by David Hough
Wendel stuffed his hands into his pockets and took a deep breath. With the main route out of the city clogged to the limit, he had to make an effort to get himself and Donohoe away as soon as possible.
He hurried back towards the hotel, mentally formulating a plan for their escape. Commandeering a car was not difficult when so many vehicles had been abandoned by fleeing citizens. He found a Crossley 40hp tourer in a deserted side street. Stopping to siphon off petrol from other discarded vehicles, he then checked that the Crossley was oiled before driving it to the hotel entrance. The other men were standing impatiently in the foyer.
“We didn’t know where you’d gone,” Oliver Polmassick began. “Your Lieutenant asked me to wait for you. He says you want me to take him to Dunkerque.” He gestured towards DeBoise with a look that said he wasn’t happy about any further delay.
“Yes, I would appreciate that. And thank you for your patience.” Wendel turned to address DeBoise. “You’ll be in Dunkerque well before Donohoe and I get to Ghent, Lieutenant. Good luck with whatever C has in store for you.”
DeBoise gave him a grim look. “Shouldn’t you go with the Lieutenant Commander, sir? You being the senior officer. He could land near Ghent and leave you there.”
Wendel fought with his conscience for a few seconds. There was some sense – a lot of sense – in DeBoise’s suggestion. But sense was battling with his fear of flying, and losing.
He looked away as he replied. “No. C wants you in Dunkerque. You’d better get there as quickly as possible. Besides, the situation on the ground here is important. I shall stay as long as possible to take back accurate reports.”
He refused to own up to the truth: that he had never been up in an aeroplane and no way would he fly in Polmassicks’ damned machine. He would rather risk the land route out of the city.
He turned to face the pilot again. “All right, we’re ready for you now, sir. And I hope your mechanic has managed to fix your aeroplane.” Without waiting for a reply, he glanced at Donohoe. “You can drive?”
“Reckon I can, sir. Never been taught to drive, but I’ve sat at the wheel of a few cars back home in Ireland.”
Wendel was almost certain the cars would have been stolen, but he kept his thoughts to himself. “Good. Put our kit aboard and let’s be on our way. Start by driving us to the racecourse.”
“Aye, sir. And we’ll pray for the Lieutenant’s safe deliverance.”
Wendel snorted. “If he has to die in this damn war, it might as well be in an aeroplane.”
“Amen to that, sir.”
Chapter Four
DeBoise cursed the engine problem that had left the single aeroplane stranded at the Wylryck landing ground when all others had flown away. Hadn’t enough men died in those crazy contraptions? Dead because the machines fell out of the sky for no other reason than they were lethal by design. Dead because the pilots had too little training.
He tried to curb his anxiety as Donohoe navigated the road towards the racecourse where the railway station was already in ruins. The landing ground looked unhurt, but his anxieties remained. A shiver ran through him. With the briefest of acknowledgements to Wendel, he followed Lieutenant Commander Polmassick across the grass to his aeroplane which sat at one side of the field. The Avro 504 was the only aircraft in sight.
“Been in one of these before, Lieutenant?” the pilot asked as he donned his leather flying coat.
“Never.” DeBoise wanted to add that he would rather forego the chance to start now, but held back for fear of seeming a coward.
“Right, well get yourself into the front cockpit and strap yourself in.” Polmassick spoke airily as if it was the easiest thing in the world to do. Maybe it was, to him.
DeBoise reluctantly climbed up into the flimsy machine and pulled his kit bag in with him. The machine stank of oil and petrol. Sitting in the front seat, he felt his stomach churn as Polmassick heaved himself into the rear cockpit and a mechanic swung the propeller. The engine spluttered and then caught, bursts of smoke coughing from the exhaust pipes.
Straightaway Polmassick waved the mechanic away. DeBoise watched him retreat towards the car where Wendel and Donohoe stood watching. What would happen to that poor man now? Belatedly, he wondered if he was taking the mechanic’s expected line of escape.
