Colonel Dunn-Hamming stood his ground, his hand extended like an invitation for a chance at something more meaningful. Taking in a deep breath, he placed his palm into the Colonel’s hand and wrapped his fingers around it, shaking it with a firm and tight grip despite his uncertainty.
Colonel Dunn-Hamming’s lips extended letting out a shy and rare smile.
“Welcome to the Secret Service Bureau’s Foreign Office, Lieutenant Summers.”
Antwerp, Belgium
Abteilung IIIb Office – Prussian military Intelligence
One week later
“Madam?” the guard called out. “Excuse me, Madam…”
Without hearing a response, he got up on his feet from the craggy chair he had sat in all day and cleared his throat.
“Madame, sorry, smoking is not allowed in here.”
The lady that passed by him, ignoring his earlier calls, abruptly stopped. She turned around, cigarette in hand, and blew out a cloud of black smoke from her red lips. He was about to speak up again when his eyes met hers. All it took was one stare to make him think twice. Her icy blue eyes locked onto his. He shut his mouth and sat back down while she spun around and continued down the corridor.
She was a bizarre vision. Dressed in a long brown coat, with beige pants, two large earrings that twinkled under the sparse lights of the corridor, a set of silver and golden bracelets on each wrist that jiggled whenever she walked, and neat blonde hair raised in a perfect chignon, she seemed like she belonged anywhere but that damp, cold place. And those cuts she had on her face that were healing…
He watched in silent curiosity as she disappeared behind a bend in the corridor, partly glad that she was gone from his sight, and hoping that she would not reappear.
*
Fräulein Doktor took the bend and continued down the damp corridor. What an idiot, she thought. How dare he tell her what to do. She took a long puff from her cigarette and slowly let out a long stream of smoke. This was one of the few pleasures she had left in this world and no one was going to take it away from her.
She arrived at a desk with a young man sitting behind it. He quickly jumped on his feet at the sight of her.
“My Fräulein, he is waiting for you,” he said.
She stared at him. “Then open the damn door, you tool. Where are your manners?”
He started, clearly wanting to excuse himself, before quickly deciding that taking action would be a wise choice. Leaving his desk, he opened the door to the room next to it. Fräulein Doktor walked in and the door behind her closed gently.
It was that same cold room, the one she loathed. Couldn’t they put a stove in it, dammit?
“Agent,” said the voice of the man dressed in black. “Please, take a seat.”
She looked around and sighed, hoping this was going to take as little time as possible. She sat opposite him, a long dark desk dividing the only two people in the room.
The man dressed in black took out a series of papers from a folder and began rapidly scanning them, shuffling the documents in his hands.
“Agent One-Four-G-W,” he said. “Quite a reputation.”
She said nothing, merely staring at that boring man while blowing out smoke rings.
“Your work on counterespionage in Brussels has gone quite well, as is your work on French deserters. You seem to have outstanding methods of interrogation. And your training of your own spies seems to have bore its fruits. I understand that Colonel Nicolai is pushing Abteilung IIIb to place you as director of the Kriegsnachrichten Antwerpen?”
Now things were getting interesting, she thought.
“But things have gone awry lately, haven’t they?” the man said. “Your cover in Brussels has been blown and that catastrophe with the Iron Shadow put a slight stain on your perfect credentials.”
“It has all been taken care of. The spy that did all that is no more,” she said.
“Ah, yes, that British spy… let me see,” he shuffled some papers, “Melbourne Summers.”
She frowned at the sound of that name. “He’s dead.” She took a big puff from her cigarette. “I made sure he wouldn’t see the light of day again.”
“Is that so? Well, I’m afraid to tell you, Agent, that Melbourne Summer is alive and well.”
She suddenly froze.
“Our spies have reported that he was found in a hospital in St. Omer, alive, although badly wounded,” he said. “He was discharged a few weeks ago and has returned to his squadron.”
“I know what I saw and what I did,” she said. “I shot the man. I left him bleeding on the ground from a wound that no person would survive. I have seen men die for lesser wounds than his.”
“But did you ascertain his death, Agent?”
She fixed him. The room suddenly didn’t feel so cold anymore. Her hands shook as she brought the cigarette to her lips.
“You didn’t. Am I correct?”
“It can’t be,” she said. She stood on her feet, pushing the chair back with force, slamming it against the door. “It can’t be!” she thundered. With all her fury, she threw the cigarette against the wall and let out another cry of anger.
“This mess needs be cleaned. What are we going to do about it, Fräulein?”
She turned towards him, her hands clenched into tight fists.
“I will put a bounty on his head. That man’s life is hanging on a very thin thread.” She took a deep breath, trying to steady her uncontrollable acrimony. “I want Melbourne Summers dead or alive and I will let every spy in Europe know it. I will make sure he will have no place to hide. He will have no place to hide.”
