by Lee Jackson
Fourcade stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be. That was good advice. Having you around will keep us alive.”
When most of the guests had left, still seated around the table were Amélie, Fourcade, Maurice, and Phillippe. Henri had already departed, and Chantal stood at the end, hands on hips, red-faced and annoyed.
“This won’t take long,” Amélie chided her. “We just need a short conversation and then we’ll leave. All I’ve asked is that you wait for me on the other side of the terr—”
“All you’ve done is treated me like a child,” Chantal broke in. “Again.” Her eyes sparked with anger. “I’m no longer fourteen. I’m fifteen now.”
Startled, Amélie stared. “You’ve had a birthday. I forgot—”
“Yes, while you were in London for those three months.” Chantal glared. “That’s fine. We’re at war. I didn’t expect anyone to remember. But that’s the point, isn’t it? I’m in the war too. I can’t go to school and Maurice tries to make me feel important by sending me on those ‘courier’ missions so the two of you can talk with Fourcade.”
Her expression softened, then she laughed and turned toward Maurice. “I’m sorry, but when I get to where you send me and we take the ‘coded’ message out of the handlebars of my bicycle, the person I deliver it to throws it away without looking at it. Anyone could figure out what you were doing.”
Maurice pursed his lips, attempting to hold back a shamefaced grin. “I’m sorry, little one—”
“No, no,” Chantal cried, wiping tearful eyes, “you’re all protecting me. I love you for it, but I’m growing up in a war, and I don’t have a choice about that. But I can choose how I spend my time.” She faced Amélie. “I told you that if you don’t let me participate in the Resistance, I’d leave and find a group that will put me in the fight.” She lifted a fist with the thumb and index finger extended and barely apart. “I’m this far from doing that.”
Amélie started to respond, but Chantal stopped her with an open palm. “Wait. I’m not finished.” She took a breath. “I fled across France with you and millions of refugees. I’ve been in the secret Resistance locations.” She gestured toward Maurice. “I’ve ridden with him for hours, loaded his vegetables, and seen what he does and how he does it.” She held back laughter with a hand cupped to her mouth. “So, being fifteen isn’t far from being fourteen. I know that. But the little girl who woke up one morning like every other morning five months ago and then heard bombs falling and exploding and watched the British evacuate in front of her house at Dunkirk, and then was nearly raped…”
Tears rolled down her cheeks and she choked out her next words. “That little girl is gone. I wish that weren’t true, but it is. And now, I have to help win this war like everyone else.”
Silence weighed, with all eyes on Chantal. Amélie rose to her feet and rushed to hold her sister. “I’m sorry—”
Chantal shook her head, and with one arm around Amélie’s back and still wiping away tears with the other, she faced the group. “I know you’re sending her out again, somewhere dangerous. I can help.” She indicated Maurice. “Ask him. He’ll tell you. I learn fast, I keep my mouth shut, I do as I’m told, and I’m good at improvising.”
Maurice nodded his big head. “She does all of those things, and more. If the German army ever comes here, or if Pétain tries to crack down, he might find a fight he never expected because of how good she is at reconnaissance, surveillance, and sketching.”
Chantal’s eyes brightened. “I can even act like a child when it’s helpful.” She laughed, pressing the fingers of both hands against her cheeks and raising the tenor of her voice to illustrate her point. Then her eyes took on a determined look. “I’m alive because my sister stopped my rape. I’m going with her, or I’ll leave. I won’t sit and wait to find out she’s been killed.”
Amélie gazed at Chantal in a new light. At the opposite end of the table, Phillippe stirred. “I’ll be leading this expedition,” he said. “I expect to have final say.” He peered sternly at Chantal, studying her.
She held her breath.
“We’ll take her.”
10
November 29, 1940
London, England
Captain Paul Littlefield rubbed sleepy eyes as he entered Winston Churchill’s lair in the prime minister’s bunker-basement war office at Whitehall. His flight from New York City had been long, and he had slept little. Ahead of him were Bill Stephenson, codenamed Intrepid by Britain’s quintessential prime minister, and US Brigadier General William Donovan, commonly known among his colleagues and friends as “Wild Bill.” President Roosevelt nicknamed the pair “Little Bill” and “Big Bill,” respectively.
