London, HQ British Secret Intelligence Service - Roger Stoker sat alone in the ad hoc office space he had been given once it became apparent Operation Pellinore was not to launch as swiftly as first expected. Alone, save for several growing stacks of manila folders and reel-to-reel tapes. At times he felt like a research librarian who had found an abandoned study carrel among the stacks where some absent-minded researcher had walked away from a lifetime's worth of materials, all needing to be re-shelved and re-archived (after first figuring out which papers went to which folders, which tapes into which sleeves). The coded system in place at MI-6 certainly did not make such tasks as straightforward as might be.
Perhaps it was his frustration with this ever-amassing clutter that caused him to begin listening to the entirety of the reel-to-reels made of the Channel Islands' Nightwatch broadcast, not just for embedded code, but also for the music. Perhaps it was his pent-up need to do something in the wake of his mission's deferral and the presence of no further orders. Perhaps it was simply a way to pass the long days at a desk that served no particular purpose: his raid planned, his bags packed, his mind ready, his orders? Wait.
He would find himself, inevitably, wondering about her song selection, her set list: were they codes as well, codes for someone else? For a local Resistance cell? And what, he wondered, had occurred over those two nights when she had broadcast not at all? Was that, perhaps, also, a code? A means of communicating something?
He was now listening to the broadcast from October seventeenth, her first night back on the air. "With each word your tenderness grows, tearing my fear apart/And that knot that wrinkles your nose, touches my foolish heart." Something significant must have happened over those two days, for shortly following the song would be the coded transmission telling SIS two things: one, a downed pilot had been rescued from the enemy and was being held in a safe location, and two (far more troubling), a member of 1192 had been captured, his cover in tact. "Lovely, never never change/Keep that breathless charm/Won't you please arrange it, 'cause I love you..." It was his third full listen-through of that night. He re-scoured her every spoken sentence, turning it over in his mind to assure himself he had not missed any other coded statements meant for the ever-listening HQ. "...Just the way you look tonight."
He wondered, did she know? This American girl, somehow weirdly trapped on the Islands, under the German Occupation; could she know the good she was doing for Britain? The valuable information that she was passing on? Could she know that her voice had been played for Churchill himself? ('My mother was an American, you know,' he had reminded them.) That shiploads of British soldiers patrolling the Channel (both under and on the water) tuned their wirelesses to her of an early morning? That the small act of rebellion she enacted nightly on the small island of Guernsey had such a far-reaching influence?
Certainly it was highly unlikely she could have imagined him in this poky little room three floors underground repeatedly examining her broadcasts, introspectively musing on her motivations.
There was a knock at his door. It was too bold, too crisp to belong to the shy secretary he shared with two other chaps down the hall.
He never had visitors. He did not think, even, anyone but that secretary knew where this hole of an office was located, much less that he was being housed inside.
"In a tick!" he replied to the knock, trying, to comical effect, to re-assemble, hide or obscure the mound of literature and tapes on the desk, to stow the cumbersome player. Finally, deciding it would take too long to do so, he retrieved his winter longcoat from its hook on the wall, and draped it over the top.
His desk now resembled something of a beached humpback whale. He stepped to unlock the door, realizing he would not be able to take up a position behind the desk and its now-coated heap of documents without being entirely eclipsed by it.
"Stoke!" came the voice of Clem Nighten as the door opened in. "Egad! They've done you no favors. What a dismal cell they've condemned you to! Almost dungeon-like. Whomever did you offend?" Nighten's eyes went to the curious lump on the desk, capped off by Stoker's longcoat. Clem smiled at bit at the visual, but did not inquire further.
Such was the life of an SIS man. Who knew what anyone knew? With so many secrets, one had no way of knowing who knew what, and when. They were all in a sort of eternal bluffing match. Unless Clem came out and told him about Pellinore, in total, he had to assume Clem knew nothing of it. Certainly he did not know what Clem got up to these days. It was best, of course, the right hand not knowing what the left was doing. Safer that way, surely.
"Moment to chat?" Clem inquired.
