Chesterfield Tides

By E. Michael Ferris

The body of this story traces the adventures of Terry Cooper before, during and after WWII. It starts with the private loss he felt as the war came crashing down on his north London neighborhood. It follows his personal growth both as a soldier and a young man rapidly exposed to the world outside the shell of his childhood life. He must tap into his training and street smarts to survive as an undercover agent hiding in Germany before D-Day, and the course of his mission is altered by a bazaar event he could never have imagined or planned for. His exposure to war time life in Germany shifts his narrow opinion of a people under threat.
After his near death experiences desperately trying to get to the safe side of the moving battle lines of 1944, he endures the twisted mind of a war bureaucrat with a uniform and commission. At last he returns to his beloved mother and the unexpected challenge and self discovery while recovering in the west coast of Ireland. Later in his life an unanticipated legacy discovery shocks him, and the words of a stranger from so many years before suddenly become understandable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490738673

E. Michael Ferris

Having spent a large portion of the 1960's and 70's in North London I grew up around adults who's experiences of WWII shaped they way they saw life. Living in a home that was built on the site of bombed neighborhood, I often imagined the countless dramas of wartime life and the lasting ripples of those years. This story brewed in me for several years before I was fortunate enough to have the time and opportunity to lay it down. Thank you for buying this book and I hope you enjoy where it will take you. EMF

Book preview

CHESTERFIELD TIDES

E. Michael Ferris

©

Copyright 2014, 2015 E. Michael Ferris.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3866-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3868-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-3867-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014910155

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

I dedicate this book to the woman who rescued me for the rest of my life, Sandra.

Special thanks too to Deirdre for her time, patience, and expertise.

To Neal, Stand still and keep your eye on the ball. Thank you.

Chapter 1

1984

W ith a towel around his waist, Terry Cooper stood slightly leaning forward into his steamed mirror trying to get one last shave from a less-than-sharp disposable razor; he cursed as yet again he cut his chin. On the background radio, a female voice was getting through the headlines of the day.

The 13th space shuttle mission got off to a successful start with the launch of Challenger Shuttle from Cape Canaveral yesterday. This is the first flight to have two women included in the crew, Sally Ride and Kathryn Sullivan. Astronaut Kathryn Sullivan is scheduled to be the first US woman to complete a space walk. Peter Ueberroth, the baseball commissioner, is expected to meet later today with the umpire association and the club owners to seek a long-term solution to the existing labor problems. In local news, the Big Sur fire continues to burn unabated. CDF officials and the authorities from Monterey County have again warned people to avoid Highway 1 south of Garrapata State Park. Heavy smoke is expected to limit visibility on stretches of the highway and large numbers of vehicles related to the ongoing firefight will be blocking access to the road. More news at the top of the hour.

After dressing he took one last look at his chin to assure it had stopped bleeding before glancing at his watch; 7:33 a.m., he was running a little late. As he headed for the front door he lifted the bulging blue classification folder from his dining room table and wedged it under his left arm. He slid his shoulder bag over his head and grabbed his car keys before exiting his small Laine Street home in Monterey for his day at the lab. As he approached his car his mind was unexpectedly drawn back from the subject of his day ahead and his research. He could see what appeared to be a thin layer of dust had settled on top of his car. Puzzled by the sight, he slowly ran his finger across the roof and began to feel it between his thumb and index finger. The texture and color told him it was ash. Only then did he realize the ash was still slowly drifting down like flakes of snow from a gentle, windless flurry. It dawned on him that the Big Sur fire just twenty minutes up the road must be the source of this airborne ash. He climbed into his car and put his belongings on the passenger seat then glanced once again at the ash on his fingers. Without warning, his mind began to fill as long-forgotten memories tumbled into his morning. Time had diluted the pain and healed the wounds from those war years, but with each landed memory the images and smells and sounds of those war years brought him back.

1941

At 3:00 a.m. on March 9, 1941, Terry Cooper awoke to the long monotone of an air-raid siren. He opened his eyes and thought how grateful he was that his dad had insisted that, on this night, the family sleep in the garden air-raid shelter. The thought of having to get out of a nice, warm bed and make his way down to the cold back garden bomb shelter didn’t appeal to him. The dim light from the paraffin lamp illuminated the dusty corrugated sides of the shelter, and the musky earth smell gave him a strange sense of security, as if Mother Earth was holding him and his family against her bosom. He lay motionless and began to go over mathematics questions in his mind, a habit that relaxed him. In the distance he heard the bombs whistling down and the muffled thuds as they exploded. In time the whistling sounded closer and the thuds grew louder. Then a streak of fear hit him as a shot of adrenaline raced through his system and tensed every muscle. He heard that ominous sound of a lowering whine from the tail fins of bombs that sounded close, then closer still. That telltale sound of high-pitched whining gave terrible notice of their imminent arrival. He thought of the bombs as they were dropped by the Luftwaffe, plunging thousands of feet toward their random destinations. Now it was louder than he had ever heard. The bombs were going to hit very close. He formed a ball in his blankets and squeezed his eyes closed. The concussion shuddered the deep shelter as multiple explosions boomed and boomed. He heard his mother scream, and he felt his father’s arm around him.

