‘I’m Violet. I was trying to help Kate carry the powder when she was expecting but some of the other girls said she had to get along without help, that we couldn’t afford to carry anyone.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I wouldn’t have been alive today if I’d gone with her. On the other hand I might have been able to push her out of the way or something. I’ll never know.’

Hari shook her hand warmly. ‘None of us will ever know,’ she said comfortingly, ‘I was in the same room as Kate and the family when the bomb fell and I was the only one to survive. An act of God, fate, a coincidence? We’ll never know.’

‘I lost my chap when the war started. About to lose my room too. The man of the house is coming home, too sick and old to stay in the war.’

The bus jerked to a stop at the railway station and Violet got up. ‘Sorry to be morbid. I’m going to Swansea, you go to Swansea as well don’t you?’

‘We’ll go together,’ Hari said. ‘It’s not nice to be alone when you have worries on your mind. Got a family?’

Violet shook her head. ‘No, they all lived in London, wiped out in the blitz. I was at college but when the war started I was sent to the munitions to work. I’ll stay at the hostel tonight.’

‘Come to tea with us,’ Hari said. It was an impulse, but the way Violet’s face lit up was a reward in itself. ‘I warn you there are loads of us living together.’

‘That will be a nice change,’ Violet said. ‘I’ll wash and brush up first. What time shall I come?’

‘As soon as you like,’ Hari said, ‘just as soon as you like.’

Violet proved good company and she made Jessie laugh. Georgie seemed taken with the girl in spite of her yellow skin toned down now with powder and sat close to her throughout the meal. Only Hari’s father remained quiet, absorbed in the news on the radio. He’d left the table and sat in a chair with his ear up against the set, his face grave.

Hari didn’t want to break up the happy atmosphere but at last she couldn’t help but slip over to his side and crouch near his chair. ‘What is it, Daddy?’ she whispered.

He looked at her doubtfully and then glanced towards Jessie. Anxiety gripped Hari and she shook her father’s arm. ‘What, tell me?’

‘A German plane has come down near Carmarthen; no news of the pilot.’

The group around the table fell silent at once. Hari cleared her throat and her eyes met Jessie’s.

‘It could be anyone,’ she said quickly, ‘there are bomber planes over the coast most nights, you know that.’

In spite of her usual reserve Hari broke down and cried, for Michael and Meryl, for Kate, but most of all for herself.

Fifty-Nine

I heard the key being turned in the door of my cell and got to my feet expecting the worst. A German soldier gestured for me to come with him and to my relief he wasn’t holding a gun but his face was set in hard lines and he hardly glanced at me. I felt like I was a piece of furniture, a non-person, dehumanized.

‘Frau Euler—’ his voice was not kindly—‘what precisely were you doing on the beach at Normandy?’

For a minute I felt like being facetious, the word, ‘bathing’ came into my mind but I didn’t think the jack-booted officer of the SS had a sense of humour.

‘I had a day off work,’ I said, ‘I wanted to get away from the constant messages coming through my radio with intelligence about the hated English.’ The words stuck in my throat and I coughed. I could see he didn’t believe me; a young married woman cavorting around a beach where a fierce attack was taking place must have a few screws loose in her head. I suppose he wondered why the hell I didn’t get out of there the moment I realized there was a battle going on.

I smiled in what I thought was a winning manner but I probably looked like an imbecile. ‘It’s my Irish ancestry, you know.’

He looked at me obliquely. ‘We can make you confess your spying methods with very little trouble,’ he said. ‘Take your shoes and socks off.’

‘What?’

A soldier moved from the door towards me and I hastily undid my laces. When my feet were bare we looked down at them contemplatively. The soldier took something like pliers from his belt and knelt down before me.

‘You can’t propose,’ I said, and flashed my wedding ring at him. He didn’t even look up but grasped my big toe in a painful hold. I yelped.

‘Removing the nail will hurt even more,’ the SS man said laconically. I began to cry. I was good at forcing tears out, big plopping drops that rolled down my cheek as though I were a baby. In that moment I felt like one.

‘I honestly don’t know what you want from me,’ I gulped. ‘I had a day off and I went to the coast. I didn’t know all hell was going to break loose there did I? Please get in touch with my father-in-law Herr Euler, he will tell you I’m a simple girl. I don’t know anything about being a spy. I live on my father-in-law’s farm, I go to work at the office, I know nothing of any consequence.’

