by John Wilson
When I have finished, she says, “First, the good news: Pieter is all right. A neighbor who works at the town office managed to get him a note telling him that the Germans were planning to arrest him. He got out the back door into the woods as they were breaking down the front door.”
“Was he betrayed?”
“It looks like it. They certainly knew about the pigeons. But was it someone in the organization or a neighbor with a grudge?” Amelie shrugs. “Enough people in Maldegem knew about Pieter’s father’s pigeons, and it wouldn’t take a genius to work out what they could be used for. It was probably inevitable.”
“I’m glad he got away,” I say. “Where is he now?”
“He’s hiding at my house.”
“In Damme?”
Amelie nods. “But it’s dangerous. One glimpse of him by my neighbors and word will get out to the guys who beat me up. He has to leave the country.”
“Pieter has contacts for getting over the border, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, but there’s no way of knowing who to trust. Maybe it was one of them who betrayed him.”
“What can we do?” I feel helpless and lonely without any contact to London and Major Macleod. “We need to get Albert out of the country as well. He can’t live in the woods until the war’s over.”
“There may be a way we can contact London,” says Amelie. “Pieter told me that he has a backup method for contacting his father in Holland. He sends messages at precise times, and if one doesn’t arrive, his father is to go and check a specific place where things can be thrown over the electric fence. Pieter missed sending a message last night, so his father will be checking every night for something thrown over the fence. My plan is to go there and get him a message telling him what happened to Pieter and asking him to contact London for instructions. I will tell them about Albert as well. Perhaps they can organize a boat to pick them up somewhere on the coast.”
“That will take time to arrange,” I point out.
“I know,” Amelie agrees, “but we have no other choice. We must hide Pieter and Albert until something can be set up. Pieter can stay with me, but what about your airman?”
“I can’t take him home. I can’t trust Florien.”
“Is he safe where you left him?”
“I think so,” I reply. “Not comfortable, but probably safe. No one goes into those woods except hunters, and the Germans don’t allow people to have weapons anymore. He’ll probably be all right for a few days, provided the weather doesn’t get too bad. I’ll take him food.”
“What about clothes? I can get some.”
“As long as he doesn’t go anywhere, he’s better in his pilot’s uniform. It’s warm and if he does get captured he won’t be shot as a spy. But when he leaves the woods, he’ll need civilian clothes.”
Amelie nods thoughtfully. “You did well,” she says. “Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for an answer from London.”
“Come on,” I say. “We should get back to work.”
Amelie puts a hand on my arm. “When Pieter came to my house last night, he brought the latest message from London. They want us to do something else.”
“What?!” My voice is so loud that Amelie glances nervously at the door. “Is there no rest? Don’t they understand that we’re risking our lives here?”
“You have a right to be angry,” she says calmly. “You have risked your life more than most in the past few days. But I fear we live in a time when risk is normal.”
“I’m sorry,” I reply, calming down a bit. “I’m just tired. What is it they want us to do?”
Amelie hesitates long enough that I realize whatever she’s about to say will not be easy. I feel a knot forming in my stomach at the thought of having to go back to Gontrode. Surely I won’t get away with it a third time.
“They want us to get into the docks in Bruges and photograph the U-boat pens.”
It takes me a moment to understand what Amelie has just said. “That’s impossible,” I reply. “I was successful at Gontrode only because of the size of the airfield and the lax security. Even with that, I was almost caught—twice. The Germans know the U-boat docks are a major target, and that’s been proved by all the bombing raids over the past few weeks. The docks will be crawling with German soldiers and sailors. The security will be incredible. It won’t just be a question of slipping through a hole in a wire fence and running across an open field.”
THE DOCKYARDS
I’m talking too much because I’m nervous. Amelie already knows everything I’m saying, but she listens patiently all the same. When I’ve finished, she says, “Everything you say is true, but we have to try. And the very size of the docks may help.”
“How?”
“There are thousands of Belgian workers going in and out every day. It would be hard to spot one more.”
“Do we have a contact among the workers?”
Amelie shakes her head. “I wish we had. That’s why we were so hoping that you could persuade Florien to work with us. The Germans screen the workers very carefully, and every one has personalized identification.”
“And they are all men?”
“Yes,” Amelie answers. “The men are used for the heavy construction work. There are women who work at the canteen, but that’s some distance from the docks themselves. It would be difficult for a woman to move between the two without attracting suspicion.”
“How are we to do it, then?”
“I don’t know,” Amelie admits, “but we’ll need to find a way.”
I nod agreement. “Florien keeps a chart of the amount of shipping tonnage sunk each month. I go into his room and look at the chart when he’s not home. It shows that U-boats sunk half a million tons in March alone, and his numbers show almost twice that this month.”
“The British will starve,” Amelie adds. “They have to stop the U-boats somehow, and it’s much easier if they can destroy them before they get out to sea. That makes the lock gates at Zeebrugge and Ostend—as well as the dockyards here in Bruges—vital targets. But the lock gates are very small targets. It’s much easier to bomb the docks and pens in Bruges.”
