The Athens Assignment

by David Boyle

  “I believe they’re a bit reluctant to give out posthumous medals. It’s not considered good for morale. I think that’s pretty crazy. He was a lovely man and, as I say, my friend too. I’m ever so sorry. He spoke of you many times.”

  “He did? What did he say?”

  “He… well, he said he loved you. I hope you don’t mind me saying.”

  Xanthe stifled a sob.

  “He never told me. I’m very grateful to you, Tug, for having the courage to tell me.”

  *

  As she pushed Indigo around the lawn the next day, in his pram, she felt overwhelmed with rage – first with Hugh for being so careless with his life, for not telling her what he felt – and then with herself for not telling him, well, anything much about herself.

  By the time she had finished a lap of the garden in the sunshine, the rage had turned against the Nazis. For killing the kindest of her friends. For keeping her from her father. For the deaths of so many, every day, and children too, from one side of Europe to the other. She realised this was an anger she felt, not despite the baby but because of him. It was on Indigo’s behalf. So, yes, she said to herself. Yes, for Indy’s sake – so that he might not take his turn as a Nazi victim one day – she would, if necessary, go back on active service. Next time, she would accept Fleming’s offer – if there was a next time – and she would go.

  She was not English. She felt so different from them in their cold and damp. She was not, and never would be, one of them. But this had become her war, and she felt she could no longer carry on as if she could opt out. If Fleming felt she had special knowledge or abilities which made her vital, then she would just have to use them.

  *

  That night was another tough one. Indy would not sleep. Time and time again she thought she was able finally to drift off, only for the siren to begin. So when she got downstairs in the red-brick pile which was still all she had as a home, and Fleming was waiting for her, she had practically made up her mind, exhausted though she was.

  “Xanthe, I’m sorry. But I have to make one last request to you,” he said.

  “How strange. I was just thinking about you. What happened to your man? I assume that’s why you’re here?”

  Fleming looked embarrassed, just for a split second, but she caught it.

  “Appendicitis on the plane out. I mean, not his fault and all that. But what can we do? We want to go ahead if we possibly can, but we have nobody else who really understands Enigma. Might you… possibly go? It will be a fortnight tops and you’ll be back here.”

  “Two weeks? You promise? I only gave birth six weeks ago for God’s sake…”

  “Of course, I can’t promise, but that’s what we are planning for. Really.”

  The decision seemed suddenly obvious. She wondered fleetingly if her real reason was because she was so miserable, but she dismissed the idea.

  “Ok. Ok, Ian. You’ve worn me down. For Indy’s sake, and if you promise, solemnly, to look after him if anything happens to me, and we can have some kind of contract along those lines between us, then I’ll go. So many people are having to leave their children to fight, so why not me? Yes, I’ll go, dammit, I’ll go.”

  A wide smile of surprise and delight had crept across Fleming’s face.

  “I was hoping you would say that. I have a car waiting and promise to have you back in that fortnight…”

  “And you’ll write a proper contract about Indy.”

  “I promise. I’ll be his guardian – but you’ll be fine and back with him before the end of the month. Welcome to Operation Snow in Ibiza.”

  4

  Aegina, May 1941

  When Xanthe stepped, in her bare feet, carrying her shoes, up the beach of the island of Aegina, it was the middle of the night. It smelled of figs.

  “Good luck, ma’am,” said the blacked-up sailor, who had rowed her over, in a stage whisper.

  “Thanks, Steve, bye!” she whispered back.

  There was a house ahead of her, visible against the night skyline. Xanthe walked over the rocks, onto the edge of a small beach, and behind a bush. She cleaned the camouflage off her face, put on her shoes and sat, waiting for the sun to rise. She would not know exactly where she was until there was more light.

  There was a sudden crack to her left. She froze, then ducked down behind a boulder. The last thing she wanted to do was get caught with her replica Enigma machine in pieces. It was one of a number which Hut 8 had used to work out the wiring of the real ones. The pieces looked more like incongruous, ill-fitting pieces of old typewriters, but you couldn’t risk it, could you?

  The crack turned into rustling, which in turn came close enough for her to hear a kind of saliva-swilling sound, accompanied by grunting. It was a goat, feeding on the olive trees. She relaxed, and the light began to seep into the sky.

  Xanthe had been promised that they were sending her to Aegina because the German invaders had not arrived there yet, but as the sun began to peep over the horizon behind her, there was an almost continuous buzz of planes overhead – on their way southwards. If the Nazis had shifted their assault onto the retreating British in Crete, that would make her doubt some of the assurances she had been given in London.

  She had set out only four days before, in a converted bomber with extra fuel tanks and some senior civil servants, heading for the besieged island of Malta. She felt sick and desperately unimportant. Nobody took any notice of her. She ached for Indigo and bitterly regretted her decision to take this gamble – for what? Not for these supercilious types, that was for sure. She tried to keep her tears a secret, but nobody even looked. Her stitches ached, her breasts seemed to have rediscovered the impulse to manufacture milk, and she felt exhausted and uncomfortable. Her body yearned for the baby.

