TWENTY-TWO

‘Of course I didn’t know!’ said Margaret Buhl. ‘How could I have known? I’ve never had so much as a letter from him. Just that one postcard three years ago.’

She dabbed at her eyes with a plain white handkerchief. Digger O’Brien should have expected the tears, genuine or not.

In the process of showing her Robert Dudley’s letters, he had studied Mrs Buhl’s face for any sign of surprise. Certainly she had looked startled when he explained the coded references but that, he thought cynically, could be because she realised the cat was out of the bag.

However, if she was acting now, the performance was impressive.

‘Will they send me to one of those awful camps?’ she asked him.

‘I can’t see how they can,’ Digger answered. ‘You’re a South African citizen, aren’t you?’

‘Born and bred.’

‘Where?’

‘Nelspruit, in the Eastern Transvaal. And I’ve got a birth certificate that shows it.’

‘Well, then. I don’t see how you can be held responsible for anything. If you haven’t done anything wrong.’

He was thinking: And if you have, we’d rather have you here where we can keep an eye on you than in some camp; to see if you can lead us to your mates.

“I just don’t know what to do,’ Margaret Buhl said. ‘Do you think he’ll ever be coming home?’

Digger felt he should say something that sounded sympathetic. ‘Have you thought that Fritz may have asked young Robert to try to get a message out to you?’ he said. ‘To let you know that he was okay?’

Margaret Buhl shook her head. ‘No, but it seems so hopeless anyway,’ she said. ‘He’s there and I’m stuck here. If we win the war, will I ever see him again? He could be killed in the fighting. And if Germany wins, will he be able to come back home? This world’s gone mad! I really don’t know what to do.’

Digger O’Brien noted that she referred to “Germany”, not the Nazis or the Jerries or the Huns, which were what most people called the enemy.

He mentioned that fact later that evening to Colonel Fyfe King. ‘But I really don’t know if we can read anything into it,’ Digger said.

The colonel had invited him along to the Umtata Club for a drink after the weekly NRV parade. The club was a men-only preserve, which Digger always found gloomy for that reason. They sat in a corner near the voluminous snooker room. Most of the illumination was provided by the shaded lights over the snooker tables. No one was playing.

‘Digger, look at it logically,’ said Fyfe King. ‘We discover that Buhl, with his wife right here, is guarding our chaps in that camp. At the same time, we know that there’s a Nazi spy around, maybe more than one. Who’s to say that the Nazis haven’t got to this Buhl woman, put pressure to her to work for them by threatening to do harm to her husband?

‘We know that they must have radio communication. Or maybe the message to her was delivered by one of those bloody subs. And she’s got a truck. And with the garage enough petrol whenever she’s wants it.’

‘I don’t know, sir,’ said Digger. ‘My money’s still on that Mostert fellow. He drinks at the Grosvenor, so he might well have heard about our files. And then there’s the broken leg he didn’t have. Also, I can’t see Margaret Buhl breaking into the Drill Hall.’

‘Well, maybe they’re in it together,’ the colonel said. ‘We’ve suspected for a while now that there’re probably more than one. I think we must watch her closely.’’

‘Will do, sir.’ He considered telling Fyfe King about Moses being in the Buhl cottage, well positioned to do some watching, but thought better of it.

‘Full and unlawful carnal knowledge!’ Gerald Wilson exclaimed.

‘What’d you say?’ asked George Trebble, instantly awake.

‘I’ve been told I mustn’t swear,’ said Gerald, ‘so I’m spelling it out. ‘But look here! There’s a bloke shooting through our windows!’

The three members of the ward had developed a routine. Woken at five to have their temperatures taken, given morning tea and a bed-bath half an hour later, they were grateful to be able to doze during the following hour before breakfast.

But this morning there was indeed an armed man standing between the lower beds. He raised his rifle and fired two more shots through an open window.

‘Don’t have a cadenza,’ he said. ‘I’m just killing the pigeons. They’ve been crapping in the operating theatre again.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ George demanded.

‘I’m the caretaker,’ the man said. ‘Just doing my job.’ He was tall and thin with a pate like a monk.

‘Why don’t you just close the theatre windows?’ asked Gerald Wilson.

‘Nah,’ said the man. ‘Matron says that would be unsanitary. The place must be aired, she says.’ He turned away.

‘Well,’ George Trebble told his departing back, ‘you can tell the matron to full – what was it again? – off.’

‘Now, now, George,’ said Gerald Wilson. ‘Don’t arouse that beast. Her hearing’s pretty acute. And it’s nearly time for breakfast anyway.’