“If the pens are as strong as we think, do the British have a bomb big enough to destroy them?”
“Maybe not destroy them,” Amelie admits, “but the British have a new bomber plane that they think can carry bombs big enough to damage the U-boat pens, and for that they need information on exactly where the pens are and how they’re built.”
“When does London want the information?”
“Soon.”
But I can think of no way of gaining access to the dockyard, and I can see another possible difficulty as well. “Without Pieter’s pigeons and contacts, we don’t have a secure route to pass our information to London. And we can’t use anyone else in the network because we don’t know if there’s a traitor or not.”
“I know. It all puts more pressure on us. I hope I can establish something with Pieter’s father tonight, but however difficult it is, we have to try. If Britain starves, the war is lost.”
All that Amelie has said weighs heavily on my mind as I return to work. Just when everything seems to be falling apart, we are given a task that appears impossible.
I’m still thinking about the problem when I walk into the ward and see Manfred sitting up in bed and smiling at me. I’m about to return the smile when I stop and stare, suddenly realizing why he looked vaguely familiar the first time I saw him. An insane idea takes root in my mind, and I turn and stride out of the ward.
I have to talk to Amelie.
“It’s mad,” Pieter says.
“It’s worse than mad,” I say. “It’s suicidal. But as Amelie says, we have to do something, and do we have a better plan?”
She and I are sitting at her kitchen table, telling Pieter the plan we came up with as we cycled back from Bruges after work.
He’s silent for a long time, gazing at Amelie and me in turn. “Okay,” he says eventua
lly. “I accept that getting Manon into the docks as a nurse during an air raid might work, but—”
I interrupt before he can begin to list his objections. “It all has to work. Me getting in is not enough. I can’t just walk around taking photographs in the middle of an air raid. I have to have a reason to be near the U-boat pens.”
“And she has to have a way to get out of the docks afterward,” Amelie adds. “The second part of the plan provides those things.”
We both stare at Pieter.
“Several things have to happen before we can go ahead,” he says. Amelie and I nod enthusiastically. At least he’s now recognizing the possibility. “Everyone has to agree.” We nod again. “The British may not want to send their new bombers on an air raid before we give them the information they’re asking for.”
“On the other hand,” Amelie says, “if we’re there when the raid happens, we can report on the damage done and they can use that information to make the next raid even better.”
“I’ll put that in the message,” Pieter says, nodding. “They’ll also have to tell us when the raid is going to be and set up a meeting place somewhere afterward. It will all take a lot of very precise planning.”
“We can do that,” I say.
“All right,” Pieter agrees, and Amelie and I smile at each other. “But if the British say no for any reason, we drop the whole idea. Understood?”
“Understood,” Amelie and I say together.
Pieter looks at me. “Now I need to write the message for Amelie to take to my father, and you need to go and feed your hidden pilot.”
—
“This is the best soup I’ve ever tasted,” Albert says appreciatively. He must be either very hungry or very polite because the soup is only a weak broth made from boiling a few turnips, cabbage and potatoes. But he’s not polite enough to compliment the bread, which is gray and gritty.
We’re sitting against the tallest of the ruined walls of the old gamekeeper’s hut, Étienne’s torch providing pale illumination. It was sunny and warm today, but the temperature dropped rapidly when the sun went down and here in the midst of the woods, there’s a distinct chill in the air. “Were you warm enough today?” I ask.
“Toasty,” Albert replies. “Remember, I’m wearing a suit that keeps me from freezing ten thousand feet up in the air. Got a visitor, though.”
“What?” I ask. “Someone knows you’re here?”
Albert laughs. “Don’t worry, he won’t tell anyone. There I was, comfy and having a lovely dream about being back home, when a snuffling noise woke me up and I came face-to-face with this ugly, hairy pig with tusks sticking out of his mouth. I don’t know who got the bigger fright, but he left on the double.”
“A wild boar,” I say, relaxing. “Nobody’s allowed to hunt them anymore, so there are a lot roaming about in the woods. How’s your head?”
“A bit sore but healing nicely. I’ll be right as rain by the time I get home.”
“Let me have a look,” I say, ignoring Albert’s comment about going home. I fuss over his wound, cleaning it and tying a fresh bandage in place. While I work, I examine him closely. When I’ve finished, I sit back and stare at him.
“What?” he asks. “You look like a lioness that’s just found a wounded antelope.”
“You look like someone I know.”
“I don’t think I have any relatives hereabouts,” Albert says, smiling. “At least none that I know of.”
“He’s a German naval officer,” I explain.
Albert’s smile is replaced by a frown. “I don’t understand. How do you know a German naval officer?”
“He’s a patient at the hospital where I work. He has a head wound from a bombing raid on the docks in Bruges.”
Albert takes another drink of soup without taking his eyes off me. “And…” he says.
“You know that I’m a spy?”
“You fly into Belgium in the middle of the night and then go merrily about blowing up zeppelins and helping lost British flyers. I’m not smart, but I worked out that you weren’t here on holiday.”
