Betrayal by J. Robert Janes Read Free Book Online Page B

Bannerman wanted most, of course. Even a bit of beer and once … why once, a drop of whiskey—she’d mentioned the absence of a bottle to Hamish and he’d only touched his lips and said, ‘Sh!’
    Many of the men simply walked and talked among themselves or to her if they could, using up their precious tobacco rations and trying to follow the war without news beyond what they were allowed to be given or learned from the clandestine radio they’d built—they must have. But the guards could not be everywhere at all times, and they could be distracted, singled out, cut off, isolated. One of Erich’s men would keep a watch. Another would act as a discreet relay, a third watching yet another approach, their exit if needed.
    Together, she going first or following at a distance, they would manage to slip away. It hadn’t happened that much—five times, that’s all. Just five since here, since when it had first happened. Well, since Erich had left the house. Each time there had been the apprehension, the terror of discovery, the shame of such a thing, but the incredible sexual tension that fear and darkened corridors and empty rooms could bring, the presence of others close by. Had they listened? They must have.
    She’d been a fool, a terrible fool.
    When Fraser found her, Mary was sitting on the edge of the bed. The last of the sunlight caught her and he wondered why she’d come in here to read a letter from home, and he thought he knew the reason.
    â€˜Lass, what is it? What’s happened?’
    Awakening to his presence, she didn’t want him to see that there were no tears. ‘Frank’s been killed. Four months ago. April twenty-fifth, in Egypt, at a place called the Halfaya Pass.’
    Hamish had been told that she’d been engaged to Frank Thomas, an up-and-coming lawyer from Orillia, in Ontario, Canada, and that they’d broken it off for some reason, but he had never once asked that of her.
    He took the letter from her; Mary let him read what there was of it.
    If only you and Frank had married. If only you hadn’t thrown him over like that and run away .
    It had taken her more than three-and-a-half years to make that crossing to England, an interlude she’d have on her conscience for the rest of her life, but he’d say nothing of it now, though he’d waited long enough.
    1 Southern Armagh being predominantly Catholic.
    2 Believing it too difficult and troublesome, the British government did not introduce conscription in Northern Ireland.
    3 Official rationing began in Britain in July 1940 but was never as strict in Northern Ireland. In southern Ireland, it began later, in May 1942, and again it was not as harsh. Although private motoring was banned in the South on 30 April 1942, it didn’t completely cease until early in 1943. September 1941 thus gives a ‘window of opportunity,’ though this was fast closing. Early on in the war, tea—which had become scarce in southern Ireland and rationed in the North—led people to travel into the North to obtain it, while those there travelled south to buy sugar. There was also, of course, a vigourous, if clandestine, black market, the border being almost impossible to thoroughly police.
    4 This change from Hydra to Triton began in the late autumn of 1941 and was essentially complete by February 1942, but was only done with the Atlantic U-boats, though it resulted in huge increases in convoy losses there. Elsewhere, Hydra continued to be used by surface naval vessels and Arctic U-boats and was read by the British, who eventually mastered Triton.
    5 Southern Ireland never had a blackout, but rather a dim-out later on in the war.
    6 Pilot-navigator error during this raid saw two bombs fall on Dublin, they thinking they were over Belfast where, in addition to the 700 in April, another 150 were killed.

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    Ballylurgen held its market day three times a week, ‘for want of