The Secret Houses

by John Gardner

  ‘Why did you think you would be blamed?’

  ‘Because I was guilty. It was my fault that Romarin went wrong. It was my fault that Tarot became a nothing – a pile of rubbish. Merde!’

  ‘You’re saying you betrayed Tarot and Romarin?’

  ‘Only by bad leadership. We were betrayed by someone within Tarot. I don’t know who that was, but I had known for some time that we were living charmed lives. Every other réseau and Maquis unit had been wiped out. It was logic that we were in some way protected. The SS in Orléans were good, so were the Abwehr. It was logic that we were – how you say it? Blown?’

  ‘Who were your regular radio operators?’ the SOE man asked, and there was a small space of silence as the whole room waited for this important information.

  ‘The normal radio operators were myself, Maxine, and Dédé. We were the trained ones. Me in London. I trained them.’

  Caspar’s face screwed itself into a mask of pain. There was mention of a distinct reaction in a margin note to the transcript.

  Both Naldo and Arnie had read to this point when there was a familiar Morse ring at the doorbell. Seconds later, C was in the pink room while the young Herbie Kruger’s large frame filled the doorway.

  C sat down, nodding at the transcripts, asking how far they had managed to get.

  Naldo told him.

  ‘There’s a long way to go yet.’ C sounded sombre. ‘And a great deal to do. You’ll have to read the rest through the night – I have more with me. As for the German’s evidence – Buelow’s stuff – we’ll have to work out something because I want you both out of here, with young Kruger. He must be run through those DP camps like hot salts. I need Klaubert, or at least a scent of him. I need him now.’ He went on to say that a ‘Dakota’ would fly them out of Northolt airfield at first light. ‘You’ll do the German camps first, they’re both quite close to Munich. I’ve a fellow there, he’ll take care of things, but remember he has no details and must be given none. A trusted man will travel with you and return with these transcripts. You both know what I want, and I’ve put young Kruger in the picture. He’ll obey you – either of you.’

  The smiling Kruger nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘A word with you in private, Naldo. Just for a moment, then the two of you.’ He placed his arm on Naldo’s shoulder and led him into the hall, where he gave some fast instructions before going back into the living room where, smiling at Kruger, he said, ‘Herbie, would you go into the hall, please.’

  The lad obeyed, still grinning, and C lowered his voice even as the door closed. ‘Whatever happens in Germany, I still want you to go into France – to Orléans. Now this is what I want from there…’ He spoke low and rapidly for the next fifteen minutes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Young Kruger sat in a corner as Naldo and Arnie tried to get on with the reading.

  ‘They taught me everything,’ Kruger said. ‘Shooting, surveying, the tradeinkcraft.’ His English had improved slightly, but he was still inclined to substitute odd words, and occasional German. Receiving no replies from the two men, Kruger continued, ‘They even taught me another song about Piccadilly –

  Oh, I don’t wish to join der air force,

  I don’t wish to go to war,

  I would rather hang around der Piccadilly underground,

  Liffing on the earnings of a high-born lady.

  Don’t vant ein bullet up mein – ’

  ‘Herbie!’ Arnold shouted.

  ‘Ja? I mean, Yes?’

  ‘Shut up, Herbie.’

  ‘We’ve got work to do,’ added Naldo.

  ‘Sorry.’

  But a couple of minutes later he was off again, humming the tune – a relic from the First War’s ‘I don’t want to join the army’ – and fidgeting. It was unlike Kruger, who could sit very still, concentrating like a statue. Naldo presumed it was excitement.

  ‘Look, Herb.’ Naldo stood up and walked over to the corner. ‘Look, there’s an old gramophone here, and records. Real music I can stand.’ Next to the gramophone stood a stack of records, some big sets of up to twelve or fourteen sides of fragile 12-inch disks. Herbie rummaged among the collection. ‘Who is Gustav Mahler?’ he asked, holding up a large thick folder which looked very new.

  ‘A composer.’ Arnold looked up, irritated.

  ‘Not the American, Glenn Mahler?’

  ‘That was Miller, Herb! Glen Miller!’ Arnold gave a belch of laughter.

