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Lieutenant Commander Ewen Montagu pours over the final details for transporting Bill to the HMS Seraph in Greenock this evening with a vigor. It’d be an extended forthcoming road trip to get to west Scotland in the back of Jock Horsfall’s Fordson van with Charles and Bill. Still, if anyone would get them there quickly it would be a pre-war race car driver. They’ll meet with Captain Jewell when they arrive to hand off Charlie’s corpse canteen and be back in London before the evening was out for some well-rewarded celebration.
So confident he is, in fact, that they’ll succeed, that Monty had phoned his communist of a younger brother to meet up with him tomorrow evening to get an eye on the screenplay for Operation Mincemeat: A Tale of Bravery tomorrow night. Ivor had suggested The Gargoyle Club and that he’d put his and Charlie’s names on the list —not that men like Monty needed to be on the list to begin with and that philosophy had served him well these months past with Mincemeat— which was a promising offer. He and Charlie barely got a waking moment alone that didn’t have to do with the mission and it’d started to get on Ewen’s nerves for reasons he couldn’t exactly place.
As if by coincidence, Monty is shaken from the thought as the door to their basement which is all but a domicile now —given the fact they all slept in here more than they did their own flats at this point— flies open and his little genius quite charmingly lollops in with a mug in each hand and a piece of paper stored under his arm. Charlie approaches their shared desk smattered in detailed paperwork and plans he was much more suited to than Monty and slides a mug of black coffee with the picture of the scientist’s face on it in front of Ewen —which had turned into a shared just between them now more than anything— across it.
“Do I look that tired, Charlie?” Monty jests lightheartedly, thankful for the distraction from the anxious energy of needing their plan to finally get set off that he’d been stewing in with only Charles’s meticulously handwritten plans as company.
“Is a newt cold-blooded?” Charles tuts, leaning against their shared desk with a hum as he sips his Earl Grey tea from a non-descript mug. Yes. Yes, they were, he had learned not a week ago over lunch with the Flight Lieutenant. Monty narrows an eyebrow at Charles knowingly before taking a swig of the coffee.
“Besides, I warrant we’ll need it if we are to stay up the whole evening.” Charles stammers out, leaning against their shared desk with a hum as he sips his Earl Grey tea from a non-descript mug.
“We’re not his nanny, I hardly think Bill’s going to mind if we pass out,” Monty retorts.
“Someone needs to advise Mr. Horsfall if he needs it,” Charles quickly fires back. God, Charlie had really thought about every conceivable problem and option hadn’t he?
“He’s a professional motorist, he can survive an MI5 delivery job,” Ewen interjects, getting up from the desk and giving the scientist a comforting clap on the back. Raising his mug to the other man, he says with a smile, “Still I appreciate the thought. Something warm is in order before we have to traverse freezers and dry ice for Bill. Is his pocket litter all in order?”
“It is now,” Charlie hums, producing a letter seemingly worn from wear despite the fact it’d been produced earlier that day.
“I knew you had it in you, my little genius,” Monty exclaims, tapping the other man on the chin appreciatively and giving him a beaming smile as he takes the fated letter.
“Oh! I didn’t write it, Monty,” Charles stammers out.
Narrowing an eyebrow, Monty gives him a look of confusion. Charles has readily accepted the task earlier today and he had been curious to see what a love letter from the Flight Lieutenant would look like. For purposes of the mission, of course. He tries not to sound too disappointed when he cautions, “You said you were going to?”
“I don’t exactly have experience in the art of wooing and being wooed,” he admits, sheepishly shrinking into himself. “Neither does Jean.”
He supposes the Jean part makes sense. She was a stunning and sharp girl, but she hardly paid him any mind when they’d gone out with her to collect the ticket stubs for Bill. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Show Boat opened the day before that week in mid-to-late April, which was an ideal way to prove Bill’s activity at the Stoll Theater’s revival of the show. She was far too busy admiring and singing the lead actress’s praises to notice his chivalric attention at the show and talking about that typing pool girl, Bella, over drinks. She’d hardly know that she was being wooed if it stood her in the face.