  There was hardly time to see the rubble that Valetta had been reduced to, nor the smoking ruins in the distance from the airfield, before they were refuelled and in the air again, and heading for Alexandria. With every mile they flew, she felt colder and sicker and missed Indy the more. Why did she leave? Why did she agree to leave so unprepared?

  She carried with her some instructions about how to meet up with one of the thirty wireless operators who had been left behind in and around Athens when the British and their allies had pulled out. She carried, not just those telltale pieces of a working replica Enigma machine, but also various versions of the message they wanted to send, written in German, together with details about who was supposed to be sending it and his various call signs and authenticities.

  By the time she had left, she had also been fully briefed about General Hans Jeschonnek, the Luftwaffe chief of staff, now in charge of operations in Greece. Fleming had told her that Jeschonnek had been chosen because of his relaxed approach to using the Luftwaffe code, which they knew at Bletchley as Enigma Red.

  She had been given a long briefing to read about the Bismarck, which she was supposed to have read on the flight and left on the plane. She had forgotten this in her distress and had left with it, but was trying to remember whether she had managed to leave it on the submarine – or whether it was still hidden among her belongings and would need destroying.

  She also carried various bits of paperwork to support her identity as a reporter on the New Yorker: a US passport in the name Shirley Johnson, a Turkish visa dated in April – to support her story that she had been in Greece, on the island, since before the invasion in April – and a letter from New Yorker proprietor Harold Ross commissioning her for a series of articles from occupied Greece, dated shortly after the invasion. It asked those who saw the letter to afford her the facilities of the international press. It felt a little unfair that she should be making use of these privileges for war work. She allowed herself a moment’s guilt.

  Finally, she carried the tools of her trade – a genuine portable typewriter, her notebooks, assorted pencils, the phone numbers of various New Yorker stringers and the offices and addresses of other American correspondents in Athens.


  She had a few spare pairs of knickers but otherwise no changes of clothes and felt inadequate, weighed down, miserable and far from home. As indeed she was. She was comforted by the fact that she had managed to write a letter to circumvent Fleming’s “contract”, addressed to Mrs Lancing-Price, and left with Turing in case anything happened to her, telling her the truth about Ralph and their relationship and that she had a grandson. Turing had strict instructions not to send it until he was certain she had been killed – even if that meant waiting until the end of the war.

  She carried in her head the rest of her instructions. The message needed to be sent late in the evening when Bletchley would have had the opportunity to calculate the settings of the day.

  Her first task, once the sun was really up, was to find a man called Brown – apparently British – who would, she hoped, arrange for transport to the mainland. But among those elements which she had not been prepared for was more than a smattering of words in Greek – like kalimera or ti kanis. She also carried no maps and very little Greek money beyond a couple of notes, and she suspected those had been superseded by occupation currency. The Enigma machine would have to go separately or, if she was found with it, it could seriously undermine her status as a journalist.

  She walked along the beach in the general direction of north, at least if the sun was anything to go by. The Mediterranean was glinting beautifully in the morning light. Somehow, she would have to make it to Athens and preferably within forty-eight hours or so, but it would be a wrench to leave this beautiful spot. In the distance, there appeared to be somebody in the fields, but otherwise, nobody was about. It was utterly peaceful. Or it would have been if it had not been for the unearthly row going on above her.

  She stared thoughtfully at the sky. Hundreds, no thousands, of planes were now making their way overhead and, as far as she could see in any direction, heading south. It was clear that this was not just a squadron of planes, it was a whole invasion fleet of them, bombers towing gliders – whole armies sailing overhead, like swarms of insects.

  She had been given no briefing about it, though she racked her brains to remember whether Fleming had predicted any such thing. They just kept coming. Where were they going? Egypt? Surely not so far for gliders. No, there was still no doubt about it. This aerial armada was heading in the direction she had come from by submarine, towards Crete. It was hard to ignore the noise as she made her way across the uneven scrub towards what looked like a small village.

  “I was looking for Mr Brown,” she said hopefully. There was rather a lot of shuffling and shrugging, and it was clear that the villagers did not really trust her – and why should they, after all? Even if there were, as yet, no Germans on the island, as Fleming had assured her.

  “Where should I go to find Mr Brown?” she said clearly, in English.

  This time, the shrugging was seriously off-putting. It was not until she was walking out of the village again, via a rutted track that at least headed northwards, that a young man sidled up to her.

  “You are American reporter, right?” he said.

  “Bingo!” she said. “Right!”

  “You want Mr Brown or you want something else? You know this was where the Myrmidons came from?”

  “You mean, as in Achilles?” Her crossword clue background had left some knowledge. “I didn’t know. Thank you for that information.”

  The boy smiled engagingly. She began to trust him.

  “You want a meal? You want the Germans? They are not here.”

  I haven’t got anything to hide from him, have I, Xanthe said to herself.

  “I’m a correspondent for the New Yorker magazine in search of material for an article.”

  The boy looked at her. Did he look sceptical, she wondered. He said nothing. Perhaps he was seeking out the words to ask why she was here exactly.

  “Well, most of all, I want to go back to Athens. I understood that Mr Brown has a boat.”

  Trust seemed to seep back into his eyes.

