The Best of Our Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  When he found himself in the hall, the baby was in his arms.

  André was kneeling by her side, his hands covered in blood. Her face was grey, her eyes open wide but darting around, having trouble focussing. Her head was moving frantically from side to side.

  André was trying to stem the blood flowing from a wound in her stomach, but a dark red patch was spreading fast across her chest.

  ‘Talk to her, Owen, tell her to hang on.’

  Neighbours had gathered in the open doorway. ‘Ambulance!’ shouted André. ‘Get an ambulance and a doctor!’

  Owen took her hand, which felt like ice. Her breathing was slow and very noisy. She tried hard to focus.

  ‘Tell her to hang on, Owen. Show her the baby. Do something.’

  He held Philippe closer to her. Very slowly, she reached out to him, her hand stopping before she could touch him. As the colour drained completely from her face her black eyes stood out in even more contrast against the white skin. A smile began to appear across her face and then froze as a groan came from deep inside her and her body seemed to sink slowly into itself.

  André stood up, drenched in blood.

  ‘She’s gone, Owen. She’s gone.’

  ooo000ooo

  André was pushing the small Peugeot as hard as it would go as they headed north. They had made good progress since leaving Strasbourg. The lights of Metz were now fading behind them, the road ahead dark and broken only by the occasional passing lights of army convoys. He was not sure about Owen’s plan, but he agreed that they needed to leave Strasbourg fast.

  Owen was slumped across the backseat, his son fast asleep in his arms.

  ‘You are sure it was him, André?’

  ‘I told you, Owen. I am not certain, but I think it was. I was sitting in the front seat of the car waiting round the corner for you when a large silvery-grey Renault pulled up in front of me. I didn’t think anything of it. I was trying to rest, to be honest. A large man got out of the car and walked past this one. I was a bit unsettled by him, I don’t know why. A minute or so later, something clicked in my mind and I got out for a proper look at the Renault. It had those very wide running boards. I am sure it was like the car that drove us to the prison to see Lange. And then I realised who the man was. Émile, the man who drove the Renault to and from the prison. The man whose family was tortured by the Gestapo, you remember? He was wearing a beret too, just like he was when he drove us to the prison. So I ran back to the apartment block. Just as I entered, I heard two shots, definitely two. As I ran up the stairs I collided with him running down. He pushed me out of the way. What more can I say? Revenge is our new religion.’

  ooo000ooo

  Edgar arrived at the hospital two hours after Ginette Troppe’s body had been taken there. He had expected to find a living person, not a corpse.

  He had asked for her by name at the reception and was ushered into a side room by a clearly distressed matron. ‘Are you here in connection with her death? How come the news has got out so soon?’

  Edgar must have looked shocked; the matron was very understanding. He showed her the impressive sheaf of documentation that he had from the British Embassy in Paris and explained that she had done some work for the British during the war (‘She was at Dunkirk, you understand’). He had come to Strasbourg to thank her in person.

  The matron tearfully explained what had happened. ‘Shot, twice. We thought that kind of thing had stopped with the Germans leaving. There had been reprisals of course, but why would anyone want to shoot a nurse? The police have no idea who it was. And she was such a good nurse. Before the war she was a cold person if I am honest with you, sir, not someone you could warm to. But when she returned from Paris she was a much nicer person. Maybe becoming a mother had changed her. I had no idea she was at Dunkirk. So many people did things in the war that they do not discuss.’

  Edgar asked if he could see the body and was taken to the mortuary. He did not want to stay very long at all, especially as he was aware that his presence was beginning to attract some attention (‘If you don’t mind waiting, sir, the police may want to talk with you when they arrive… if you could give us your name’). He wanted to be absolutely certain that it was the woman he had first known as Nathalie Mercier.

