The Best of Our Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  Nathalie was holding a chip in her hand, toying with it as she spoke.

  ‘You have to learn to accept things, you know, Owen.’ She still pronounced his name as if it were two words.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

  ‘Like the people following us, whom we don’t see. The two people who’ve just sat down at the next table. They’re watching us. Nothing is what it seems. It’s the war. People do things in war ... because of the war ... that they wouldn’t do otherwise. That is what you have to accept. That war changes everything and when it ends, only then can you judge things properly.’

  Owen was not altogether sure what she meant, but she had put the chip down now and was holding his hand, her fingers interlinked with his as she leaned over the table and kissed him on the lips. It was just gone eight o’clock and they knew that they couldn’t be late, so they paid the bill and made their way back to Holland Park.

  Earlier that Thursday evening, Archibald had arranged for a car to bring Quinn to the house from work. He was there by six o’clock. Although no one said as much, it was clear that she was going tonight. Conversation had not been easy. He did not want her to go, but knew he could not allude to that. Nathalie was clearly nervous: she was physically sick more than once, but there was a steely determination in her. ‘My duty’ was the only thing she ever said when the much avoided subject of her return to France crept to the surface. Owen did not need telling that the window for an Allied landing in northern Europe was a narrow one, between mid-Spring and mid-Summer. He realised that her mission to France must be linked to the Allied invasion.

  At seven o’clock that night the woman called Nicole had turned up at the house and took Nathalie into the small lounge. Archibald arrived and took Quinn in the kitchen.

  ‘It’s tonight, Quinn, I’m sure you’ve realised that by now. She’ll leave in about two hours’ time. You’ll have a chance to say goodbye, but do keep it ... what I mean is, don’t make it difficult for her. She’s got a long night ahead of her.’

  So he hadn’t made it difficult. He had actually been terribly good about it. ‘See you soon. Take care. I love you’, when he was sure they were out of anyone’s earshot. The car arriving, a quick embrace picked out by the dipped headlights of a passing car, a final ‘whatever happens, you must know that I will always love you’ whispered in her ear, so quietly that he couldn’t be sure she heard. She said nothing, but smiled, her hand brushing his face, her fingers lingering on his lips. Her warm mouth pressed on his cheek and now he was walking quickly past the smart homes with their white façades and their perfectly arranged flora and along the sweeping avenues.

  The tears had stopped now, but had been replaced by a sense of foreboding.

  Owen Quinn wondered whether he would ever see his wife ever again.

  ooo000ooo

  Nicole had drawn the curtains in the car as soon as it set off, so again Nathalie had no idea in which direction they were heading. It was of no importance. She was heading for France, which was all that mattered.

  The way she felt at that moment that was about all she could be certain of. She could not really be certain of who she was. There was her real identity, then she was Nathalie Mercier, who had come over from France in 1940, there was Nathalie Quinn who had married Owen Quinn in 1942. Then she was Magpie for the Germans and her new code name for the British, Rider. And her new French identity, Geraldine Leclerc. Six identities. Tonight she had become Geraldine Leclerc.

  She could certainly forget about Nathalie Mercier and Nathalie Quinn, she would have no need for them again.

  She did not have a watch. Everything else she would be taking with her to France would be given to her later that night. She sensed that they had driven for the best part of two hours when the car pulled off the road and drove for some time over an increasingly bumpy track before pulling to a halt.

  The car had pulled up close to the door of a long, single storey building. There was a full moon, but it only showed an empty rural landscape, trees and hedgerows on the horizon and the smell of earth in the air. She followed Nicole into the building and into a sparsely furnished room, with a long table in the middle and chairs set against one wall. The wall at the far end had a door set into it. The windows were painted black.

  On the table were clothes and various documents. Nicole stood behind the table facing Geraldine.

  ‘Your flight to France leaves in one hour. You must prepare now. Please remove all of your clothing. All of your jewellery, everything.’

