by Helen Peters
“Yes, sir.”
We left the room. As Private Willis closed the door, I heard Colonel Ferguson pick up the telephone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Do Not Give Any German Anything”
If the Invader Comes
Peter Smith shoved me against the living-room wall.
“What is your name?” he shouted. Saliva sprayed from his mouth and landed in my eyes. I tried to wipe my face but he slapped my hand away.
“What is your name?” he yelled again.
I tried to reply. My mouth formed the words, but no sound came out.
“Are you dumb as well as stupid, filthy Jew?” He smacked me in the face.
With a jolt of horror I saw my mother and father. They were huddled in a corner of the living room, dressed in rags, gagged and bound. I felt sick with guilt. Why hadn’t I seen them before?
Their mouths were moving and I knew they were calling to me, but I couldn’t hear their voices. The more they struggled and tried to shout, the less substantial they became, as though they were vanishing into a mist. And it was all my fault.
“What is your name? What is your name?” He was yelling it over and over, and each time he yelled it, he slapped my face, first one side and then the other.
“Anna Schlesinger,” I tried to say, but no sound came out of my mouth. An SS officer appeared and dragged my parents out of the room. They reached out their arms to me. “Help us, Anna,” they mouthed. “Help us.”
I screamed, but still no sound came out, and I watched helplessly, writhing in Peter Smith’s grasp, as they were dragged into another room and the door was kicked shut behind them.
“Anna, wake up!”
I screamed and thrashed my arms, but something was holding me tight. “Anna, it’s all right. You’ve had a nightmare. It was just a bad dream, that’s all.”
I opened my eyes, my heart pounding. The sheet was wound around me like a shroud. I was soaked in sweat. Molly’s hands were on my shoulders. She looked frightened.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
I nodded. I just wanted to forget it as soon as possible and be back in the real world. My parents were safe. At least, a Red Cross letter had come last week, so they had been all right when it was sent.
“It’s seven o’clock,” whispered Molly urgently. “What happened? Why didn’t you wake me?”
My insides dissolved as last night’s events flooded into my nightmare-addled head. Had that really happened?
“Anna, wake up!” Molly whispered urgently. “What time did you come back? Why didn’t you wake me?”
I rubbed my face and sat up. “It’s all right. There’s a soldier guarding him.”
Molly went white. “What do you mean? How do they know? Did you tell them? What’s happening?”
“Molly, please. Stop asking questions and I’ll tell you. But it’s best if Frank hears it at the same time. Let’s all go to the tree house.”
Once we were safely in the tree house, I told them exactly what Colonel Ferguson had told me to tell them.
“But why’s there a soldier stationed in the farmyard?” asked Molly. “It’s a bit odd. Do you think they know the man’s here?”
My stomach churned.
“They can’t do,” said Frank. “If they knew he was here, they’d just arrest him.”
“I expect it’s just general security precautions,” I said, trying to speak lightly. “You know, national defences, that sort of thing. I don’t expect it’s just here. They’re probably putting more troops everywhere.”
“Maybe because of you-know-who coming on Thursday,” said Frank.
“Yes, probably,” I said.
“Well, it’s worked out really well, actually,” said Molly. “Thank goodness we don’t have to worry about guarding him any more.”
“Just feeding him,” I said. “We’ll have to smuggle some food to him after breakfast.”
“What about the soldier on duty?” said Frank. “Won’t he be suspicious if we keep taking food to the barn?”
“We’ll hide it in pockets or under our clothes,” said Molly, “and if anyone asks about the water, we’ll say we keep a bowl of water in the barn for Clover. Remember to pretend to be really hungry at breakfast, and save the extra slice of bread.”
We walked back to the cottage in silence. What Frank and Molly had said had got me thinking. Why hadn’t Colonel Ferguson just had the man arrested? Why let him stay in the barn and ask me to hand over his letters?
It could only be because the colonel wanted to read those letters. And that must mean he suspected the man was part of a wider network of spies. So he wanted to read his letters secretly and learn as much as he could about the other spies in the network: where they were located and what they were planning to do. Then, at the right moment, they would all be arrested.
That must be it, mustn’t it?
I just hoped Colonel Ferguson knew what he was doing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“If You See Anything Suspicious, Note It Carefully”
If the Invader Comes
“We’re sorry there’s no jam,” Molly said to the man, as we took our smuggled slices of bread out from under our shirts and handed them to him, “but we can’t make Mum suspicious, you see.”
“Thank you,” said the man, taking a huge bite of bread. “I am very hungry. Will you be able to go to a shop this morning?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Molly.
“Would you please post this letter for me?” he said, taking an envelope from his pocket.
Molly held out her hand for it, but the man drew it closer to his chest. The envelope was addressed and stamped, but not sealed.
“I have one more part to add to the letter, and I wondered if you children could help me.”
My stomach was a mass of nerves.
“Of course,” said Molly. “If we can.”
“I would like my mother to be able to reply, since I might be here for a few more days. But I cannot of course ask her to send a letter to me in this barn.”