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Historical Notes
Espionage during the Great War – unlike today, spies had a bad reputation during the First World War and earlier. An English officer in the Crimean War stated that ‘the gathering of knowledge by clandestine means was repulsive to the feelings of an English gentleman.’ Spies were often regarded as crooks, no better than thieves or murderers, and when caught were tried and shot, unlike soldiers. Often times, spies were recruited among criminals who showed cunningness and intelligence, releasing them from their prison sentences to act as agents in other countries. Members of train watching rings, such as the famous network La Dame Blanche, hated the term ‘spy’ wanting to be called agents or soldiers instead. Spies were often recruited among civilians and it was common to see journalists, priests, pensioned old ladies, and pub landlords work for the Intelligence bureaus of their countries. Many were shocked when approached for such a task. Marthe McKenna, a Belgian nurse and spy, when asked by a friend to become one said, ‘I knew what she meant, a spy, and for a moment I was filled with horror… yet somehow I had regarded them as inhuman and far removed from my own sphere.’
The German occupation of Belgium – due to the threats posed by Germany in the summer of 1914, Belgium mobilised its forces in July of that year announcing that it would uphold its neutrality if war ever came to the country. In early August 1914, Germany sent an ultimatum to Belgium demanding that the German forces pass through the country to be able to invade France. The demand was refused and Germany declared war on Belgium on August 4. The first town to fall was Liege on the 7th of August. The Belgian government fled from Brussels on the 17th of August and the capital was occupied on the 20th of that same month. Soon after the invasion, the Germans implemented a policy of terror by burning down towns and executing, raping, and brutally torturing civilians. This came to be known as the Rape of Belgium. By November 1914 most of the country was under German occupation which would last until the end of the war in 1918.
Aerial photography – the gathering of Intelligence through aerial photography was crucial to the First World War. In many
ways it completely reinvented the way war was conducted and planned. There was initial scepticism towards this new way of attaining information but it was soon evident that its value was immense. Reconnaissance proved to be vital in gathering information on enemy movements, artillery, and depots, and was essential to artillery bombardments and airplane raids which would have been a lot less accurate if it wasn’t for aerial photography and photographic interpretation. Most observers, like Douglas in this story, were amateur photographers who knew how to handle a camera. Due to the slowness and crudeness of the reconnaissance crafts, the life expectancy of a pilot was quite short. The RFC’s No. 2 Squadron, which had its headquarters on a farm between the towns of La Gorgue and Merville in the spring of 1915, was headed then by Major Tom Ince Webb-Bowen. It mainly specialised in reconnaissance. The Squadron still exists today.
Archie – derived from a music hall song titled Archibald, Certainly Not!, the name Archie was soon used to describe German anti-aircraft artillery by British pilots. The RFC pilot Vice-Marshall Amyas Borton is credit to have first coined the term due to his habit of singing the song’s chorus while flying between exploding German shells over the Front.
Boche – derogatory term for a German used by the Allies.
Blighty – the nickname for Great Britain first coined in India in the 19th century by British troops but not fully used until the Great War. It derives from the word vilayati, meaning ‘foreign’ in Urdu. Terms such as a ‘blighty wound’ meant a severe injury that would send the soldier back home.
Napoo – derived from the French expression ‘il n’y a plus’, meaning there is no more, the British anglicised this word and took it to mean completely destroyed or dead.
Fokker Eindecker – designed by the Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker, this German aircraft caused much terror amongst Allied pilots. The single-seated fighter monoplane aircraft allowed the pilot to fire its machinegun without striking the propeller blades due to a novel synchronisation gear. It was first developed in April of 1915, making Melbourne’s encounter with one a little premature historically speaking. The Fokker Scourge, as it was known amongst Allied pilots, took place between July 1915 and early 1916 in which the Fokker Eindeckers had supremacy over European skies.
The Foreign Office – in the early 20th century, the government of Great Britain was concerned by the threat of German Imperial ambitions, leading to a general scare. This caused the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, to establish an intelligence bureau to counter the targeting of Great Britain from German spies. The scare was overblown, but in 1909 the Committee of Imperial Defence established the Secret Service Bureau. The Bureau was then split into two sections, a Home and a Foreign. The Foreign Office was then expanded at the outbreak of the First World War, working close together with Military Intelligence. Its first director, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, was codenamed C, a name now used for all directors of the section. In 1920 the office changed its name to Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), a name still used today, but is unofficially known as MI6, a term coined during the Second World War. The Home Section changed its name to Security Service, better known as MI5.
Carl Hans Lody – when Melbourne is shocked to hear of his brother’s passing, he refers to Carl Lody, a German spy sent to Edinburgh towards the end of August 1914. The ex-junior naval officer was sent by Germany to gather naval intelligence in the country, particularly on the Firth of Forth due to its significant deep-water harbour and the British warships anchored there. Lody’s amateurish means of communication and practically no prior training in the arts of espionage led him to being arrested. He was trialled and executed at the Tower of London in November 1914, the first execution at the Tower in 150 years. The news of the German spy caused a great upheaval in Great Britain at the time.
Pontoon – an older version of Blackjack, with slight differences, quite popular among British troops and often played in trenches.
