Tamar

by Mal Peet

  He turned and looked at Dart. “It’s Bibi that I am scared for. Truly scared for. She’s Jewish, you see.”

  “My God,” Dart said. “Jesus Christ, Pieter.”

  “Yes, quite. So you will be very, very careful, won’t you, my young friend? Look after us, please.”

  He turned to go, and when he reached the stairs, Dart said, “Pieter? Why did you agree to do this? You didn’t have to.”

  Grotius lifted his hand, and it was wearing the glove puppet. This time its voice was Winston Churchill’s. “There comes a time in human affairs,” it growled, “when even the smallest man must stand up and say, ‘Enough of this shit.’”

  Dart almost laughed. “Did Churchill really say that?”

  “No,” Pieter Grotius said. “I did.”

  The transmission that Dart made at ten fifty-nine was very brief, really just a signal test: his security checks, followed by a short sequence of letter groups that told London he was on station. When he’d finished, he switched to receive. He was startled when, through the wobbling static in the headphones, the acknowledgement he’d expected was followed by the code for stand by. He scrabbled in the medical bag for his notebook and pencil.

  When he went down to the parlour, Rosa was propped up in an armchair gurgling, fumbling at a cloth doll. Bibi Grotius stood at the window. When she saw Dart, she moved a houseplant to the other end of the sill.

  “There,” she said, “Trixie will know that you have finished your work now.” Without turning away from the window, she said, “When Pieter and I first came here, that square was packed, twice a week. Stalls and barrows selling cooked meats, cheeses, fish. There was a big fat lady who sold sweet pickled herring from a barrel. They were delicious. I can close my eyes and taste them, even now.” She did so, sighing. “I can’t tell whether dreaming about food makes it better or worse. Sometimes the dreams are so real that I feel as though I have actually eaten. At other times, well . . .” She stopped herself and looked at him, smiling. “Shame on you — isn’t that what you’re thinking, Dr. Lubbers? People are having to endure much worse than a craving for pickled herring.”

  “No,” Dart said, “I wasn’t thinking that at all. I hadn’t realized the rationing was so bad. I’ve already started to think about food a lot of the time myself.”

  Trixie was already back in the workshop when Dart came down. Pieter was at his bench, working on the little wooden torso with a fine chisel. He glanced up.

  “Everything okay? No problems?”

  “No, none. Thank you.”

  Dart took Trixie by the arm and led her to just inside the back door. “There was an incoming,” he told her quietly.

  “A what?”

  “A message from London. I wasn’t expecting it. I haven’t deciphered it, but the third group was the standard code for urgent. I know we’re going to the farm tomorrow, but . . .”

  Trixie drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. “All right. I’ll leave Rosa here. If I go now I’ll be able to get back well before dark.”

  “No. Don’t worry, I’ll go.”

  “What, alone? Are you sure? Do you know the way?”

  “I think so. No, wait. You’d better draw me a map.”

  He took the notepad and pencil from the leather bag. Trixie went to the workbench and began to sketch. “Oh, God,” she said, biting her lower lip. “I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”

  Wonderful, Dart thought. He said, “Pieter, I understand that you have a bike for me. Is it here?”

  “It’s outside. Come.”

  The back door of the workshop opened onto a small paved yard. A woman’s bicycle was propped against the wall of the privy.

  “Bibi’s contribution to the war effort,” Pieter said. “Her pride and joy. Well, it used to be. She hasn’t been out on it for a long time now, of course. I’ve oiled it and tightened the chain up. Be careful with the brakes; I had to make new blocks out of wood. You can’t get rubber ones anymore.”

  Trixie came out and handed Dart the notepad. “Here, see? This cross? It’s a little chapel with a burnt-out roof. Don’t forget to turn left there.” She took the lapels of his coat in her hands. “Listen. I’m really worried about this. Let me come with you. It would be better.”

  He faked a smile. “No. I’m going to have to do this alone sooner or later. It’s something else I have to get used to.”