  ‘A composer and a compatriot of yours, Herb.’ Naldo looked up and thought it must be a very recent recording. ‘Well, almost a compatriot.’

  ‘So. Never heard of him. In Germany we had Wagner. Wagner all the time. Breakfast, lunch, dinner – Wagner all the time. Here it says Second Symphony. The Resurrection. So. Symphony Number Two. The Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra and Choir. Conducted Eugene Ormandy. C. E. Bowen, Soprano; A. Gallogy, Contralto, So, this is good music, Naldo?’

  ‘Just put it on, Herbie, and find out. We must read.’

  ‘Okay.’ There were eleven records. Twenty-two sides.

  Scratchy, hissy, and clicky, the great solemn first chords leaped into the room. In all its romantic and death-ridden, nature-sodden beauty, Mahler’s music filled the air, and Eberhardt Lucas Kruger sat, rock still. He spoke no more that night, and only moved to turn a record or put on the next. They must have heard the Mahler Second at least four times – but Naldo and Arnie were not counting, buried in the interrogation of Jules Fenice by the Tarot Board of Enquiry.

  The Board bit hard on Fenice’s self-accusation, prodding and probing, even stabbing at it like crazed dentists jabbing at an exposed nerve. But it soon became apparent that Felix, while holding himself guilty for not being a strong and true leader, was unlikely to have been the worm that caused decay in Tarot itself. The Frenchman was most convincing, and it was not hard to believe that this rising sense of guilt had been the mainspring of his flight from the oncoming American Third Army and his later disguise in a camp.

  The Board changed its attack, taking each member of Tarot out in front of Fenice for his comments. They asked about politics –

  ‘Maxine and Dédé were to the left, I suppose, but not Communists. The priest, well’ – Fenice shrugged – ‘he was a priest. Of all of them, if I was asked for suspicion I would point to Florence.’ Fenice told them. ‘Florence was outspoken. I once asked her if she would have been happier with the Maquis. After all, that was where the Communists really were. She said no and I accepted it. The Communists were our brothers in arms then. But even though she held a burning hatred for the Nazis, I was never truly comfortable with Florence.’

  ‘Why?’ asked one of the lawyers.

  ‘It is difficult. Sometimes she would disappear. She would be away for days at a time and never explained. I tried to give her as little responsibility as possible – ’

  ‘We have no photographs,’ the chairman butted in. ‘Can you describe her?’

  ‘That is easy. Dark hair, small. She was very like Maxine to look at.’

  Naldo reflected that Caspar must have suddenly been filled with a tiny flame of hope. Could it have been Caroline who had died, horribly, after rape, and not the French girl? Any Railton like Caspar would hope for that rather than a betrayal.

  They took him over each of the Tarot members again and again – there were pages of transcript – but, in Jules Fenice’s estimation, Florence was the only oddity among them.

  Next they went through the various ‘pianists’ assigned to them. On the question of Drake, who had given evidence, the stories matched up. As for the others – captured and executed – Fenice could say little.

  ‘Of course I was anxious when it happened twice. A third time was more than simply bad luck. To me it proved the Gestapo or Abwehr had inside knowledge. We were left alone – and it took me until early in 1944 to realise there was something decidedly strange about that. We lived on a tightrope of anxiety all the time, yet we were never arrested, while the “pianists” wer
e.’

  ‘Is that how you came to have two radios?’ – one of the lawyers who had not asked many questions until now.

  ‘Yes, we had one of the early ones – the old Mark XV, is that correct?’

  It was.

  ‘We kept that one at the farm, as it was too heavy to carry around. The other was one of the Parasets. That was the wireless we moved all over Orléans.’

  It transpired that at least three transmitters, brought in by ‘pianists’ captured later, ended up in the hands of Klaubert’s men. Naldo was slowly beginning to understand C’s last orders given to them that night.

  Painstakingly, the Board began to go back over every single operation conducted by Tarot, running through seemingly trivial details with Felix, trying to check and recheck dates and the names of those involved.