I smile despite my nervousness. But before I can say anything, Albert goes on.
“By the way you’re taking so long to get to the point, I’m guessing that you’re going to ask me to do something I won’t be keen on, and that the something is related to my lost twin, the German naval officer?” Albert raises his eyebrows questioningly.
“You’re right,” I say, “but first I have to tell you a story.
Albert sips his soup, chews his bread and listens intently as I tell him about the submarine pens, the bombing of the Bruges dockyard, Florien’s charts of the amount of damage done by the U-boats and the request for information from London.
“I’ve heard about those new bombers,” he says when I’ve finished. “Handley Pages, they are—as big as the Gothas, apparently. If anything can get at those U-boats, it will be them.” He tilts his head slightly to the side. “And now comes the part I’m not going to like.”
“The docks are big,” I explain. “There’s a lot of work going on, and the Germans cover most of it with camouflage netting. No one really knows what the U-boat pens look like. And there is so much anti-aircraft fire during a raid that no one can fly low enough for a good look. Observation flights and air photographs aren’t much use.”
“Hence the need for someone to go in on the ground.”
“Exactly,” I say. “The problem is that the security’s very tight, so someone needs identification to get in. I could probably manage it during an air raid because I’m a nurse, but if I start wandering around looking at things instead of tending to the wounded, the Germans will become very suspicious very fast.”
“I’m beginning to see where this is going, and I’m guessing that your German officer is about the same size as me.”
“With his uniform, his identification and a bandage around your head, you could pass for him.”
“Until I open my mouth.”
“And that’s where the head wound comes in. In the middle of a bombing raid, no one will question a wounded officer. Once you’re inside, you can go where you want.”
“Accompanied by my very own private nurse.”
“Exactly. Then when we’re finished, we walk out to the hospital to have that nasty head wound treated. Except a plane or a launch comes to pick you up and take you—and the photographs and other information—back to London instead.”
Albert chews his upper lip thoughtfully. “It’s a pretty harebrained scheme,” he says at last. “I’ve only just heard about it and already I can think of a dozen things that could go horribly sideways—not least of which is a British flying officer being discovered in a secret German U-boat base wearing a stolen naval uniform.”
“It’s your decision,” I say. “Nobody’s ordering you.”
“Just so I’m clear, you want me—a British pilot who speaks not a word of German—to impersonate a German officer, sneak into a high-security dockyard and wander round with a Belgian spy so she can take photographs?”
“You forgot the bit about there being an air raid in progress.”
“Of course. Silly of me. Well, that clinches it, then.” He grins. “How can I possibly refuse?”
“Are you sure?”
“No,” Albert says. “Every time I go up in that old stringbag F.E.2b to drop bombs over enemy lines, I wish I was back at home. Every time I frantically dodge enemies who fly faster, more deadly planes, I wonder about my sanity. Every time I see an empty chair at the mess table because some new kid has gone down in a flaming death trap, I wonder if I’ll be next. No, I’m not sure, but that’s not the point. The point is it has to be done, and I’m the lucky bloke who looks like the German officer. So when do we do this?”
A BUILDING AFTER AN AIR RAID
I spontaneously lean forward and kiss Albert on the cheek.
“That’s a pleasant bonus,” he says with a smile. “Promise me another kiss at the end and
I’ll learn German.”
“A few words might not be a bad idea,” I suggest. “Are you all right staying here for a few more days?”
“Now that the boar and I have established who’s boss, I think I’ll be fine. When will our adventure begin?”
“That depends on London. The message is going out tonight and it stresses the urgency. If our German officer recovers and goes back on duty or is sent home on leave, the whole plan falls apart. I’ll bring food every night. Is there anything else you need?”
“Something to read would be good.”
“I have the perfect book. I’ll bring it tonight.”
“I’ll look forward to it.”
I cycle back home deep in thought. I like Albert—he jokes and makes light of everything, even though he knows this plan might easily lead to disaster. A part of me hopes that London will quash the whole idea. Then we can concentrate on getting Albert over the border, and I can get back to the more mundane task of collecting information from wounded sailors. It’s a comforting idea, but deep down I know it won’t happen. I came here to make a difference, and making a difference is risky. There’s no turning back. I have to finish the dangerous game I’ve begun.
It’s been almost two weeks since Amelie passed our urgent message over the wire to Pieter’s father. Every night she has returned to see if there’s a reply. Every morning I’ve waited with increasing nervousness to know what news she has. This morning, as soon as I see her cycling toward me, hair flying in the wind and an intense look on her face, I know she’s had a response.
“It’s on for May twelfth,” she says as soon as we are on the canal path outside town.
“That’s tomorrow night!” I exclaim in horror. “There’s not enough time. That gives us only thirty-six hours to get the uniform for Albert, get into position, and plan where we meet and what we do inside the dockyard.”
“Less.”
“What do you mean?” I’m so upset that I’m having trouble keeping my bike from wobbling off the path into the canal.