  Grotius opened the yard door and poked his fluffy head out, looking right and left. Dart jammed the medical bag into the wicker basket on the handlebars, and when Pieter gave the thumbs-up sign, he pushed the bike out into the lane. He shoved one foot down on the pedal and slung his other leg over the saddle, forgetting that it was a woman’s bike without a crossbar. And because this made him feel foolish, he didn’t look back.

  Dart rode north, keeping to backstreets until he caught sight of the tower of New Church, then headed for that. When he was within a hundred metres of the church, he took a left, praying there wouldn’t be a checkpoint at the bridge. His prayers were answered. He slowed and checked Trixie’s map. He took the next turning eastwards, and within ten minutes was in open countryside again. He began to feel almost cheerful. The bike was heavy, but it rode well. The roads were deserted, and the sun, a flat brilliant disc, burned through the mist. It flickered like Morse whenever there were lines of trees on his left. He was moving, he was moving, he was out!

  Dart was peering forward, looking for the burnt-out chapel, when a dark shape materialized on the road far ahead. He braked, too hard, and juddered to a halt. He was on a long straight stretch where the threadbare tarmac was hardly wide enough for two vehicles to pass. There was no obvious place for concealment. A low hedge ran down to the road just ahead of him but met it at right angles; anyone looking that way would be sure to spot him if he took cover there. A long way off to his right there was a copse of tobacco-coloured trees; to reach it he’d have to lug the bike across a sticky-looking ploughed field.

  His indecision became feverish. He needed to pee. Then he realized that he couldn’t hear an engine, and the distant shape was approaching very slowly. Slightly reassured, and not knowing what else to do, he rode to meet it.

  It was several long moments before he recognized the dull clatter as hoof beats. Instantly the riddle of the oncoming silhouette was solved. He could now make out the sway of the horse, the shape of the farmer perched high on the wagon, his head and shoulders slightly higher than the load behind him. Dart sat more upright on the bike and breathed out, relaxing. Seconds later his heart lurched as if he had taken a heavy punch to the chest, and he almost cried out loud. A glint of sunlight had struck the driver’s steel helmet; then two others appeared, lifting themselves above the canvas-covered cargo to look forward. To watch Dart draw nearer. He saw the driver’s head turn, then the two Germans in the wagon bend and straighten, lifting rifles.

  Dart’s mouth went dry. They would shoot him just for the hell of it, to have something to talk about, to enliven the day. He reached forward with his left hand and tugged at the leather bag, then changed his mind. He would have to dismount and use both hands to get the pistol out, and it was too late for that. The odds against him were hopeless anyway. His legs continued working the pedals as if they were nothing to do with him. The wagon, he now saw, was built of olive-green steel and had big rubber tyres. The horse was huge, black, with tufts of white hair almost covering its hooves. It lost its rhythm when it saw Dart, lifting and swivelling its great head. The driver called out and jerked the leather traces. A Schmeisser machine pistol was slung across his chest.

  Dart felt certain that he would faint. He wanted to. Shakily he steered the bike over to the right-hand verge, so that the Germans would perhaps see the red cross on his armband. When the wagon was almost upon him, and when he could almost feel the bullets tear into his chest, Dart raised his right forearm in a vaguely Nazi gesture.

  “Guten Morgen!” he cried, and when they were alongside, he aimed his smile straight into the
muzzles of the German rifles. One of the soldiers was a scrawny youth with bad skin. The other man was much older and wore steel-rimmed spectacles. One of the lenses was cracked. There was a harmonica sticking out of the breast pocket of his tunic. These details slid past in frightful slow motion.

  Dart turned his face back to the road. He could not unlock the smile. The muscles in his back stiffened, waiting for the shock of the bullets. He passed through a patch of air that stank of horse sweat. Behind him, one of the Germans called out “Heil Hitler!” in a way that made it sound like a question. Dart raised his right hand higher, his arm rigid, but he could not repeat the phrase because his mouth wouldn’t work.

