The Triumph Read online

  But today even Philippa was subdued. ‘It was a nice service,’ she said into her handkerchief. ‘What a pity Harry couldn’t be here.’

  ‘Yes,’ Murdoch agreed, giving Lee an anxious glance. Philippa had never been the most tactful of women. Harry Mackinder, the youngest of Murdoch’s and Lee’s four children, had chosen to emigrate to his mother’s homeland and become an American citizen as he had pursued a literary career. That decision, against joining the British Army like every other male Mackinder, had been a blow. An even greater blow had been Harry’s refusal to hurry into khaki the previous September, his apparent opinion that there were faults on both sides of the Anglo-German quarrel. Redeemingly, word had arrived only the previous month that he had joined up — the United States Marines. But America was not yet in the war, and no one knew if she would ever be. Harry’s place had been here, standing shoulder to shoulder with his brothers, or at least with his parents when it came to mourning one of them. Murdoch’s hands curled into fists as he guided the car through the puddles and out on to the country lane that led back to the village; Lee, appreciating his mood as he had hers, rested her hand on his for just a moment, comfortingly.

  Annaliese burst into a fresh outbreak of weeping, discarding hat and veil to dab at her eyes, and Helen put her arm round her shoulders.

  ‘Drop me off at the depot, will you please, Dad,’ Fergus said.

  ‘Oh, Fergus, you’re not going back to work today,’ his mother complained.

  ‘Must,’ Fergus said. ‘We’re taking in new recruits all day and every day.’

  ‘Any word on armour?’ Murdoch asked.

  ‘It’s promised,’ Fergus said. ‘But if the Germans come before we’re ready, why, we’ll just have to trot out our horses again.’

  No one laughed at his attempt at humour; the subject was too serious. But Murdoch pulled off the road and into the gateway of the regimental depot, just a few miles outside the town. This place was as much a home to him as Broad Acres. As a boy of eighteen — the same age as Bert Yeald, he thought with a start of surprise — he had reported for duty here in the spring of 1899. His father had recently died, and he had been very aware of being the last Mackinder, and carrying all of that already considerable weight of family history on his shoulders.

  It was a source of some pleasure to him that he had just about doubled that weight for his descendants — however much it might have proved too heavy for Harry to bear. When he had joined the regiment, it had been about to set off for South Africa, not suspecting that within a year they would be involved in one of the toughest wars ever undertaken by the British Army. That war had brought him fame in the shape of the Victoria Cross, and censorship for his affair with the Boer girl, Margriet Voorlandt, which had very nearly ended his career. But that was a long time ago, and since then he had ridden to fame and fortune time and again. Britain’s most famous fighting soldier, was what the newspapers called him. Thus the sentry on the gate came to attention a little more smartly than usual as he discerned who was behind the wheel of the car. He would be telling his mates when he went off duty, ‘The General came by today.’ To a Royal Western Dragoon, there was only one general in the entire British Army.

  Fergus saluted as he got out, khaki uniform darkening with the continuing spatter of rain, and Murdoch drove on. The village was three miles further into the country, and beyond the village lay Broad Acres, the Mackinder family home now for some hundred years, an old ivy-covered but most comfortable house, surrounded by several acres of sprawling garden and meadow sliding down the hillside beyond. Retrievers barked and frolicked as the car drew to a halt on the gravel outside the front door; if, like the intelligent beasts they were, they shared the family grief, they could not resist welcoming their beloved master with every possible display of affection. Especially when their master had been away for so long. Murdoch submitted to being licked and gnawed while the women went inside.

  ‘I think you should take two aspirins and go to bed, Liese,’ Lee suggested.

  ‘But little Ian needs his feed.’ Tears rolled down the beautiful cheeks, and the German girl’s golden hair, usually immaculately coiffed and curled, was dishevelled.

  ‘Well, as soon as you’ve done that. I’ll come with you.’