Churchill looked up from his desk with his normal pugnacious expression as they entered, seizing a cigar stub from his mouth. “Come in, come in, gentlemen, find a seat.” He stood and looked about the cramped room. “We should have enough chairs.”
Churchill appraised the three men briefly: Bill Stephenson, physically small, in his mid-forties, and with a full head of brown hair over intense eyes that gave away nothing; Bill Donovan, somewhat larger, in his fifties, having a high forehead but otherwise a full head of white hair, a piercing glance, and a square jaw, and was obviously a dedicated athlete; and Paul, above medium height, also athletic, and looking very much like his siblings, with sandy-colored hair, brown eyes, and a straight nose.
“I am so pleased that President Roosevelt won his third term,” Churchill said. “Of course, I called to congratulate him back on the fifth immediately after his victory was announced. But for that electoral result, all the groundwork we’ve laid would have gone up in smoke.” He took a puff on his cigar. “Roosevelt met with the head of our purchasing mission in Washington, Arthur Purvis, two days after winning the election to discuss what weapons and supplies we’re needing, but he can still sell arms to us only on a cash-and-carry basis due to that damnable neutrality act.”
His exasperation escaped. “He can’t even let me have the aircraft we’ve already paid for with cash.”
The prime minister shook his head and shot a sly glance at Stephenson. “We’ll figure a way to handle that, won’t we? We must have American industry to win this thing.”
Paul took in the prime minister’s statements. He had observed the US election campaigns with detached interest, and he knew of the close working relationship between the two heads of state via Stephenson, but he had not considered how drastically the path of the war might have changed had Roosevelt lost. The neutrality act was something he had heard about but did not fully understand.
The prime minister peered over his glasses as he extended his hand and half-smiled at Paul. “Did you settle in New York all right, Captain? You’ll tell me if Intrepid works you too hard, won’t you? I hear he’s a slave driver.”
Struggling through travel-induced brain fog, Paul shook the prime minister’s hand and said simply, “He treats me well.”
Churchill grunted. “Sorry you won’t be in London long enough to visit anyone. I know your brother and sister would like to see you, as would that WAAF officer. What was her name?”
“Ryan Northridge, sir. Thank you for keeping us in touch.”
“Rubbish. I sent a courier. Anything that came afterward was between the two of you.” He turned his attention to Donovan, forming a statement into a question by his tone of voice. “I understand that the president will name you his communications coordinator, per my suggestion, by the end of the year.”
“Yes, sir. And I’m already at your disposal. I managed to get out of Washington without anyone noticing.”
While the two men exchanged greetings and with his alertness returning by degrees, Paul looked around Churchill’s office with interest. He had been in it once before, when he was offered the assignment to work as Stephenson’s aide in New York. It was then even more dimly lit. This time he could see a bit more of the room. The prime minister’s desk took up most of the width of it, so tha
t squeezing by was an imperative to get around to the prime minister’s seat, particularly for a man of his size. Behind it was a large wall map. Chairs were set on either side of the narrow room, and beyond them, each wall also bore large maps of the European war theater. At the other end of the room was a bed Churchill used for his famous catnaps and frequent overnights, complete with a chamber pot at the foot.
Having greeted all three men, the prime minister brushed his left hand over his balding head. “Let’s get right to it, shall we?”
Before they could sit down, he turned with his back almost facing them. “Take a look at the map. Gather round.” He returned his cigar stub to his mouth.
“I’ve never been convinced that the non-aggression pact between Stalin and Hitler would hold,” he began, “and we’ve been seeing far more German troops and materiel moving east than he needs to guard the oilfields in Romania or train their army. He’s put eighteen divisions there, many times over what he needs for that purpose.”