Oh God! his father shouted, his usual stoic tone giving way to a voice of submission and fear.

Then silence, nothing. Terry had trouble getting his breath. His heart pounded, his ears rang, and the shock of the explosions left his head numb. A chorus of dogs began to bark. He knew the bombs had landed closely, possibly on the neighboring property. In the distance he heard more whining from tail fins of more bombs, followed by the thudding booms from impacts, but this time at a safe distance. The three helpless people huddled together in a hole in the ground began to physically and emotionally uncoil.

We’re OK, we’re OK, we’re OK, came the comforting voice of his father.

Terry had grown up on Chesterfield Road in the North London community of Enfield Lock. The road had forty-eight working-class homes, a school, and a church. At the end of the Chesterfield Road stretched the one-mile commercial thoroughfare of Ordnance Road. It lay like a tree trunk with scores of residential branches. At one end of Ordnance Road sat the legendary Royal Small Arms Factory on the banks of the River Lee, the birthplace of the Lee Enfield .303 rifle. On the other end of Ordnance Road stood a collection of shops that served the local population: greengrocer, butcher, baker, confectionery, newsagent, hardware, delicatessen, fishmonger, tobacconist, and public houses. Halfway between the Small Arms Factory and the shopping area sat Ordnance Road train station, just two hundred yards from Chesterfield Road. Enfield Lock was a village within a town within a city.

Three hours later on that unusually icy morning, Terry stood with the gathering crowd at the north end of Chesterfield Road. The breath of the gathered people drifted off like steam from a locomotive engine. Beyond them lay the smoldering rubble of two homes that had been destroyed by the overnight air raid.

The cold morning air was thick with smoke, and ash slowly fell from the grey sky. The air raid the night before had destroyed the church and part of Chesterfield Road School. House numbers 5 and 7 were pulverized. In their effort to target the Royal Small Arms Factory at the end of Ordnance Road, the Luftwaffe had missed by half a mile, and the Phillips family in number 7 had paid the price. Terry knew the family well. He had a close friendship with Steven Phillips and a special adolescent infatuation with Steven’s older sister, Barbara. Terry watched to discover if Steven and Barbara were alive.

The scenes of men in uniform were not unusual. There were often soldiers and army vehicles crawling down Ordnance Road on their way to the arms factory. Frequently wardens of the ARP patrolled on bicycles to tell people to turn off all night lights to prevent giving the enemy night bombers a target. Now the street was crawling with people in uniform. As Terry stood at the barrier about fifty feet from the bomb site, ARP wardens were doing their best to keep the neighbors from crossing the line and invading the rescue area.

Now, now, let’s be having you. Nothing to see here, please, keep back now, keep back now, and let the firemen and soldiers do their job, one of the wardens shouted.

Was anybody killed? quietly asked Mrs. North of number 21.

We won’t know for a little while yet, responded the warden. Please keep back, nothing to see here.

Terry anxiously moved his head left, then right, a little higher, tiptoes, bending his knees, all to find an angle that allowed him to see any sign from the rescuers that would give him some clue about the well-being of his close friend and the girl he had fallen in love with. Suddenly his body became motionless, his eyes unblinkingly focused on an ambulance man through the smoke. He watched him take a step away from the smoldering pile, gripping the wooden handles of a stretcher. As if following the direction of some invisible conductor to fall silent, there was an audible adjustment to the sound coming from the crowd. As the ambulance man inched away from the visual obstruction, Terry could see a blanket thrown over a body on the stretcher. His heart sank; he knew immediately it was Steven. Then further horror as another blanket-covered stretcher moved toward the somber crowd, but this time the slim, gentle fingers and creamy soft white skin of the back of a hand hanging beneath the blanket told him it was Barbara. An indescribable pain shot through his heart. He wondered why the ground had come up and hit him. He felt his mother’s arm around his shoulder and her lips against his forehead. Then blackness. Reality slowly came to him as the smell of steaming tea reached his nostrils. He was completely unaware that time had lapsed. He focused on the hand holding a chipped enamel mug just inches from his face. The tea in it sloshed, and steam wafted upward. He noticed small flakes of ash in the hot drink.

Drink up, sweetie, came the kind and familiar voice of his neighbor, Renee Clark.