  Philippa hurried off to get changed — she hated wearing dresses — but Helen remained in the hallway as Murdoch came in. ‘I suppose I should be getting back too.’ She wore the dark blue uniform of a Wave, having just resumed duty at the Admiralty after the birth of her baby. Her husband was at sea as navigating lieutenant on a cruiser — where, no one knew.

  ‘Surely you can spend the night,’ Murdoch said, hanging up his cap and Sam Browne belts and thrusting his swagger stick into the stand. ‘Robbins, I think a double scotch. What are you drinking, Helen?’

  ‘A pink gin,’ Helen said, and followed her father into the drawing room, where a fire blazed in the grate to dispel some of the damp. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I promised Aunt Rosemary and the girls...’

  ‘They can wait another day.’ Murdoch looked at the door as Lee entered immediately in front of the butler and his tray.

  ‘I’ll have one of those too, Robbins,’ she said, and took a sip of Murdoch’s. ‘Brrr.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Probably acting. Or at least forcing it. I mean, she’s been like this now for the entire month. For God’s sake, she’s twenty-five years old, not fifteen. You’re going to have to have a word with her, Murdoch.’

  ‘Me?’ he asked in alarm.

  ‘Well, you know she looks on you as a father.’

  ‘Um,’ Murdoch said. Annaliese had always looked on him as something more than that. She was Margriet von Reger’s daughter in every possible way, however much she and her mother might have quarrelled over their differing attitudes to Nazism. And Murdoch had never been sure how much Margriet had told her children about South Africa, and how much she regretted the chance of fortune which had left her married to the German, von Reger, instead of the Englishman, Mackinder. That Annaliese had chosen to flee to the Mackinder household when her opposition to Nazidom had endangered her life certainly suggested she had known she would be welcomed. But he had never felt she had intended to marry one of the Mackinder sons. That too had been a chance of fortune. So, as Lee had remarked with her usual acute sense of observation, the girl was probably forcing her grief. As well as being afraid of what would happen next.

  Something about which he had no idea, except that as a Mackinder widow Broad Acres was her home for as long as she wanted.

  ‘I’ll take her up a drink,’ Helen decided. ‘Of gin.’

  ‘She’s feeding,’ Lee protested.

  ‘One drink isn’t going to hurt that little bruiser. And it may do her some good. Anyway, I bet you two have a lot to talk about.’

  She hurried for the butler’s pantry, closing the doors behind her. Murdoch and Lee looked at each other. They had not in fact had much time together since his last leave, at Christmas. A few visits in hospital, and last night...but last night they had just wanted to lie in each other’s arms. They certainly had not talked.

  Now she raised her glass. ‘Welcome home.’

  He understood that she meant more than in a purely physical sense, took her into his arms and kissed her.

  ‘I didn’t have a chance to look, before,’ she said. ‘Where exactly is this one?’

  ‘A bit of a tear up the right side. Not really serious, but I lost too much blood, they said. At my age. Ha.’

  ‘At your age,’ Lee repeated, severely. ‘How many wounds is that? Thirteen? Your body is just about held together by stitches. Promise me it’s done, Murdoch. You were sent to Holland as head of a mission, not to get involved in any fighting. I’m surprised you haven’t been cashiered.’

  He grinned, and kissed her again. ‘I probably would have been, if Chamberlain was still PM.’

  ‘And you think Winston is going to employ you.’

  ‘He already has. As soon
as I’m fully fit again.’

  ‘Murdoch! You’re fifty-nine.’

  ‘A desk job.’

  She was suspicious. ‘Where?’

  ‘In Whitehall. We’ll use the flat. I’ll come home to you every night.’

  ‘And what will you be doing?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you, right now. It’s very hush-hush.’

  ‘But you’ll be staying in London.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Well, that’s something, I guess.’

  ‘Although you’ll have to let me fight if the Jerries do land. I think we’ll all have to do a bit of that.’

  ‘Will they, Murdoch? Can they?’