Minutes later the Avro 504 bumped across the grass and climbed away. One wing dropped suddenly as the pilot banked towards the coast for the eighty-mile flight to Dunkerque. Looking directly down towards the racecourse, DeBoise felt a fresh surge of fear as the ground seemed to bend away from him. Then he spotted the car carrying Wendel and Donohoe. Already, it was heading back towards the city and the only route across the Scheldt. Two people sat in the front seats. No sign of the mechanic. It seemed like he had been left to his own resources. Or did he have orders to remain there in case other aircraft flew in? There were still some important people at the hotel who might welcome an airborne escape.
DeBoise gulped and forced himself to concentrate on the geography below until he saw the route to Ghent, choked with the fleeing citizens of Antwerp. How on earth would the Captain get a car onto that road? And yet, despite the problems and dangers they faced, he wished he was down there in the vehicle with them.
The slipstream tugged at his thick glasses and he adjusted the frames more firmly around his ears. Feeling more and more uncomfortable by the minute, he eased himself back into the aircraft seat and tried not to think about the thousands of feet of empty space between himself and terra firma… even a terra firma beset with such a cruel war.
He tried to concentrate his thoughts away from the aeroplane. It wasn’t easy. He had seen so much cruelty since he arrived in Belgium, cruelty that still pained him endlessly. What would his father make of him now that he was a seasoned soldier?
Charles DeBoise had wanted to become a Catholic priest, but his Protestant father had other ideas, more ‘manly’ ideas. Sir Roderick DeBoise KCMG, an old soldier of considerable repute, had pulled strings to get his academic son a commission in the King’s Own Highland Dragoons. But Charles had made a fool of himself on the parade ground in Edinburgh, quite unable to keep control of the men or the NCOs. They had laughed at him behind his back, derided him for his educated English accent, made a mockery of his inability to take firm command. His youth and his academic manner did him no favours amongst the fierce Highlander warriors.
It was inevitable that the commanding officer of the KOHD would want rid of him. Maybe he thought he was doing DeBoise a favour when he sent the junior Lieutenant to London to be interviewed by Commander Mansfield Smith-Cumming, head of the overseas section of the Secret Intelligence Service. At least Smith-Cumming had not dismissed him out of hand. He had already made effective use of DeBoise’s academic brain, sending him on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. As a consequence, DeBoise had witnessed the most brutal aspects of a terrible war. He had seen the rape of Leuven, and he had seen the killing of an innocent Belgian girl, a girl he had loved from first sight. It alone had provoked him into a brutal act of revenge.
Despite his lack of military expertise, DeBoise had lived through his first mission and C had openly expressed his considerable pleasure when Captain Wendel sent a glowing report back to London. But there was no sense of pleasure in the mind of Charles DeBoise. Only the pain of so much death. And now he was forced to endure the ignominy of fear and a rising nausea. Unable to contain it, he leaned his head over one side of the cockpit and vomited into the slipstream.
*
Wendel tensed himself as Donohoe drove away from the Wylryck racecourse landing ground and headed into the city. The mechanic had chosen to remain behind in expectation of other Royal Naval aircraft making use of the landing ground even at this late stage of the evacuation. Wendel wished him well.
He glanced back to see the Avro 504 climb away and wondered whether he had made a serious mistake in sending DeBoise directly to Dunkerque. Without doubt, the aeroplane would deliver DeBoise to
Marie Duval long before he and Donohoe arrived in Ghent. Wendel flinched. Was his decision to remain on firm ground based upon wisdom or fear? It was fear, of course it was. He had faced appalling dangers in his first mission behind enemy lines. He had faced them and overcome them, and yet he was afraid to go aloft in a British aeroplane. Belatedly, he felt ashamed.
He turned to watch the road get busier as they entered the centre of the city. They would have to cross the Scheldt in order to get to the road that would take them south towards Ghent, but would they be allowed to take the car across the pontoon bridge? It was possible that the bridge was too flimsy to carry any motor vehicle. He hoped not, but if they had to abandon the car they would be forced into a long journey on foot. C would not be impressed.