He waved a dismissive hand. “The Nazi is too wedded to his hatred of Communist Bolsheviks. Their treaty was an artifice to give Herr Adolf a free hand against us, and when he realizes he’s botched things up here irreversibly, he’ll push north to Moscow. He wants their oil and their industry, and more space for the Aryan race to proliferate.”
As he spoke, Churchill removed the cigar once again, and still holding it, swept his palm across the map from Berlin to the heart of the Soviet capital. “It won’t be the easy battle he expects, but it might be less difficult for him than we think—unless we prepare the field.”
He brushed his wide-open hand along the lines and colors depicting the remaining officially “neutral” countries of eastern Europe: Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia. “This,” he announced, “is the next battlefield before the German surprise assault on Soviet territory.” He pointed out Greece. “With Italy invading there from Albania at the beginning of the month, we have some opportunities, but Greece is such a mishmash of politics, what with their civil unrest and all. The best we can say now is that the people are fiercely patriotic and anti-fascist, they’ve put their politics aside, and they fight like their very existence depends on it, which it does.
“But—" Churchill’s tone dropped to conspiratorial. “Italy mucked up its assault on Greece and is calling for German help. Three weeks ago, Hitler ordered an operations plan to be drawn up for that purpose.” He chuckled. “The Greeks will never give up, and we do have an ace—Turkey warned Bulgaria that it will attack if it joins Italy in their invasion of Greece. That relieves pressure along Greece’s northeastern border.”
He ambled back to his seat and sat down, facing his audience of three with the defiant glare that had become so famous worldwide. “Since Stalin won’t listen to our warnings, we’re in the strange position of having to save the Bolshevik from himself and arrange the outcome we must have.”
“Sir,” Stephenson asked. “Do you think Stalin really believes that Hitler won’t attack?”
Churchill’s fixed glare shifted to him, and then softened through passing moments. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “He has his own intelligence sources, but he shows no hint of disbelieving Hitler. Regardless, we cannot afford for the führer to win against the Soviets and then turn the full combined industrial and military might of the Bolsheviks and the Nazis against Britain, which he most assuredly would do. Therefore, we must devise a plan to stop him.”
The moment hung in the air, and then Churchill abruptly stood, returned to the map, and trailed his fingers along the horizontal blue swatch representing the Mediterranean Sea. “Thank God, Admiral Cunningham’s chaps secured these lanes for us—and with ‘outdated’ fighters, no less. The ‘Stringbag.’” He gestured toward Paul and chuckled. “Let that be a lesson for you, lad. When does something become obsolete?”
Taken aback from being addressed so directly by the prime minister and not sure that a response was expected, Paul grasped for words. “When it’s overtaken by better technology, I suppose.”
“Well, I’m glad our chap Admiral Lyster didn’t think your way,” Churchill responded. “No, he didn’t, and a good thing too.” He stuck his cigar back in his mouth and searched Paul shrewdly. Then he turned to Stephenson. “Have we got the right man on this job?”
“Oh, don’t be so rough on him, sir,” Stephenson said, laughing. “He’s still learning and might not yet understand when you say things in jest. Besides, he was the pick of the litter.”
Churchill harumphed and cast another appraising glance at Paul. “Something is obsolete when it no longer serves a useful purpose. Our ‘antiquated’ Swordfish took out nearly half the Italian navy and all its ‘advanced’ equipment. That fighter isn’t nearly done yet, mark my words. It will make yet another significant strike for us.” He returned his focus to the map.
“Here’s the issue. We now possess, courtesy of Bletchley Park, proof positive regarding Hitler’s intentions for Stalin, in the form of his full Directive 21: Operation Barbarossa.” He shook his head and muttered, “The cheek of that man knows no bounds and will be his undoing. Barbarossa? The Austrian corporal forgets himself.”
He flung another comment at Paul. “Hitler sees himself as the medieval pirate turned admiral of the Ottomans who added Algeria and Tunisia to their empire. If you don’t know about the man, Barbarossa, read up on him, and you’ll see why this is laughable.” He shook his head in disgust. “The codename also hints that Hitler is leaning into his superstitious nature.
