The Xanthe Schneider Enigma Files Box Set

by David Boyle

  She reminded herself of this as they wandered rather aimlessly though the back streets of Athens, seeking breakfast, the next morning. Betty’s broadcast had been cancelled again, and the unforgiving sun was rising in the sky, indicating another sultry day. Just one more night to go and she could do the job and go home. As long as Mr Brown had done his job and got her Enigma components to the right place – and in the same number of pieces that she had given to him.

  After a siesta, Betty left the flat in the afternoon, to continue what she called her “clandestine activity” – which she defined as asking any Nazi officials she could find how she could get hold of an exit permit. Betty was afraid that there was now no way out for her and her American press colleagues and was terrified of being stranded in Athens, without access to broadcasting equipment, for the rest of her life.

  So far, she explained to Xanthe, she had put most of the gentler Nazi bureaucrats into a panic – the whole question of an exit visa had never been asked before.

  “It really would be funny if it wasn’t quite so depressing,” said Betty when she returned. “One of them asked me today whether I was British. Apparently, the only conceivable excuse they can think of for wanting to leave is if I would otherwise be interned as a prisoner of war. I’m not sure it is going to get any easier. Relations between the Nazis and us Yanks are plummeting further with every day that goes by. They’re soon going to give us an exit permit to some kind of camp…”

  A shiver went down Xanthe’s spine. She could not but apply the problem to her own situation. She had assumed, as Fleming had, that leaving would be relatively simple.

  “The only thing going for me is that my damned editor is complaining to the authorities too. The last thing he wants is to have to pay me for not working for the rest of the war. Though, knowing him, he probably has some kind of insurance against that.”

  *

  It was now dark outside. Evening seemed to fall with a sudden thump in Athens and the nightlife seemed to be shared by little more than a handful of rather humourless Nazi officers, who stomped by below the balcony of Betty’s flat – on their way to Maxim’s, the only place in the city still with steak on the menu.

  About an hour after nightfall, a strange wailing siren disturbed the conversation. Could it really be an air raid?

  “What?” said Betty. “How can it be? What’s going on? It can’t be the RAF – can it?”

  They hurried back out onto the balcony. It was a perfect night, warm and still, with bright moonlight everywhere and a great canopy of stars, so much more visible in the blackout. The whole of Athens seemed as if they were on the roofs or balconies. Soon the streets began to fill. Within ten minutes of the sirens sounding, the streets below them were packed. There was a strange, hysterical, carnival atmosphere, except that the crowd was as close to silent as a crowd could be – listening for the slightest sound. Xanthe also knew they were hungry. She could almost feel their stomachs rumbling.

  “Come on, let’s go down, shall we?” said Betty.

  “Shouldn’t we go to the shelters?”

  “Shelters? What shelters? No, if this is the RAF, they’ll never bomb the historic centre of Athens, I betcha. And I can’t think who else it is.”

  The sound of approaching planes was apparent as they made for the door and Xanthe grabbed her notebook and pencil as they swung out. The moment they reached the street, a huge cheer went up. The bombers were completely visible in the sky, with the distinctive RAF roundels on their wings. There were fewer than ten of them and they were clearly making for the airfield.

  Xanthe took out the notebook and asked if any of the people around her spoke English. An old lady tapped her arm:

  “We don’t care if they drop bombs on us,” she said, crossing herself. “But, dear God, protect the British aviators. Let no harm come to them!”

  “That is some quote,” said Betty, who had been listening in. “Did you get it down?”

  “Yup.”

  “Cos if you don’t use it, I will. I may do anyway!”

  The planes were circling around again, and now the anti-aircraft guns by the Acropolis were coming into action. They could see the explosions in the air, some way from the raiders.

  Xanthe looked around her and saw more than a few women fingering orthodox crosses and also appearing to be praying, not for their own safety, but for the safety of the young men so many hundreds of feet above – who had maybe even been based in Athens themselves, and had flown off from the same airport a few weeks before.

  “Where do they come from, do you think?”

  “Can they reach here from Egypt?” said Betty. “I don’t know. Otherwise, I suppose from Cyprus. They certainly didn’t come from Crete. In fact, I’m sure they would have been better employed in Crete, where there is actually a battle going on. I suppose they wanted to show they were still in the game.”

  It was hardly Xanthe’s first experience of bombing, after the London Blitz earlier in the year. But it was her first experience of being bombed by her own side – the RAF had only managed to drop leaflets on Berlin while she had been there. It was a peculiar feeling, which she realised was shared by the crowd, cheering the bombers on.

  Another great roar went up, and someone began singing Coroido Mussolini again, and then the Greek national anthem:

  From the ancient Greeks who died

  And set both life and spirit free,

  Now with ancient courage rising

  We will hail you, Liberty!

  It was intoxicating, on this tropical night, the two women strolled arm in arm with the warm night air on their legs, with the cheering and singing all around them. It was almost as if Athens had been liberated. May 23 1941 – she would remember the date. She noted it at the top of her open page. She felt like she would remember it her whole life. She would tell Indigo about it when he was old enough to understand, how she had fought the Nazis on his behalf and ended up walking down the streets of Athens while it was being bombed by her own side.