The mother of Steven and Barbara Phillips had died of TB in March 1936. Steven and his younger brother were raised mostly by their older sister Barbara. Steven’s father, a vague presence, worked in a textile mill on the other side of London. He was gone before Steven woke and usually not home before Steven and his brother were tucked into bed by their loving sister, sometimes not coming home at all. Terry Cooper was a year older than Steven. His early infatuation with Barbara had grown to something much deeper in the Easter of 1937. On that fateful Sunday, the teenage boy’s conjured images of the nude female figure were replaced by the real thing. She hadn’t closed her bedroom door properly. A movement from the hallway caught his eye: a thin gap between the door and the frame, and a shimmering of bare skin provided a window to his new awakening. He stopped in his tracks. Should he look? Should he keep going? He knew it was wrong and he told himself to stop, but a thousand adolescent forces were at play. He couldn’t move himself away. The scene was a first for him and it took control. Barbara noticed Terry as he walked out of Steven’s room. She could sense his presence at the door. The idea that the power of her body could wield and control the teenager pleased her immensely. At nineteen years old, her own sexual awareness was tumbling inside her, ready to burst. She didn’t hide or move from her exposed location in the room. On the contrary, she moved closer to the door and slowly angled her body, exposing more. He couldn’t move a muscle; his mouth opened slightly. Expecting to be condemned, Terry was shocked as much by her acceptance of the situation as he was of the actual view of her purely naked figure. Her eyes gave away the amusement of the woman inside her. Their eyes met for a moment, a litany of communication passed between them without words. After what seemed like minutes he whispered Sorry, and turned away.

From that day his opinion of her altered from a friend’s sister to the main person in the sanctuary of his most private thoughts. He wanted to say so much to her. And he so wanted her in a way he couldn’t even describe to himself. His fear of being chastised by her if she knew of his growing feelings prevented his move to elevate the relationship. She noticed the change in him from that memorable Easter afternoon and knew their relationship had changed forever in that private exchange. He looked for half a second longer, he stood a little closer, he listened to her when she spoke, and she secretly noticed him smelling her scarf in the hallway one day. Her response to his attention was unconscious and involuntary. The dance of love had begun, an arm brushing an arm, a hand on a shoulder when he sat at their table. The seed of a growing desire began to take hold somewhere deep within her. Over time she noticed his physical frame changing, his voice betrayed an emerging manhood, and there was a certain attractive leisure in his movements. What had started as a playful fledgling tease had matured in her heart and mind.

Two years after that Easter, Steven stood at the base of the stairs. Barbara, I’m going to M and L shop, and then I’m going over to Albany to play football. When Terry comes, tell him where I am.

All right, Steven, responded Barbara from the top landing. Dinner’s at one o’clock. Don’t be late, and take your brother with you.

He’s too small to play football with us, pleaded Steven.

He’s your brother. Take him and look after him, said Barbara as she descended the stairs.

All right, agreed Steven reluctantly.

When’s Terry coming by? I might be shopping.

After he helps his dad, responded Steve. He said fifteen, twenty minutes.

All right, I’ll be here.

Barbara watched as the two boys left, slamming the front door behind them. She sat on the bottom step, and her mind began to swirl with thoughts of Terry. This would be one of the very rare times she and Terry would be alone in her house. Was this to be their time? A nervous excitement began to build in her. She went up to her room and removed her brown work dress and underwear. Then she stood at the mirror and carefully looked at her body. She reached into her wardrobe and slid her white cotton dress on. The morning sunlight through her bedroom window confirmed what she already knew; her body was visible through the flimsy material. The thoughts of Terry aroused her. She was unsure of the outcome of the encounter. Her fear of the forbidden was smothered by desire to do something, anything, to release the growing need inside her. She had a basket of laundry to hang in the back garden and knew that if Terry knocked on the front door and got no response, he would always walk down the side alley to the back garden and tap on the kitchen window. Stepping out to the garden she hung some of the sheets, then went into the living room and watched for Terry.

As he approached, Barbara walked to the back garden with the laundry basket. She undid the top buttons of her dress, exposing her considerable cleavage. Less than a minute later, through the gaps in the hung sheet, she could see Terry standing no more than fifteen feet away from her. Unaware of her presence he tapped on the window. She moved into a slightly exposed position, turning her body slightly away from him, humming a tune just loud enough to get his attention. Each time she bent to the basket a breast became more exposed. He stood silent and motionless, believing her to be unaware of his presence. The situation aroused her immensely. What had started for her as an amusing tease was becoming an insurmountable urge to really experience all those fantasies. Her skin had become her dominant organ; she felt her pulse race and her stomach tighten with licentious ache, and she knew he was hypnotized by her. Glancing over to the window in the neighbor’s shed, she could clearly see the reflection of his motionless figure transfixed by her exposure. She moved slowly and played with the situation. But the tables were beginning to turn. Her own need and desire began to outweigh the pleasure of the tease, and she didn’t know how to exit from her own pantomime. Every glance in the shed window confirmed his presence. When at last she couldn’t stand it any longer she looked up. He was gone. First the surprise and then a curtain of fear come over her. Had she gone too far? Might he go to his mother and father to tell them about her? Were all those signals of attention just cruel tricks her mind had imagined to fill in the mosaic of youthful lust?