  Five minutes later Dart more or less fell from the bike and stood bent over, bracing himself, his hands on his knees. After a while he walked shakily to the side of the road and emptied his bladder, splashing his left shoe and trouser cuff. He smoked a cigarette, gazing blankly at the brightening fields.

  The unused sitting room at Sanctuary Farm belonged to the past. The stiff upright chairs had been designed a hundred years earlier for stiff upright gentlemen who wore long-tailed coats and ladies who wore vast stiff skirts. The sofa had a surly look to it, as if it knew it was there for sinners who fancied sitting comfortably and was determined to frustrate them.

  Tamar had opened up the gateleg table under the window and spread a map on it. He sat staring at it with a pencil between his teeth, glancing now and then at the two silk squares close to his right elbow. Unlike the other silks, these had nothing to do with radio transmissions. If you knew how to combine them, these two grids of jumbled letters and numbers would reveal the code names and locations of agents and resistance organizations in zone six. Nicholson and Hendriks had been reluctant to provide these silks, but Tamar had convinced them that although his memory was good, it wasn’t that good. DCY/M had devised them at very short notice. There were no other copies.

  Tamar had two big problems. One was that the resistance in his area was divided into numerous organizations known by their initials: the LO, the OD, the KVV, the KP, and so on. Sometimes these groups worked together, sometimes they overlapped confusingly, and sometimes they were at each other’s throats. In addition, there were freelance groups, like the one run by Koop de Vries. These were often bound together by relationships that had nothing to do with anybody else. Maybe they were old school friends, or had worked in the same factory. Until recently, there had been a very busy bunch of sabotage enthusiasts in Amersfoort who had been members of the same church choir. Such groups weren’t always keen to take orders from Amsterdam, let alone London.

  That, though, wasn’t the problem Tamar had spent the morning in the gloomy sitting room thinking about. It was the map itself. There were too many empty spaces in it. Zone six was a rough triangle formed by five towns, one of which was Apeldoorn, the German army headquarters. According to the map, the area inside the triangle was more or less empty. But it wasn’t, and Tamar knew it. The great expanse of heath and forest that loomed beyond the farm occupied a big part of it. It was webbed by a labyrinth of narrow lanes and tracks and paths — none of which appeared on the map. Farther west, the heath dissolved into a complex patchwork of woodland, farmland, and marsh. It looked to Tamar as if the mapmaker had given up on this area. He or she had marked the few villages and the minor roads that connected them and then filled in the gaps with patterns of dots and dashes meant to represent . . . well, a messy sort of landscape.

  He studied the silks again, running his finger down and then across the grids, jotting the results onto a scrap of paper. There was a resistance man code-named Banjo who operated from an abandoned chicken farm five kilometres south of a village called Elim. Tamar looked at the map and, sure enough, south of Elim there was . . . nothing. So, if he wanted to get to Banjo — and Tamar was fairly certain he would — he’d have to be guided there by a relay of contacts and couriers, any one of whom could be a collaborator or Gestapo double agent. Or he’d have to get himself over to Elim and then ride around looking for this blasted chicken farm. Not good. Not good at all.

  Tamar shifted his backside on the uncomfortable chair. The simple fact was, the maps were just not good enough. And that meant the coded map references were pretty damn useless too. He’d come up against the same problem the last time he was here, and when he’d got back to England, he’d passed the time between debriefing sessions by dreaming up ways of pinpointing places more accurately. He’d decided it should be possible to guide someone to within less than a hundred metres or so of a certain place by using a code of ten, maybe eight, letters and numbers. The system would be based on identifiable landmarks, on cities and towns, rather than dodgy maps. He’d explained it to a major from Military Intelligence one evening. The man had listened carefully, despite the whisky they’d both drunk.

  “I tell you what, old chap,” the major had said, “that’s bloody clever. Trouble is, it would take years to work out. And there’s a war on, don’t you know.”

  Months later, at Ashgrove, Tamar had shared his idea with Dart. Dart, who was quicker at codes and ciphers than Tamar, had been intrigued by it and had spent several hours with maps and code books trying to make it work. Then other things, in the shapes of Nicholson and Hendriks, had distracted him.