  It was at this moment of elation that Xanthe heard the whistles. It was dark, and it was hard to see what was happening up ahead, except that suddenly there was screaming, and the crowd surged backwards and past her. Xanthe could hear the familiar, spine-chilling sound of boots on cobblestones up the side street next to them, and a squad of soldiers emerged from behind a truck, which drove ahead at speed towards the road junction.

  The truck screeched to a halt, the back went down and it revealed a large machine gun, manned by two soldiers in field grey, pointing it at the seething mass of Athenians.

  “Oh, God,” said Betty under her breath, flattening herself and Xanthe against the wall. There was more screaming and what remained of the crowd dispersed in the opposite direction.

  They reached the safety of their front door, without breathing, waiting for the shooting to begin. Nothing happened. The soldiers stood to attention and the trucks began to drive away. Almost nobody was left in the street. But as Xanthe began to breathe more freely, she saw a familiar figure in the blackout gloom up ahead, making in their direction.

  “Come on, let’s get inside quicketty quick,” said Betty, reaching inside her handbag.

  “Excuse me, please don’t abandon us, ladies,” said the figure. Moments later, there was Jurgen and with him was another German soldier.

  “Hi there, Jurgen. What brings you out here so late?”

  “Miss Wason and Miss Johnson. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

  The soldier next to him drew his pistol to enforce the message.

  “Really, honey? Why is that?” said Betty mildly.

  For a moment, Xanthe calculated her chances of slipping away into the back streets and heading back to the cathedral. But in the seconds she took to consider it, it was already too late to run. It would also have made her a wanted woman, whereas – she told herself – if she could bluff her way through the next hour or so, then there was no reason why she should not complet
e the operation as planned. She had, after all, come all this way with a purpose. Her heart was beating faster than it should have been. She deliberately looked innocent and unconcerned.

  “Of course,” she said. “Why do you need us?”

  *

  The room where they were held was a small reception room, apparently in the basement of the Hotel Grande Bretagne, where – as both women knew – all the Nazi leaders in Greece and in charge of the Crete operation were staying. They were not alone. As they waited for Jurgen to arrive, through the early hours, they slouched across the old upturned tables and piles of chairs with about ten others. They were, it transpired, a number of leading Greeks from the city, a poet and a handful of retailers. They sat bored, more irritated than frightened, in the stark electric light, surrounded by the smell of stale cigarettes and piles of old table cloths, in great heaps, in the shadowy corners.

  “How long has it been, do you think?” asked Xanthe.

  “I don’t know; two hours, three hours? They’ll come. I’ve been here before. Unfortunately.”

  “I need to drink something.”

  “Funny that. There’s a well-stocked bar upstairs.”

  “Oh, ha ha,” said Xanthe sarcastically. “I meant a drink of water.”

  Xanthe got up from the chairs she had been trying to sleep on, under a tablecloth and went towards the door.

  The soldier gathered himself together and barred the way. Then there was a flurry of activity behind her.

  “No, no, Miss Johnson, we are in fact ready to talk to you, if Miss Wason cares to join us.”

  She beckoned to Betty and proceeded into the darkened room indicated.

  “Thank you, Jurgen. We’re coming.”

  Stay polite, for goodness sake, stay polite, she told herself. It was sweaty down in the bowels of the hotel, but she realised her teeth were chattering. Her scars hurt.

  “Yes, hold on a second,” said Betty.

  They were motioned to sit and found themselves alone, sitting opposite a smoking Jurgen. He had bags under his eyes.

  “Now ladies,” he said quietly. “We simply want to know what you were doing encouraging that crowd to make that ludicrous spectacle when the British planes came over. They were shot down, incidentally.”

  “Listen Jurgen, don’t be stupid,” said Betty. “We are reporters. We follow crowds, we don’t call them out.”

  “Do not, if you please, dare to call me stupid. That would compound your mistake.”

  He passed the back of his hand across his temple. It had clearly been a long night.

  “Sorry, Jurgen,” Xanthe intervened. “What we mean is that we needed to find out why all those people were there, perhaps as you did. We are paid to write the news, and when people gather in the street, it’s news. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Do not patronise me, I beg you. For your own health.”

  “Fine, fine, have it your way, then,” said Betty getting cross. “How do you think we called them out?”

  “I do not know. But I do know this. The Greeks have welcomed us as liberators. Did we not end the nine p.m. curfew imposed by the British? Why would anyone gather outside to cheer bombers which are aiming at them in their own city? It makes no sense.”

  “It’s true, Jurgen. There must be a flaw in your inexorable logic somewhere. I wonder where it is.”

  This was clearly the final straw. Jurgen slammed his fists on the table and stalked, insulted, to the door. When he got there, he turned.

  “Very well, I have a great deal of time and I am a patient man. You can both stay here until I have time to talk to you again. By which time, I hope you will have realised it makes no sense to treat me with disrespect.”

