by Gene Wilder
A sergeant was sitting behind a small desk, typing. When he looked up he asked, “Are you Lieutenant Cole, sir?”
“Yes, I’m a little early.”
“Quite all right, sir. I’m Sergeant Morris,” he said as he stood up quickly. “I’m the one who wrote that letter to you from Colonel Hartley. I’ll tell the colonel that you’re here.”
A second later Tom heard, “Bring him in!” and Tom was ushered into the colonel’s office. Colonel Hartley was standing. Tom saluted quickly, but the colonel said, “You don’t have to do that in here, Cole.” He gave Tom a warm handshake. “I’m glad to see you, son.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Let’s sit over here on these comfy chairs.” As Tom walked toward the chairs he saw photos, which he guessed were the colonel’s wife and children on the colonel’s desk. There were no windows, of course, since the office was underground.
“Would you like a nice hot cup of tea, as the English say every day of their lives?”
“Thank you, sir, no. I just had lunch.” After they both sat down, Colonel Hartley looked at Tom’s eyes for the longest time, as if he were deciding how to say something.
“You’re Jewish,” he finally said.
“Are you asking me, sir, or…”
“No, I’m telling you. I know quite a bit about you, Cole. You also speak fluent German, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir. My father was from Austria and he was Jewish, but he left when Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany losing the First World War. I think he knew what was coming. He went to Chicago to study medicine, met my mother, who was French and studying music, and then they had me.”
“I would like to have known your father. I didn’t know very much about your mother, but she must have been a great inspiration for you to become a cellist.”
“She was, sir.”
“Tell me something, Cole … have you ever heard of a German named Heinrich Müller?”
“… I don’t think so.”
“He’s a policeman. A brilliant policeman, actually. He became the head of the State Police in Nazi Germany, then became the head of the Gestapo and signed orders requiring the immediate delivery to Auschwitz of forty-five thousand Jews for extermination. He was Adolf Eichmann’s immediate superior. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea?”
The two men stared at each other. Tom looked slightly pale.
“Yes, I would like a cup of tea, sir.”
Colonel Hartley got up and used his intercom. “Two cups of tea please, Morris.” He stayed standing while he talked. “Have you given any thought to my suggestion that you work in Intelligence?”
“I have, sir, to the extent that I know what it is. I mean, I’m just a soldier—you can order me to do anything you want—but what does the Intelligence Service mean, apart from my having to be fairly intelligent?”
“Well, for instance, you might have to interrogate captured enemies. Of course you’d have to speak the language perfectly. In your case, if they were German that wouldn’t be a problem. Do you speak French, Tom?”
“I speak it very well, sir. My mother didn’t want her language to be pushed out of the way by my father.”
“Good for her. You’d also have to convert English into Morse code and Morse code into English, and you’d have to know how to deceive an enemy, and you’d have to be able to perform under physical and mental pressures. But eventually … you’d be judged by your ability to make decisions on your own.”
There was a quiet knock on the door and Sergeant Morris walked in with the tea. He placed the tray on the small table in front of Colonel Hartley and left quickly.
“Please help yourself, Cole. The little cookies are very good. They call them ‘biscuits’ here.” While they were both sipping their tea Colonel Hartley said, “By the way, Heinrich Müller is now a lieutenant general. Do you know how to say that in German?”
“He’s a Gruppenführer.”
“Thanks. I get mixed up trying to pronounce some of those goddamn names. Well, this swine is a workaholic. Never takes a holiday. He was the chief architect of the plan to exterminate all Jews in Europe.”
“Colonel, are you going to ask me to find Müller and shoot him?”
“No, not at all,” the colonel said. “I just thought you might want to seek revenge the way I do. By the way, have you ever jumped out of an airplane?”
“Not without a parachute.”
The colonel smiled. “Good for you. I deserved that. Of course, there’d be a dozen tests you’d have to go through, which I’m sure you’d pass easily enough, but there’s no point in my ordering you to go into Intelligence if you don’t want to.”
“You already knew I would or you wouldn’t have asked me, sir.”
