“Good show for the RAF!” David said when the broadcast was over. “Those Mosquito pilots could drop a bomb down a chimney in heavy fog. Smashing.” I agreed. I had more reasons than most to applaud the destruction of a Gestapo prison.
“Peter, what are you drawing maps for in that room of yours?” Edgar asked. “Aren’t there maps enough? Michelin and all the others?”
“Yes, I wondered that myself,” David said. “I know there are high-quality aerial photographs as well as maps already in existence. And why does the navy need maps anyway? Don’t they have charts and navigators and that sort of thing?”
“I’m not supposed to talk about it,” Peter said. “And you know the military. Nothing much that they want done makes sense. I was happy when I got an assignment that had anything to do with art, so I didn’t ask questions.”
“Who else is at Greenway House?” Kaz asked. “If you can tell us.”
“We have a small cartographic section, and then there’s a Coast Guard unit, the Tenth Flotilla. They pilot LCIs for the navy. That’s Landing Craft Infantry,” Peter said.
“We’re familiar with the terms,” David said. “It’s hard to live in southwest England these days and not be. Do you expect to serve at sea?”
“I doubt it,” he said. “I’d like to, but they keep me pretty busy on dry land.”
“Helen and I shall adjourn, gentlemen,” Great Aunt Sylvia said as she hoisted herself up and fixed her eyes on Wiley. “I am glad you accepted our invitation to stay, Peter. We will leave you men to talk of war and drink brandy.”
Edgar took this statement literally and dashed to the side table, returning with a cut-crystal decanter and glasses. He poured, and then settled down into his leather chair with a satisfied oomph.
“What is it you fellows do at SHAEF?” Peter asked us as we settled in the comfortable chairs and sipped the fine brandy. Kaz explained what the Office of Special Investigations was all about, and I filled him in on what had brought us here, the body, the tides, the dead gangsters. Not one of our most impressive cases, but I made it sound like Eliot Ness had nothing on us. David offered a toast to Ike, glasses clinked, and the decanter was brought back into action.
We talked about the war news. David was excited about the pinpoint raid on the Gestapo headquarters, so we toasted the RAF. Then Peter asked about his burns, with typical American bluntness, and David told his story. We toasted the aim of the German pilot who had missed blowing his head off by inches, then we toasted the ground crew that pulled David from the Spitfire, followed by his doctors at the hospital.
We weren’t drunk, but the excessive camaraderie of drinking men who are downing someone else’s excellent booze caused Kaz to blurt out-and he’s not given to blurting-“Edgar, what was that scene at dinner all about?”
“Ancient history,” Edgar said, shaking his head.
“Come on, Edgar,” David said. “We ought to stick together, the two of us marrying Sutcliffe girls. Not always the easiest thing, eh?”
“Sir Rupert does not approve of me,” Edgar said after a long silence. “He thinks I have squandered a great opportunity. He is very fond of opportunity.”
“How so?” Kaz asked.
“He enjoyed a number of business transactions when he was with the civil service in India. Very favorable to his bank accounts, at very little risk,” Edgar said.
“No, I mean what does he think you squandered?” Kaz said.
“Fill that up, will you, David?” Edgar said, handing his glass over. “It’s a long story, and thirsty work telling it.” Once he had his hands cupped around the glass of amber, he began.
He and Meredith met in London when Edgar was studying at university and working as a tutor at a private school. Meredith was living with friends and looking for work, without success. She had been brought up in India, where her mother, to whom she’d been very close, had died. She and her father had never gotten along, and at the time of her mother’s death, something happened that caused the rift to widen. Rupert Sutcliffe-he had not been knighted yet-worked for the civil service and had spent nearly two decades administering the Raj for King and Country.
Rupert had contracted dengue fever, and he became so ill he was sent home to recover. By the time he and his daughters were back in England, Meredith had vowed never to speak to him again; aged eighteen, she struck out on her own. She had money, at least for a while. She never said where it came from, but she had a good time working her way through it.
Although Edgar’s dislike for the man was evident, he admitted Rupert was highly intelligent and skilled at dealing with politics in India. He was often called upon to help formulate ways to keep India in the fight while at the same time denying increasing calls for independence. A tightrope act, to be sure. More than two and a half million Indians were engaged in combat against the Axis powers across the globe, and it was vital for Great Britain that they continue to fight, and die, for the British Empire.
“Edgar, get to the point,” David said. “I enjoy a good dose of history as much as the next chap, but when do you enter the scene?” Edgar took a slug of brandy and continued.
Edgar and Meredith married. They had two children, and he secured a teaching position. Their children were sent to boarding school, which along with other expenses made family life difficult for a man in his position to afford. Meredith began to compare him unfavorably with her father, whom she detested. This didn’t sit well with Edgar, and they argued over money-over anything, but it mattered little because Meredith invariably won.
The war came, and Edgar tried to enlist, but was turned down because of his flat feet and asthma. He applied for a government position, but with so many academics wanting to do their bit, he received no reply other than an instruction to wait. Meredith did not like waiting, and did not like the life of a middle-class-at best-wife of a second-rate professor, to use her words.
So she went to her father. Figuring he could pull strings for Edgar, she humbled herself and pleaded with him to intervene. She cleverly brought pictures of the grandchildren he’d never seen-but not the children themselves, in case Rupert did not comply fully.
He complied. Edgar received his appointment to the Indian Civil Service, and they departed for the subcontinent within weeks. Before leaving, Edgar and Meredith visited Ashcroft with the children-her payment for services rendered. Rupert gave Edgar advice on how to invest in the export of jute, cotton, coffee, tea, and sugarcane. The clear expectation was that an Englishman in India should do well for himself and his family. Very well.
“That’s how I ended up in India,” Edgar said, draining his glass.
“But why did you come back here?” Peter said. “What happened in India?”
“Three million people died, that’s what happened in India,” Edgar said. He continued with his story, this time without asking for a refill.
They arrived in New Delhi in 1940, and at first all went well. Edgar had a decent position in the economic office and was involved in the collection of land taxes, which was the primary source of revenue for the administration of the Raj, as the English called their Indian empire. Then, in December 1941, the war began between Great Britain and Japan. Supplies from Southeast Asia were reduced as the Japanese advanced in the Pacific. Stocks of rice began to be hoarded as prices rose and speculators held on to tons of the stuff, waiting for prices to increase even further. Bengal, an eastern province, was hardest hit. When the Japanese took Burma in early 1942, all rice imports from Southeast Asia ceased, and food shortages were rife.