There Was a Time

by Frank White

Genres: Historical Fiction; World War II

Synopsis

From an author who lived through - and served in - the conflict, a brilliant novel set in an English village at a turning point of the Second World War.

A Lincolnshire village on a glorious summer's morning in 1940, the countryside as still as a painting.
In the blue sky above, the fate of the whole war will soon rest with the RAF and their desperate effort to win the Battle of Britain. If they fail, Hitler's next step will be invasion.

And as the scene comes to life before us over the next six months, this shadow of war will not disappear - the conflict will take husbands and sons away, bring in evacuees from the city and soldiers to defend the coast. There will be more money from war work, but less to spend it on - legitimately at least. Everywhere, the feeling of change is in the air.

From the pub to the church, the humblest cottage to the biggest farm, from a struggling single mother to the lady of the manor, the paper boy to a traumatised bomb disposal volunteer, this superb jewel of a novel portrays a community of people and weaves together their stories with passion, betrayal, intrigue and suspense.

There Was a Time is a triumph of the storyteller's art.

Release date: June 29, 2017

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 288

Sample

Saturday, 1 June 1940

If you approached the village from Somercotes in the south, the first property you saw, there on the right-hand side of the road, two hundred yards beyond the gates of Pretoria Estate, was Mr Geiger’s bungalow, built in the late 1920s of pale brown brick, unobtrusively set against a background of mature beeches. Mr Geiger had cultivated his front garden as a typical English country tangle of herbaceous plants, many of which were now in vigorous bloom. Mr Geiger was a retiring man. He was known to be a book dealer, but not a very talkative one. He was rarely seen about, never seen in the pub, but pleasant enough when cornered, and perfectly harmless. He’d lived here alone for years, but, of late, a woman had been seen moving in and out of the bungalow. This had caused some speculation in the village.

It was a warm afternoon after a morning of heavy rain. Wraiths of vapour hovered over the drenched garden. Shortly after three o’clock two Austin cars drew up at the gate and out of them, two from the first and one from the second, stepped three men, two in navy-blue suits and one in dark grey. With one of the navy-blues – a man in his fifties by the name of Lowther – leading the way, they went up the garden path. As they did so, a joke must have been made, for they all smiled.

The one in grey walked around the bungalow to the back door in case anyone bolted. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall there to smoke it.

The other two went to the front door. Lowther rang the bell and Geiger, small, frowning, puzzled, opened it. He had large, almost transparent eyes and was wearing a brown cardigan, too small for him, and baggy trousers.

‘Franz Geiger?’

‘Frank – Frank …’ Geiger said, with some irritation. ‘What is it?’

‘You call yourself Frank.’

‘Yes, I do.’

While this was going on, Lowther’s companion moved suddenly forward, pushed roughly past Geiger and, stepping into the hall, opened an inner door and entered the living room, knocking something over as he went. It was a sweeping brush that had been propped up in a corner.

‘What’s happening? What’re you doing?’ Geiger asked, alarmed. ‘What is it – what is it?’

Lowther identified himself. ‘I’m Chief Inspector Lowther, Special Branch, sir. I have a warrant here for your arrest under Emergency Order 18B – wartime detention of aliens. Do you understand? Would you like to see the warrant?’

Geiger raised his arms as if to ward off catastrophe. ‘Oh no – no …’

‘Will you step back, please.’

Pushing Geiger aside with the flat of his hand, Lowther himself now went through the inner door into the living room. There was a woman in there, standing stiff and nervous in front of the fireplace under the gaze of Lowther’s companion who was hovering, motionless, against the far wall. There wasn’t much light in here and the air was laden with cooking smells.

Geiger came running at Lowther’s heels. ‘There’s a mistake – I’m a naturalised British citizen! I have nothing to do with 18B – it’s a mistake – I’m British.’

In the room were two leather armchairs, a sideboard bearing some photographs and a footstool.

‘Someone’s got it wrong – you don’t want me. You’ve got the wrong person …’

Geiger was pulling at Lowther’s arm, but Lowther was paying no attention to him. He was looking at the woman. She was about thirty, with good legs and short yellow hair, dressed in a simple, puff-sleeved, red-and-white gingham frock. The material reminded Lowther of a tablecloth his wife occasionally used. He realised that the woman was trembling. She was clasping and unclasping her hands and staring at Lowther with her nostrils pinched and her mouth open.

