Read Killing Rommel for Free Online Page A

five and ten to one. Stein entertained us with tales of his training as an OP, a forward officer whose role it was to direct the gunnery of his battery of 25-pounders. He talked of “surveys” and “time on target.” All this was Greek to me but Stein, to his own surprise as well as mine and Jock’s, seemed to be thriving on it. His ship sailed in twenty days; he would spend his embarkation leave with his family in Yorkshire.
    â€œWill you look after something for me, Chap?”
    And he produced his manuscript.
    Rose frowned. “There’s nothing morbid in this overture, is there, Stein? For I won’t stand you forecasting some dire fate for yourself.”
    â€œMy dear,” said he, “I shall outlive you all.”
    Rose, as I said, was Jock’s younger sister. During our first terms at Magdalen, Sheila would take the train from London at the weekend. Rose came along to keep the thing from appearing unseemly. Inevitably she and I were thrown together.
    If it is possible to be a double, or even triple, virgin, such was my state at that time. The concept of sex, let alone love, seemed absolutely unreachable. I had never known a woman, save my mother, to see past my surface presentation—and certainly none who actually believed in me. Rose changed that. From the first instant, I felt that she saw through to me—to a “me” that I was but that I could not yet grasp. She saw that “me” and all future “me” s and believed in them all. As for her, the first time I saw her, I thought she was the most ravishing creature I had ever set eyes upon. And she had wit. I had never known a girl who made me laugh. Rose feared no one and was kind to all, especially to me, a phenomenon I could not begin to make sense of. I could not imagine being worthy of her and would no more have pressed my physical attentions upon her than flown to the moon. Rather, the emotion I felt towards her was one of fierce protectiveness. She seemed, from the first, so precious that I would have hurled myself into fire in her defence.
    When you’re young and without resources, you have no place to go. Rose and I had no private rooms, no car, no way out of the weather. It seemed we were outdoors all the time. It was wonderful. Only Stein took us in. He made pots of tea and sat up with us till all hours, talking politics and poetry.
    Rose and I corresponded by mail. I still had not kissed her. It took me weeks to summon the temerity simply to upgrade my salutation from “Dear Miss McCall” to “My dear Miss McCall.” At the same time, I knew with absolute certainty that she and I would be married. I never said a word, nor did she. But we both knew it, and we knew that we knew it. At Oxford, each college has its own rowing club short of the varsity Blues. I rowed on Magdalen’s. There is a competition in early summer called Eights Week, a rather posh event in the university calendar. Rose came up to cheer me on. I can’t remember what place our boat took, but in the warm evening afterwards, when Rose and I as usual had no place to go, we walked with another couple along the river. A storm had got up; the four of us ducked for shelter into one of the boathouses. The other couple immediately began having it off in the one dry corner, an act that in those days was audacious beyond belief. Rose and I were mortified. We slipped out under the eaves. Our companions’ passion continued unabated. We gave up waiting and simply set off into the rain. I was so in love, I could barely draw breath. Suddenly I felt Rose take my hand. The rush of blood nearly dropped me faint.
    We began a romance. I fell into it like a man dropping off the edge of the earth. The innocence of our lovemaking would strain the credulity of today’s youth. Yet chastity did not preclude passion. We found places for trysts. Hideouts in the woods, back seats of cars. We took hotel rooms, registering