But Charlie? Sure, he was a little odd at times, but it was part of his charm. And that was if you ignored his brilliant mind, his tall stature, his cracking set of teeth, and his heartfelt dedication to the things he loved, to name only a few things. Even if he didn’t have the confidence to go after someone, with the ‘new woman’ and suffrage and all that, someone should have jumped at the opportunity. He was a right catch.
“Who on earth did you get to write it?” Ewen retorts with exasperation. “Please don’t tell me you asked Fleming because—”
“Hester did,” Charles blurts out definitively.
“Hester wrote it? Our Hester,” Monty hazards in exasperation as he narrows his gaze at Charles. Setting the almost empty mug of coffee down, Monty unfolds the letter, and parallels the way the Flight Lieuntentant leans against the desk casually, despite the man’s abundance of nerves. “Surely you could have composed something better Charlie if you put your mind to it.”
“Even I— Oh.” Ewen starts to continue and all but halts as he begins to skim the letter in his hands. It details the new fiancée sending news from home, mourning their time apart, fearing he’ll be sent abroad, adoring her engagement ring, bemoaning her secretary job and bland friends, and arranging an evening rendezvous. It is poignant—There’s a line that’s a dash too relatable—, it is believable. It is perfect.
“It’s really something isn’t it?” Charlie adds, tilting his head toward Monty as he inches closer to him, so he can eye Hester’s letter as well. He’s giving Ewen barely any personal space, but its not as if he minds. It’s nice. Comfortable even.
“I didn’t know the old girl had it in her,” Ewen says under his breath in admiration at the paper in his hands.
“She’s lived more lifetimes than the two of us combined,” Charles says with admiration for their head secretary. Monty had always fashioned the woman as a drill sergeant, he hadn’t quite thought to imagine how she might have been as a girl or that there was perhaps a deeper reason she remained unmarried. There’d been buzz about the typing pool about her and Johnny’s admiration for one another that potentially went beyond strict professionalism and it wasn’t like they were getting any younger, but this might explain it. Many lifetimes, albeit, but perhaps not more than the two of them combined if he shared a few more things with Charles after all this was through, but that was neither here nor there.
“Who was he?” Monty asks softly, running his fingers along the creases of the letter to age it more and avoid his eyes repeatedly trailing to a certain line of the letter is striking him in reasons beyond assuring the impending mission’s success.
“I don’t think it’s my place to share in full,” Charles recounts with a pained smile and gentle tone. “But he seems to have been a charming Tommy who adored her as much as he did the garden he was rather meticulous about, if not more.” Turning his eyes to the floor, Charles adds somberly, “Writing it— I… I believe it wasn’t easy for her. I wish—”
“Hush, Charles,” Ewen says, nudging the other man with his shoulder. With a resolved confidence, he continues, “I’m sure she’s glad to be doing her duty to King and Country; as we all are. We will reap the benefits of it in due time.”
“But she looked so shaken, Monty. This is Hester we’re talking about.” Charles shudders, looking rather distraught at the thought of, perhaps having caused unintentional harm to their coworker and friend. Monty had seen Charles rather distraught at the thought of harming a bug on accident and was the first to rescue their basement spiders from Jean’s wrath, but he hadn’t seen Charles this fearful about a person. God. He needs to make it go away. Now, preferably. But how?
“Every word she penned is a Tom if not hundreds of Tommies she’s saving, Charlie,” He says with a caring gravity as he places a hand on Charles’s forearm in an attempt at comfort, not wanting to bear the thought of the scientist being in distress for but a moment longer. And Hester was doing a good thing. If nothing else was convincing, the letter? This was watertight and from the heart; it would get the briefcase taken straight to Adolf so they could save their boys. It had to.
Charles takes a moment to process before he shakes his head in an affirmative nod. “I suppose you are right.”
“Of course I am,” Monty says squeezing the other man’s forearm for emphasis, of course. Not because he wanted to grip Charles’s surprisingly strong forearms in more ways than one or any thoughts as ridiculous as those that make him quickly let go of his best mate. Clearing his throat, Monty announces to the room, despite only the two of them currently occupying the basement, “Now, we’ve got a date with a Major in the freezer.”
