The Beaufort Sisters. Jon Cleary
through the mud and snow, running like a crazed person, whimpering like a child. She fell down twice before she realized she had tripped over the coat between her legs. She stood up, gasping for breath, giggling hysterically at herself, and struggled into the soot-blackened, mud-stained coat. Then, steadying herself, she walked out into the lane beside the yard and began to hurry away from the farm.
4
Davoren and McKea were stopped twice for speeding by military police, so that it was dark before they pulled into the warehouse on the Fulda road where the supply company was headquartered. The place seemed deserted and it took them a few minutes to find a soldier who could tell them where the adjutant was.
‘What an army!’ said Davoren. ‘How did you chaps manage to win the war?’
‘We won it, that’s the point. It’s over and everybody just wants to go home. Don’t you?’
But Davoren didn’t answer that, going instead to look for the adjutant, who told them, ‘Burns and Hiscox? Sure, they’re on weekend passes. They went off Friday night. I understand they do a little business on the side.’
‘You condone that?’ said Davoren.
The adjutant was fat, bald, homesick and not inclined to take any moralizing from an unknown Englishman ‘The war’s over, mac. Didn’t you know?’
Outside the office Davoren spat into the dirty snow in the cobbled yard. But he made no comment on the adjutant, just said. ‘Do we send your MP’s looking for Burns and Hiscox?’
‘We can’t go looking for them ourselves.’ McKea himself had a sour taste in his mouth at the sloppy moral attitude of the supply adjutant. ‘I understand how you feel, Davoren. But I think we have to do this through the proper channels.’
‘Bugger channels!’ Then Davoren threw up his arms and let out a loud sigh that was almost a moan of pain. ‘You’re right. But Jesus Christ – ’
‘Let’s go and see Jack Shasta. He may have heard something further.’
Colonel Shasta was in his office, even though it was Sunday night. ‘I’ve been trying to call you, but Hamburg said you’d left, didn’t know where you’d gone. It’s a helluva way to run an army, I must say.’
Davoren looked at McKea, grinned, looked back at Shasta. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’
‘We’ve been doing some sleuthing,’ said McKea, all at once liking Davoren. ‘We think we might have a lead. If you get in touch with the Provost-Marshal – ’
‘There’s no need,’ said Shasta. ‘Miss Beaufort is safe.’
‘Where?’ The heart did not leap, said practical-minded medical men: but Davoren felt something rise in his chest. ‘Where, for God’s sake?’
She was asleep in her billet, a house on the edge of the bombed ruins of the old city. The other women in the house did not try to stop Davoren as he walked in, asked where Miss Beaufort’s room was and went straight upstairs and into the room without knocking. He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her still asleep. She had been bathed and fed; her muddied and blackened clothes were in a heap in a corner of the room. But even in sleep her face showed the strain she had been under. She whimpered even as he looked at her and her body shook in a quick spasm. He bent and kissed her, feeling weak and empty himself, demolished by relief and love.
Nina opened her eyes, saw his face close to hers and started away in fear. Then she recognized him and her arms, the elbows decorated with chevrons of medical tape, came out from beneath the blankets and went round his neck.
‘Let’s go home.’
‘Just what I had in mind,’ he said, thinking of England.
5
They went home to Kansas City two months later.
Burns and Hiscox did not return from their weekend leave and were officially posted as deserters and never heard from again. Since kidnapping was not classified as a military crime, armies having indulged in it for centuries, they were not listed as suspected kidnappers. Military authorities, who had not even bothered to start a file on the Beaufort case, promptly forgot about it and went back to wondering what the hell one did with the peace when one had won a war. The black market continued to flourish, becoming a major industry, and the fed-up GI’s gave up demonstrating and went back to gold-bricking, fraternizing and all the other important functions of an occupation force.
And Lucas Beaufort returned to Kansas City with his half a million dollars still unpacked. But not before meeting Nina’s brand-new fiancé.
‘Are you sure of him?’ The army had given him a room which they kept for VIP’s. Generals, senators, even Bob Hope had stayed in the room, but Lucas was unimpressed. They had left no presence that made him feel he was in better company than himself. ‘He seems rather – cavalier, I think is the word.’
‘Wasn’t that what Grandfather was?’
‘Not towards your grandmother. Only towards his business partners.’ Lucas had no illusions about his father. ‘Major Davoren says he wants to take you back to England. But he admits he has no prospects there, none at all.’
‘I have my own money.’
‘I’m sure he knows that.’ Then, seeing the angry flush in her face, said, ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have, Daddy, and I’ll never forgive you for saying it. Not about the father of my baby.’
‘Dear God!’ Lucas normally had only a social relationship with the Almighty. He attended Sunday service at St Andrew’s Episcopal Church, where he sat in a reserved pew and wondered why God, if there was a God, answered the prayers of men like Roosevelt and Truman. ‘You mean you’re –?’
‘Pregnant. Enceinte. Schwanger. Or as the English put it, a bun in the oven.’ Then, because it hurt her to hurt him, she impulsively put her hand on his. ‘I’m sorry, Daddy – I shouldn’t have said that. But you made me so angry – you’re not being fair to Tim – ’
Lucas took her hand in his. His face had a handsome boniness to it, but only his family ever saw it softened into his true good looks. ‘Nina sweetheart, all I want is to be sure that you are happy. It’s just that I have to re-adjust – your mother and I always expected you to marry someone from back home – ’
‘That’s it, Daddy. You don’t really want me to have a mind of my own. You don’t want me to be anything but a Beaufort – ’
‘All right. I’ll talk to Major Davoren.’ Lucas didn’t know how to cope with a daughter who showed such independence. Already back in Kansas City Sally and even young Prue, only five years old, were showing they had minds of their own. Only Margaret, the one to whom he showed the least favouritism (and was ashamed for his prejudice), seemed content to do what her parents wanted. ‘But do you mind if I try to persuade him to come back to Kansas City? There’s no future in England, not under that fellow Attlee.’
Nina made the concession, now secretly wanting to go home to Missouri. She had had enough of Europe, or anyway post-war Europe. All her charity had been frozen out of her by her fear for her own safety. She was ashamed of her selfishness, but she was not the first to discover there are limits to one’s self-sacrifice; she was even more ashamed that her limits had been so shallow. The older hands had been right: she had just been a rich kid playing at being a do-gooder.
‘But don’t press him, Daddy. Let him make the decision.’
Tim Davoren had stayed in Frankfurt and later that day Lucas, who had been in the city only once before, took him on a guided tour. ‘This is where the Rothschilds began, did you know that?’
‘So I understand. Goethe, too.’