"Sure, sure," Stoker consented, indicating his brother-in-law, Nighten, should have a seat in the second of only two chairs the room held. He leaned against the front of the shrouded desk.
"Not sure I would find you still about, Stoke. Thought for certain you'd be off and away from us again. Claire will be glad to hear it."
"She is well?"
"She is why I wanted to find you, actually," Nighten confessed, politely settling matter of courtesy regarding his sister-in-law and nephews first. "Evelyn and the boys happy to have you home for a stretch?"
Stoker nodded.
"Good. Excellent." A small smirk of mischievousness played at the corner of his lips. "Claire and I shall be having similar responsibilities soon, I am informed."
"What? A baby on the way?" Stoker did not have to fake pleasure at the news. "Your first!"
"...That I know of!" Nighten gruffly quipped, and the two laughed good-naturedly at the predictably cheeky jest.
"Well, you are getting old enough," Stoker warned. He tapped his fingers to his temples, where Nighten had begun to show signs of war-brought-on grey.
Clem cleared his throat. Apparently there was more to his happy announcement. "I...wanted to ask if you might speak with her."
"Certainly! I shall ring to congratulate her straight away." He reached for the office's phone, recalling at the last minute that it, too, was shared with two other chaps down the hall. That it, in point of fact, was located with the two other chaps down the hall.
"Yes, do that, but..." Nighten turned less gregarious for a moment. "I do not think you know, but this is not the first time Claire and I have...had reason to hope."
Stoker had not known.
"We have suffered disappointment on three separate occasions since the wedding."
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"Certainly, you were away," Clem sympathized. "Evelyn's mind on your survival and safe return. The Italian Front is no child's sandbox, Stoke. I have read the reports. We thought it best not to trouble you with our misfortune. But now, the doctor, well...We eat as well as anyone in England, better than most I should say, but, the doctor is blaming our previous disappointments on stress, and poor nutrition. Rationing what it is in London, he suggests Claire go to the country for the air and the produce."
"Why, that sounds fine. Just the right sort of suggestion."
"Yes, but our country house and estate...I submitted Lincoln Greene to HQ for Army use. There will be no place for her there at the Greene. The staff were dismissed to seek war work. I believe it now houses a school for paratroopers, or the like."
"That is a strange sight to imagine," Stoker interjected, recalling the coveted pastoral setting of the ancestral home of the Nighten family. "Although Lady Nighten would surely approve of the amount and quality of silk in their chutes."
"Yes," Clem agreed dryly, "if not its primary function."
They smiled companionably.
Clem continued to outline his plan. "I've managed to secure an invitation for her from the father of one of our old schoolmates: Oxley. Do you recall him? They-that is, the Earl, his father, has a nice estate. Kirk Leaves it's called. Fresh air, riding, green, green, green until it makes you homesick for cobblestones."
"Oxley," Stoker faked remembering, "yes. The crash. I was the one who dogged him for so long to enlist, you know."
"Did you? No, had no idea." Clem sat more somberly at the notion. "Sorry draw, that."
"Quite," Stoker agreed, hoping the continued well-being of Unit 1192 did not show on his face. All the while wondering if Clem was hoping the same for himself. Again, no telling who knew what, the central conundrum of intelligence work. It was entirely possible they would both be called to a meeting someday only to discover each other knew everything about the files under his longcoat on the desk. But it was also entirely possible both of them would survive this war, go to their retirement, and never discover if they shared a common knowledge of Oxley's being yet alive.
Nighten's speech quickened in pace, as if trying to bike away from the mention of his once quite good friend's (and nearly brother-in-law's) grisly death. "Anyways, Claire says she won't leave London, that she won't go. I thought perhaps you could speak to her, try to put it in a better light. It's not like I'm asking her to go to Scotland, after all. And it's for..."
Stoker could tell his brother-in-law had not often used the new word in regard to the coming event. He smiled as a man who had been in a similar position, once.
"...the baby."
"I will meet her tomorrow for luncheon," Stoker promised. "We'll have her, and my niece or nephew," he smiled, "on the early evening train. You have my word."
"Good man," said Clem, extending a grateful hand for the shaking. "Good man."
