The family chapel at Easthampton-Mares was much more gothic than was my taste, but Molloy was a much older family than Petersholme. Weak sunlight from twin stained glass windows covered us with the closeness and dimness of a sepulchre. Bleak stone walls, broken with the stations of the cross instilled the gravity of death in us who had come to mourn our fallen friend.
Max Molloy's simple coffin sat centred below the altar—alone. Its only decoration the flag draped over it.
King George sat in the first pew with Queen Elizabeth. Beside her was Earl Molloy next to his surviving son. Max's wife Sarah sat stiffly beside him. Young Cecil was beside his mother, followed by Willi and Alice. A determined looking Mr. Churchill sat next to my aunt at the far end of the pew, followed by Lord Halifax of the Foreign Office. I sat in the next pew along with the other five pallbearers.
Willi held the hand of Max's son as the service began. Occasionally, young Cecil would look around wide-eyed and my son would hold him close, his arm going around the small boy's thin shoulders. I wondered idly just how much young Cecil understood of what was happening around him. What either of them understood really.
Whatever the depth of his understanding, however, Willi knew instinctively what to do to ease the fears that Max's son must have been feeling. I was proud of him. I realised then that I'd not once been un-proud of him since he had come to live with me. I was still being continuously amazed by him. And by his father who, in too few years, had still managed to teach the boy the level of insight that he was now showing.
I knew that I would never regret agreeing to Janus von Kys' dying request to raise his son. I also knew that I had come to love Willi as much as his father did.
Standing in the back of the chapel, Alan Dudding sniffed and covered his eyes with his hand.
"I'm sorry that it was not me, my friend," Dagold Jorsten whispered and his hand gripped the Irishman's arm reassuringly.
"Why?" Alan asked quietly, his voice strained.
"We guarded Bellingham Hall together—Lord Molloy and I. I should have taken the first watch, then he would have lived."
Alan turned to look at the German beside him. "No. All of you would have been dead if that had happened. Max had absolutely no notion of how to even aim a pistol, much less how to fire it." He took a deep breath and looked back at the coffin and the medieval tableau in which it stood. "This is what Max would have wanted."
"He wanted death?" Dagold asked suspiciously. "He had you and his son—and his wife."
"He was always afraid that his life wouldn't matter. That it had no meaning." Alan started to chuckle but it instantly turned into a moan. He turned and buried his face in Jorsten's coat. "It was almost as if that part of him lived in some fantasy world," he whispered against the wool. "Peopled like Mallory's Camelot with knights doing only honourable things. That's how Max wanted to live—a thousand years before here and now. It's how he wanted to die as well."
Dagold hugged the man to him, patting his back. "Then, he is happy in death, my friend. He died honourably."
"I know," Alan sobbed.
"You loved him?"
"Yes." Alan lifted his head and looked into Jorsten's face. He pulled back and wiped his eyes. "It was all still so new for us. We hadn't even had an argument yet." A small smile touched his lips. "We were still finding our way around each other when—" Tears quickly welled in his eyes and he wiped them away. "This happened."
"It was like that when my Jani was killed," Dagold told him softly. "Only, I had no time to mourn him. I had to flee or die as he had—but without the honour."
"Never have so many owed so few so much," Churchill said from the pulpit, his voice echoing through the stone. I felt that he was looking directly at me. "Maximillian Molloy was one of those few whom we all owe. He saw the coming night descending on all of us and tried to stop it." He paused, as if gathering his thoughts.
"England has lost a true son," he continued. "England lays to rest that son today. May God ensure that we all have learnt what this man knew and will now shoulder his burden. For, without that effort, England will surely know the darkest night."
Once I had known Churchill to be a right wing fanatic—somewhere far out on the anti-German fringe. I had not known that my oldest and dearest friend had been pulled into his orbit. Now, I knew that Churchill was a true prophet and I was in as close an orbit around him as Max Molloy had ever been.
England did stand before the descending darkness. And, for the first time in our history, the English Channel would not defend us against that darkness.
With the other pallbearers, I moved to take up position on my side the wooden coffin. An officer of the Home Guard folded the flag and handed it to Earl Molloy.
I realised just how thoroughly Churchill had planned Max's funeral and how military that planning had been when, as we began to carry the coffin from the chapel, I heard a slow, muffled drum beat begin in the corridor beyond us. Collectively, we instinctively assumed a half-step as we carried my friend down the hallway towards the great hall and his family's tomb that lay off it.