  The picture that emerged was one bordering on farce. While some operations had gone surprisingly well, the bulk had been lash-ups from the beginning. They dwelt heavily on the supposed sabotage of Ju88 and ME110 G-4 aircraft and the Luftwaffe base near Orléans. They gave the dates and read the messages instructing action to be taken, together with the replies, which claimed aircraft had been destroyed.

  ‘Yes, I sent all those signals – the replies stating action had been carried out,’ Felix admitted.

  ‘Why, when you must have known the jobs were not done?’

  ‘Until later – early 1944 – I thought the jobs had been done. They were undertaken by St Christophe and le Teneur de Livres – young Villar and Maury. I had personally instructed them in the handling of explosives, and how to set the right kind of charges. Those two went out on five separate occasions. We also knew aircraft had been destroyed. It was all over the place. Luftwaffe personnel talked about it in bars, restaurants, and bistros. In February ’44 I discovered the errors.’ It was just about the time that Jules Fenice was starting to have grave misgivings about a lot of the work his people had done.

  ‘And what was the cause of these – what did you call them? Errors?’ – the senior lawyer at his most scathing.

  ‘The wrong airfield was hit, therefore the wrong aircraft. The boys went to the satellite landing ground east of Orléans and destroyed twin-engined D-720s – captured French Dewoitines – the Luftwaffe were using for training. They were expendable airplanes. We expended them.’ Fenice tried a wry smile.

  ‘And how could this happen? Didn’t you do a thorough reconnaissance? Walk them over the ground?’

  ‘Not personally. That was impossible. Near an airfield I would have been questioned. On the other hand, Dédé, in a short skirt on a bicycle, making sure the guards got a good view of her petit – er, her clothes underneath – ’ He shrugged again, holding his hands a few inches apart, forefingers extended, as if this explained everything.

  ‘So Dédé did the reconnaissance and walked the lads through it on a map?’

  ‘Oui. Yes. She merely got the wrong airfield.’

  ‘A mistake that could happen to anyone.’ The lawyer was still heavy on the sarcasm. ‘Was that the same problem when it came to the electricity pylons at Neuville-aux-Bois?’

  ‘A similar misfortune. On that occasion it was Florence. She picked the correct pylons but gave the wrong map references. Foolish.’

  Again and again there were stories of wrong map references and mistaken identities. Tarot had even crippled a relatively harmless corporal, late at night in a dark alley, in mistake for his officer, whom they wanted out of the way for a time so that they could raid Wehrmacht stores.

  It was six-thirty in the morning when Naldo and Arnie got to the Romarin operation – too late to go on reading at the house. C had told them to expect his man at seven.

  They sent Herbie to make coffee, which he did reluctantly, not wanting to leave the beautiful sprawling masterpiece that was Mahler’s Second Symphony. ‘Now that is a musician,’ the boy kept saying as he lumbered toward the kitchen. ‘That is a real musician. A giant.’

  ‘What d’you think?’ Naldo asked.

  ‘I think it all fits perfectly well with C’s First Folio and the main thrust of his theory.’ Arnold lit another cigarette. ‘They’ll never get the full strength of it from the Enquiry. It really is up to us. Tarot was no go from the start, and I don’t honestly believe Felix is as clean as C imagines.’

  At just before seven o’clock, the doorbell rang in sequence, and Naldo went to open it. He pulled the door back a few inches to ask who it was, and receive the password. ‘Clive Candy,’ to which he replied, ‘Blimp.’

  Naldo hardly opened the door any further. The figure that slid into the hall was short, very slim, dressed in a knee-length coat over cord trousers and a black turtleneck. On his feet he wore what were known then as gym shoes. He carried a briefcase and his slim frame had about it an aura of steel. The man felt like a trained killer. It was impossible for Naldo to analyse the feeling, but it was there, as though the man’s body gave off vibrations of death and danger. It also showed in the eyes – pallid grey, the color of a dead plaice’s skin.

  Their visitor closed the door with his shoulder. ‘You’re D Major, I presume,’ he said. There was no smile, just a quick up and down flicking of the eyes. The three men who formed C’s Symphony team were using simple cryptonyms – D Major for Naldo; A Minor for Arnie; and, inevitably, E Flat for Kruger.

