Chapter 22
CHAPTER 22
L izzie nodded off intermittently through the short choppy flight, trying to block out her worries about Jack. When she next opened her eyes, they were flying over the English Channel. She blinked as a startling chalky whiteness glimmered up ahead like a mirage in the pale moonlight.
The white cliffs of Dover were guiding them to safety like an old friend. Lizzie’s heart swelled at the sight. This was her home, and it was worth fighting for.
They landed soon after, with a few bumps at the airfield, in the early hours of the morning.
‘Welcome back to Blighty, miss,’ the pilot said, his voice cheerful.
‘Thank you for getting me home safely,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s good to be back.’
But the truth was, she felt curiously flat when her feet touched British soil. A driver waited for her in the hut and stored her case in the car. When he set off without asking where she wanted to go, she enquired where he was taking her .
‘I’ve instructions to deliver you straight to St. Ermin’s first thing,’ he said, looking at her in his mirror.
Lizzie yawned. She was tired, but it was probably best to get the de-brief done. Jack had told her to expect lots of questioning, but she’d planned to go home and get some sleep first.
She nodded off in the backseat and when she opened her eyes; it was daybreak. They wound through quintessential English villages along curving lanes lined with chocolate box cottages. Everything looked so tranquil in the country. It was easy to imagine the war was a figment of her wild imagination.
No Nazi banners or German soldiers parading through the streets.
Thank God.
She prayed it would remain that way and England would be safe. It was too late for Jersey.
‘Did you hear the bloody Boche bombed the city? Hit the Barbican, they did,’ the driver said when they reached the outskirts of London.
‘Yes. How bad was it?’
‘Bad. Mr Churchill has sent them a powerful message in return, and good on him.’
A sharp sadness permeated Lizzie’s chest as she looked at the streets of London. There were sandbags stacked strategically to protect shops and buildings. It was a city prepared for bombing, and the sight of it was disturbing to behold.
She didn’t want to think what life would be like if the Luftwaffe started bombing London frequently. Until now, the devastation had happened elsewhere, but this made it seem very real.
Soon, the car drew to a halt outside St. Ermin’s and she entered the hotel, clutching her case and her raincoat. A police officer walked towards her and asked who she was looking for, but before she could explain, Val magically appeared.
‘This one’s with me,’ she said, beaming at Lizzie. ‘It’s so good to have you back. I’ve been waiting to see if Jack found you. Let’s go upstairs to my office where we can talk properly.’
Val poured Lizzie a cup of real coffee. ‘So, Lizzie, tell me all. Well done on getting back safely. That’s the first thing, and it’s no small feat. How was it?’
Lizzie savoured the taste of the coffee after the seedy ersatz she’d had in Reims and gave Val a rundown of what had happened. When she reached the part about the German soldier sexually attacking her, she became visibly upset. The emotions she’d been holding back when she was in survival mode bubbled to the surface.
Val squeezed her shoulder. ‘There, there, you’re safe now. I’m sorry you had to go through that awful business.’
Lizzie explained how Jack had saved her before the soldier could go any further.
‘Thank goodness. And talking of Jack, how was he when you left him?’
‘He was fine. We stayed the night at a farmhouse owned by family friends of his, and then he took me to the plane.’
‘Did he say what he was doing next?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘I believe he was going to search for Hannah.’
‘Ah, yes, Hannah.’
Lizzie extracted the envelope from the interior pocket of her raincoat. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I forgot. Jack said I should give this to you. It’s a roll of film we believe contains photographs of the aircraft bases, taken by Hannah.’
Val opened the envelope and fell silent as she studied the film. ‘Well, well. This is quite something. Excuse me a minute, Lizzie. Don’t go anywhere, but I need to get this developed immediately. I’ll be back in a jiffy.’
Lizzie drank the remains of her coffee and her eyes strayed to the window and the view of St. Paul’s Cathedral bathed in early morning rays of sunshine. The sky was pale blue, and pigeons hopped about on the spires without a care in the world.
A newspaper lay on Val’s desk, and Lizzie pulled it closer and read about the first German bomb to land in London since World War I. The article said it happened in the early hours after German bombers dropped explosives on the East and West Ham Docks, which could be considered military targets.
But an additional bomber dropped eight bombs—estimated to be two tonnes—directly onto the financial centre of London on Fore Street in the Barbican.
There were burning homes, and many killed in London that night. It was the first time since the raids of the Great War that flames from German bombers illuminated the London night sky.
Val returned and gave Lizzie a clap on the back. ‘I don’t suppose you realise just how incredible what you did is, do you?’
Lizzie’s cheeks grew hot at the lavish praise. ‘Honestly, it doesn’t feel like I did much, other than survive,’ she said.
‘And surviving is the name of the game. But not only did you survive, you retrieved what could be the most important intelligence to land on my desk in months. If this is genuine, and it looks like it is, we should know the exact locations of where the Germans store their reserve aircraft, and we can bomb them to smithereens and seriously deplete their resources.
This, combined with our latest radar breakthroughs, could make the difference between fending them off so they lose the confidence and the ability to invade.’
‘I’m so glad,’ Lizzie said. ‘I think it’s going to take me a while to process exactly what happened over there. Seeing France, controlled by the Nazis, was a shock to the system.’
‘I can imagine. What you did was courageous, Lizzie, and we all have a lot to thank you for. You went in with very little training, and you pulled a blinder. With women like you and Hannah on our team, we have a chance at running rings around those damn Nazis.’
Val asked Lizzie more questions about what she did and who she saw. She was particularly interested in the details of her meeting with the woman in the cathedral. Then she rose swiftly and told Lizzie the driver would take her home to get some rest.
‘Stick to the cover story with your parents. Tell them there were delays, and it was all extremely dull. The less intriguing you make it sound, the better for everyone concerned. Of course, your father might twig, in which case we’ll have to bring him into the loop, but I’d rather not. I’m told Mr Beaumont has quite enough to deal with at the War Office.’
Lizzie agreed and just as she was about to exit the room, Val said, ‘Oh, and by the way, we enlisted you in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.’
Lizzie’s eyes widened.
‘It’s SOE protocol that to take part in an operation, you need the official cover. This was the simplest way to register you. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a formality, really.’
Lizzie’s head spun as she left the hotel and sank back against the seat on the journey home.
She had returned home a FANY.