Guernsey - 17th October - In the wake of Eva descending the servants' stair down to the kitchens, Marion took the house's main stair up to the second level, and toward her father's suite of rooms. She could hear noise and commotion coming from what had been her mother's suite-now to be housing Elerinne Vaiser, the Kommandant's unexpected arrival. Allen and several footmen had been set to the task of helping install her belongings in the rooms.
If he knew what was good for him, Robin's brother-in-arms would keep his nose well to the task at hand, and trouble her no further today (or any other day, for that matter) with his errant lips.
The moving-in of Fraulein Vaiser was an uncomfortable moment for Marion, for all that her mother had never slept (save the occasion mid-afternoon nap) in her appointed bedchamber, as was the usual order of the day for married couples of a certain age and social status. Lady Miranda Nighten may have unconventionally shared common a bed with her husband, but that suite of rooms was still very much hers. Her flawless sense of style and deft hand at decoration were evident everywhere, the smallest touches of perfection at every turn, the best fabrics, the softest linens; summer clothes still hanging in wait for her in the room's two armoires, as though she might be catching a car from St. Peter Port out to the estate this very afternoon. Of course, were that the case, the room would have been aired out, cleaned within an inch of its life, the linens changed, flowers cut from among those in the park (or the estate's much-admired hothouse) and brought in to fragrance it for her ladyship.
A dainty selection of her mother's favorite nibbles would have been prepared, arranged impeccably on a silver tray and immaculately starched doily, and left on the small round table between the two comfortable chairs that faced the room's fireplace.
This was how Barnsdale had always welcomed its beloved lady.
Lady Nighten's first order of arrival would have been to select from one of those armoires what she would wear to dine that evening and instruct Eva to have it aired, pressed, and ready. Upon the car carrying her being sighted coming up the drive, Eva would have slapped the youngest footman (nine, if that) on the bum, bidding him get upstairs immediately and begin drawing Lady Nighten's bath. Marion's mother would retire to that bath directly upon having greeted her husband with a kiss and an unnecessary reminder that dinner would be served at a quarter-past six (it always was).
This was how Marion would know her mother was at Barnsdale. This was how Marion would know that all was right in the world.
But Eva had not been here to wait upon Lady Nighten. And no one had thought (or knew) to instruct the staff to clean and air the room. The foodstuffs for her mother's favorite savories were impossible to acquire. Hard, even, on the Guernsey black market. No, Lady Nighten was not returned to the Islands, to her family. It was Eleri Vaiser, another interloper.
It was Geis that had claimed Clem's room (shortly after claiming the estate), and now this unknown girl had claimed her mother's. It was as though Marion's family was being replaced, one member at a time. As though it was not enough the Germans must take over the Islands, they also wished her home, her very relatives. And as much as it hurt and saddened her, she feared what it might do to her father to see his adored wife's boudoir turned into haut lodgings for a Nazi's unwanted daughter.
She walked into her father's suite, and toward its attached sunroom, where she felt certain at this time of day he might be. She had not seen him since being returned from her kidnapping. Day one, her trip to Alderney with Dick Giddons, night one. Day two, at the mercy of a mistaken Thomas Carter, night two. Day three Robin, night three: La Salle's barn. So here it was, day four, afternoon fading into evening, finally, returned to Barnsdale.
"Father?" she called, softly, so as not to awaken him if he were napping. She turned the corner to step fully into the sunroom, its glass walls of windows magnifying the dying afternoon sun so that the polished wood floors appeared to be ablaze. Sir Edward, Lord Nighten was standing beside the gramophone, about the change the record once it finished the last moments of playing.
He was in his favorite smoking jacket, worn over a collared shirt and neatly pressed trousers held up by braces. He was looking tidy and self-aware. Something inside her eased at this. Perhaps her time gone missing had not troubled him as she had feared it might. His mind understood time so poorly anymore. He may think her gone but a moment, rather than nearly half a sennight.
He started at the sight of her, as though she had sneaked up on him. "I say," he asked her, "what are you doing here?" There was something about his tone that was unpleasantly affronted, the way he drew in his chin.