He nods his head, intending for Charles to follow him in collecting the pocket litter and paperwork needed to properly dress Bill for his journey. Charles, however, doesn’t follow and looks at Monty, a bit like an adorably myopic deer caught in exceedingly bright headlights. He was apparently and understandably still a tad traumatized by their dealings with Spilsbury, but this was their moment. Mincemeat was not just twenty-six diagrams and fifty-eight graphs in a file folder anymore, it was really happening with an actual Major William Martin, a corpse canteen, and the rest of the full monty.
“It’ll be fine,” he says, offering a casual placation while trying to think on his feet about how to get the Flight Lieutenant out of his own head again. Well, Charles had been rather content at lunch yesterday when mentioning the Adonis blue. He even compared the males’ beautiful hue to Monty’s eyes, which almost made the Lieutenant Commander lose his tea in a battle with gravity and his pinstripe suit. He tries, “Here, how about you tell me more about that blue butterfly you were on about yesterday while we prepare to dress our own Adonis. Yeah?”
“Our own… Oh! The lysandra bellargus!” Charles exclaims with excitement before he takes pause. Ewen catches his heart race when the scientist looks upon him with a fondness typically only reserved for bugs, charts, and newts. With surprise yet softness, he says, “You remembered its common name?”
“I couldn’t very well forget the insect whose wings you compared to my eyes, now could I?” Monty teases smoothly, despite the strange physical irregularity. “You’ve yet to introduce me to them properly.”
“They prefer alkaline grassland ecosystems with horseshoe vetch abound, which London isn’t suited for, “We’d have to go all the way to Salisbury,” he says wistfully with a hint of sadness, as if a bit of a trip was going to dissuade Ewen ‘impossible to reason with’ Montagu, especially when it had to do with the other man’s happiness.
Because he cared about Charlie. Not in an improper way, of course. It was strictly in the way anyone would care for any of their best mates. Ewen just wanted to see that light in Charlie’s eyes again, looked upon him in abject adoration like during their sidebar after the Mincemeat pitch meeting. In the moment it was as if Johnny ‘King of the World’ Bevan had been dethroned for, but a moment and Montagu had taken the crown with his brilliant little genius by his side. With the assistance of Jean saving their skins, of course, but the point stands. He just wants his best mate to be happy.
That’s all.
“It’s not that far, Charlie,” he finds himself tutting with a soft, teasing affection that he didn’t consent to leaving his lips. Quickly he tries to cover, adding a somewhat sarcastic, “You act as if we aren’t taking the overnight van to Scotland this evening,” which was true. Salisbury is at least shorter by half then the forthcoming journey.
“Don’t remind me,” Charles says with a downtrodden lament, which certainly wouldn’t do. Not when he was trying to get the scientist to smile and not make things worse. What could they—
“If you survive the trip there and back, we’ll make it out to see the butterflies on a day of leave,” the Lieutenant Commander suggests, throwing an arm around Charles’s shoulders and ignoring the parts of him relishing in the feeling of the contact.
“Well, we couldn’t see them now, Monty. The first brood doesn’t fly until mid-May,” Charles replies in a manner that utterly endears Ewen, as if the flight periods of South English insects was common knowledge to everyone present.
Well. That complicated that plan. God. They were going to find small flashes of joy in all this or he would die trying. They’d do to Salisbury later in spring, but what would they—Oh! He’d been too busy trying to cheer up Charlie, but forgotten that he promised Ivor that they’d meet up with him at the Gargoyle Club for the film! It’d be perfect.
“We’ll celebrate in style in London, when we return tomorrow night, then,” Monty proclaims, squeezing the arm around Charles’s shoulder tighter. Using the unoccupied hand to playfully push up the glasses that are falling down the bridge of the scientist’s nose, he adds, “It’s no nature preserve but it’ll hold us over for awhile, yeah?”
“Yes,” Charles stammers out, with a nervous yet resolved air. “I think I’d quite like that.”
“Good,” Ewen replies, with an all too quick affirmation that he’s altogether certain might seem desperate. Trying to catch himself, he adds with smooth bravado, “Even if you try and change your mind later, it’ll be impossible to reason me out of it now that I’ve got your confirmation, my boy.” He pats Charles on the chest twice as he utters the term of endearment, now only noticing how firm his partner’s chest is and needing to force his thoughts not to wander.
