Our Last Letter: Absolutely gripping, epic and heartbreaking World War 2 historical fiction Read online

  Our Last Letter

  Absolutely gripping, epic and heartbreaking World War 2 historical fiction

  Liz Trenow

  Also by Liz Trenow

  The Hidden Thread

  The Forgotten Seamstress

  The Last Telegram

  The Lost Soldiers

  All The Things We Lost

  Our Last Letter

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part II

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  The Lost Soldiers

  Also by Liz Trenow

  All the Things We Lost

  Hear More from Liz

  A Letter by Liz

  A NOTE ON THE HISTORY THAT INSPIRED THIS STORY

  Acknowledgments

  This book is dedicated to our

  great friends Niels and Ann Toettcher,

  without whom I would never have come

  to know and love Bawdsey Manor.

  ‘The bomb may have ended the war

  but radar won it.’

  Louis Brown,

  A Radar History of World War II

  Prologue

  December 1973

  The town seems to hunch its back against the bitter easterlies; the beach and pleasure gardens are deserted. But the shopping streets are decked in full Christmas plumage and throngs of shoppers flutter like moths towards the glitter of the lights. Children in colourful bobble hats and scarves are gathered around the memorial cross, defiantly shouting out their carols into the biting wind.

  He recalls the place in wartime, grey and brown, the streets down at heel and fearful, the beach barricaded with barbed wire, tank traps and pillboxes. In his current mood, he would have preferred it that way. Fleeing from the festivities, he steers his old Volvo to the left, not wanting to risk driving past the station, where he first set eyes on her. His heart recoils. He cannot bring himself even to think her name.

  At last, having managed to navigate without mishap the dimly recalled grid of residential streets, he finds himself driving along the familiar undulations of the Ferry Road. It is so misty he can see nothing on either side of the road, although he knows that on a good day he would be able to see the river meandering, snake-like and sparkling, through the marshes to his left, and to his right would be the golf course leading to dunes and beyond to the North Sea.

  Half a mile further on, just before the road runs into the river, he pulls up beside the Martello tower and climbs stiffly out of the car, gasping as the chill, sharp wind slices like a scalpel through the loose weave of his old tweed jacket. Curtains of salt spray slap his face. He’d forgotten how wild and unprotected this lonely spit of land could feel; how the weather seems to come at you from all directions.

  But he is here for a purpose. He returns to the car, grabs his small case and walks briskly along the rutted road, ignoring the inviting twinkle of Christmas lights in the windows of the Ferry Boat Inn and the tea room. The mouth of the estuary looks as treacherous as ever, a maw of rushing tides meeting the oncoming North Sea in a maelstrom of eddies that have been known to cast even experienced sailors onto the sandbanks.

  It is only five minutes to four, but at the landing stage – a new addition; in the old days they had to jump out onto the beach – there is no sign of any boat or ferryman. The ferries used to run all day like clockwork on the hour, until late into the evening, so he waits for a while, watching the water swirling beneath the wooden piling of the jetty, the seaweed writhing in the current like a tangle of mysterious sea creatures.

  Then he spies to the side of the landing stage a white-painted paddle wedged against a post, hand-lettered with the words Call ferry. Arrangements are clearly more informal in peacetime. He waves it about, feeling self-conscious, stops for a moment then waves it again. Is Charlie still alive, he wonders idly, or perhaps the ferry licence has gone to one of his sons by now? Either way, no one turns up. He sets the paddle back and wanders towards the harbour master’s shed. The door is locked and the lights are off.

  How many times has he waited here, in every sort of weather? He even recalls that once or twice, having missed the last ferry, he and Johnnie had crawled beneath the hull of a beached fishing boat for shelter, trying to sleep out the night so that they could catch the first run of the morning and arrive back just in time for the early shift. Oh Johnnie, how I have missed you all these years.

  The four metal masts, those old familiar friends, are barely visible today through the sea mist, but he knows they are there, on the other side. There too, part hidden behind the pine trees bordering the opposite shore, are the red brick turrets of the manor house itself, that magical, dream-like place, more fairy castle than RAF base, whose secrets were known to only a few. Even now, nearly thirty years later, he feels a flicker of pride.

  On the other side of the river he can just make out rusting signs – Ministry of Defence property, strictly private, no entry. So they must still be using the place; although he wonders what on earth for, when the greatest threat these days is a bomb that could wipe out a whole country, even the whole world? However hard he peers through the darkening gloom, he can see no lights in the windows.

  Drawn by the sound of the waves crashing on the shore behind him, he turns and struggles across the shingle to the sea. How he has missed this sound, the rhythm of the pounding breakers followed by the shushing of the shingle with the withdrawing wave, repeating itself along the length of the beach: boboom… shhh… shhh… boboom. No wonder composers like to write about the sea, he thinks to himself, for the rhythms are already prescribed. ‘Behold, the sea itself,’ he hums, almost happy despite the wet, the cold and his overarching despair, ‘Dusky and undulating… and on its limitless heaving breast, the ships.’

