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Chamberlain uttered his next, dreadful words quite slowly. ". . . and that, consequently, this country is at war with Germany."
Ethel began to cry.
PART TWO
A SEASON OF BLOOD
CHAPTER SIX
1940 ( I )
Aberowen had changed. There were cars, trucks, and buses on the streets. When Lloyd had come here as a child in the 1920s to visit his grandparents, a parked car had been a rarity that would draw a crowd.
But the town was still dominated by the twin towers of the pithead, with their majestically revolving wheels. There was nothing else: no factories, no office blocks, no industry other than coal. Almost every man in town worked down the pit. There were a few dozen exceptions: some shopkeepers, numerous clergymen of all denominations, a town clerk, a doctor. Whenever the demand for coal slumped, as it had in the thirties, and men were laid off, there was nothing else for them to do. That was why the Labour Party's most passionate demand was help for the unemployed, so that such men would never again suffer the agony and humiliation of being unable to feed their families.
Lieutenant Lloyd Williams arrived by train from Cardiff on a Sunday in April 1940. Carrying a small suitcase, he walked up the hill to Ty Gwyn. He had spent eight months training new recruits--the same work he had done in Spain--and coaching the Welsh Rifles boxing team, but the army had at last realized he spoke fluent German, transferred him to intelligence duties, and sent him on a training course.
Training was all the army had done so far. No British forces had yet fought the enemy in an engagement of any significance. Germany and the USSR had overrun Poland and divided it between them, and the Allied guarantee of Polish independence had proved worthless.
British people called it the Phoney War, and they were impatient for the real thing. Lloyd had no sentimental illusions about warfare--he had heard the piteous voices of dying men begging for water on the battlefields of Spain--but even so he was eager to get started on the final showdown with Fascism.
The army was expecting to send more forces to France, assuming the Germans would invade. It had not happened, and they remained at the ready, but meanwhile they did a lot of training.
Lloyd's initiation into the mysteries of military intelligence was to take place in the stately home that had featured in his family's destiny for so long. The wealthy and noble owners of many such palaces had loaned them to the armed forces, perhaps for fear that otherwise they might be confiscated permanently.
The army had certainly made Ty Gwyn look different. There were a dozen olive-drab vehicles parked on the lawn, and their tires had chewed up the earl's lush turf. The gracious entrance courtyard, with its curved granite steps, had become a supply dump, and giant cans of baked beans and cooking lard stood in teetering stacks where, formerly, bejeweled women and men in tailcoats had stepped out of their carriages. Lloyd grinned: he liked the leveling effect of war.
Lloyd entered the house. He was greeted by a podgy officer in a creased and stained uniform. "Here for the intelligence course, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, sir. My name is Lloyd Williams."
"I'm Major Lowther."
Lloyd had heard of him. He was the Marquis of Lowther, known to his pals as Lowthie.
Lloyd looked around. The paintings on the walls had been shrouded with huge dust sheets. The ornate carved marble fireplaces had been boxed in with rough planking, leaving only a small space for a grate. The dark old furniture that his mother sometimes mentioned fondly had all disappeared, to be replaced by steel desks and cheap chairs. "My goodness, the place looks different," he said.
Lowther smiled. "You've been here before. Do you know the family?"
"I was up at Cambridge with Boy Fitzherbert. I met the viscountess there, too, although they weren't married then. But I suppose they've moved out for the duration."
"Not entirely. A few rooms have been reserved for their private use. But they don't bother us at all. So you came here as a guest?"
"Goodness, no, I don't know them well. No, I was shown around the place as a boy, one day when the family weren't in residence. My mother worked here at one time."
"Really? What, looking after the earl's library, or something?"
"No, as a housemaid." As soon as the words were out of Lloyd's mouth he knew he had made a mistake.
Lowther's face changed to an expression of distaste. "I see," he said. "How very interesting."
Lloyd knew he had instantly been pigeonholed as a proletarian upstart. He would now be treated as a second-class citizen throughout his time here. He should have kept quiet about his mother's past: he knew how snobbish the army was.
Lowthie said: "Show the lieutenant to his room, Sergeant. Attic floor."
Lloyd had been assigned a room in the old servants' quarters. He did not really mind. It was good enough for my mother, he thought.
As they walked up the back stairs, the sergeant told Lloyd he had no obligations until dinner in the mess. Lloyd asked whether any of the Fitzherberts happened to be in residence right now, but the man did not know.