He apparently isn’t doing a good job of it because he is snapped out of it by Charles who is red-faced and his voice betrays anxiety that Ewen hazards isnt the sort that’s the normal part of the Flight Lieutenant’s day-to-day operations, “Right. Well! We can’t well celebrate if we don’t get Bill out of the basement.”
“Quite right, Charlie,” he musters out, quickly removing the hand that’s lingered on the scientist into an awkward thumbs up. Fumbling still, he gestures towards the exit to the basement. “Lead on.”
Charles nods and wordlessly grabs Bill’s briefcase, the main file folder for Mincemeat, and the uniform they were to dress him in once they removed him from the freezer, before bolting out the dingy yet domestic basement their little team has worked out of these months past. In the frenzy, he’d seem to have forgotten the pocket litter which got them into this mess in the first place, including what, to Colonel Bevan, was one of the most important parts of their ruse: Hester’s letter on their desk. He skimmed it before and it was good stuff for the mission, and all, but there was something about it that was calling out to him like mad. Gingerly picking it up, he reads it closely this time, finding his eyes still drawn back to the a line in cursive in the first paragraph two-thirds down as he does:
Darling, why did we go and meet in the middle of a war, such a silly thing for anybody to do [1]
He hadn’t been the kindest to the head secretary at times, he will concede that, and something about all this makes the remorse bubble in his chest. Of course, if she lost someone who would have been considered a number like all the rest back then, he supposes she might be sensitive to their using of a random stray’s body for the mission. Her Tom was a hero though, they didn’t have to make him one like they did Bill. It is sad though, that their time had been cut short as it had been with the shadow of war breathing down their necks instead of giving the young lovers time to flirt about in the gardens that this man was apparently so meticulously caring of. Hester is good at that sort of thing the details, as is… well, as is Charlie.
God. Does he really have more in common with Hester than he’d like to let on? Charlie had said she’s led several lifetimes which he was well acquainted with. Thankfully not being the firstborn had its advantages, mainly that the mantle of the barony was always going to be something to be thrust upon Stuart, so Ewen could muck up in ways he wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Joyce had been more than willing to take over the eldest daughter title, at least in spirit, even if Ivor wasn’t thrilled about being demoted to third son. His parents were anything but thrilled about the situation but in the end he was a spare, not the heir, so it was something that they could just as easily tie up with a clandestine bribe here and a trip to Berlin before the nation went belly-up there. He too had lived quite a few lives be it as wayward peerage progeny, a Cambridge chap, a burgeoning barrister, naval intelligence’s prized Lieutenant Commander, a prospective filmmaker, or whatever else the future would have to hold.
If nothing else, he hopes one of those continues to be his role as Charles’s partner in crime; it’s felt as if he’s lived a lifetime in these few months alone as they’ve huddled together over file folders to envision plans and spent most of their meals in one another’s companionship. Being around Charlie was as natural as breathing and he can’t believe that he’d all but ignored him the six years prior. They met properly in the middle of this war, but he’s not certain that in other circumstances they’d have found each other the way that they did. He hopes that would have been the case, that if it wasn’t Mincemeat it would have been some other mission. But there is practically nothing he’d trade for their bond and their time in Mincemeat; they are meant to save the world together after all.
He wouldn’t be able to stomach it if one of them got redeployed outside of MI5 or were forced on MI5 orders to some aircraft carrier, freighter or another abroad. He’d put in a request for the transfer immediately, to ensure they could look after one another. He hadn’t lost someone like Hester had, and with any luck he won’t in this war. They’d all survived the worst of the Blitz and the subsequent air raids and they would survive the rest of them with their treasured team here, no matter what. But loss takes many forms, and being separated from Charlie? Well, that would be one of the worst sorts, regardless of circumstance.
He’s shaken from his rather terrifying thoughts when he hears “Monty! What’s taking you so long?” Muffled outside of the basement door before his little genius opens it. He must look absolutely dismal, because Charlie’s expression takes on genuine concern as he asks “Are you quite alright?”
As he glances back down at the letter he’s all but gripping in his hands he’s hit with a single realization: Hester is right. What a silly thing for anyone to do this all is.