  At the water’s edge he stops, shielding his eyes against the salt spray and scanning the one-hundred-and-eighty-degree expanse for any sign of ships: a tanker, a fishing boat or even a hardy pleasure sailor; but there is not a single vessel in sight. The seascape is empty, melting without pause for any horizon into the grey-blue sky.

  He shivers again – he is getting colder and wetter by the moment. There will be no warm welcome at the Manor tonight.

  That morning, back at home in London – so long ago, it seems almost like another life – Vikram Mackensie walked into the newsagents and exchanged a few words with Bilal, the shop-owner, just as he’d done for the past twenty years. He likes Bilal. Although neither of them would ever mention it, both considering themselves to be through and through Englishmen, they have a common heritage. The old country has since been bloodily sliced in two, but they still recognise small signs of a shared culture. Bilal has even been seen to offer a brief and self-conscious namaste from time to ti
me.

  Bilal is increasingly concerned for Mr Mac, as he refers to him with due deference, since he became a widower. He’d always been so well turned out, clean shaven and unbowed, with that enviably full head of white hair neatly barbered. But lately he seems to have stopped bothering about his appearance. In the past he could be relied upon to wear a jacket and tie even in the hottest of weather; but for the second day in a row, Bilal notices now, the old boy has pulled on trousers and an ancient parka over his pyjamas and thrown his feet into a pair of broken-down moccasins for the short journey down the street.

  Of course, it is well known that Mr Mac is a brilliant scientist who did some very important and highly secret work during the war. He’d always had that slightly distracted air of someone whose mind is on higher matters; but these days he is becoming plain eccentric, Bilal opines to his wife. That hair hasn’t seen a brush or a barber in weeks, and it’s starting to look a bit Albert Einstein.

  But Bilal understands that, for Mr Mac as for many other older customers, his brief conversations with them about nothing in particular might be the only human interaction they have in a day.

  ‘Morning, Mr Mac. What can I do you for? December twenty-first already, would you believe? Shortest day. Next thing we know, it’ll be 1974, and spring again.’ Even though his shop is festooned with festive glitter, he is careful to avoid mention of Christmas. Who knows who celebrates what, these days?

  ‘The usual, please.’ Vic cannot imagine springtime – it is enough for him to get through each day without despair – but he is always grateful for the shopkeeper’s determined cheerfulness. ‘Let’s hope 1974 is a better year. No more three-day weeks. No more talk of atomic bombs. And peace in the Middle East. Could you arrange that, please?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, sir,’ the newsagent says, handing over the change with a genial grin.

  When he gets back to his flat Vic puts three slices of bread under the grill (the toaster died months ago) and makes a large pot of tea in the old brown Betty. As usual, the toast burns, and as usual he scrapes it vigorously into the sink, scattering charred specks all over the worktop. He carries his plate to the table along with the jar of Tiptree Old Tawny and the butter still in its crumpled, crumb-spotted paper. Even now, all these decades later, it makes him smile to recall how his father, in the heat of India, would arrange special deliveries of ‘proper’ English marmalade and insist on twirls of butter served in a dish swimming in a pool of melting ice chips.

  He pours tea into the mug given to him when he retired from the lab – Physicists do it with a Big Bang! – and vigorously stirs in two teaspoons of sugar, an occasional treat that has become a habit since he’s lived alone. From the fridge he takes out the milk bottle, sniffs the top: a bit whiffy, but it will do for today.

  He takes up his newspaper. His usual routine is, while still standing, to scan quickly through each page to see if anything in particular catches his eye, and then fold the broadsheet into a more manageable size before taking his seat for a long, careful read. He can usually make this last at least a couple of hours, saving the crossword for later, with his afternoon tea. But this time, at the scanning stage, his eye is caught by a headline. He sits down with a thump, his heart hammering in his chest, and reads to the end, disbelieving. Then he sets down the newspaper with a small ‘oh’ noise, sitting very still.

  The world seems to have shifted on its axis. The boss, gone? How is this possible? The man was a force of nature, a bundle of brilliance, of energy and drive and cheerfulness. Dead? And three weeks ago, nearly. Vic’s brain struggles to make sense of this new perspective.

  He curses himself. How can he have missed the death notice? And now he’s gone and missed the ruddy funeral, too. What would the other fellows have thought of him, not even bothering to turn up? Not that he’s been in touch with any of them for years now, not since he retired from the company. He wonders with mild curiosity how many of the original team are still alive.

  Those were vivid, brilliant years, the best years of his life, but it’s all so long ago now. The wake will surely have been a noisy, boozy affair; they’ll have made certain the boss got a good send-off. A wave of loss engulfs him. How he wishes he’d been there, sharing stories of the old days and toasting their achievements with fine Scotch whisky. Johnnie would have loved it.

