The Queen's Accomplice (Maggie Hope Mystery #6)(47)
“And the Pope?”
“Just last week sent greetings and addressed our Führer as ‘esteemed gentleman.’?” Gephardt shook his head dismissively. “I have no worries about the Pope.”
“Elise Hess is a good Aryan girl. I hate to think of her back at Ravensbrück.”
“Oh? She’s being stubborn?”
Fausten shrugged.
“Let’s raise the stakes, then. If you can’t get her to sign this letter—you’ll be sent to the Eastern Front.” Gephardt smiled, letting the threat sink in. “No joke this time. And I hear it’s still quite cold in Russia.”
—
At the SOE training camp in Arisaig, Scotland, recruits were required to swim in Loch nan Ceall regardless of the weather. In London, Maggie had taken to early-morning swimming at the Ladies’ Pond, an open-air pool off Millfield Lane, on the east side of Hampstead Heath in North London, open every day of the year. The water was freezing, but by swimming in it regularly, her body had become acclimated. She now found it invigorating exercise, as well as a way to clear her mind.
As she took a last tug on her bathing cap and buttoned the strap under her chin, she heard wolf whistling. Usually at this early hour she was swimming solo in the greenish water, or with one or two other stalwart women.
But a group of men, still drunk from the evening before, had wandered by to watch, beer bottles in hand. “Hey, nice ass!” one shouted, slurring his words.
Another bellowed, “Suck my dick!”
While the third leered and called, “Bottle of whiskey back in the trees—whattaya say, love? Come with us—we’ll show you a good time.”
Ignoring them, Maggie dove into the water, the shock of cold momentarily clearing her head and chilling her anger. She came up to the surface to hear their raucous laughter as they stumbled away. “I’d love to take a turn with that.”
“Screw her till her nose bleeds,” said another.
Maggie spat and began her laps with the crawl—but the peace she usually found under the wide sky eluded her. She knew why the men did it—they were asserting their power to her and also to themselves. They did it to remind her that she, as a woman, shouldn’t forget her place in society—and any outing in public, especially in a bathing costume and alone, was dangerous.
Why can’t we do something like go swimming, walk at night, cross the bloody street without constantly being reminded our bodies are merely things, ripe for insulting, leering at, and aggressive propositioning?
She flipped over and switched to the backstroke. Before Jack the Ripper’s time, women were obliged to stay home, be the “angels of the house,” with their only outings church or trips accompanied by men. Then, in Victorian times, women had more freedom—to go to the theater, to restaurants. But when the Ripper murders started, women were warned to stay inside. I suppose we could post warnings to women now, to keep off the streets after dark, to walk in groups, to ask a man to be an escort.
She gave a kick, her angry splash disturbing some nearby ducks. But why should we have to? Maggie thought. Why shouldn’t men have a curfew instead? Then we women could walk the streets—and swim the lakes—in peace.
When her anger was spent, her limbs exhausted, and her lips blue, she climbed the dock’s ladder to go back to the women’s clubhouse to change.
—
Durgin was already in the lobby of Fitzroy Square Hospital when Maggie arrived, tapping one foot, running a hand through his unruly hair. They stood together, waiting for Mark, trying not to breathe too deeply of the air, reeking of alcohol. The pale blue walls were covered in propaganda posters. WOMEN OF BRITAIN—COME INTO THE FACTORIES! urged one poster, showing a woman in blue coveralls and a red head scarf, Spitfires flying high overhead. WOMEN ARE DOING THEIR BIT—LEARN TO MAKE MUNITIONS! boomed another, spotlighting a woman putting on a hairnet and smock. Yet another displayed a woman assembling a bomb: WOMEN IN THE WAR—WE CAN’T WIN WITHOUT THEM.
One in particular, however, made Maggie’s lips twitch—Winston Churchill’s head mounted on the body of an English bulldog against the Union Jack with the caption HOLDING THE LINE. The P.M. did not personally approve that one, she thought.
The waiting room was full of people slumped in hard wooden chairs, many pressing handkerchiefs against their mouths. There was such a cacophony of coughing and wailing babies it was hard to think. Maggie winced as she saw one woman pull away the cambric square she’d pressed to her lips. It was stained with bright-red blood.
As nurses in crisp white linen caps deferred to doctors with mustaches and large gold pocket watches, veterans in uniform—some in wheelchairs, some using crutches—tried to concentrate on their newspapers. Maggie could make out the Times’s headline, ALLIED POWERS REVEAL PLANS FOR SMASHING BLOWS AT HITLER AND GERMANY SOMETIME THIS YEAR.
She and Durgin both spied Mark at the same time. “Oh, goody—the gang’s all here,” Durgin muttered, making his way to the information desk. “We’ve come to see Dr. William McVite.” He flashed his badge to a bright-eyed young nurse with freshly applied lipstick.
She checked a chart. “Dr. McVite’s just arrived. You’re welcome to go up and find him. Intensive care is—”
Durgin was off before she finished, the tails of his mackintosh flying behind him. “I know where it is,” he rumbled, taking the stairs two at a time.