  Geraldine undressed slowly, with Nicole watching her.

  ‘You must understand, this could save your life. If you have anything on you that could not have come from France, or would reveal your true identity – that could cause you to be arrested by the Germans.’

  Geraldine stood for a brief moment in her underwear before Nicole nodded for her to carry on. Her bra and knickers joined the small pile of clothes that had appeared behind her. Nicole handed her a large dressing gown.

  ‘Put the jewellery in here.’ Nicole had pushed a small box across the table for her. She removed everything, including her engagement and wedding rings.

  ‘There is one more thing I have to do. I am sorry. Please come here.’

  She walked over to Nicole. As she did so, she could hear the roar of an aircraft apparently landing near to the building. The older woman looked at her watch, nodded and produced a large pair of scissors. She pointed to a chair.

  ‘Sit down. I need to cut your hair.’

  ‘Please, not too short.’

  ‘Your hair will draw attention to yourself as it is now. It is very long and very beautiful. You need to look as anonymous as possible.’

  A few minutes later the floor around her was covered in locks of her hair. That which remained was now above her shoulders. She could not remember when it was last so short.

  ‘Try to wear it pulled back at all times anyway. That way it will look different to your photograph. It helps if your hair is a bit different from the photo anyway. That way any Germans looking at your identity card will concentrate on the photo rather than any other detail on the card. They expect a woman to change her hair style. Now. You take a shower. Use this towel and this soap and shampoo. They are French, you probably remember them. You will even smell French when you land.’ The very faintest hint of a quickly fading smile.

  The shower was in a small bathroom behind the main room. After her shower, she dressed in the items that Nicole handed her one by one. The labels showed that every single one of them was from France. The few spare clothes that were going into her knapsack were shown to her before they were packed, along with a few other items like a watch, toiletries and a torch. The Webley Mark 3 revolver she had used in Lincolnshire was there too, along with plenty of ammunition.

  ‘You will wear these.’ It was the spectacles they had made her wear when her photo was taken. An optician had come to the house in Holland Park to test her eyes and found that she could do with mild lenses anyway. The frames were thick and scratched, with a bit of tape holding part of them together. They made her look older. She glanced in the mirror that Nicole held in front of her. She was a different woman now. Not one she could imagine having much in common with.

  ‘We are nearly ready.’ For the second time that evening there was something close to a smile from Nicole. ‘The paperwork now.’

  She handed her the all important Carte d’identité, the identity card.

  Nom: Leclerc.

  Prenom: Geraldine.

  Profession: ouvrière.

  She had been born on 14 January 1914. She was a thirty-year-old factory worker from Arras. She felt like one.

  Some money and few ration coupons. A letter from a friend working in Toulouse (‘... they treat us well and the weather is wonderful’). An article torn from a magazine about fashion for the summer of 1944. And two creased photographs, of her new parents (‘avec notre amour’) and the brother and sister she never had (Henri – dix ans
, Juliette – sept ans).

  And that was it. Her new life stuffed into a knapsack and the pockets of her jacket.

  Nicole left the room for a moment and returned with a tray, which she put on the table in front of Geraldine. One cheese sandwich, a hardboiled egg, one apple and a glass of milk. The last supper, which she didn’t feel like eating.

  A very plain-looking thirty-year-old factory worker from Arras was now ready to return to France.

  ooo000ooo

  Flight Lieutenant Tony Taylor of 161 Squadron of the Royal Air Force had long since given up on being confused, although tonight he was finding that harder than usual. ‘In this line of work, you’d be confused every minute of every day if you stopped to think about it, so best not to think about it’ had been the helpful advice proffered when he joined the squadron eighteen months previously.

  The squadron certainly made a change from flying freight in the Far East and worrying about what the Japs would do to him if he ever bailed out. His new squadron was based at RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire. Closer to home, none of those bloody flies and a nice mix of work. Most of it was flying Whitleys on parachute drops, which suited his talents for navigation.