St. Omer – known to be the largest airfield on the Western Front, and one of the biggest during the First World War, the small French town of St. Omer housed the headquarters of the Royal Flying Corps in mainland Europe. Home to the support units and operational squadrons, the main headquarters were located in a small castle between the town and the airfield, which instead was located next to a local race course. Over fifty squadrons operated on the field during different times and some were even formed there, such as squadrons No. 9 and No. 16.
Rue Garchard 7 – prior to the outbreak of the war, British Intelligence gathering in Belgium took place in an office masked as a furniture shop in Rue Garchard 7 in Brussels. The bureau included Henry Dale Long, James Cuffe, George de Goldschmidt, Captain Roy Regnart, and Captain Cecil Aylmer Cameron. With the invasion of Germany, the office was dismantled and some of the men established different bureaus around Europe to gather Intelligence from Belgium with varying degrees of success.
Demetrius C. Boulger – a renowned British historian and biographer, Demetrius C. de Kavanagh Boulger was one of the first agents to be sent to a foreign country by the Foreign Office at the age of 61. Having lived many years in Belgium, and having written important works on the country such as The Congo State in 1898 and The History of Belgium in 1901, he was picked by Mansfield Smith-Cumming to operate in the Belgian town of Dinant in June of 1914 where he was tasked to recruit agents for a network to monitor the German frontier. He was codenamed ‘DB’. Boulger was eventually repatriated once the Germans had taken over Dinant.
Captain Cecil Aylmer Cameron – a former Royal Artillery officer, Captain Cameron had quite a reputation. He had caused a great scandal in 1911 when after having insured a necklace belonging to his wife for 6,500 pounds, they both pretended it had been stolen, thus cashing in the insurance money. He was caught, trialled, and was jailed but received a pardon after his wife confessed to that she alone acted in the fraud scheme while he was merely protecting her. After having been restored to the rank of Lieutenant, he was posted in Belgium by the Foreign Office until the invasion by Germany. He was withdrawn from the country and began working with the Bureau Central Interallié in Folkestone where he was tasked to recruit and manage train watching networks behind enemy lines, as well as collecting Intelligence in France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Having a very difficult character, he was often prone to great fits of anger. Codenamed EVELYN, Mansfield Smith-Cumming knew that if the word got out that Cameron was employed by the Foreign Office it would create controversy due to his difficult reputation.
Life in Brussels under the German occupation – the German regime quickly installed a reign of oppression upon the capture of the Belgian capital. German flags flew high on most of the buildings and they imposed their own German time which, depending on the seasons, meant an hour or two ahead of normal Belgian time. Food shortages were a huge problem as the city was cut off from its main source of food supply, the countryside, as the goods were needed to feed the soldiers at the Front. This created soaring prices and endless queues as people lined up for hours to have a ration of food. Various charities quickly sprung up to distribute clothing, food, and coal to the local population. One of the biggest of these organisations was the Comité Central de Secours et d’Alimetation, which together with the aid of the Spanish and American ambassador, it transformed itself into the Comité National de Secours et d’Alimentation, or the CNSA. It centralised all the charities, and the products were sent to the country through the Commission for Relief in Belgium, headed by future U.S. president Herbert Hoover. Certain untrustworthy farmers and bakers would make bread replacing flour with sawdust or chalk, or sell milk diluted with water. In the streets, posters covered the walls often depicting distorted news of the war. Requisitions were a daily norm in which German soldiers would take away from ordinary household wool, candlesticks, bicycle tires, saucepans, and many more things needed by soldiers on the Front. By 1915, most normal citizens had to carry around an identity certificate, a sort of precursor to the modern-day identity card. As the war progressed, life in Br
ussels and in Belgium deteriorated further until the country was finally freed in 1918.
The Resistance – networks or resistance fighters sprung up around Belgium after the invasion of Germany. Most of these consisted in train watching activities or escape networks, allowing soldiers or citizens to escape to nearby countries, usually neutral Holland. Underground newspapers such as La Libre Belgique or De Vlaamsche Leeuw denied Germany any legitimate authority over Belgium and helped to uphold the morale of its citizens. Resistance was a risky business. Getting caught meant being trialled and eventually executed. Normal citizens, although not belonging to a specific network, showed small signs of rebellion such as wearing patriotic paraphernalia while walking around or ripping off German posters in the streets.
Train Watchers – one of the most valuable and accurate sources of intelligence collected during the First World War came from train watching networks. Although highly risky, the Foreign Office and other intelligence organisations established various networks in France and Belgium, often succeeding in acquiring important information and anticipating German offensives. The most well-known of these networks was La Dame Blanche. Founded in 1916 by the Belgian engineer Walthère Dewé, and later operated by Henry Landau of the Foreign Office, it had a membership of around 1,000 people operating fifty-one individual train watching posts. The name derives from a German legend in which the appearance of a ghost of a white lady would herald the collapse of the Hohenzollen dynasty in Germany. The fictional network set up by Countess de Libremont is inspired by Platoon 49, a real network created by a group of aristocratic families that operated from their castles in Belgium. As a side note, the town of Libremont does not exist and should not be confused with the real town of Libramont-Chevigny.
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