“You could ask her to send it to us,” said Frank. “Then we could pass it on to you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Molly said. “We never get letters. It would look pretty suspicious if we suddenly started getting secret communications from a stranger.”
“What if she sent it to Anna?” asked Frank. “She gets letters.”
“Not with a Kent postmark.”
“I have an idea,” I said.
Three pairs of eyes turned to me.
“What about Mrs Chantrey’s address? She’s moving to Scotland tomorrow, isn’t she? And she’s given your mum a key to her cottage, to keep an eye on things until her tenants move in. What if we offer to water her plants and send on her post, to save your mum a job? If Peter’s mother wrote to that address, we could go round every morning when the post arrives and bring his letters here.”
“That’s a brilliant idea,” said Frank.
Even the man looked impressed.
With the man’s eyes fixed on my face, there was no way I could signal to Molly and Frank. I would just have to rely on them following my train of thought.
“She lives in a little village called Ashcombe. It’s several miles away, but we can cycle there.”
I held my breath, ready to jump in and talk over Frank if he questioned me. But his face was impressively blank.
“How will we know which letter is from Peter’s mother though?” said Molly. “We can’t bring him all Mrs Chantrey’s post. We need to forward her real letters to her new address.”
“What if, when you write the address down now for your mother,” I said, “you spell one of the words wrong. Not badly wrong, but enough to make it a sign for us.”
“You are a clever girl,” said the man, and the way he looked at me made my skin crawl.
“So which word should he spell wrong?” Frank asked.
“Mrs Chantrey lives on Neaves Lane,” said Molly. “N-E-A-V
-E-S. So, Peter, you write it down as N-E-E-V-E-S. Then we’ll know that any letters with that spelling are from your mother, and we’ll bring them straight round.”
The man drew the letter out of the envelope and unfolded it. “Could you tell me the exact name and address that my mother should write to, please?”
I crouched down next to him, as though I was being friendly. “The name is Mrs Chantrey.”
“That’s spelt C-H-A-N-T-R-E-Y,” said Molly slowly. I glanced at her. Was she being extra slow in order to give me more time to read the letter?
I watched him write as Molly spelled out the address. I pretended to be checking that he was writing the address down correctly. To my surprise, he had spread the paper out quite openly, making no attempt to cover up what he had written.
I was even more surprised when I scanned the writing. It really was a letter to his mother. He talked about his concerns for her health, his desire to see her and his frustration at being delayed because of his injury.
For a moment, I wondered whether we’d been wrong about him after all. Had we let our imaginations run away with us? Perhaps he really was a British soldier who just wanted to visit his sick mother.
But of course he wasn’t. He spoke German when he thought he was alone, and he had a wireless transmitter he was trying to fix. Well, we didn’t actually know it was a wireless transmitter, but he was certainly trying to fix some sort of machine that he was hiding from us.
The letter must be in code. Either that or he was using invisible ink. I scrutinised the paper, but if it was invisible ink then it was completely invisible. I looked at the first letter of every word in the opening sentence, in case it spelled out a message, but the letters read DMIHYAFB.
“Is that all correct?” he asked, when he had written down Mrs Chantrey’s address.
“Perfect,” I said.
He licked the envelope, sealed it and passed it to Molly, who tucked it into her trouser pocket.
How was I going to find a way to take the letter to Colonel Ferguson?
“Will you be able to post it immediately?” the man asked. “My mother will be worried that I have not yet arrived.”
“Of course,” Molly reassured him. “We’ll take it straightaway. Don’t worry, we know it’s important.”
It must be a good sign, I suddenly realised, that he was so keen to get his letter sent off. It must mean he hadn’t got his transmitter working.
“How’s your ankle today?” Frank asked.
“I think it’s getting better. The pain is less. After I have eaten, I shall try to walk a little. It may be that I can leave for my mother’s house tomorrow.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t try that,” said Molly. “You don’t want to damage your ankle more by walking on it before it’s ready. I think you’d be best to leave it until it’s properly healed.”
“Anyway,” I said, “I’m afraid you can’t leave at the moment. There are soldiers patrolling the yard.”
He jerked his head up in alarm. I hadn’t planned to say that, but we couldn’t let him escape.
“Soldiers? Here?”
We nodded.
“They patrol the perimeter fence,” said Molly, “and since last night there’s been one in the yard too. Well, not the same one all the time. They work in shifts.”
“Why did you not tell me this?” he snapped. “Why is there a soldier here? What does he do? Do they suspect something? Have you given anything away?” Suddenly he sat bolt upright. “Did he see you come into the barn?”
Molly sat beside him and gave him a kind smile. “Don’t worry. They don’t suspect anything. We talked to one of them and he said it’s just a routine security measure, since there are troops stationed on the estate.”
“But did he see you come to the barn?” he hissed. He looked very tense, every muscle strained.
“We told him our cat lives in here,” said Molly, “so we come to feed her and play with her.”
“And she does sort of live here,” said Frank. “So that’s all right.”