  It was as if thinking about Dart had conjured him up. Tamar heard Marijke’s footsteps in the hall, heard her whistle the little tune that meant no danger.

  “Ernst Lubbers is here,” she said.

  “What? Has something happened?”

  “I don’t know. He looks a bit . . . wild-eyed.” She smiled. “Maybe that’s because he’s talking to Oma. Should I bring him in?”

  When the two agents were alone together, Dart said, “It was her, wasn’t it? The boy.”

  “What?”

  “Miss Maartens. The boy with the lantern who was here when we arrived. It was her.” Dart sounded almost indignant, and Tamar couldn’t help grinning.

  Dart’s face reddened slightly. “It’s all right for you to smile,” he said. “I feel a bit of a fool. I just stood there staring at her when I realized. She must have thought I was simple.” He glanced at the door again. “But she’s a looker, isn’t she? Lovely. I hadn’t imagined . . .” His voice trailed away. Then he wagged his finger at Tamar in mock severity. “I hope you’re keeping your mind on your work, my friend.”

  Tamar made an awkward gesture towards the table. “Of course. Now, talking of work . . .”

  “Right.” Dart was suddenly all business. “I got an urgent from London. I decided to bring it myself.”

  “This came when? This morning, at the Marionette House?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about getting here? Did you have any problems?”

  “I . . . No, it was fine.”

  Dart picked up the medical bag and emptied its contents onto the table, then reached inside and felt around for the catches that released the false bottom. He took out the revolver and the sheet of paper, shoved the gun into his coat pocket, and spread the paper out on the table.

  “I haven’t deciphered it. I thought if we did it together, we might be able to code a reply straightaway.” He looked up at Tamar. “If that’s what you need to do.”

  When they’d finished, Dart dropped the pencil onto the pad and stared blankly at the message. “Well,” he said, “that makes as much sense to me now as it did before. I hope it means something to you. What’s Operation Pegasus?”

  Tamar stood up. The light from the window had shifted now, and the sitting room had started to gather darkness. “It’s a bloody headache, that’s what it is. Come on, let’s tidy up in here and go outside. Bring your coat.”

  Tamar led him to a rough bench at the end of the washhouse. The level landscape in front of them was still blurred, but the autumn light was now strong and golden. Dart caught the scent of fallen apples.

  Tamar said, “When Operation Market Garden screwed up, a lot of Allied troops went missing. They weren’t
among the dead, and they weren’t captured. Somehow they managed to sneak through the German lines and hide. Some are with our people; others are God knows where. Some are in a bad way. The British would like them to go home for a nice cup of tea. That’s Operation Pegasus. And someone has to make it happen.”

  “And that someone is you.”

  “Yep. Hendriks briefed me for it, among other things. There are about two hundred men out there, maybe more. Julius, the head of the resistance in Ede, and a guy called Banjo are the only people who know where most of them are.”

  “Do you know either of them?”

  Tamar shook his head. “No.”

  “And London say they haven’t been able to make contact with Julius for eight days.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Great. And you’ve got to get these people back across the Rhine at . . . what’s the place called?”

  “Renkum,” Tamar said.

  “Do you know it?”

  “Not really. I was there just once. It’s right on the front line, though. It’s a fair bet that the Germans will be dug in along the river. I have to hope that the local guys know exactly where.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  Tamar squinted at the sun. “I’ll have to go to Renkum, I suppose. Talk to people. See what’s what.”

  “When?”

  “Soon. In the next few days. I’ll talk to Trixie tomorrow. I’ll need guides. Albert Veening should be able to give me some names. Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. Come on, I’ll give you a quick tour of Sanctuary. It looks better in daylight.”

  In the little barn, Tamar went to one of the stalls that had once housed the farm’s horses and dragged a couple of bales of rotting straw away from the boards that formed the rear wall. He jiggled and pulled at two of the boards and lifted them away, revealing a narrow space between the woodwork and the outer brick wall. He reached down into it and produced the tin case of medical supplies.