  “There are many boats in the harbour. They dare not go out after what happened to the Ydra.”

  “What was that?” asked Xanthe nervously.

  “It was a torpedo boat, bombed by Stukas some weeks ago. Many sailors killed.”

  They had been walking uphill for some time. It was a mountainous place and they were heading in a circuitous route along a small track, relatively level with the sea on their right-hand side. The roar of the planes overhead continued and they could see them disappearing over the horizon towards the south.

  They turned the corner, past a large and forlorn bush, and there was the main town before them and the harbour, with colourful fishing boats bobbing by the shore. It could have been a perfect scene from the Greek islands, were it not for one thing. There was a grey military boat in the harbour as well, and – “What is that?” said Xanthe with a jolt. “Is that a Greek ship?”

  “Impossible. The Greek navy has been disbanded. Also, look at its flag.”

  Flying clearly behind the bridge was a Nazi swastika. It may have been a Greek navy ship some weeks ago, but it was now a German one.

  For a moment, a feeling of panic swept over Xanthe. Control yourself, control yourself. It’s an opportunity, she told herself.

  Yes, if the Germans had only just arrived here, then there was no question of her not having the right permits. She would go into town and ask them to take her to Athens. She would say she had been on Aegina during the invasion and had chosen to stay – and that she now wished to return.

  “Thank you. I’ll go down there.” She felt suddenly alone and frightened. “Will you come with me?”

  “No, thank you, madam,” he said, bowing formally. “My name is Argyris. Perhaps we will meet again, some day, and then I’ll be at your service.”

  She shook his hand and walked down into the town. There remained the issue of smuggling her equipment to Athens – the idea had been to send it via a radio operator or the mysterious Mr Brown. She could try taking it herself, but it would be a serious risk. It was unlikely that most German officers would know what on earth it was – it hardly looked like an Enigma machine – but it certainly looked suspicious.

  The small, narrow streets were shuttered, though the sun was now up, and people were locked indoors, afraid of what the day would bring: this was the first sight of the invaders, just as it was for Xanthe. There was nobody hanging around.

  She made straight for the dockside. There were now German soldiers in their field grey almost everywhere. They looked nearly as lost as she felt. They seemed to be searching with checklists and looking at buildings, not for people.

  “Can you direct me to the officer in charge?” she said, summoning up her confidence. What am I doing? Her heart was thumping.

  A young officer bowed to her in the Prussian style and indicated that she should follow. She felt for the time being that it might be sensible to keep her German language in reserve. This was a moment for American English, if ever there was one.

  “You asked for me? I am the acting commandant on the island. My name is Helmut Nikolas.”

  “Hi,” she said. “Shirley Johnson, New Yorker. I’m trying to find a way to get to Athens.”

  “My English is small, I am sad. But if you can wait perhaps two days, I would be delighted to offer you accommodation on my small ship. But may I ask you what you have been doing on the island?”

  “I came here a month ago to write a piece on Greece but, since the arrival of your men, people have been reluctant to take their boats out. So I have been prevented so far from leaving. I am very grateful to you, sir.”

  “Perhaps you could tell me where you are staying.”

  Why had she not anticipated that question? She kicked herself.

  “I have been staying on the other side of the island. I have only just arrived in town.”

  “In that case, may I offer you some help. Argyris! This young man will find you somewhere to stay on my authority.”

 
Before her, again, was the young man from the mountain road.

  “Does this mean you support the Germans?” she asked him delicately, as they walked away, side by side.

  “No, I just speak German, so I have become an intermediary. When they arrive, they ask for me. I went to the German school in Athens,” he added by way of somewhat coy explanation.

  “That must put you in a powerful position.”

  “I do not think so, madam. This is only the second time they have come, and the first time, they hardly stayed long. But I can find you somewhere to stay, if that would help. I can even arrange to take you over the sea. I have friends on the boats.”

  “Thank you. I think maybe that I should not go behind the commandant’s back, now I’ve asked him.”

  “Do not worry. We can tell him later,” said Argyris. “He is a good German, I believe.”

  “There are such things, then?”

  “Of course, as in any nation.”

  *

  It was after a good dinner of olives and some kind of vegetable stew, during an afternoon which seemed to have involved sleeping, for everyone except the military – kept busy unloading crates and going house to house with checklists – when Xanthe experienced her first surprise.

  There was a faint tap on the window of the house belonging to a friend of Argyris, where she had eaten lunch. So faint that, at first, she thought it must be a cat or something even smaller. She stood up – like everyone else, she had been snoozing – then watched, powerless, as the door handle began to turn on the back door. A moment later, there was a man in the room. Or was it a man? He was dressed like some kind of hedge priest. He had grown most of a beard.

  “Can I help you?” asked Xanthe nervously, horribly aware that she was unarmed.

  She felt flustered, trying to draft an article in her head for the New Yorker about the strange island and the gentle arrival of German invaders, and the incident with the boat that was bombed in the harbour. If she was going to be a foreign correspondent, then that was what she ought to be doing, she felt.

  The new arrival said nothing. He moved a little closer. Then, in a cut-glass English accent, he said: “I believe you have been trying to get hold of Mr Brown.”