  Finding themselves shut in the dark and listening to Jurgen barking orders outside, Betty and Xanthe felt overwhelmed with the hilarity of it all. They fell about giggling, as quietly as possible. Tears ran down Xanthe’s cheeks, when they heard the key turn in the lock.

  When the lights went out, they began to think more seriously about their predicament. They were almost certainly there for the night, if not longer.

  “The trouble is that I have rather an important appointment tomorrow,” said Xanthe nervously.

  “So do I, honey. I have a date to broadcast again, from the embassy, with Paul as my voice. If I don’t show up, I have a standing arrangement with him that he will report my disappearance and demand the Nazis to return me. It has been a little touch and go for the last few weeks and it seemed to me to be a sensible precaution.”

  “Still, I’m glad I’m imprisoned here with you and not on my own,” said Xanthe. “I don’t like people like Jurgen – I’ve had trouble with Nazis before. I haven’t told you about that.”

  There was one blanket for the two of them, which they had found in the corner, and they huddled together under it as the night grew cold.

  6

  Athens, May 1941

  In the pale light of dawn, Xanthe awoke with a feeling of anticipation and worry. This was the day when she would send her precious signal, finish her time in Athens and find a way back to Indigo, waiting for her, though he was too young to know really who she was. She really could not stay here in this darkened room, if she could possibly get out of it.

  It was a moment of powerlessness. There was very little she could do but hope.

  “Sorry, Betty. I didn’t realise you were awake.”

  “That’s ok, honey. I always wake at this time. And I’m due to broadcast at three this afternoon, for the breakfast time news in New York. But I was due to rehearse with Paul first thing this morning, so there’s every chance he’ll report me missing in the next hour or so. I don’t think the Nazis feel like a diplomatic incident with the Americans right now – not until they’ve secured Crete.”

  But time, which had dashed by so quickly in the dark, now hung heavy and sluggish in the light. The sun rose through the skylight in the pavement. The heat began to rise too. Xanthe now felt desperately thirsty. She was also increasingly nervous: what if Jurgen thought too much about her name and her story? What if she said something stupid in her increasingly befuddled state – she could bring Betty down with her if she wasn’t careful.

  Sometime in the morning, there was a knock on the door, and a nervous maid came in, followed by a woman in German uniform. They appeared to be bringing in a change of clothes.

  “We will wash your clothes for you. Please change now,” she announced.

  Feeling self-conscious with her flabby body – how many weeks now since the birth? Six? Seven? – Xanthe undressed down to her underwear and put on the long, light robes she was given. Her knickers were now disgustingly dirty, thanks to the bleeding from her birthing scars.

  “They’re dressing us like nuns!” Xanthe whispered, giggling.

  “It’s probably some fetish of Jurgen’s. Come on, honey. It’s time to recite poetry. I’ll start,” said Betty, confidently.

  “O, Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

  The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,

  And something, something…

  “Maybe a bit premature. Ok, now your turn.”

  “I don’t know, I think I only know English poetry,” said Xanthe, feeling a little ashamed. She wracked her brain to remember her literature lessons at Simonetta College, some kind of finishing school in Cambridge.

  “I know!…

  “Full fathom five thy father lies;

  Of his bones are coral made…”

  “Jeez, Shirley. Not bad stuff. Now I reckon we only need another round and Jurgen will be here. Do you think I’m being overconfident?”

  As it turned out, she was. The hours dragged. Xanthe and Betty stopped exchanging poets and began to worry. The door occasionally opened, and they were presented with a glass of water or a bowl of figs. They slept. They got cross, they got scared, they slept again. The sunlight began to sink away.

  As the hours ticked away towards ten o
’clock, Xanthe became increasingly silent. She could not believe that, by allowing herself out to celebrate with the crowd, she had fluffed the meeting and probably with it, the whole operation. A great wave of shame shivered through her and she wept, unable to tell Betty why she was so upset.

  “Because we’ve been here more than twenty-four hours – isn’t that enough reason?”

  “It’s true, I’ve not been here this long before, but Paul will spring us. You’ll see.”

  But the time had gone now, and Xanthe, feeling her body wrecked and her mind wandering, felt inconsolable. She had not even tried to send the signal. It was humiliating and, once again, all her fault.

  *

  They slept again and were woken by voices outside the door. The light indicated it was morning again. A moment later, the door opened, daylight flooded in, followed by Jurgen.

  “Ladies, I apologise for leaving you here longer than I intended. It would not do to keep the American public waiting. Fortunately, let me say that you are free to go. Your clothes will be returned.”

  “Thanks, Paul,” muttered Betty under her breath.

  “But two things before you go,” he said, with an air of menace. “First, do not underestimate me – I address myself to Fraulein Shirley. I have checked up on you, and you spent some time in Berlin, have you not – attached to the American embassy. That is right, is it not?”

  Xanthe nodded. Was it possible that they had connected the speedy exit of Shirley Johnson from Berlin with the suspicious disappearance of the “murderess” Xanthe Schneider? She held her breath, but apparently, they had not.