Used to his topsy-turvy ways over these past years she smiled and ignored his question. "Hello, Father. I came up to see you before getting ready for dinner." She did not know how she was to broach the subject of their newest permanent "houseguest". She supposed she would have to make up some rot about the girl being a friend of hers come down from London. He would not retain what she said about the awkward situation, anyway. She only needed something plausible to get by, moment-to-moment.
"What are you doing here," he asked her again. "You ought to use the door to the kitchens. I have nothing for you, here. You must go. Now." He seemed to be trying to shoo her away. "Be gone!" But his tone fell to a whisper, almost as though he thought she were here to menace him, as though he confronted the ghost in Hamlet's first act.
"Father?" She moved to put her hand comfortingly on his arm, certain she could return him to knowing her, as he always had, no matter how jumbled the rest of his mind became.
"Eva!" Edward shouted, at first commandingly, and then quite close to hysterically. "Eva! Eva! I must have you here immediately!" His agitation was palpable.
Marion was speechless to hear him call for Eva Heindl, when his own daughter was before him. When he got like this, when the paranoia of confusion gripped him, she was the only one able to make him calm. Not Eva. Marion stepped back from him as though he had slapped her across the face, or called her a slur.
There was a flurry of rushed tread in the hall, and Allen Dale appeared at the suite's doorway. He saw Marion, and spoke to her, rather that her father, though his eyes quickly took in the borderline deranged fear of Lord Nighten's frantic state.
"Can I be of help?" he asked Marion, the genuine desire to assist clearly visible in his eyes.
"No, thank you," she said to him, her tone as close to harsh as could be. She could handle this. She was handling this. She did not need him acting the busybody, not him, not now, of all people.
But her father stepped over her words, responding to Allen's recognizable chauffeur uniform, and mistaking him for Barnsdale staff. "Yes! What was it again?" Sir Edward asked Allen for his name.
"Dale, Sir," Allen replied, obediently, his eyes straying to Marion's as he spoke his answer. "Dale Allen."
"Yes, of course, Mr. Allen." Her father spoke to him as though he had simply forgotten his driver's name. Something of composure returned to him. "Would you be so kind as to escort this woman to the kitchens? She seems to have gotten lost and found her way up here to the family's quarters." He indicated Marion.
"Sir?" the bewilderment painting Allen's tone was unmistakable.
Eva Heindl arrived, visible over Allen's shoulder. "Merci, Mr. Dale," she told him, paying him not so much as a look over her own shoulder as she passed him by, sailing into the room. She threw Marion a perplexed look, and went, as bidden, to Sir Edward's side.
"This woman," he whispered to her, loud enough that Marion and Allen (who, though doubly dismissed, had not yet left) could hear what was being said. "As you see, the village laundress has invaded my private chamber to look for my washing. I have told her she must go retrieve what there is of it from the kitchens, but she will not attend!"
"Father?" Marion tried again to reach out to him. Her mind would not accept what she was hearing. Her reaction to his belief was slowed, as though underwater. She did not wish to accept what he was saying, and so she continued to press her case to him.
His behavior became further agitated.
"Cherie," Eva told her from where she stood, not leaving Sir Edward's side, "you must go. For now, just...Mr. Dale, can you...?"
"Right-o," agreed Allen with a brisk nod of his head, stepping to where Marion stood speechless in wake of what was playing out before her. He wrestled a moment with whether or not to touch her, and finally reached his hands to gently but commandingly steer her clear of the suite, as, aimlessly, she made no move to leave on her own.
As they passed through the doorway, Marion tried to explain, her words coming out in a very small voice, "he is, he is only thinking of a game we used to play when I was a child. He is simply...confused."
"Easy, there," Allen encouraged her as they walked along the second floor landing's room doors. "You have forgotten, but you don't look of yourself just now, Pet. Your face is stitched and swollen, your hair's been shorn within an inch of your life. Your frock's not your own, you're a bit bruisey all over. Might take you for a rough-and-tumble village washerwoman meself."