  But when there was a full moon, out came the Lysanders, like Count Dracula. Funny aircraft, really. Single engine on the nose, high wing over the top of the cockpit and a strong, fixed undercarriage, attached to the wing by two improbably large struts. It had started out life as a reconnaissance plane, but they soon realised that the fixed undercarriage and general performance of the plane meant that it was ideal for landing on rough terrain, fields being a speciality which was why they needed a full moon. Farmland tends not to come with its own landing lights Tony Taylor liked to joke. The Lysander had a cruising speed of one hundred and sixty-five miles an hour but could land and, crucially, take off at just eighty miles an hour. Good aircraft thought Taylor, though you wouldn’t know it to look at it. Reliable was the word he’d use to describe it – and it needed to be for what it was being used for.

  They specialised in landing agents and equipment in France. The Spy Taxi, they sometimes called them, which was funny really as his brother had driven taxis in London before the war. No tips from these passengers, though was another of his jokes. You could get a couple of the people and some equipment in the back, fly over to France, land in a field, drop them off, possibly bring someone back with you and be home in time for breakfast. A few times he had brought back RAF pilots who had been shot down and hidden by the resistance, which was always nice. Good to have them back. The agents he knew nothing about. You weren’t really meant to talk to them – not that you could above the roar of the engine anyway – and not even look at them properly.

  There was too much to think about anyway. You had to plot your route across the Channel and then look out for the landing strip. Check they were flashing the correct Morse code signal and then come in to land. Watch out for the trees and the telegraph wires. An L-shaped flare path would have been lit on the ground. Land, turn round ready to take off again and outcome the passengers and any supplies. A ladder was fixed to the left-hand side of the fuselage to make things easier. Ideally, you’d be back in the air again within three or four minutes, the engine running the whole time.

  They always took off from RAF Tangmere near Chichester. It was normally a fighter base, but it was right on the coast so extended the range of the plane. The Lysander had a normal range of six hundred miles, but this could be extended to nine hundred with an extra fuel tank.

  That afternoon he’d flown down from Tempsford to Tangmere as usual and waited for his instructions. Met report promised a nice clear night across the Channel and over most of France, so that was good. At four o’clock he gets the call.

  You’re flying just south of Boulogne, so no need for the extra fuel tank, you can take some more supplies instead.

  Fine.

  Oh – and you’re not flying from here. There’s a small airstrip about fifteen miles inland from here. Hardly ever used. Want you to fly there when it is dark, pick up a couple of passengers and off you go again.

  Talk about a taxi service.

  Which is why Flight Lieutenant Tony Taylor was confused. They must have a very good reason for not wanting to fly from Tangmere.

  He’d been on the ground for half an hour. A small truck had brought out some of the supplies, which he helped to load. Two long cylinder-like containers, which usually carried weapons and ammunition, and four smaller cases, one of which was a radio transmitter. A man came over to the plane, dressed in dark trousers, a thick jumper and a beret.

  ‘We will be ready in thirty minutes. Myself and one passenger. Will that be all right with you?’

  Probably French, he thought. Taylor told him that it was all right and sure enough twenty-five minutes later a dark Humber with curtains drawn across the back pulled alongside the left-hand side of the plane. The man with the beret opened the rear passenger door and two women got out. One briefly shook hands with other before getting straight back into the car, which quickly pulled away from the plane. The woman stood alongside the man in the beret and handed her bag to him and climbed into the Lysander, followed by the man. Once they were settled and strapped in the back, Taylor spoke to Tangmere, was cleared for takeoff straight away and gunned the Bristol Mercury engine into life. The plane bounced down the field and was soon airborne, clearing the hedges which had slightly bothered him with ease.

  They were still climbing when the blue moonlight picked out the Sussex coast disappearing beneath them and then glinted off the sea.