Echoing his thoughts, Donohoe spoke up quietly. “You might have been better off in the aircraft, sir. This ain’t goin’ to be easy.”
Wendel found no obvious answer, except to say, “Get as close to the bridge as you can.”
The going got steadily worse and they were brought to a complete halt in the Leopoldstraat, several streets away from the waterfront, unable to make further headway against the crowds now flooding towards the river. A long line of miserable humanity stretched ahead as far as they could see: a mass of people moving so slowly as to appear like a dark mass of effluence drifting out from some vast unseen drain. Antwerp, once such a proud city, was now like a chest of tea which had been hacked open, its contents spilled out. The straggling line of men, women and children shuffled forward, uniformly laden with primitive belongings, plodding into enforced exile in another city, maybe another land.
Wendel stared at them with growing anger. Pain was palpable in their faces. Not physical pain. That was reserved for the unlucky ones who had been caught by exploding shells but didn’t die straightaway. The lucky ones died in an instant.
“Did you ever see the like?” Wendel hissed.
“Yer heart goes out to them don’t it, sir?” Donohoe switched off the engine. “That’s as far as we’ll get in the car. What can we do now?”
“I don’t know, and that’s the truth.” Wendel had hoped the remaining troops would have crossed the river by now, allowing the civilians to move forward. He had even retained one small hope that they just might be able to get the car across the Scheldt and onto the Ghent Road, but that was now out of the question.
Most of the travellers were on foot but – here and there – Wendel noticed riders, bareback or on rough farm-saddles, their heads bent in sadness. Then a few farm wagons trundled into view. Huddled within them, he saw young children lying on piles of bedding. Shaken and querulous, they stared out through hollow eyes while babies cried interminably. In some carts were aged women, their faces like shrunken walnuts. They sat buried in dirty shawls. The carts moved slowly amongst the crowd, but there were no cars, none could possibly make any headway.
Along with the carts, the mass of humanity included bicycles ridden erratically, with shapeless bundles tied to them. One had a little child perched on the saddle, held in place by an elderly man. Elsewhere, prams were filled with children, along with bundles of clothes. Old men and women wheeled barrows filled with belongings. Younger men had chairs slung from their shoulders, carrying relatives too sick to walk. The slow progress of the exodus was too much for some. They flung themselves down onto the pavements and watched with staring eyes as their fellow citizens passed by.
“We can’t just sit here, sir,” Donohoe said.
“No, you’re right.” Wendel reached for the door handle. “We’ll have to ditch the car and walk like the rest of them.”
He cursed his own stupidity. Despite his fears, it had been a major mistake not to fly with Lieutenant Commander Polmassick. C would be right to rebuke him.
“I’ll carry my own kit, Donohoe,” he muttered.
“That’s my job, sir. Commander Cumming thought you needed a batman.”
“Commander Cumming didn’t envisage us getting caught up in this.” He didn’t add that he felt a dire need to do something to atone for his serious error of judgement.
*
Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, commander of the German Sixth Army, pulled at his moustache and stared absently at the figure sitting opposite him. The distant thump of German field guns was no more than a vague backdrop to his thoughts. The war’s progress was proving more difficult than the prince had anticipated and he silently cursed the senior military commanders who had helped water down Count von Schlieffen’s plan for a successful assault against the French. The assault should have been ended by now. If they had stuck to the original strategy, the war should have been won.
Prince Rupprecht was thinking also of how different things might have been had history played him a better hand. He was a descendant of the royal line of the Stuart dynasty and many of his supporters considered him to be the rightful heir to the British throne. As the King of England, they assured him, he would have been able to unite the German and British territories years ago. Furthermore, in doing so, he would have created an empire that would have dwarfed all others. Prince Rupprecht was not entirely convinced by the argument. History would have taken an entirely different path had the Stuarts had not destroyed their natural right to the English throne so many years ago. Nevertheless, the idea of a united empire did have its attractions. Still only in his forties, he believed he had a long life ahead of him, and he harboured a belief that, when Germany finally overcame its enemies, he might yet take some sort of legitimate role in England.
