in a brown paper bag, Sophie made her way out and over to the museum. Ducking into the small doorway, a musty smell greeted her, the smell of aged documents and damp clothing. It was a little chilly inside, with whitewashed brick walls and tiny windows high up, but a warm electric fire pumped out just enough heat to keep the ice from the air.
An older woman with plump red cheeks rose to her feet with an expectant look when Sophie walked in.
‘Welcome to the museum. Feel free to take a booklet,’ she sang out, handing a pamphlet to Sophie. ‘It’ll help explain things to you, and if it’s been of any value, we do appreciate a donation.’ She pointed to a jar on the counter. ‘We also have books you can buy in the gift shop, at the end, about Cornwall and the war. Let me know if there’s anything I can help you with.’
Sophie nodded and, taking the booklet, started to move around the exhibition. So many pictures of the harbour through the years, including how it had looked during the war. Apparently, even though Cornwall was relatively far from France, the Cornish had taken quite an active part in the war. The Helford Estuary had been the base for a flotilla of fishing boats that had been used to transport agents and spies into France, which the sailors had managed by posing and mingling amongst the French fishing boats off the Brittany coast.
Also in the museum were a couple of old uniforms, a gas mask, and some stories that had been laminated onto the wall. As she read through all of them, nothing jumped out at her. The woman, obviously excited to have a customer and unable to stay behind her desk, found Sophie halfway around the exhibition.
‘Is there anything particular you’re looking for? Or are you just visiting?’
‘There is,’ said Sophie. ‘I’m interested to know about anything to do with my family home. Hamilton Manor. It was converted to a military hospital during World War Two. I wonder if you have any information about it.’
The woman paused to think. ‘No, I don’t think we have anything about that on the walls, but we do have clippings from the newspaper. I’m sure they would’ve mentioned something about it in there. Let me go and look for you.’ She bustled off and came back with a large sagging leather scrapbook.
Sophie thanked her and settled down at a table to look through it. The older woman seemed to feel an obligation to help explain everything in it as Sophie turned the pages. It documented the highlights of the war through the local paper, the Helford Herald. It showed stories about young men who had gone off to war and what their small town had done to prepare. Growing their own vegetables, collecting paper, rubber, metal and rags for the war effort and aluminium for the Spitfire Fund.
As Sophie turned to the third page, the woman said, ‘Ah, here is something you might be interested in,’ and pointed to a small piece on the right-hand side. ‘This talks about all the different things that the big houses did during the war.’
Sophie read quickly through it, and her family’s house was mentioned briefly as a military hospital but didn’t elaborate on anything. As she continued to flick through the scrapbook, the woman bustled off, saying she might have something else in a different book. But as Sophie turned to the next page, there was a huge piece about Vivienne from the front page of the newspaper, and her heart stopped. There was a photograph of her great-aunt, standing in her nurse’s uniform outside the manor with a row of other nurses. The headline read, ‘Local Nurse Turns Traitor.’
14
With her heart thumping, Sophie quickly started to read through the newspaper article. It was shocking and provocative, going into great detail about how Vivienne had executed her plan of taking a high-ranking Nazi POW out of the hospital, seemingly intending to smuggle him back to Germany. It was very sparse on what had happened to Vivienne thereafter, but it talked about a local fisherman who had transported her over in a boat and how he’d been held at gunpoint by the German officer.
Sophie was shocked, but there was nothing else in the paper. She continued to look through the folders. As the older woman came back with a book, she saw the story and swallowed.
‘Of course, that awful woman would be a relative