“Are you convinced, then?” she said quietly, desperately hoping Aldridge was willing to give her birds this chance.
He looked at her then, and his silence was nerve-wracking, but Olive weathered it unflinchingly. “Your pigeons have met—and exceeded—every expectation. You, however, have been entirely unpredictable and frustratingly insubordinate,” he said sternly. Her stomach lurched in response. “But,” he went on, and Olive hoped he had no idea what she was suffering, “you have proven yourself to be impressively competent, and your instincts—with one minor exception—have been nearly infallible.” He raised a single eyebrow, and Olive bit her lip uncertainly. “Then there’s the fact that I’ve already invested considerable effort in the cover story of being involved with you . . .”
Relief sent a wave of giddiness skipping through her veins. “Do stop, Jamie. I’m blushing,” she said artfully.
After a moment’s pause, he said gravely, “I hope you know that there is as much courage in staunchly taking on tasks that others would shirk as there is in running headlong into enemy fire.”
“So it would seem,” she quipped, thinking of her close call. But she smiled. It had been a hard lesson to learn, but she’d found contentment in her circumstances. She’d find a way to make her mark. She fully expected he’d do the same—he had, after all, decided to take a chance on the Bright loft.
His smile flashed, quick and charming, and Olive caught a fleeting glimpse of mischief in his eyes. “A little less drama would be good, though, going forward.”
She didn’t even try to hold back the grin that spread over her face. It seemed that Jonathon had officially won their bet, and it occurred to Olive that losing had never given her such a thrill. The war was far from over, and it seemed she’d be working with Jameson Aldridge for the foreseeable future. He had no idea what he was in for.
Historical Note
In 1943 Maria Dickin, founder of the veterinary charity People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals, instituted an award to be given in recognition of the heroic feats of animals serving with the British Armed Forces or the Civil Defence Service. A bronze medallion, the Dickin Medal bears the words “For Gallantry. We also serve,” encircled by a laurel wreath. Fifty-four medals were given for service during the Second World War, thirty-two of them to pigeons—more than to any other animal by far.
When Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany in September 1939, it was a call to arms for the whole of Britain. Man and beast, everyone was called to do their bit in the fight for their lives. While a cursory glance at the unassuming pigeon offered little hint as to its intelligence, loyalty, stamina, and endurance, history had told an entirely different story. Memories of pigeons’ heroic exploits in the Great War had not been forgotten. Prior to that, the unique qualities of the breed had been instrumental in the establishment of Reuters news service. Pigeons had, in fact, been carrying messages in war and peacetime as far back as Greek and Roman times.
Bred and trained to fly hundreds of miles, at an impressive speed, from an unfamiliar location to its home loft, a racing pigeon could carry critical intelligence in a canister strapped to its leg. It filled the gaps left by wireless communications, saving pilots downed in the Channel and regiments under fire. It braved harsh weather conditions, artillery fire, snipers, and predators, at times impeded by considerable injury. It was, in short, a perfect soldier and much needed in the fight against German military might.
As such, British pigeon fanciers were encouraged to join the National Pigeon Service (NPS) and offer their birds to the war effort. Even the King, who had been introduced, with his father, to the sport of racing pigeons by King Leopold II of Belgium, provided birds from the Royal Lofts at Sandringham. The Air Ministry was then responsible for supplying the various branches and organizations of the British war machine. The army set up mobile pigeon lofts on the front lines in Europe, North Africa, India, and the Middle and Far East; and all Royal Air Force bombers and reconnaissance aircraft had at least one pigeon aboard, tucked carefully into its own watertight container, complete with parachute. In the event of an unscheduled landing, the bird would be released, to return to its home loft with the information necessary to facilitate a rescue mission. The Special Operations Executive (SOE), nicknamed Baker Street for its headquarters, used pigeons, as well, dropping the birds along with secret agents behind enemy lines, where both were equally at risk.
SOE agents went through a rigorous training program before being inserted into occupied Europe. They were assessed for physical and mental suitability and then instructed on every little detail of the job that lay ahead—from the proper way to ask for coffee and how to pick a lock, to the quickest way to bring a factory to a grinding halt. Special training schools were established, one of the first being at Brickendonbury Manor in Hertfordshire. It would become Station XVII, the school for sabotage and the site of explosive trials, thus amply contributing to Churchill’s directive to “set Europe ablaze,” in missions such as Operation Josephine B.
It’s entirely possible that Brickendonbury Manor had a pigeoneer like Olive Bright at its disposal. While her husband stayed busy in London as a member of Parliament, Mary Manningham-Buller spent the war years in an Oxfordshire village, raising pigeons for the SOE. Parachuting into France, Holland, and Belgium, her birds were collected by agents on the ground and sent home with intelligence on German troop movements, operations, and newly developed weaponry, all of which was immediately transmitted by motorbike to the War Office in London.
The Germans were also fully cognizant of the wartime benefit of pigeons: the state-run German National Pigeon Society supplied birds for use by the military, the Schutzstaffel (SS), and the Gestapo. They were also keenly aware of the threat presented by Allied pigeons. Not only did they establish a hawking division in the German Air Force to intercept birds along the Channel, but they also made the strategic decision to clear the pigeon lofts in the countries they occupied. The result was that any unidentified bird—and the person who harbored it—came instantly under suspicion, their lives forfeited. To the Nazis, these foreign pigeons signified treachery and betrayal, whereas to the Resistance, the birds symbolised hope and freedom. They were a connection to the Allies—the last strongholds of democracy—and provided the means for them to assist in the fight.
It was a pigeon named Gustav that brought back the first news of Operation Neptune, the code name given to the Normandy landings, also known as D-Day. In order to preserve the critical element of surprise, the landings were carried out under radio silence, and hundreds of pigeons were standing by, waiting to carry messages home amid the threat of enemy fire and German-trained falcons. Gustav flew 150 miles against a thirty-mile-per-hour headwind in five hours and sixteen minutes, setting a pace of nearly sixty miles per hour over the duration. He was awarded the Dickin Medal for this impressive effort.
Over the course of the war, NPS members provided an estimated 200,000 pigeons for use by the British military. What they accomplished is little short of amazing.
Olive Bright, Pigeoneer Page 36
