Page 45 of The Island Girls

Peggy hadn’t seen Darrell for a week and although she had been doing her best to explain, she felt sure that Darrell was growing more and more suspicious. Even though the mission that Fletcher – and the British Government – had charged her with was far from over, she was determined to try and spend more time with Darrell again, and reassure him of her affection,and she was hoping to see him tonight. She was looking around the faces in the pub, eager to see him, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

‘Looking for Darrell, are you, love?’ she heard an airman say in that now beloved Australian accent. ‘He’s just gone out, down the lane.’ He nodded in the direction of the pub’s side door. ‘Didn’t know you were coming, I expect. You might catch him if you run,’ he added touching his cap and heading back to his friends at the bar.

Peggy went out into the evening air, which was beginning to grow dusky with pink in the sky to the west. There was no one in this lane at all and she wondered if she’d been led astray, but went out into the main street to see if Darrell was nearby. Just as she reached the corner, she saw him disappear into another lane opposite. She followed, quietly, checking over her shoulder in case she too was being watched. She got to the end of the dark lane that ran between the terraced houses where Darrell had disappeared and looked out to her right, towards the quay, but he wasn’t that way.

Just as she was deciding to give up and go back, a hand was clamped over her mouth and an arm wrapped around her waist and she was pulled quickly backwards into the lane and held tight against the body of man. Her instinct was to scream but the shock had paralysed her, and her mouth was tightly clamped anyway. She shut her eyes and concentrated on taking deep breaths to calm herself.Stupid, stupid girl, she thought,running about in and out of dark lanes alone in the evening. What did you expect?And then he whispered her name.

‘Shush, Peggy love, stay calm, it’s me,’ cooed Darrell as he spun her around to face him. Peggy began to cry then, with relief, but he put his fingers to her lips and squeezed her tight.

‘You must stay quiet, Peggy. Shush,’ and he held his hand up to indicate she must stay exactly where she stood while hemoved towards the corner again. Peggy nodded, mutely, and she heard a new sound, a foreign sound. Darrell was peering around the end of the lane and Peggy could hear two voices, speaking in another language – German, she presumed, by the sound of it. They were arguing, and their whispered, spitting tone suggested words of hate and anger, though she didn’t understand a word.

One of the men began to cry and his tone changed to one of pleading, and then a pair of footsteps ran away. Darrell still stood frozen with his hand up to stop Peggy from moving, and then she heard the second man sniff, and seem to take a moment to calm himself, before he walked away fast, but not running. She recognised something in the uneven rhythm of his footsteps on the pavement.

Then, at last, Darrell came back to face her and breathed a great sigh. She questioned him with her eyebrows, and he nodded.

‘Come on, Peggy, it’s safe now. Let’s take a little walk. There are some things I need to explain,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry for frightening you back there, but I had to stop you. Who knows what might have happened to you if you’d walked into the middle of that argument.’ Darrell led her gently with a tender hand at the small of her back. Once out in the open, he checked to see that nobody had noticed them leaving the dark lane and offered her his arm.

‘Who were they, Darrell? I wish you’d let me see. And what was all that about?’ Peggy asked. She held her bag close to her, feeling for the weight of the pistol and knowing she would have used it if necessary.

‘Did you not recognise either of the voices, Peggy?’

She thought about it for a moment before replying. She knew exactly who one of them was, but was not about to tell Darrell she recognised the voice of the man she’d been getting to know very well just lately.

‘One of them had something familiar to it, but I don’t even know what language they were speaking. Were they German?’ she asked, feigning innocence.

‘That is the big question I’d like to know the answer to. They were speaking Dutch, but they said the wordDeutschseveral times, andDeutschis Dutch for German,’ Darrell said, and he waited.

Peggy couldn’t decide if she was thrilled to have Darrell’s help, or angry that she hadn’t realised he had been following Charlie too. Either way, she now wished the ground would swallow her whole. She had to think fast to keep her secret under wraps.

‘And I know exactly what you’ve been doing, Peggy, giving me the run-around with him, and I couldn’t have you getting about with someone that nobody knows anything about and not keep an eye on you, could I?’ Peggy was horrified to realise she’d been that obvious, and had to make a snap decision to put Darrell off the scent.

‘I don’t know what you mean, Darrell. Charlie is a lovely young man and we share a working relationship. Yes, I’ve spent a little time with him lately, and what’s that to you?’

She saw him smart at her words and pieces of her heart fell to her feet and smashed there on the pavement.

‘I see. Well, Peggy, I really thought we had something, but it seems you’re keeping all your options open.’ He sighed and took a few steps away, stooping to light a cigarette and then turning back to her sharply.

‘Whatever you’re up to, you should know this. Yesterday, when you were out all day, I spent a little time watching this other bloke, the one who was holding up our Charlie here. I think his name is Klaus – and he may well be German. He keeps a rough old dinghy on the shore at Hamworthy Beach, not far at all from the RAF base. I’ve seen him come and go several times.He seems to head off towards the mouth of the river. And your mate Charlie went that way once too, you know.’

Peggy was genuinely shocked.

‘Really? What would Charlie want up the River Frome? And what boat did he take?’ she asked.

‘None other than your prized BOAC launch,’ said Darrell with an arch look.

‘What? How? When? On his own?’ she demanded in rapid fire, standing up straight and turning to face Darrell straight on.

‘Oh yes, that was quite a while ago now, long before you started spending so much time with him. There’s something up that river that interests the pair of them. They’re not English, they’re hiding something, and I’m going to find out what it is.’

Darrell went on to explain what he’d seen yesterday while she and Charlie had been enjoying the most delightful day of picnicking, when she had been supposed to be spying.

He had followed the other man across the lifting bridge to Hamworthy and to his dinghy on the beach, where he’d left, as usual, and headed off up towards the mouth of the river.

Earlier today, on this Monday afternoon, Darrell had watched as Charlie was accosted by this same mystery man who, after an argument, seemed to have showed him some papers. The two had tussled there in the darkness of the lane but the stranger had run away, leaving Charlie looking for all the world like his life was over.

Peggy thought on her feet fast.

‘Darrell, this is ridiculous! Charlie is just a boatman about whom we all know very little. He’s a very pleasant man, and he doesn’t need you chasing him around, just because you’re jealous,’ she said, managing to sound more exasperated and less desperate than she really was.

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