‘Yes, I suppose. Sorry, old man, but I feel a bit crabby this morning. Didn’t sleep very well.’

Certainly, Danny thought, Mr Trebble didn’t look very comfortable. When he’d come back after his operation the previous day, two nurses had lifted his bottom on to something rather like one of those inflated rings little children paddled on in swimming pools.

Danny had become quite fond of the two old men, or rather of Mr Wilson because Mr Trebble had only been there for a day. Mr Wilson didn’t talk down to him, like some of his father’s friends. He was due to be discharged at the weekend, so he could wander around the hospital and get the nurses laughing. He was always checking to see if Danny was comfortable.

One evening, after lights out and before Mr Trebble came, a car had arrived and parked just outside the double doors of the ward that led to the gardens. Someone came in. It was dark but Danny thought he could recognise Mr Southwood, the mechanic. There was much whispering, and then Mr Wilson disappeared.

A long time later, he was back, bumping against the empty beds until he found his own. That night, Mr Wilson snored a lot.

With Mr Trebble there, the two men talked a great deal and told jokes. Danny didn’t mind. He laughed with them although some of the jokes, perhaps most, he didn’t really understand.

One sounded so funny, when Mr Trebble told it, that Danny decided to pass it on to his father when he came to visit at lunchtime, as he usually did.

‘Dad, have you heard this one?’ he said. ‘This man goes to the doctor for an, um, examination and the doctor tells him he should take more exercise on an empty stomach.’

‘Yes?’ said Digger, with some apprehension.

‘So he goes home and starves his wife!’ said Danny.

Digger nodded, and changed the subject to ask Danny if he had managed to do any of the schoolwork his teachers had set him. But a short while later he walked across to talk to George Trebble. Although Danny couldn’t hear the conversation, his father’s voice sounded angry.

After lunch that day, Danny had two visitors. One was Moses, with a bottle of ginger beer and the latest Argosy.

‘Keep it for me, Danny,’ he whispered. ‘I haven’t read it yet.’

The other visitor was Steyn Mostert who said he had a surprise. Steyn left the ward and returned with the broomstick crutch his cousin had used.

‘Nick says he heard about your accident,’ said Steyn, ‘and thought you could do with this when you start walking again. He says he’s sure your father can saw a bit off and make it shorter for you.’

Danny was astounded. A German spy giving him a present?

At first, his inclination was to turn down the offer, tell Steyn to take the crutch back to his cousin. Then he remembered what his father had ordered about not making Nick Mostert suspicious.

So he said, ‘Please say thank you very much.’

Billy, Alan and Charles had already been to see Danny and had received the message to stay out of the drains, or else the NRV and the police would be very upset. But Danny wasn’t sure if it sunk in with Billy.

He found the afternoons the longest part of the day, longer even than the nights. Mr Wilson and Mr Trebble said very little and what they did say he found hard to hear.

Later, however, after visiting hours, after the ward lights were lowered and he was supposed to be asleep, the two men raised their voices several notches.

‘So what else has happened out there, George?’ asked Gerald Wilson.

George Trebble was silent for a while. ‘Oh. One thing,’ he said then. ‘Arthur Davies, the scout master. He’s been given the push. The parents got together, well the mothers really because most of the fathers are away, and told him he had to go.’

‘It was only a matter of time,’ said Gerald Wilson.

‘But why would he do that kind of thing? That’s what I can’t understand. Good-looking wife. Reasonable job at Barclays.’

‘Well, you know what they say, George,’ said Wilson. ‘ “When wine and women lose their joys, try bottled beer and little boys”.’

‘And what else can you tell me?’ he asked.

Trebble was torn. Should he or should he not tell his friend about Fritz Buhl? He opted for a spell of coughing while he considered it. Eventually he thought: If I can’t trust Gerald, who on earth can I trust?

He said, ‘My friend, I’m passing this on in the strictest confidence. Digger O’Brien has already dumped on me from a dizzy height because I told the chaps in the bar about those bloody documents in the Drill Hall.’

‘Okay, George,’ said Gerald Wilson. ‘If I tell anyone at all, I’ll tell them in the strictest confidence too.’

‘Don’t joke, Gerald. Please, this is vital information.’

Then, as Danny listened with growing wonder, George Trebble proceeded to tell Gerald Wilson about the Buhls, about Fritz being a guard at Stalag VII where the Transkei boys were; about the suspicion that now must fall on his wife, Margaret.