Terry tapped once on the kitchen window. He looked around after hearing the quiet humming from Barbara. He was nervous enough seeing her under normal circumstances, but the sight of her in that flimsy white dress and bare feet was almost too much. She reached down to the laundry basket and seemed to hold her position for two or three seconds. His mouth became dry at the sight of her partially exposed breast. When she stood, the outline of her body quickened his breath. The hypnotic power of her figure was made all the more commanding by its disappearance behind the billowing sheets. He held himself perfectly still in anticipation of the next fleeting view of her shape, and watched as her bare feet pushed to tiptoe and slide through the grass. Every aspect of her body was now spellbinding for him. He wanted to say something; he wanted to walk over and kiss her and let nature take its course, but he couldn’t get any words out and he couldn’t move his feet. All he could do was stand and stare. He mouthed, Hello, Barbara. But nothing audible broke the silence. After a minute his mind began the moral questions. If you said something now, she would surely ask how long you’d been standing there. And she’d think there was something wrong with you, or worse, she would think you’re a little pervert staring at her. He felt the flush of heat across his face as he imagined the embarrassment of being caught by her. Now was the time to flee and hope she hadn’t noticed he was ever there.

Weeks turned to months and Terry’s involvement with Barbara became less and less. But each chance encounter or conversation with her was played over and over in his mind with the imagined outcome as a moment of passion, an open encounter of unchecked lovemaking. His sense of honor and fear of embarrassment had won the battle in his mind not to breach the expected social graces and confront her with his feelings.

Chapter 2

M ay 3, 1942, the day after his twenty-third birthday, Terry Cooper joined the army and was sent to complete his basic training in Crowborough, Sussex. The numerous stories of Dunkirk and the brutality of the Nazis fed a national appetite of distrust and hatred for all things German. Now surrounded by the machine of war, Terry heard the stories firsthand from those who were there. With each relayed account, his convictions about Germans in general and the German military in particular were reinforced. People in England were bombarded with images and tales of the horrors of the enemy. The wartime propaganda machine was in full swing, an easy job given the show of death and destruction from the sky by the Luftwaffe raids over the skies of England. The behavior of some of the German military units played into the hands of the British government: summary executions, tortures, rapes and murders of women and children. It all served to stiffen the spines of the British public.

On the few days off he had per month, he usually made his way to the local village of Crowborough, a small gathering of homes and shops on the edge of Ashdown Forest. Crowborough had been transformed by the presence of so many uniformed men, but the old identity of the village was jealously guarded by the local people. Like many small communities around the world, one or two visitors are welcomed with open arms, but a forced influx of outsiders is treated with suspicion. Crowborough was no different; it was a village where people could only call themselves locals if they had a generational stake in the community.

On one visit to Crowborough, Terry made friends with an older French couple who were fortunate enough to have fled the Germans. It surprised him how easy it was for him to find comfort in the company of these foreigners. He’d been locked in the mono-ethnic culture of Enfield Lock all his life. With only one or two exceptions, anyone or anything foreign in Enfield Lock was labeled odd or suspicious. This mistrustful dogmatism had become part of the fabric of the people in this working-class North London neighborhood. Many families in Enfield had roots that reached back to the Fire of London, the Great Plague, and other momentous events that nudged them north from the center of London. Each time he came across his new French friends he felt more comfortable probing deeper into their world and their recent harrowing experiences. They walked the same trek in Ashdown Forest, and he went out of his way to find them. They were always very polite to him and happy to see him. One day he sat on a fallen tree trunk with the old Frenchman and listened carefully to a story about executions by the Gestapo of innocent people in the town square after three German soldiers were killed by the French Resistance. One of those executed was the old man’s brother. His voice broke as he relayed the story, and Terry could hear the hatred in the old man’s voice.

Terry had a desire to go and fight for justice. The images of his friend Steven and the snatched opportunity of love with Barbara had left a lasting pain on his soul. This all played like an orchestrated symphony in his mind, over and over again. His time to look the enemy in the eye would come.

Chapter 3

T erry’s training continued, and he excelled at every level, but he grew bored at the monotonous nature of repetitive defense drills. He’d begun to sharpen his mental mathematic exercises to help him get through the long days. After six months the training changed, and Terry found the new challenges to his liking. But in time those challenges too were overcome, and his idle mind began to drive him to press the limits of allowable conduct. He knew that this would eventually lead to