...

"Yes, that's the chap. Maurice Crawley". At which point Mary gave up. "Maurice is fine, thank you".

"Is he. And what about children?"
"We've four; two boys and two girls".

"Who has?"

"Maurice and I. We've four children".

"Maurice? But I thought you said your husband's name was Matthew?"

"I did".

For a moment the brigadier seemed nonplussed but then fortunately, at least as far as Mary was concerned, who had a fleeting vision of reaching London before the old boy had grasped exactly who her husband was, Brigadier Ferguson abruptly changed the subject.

"So, my dear, what brings you up to town, then? Shopping for a new outfit, I'll be bound!" The brigadier laughed.

"Well, as it happens I was not intending to travel..."

"Were you not? Last minute thing, then, eh?"

"You could say so. Shall I let you into a secret". Mary leaned forward, conspiratorially.

"Well, I'm not a priest..."
"I'm travelling without a ticket".

Brigadier Ferguson laughed.

"Yes, yes, of course you are, my dear. Always one for practical jokes. Just like that young sister of yours, Sarah".

"Sybil".

"What's that my dear?"
"You mean Sybil".

"Yes, that's who I said".

Mary decided there was no point in pursuing the matter and for a while at least they sat together in companionable silence, watching the verdant landscape of rural Lincolnshire unfolding beyond the grimy window of the carriage.


The train was now slowing down again. Looking out of the window, and pointing to the soaring church spire, the brigadier explained that this would be Grantham, the last station before the express then ran non-stop up to London. Mary smiled. Grantham. How singularly and utterly appropriate. Even though she had never visited it, this was the prosperous market town from which her family took its title.


As the train came to a stand, Mary stood up.

"Well, this is where I must leave you".

Despite what he had said about her travelling up to town to buy some new clothes, the brigadier took Mary's departure all in his stride.

"Oh? Meeting someone are you?"
Mary nodded. It seemed by far the easiest thing to do.

The brigadier, too, now stood up; said he would escort Mary down onto the platform. When she said there was no need, he insisted, said that it would be his pleasure.


Here on the platform they both said their goodbyes. Then, having re-boarded the London train, the brigadier leaned out of the open window of the door, joking with Mary that it was many a year since he had been waved off from a railway platform by a beautiful woman.

Mary smiled and remained standing there on the platform to watch the London express depart. When it had done so, she promptly buttonholed the nearest porter and asked where there was a public telephone. Thanking the porter for his information, she then marched off briskly down the platform.

"Well," she thought, "at least I now know how to use a public telephone". A few moments later, now inside the kiosk, coins at the ready, she lifted the receiver and telephoned the Abbey to advise where she was and that she would be returning to Downton somewhat later than envisaged.

And it was now that Mary herself received a shock in learning news which was both disturbing and deeply worrying.

According to Barrow, His Lordship had himself received a telephone call from the same gentleman who had called before, the one who had mentioned the word Wolfsgarten. Thereafter, without a word to anyone as to his intentions, His Lordship had driven off in his MG and had not been seen since late afternoon.


A short while later, having purchased a ticket for her return journey to York, seated on her own in the Ladies' Waiting Room at Grantham station, awaiting the arrival of the next northbound express, and which was unaccountably delayed, Mary found herself scarcely able to contain her mounting impatience to be on her way back to York and thence to Downton. She knew well enough that Barrow had no liking for Matthew but there had been something, singularly disquieting in his tone. Something there at the abbey was wrong; very wrong indeed.


Yorkshire Coast, that same day, sometime later.

Here over on the coast, just south of Scarborough, Matthew at last brought his mud splattered MG to a stand and promptly switched off the engine. This was as far as he could go by motor. He hoped that the information Prince Louis had imparted to him earlier on the telephone was reliable, otherwise this would have been a journey of some fifty miles - a hundred mile round trip - and all to no avail. More to the point, although he trusted Mary implicitly, did not believe for a single moment that she would do anything as foolish as try to apprehend Armitage herself, he was extremely concerned for her safety and wellbeing, even though he had alerted the authorities there in York to what Mary had told him. All the same, Matthew would have been far more content, had he heard from Mary before he set off for Scarborough, but he had not done so. And the information the prince had given him was too pressing and needed to be acted upon swiftly.


Now, in the fading evening light, having loaded his service revolver, Matthew scanned the desolate headland with his field glasses, save for his pistol, the last surviving relic from his time spent on the Western Front. From this distance, the crumbling walls of the old fort looked both eerie and deserted. All the same, it did not do to take chances, and to his dismay, Matthew saw that a heavy fog bank was rolling inland from off the sea, enveloping everything in its path in a thick, dank miasma of salt-laden mist.

Author's Note:

Irún and San Sebastián had respectively fallen to the Nationalists in August, and September 1936.

Alejandro Goicoechea (1895-1984) was the monarchist Spanish engineer who designed Bilbao's fortifications during the Spanish Civil War.

Bilbao would fall to the Nationalists in June 1937.

The Nationalist assault on Madrid began in November 1936, when their forces reached the outskirts of the capital from both the north and from the west. However, despite numerous attempts to do so, it proved impossible for them to surround the city completely and so cut it off from outside help. The initial battle for the capital, "The Battle of Madrid" petered out in December 1936 but early in the following year the Nationalists resumed their efforts to take the city. However, by April 1937, they had failed to make any real headway and despite their privations, especially an acute shortage of food, having suffered aerial bombardment and shelling for months, the citizens of Madrid prided themselves that it was still "business as usual". However, living conditions for those trapped in the city were terrible. And yes, they did eat both the cats and the dogs.

During the Great War, the British government had assumed control of the railways for military purposes. Then, in 1923, save for a few minor lines, the numerous private railway companies had been merged together into four large ones which continued in existence until just after WWII when the railways were nationalised.

Founded in 1824, The Athenaeum is one of London's most famous non political clubs. Once exclusively a male preserve, women were admitted to full membership in 2002. The Reform Club was founded slightly later in 1836, as a meeting place for those politicians committed to the reform of the political system.

The Red Lion is still there in Crown Passage and is reputed to be the second oldest public house in London. Being situated close to the Palace of St. James, down the centuries, it is said to have had all manner of royal visitors, including Edward VIII and, in rather more recent times, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

By train, the town of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, is about an hour south of York. Soaring to a height of 274 feet, the parish church of St. Wulfram possesses the second tallest spire in the county. It is an idiosyncrasy of the British aristocracy (as opposed to politically created Life Peers) that their titles give no indication as to where they live and where their estate are situated. So, Robert Crawley, the earl of Grantham, while fictitious, resided at Downton Abbey in Yorkshire. To take a real example, the Duke of Westminster, whose family owns much of Belgravia and Mayfair in London, lives at Eaton Hall in Cheshire.