“So when they see us bring water to the barn,” said Molly, “they’ll think it’s for Clover, you see. But you mustn’t go out at the moment, all right? Just stay and rest your ankle. Your mother will know you’ve been delayed when she gets the letter, won’t she?”
“You will have to distract the duty soldier,” he said, “to give me the opportunity to get away.”
“Yes,” agreed Molly. “We’ll do that. But not yet. You need to rest your ankle and we need to post your letter.”
We said goodbye and didn’t speak again until we were back in the tree house. Then Molly took the envelope out of her pocket.
The address said:
Mrs Jean Smith,
Oyster Cottage,
Beach Walk,
Whitstable,
Kent
“It looks so ordinary, doesn’t it?” said Molly. “What did the letter say?”
“It looked completely normal. Just like a letter a soldier would write to his mother. There were one or two odd words in it, but I couldn’t tell whether that’s just his way of writing, or because he was needing to use those words to fit into some sort of code.”
“It’s bound to be in code,” said Molly. “Unless he’s used a very good invisible ink. Just think, inside this envelope there might be instructions to bomb Muddle Green.”
“Or shoot Winston Churchill,” said Frank.
“Or both,” said Molly.
“So what should we do with it?” asked Frank.
“Burn it,” said Molly.
“No!” I said, before I could stop myself.
Molly frowned at me. “Of course we have to burn it. If anyone finds it and cracks the code, this letter could get Dad hanged for treason.”
“But…” I said, frantically trying to think of something, anything that would convince Molly. “We can’t just burn it. That might be treason too. Think about it. Destroying evidence. That’s a really serious crime.”
“So what do you suggest?” asked Molly.
“I think we should just keep it hidden for the moment. If you think about it, it doesn’t look suspicious, does it? It just looks like a letter to someone called Mrs Jean Smith in Whitstable.”
“It’ll look pretty suspicious if Mum finds it. How can we explain it? And there’s nowhere to hide anything in our house. She’s bound to find it sooner or later.”
“Unless…” I said, as an idea suddenly struck me. “Unless I tuck it in the box with all my letters. Aunty Rose would never dream of snooping about in there. She knows how precious those letters are to me.”
I had the satisfaction of seeing Molly flush bright red. Good. She still felt bad about what she’d done. I didn’t want her to think for one moment that I’d forgiven her, just because we were having to work together at the moment.
“That’s perfect,” said Frank.
“I’m not sure,” said Molly. “I still think we should burn it.”
“Why?” I asked, giving her my most piercing look. “Don’t you trust your mother? Do you think she’s the kind of person who would secretly rummage around in somebody else’s most treasured possessions?”
Molly looked away from me. “No,” she said.
“Do you think your dad is the kind of person who would do that?”
“Of course not.”
“So then it will be completely safe, won’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
“That’s settled then.”
And I took the letter and put it in my pocket.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“Remember Parachutists Are Powerless Against Organised Resistance”
If the Invader Comes
I gave my name to the duty soldiers at the main gates, and then I carried the basket of eggs along the leafy avenue, keeping my head to the ground and taking deep breaths to control the sick, panicky feeling as I passed the hordes of troops doing drills and exercises.
I gave my name again to the du
ty soldiers at the foot of the main steps, trying not to look at their guns. One of them nodded and escorted me around the side of the house, exactly as had happened last night. Now I saw we were walking through the stable yard. The brick-built stables formed three sides of a large square, with the house on my right forming the fourth side. A big group of soldiers was marching and drilling in the yard, while an officer shouted orders. I kept my eyes on the ground, but I saw bayonets glinting in the sunlight, and that sight combined with the shouting and the sound of their boots on the cobbles made me dizzy with panic. I put my hand on the house wall to steady myself. My breath came out in shudders.
It’s all right, I told myself. It’s all right. They’re not Nazis. They won’t hurt you. It’s all right.
“Are you all right?” asked the soldier escorting me.
I nodded. He waited while I took a couple more breaths and gingerly took my hand away from the wall. Then he approached the soldier guarding the side door. “Anna Schlesinger, to see Colonel Ferguson,” he said.
The man on guard opened the door and instructed another soldier, who was stationed in the corridor, to escort Miss Schlesinger to Colonel Ferguson’s office.
I felt slightly calmer inside the house. The soldier knocked on Colonel Ferguson’s door and stepped inside to announce my arrival.
“Send her in,” said the colonel.
The soldier indicated for me to enter the room and then he left.
The colonel strode across to greet me. My stomach churned. He was wearing battledress.
“Good morning, Miss Schlesinger,” he said. “Come in. Ah, you brought the eggs. Marvellous.”
I was startled to see another man standing behind the colonel’s desk. He was older than the colonel, and he wore a civilian suit and tie, with a very white shirt. A metre or so away from the desk, a smartly-dressed young woman with dark wavy hair sat on a straight-backed chair. She held a pencil and had a spiral-bound notebook open on her knee.
Were they here for some other reason, or were they interested in Peter Smith’s letter too?