‘This is Fraulein Hertz, I suppose,’ Lowther said.

‘What’re you doing here?’ Geiger was rocking backwards and forwards. There was terror in his eyes. ‘What’re you doing here! I’m not an alien. I’ve lived here for twenty years …’

Lowther ignored that also. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said to the woman, peering closely at her. Her gaze met his and her lips moved, but no sound emerged.

‘Does she speak English?’

‘I’m teaching her … Why’re you here? Tell me!’

‘You are Franz Geiger?’

‘Yes – I’ve told you. Yes! And I’m British – wait, wait …’ Geiger made quickly for the sideboard. ‘I’ll show you my naturalisation papers.’ But Lowther held out a hand to restrain him.

‘Not necessary. We know about that. You call yourself Frank.’

‘Yes, yes … That’s how people here in England – my friends – know me.’

‘Then tell me, why didn’t you change your name officially when you were naturalised? Most people do. If people want to be British they want to sound British. Why not you?’

‘But it was my business!’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘When I came here after the last war I was already running my business. I’d traded under my name for a long time. That’s how people knew me – Franz Geiger. It was just my business. Look, look …’

Shaking so much he seemed hardly to have control of his hands, Geiger pushed past Lowther to the sideboard and opened a drawer. Rummaging there, he produced a letterhead. ‘See … See … “Franz Geiger, Specialist Books” … You see. That’s how I’m known. For years, for years …’

Lowther was not interested in the letterhead. He was looking again at the woman. ‘Sit down,’ he said to her. She continued to stand and so he turned to Geiger. ‘Tell her to sit down. She looks as if she might collapse.’

‘Yes, well, she knows about this sort of thing – yes, yes!’

‘What sort of thing?’

‘She’s a refugee. She thought she’d escaped from this sort of thing.’

‘She’s been here how long?’

‘Since June 1939.’

‘Well, for God’s sake, tell her to sit down.’

But before Geiger could speak to her, the woman, obviously understanding perfectly, went and sat on the edge of one of the chairs. But not for a second had her terrified gaze left Lowther’s face. She had sat down clumsily and was unaware that the pale flesh of her left thigh was exposed. Tears had appeared in her eyes, her hands were clasped on her knees, and, cowering there, she suddenly looked like a pathetic young girl.

‘She’s been questioned,’ Geiger said. ‘They’ve questioned her already.’

‘Yes. Is she a relative of yours?’

‘She’s the daughter of a friend.’

‘Is she a Jew?’

‘No.’

‘Then what’s she doing here?’

‘They know all that! She told them all that … She had to get out … she’s an intellectual – a teacher …’

‘Our information is that she claims to be a Communist.’

‘Yes, she is. Communists’re being shot in Germany. She’s a good woman. She wants to be naturalised like me. She’s a good woman. I can vouch for her.’

Lowther smiled. ‘And who vouches for you?’

‘What?’ Geiger’s head jerked back. For a moment he was silent. ‘This is a mistake,’ he said at last, pacing to and fro. ‘A terrible mistake … What can I do? What can I do?’

‘Just get your things together, Mr Geiger.’

Geiger’s lower lip had begun to tremble. ‘But you can’t arrest me – you can’t …’

‘Just get your things.’

‘But my business, my house … I want to speak to someone – take me to see someone.’

‘Please,’ said Lowther, ‘just do as I say.’

‘But why – why! What’ve I done?’

‘They’ll explain all that where you’re going.’

‘But I want to know now!’

‘I can’t tell you. I’m only the arresting officer. But you had four boys staying with you last summer, just before the war.’

‘Boys? Yes, they were my sister’s boys.’

‘Hitler Youth.’

‘What? No! They came for a holiday. Hitler Youth? What’re you talking about?’

‘According to your neighbours they were walking about doing the Nazi salute.’

‘My neighbours told you that?’

‘It was their duty to report it, Mr Geiger.’

‘But they were boys – boys just playing about!’

‘They were Hitler Youth, Mr Geiger. Young Nazis. What does that say about your sister, their mother? What does it say about you?’

‘That’s ridiculous. Nonsense, nonsense! And my neighbours told you that? My friends – my English friends?’

‘Who can trust anybody, Mr Geiger? Who can trust you? We’re fighting for our lives. That’s what 18B’s all about. We want people like you out of the way.’

‘You’re saying I’m a Nazi?’

‘You’re the only one who knows that. Don’t worry – where you’re going you’ll be with a lot of your own sort.’

