Free Stalin's Gold by Mark Ellis Page A

about her charming – her sparkling, oval, green eyes, her high cheekbones, her neat nose and her small, determined mouth.
“Well, yes, of course. But I can move the garden table and chairs into the shade, dear.”
“Oh, alright.”
Thirty minutes later the three of them were sitting with their empty teacups in Fred Brown’s neat little garden, relaxing under the cloudless Tooting sky. The cottage was at the end of a long street of terraced two-up two-downs. It was the only detached property, a fact in which Fred took much pride, and it backed on to some old fields where allotments were kept. A small gate at the end of the garden led into these fields and to his own nearby allotment. As they relaxed in the garden, they could hear birds singing and chickens clucking. They could as well have been in deepest Kent or Sussex countryside as a fifty-minute bus ride from Big Ben. Sam and his father-in-law were stretched out in deckchairs in the small area of garden that still had some sun. Iris sat at the table in the cool shadow of the house with her feet on a chair. They had tried to avoid talking about the war as such discussions usually sent Fred Brown’s blood pressure haywire. They had heard that Fred had not slept much in the past week with all the night activity, but, as he reminded them, he could get by with a minimum of sleep as he’d learned in the army. Discussion had moved on to the naming of his grandson.
“It might well be a girl, Dad. Don’t count your chickens.”
“Poppycock, Iris. It’s going to be a boy. I know it. Aren’t I right, Sam? Now what do you think about Winston? No, I suppose you’re right. Everyone and their uncle will be calling their kids Winston, I suppose. Then again, if things don’t go so well perhaps we’ll have to call him Adolf, eh?”
Iris steered the conversation away from names to her father’s domestic arrangements. Before she had become pregnant she had come down every week from Battersea to see to her father’s cleaning and washing, but her father had insisted on her dropping this when he’d learned that a baby was on the way. He’d found someone down the street who was prepared to do for him for a modest fee. Mrs Hammond, a sprightly little widow whom Fred found pleasant company.
“She doesn’t have designs on you, Dad, does she?”
Fred spluttered the remains of his tea on his trousers. “Of course not. She’s just a nice little old lady, that’s all.”
A comfortable silence settled on them. A horse neighed somewhere in the fields. There was the sound of male laughter from one of the allotments. Sam noticed that both Fred and Iris’ heads were beginning to nod. A bee was buzzing around his outstretched legs and another flitted around between Fred and Iris. Sam looked at his watch. Half an hour and they ought to be getting back. He was on duty tomorrow and he wanted an early night. He closed his eyes. The bees carried on buzzing and Sam dozed off for a few seconds. The image of a baby came to mind. A baby with a cigar in its mouth. Winston Bridges. Hmm. Sam jerked awake. The drone of the bees had been superseded by a louder buzz and he looked up and blinked to see that the sky was filled with metal. What seemed like hundreds of planes jostled for space from one corner of the sky to the other. Sam focused his eyes and now saw a massive central core of larger aircraft, surrounded by crowds of smaller ones. The giant flotilla was heading north towards central London. This was on a different scale to the previous raids – it must be the big one – the long-awaited, major attack on the heart of the nation. The siren started to wail. A bit late in the day for that , Sam thought. He saw his wife and her father staring up with open mouths and looked back up to see a new formation of bombers blotting out the few available patches of clear sky.
“Come on, you two. Where’s the nearest shelter, Fred?”
Fred was still staring up in amazement. “Look. There are our