Colonel Hartley nodded a slow “yes.”
“By the way, if you don’t mind my asking, do you have a sweetheart here in London?”
“Yes, sir. I care for her very much. She’s a lovely woman—Danish, and also Jewish. She escaped Denmark in a fishing boat that took her to Sweden. Now, she works right here, in one of those tunnels where they shoot radio waves into the sky to locate German planes.”
“The Radar tunnel is three doors down from here, on the right-hand side. You’d better get going, Cole.”
“Thank you, sir.”
* * *
TOM HURRIED down the thin walkway until he saw the door with RADAR printed on it. When he entered the room he saw a middle-aged lady in a blue WAAF uniform signing a stack of papers. She looked up when Tom walked toward her.
“Yes, Lieutenant, can I help you?” the lady asked.
“Yes, I’m looking for a young lady named Anna Rosenkilde. She works here with you.”
“I’m terribly sorry, Lieutenant, we have no one here by that name.”
“Well … I mean, isn’t this where you send radio waves into the sky?” Tom said with a little laugh.
“My name is Sally Bedloe. I’ve worked here for eight years and I assure you that we have no one with that name. I think you must have heard some of our younger girls talking at lunchtime. Yes, we send radio waves into the sky, but I’m not allowed to talk about it. Did your young lady friend say that she worked in Radar?”
“Well … she didn’t mention the word ‘Radar.’”
“Did she mention my name, Sally Bedloe?”
“No, she never mentioned any name, but I think you must have seen her at some time. She’s twenty-three years old, she’s Danish and has a slight accent. She’s a WAAF in the RAF and wears a blue uniform just like yours. You must have seen her.”
A pilot, who had been on the phone when Tom came in, walked over after he hung up and stood next to Sally Bedloe. “The woman you’ve mentioned doesn’t work here. We’re quite busy right now. You’d best try some other tunnel, Lieutenant.”
Tom saw that the pilot was a captain. “Sorry, sir,” he said, and walked out. He hurried back to Colonel Hartley’s office.
After he told Sergeant Morris the circumstances, the sergeant said, “Wait outside, sir. I’ll come and get you when the colonel is free.”
Tom sat in the room with all the maps and officers. After half an hour, Colonel Hartley popped his head out of his office. “That lady is Sally Bedloe and she’s a crackerjack. Knows her stuff. I’m in the middle of a pile of things right now, so if you don’t hear from me in an hour, go home, and call Sergeant Morris tomorrow.”
The colonel went back into his office. Tom waited for an hour and then went to the Shepherdess.
ELEVEN
Tom waited in the café for almost an hour. As soon as Alfred came by to top up his glass of wine, Tom said, “I’m getting a little worried, Alfred. She told me seven and it’s almost eight o’clock. Is there a phone I can use?”
“Yes, Guv, in the manager’s office, right over there on your left. It’s not locked.”
“I won’t be long, but if my lady friend should walk in, please don’t let her leave. Just bring her to me.”
&n
bsp; “You bet, Guv.”
When Tom got inside the office he took out the piece of brown paper in his wallet that had Mrs. Bertie Cresswell’s telephone number and address on it. He dialed.
“Hello, Mrs. Cresswell, this is Lieutenant Tom Cole. I’m calling because I was supposed to meet Anna here tonight, at the café we’ve been going to, and I’ve been waiting here for almost an hour, and … Anna! Anna Rosenkilde!… What do you mean you never heard of her? You must have heard of her, she lives in your house … Hello … Hello, Mrs. Cresswell, can you hear me?”
* * *
TOM TOOK a cab to Mandy Adams’s house. Just as he arrived, the air raid siren sounded. Mandy pulled him into the living room and pulled down the rest of the curtains over the windows. “Now then, Romeo, how romantic to be wooing and cooing a young woman just before the bombs arrive? Where is your lovely? At home, I hope.”
“You’re just like your cousin, did you know that, Mandy?”
“I’ve heard it before. Are you complaining?”
