My Name is Eva(11)

Tim was very kind when he arrived and I told him he should eat as he appeared awfully thin and pale. I tried the Spam fritters and he had a Welsh rarebit, which looked dreadful. The cheese we’re getting now is ghastly and I think they’d mixed it with powdered egg and tried to make it more palatable with mustard.

Then things got even more ghastly when our order came, as Tim suddenly told me he believes you and the others were betrayed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d just been waffling on about how I kept trying to console myself with the thought that you were doing important work. I said I liked to think that you and your fellows really did ‘set Europe ablaze’ as Churchill directed and that though I knew you couldn’t tell me much about your work, I knew you were excited to be really doing your bit for the war. Then I said I knew you and Tim were sent out on special missions, so he didn’t need to worry about what he might let slip.

And that was when I noticed that Tim wasn’t eating his food. He was stirring his tea, but his spoon just kept going round and round as if he was never going to stop. He looked awful, so I asked if something was wrong with his meal and suggested perhaps he should order something else and then he looked straight at me and said you and the others never got the opportunity to set Europe ablaze. He said that he and some other chaps were convinced that your last mission had been set up to fail deliberately, to mislead the Germans.

I tried to stay calm, but I couldn’t help myself. I dropped my knife and fork on my plate and made a terrible din. I felt sick and had to hold my napkin over my mouth. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. But eventually I forced myself to speak and asked him why on earth would they want a mission to fail? He said he wasn’t exactly sure, but he believes that some clever double-double-cross agent manoeuvring was going on. He said it’s lost them a dozen or so men and women, plus networks.

It was such a shock, I tell you. I closed my eyes and half-thought I’d have to excuse myself and run to the ladies’ cloakroom. But what good would that have done? I’d have locked myself in a cubicle and howled the place down for hours. So I decided I simply had to pull myself together, grit my teeth and learn more. I was desperate to hear what Tim knew, so I breathed deeply, folded my napkin on my lap and said I couldn’t believe it. After hand-picking recruits with special skills and languages, after all that training, did he mean all of you were considered to be disposable? I was trembling and I know my voice was a bit shaky, but I simply had to know.

Tim took a moment to answer then said it wasn’t quite like that, it was more a game, where the risks were unreasonably high. And I said did he mean it was a gamble and he agreed. I was still feeling dreadfully shaky and Tim looked even more uncomfortable, then he suggested we should get the bill and we go somewhere quieter, so we left the restaurant without finishing our food and started walking along Piccadilly, towards Fortnum & Mason and Green Park. Neither of us said much for a bit, then, it was silly of me, I know, I was suddenly reminded of that night you and I had dinner at Quaglino’s, the same night that the Café de Paris was hit. I think it was the way the setting sun was glinting on tiny shards of glass in the gutters as we passed the turning into Bury Street. So I told Tim about our lucky escape and how we caught what must have been the only taxicab out in the West End that terrible night, because you had to catch the train to Edinburgh from King’s Cross. I said I hadn’t realised it at the time, but maybe that was when you first started your special training.

Tim gave me a funny look, then said he was so sorry you didn’t make it back and that he thought you were a fine chap. And I asked him again about his earlier remarks about lives being risked in that mission. And then, gosh, I can hardly believe this even now, he said your lives weren’t just risked, he believed they were sacrificed. He stopped walking and said he shouldn’t be telling me anything, but the head of the whole operation is a chap who firmly believes the end justifies the means. Tim said this chap knew jolly well that our men were highly unlikely to make it back.

Honestly, darling, I felt sick all over again. I could feel those awful fritters I’d tried to eat heaving in my stomach. I must have looked ghastly and I remember slumping against the window of Fortnum’s. Goodness knows what people must have thought of me. But I was determined not to be sick in public, so I breathed slowly, till I felt a bit better, then asked Tim if he was quite certain. And Tim said he was utterly serious and that if this fellow had played his hand differently, he was quite sure you and the others wouldn’t have died.

Can you imagine what a shock it was for me hearing this? But when I recovered (and I wasn’t sick, I just took breaths of cold air), I had to ask Tim who this man was. I looked him straight in the eye and demanded to know his name. I was pretty dramatic, I tell you – I think I said I wanted to know who had gambled with my husband’s life.

Tim was reluctant to tell me at first, I suppose because it’s drummed into all of you that you can’t say a word about the operations. But after a few seconds, he said he owed it to you and to me and said it was Colonel Stephen Robinson.

I reassured Tim that you’d had your suspicions too and that you had almost told me just as much before you finally went that last time. He looked quite relieved after I’d said that and he looked so drained and famished that I felt I had to make it up to him for being so honest with me. And I thought we both needed cheering up, so I said we should run down to Horse Guards Parade to see the German Tiger tank that was captured in Tunisia. It’s just gone on display there and it’s been in all the papers and everyone’s so thrilled to get one over on Jerry. So, we headed off and had some decent fish and chips after we’d had our ‘gloat’ to make up for that awful tea.