‘My sort? My sort! I tell you I’m a British citizen! I’d fight for Britain if I was young enough, I’d—’

‘You fought for Germany in the last war.’

‘But I was conscripted!’

‘Yes, well, never mind. Go and do your packing, Mr Geiger. And the lady. You can bring two suitcases each.’

‘Two suitcases? But my house, my business—’

‘I can’t help you with those questions, I’m afraid.’

For a second, Geiger looked like a cornered animal. His eyes darted this way and that. At once, the other navy-blue suit stepped towards him and, suddenly shrinking, Geiger began to cry.

‘I’m afraid there’s no escape,’ Lowther said. ‘You and the lady get packed up. Now, please.’

‘I’m British!’ Geiger’s face was awash with tears.

Fraulein Hertz, sitting there stiff and silent in her chair, now looked into Geiger’s tortured face with tears running down her cheeks.

In the pub and in the shops during the next few days, opinion was divided. Some were convinced that the quiet, retiring man who had rarely spoken to anyone, that little Jerry, was indeed a spy, an enemy in their midst. Others, who had seen more of him, thought him no such thing. But that was war for you. You couldn’t afford to risk anything.

Half a mile along the road from Mr Geiger’s bungalow stood The Grange. Here lived Commodore Grainthorpe and his man, Fotherby. The morning routine at The Grange was invariable. Fotherby’s alarm clock roused him at quarter-past five. While still in bed, he reached for a cigarette and lit it. Then he got up. He found his way into the shreds of his tattered dressing gown and passed into the bathroom, where he turned on the taps for the Commodore’s bath. He fingered the water and made small adjustments until the temperature was just right, stepped to the lavatory, closed the lid and sat down on it to finish his cigarette. The taps spluttered. The water in the bath steamed. His overnight growth of beard itched at his chin. He scratched it. When his cigarette was smoked, he opened the bathroom window and dropped the corked tip down into the garden, where he would later hoe it out of sight under the roots of valerian.

John Fotherby was in his middle fifties, short, brisk and with a head of thick fair hair still untouched by greyness. He stared away, beyond the lawn, the shrubberies and the wood, into distances of field and sky, and then, in order to judge the strength of the wind this morning, he watched small leaves of ivy flutter at the edge of the window sill.

On top of the bathroom cabinet lay a wooden ruler. Taking this to the bath and dipping its end into the water, he saw that he had drawn four and three-quarter inches. When five inches exactly had been achieved, he turned off the taps. With measured pace, he went downstairs to the hall, where, hanging against the wall, there was an arrangement of framed prints and photographs, all of ships ancient and modern.

From a bracket was suspended a large bell, ten inches across at its mouth, into the metal of which was moulded the inscription ‘HMS Iron Duke’. Alongside this were two shiny brass hooks from which hung a bosun’s call and a small pewter megaphone, once used, perhaps, to call foretopmen down from the upper yards.

Also fixed to the wall was a polished brass charthouse barometer and matching clock. Fotherby tapped the one and stood gazing at the other. At half-past five precisely, he gripped the elaborately plaited rope that hung from the bell’s clapper and drew forth three sharp peals, because half-past five a.m. happened to be three bells in the morning watch, the time at which the Commodore liked to surface. The sound shattered the silence of The Grange like an explosion in a greenhouse. Fotherby himself winced a bit, and the alarmed chattering of birds in the garden could be heard.

But there was more to be done. Reaching now for the bosun’s call and taking a deep breath, Fotherby blew the shrieking, ascending notes of ‘Attention’. Shadows draping the walls shuddered. Then he put the megaphone to his mouth, directed it towards the stairs and shouted through it. ‘D’ye hear there! Wakey-wakey, lash up and stow! A thousand and twenty millibars, falling. Sky clear. Force two-three, sou’-wester. Rig o’ the day – try number fours, Burberry and golf cap!’

With that, Fotherby returned to his room. Adjusting his alarm clock to give himself another hour, he threw off his dressing gown and got back into bed.

By now, in his own room across the landing, Commodore Grainthorpe, RN (Retd), a man in his early seventies, was already on his feet. He was standing in his pyjamas at his opened window, plump, round, almost bald, breathing deeply and smiling out at a challenging, but hopeful and interesting, world. In the distance, there could be seen, under the low sun, a dark triangle of sea. The Commodore put on his dressing gown and went to take the bath Fotherby had drawn for him.