  The sound of the doorbell shocks him from his reverie: a neighbour asking whether a parcel has been delivered to Vic’s by mistake. Sadly not, Vic replies distractedly. Closing the door, he is suddenly struck with a clear sense of purpose.

  It takes him half an hour to locate the car keys, but he eventually finds them under a pile of New Scientist magazines on top of the piano. He regards the neglected instrument sadly for a moment: somehow he hasn’t been able to bring himself to open it since Ella died. Even the sound of piano music on the radio brings back too many sad memories. Finally, he grabs his best camel coat and dark blue cashmere scarf – her gift on their last Christmas together – picks up the newspaper and lets himself out of the flat.

  The car, an ancient Volvo, is kept in a garage down the road and hasn’t been out for several weeks. ‘Hope the battery’s still good,’ he mutters, his hand shaking as he tries to insert the key into the ignition. ‘Come on, old girl.’ After a few turns the engine groans and clatters into life, filling the garage with blue smoke.

  ‘Off we go, then, my friend,’ he says out loud, smiling to himself as he reverses out into the road without looking. ‘A sentimental journey indeed, Johnnie. What larks.’

  He’s forgotten how far it is from London to the Suffolk coast. Lately, the furthest he has driven is to visit Ella’s cousin, who lives just outside the North Circular. In fact, he muses to himself while sitting in a traffic jam at Chelmsford, even though he has made this journey dozens of times he can barely remember ever doing it by road.

  He recalls trains packed with servicemen and women, steamy, smoke-filled carriages, the smell of wet wool and unwashed feet, the air filled with nervous laughter and anxious glances, couples necking in the corridors and lavs, frantically quarrying precious final moments. When you arrived at Felixstowe station, the ancient coach – hastily hand-painted in air force blue – would grind its way down to the ferry where Charlie Brinkley waited, cap pulled down over his left eye and tiller held firmly in the hook that replaced his missing right hand.

  That initial view of the Manor, high on its sandy cliffs above the junction of river and sea, was enough to lift the spirits of any weary traveller. What a view: those elegant red turrets, the stone-mullioned windows and balconies overlooking tiers of walled terraces leading down to the enormous green spread of the cricket pitch, said to be even larger than that at Lord’s.

  As the traffic trickles its way through Colchester, and after what seems like several further hours in another traffic jam trying to circumvent the centre of Ipswich, he begins to fear he might not reach Felixstowe in time to catch the last ferry.

  It is punishingly cold here on the pebbles. He dithers, unable to make a decision. Why on earth has he come all this way? Since Ella died, he has found himself increasingly wondering what on earth there is to go on living for. More than once he has thought of ending it. He feels his feet drawn to the water’s edge, as though the sea is some kind of magnet. Perhaps this is the solution? A few further steps and the oncoming waves would soon overpower him, sucking him swiftly beneath the surface.

  But he is too much of a coward. Years at a minor public school have left him with a fierce dislike of cold water. Besides, the scientist in him knows that however determined the mind, the body does not submit to death without a struggle. There would be splashing and flailing that might even attract the notice of a dog walker, and he cannot bear the thought of anyone else feeling obliged to risk their life trying to rescue him.

  The rhythmic chant of the waves seems to mock him, and an especially fierce gust of wind whistles up his sleeves.

  No, this simply will not do, Vikram my boy
, he hears Johnnie muttering. Pull yourself together. With new resolve, he turns away from the sea and begins the trudge back to the car. One thing is for certain: he cannot stay here on this wretched beach.

  Safely back in the familiar embrace of the old Volvo, relieved and suddenly warm now that he is out of the wind, he wonders what to do next. He could make the forty-mile drive round via Woodbridge and the long winding lanes out along the peninsula, hoping that whoever might still be in residence at the Manor would take pity on him and offer a bed for the night. Or he could find somewhere to stay in Felixstowe and take the ferry crossing tomorrow morning.

  Racking his memory, he dimly recalls a bed and breakfast place on the outskirts, near the golf course. He’s never stayed there, of course, but from the outside it always looked rather welcoming. His spirits lift at the thought of a fish-and-chip supper – he can almost smell the fat and the soggy batter – and a comfortable bed.

  Rather to his surprise, the guest house is still there, though looking a little down at heel. Times must be hard for the tourist trade in a country bedevilled by labour strikes and power cuts. As he enters, a teenager at reception regards him suspiciously then hitches herself off a stool, hoicks down her miniskirt and smooths her Twiggy bob. ‘Yes, we got rooms,’ she says, giving him a long glance. He imagines her thoughts: Don’t get many darkies around these parts, wonder where he’s from? Probably not a nutter, just a bit eccentric. Speaks posh but looks like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. A bramble hedge at that. Needs a good haircut. Nice smile, though.