"Might you?" she asked, her tone one of challenge, some of her spirit returning, if not her energy. She found she leaned on him to keep moving far more than she would have liked. "And might that rough-and-tumble village woman let you steal a kiss? No, two?"
He scoffed at her calling him out. "Ah! Well, it was me last chance, weren't it?"
She didn't answer as they stepped further along the corridor. "No," she instructed him when he tried to open the door to Clem's room. "That is where Geis sleeps."
As Allen moved further down the hall, supporting her as much as she would let him, he tried to assure her, "give yourself a day or two to get the swelling down, get your hair in a snood or like it's up in a hat, and go to see him again. But a whole different story, that. Promise."
He did not let her feet stop moving, but she slowed even further and turned to look him in the eyes, taking her time to fully examine what they might show her of his motives, his intentions toward her, and whether this was all still some sort of flim-flam he perpetrated to ambush her again as he had on the servants' stair. She could discern nothing there that did not track as utterly genuine. Still, she remained wary. "Perhaps Mitch is back at La Salle's by now," she offered, by way of striking a tenuous accord, as he opened the door for her to enter her own rooms.
"Let us hope," he concurred. "Though it will be sometime before I will know it. Kommandant has left, posting me here for the night and tomorrow. I'm to get you and Miss Eleri, there, sorted in St. Peter Port. She is to have whatever she wishes from the shops (though who's to say what they might have left to sell), and you are to act as her chaperone."
It did not surprise Marion at all that the Kommandant would expect such, without regard to her current physical ailments, or her (as he himself well knew) shock at discovering Geis' telegrams. Vaiser had been inconvenienced by his daughter's arrival. He was the kind of man who would certainly feel it was an inconvenience to be spread around, rather than kept to himself.
Allen waited, surprisingly proper, at the threshold of her rooms.
She wondered if he knew how many times to date Robin had trespassed upon such propriety. "There will be a spare bed in the men's servants' hall two flights up," she told Allen. Her mind spiraled in a way that tellingly revealed her as Lady Nighten's daughter, and acting mistress of the house. "Tell Mr. Clun I wish for it to be readied for you. And, as the circumstances are so peculiar, Eleri knowing only you and myself, come to dinner this evening, quarter past six." She saw the surprise in his face. He made no effort to conceal it. Any other time, Allen Dale would certainly not be asked to dine with the Nightens of Barnsdale. "Your uniform will do," she instructed him, "if you keep your coat smartly buttoned. And Allen? Pinch what you like of Cook's spread. In fact, later tonight meet me in the kitchen before the Nightwatch. I will send you with some coffee and tobacco for Stephen. Though we ourselves have not much. Only, stay clear of the wine cellar." She paused to give her command emphasis. "Geis knows it by heart, better than any Nighten ever has, and anything you take will be missed, and someone unjustly punished." She turned to walk deeper into her room.
He called after her, "On your boat ride toward the German garrison he told you, didn't he?"
She swiveled her head over her shoulder to ask, "Told me what?"
Allen had cracked a grin. "Told you about the 'coffee situation'." He snickered. "It's one of his top three perpetual complaints of the Occupation right now, just behind..."
Marion cut him off, so very, very tired. So much yet to do. But she did not do so unkindly. "Well, he will be glad to have it when he is returned." Her smile was faint, but authentic.
"True, that," he said, pulling her door to, returning himself further down the corridor, to the trunks yet to heave and hoist, and settle, to the decidedly petulant Fraulein Vaiser's liking.
...TBC...
Author's Apology: Yes, the opening scene of this chapter, with Roger Stoker in London, takes place about a week or so after the Guernsey portion (which occurs, as stated, on October 17, 1943, four days after Marion's kidnapping). It immediately follows the preceding section from Guernsey/Barnsdale with Allen feeling amorous in the servants' stair.
In essence, Stoker is listening to the recording of the Nightwatch that Marion, in the present-time (October 17th) has yet to record. Hopefully this is not so much a transgression against chronological storytelling that one can't get past it.
Please accept my regrets if it is, and I beg, won't you come back and read some more next time if I promise never to err so again?