Within half an hour, the Commodore had embarked on his walk.

The Commodore’s number fours consisted of grey flannel trousers, pullover and blazer. It was not a particularly warm June morning, but the Commodore preferred to carry his Burberry raincoat folded neatly over his arm. He liked to wear his flat cap at a sharp angle over his left eye. This gave him, he believed, a rather dashing, careless air that he felt appropriate to him. He carried his slender cane at the trail, but now and then he paused to poke it gently into clumps of vegetation under the lane-side hedges, in the hope of discovering interesting specimens of wildlife. On occasion, he had actually done so: a hedgehog or two, scuttling voles, mice, frogs and, once, a weasel with young. In a leather-bound notebook, in his neat, microscopic handwriting, he kept a record of his findings in the manner of Gilbert White.

Tucked under his left arm he carried the telescope – finger-worn, dented here and there, but still optically excellent – that had served him and, indeed, been virtually part of his anatomy, a kind of semi-detached limb, for forty years.

This morning, he had elected to follow his southern circuit. This would take him through the beeches of Wyber’s Wood, around the perimeter wall of Binbrook’s Pretoria Estate, across the railway at the signal box, and so up the gradual rise to the summit of Fire Beacon Hill.

In Wyber’s Wood, rabbits darted and squirrels dashed. Here, out of the sun, festoons of cobwebs, heavy with dew, lay like fine silk sheets draped across the undergrowth. Something hissed away from under his feet, but although he poked and prodded, sight of whatever it had been eluded him. However, as he emerged on to the footpath at the far side of the wood, another movement attracted him.

Eighty yards or so away, down the incline to his left, at the bottom of the meadow, a male human animal suddenly pushed through the privet hedge and, keeping to the shadows there, hurried furtively away along the perimeter of the field. Grazing cattle nearby raised their heads curiously to watch him go and, moved by similar sensations, the Commodore extended his telescope and put it to his eye.

The man was in army uniform – battledress and glengarry. His hands were hidden in his trouser pockets, his back was bowed, and he seemed deeply preoccupied – certainly he had no idea the Commodore was watching him. He waded up to his knees in tall grass and clumps of weeds.

Do I know him? the Commodore wondered. But he couldn’t make out the man’s face. Then where had he come from, this soldier?

Beyond the hedge through which he’d so suddenly appeared lay the back gardens – littered with chicken coops, greenhouses, cold frames and compost heaps – of Sycamore Cottages, a row of five whitewashed dwellings, glowing under the sun, on Littlecotes Lane. Nothing moved down there, save plumes of smoke from two chimneys. As the Commodore watched, a breath of wind snatched at them, rolled them over and shredded them. Gusting force four, he thought.



At that moment, over there in the kitchen of 5 Sycamore Cottages, young Mrs Veronica Heath stood at her window gasping with alarm. A moment ago, she’d let the soldier out of her back door and now she could clearly see, up there at the edge of the wood, a solid figure with splayed legs and upraised arms, peering away through a telescope.

‘Oh my God – it’s the Commodore and he’s seen Nigel!’ Shocked and trembling, Veronica ran out of her kitchen and went to sit on the stairs, where she rocked backwards and forwards for several minutes.

Veronica, just twenty-two, firm-fleshed but substantial, whose body radiated femininity as a fire radiates heat, was fully dressed and alone in the house, but she put her hands to her breasts as if to hide them. Pressing her thighs together and lowering her head, she cried with frustration. Through the thin wall, the muffled sound of an alarm clock was heard from next door. It was time for her neighbour, Mr Baker, to get up.

The Commodore folded his telescope and walked on. The footpath hereabouts was deeply rutted. Wyber’s tractor had churned it up on some recent rainy day and the ground had dried as hard as concrete. The Commodore had to watch his step.

Excavated into the bank at his right were old badger setts. He probed and found nothing. He walked on, casting his gaze from left to right, taking in the scenery as he took in life in general, with interest, indeed with curiosity, but with a smiling detachment, like a man in a landscape of someone else’s dream. Fotherby had polished the Commodore’s brown brogues to a mirror finish, but they were dusty now. The pathway met, and then began to follow, the boundary wall of Pretoria Estate. Once again, the Commodore was under the canopy of trees. The dawn chorus had concluded and the sound from overhead was of bickering territorial shrillness.