  ‘I’m sure they can. As to whether they will, that depends on how sensible they are. Because I’ll tell you something: even if we don’t have any armour to speak of, if they land, they are going to get beat.’

  She shivered. ‘I wish I could believe that. After what happened in Belgium and France...’

  ‘We didn’t know what was going to hit us. We do now. And even then we shouldn’t have lost like that. What was lacking in too many of the French generals was the will to fight. Where we were allowed to take on those fellows, even when outnumbered, we proved we were as good as they. We’ll beat them, Lee. I give you my word.’

  ‘We must,’ she said fiercely. ‘For Ian.’ And then glanced at him. ‘Murdoch...I’m sorry about Jennie.’

  ‘I know.’ She had told him that before. ‘I’m sorry too, Lee. About so many things.’

  She put her arms round his neck. ‘So it’s us, now.’

  ‘Again.’

  ‘And for always. We have a lot to do,’ she said.

  *

  ‘Tanks,’ Fergus announced, standing in the centre of the drawing room and slapping his hands together. ‘Crusaders. Great big beautiful things. Sixty of them. Arriving tomorrow.’

  He was jubilant. So was Murdoch. ‘And then?’

  ‘We’re allowed a week to familiarize, then it’s Norfolk. Jerry’s expected every day.’

  ‘Well, he’d better hurry,’ Murdoch said. The French windows stood open, and the August sunshine was flooding across the room. The forecasts had again been proved accurate, and there was not a cloud to mar the deep blue. Down in Somerset they had seen little of the actual fighting which was filling the air to their east and south, although there had been German bombers overhead from time to time making for the industrial areas of South Wales, but the news was grim enough, with the RAF holding on by, it seemed, the skin of their teeth. ‘I’m off in two days’ time, too.’

  ‘To London? It’s fairly grim up there.’

  ‘So I’ve heard. I’ve tried to persuade your mother to stay down here until things ease up, but she’s dead set on coming with me. So’s Liese. She’s to get Ian’s medal, you see.’

  ‘Hey, I may be there too. I’m to get the Military Cross.’

  ‘Are you?’ Murdoch slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Best congratulations.’

  ‘Actually, I think they’re giving them to every officer who survived Dunkirk.’ Fergus brooded at the rhododendrons, his ebullience suddenly faded. ‘It must be pretty damn near unique, both father and son getting the VC.’

  ‘Not unique,’ Murdoch said. ‘Lord Roberts and his son both got the Cross.’ He sighed. ‘And young Fred’s was posthumous too.’

  ‘I’d like to make it a threesome, for us,’ Fergus said.

  ‘For God’s sake don’t try. You’re the very last Mackinder, Fergus.’

  ‘What about Harry? And little Ian?’

  ‘Harry’s in the United States Army, not ours. And little Ian...well, we don’t have any idea how he’s going to turn out, do we?’

  ‘Because Liese is his mother?’

  ‘Perhaps. She’s really not one of us.’

  ‘Was Mom when you married her?’

  Murdoch considered. ‘No. But she was pretty tough. And, well...she fitted in.’

  ‘Meaning Mom never sunbathed in the altogether.’ Fergus flushed. ‘Oh, don’t bother, Dad. I’ve never joined Liese. But everyone knows she does it, even the staff.’

  ‘Quite. Not really the sort of thing one would expect from a widow, is it?’

  Fergus gazed at his father for several seconds, as though there was something he wanted to say, then obviously changed his mind. ‘By the way, I forgot to tell you, I’ve also been promoted major.’ He looked at the three stars on his shoulder straps, then up, somewhat enviously, at the crown and crossed swords on his father’s. ‘I haven’t had a chance to change these, yet. Only heard this morning.’

  ‘Well, that’s tremendous, Fergus. Another step on the ladder. We’ll open a bottle of bubbly. Have you told your mother?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then it’s going to be a celebration lunch. Wilkinson got the colonelcy, did he?’

  ‘Well...he has six months’ seniority.’