‘Take her back to her room we’ll find out more when she has calmed down.’ Either my tears or my tone of voice convinced him I was harmless if not brainless, after all, the intelligence was that ‘Overlord’ would take place at Pas de Calais not the Normandy coast.

In my grey cell with the tiny window shedding in very little light I sat on the pallet and studied the calendar on the wall beside my so-called bed. The last dates marked off were the fourth, fifth and sixth of June—the previous occupant of the room had underscored it and must have known about the attack. And then it hit me, the date jogged at my mind, it was almost two months since Michael had been home, two months since I’d had my monthlies. Oh dear God, I was a prisoner and I was pregnant. A little curl of happiness unfolded inside me; I was having Michael’s baby.

I slept a little and then I was brought some halfway decent soup. I ate hungrily wondering if the tiny being growing inside me would appreciate the nourishment, I hadn’t eaten for many hours.

I slept some more, there seemed nothing else to do. Used to activity and company I was sometimes afraid but mostly bored. Staring at four walls didn’t appeal to me one bit. And then I was brought supper, some sausages and hard bread with no butter. Still, it was sustenance and I needed it more now than I ever had.

I slept most of the night away but woke to the sound of blood-curdling screams, a woman’s screams. I thought of the pliers and shuddered. I hugged myself; I felt cold and lost; and, opinionated and determined though I was, I could see little chance of getting out of Ravensbruck concentration camp. I’d heard women came here to confess or to die. My only weapon was my tongue. No, there was my wit, and now I had a baby to think of, my baby and Michael’s.

‘Obersturmbannführer Suhren himself wishes to see you, Frau Euler.’ The stern-faced guard came for me and he sounded impressed.

‘Oh, good,’ I said. I wanted to talk to the commander as much as he apparently wanted to talk to me.

He was sitting behind a desk in his well-decorated uniform and he was younger than I’d thought he’d be, very young to be in charge of thousands of prisoners. I sat down meekly and pressed my hands together in what I hoped was an obsequious manner.

‘Please, commandant, could I speak with my father-in-law Herr Euler. He will tell you I am the wife of his son, a pilot in the Luftwaffe, and I work in an office with my German friends.’ I looked down modestly. ‘I am also with child by my brave husband, I will bear Germany a fine son.’

‘That is the only item of personal history I did not know.’ The commandant spoke with precision. ‘I have contacted Herr Euler, as you say, a respected German officer. I have also intelligence from your place of work.’ He paused and smoothed his well-kept hands. ‘Your friend Frau Eva speaks highly enough of you.’

‘My friend Eva is not married, commandant.’

‘Ah.’ He looked at me. ‘Quite right. You are expecting a child?’

I nodded and tried to look modest as though the conception had occurred through concourse rather than intercourse.

‘You will see a doctor.’

‘A lady?’ I asked quickly. I had heard of the doctors at Ravensbruck, they experimented on humans with apparent relish and I didn’t want their hands touching me. ‘Please, commandant, I am young, a mere girl, the only male hands to touch me are those of my husband.’ This at least was true except for the punching and kicking and rough fumbling I’d once got from Georgie Dixon.

‘We will see.’ He gestured to the guard and I was taken back to my cell, but this time I was not manhandled but led quietly along the road to my prison block.

I was given better food now, fresh sausage and crude, but fresh, bread. My talk with the commandant had done some good in spite of his attitude of indifference. I slept more easily that night, though I still heard the sound of women crying and the occasional scream. I closed my ears and hugged my stomach and thought of my baby.

In the morning, my father-in-law came for me and I was released into his charge. Herr Euler took me home to the farm and made a cup of tea and his face was a grey mask.

‘What is it?’ I asked fearfully, already guessing the answer.

‘It’s Michael—’ there was a hint of a quiver in his voice—‘his plane has been shot down over enemy territory. I’m afraid my dear, Michael is missing, presumed dead.’

My heart froze and my hands went automatically to my belly, as though trying to comfort the baby inside me. It was a horror worse than prison camp, it was not possible that my beautiful Michael no longer lived or breathed.

‘He can’t be dead,’ I gasped, ‘I’m going to have his son.’