Chapter 107
Eleanor rode the escalator down to the underground platform at Green Park, her weekend bag over her shoulder and her notebook in her inside pocket. The smell as she descended got steadily worse. Her first time on the tube, and probably her last. The things she did for her readers.
She hadn’t known what to expect when she’d first arrived in London. So close to the war, and yet at the same time so removed from it. It had been hard to imagine anything she’d see or write could be of use, far less be worth the rather generous sum she was being paid.
Did it bother her, writing articles that were sent, first to New York, then forwarded to the German intelligence services?
Why should it? The United States wasn’t at war with Germany, any more than it was at war with Britain.
If a US citizen wanted to visit either one of those countries and write home with her observations, she was free to do so.
Besides, it was only a game. And whoever won, America would be safe, with its oceans protecting it.
Eleanor followed the signs for the Victoria line. One stop, the ticket attendant had said, southbound, to Victoria station, where she’d meet the farmer. She was rather looking forward to seeing him again. He was a brute, of course, but sometimes a brute was exactly what a girl needed.
She’d seen the way he’d looked at Margaret in the lobby.
Something going on there, no doubt. But Eleanor could hold her own against any of these English roses.
The British didn’t understand. Americans had a scrappiness that people from the Old World underestimated.
Besides, Margaret was a pawn, working for Eleanor.
A precarious existence, only ever one false move away from a knock on the door by the police, and a dark cell, or worse.
The platform was full. One half of it, behind a painted line, given over to a mass of unwashed humanity that seemed to have camped out, avoiding the bombs.
Eleanor tried not to breathe through her nose.
The stench was indescribable. All details for the story though, the terror in the eyes of the poor.
Wanting it over with. Only a matter of time before they rose up and got rid of Churchill.
A warm breeze blew through the station, and Eleanor heard the train approaching. She felt a tingle of anticipation. Her first trip on the tube.
The train roared into the station, and the crowd on the platform surged in anticipation. Eleanor didn’t feel the hand on her back until it was too late.
Mr Jones took the escalator back up. No point waiting on the platform.
The train wasn’t going anywhere. They had a procedure for when someone jumped.
Paperwork to be completed. The body to be recovered.
A thousand commuters would be late home, but they were used to it.
Seemed like every day now there was some kind of delay.