  ‘The Chief calls me Cherub because I’m no Angel.’ In other voices the remark would have had camp undertones. With Cherub it was hard, matter-of-deadly-fact.

  ‘I’ve come to take you to the aircraft. C said there would be some documents to bring back.’ He indicated the briefcase.

  ‘We haven’t finished with them yet.’ Naldo felt increasingly uncomfortable with the man.

  ‘No matter. I’ll travel with you. You’ll finish them on the plane?’

  ‘I should think so.’

  ‘Good. I’ll return the papers. C says I’ll be making trips to you with other documents.’ He opened the briefcase to display a pair of handcuffs inside. ‘I lock it to my wrist.’ He nodded, holding out his hand for the transcripts and saying they could have them back once they were airborne. He explained the procedure to them and they left, one by one, at five-minute intervals. A small van picked them up from different points near the Northolt shopping promenade, the station, and The Target public house. Cherub sat next to the driver, the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist.

  They drove straight onto the airfield, over to a Nissen hut where Cherub told them to leave the van. He would stay outside.

  WAAFs served breakfast to them in the Nissen hut – sausages, egg, bacon, and beans washed down with thick dark tea served in enamel mugs. Arnold pulled a face when he tasted it, but Kruger ate as though he were never going to get a square meal again.

  They travelled in a Dakota fitted with seats in the style of its pre-war brother, the American civil airliner, and immediately after take-off, Cherub passed the transcripts back to Naldo, who handed one to Arnie. Herbie sat in the rear, eyes alert, enjoying the ride.

  Naldo and Arnie worked their way toward the centrepiece of Felix’s evidence – the Romarin operation.

  ‘The Americans dropped a lot of leaflets,’ Fenice began. ‘They had been doing it since ’43, but now we knew the invasion was to be soon. I think it was American airplanes who did the Carpetbagger operations also – the dropping of more weapons and equipment. We only got hold of three or four canisters. The Germans gobbled them up. They seemed to know exactly where the stuff would be dropped.’

  ‘Advance information again?’ queried the senior lawyer.

  ‘They could have unbuttoned the codes we used, but that is doubtful. They were quite secure, and the speed at which they would have had to do it points to an informer, not a listener.’

  ‘So someone informed on Romarin?’

  ‘This is difficult. Romarin was most secure. No radio traffic except for the one message we listened for. We took turns listening to the BBC messages each night. When we got the first part of the Ve
rlaine poem on June 1, we were put into great spirits. When the second part of the poem was broadcast, some fools wanted to storm the German military installations. They did listen to me, though. It appeared they obeyed orders.’

  The BBC broadcast ‘personal messages’ to occupied Europe after their nine P.M. news each night. Many of the messages were for individuals, or circuits like Tarot. The fragments of the Verlaine poem were for everyone – Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne – ‘The long sobs of the violins of autumn,’ – would be broadcast on the first or fifteenth of the month to signal the invasion of occupied Europe was imminent. The second line – ‘Wound my heart with a monotonous languor’ – signified the operation would begin within twenty-four hours.

  Romarin came four weeks later. ‘The code was contained in a personal message,’ Fenice told them again. ‘When we heard Souffrons, mais souffrons sur les cimes – ‘If we must suffer, let us suffer nobly’ – I knew Romarin would take place on the following night.’ A note in the margin said that he thumped his chest hard with a balled fist when he said ‘I’ – like a priest performing the mea culpa.

  ‘You, and only you, knew the details?’ the SIS officer asked.

  ‘They were not radio messages – clandestine or otherwise. Night Stock brought the orders for Romarin directly to me.’

  Night Stock was the agent from Switzerland who had taken Caspar’s first instructions, by word of mouth, to Tarot after the Fall of France in 1940. He had made regular tours of the various circuits throughout the whole of the Occupation, and now, it appeared, he came in after D-Day to carry messages and give instructions.

  In his evidence, Caspar had spoken of the great work this agent was able to do throughout the war, and, in particular, during that period between D-Day and the final breakout and dash for the Liberation of France. When asked to produce Night Stock, however, Caspar was unable to do so. He had disappeared in the carnage and chaos of the battles.