“Not at all,” Tom said. “But my ‘lovely,’ as you call her, never showed up at the café. And the lady where she works said she never heard of her. When I called the house where Anna lives, the sweet lady who owns the house said she also never heard of her.”
TWELVE
The next morning Tom stood nervously in front of Colonel Hartley.
“Tell me what’s the matter.”
“I think I’m going slightly crazy, sir, and I don’t know what to do. I met Anna in a café in London and I liked her right away. She made me laugh and I made her laugh and after a while I fell in love with her, but she lied to me about her work and shooting rays up to the sky. Sally Bedloe said she never saw or heard of Anna Rosenkilde. Anna and I were supposed to meet last night at the Shepherdess Café and suddenly she disappears, without saying a word to me. I was afraid she might have gotten hurt in an air raid, so I called Anna’s landlady, who Anna loved and said she lived with, and the landlady said that she never heard of her. I’m not even sure who Anna is anymore or who she’s really working for.”
“Why don’t you sit down, Tom?”
“I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind, Colonel.”
“I do mind, Lieutenant Cole. Sit down.”
Tom sat in one of the chairs next to the colonel’s desk. Colonel Hartley stood in front of him and said, “Have you ever heard of the SOE?”
“No, sir.”
“It means Special Operations Executive … also known as Churchill’s Secret Army. Its mission is to help facilitate sabotage behind enemy lines, and you need good agents to do that.”
“Are you telling me that Anna Rosenkilde is one of your agents?”
“I’m not talking about Anna Rosenkilde. I’d be breaking rules if I did. I’m just saying that the primary quality required of an agent is a deep knowledge of the country he or she is supposed to operate in, especially their language, which is essential if this person is supposed to pass as a native of that country. I don’t know if or where your friend is right now, and I’m terribly busy with so many other things, but if you were working in the Intelligence Service you might know more about these things than I do. Would you like a nice hot cup of tea, Lieutenant?”
“I certainly would, sir.”
THIRTEEN
On his first day of Intelligence training Tom was taken to Ringway Airfield, near Manchester, where he had to parachute from a plane at an altitude of five hundred feet. It was a refresher course for Tom, since he had gone through this before in the States, training as a medic. Before lunch he had to jump again, this time from four hundred feet. That evening, when it was dark, he had to jump at three hundred feet, which would be the height and time of day most likely to occur if he were in action.
At the end of that day Tom walked casually up to his SOE boss, Capt. David Pryce. Hoping to catch him off guard he said, “Oh, I almost forgot, sir—how is my friend, Anna Rosenkilde, doing?”
“Is she Jewish?” Captain Pryce asked.
“Yes, sir, but why would you ask a question like that?”
“We would never send a Jewish man or woman back to Denmark. They tried to kill almost all the Jews in Denmark—didn’t you know that?”
“I knew it very well, sir. She told me.”
“I see. Well the only Danish woman we have working with us is Helena Simonsen, and she’s not Jewish.”
“Can you tell me what she looks like?”
“I cannot.”
“I see. Thank you, sir.”
* * *
AFTER HE was flown back to London Tom decided to visit Bertie Cresswell that night instead of trying to call her on the phone again. When he rang the doorbell a very pleasant-looking lady, somewhere in her fifties, opened the door.
“Mrs. Cresswell?”
“Yes.”
“Please listen to me for just one minute. I was in your home a few days ago, with Anna Rosenkilde. I didn’t see you because she told me you were visiting your sister over the weekend. Anna told me how wonderful you are and how you used to hold her hand when the bombs were falling. Mrs. Cresswell, I’m terribly fond of Anna, and I think she’s very fond of me. I found out that she might actually be back in Denmark right now.”
Mrs. Cresswell stared at Tom, but didn’t try to interrupt.
“Bertie—if I may call you that—does the name ‘Simonsen’ mean anything to you? Helena Simonsen?”
“That was the name of her French teacher’s sister,” Bertie said.
“French teacher?”
“Yes, they were very close, but Anna told me she was afraid to even say good-bye to her when she left.”
“Why?”