  ‘I wouldn’t get too settled,’ Taylor shouted into the back of the plane. ‘It’s only a few minutes now until we land.’

  ooo000ooo

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Pas de Calais

  April 1944

  She had survived as Nathalie Mercier when she came to England, because she became Nathalie Mercier. It was not who she pretended to be, it was who she was. It was the only way. She managed to lock her true identity away so successfully that she had to think carefully before she could find the key – so much so that if she ever heard her real first name, she no longer reacted instinctively to it. And being Magpie was easy enough. You treat that part of your identity as a job. When she became Nathalie Quinn, she realised, it was just an extension of Nathalie Mercier. You had to believe who you are. If you don’t believe it yourself, how can you expect someone else to do that? She had never had much trouble in compromising her beliefs. In any case, she thought, it was not as if there was too much to miss in her previous identity.

  So somewhere between the noisy and uncomfortable plane taking off from that field in southern England to it landing in a field in northern France, she knew that she had to discard Nathalie Mercier and Nathalie Quinn over the Channel and never let them enter her mind again. Any regrets or emotions that Nathalie may have had should go into the sea along with her identity. But she was unsettled. It may be easy enough to discard your identity and the details that go with it, but the emotions – they were an altogether different matter. On occasions she had surprised herself in England and nothing had surprised her more than the fleeting glimpses over the past few months of feelings that she had for Owen. Very fleeting at first, but in the past few weeks, far more frequent. They had taken her aback at the time and she had attempted to dismiss them; maybe she had simply been reciprocating his very strong feelings for her, playing the part as always. It simply meant she had been doing her job well, but it would be wrong to pretend that they had not confused her and made her think. It would certainly account for why she felt so utterly sad tonight.

  It was Geraldine Leclerc who climbed down the steps of the plane in a field near Boulogne. Magpie was her job and now Rider was a second job. It was all clear in her mind. And her true identity was still neatly locked away in her mind, although it had come somewhat closer to home.

  The landing had been unpleasant. The pilot had crossed the French coast south of Boulogne an
d then dropped altitude quite suddenly. They approached the landing zone very low and very fast. The summer storms meant the ground was wet and this caused the plane to slither as it hit the ground. The pilot struggled with the controls (‘No one told me it was on a sodding slope!’), the Lysander skidding from left to right and back again as it bounced on the greasy field. They soon came to a halt, with the engine still running. The man with her unstrapped her belt, opened the window and told her to climb down the ladder. ‘Quick.’ No goodbye. No good luck. No time.

  A man helped her down at the bottom and passed her over to a woman who took her by the arm and led her quickly over to a copse, part running, part walking and part slipping over the greasy ground. She glanced round and saw that the canisters were being unloaded. Behind the copse was a small track, with bicycles propped against trees, and beyond that a field, with a mass of trees in the distance.

  When all the equipment was out of the plane, the engine revved up and within a minute it was airborne again, its grey shape quickly merging into the black sky and soon becoming invisible. Three men were still carrying the canisters into the copse. The woman who had led her by the arm had run back into the field to extinguish the beacons. A hole had already been dug between the trees and the canisters were being lowered into it and then covered up. A young man with dark hair covering his brow smiled at her as he spread leaves and twigs over the area. He pointed to the canisters. ‘We will collect them tomorrow.’

  He and another man were both carrying guns, which she recognised from her training as American Mark 3 sub-machine guns. The older man – the one who had helped her from the plane – held a Colt automatic pistol in one hand as with the other he checked the covering over the hole into which they had hidden the canisters, kicking an extra covering of leaves over the surface as he did so. When the woman rejoined them in the copse the older man motioned for them all to crouch down. The five of them sat in a small circle, surrounded by the trees. The ground around them was covered in bluebells, their colour just evident in spite of the darkness. Geraldine was fascinated by their presence. High above them, the wind was causing the leaves at the very top of the trees to rustle. There was a smell of wet earth and of France. She was conscious of her glasses and kept removing them. The bridge was hurting her nose. She was quite unused to wearing glasses.