“Anyway, as I was saying. The führer is obviously not a student of history, although he fancies himself a brilliant military strategist in a league with Napoleon and Alexander the Great. No doubt, he’s studied their victories, but he’ll be brought to ruin by his fascination with the occult, and because he obviously has not studied the errors of his human idols.
“He’s counting on Stalin’s belief in the steadfastness of their non-aggression pact and his weak preparedness for war. Comrade Joseph doesn’t seem to realize that a major impetus for the agreement from Hitler’s view is that Germany didn’t want to take on Great Britain with hostile Soviets at his back. The führer perceives them to be militarily weak, particularly after the long time they took to bring Finland to heel.
“Unfortunately, we can’t show Stalin our proof for these conclusions. Coming from Bletchley, we’d have to expose the secret of our codebreaking capability, and that would amount to giving up the farm.” He chuckled. “The fact is, pertinent points of Hitler’s communiqués are telephoned to me almost as fast as he sends or receives them, and he appears to have drastically underestimated the mobilization Stalin pulled off in modernizing his heavy manufacturing plants. They can be converted to produce tanks and fighters rapidly.
“So, we’ll keep whispering in the Russian bear’s ear, goad things along, and be ready to pounce when the time is right.”
The prime minister paced the edge of the map before re-taking his seat behind the desk. “Sit, sit, gentlemen. General Donovan, do you have any messages for me from the president? I should have asked when you came in.”
As they sat down, Donovan nodded. “I do, sir.” He took a slender document from his jacket and handed it to the prime minister. “He sent this along with his good wishes. He understands the outline of what you intend, and he wants me to explain your plan to him when we’ve hammered out the details.”
“What’s in the envelope?” Churchill asked.
“Confirmation of Operation Barbarossa from an independent source.”
Churchill was opening the envelope but stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Can you fill me in?”
“Are you familiar with Hauptman Fritz Wiedemann of the Wehrmacht?”
“Of course. Some reports have him as Hitler’s commanding officer in the Great War.”
“That’s him. They were in the same unit, and Wiedemann was an officer, although what the line of authority was that ran between him and Hitler, I don’t know. In any event, h
e became an enthusiastic supporter. More recently, Hitler sent him to the US on a diplomatic mission. Not to get into the weeds too much, but he’s suggested that he’s disenchanted with Hitler and wants to get away from him. We’ve had our doubts about his sincerity, but he’s vouched for by a German informant we rely on and by one of our own men, Sam Edison Woods, our engineer turned diplomat who brought you and Mr. Roosevelt news of Hitler’s grand plan for purifying the races.”
Churchill had begun scanning the document. Now he looked up, his expression deadly serious. “Of course I remember. From Texas. He’s the one saying to believe Wiedemann?”
“He is, sir.”
“Then we should believe him.” He returned his attention to the document, muttering, “And it’s good to have corroboration.”
Donovan watched Churchill a moment. When he spoke again, he enunciated his words slowly and carefully. “Keep in mind, sir, that Yugoslavia has the largest and best equipped army in what remains of ‘neutral’ Europe. It could block our plans. However, what’s outlined in Wiedemann’s document is a trap to pull Hitler into a war he cannot win and lead to his ultimate defeat.”
Churchill leaned forward and concentrated on the document. Minutes ticked by. Paul had listened, mesmerized. Now he watched with equally rapt attention. Stephenson sat calmly observing, saying nothing.
At last Churchill looked up. “It’s time to get down into those proverbial weeds, gentlemen. I’d like you to go somewhere where you won’t be disturbed and thoroughly analyze Hitler’s Directive 21 and this document provided by Wiedemann, and then let’s meet again, say after the first of the year, to lay our plans. What say you?”
“We’ll be here, sir,” Stephenson said.
As the men started rising to leave, Churchill’s telephone rang, and he glanced at Paul as he answered it. “Yes,” he replied to his secretary in response to a query, “we’re finishing up. Please make that call now and put it through in here.”