“Miss Simonsen wasn’t Jewish. Anna said she couldn’t take a chance of anyone hearing about the Jews escaping. I’m sorry what I did to you on the telephone, Mr.—”
“Tom Cole. Lieutenant Tom Cole.”
“Anna told me many times that if she should ever disappear for a while, to not tell anyone where she is or who she is. No one. I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”
“You did the right thing. And please just call me Tom.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you all right, Bertie? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine. Please take care of yourself, Tom.”
FOURTEEN
The next day, on eighteen acres of an old English Manor house, Tom’s training focused on how to deal with armed SS troops and military patrols. He also learned how to use a handheld walkie-talkie using very high radio frequencies, which enabled him to transmit intelligence to planes flying above him without detection by German shortwave radio operators. On the lunch break Tom went up to Captain Pryce and asked, “Sir, can you at least tell me if Miss Simonsen is all right?”
“I’m not allowed to talk about any of our agents, Lieutenant Cole.”
Tom walked away, mumbling, “Secrets and more goddamn secrets.”
After lunch, it was so cold inside and outside that Captain Pryce held a meeting with Tom and the other newcomers to SOE in the library of the manor house where a warm fireplace was waiting for them. At four o’clock that afternoon Captain Pryce said: “Why don’t we take a break, so you gentlemen can have your foursies.”
Tom looked puzzled, wondering if “foursies” wasn’t the British way of saying, “You can take a pee break now.” Alex, the English lieutenant sitting next to him, saw Tom’s puzzled look and said, “Elevensies and foursies just means it’s teatime, old bean. You can also smoke if you want.”
Tom whispered, “Thanks,” and then stood up with the other men who headed for the tea-and-coffee trolley that had been wheeled into the library.
FIFTEEN
At 7:45 p.m. “Helena Simonsen” parachuted three hundred feet into the darkness and landed on the Amager Beach Park, near Copenhagen’s city center. After burying her parachute, she took out her new passport and Danish government I.D. from her backpack and put them into her warm jacket pocket. She wanted to have them ready for the men
of the Danish Resistance who were going to meet her: she knew she would have to show proof that she was the agent they were expecting. It was a freezing cold night. While she waited, she could see, far off in the distance, the tiny lights on the coast of Sweden.
After seven or eight minutes she saw a flashlight coming toward her. When three men arrived, with white bow ties sticking out under their thick jackets, one of them lit Helena’s face with his flashlight. As she showed her passport and I.D., another man rushed up to her. “Anna,” he said softly as he started to embrace her, but she quickly backed away, “No more Anna! Please, all of you. Just Helena now. Please.”
They all left for the city.
SIXTEEN
Captain Pryce addressed his small group of men who were now slightly exhausted.
“We won’t do any more physical training because I think you’ve had enough. At least for now. When you have a specific assignment, then we’ll see. Cole, I want to know the truth—did your hands hurt, using that rope to pull yourself up to the tower?”
“They were fine, sir.”
“I don’t want to know about ‘fine.’ You were putting a lot of pressure on your right hand.”
“To tell you the truth, sir, at first my right hand actually hurt more than my left. I was favoring it because I’m right-handed, but when I realized what I was doing I changed and used both hands equally and then it was okay.”
“All right. All of you wash up and then we’ll take a lunch break.”
SEVENTEEN
The elegant Copenhagen Plaza Hotel was across the way from the Tivoli Gardens.
“Helena” took a warm skirt of subdued green and brown colors and a pair of nice, but flat, shoes out of her backpack. After she put them on, she dabbed her lips with very little lipstick and then put her parachute pants and soft boots into the mustard-colored backpack, which she converted to a pretty rose-and-lavender purse by pulling two purse strings. She used the ladies’ room at the Copenhagen Plaza Hotel for this quick-change while the men handed their thick jackets to a gentleman who was taking hats and coats. Then the three elegantly dressed men in their tuxedos entered the Library Room, and waited for Helena. The “library” was a relaxed and softly lit room where people could look at the menu, order their food, and then have a drink or two until a waiter came to tell them that their dinner was ready in the dining room.