Here, the estate wall was no more than elbow height and beyond it Pretoria House itself could be seen – the largest property in the village, late Georgian, splendid yet self-absorbed. The Commodore paused to contemplate it. Swallows were fluttering about its chimneys and exploring the high angles of its gables. Was Maureen about yet, with her brood of evacuees? the Commodore wondered.

There were three of those evacuees in Pretoria House, two sisters aged nine and eleven and a young girl of five, all of whom skipped happily about its spaces, its large, high-ceilinged rooms and its long corridors.

The sisters were still fast asleep in the great bedroom overlooking the knot garden, sharing the bed in which Alfred Milner had once slept before his days in South Africa and his dubious involvement in the events leading up to the Boer War.

The five-year-old – Jenny, or Tidgy as they all called her – had the room next to Maureen herself. A few moments ago, just as sunlight had found its way into her room and touched her face, Tidgy had climbed out of bed. Now, in her flimsy blue nightie, tousle-haired, eyes still closed, arms outstretched before her, she was tripping and fumbling along the landing towards Maureen’s door. Her tiny feet flopped into the warm softness of the carpet. Coming to Maureen’s door, she put the thumb of her left hand into her mouth and, with the knuckles of her other hand, gently tapped.

Maureen Binbrook had been described as motherly. This was because she was on the weighty side, with thick but not unshapely legs, softly fleshed arms and an ample bosom. Perfectly adapted for a damn good romp, her brother Lance had said to her more than once. But, in fact, Maureen was neither a mother nor a romper. She had lost her profoundly loved fiancé during the First World War and since then had remained single, living with their eccentric and difficult father who had died only recently, doing her best to curb his excesses and helping with the management of the estate.

To all appearances, she was an energetic, sensible and disciplined woman, sometimes a bit stern. But the children had found another side to her. She now lay flat on her back in her small bed in the posture of one exhausted. Perhaps she’d felt overheated during the night. She had pushed the bedcovers down to her waist. Her arms lay straight at her sides and she looked as if she could sleep for ever. All the same, at the first gentle tap at her door her lips moved and she spoke. ‘Come in, darling.’ Tidgy, failing to close the door behind her as always, fumbled her way to the bed. Climbing in, she pressed her head to Maureen’s soft breast and tried to wrap her legs around her.

‘Go to sleep, dear,’ Maureen said, pulling the covers up around them both. Neither of them had opened her eyes.



A quarter of a mile further into his walk, at the stile into the top field, the Commodore met Michael Philbin, the railway signalman, just coming off duty from his box along the line. Philbin happened to be one of the Commodore’s tenants. He was in his mid forties, lean, with limbs like long, articulated twigs and a large, sharply chiselled face. He took off his shiny-peaked cap and drew his finger around inside its brim, as if to remove something that had been irritating him.

He was an Irishman and his greeting came in a soft, agreeable brogue. ‘Nice morning, Commodore.’

‘For the present, yes. But the barometer’s falling.’

‘Is it now?’

‘The wind’s getting up, and see –’ the commodore pointed away to where clouds were gathering over the horizon ‘– a front. Rain. Squalls. About ten o’clock I’d say. You’re late, Mr Philbin. I usually meet you in the wood.’

‘They routed a special up from Dover. I waited to see it.’ Philbin had come to this village four years ago. Last year, he had married Nancy, a forty-year-old widow, a quiet, but smiling and cheerful woman whom the Commodore had got to know quite well through his visits to the post office. She worked there for dizzy Mrs Williams.

‘It was full of soldiers from Dunkirk,’ Philbin said. ‘Nine out of ten of ’em were asleep. The rest had faces like masks – like masks.’

‘I can imagine. They’ve had a hell of a time of it.’

‘I tell you, the Jerries’ll be here within a month. They’ll be goose-stepping up the lane there.’

The Commodore smiled and shook his head emphatically. ‘Never. They’ll have to sink the navy first, and I promise you, Mr Philbin, they’ll not manage that. How is Nancy?’

‘She’s fine.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’

‘And I think I’d better get on. She’ll be wondering where I am. Enjoy your walk.’ Philbin strode away and the Commodore climbed over the stile.

Indeed, the wind was freshening. It plucked at his cap. He plodded on and came at last to the litter of large stones at the summit of the hill. Thick with lichen, half hidden in the grass, they were all that remained of an old fire beacon, erected here a century and a half before when another generation of Englishmen had expected invasion.

Placing his Burberry over one of them,. . .