  ‘Quite. But...you’re staying with the regiment?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Then does that mean what I think it means?’

  ‘I would say so. I’m certainly going to be adjutant.’

  ‘Which means you’ll certainly get the regiment, when Wilkinson moves up.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  Murdoch shook his hand. ‘You will. You’re a Mackinder. Oh, my very best congratulations.’

  *

  They drank Fergus’s health time and again, and the women kissed him, time and again. Even Annaliese was smiling today. When she smiled she was truly beautiful. But then, Fergus thought, she was truly beautiful under any circumstances, and her magnificent rich yellow hair and suntanned complexion were admirably set off by her black gown.

  He wondered what his father would have said if he had told him what was really on his mind? He hadn’t taken the risk, partly because of Father’s expressed disapproval of the girl, and partly because he hadn’t been absolutely sure whether, in the eyes of the world, seeking to marry one’s dead brother’s wife would be outrageous or noble. But it couldn’t be outrageous. Hadn’t Henry VIII married his dead brother’s widow?

  Of course it was too soon. Ian had only been dead two months. And there must be no suspicion in anyone’s mind that he was acting out of pity, or out of a desire to give little Ian a father. Because neither of those was true. He was in love with Annaliese. He had been for years. If he had never done anything about it, that had been because he had always looked on the girl as almost a second sister. She had fled Germany in 1937, when she had been still rather immature. In the intervening years he had watched her grow, and laugh, and live ebulliently, happy to be under the aegis of the family she had always loved more than her own. He had seen enough of her, in bathing costumes and dressing gowns as well as smart frocks and evening dress, to know that she was everything he wanted in a woman. And he had thought of her, sunbathing down beyond the trees, and been tempted, so very often, to wander down there, as if by accident.

  But Ian had acted first. The prerogative of an elder brother, perhaps. But had Ian loved her? He had married her to save her being sent, as an enemy alien, to an internment camp: as the wife of a serving British officer she was sacrosanct. That had been a most noble gesture. But had it been inspired by love?

  Even more important, had Annaliese really loved Ian? Or had she sought the nearest port in the storm which had so suddenly blown up around her?

  Then there was her past. Ian had touched on it, briefly, in France, when she had already been his wife. It had been brother to brother confidence, and Fergus had never been sure if Ian had told him everything. But Ian had known Annaliese in Germany in the early thirties, when she had been a teenager and he had been there as ADC to his father. Annaliese had taken him to various parties thrown by the new society of the Third Reich, and Ian had been shocked. No doubt about that. Just as he had been shocked when Annaliese had told him that she and her family bathed in the nude together on their summer vacations. No doubt Ian had been shocked to discover she w
as continuing the habit in England, even if in strict privacy. Ian had been something of a stuffed shirt. Fergus found the concept of a family sharing such intimacy most exciting — especially if Annaliese’s sisters had looked anything like her.

  But then there had been the business of her escape from Germany. The Regers had lived almost due south of Berlin. Annaliese had left the house, by herself and on foot, with only a small satchel and no money, and had made her way to England, just like that. It had taken her several weeks. How did a young girl live for several weeks, when she was in any event a fugitive, and when it was necessary to cross frontiers and enter Britain, without a passport? Father had, according to Ian, never had any doubts about the only possible way she had managed that, and for that reason had tried to talk Ian out of marrying her. For all his disapproval of many things about her, Father obviously loved Annaliese himself, as a daughter, and as the daughter of his first love, but that hadn’t blinded him to the fact that her morals weren’t those of a Mackinder, however much he might respect her courage and determination.

  Ian had been unable to make up his mind whether Father had been right or not.

  But even if she had prostituted herself across Europe, that did not interest him, Fergus reminded himself. Except to make her even more exciting. He would in any event be marrying another man’s relict. If she was the relict of half a dozen living men as well, that couldn’t possibly alter the length of long slender leg, the swell of breast, larger than ever as she was feeding, the curve of buttock, the smooth-ness of complexion, which made him dream of her every night.