Max's coffin stood in its drawer directly beneath his mother's. The two drummers stood at the top of the stairs at the gate to the great hall, their instruments silent for our last moments with Max. My friend's wife and father placed single roses on the lid whilst Willi held young Clive's hand and Aunt Alice held his. Tears rimmed my eyes as I finally accepted that I would never see my friend again.
Willi released the hand of Max's son and broke away from Alice's hold. He stepped up to the drawer and rose on his toes to see the coffin. He nodded to himself and, standing back on his feet, straightened himself. He stiffened, snapped his heels together loudly, and brought his right hand to his forehead, palm outward. He held it there as a Molloy servant pushed the drawer containing Max's coffin into the vault.
It took me a moment to realise that my young son had saluted my dearest friend in his final departure. It wasn't a perfect salute; a sergeant major would have called him on it. But it was a salute nonetheless, and a heartfelt one at that. Tears flowed freely down my cheeks then as Queen Elizabeth knelt and kissed Willi's cheek.
* * *
I opened the door quietly and peered into Barry's hospital room. He lay up on his pillows, his eyes closed and his lips parted. Asleep. I saw that the oxygen tent had been removed. I smiled. My lad was alive and well indeed.
It was the afternoon of New Year's Eve and Pettigrew had flown us down to Portsmouth, the two of us and Willi. The chief medical officer of Portsmouth Naval Base had telephoned that morning and said that he would release Barry if we would keep him warm and in bed.
From the looks of it, either the good doctor had neglected to tell his patient that he was released or Barry was much more blasè about his stay at Portsmouth Naval Base than I had supposed. I entered the room and Pettigrew stood beside the door.
Willi followed me and I motioned that we were going to sneak up on Uncle Barry. He nodded and, with far more exaggeration than I expected from a child, he followed, his face contorted into a grimace and arms raised in a monster pose.
"Barry?" I called as I reached his bed and took his hand in mine.
His eyes opened and a smile turned his lips upward as he focused on me. "Robbie—"
Willi took Barry's hand from mine and pretended to gnaw on it. I suspected that someone had been taking the boy to the cinema in Coventry far too often for his own good. I'd have to talk to Aunt Alice about it.
"You have to get up lad," I told Barry, making my voice rough and fighting back the grin that threatened to give me away. "We only have ten minutes to get you out of here before the guard changes."
"What?" His face went lax with surprise.
I threw the blanket and sheet from him. "Hurry, Barry. We have to get you dressed."
"What're you doing, Robbie?" he yelped, making a hurried effort to pull the hospital gown onto his legs as Willi climbed up on the bed with him.
I grinned. "Taking you home, lad—where you belong."
He searched my face. "I'm allowed to go?"
Willi lay down against Barry and pulled his good arm around him, his own arm going across the man's chest.
"You smell, Uncle Barry," Willi told him but didn't pull away.
"With the permission of the King's own physician, my love. And at the command of William of Petersholme."
"Willi?" he asked looking down at the top of the blond head cuddled up on his chest.
"He refused to open your presents until you were there to watch. He's been breathing down my neck to bring you home since Christmas Day."
"You're going to have to get up then, kiddo," he told my son and patted him affectionately on the bottom with his good hand. "I'm being ordered out of bed here."
Willi sat up and climbed down off the bed to turn and watch Barry expectantly.
Barry pushed himself up into a sitting position using his good arm. He looked at Willi before turning his gaze on me and shaking his head slowly. He grinned then.
"You'll never guess who visited me yesterday," he said as he took the clean clothes that I'd brought.
"Who?"
"The Ambassador himself—Joseph P. Kennedy."
"You're an important man, love," I told him.
"Robert Adshead, Baron Petersholme, you've become sloppy in this relationship of ours," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Just that you can never say in a public place how you feel about me or anything about our relationship." His grin widened. "But it sure feels good to know that you care." He broke his gaze and looked quickly around the room. "Where are my clothes? You've got no idea how happy I am to be leaving Portsmouth."
His expression became serious and he looked back at me. "Take me home, Robbie."
"We're going to fly in an aeroplane, Uncle Barry," Willi told him, taking his hand possessively. "Don't worry, though. Uncle Robert isn't driving, so we won't have a rough landing."
THE END
Copyright © 2006-2025 David MacMillan
First posted 2006
Updated 2 July 2025