A louder noise from a nearby heavy howitzer drew him back suddenly from his rumination. He sat up in his seat, quickly realigning his thoughts to the present, shaking away those fanciful ideas. What might have been was a matter of unalterable history. Furthermore, this war underlined the importance of making sure that future historians saw German military leaders like himself for what they were: firm and decisive. Which was why he now needed the help of the secret agent sitting patiently opposite him.
“You have served me well,” he said with a smile designed to disarm the agent.
“Thank you, sir.”
“But circumstances have now changed,” he said evenly, quickly wiping away the smile. “I have decided to give you a new code name. In future you will be known as Wood Wine.”
“Why?” The agent frowned.
“It is important to change code names regularly to avoid discovery. You know that. How do you feel about being called Wood Wine?”
“I would prefer a German name.”
“No. This name will confuse the British. They won’t understand why a German agent should use an English code name and it will have them running round in circles looking for a spy in their own camp. It’s a neat idea and I like it. You will be Wood Wine.”
“If you say so, sir.”
Rupprecht smiled. On a personal level, he liked this particular spy, but the usefulness of all such spies faded with time. Wood Wine had only one more major use before being discarded. Unfortunate, but necessary.
When he spoke again, it was with an air of underlying annoyance.
“Haig has yet again got wind of some of our plans for troop deployments.” Try as he might, he was unable to tone down his Bavarian accent. It was an accent that would do him no favours when, after the eagerly anticipated German victory, he crossed the Channel to England.
The agent now known as Wood Wine, who was more used to using the Flemish tongue, didn’t bat an eyelid. “How do you know this?” The agent’s accent was much less pronounced, a factor of living too many years in Flanders.
“I know the man’s tactics.” Rupprecht set his hands flat on the table and drew a deep breath. “Every time our air observers bring me news of his deployments I study them intently. He is moving his forces to block me in advance of my intentions. What does that mean? I will tell you what: it means he knows what I intend to do almost as soon as I plan it. That’s what! He knows my plans even before I act upon them!”
Wood Wine
leaned forward, lessening the gap between them. “Smith-Cumming has numerous agents in Belgium. It’s inevitable they will pick up some of our intentions. Nothing can be totally secret.”
“But not this! Not the minute detail in my strategic plans.” Prince Rupprecht shook his head fiercely.
“What can you do about it?”
Rupprecht clenched a fist upon his desk. “I shall capture one of Smith-Cumming’s spies and beat the truth out of him. That’s what I shall do. I shall find out how the information is getting to Haig by interrogating someone who should know all about Smith-Cumming’s network of secret agents.”
“It is that important?”
“The matter is critical. The British are moving towards Ypres. At this rate they will be inside the town within two weeks. They must be stopped from any further advance.” Prince Rupprecht tried not to sound defeatist, but he knew he faced a problem of epic proportions. “If we’re to hold the line at Ypres, and push the British back, we need to find the informant, whoever it is. We must identify the traitor in our midst. Which is why you are going to help me capture one of Smith-Cumming’s spies.”
“Me?” Wood Wine’s voice went suddenly low. “How?”
The Crown Prince linked his fingers in front of him. “I have already set my plans in motion. The Gräfin von Birkensaft is still at her house in Frelinghien, yes?”
“She is safe and well in Frelinghien.” Wood Wine nodded nervously. “There are some who feel uneasy at having a Belgian Royal under German control, but she has not been harmed.”
“Good. Never forget that she is German by birth. And it is the Belgians who feel most uneasy at her being under our command.” Rupprecht allowed himself a small smile. “Frelinghien is too close to the British lines, too easy for the British to reach. I shall move her north to the Château Gheluvelt.”
“Why Gheluvelt?”
“Because it’s farther from the front line, but still conveniently close to Ypres. She will be told the move is for her own safety but, in truth, she will be my bait.” Rupprecht warmed to his plan and rubbed his hands together. “Two days ago I arranged for another deliberate leak of information. I let it be known that the Gräfin will be moved to the Château to keep her away from the British advance because she knows too much about our plans.”
