Philly #2
There was one bit of good news, though, among the distressing messages that trickled through. In July, I learned that Marian Rejewski and Henryk Zygalski had finally been freed from prison in Spain. They’d been extracted via Gibraltar and brought to Britain.
‘I assume they’ve been assigned there to Bletchley Park with you?’ I asked the colleague who phoned to tell me the news.
‘No, they’ve been sent to a separate Polish cryptographic station in Hertfordshire, to work on deciphering German SS codes there. What a waste! Honestly, it’s like using racehorses to pull a cart,’ she grumbled.
‘Well, at least they’re safe,’ I said. There was a pause. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any news of the others?’
‘No, nothing. I’ll keep my ear to the ground, though. Promise I’ll let you know if I hear anything.’
It was hard not to become too attached to the people we encountered. But we had to carry on, knowing how important the work was, and our routine, mapped out by the moon’s phases, continued inexorably as the seasons passed.
By autumn, I was so huge I could hardly move.
Our baby twins arrived on the first day of December, born beneath the fingernail sliver of a new moon.
So Ben was there to hold them in his arms as we laughed and cried tears of joy, happy they were here safely and that our little family would be together for Christmas.
We named them Edward and Amy, for those two dear people who had each played their part in bringing us together.
The Lysander missions continued relentlessly through the grip of winter, although operations were dictated by the weather as well as the moon phase and we would regularly receive word at Tangmere that the plans for a particular night had been called off.
I have to admit, I felt a pang of relief whenever that happened, knowing Ben would be safely grounded once again.
When he was away, I was able to take the twins over to the Bertrams’ house each day, where there were always plenty of willing helpers.
The work I did there was a complete lifesaver for me, providing childcare as well as a most welcome distraction from worrying about my absent husband.
The war ground on and all we could do was pray for the safety of the agents we’d sent into the field and hope the Resistance circuits they’d established could continue to play their part in bringing the fighting to the earliest possible end.
The intelligence being sent back was of vital importance, I knew.
I still fretted about the fate of the ones who’d been sent to those terrible camps.
Their faces haunted me: Noor, Gwido, Antoni, Maksymilian .
.. what had become of them? And where were Janina, Jakub and their baby girl?
So many people had become lost in the chaos and fracture of war.
Ben and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary quietly, toasting each other with glasses of cider and then falling thankfully into bed to catch a few hours of sleep before the twins woke again.
The next morning, as I bustled around the kitchen, I heard little Edward give the beginnings of a cry from upstairs and hurried to bring him downstairs before he could wake his sister.
I sat back down at the table, feeding him while his daddy finished his own breakfast. The heavy cloud cover that had blanketed the south coast for the past few days was breaking up and it looked as if Ben would be flying again that night.
I don’t think I had any sense of foreboding as he kissed me goodbye.
No more so than at every other parting, at least. But I do remember drawing aside a corner of the blackout in the twins’ bedroom as I walked little Amy up and down, trying to sing her back to sleep after feeding her in the wee small hours before the dawn.
The full moon looked down on us, reminding me of a nursery rhyme my mother used to sing me when I was little. So I sang it to my daughter now.
I see the moon, the moon sees me ...
Amy’s dark lashes fluttered against the curve of her cheek as her eyes – the same sky-blue as her daddy’s – closed. I let the blind fall again, plunging the room back into darkness, and laid her carefully back in her cot beside her sleeping brother.
I walked back to my room as quietly as my leg would allow, smiling as I thought of Ben.
I thought of the way his eyes shone when he looked at me .
.. Those first training flights with him when he’d been my instructor with his arm in a sling .
.. That evening at the club, with the Attagirls, when I’d first worn that red lipstick .
.. Our first kiss ... I heard him reciting the words of our poem at our wedding, and it was such a vivid memory that I felt he was there with me as I slipped back under the bedclothes and turned out my bedside lamp.
He would probably be landing in France just about now. I hoped tonight’s landing would be smooth, the handover quick and he’d be on his way back to us soon.
And I wondered whether he was thinking of me. Of us, his little family waiting for him back at home.
I knew straight away the next morning.
I was expecting Ben to walk into the kitchen, back from another long night’s flying, ready for his breakfast and a few hours’ sleep. But instead, there was a soft tapping on the back door and Major Bertram was standing there. He didn’t need to say a thing. I slumped on to a kitchen chair.
‘We don’t think he was killed,’ Tony said, reaching for my hand.
‘Our contacts say the landing was compromised though. There were Germans waiting in the place of the maquisards . Someone in the network had betrayed them. The two agents and Ben were taken away. He’s missing, Philly, not dead.
And we’re doing everything we can to find him and bring him back. ’
And so it was that my own not-knowing began. A state of limbo, filled with despair and pain and what-ifs and empty hopes.
Upstairs, the babies began to cry. As if they could feel it as well.