  The room where the body lay was narrow with a low ceiling and dark apart from a light hanging directly over the body. He had not expected her head to be exposed, so as soon as he walked in he knew for sure that it was her. The shroud was gathered across the top of her breasts with the edge of a wound just visible, her skin now a marble white and glinting in the bright light.

  He had no idea what had happened and was going to have some trouble in explaining what had gone on. Had Owen been responsible for her death? What would he have done if he had got to her first?

  There was a knock on the window that separated the room from the rest of the mortuary. The matron was looking anxious. She had explained on the way down that this was most irregular and really she did not have the authority to...

  He held up his hand. One minute. Thank you.

  He thought of the past four years and his role in shaping the life of the woman whose body now lay in front of him. He thought of the lives undoubtedly saved thanks to her unwitting help. He thought of her husband and of what was going to become of him.

  More knocking at the window. I’m coming.

  Edgar turned to look at the body for one final time. He shook his head and smiled. ‘You were the best of our spies,’ he muttered, ‘and you never even realised it.’

  Minutes later, Edgar was on his way back to Paris, accompanied by an enormous sense of relief. What could have been a major problem had gone away. The outcome was messy, but all things considered it could have been far, far worse.

  ooo000ooo

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Aftermath

  Less than an hour after Owen Quinn had been to visit Captain John Archibald that day in December 1944, one of Edgar’s men had turned up, demanding to know whether Owen Quinn had been to the house. He had pushed his way past Mrs Archibald, but by the time he entered the bedroom, Archibald had secreted under his body the notebook which Georg Lange’s name was in.

  Captain Archibald feigned sleep and the man had to leave. Later that night Archibald managed to get out of bed and burned notebook in the fire.

  His condition deteriorated significantly in the New Year and everyone said that it was a relief when he died in March 1945.

  They used the word ‘peaceful’ to describe his passing, as was traditional, but Iris Archibald would have described it as anything but.

  He was often agitated and usually in pain, but what she noticed more than anything else was that he appeared to be full of regret, as if there were matters he still wanted resolved but could not address.

  In his last few weeks he often asked her whether Owen Quinn had ever been in touch again and she always had to shake her head.

  The day before he died, he told her that he wanted to dictate a letter, which began ‘My dear Owen...’

  He fell asleep after those words and did not wake up again.

  His short obituary in The Times concentrated on his role in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Brief reference was made to how he had delayed his retirement to continue service in the Royal Navy during the current war in what they described as an ‘administrative capacity’.

  ooo000ooo

  Following his arrest in July 1944, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was held by the SS in Berlin.

  In February 1945 he was taken to the Flossenbürg concentration camp in Bavaria, not far from the Czech border. He continued to be tortured until the morning of the 9 April 1945 when along with his former deputy, Generalmajor Hans Oster and some of the 20 July bomb plot conspirators, he was stripped naked and dragged into the courtyard of the camp, where they were slowly hanged by the SS.

  Flossenbürg concentration camp was liberated by the Americans just two weeks later.

  The two SS officers
responsible for Canaris’s detention and execution in Flossenbürg, Otto Thorbeck and Walter Huppenkothen, were never punished by the German authorities after the war.

  ooo000ooo

  Arnold Vermeulen felt elated as the plane sped over the last few miles of the silver sea and he was able to make out the coastline of mainland Europe in the distance. After five years, he would be home soon.

  All in all, Arnold Vermeulen could not really complain at the way he had been treated.

  Considering that in April 1941 he thought he was about to be executed, anything since then had been a bonus. Above all, he felt a sense of relief. He had never thought that he was cut out to be a spy anyway. The British seemed to understand that. He had become a nervous wreck, to be honest. He was a victim of the war. People would understand that in time. But once he had come through the interrogation and agreed to be a double agent, life became much easier. He no longer had to worry about being caught, because he already had been. He had no problems about betraying Magpie, because, if he was frank, he never liked her. She was always condescending, treating him as if he were inferior to her, which he probably was.

  So, all in all, he had been happy to play along with the British. After they set him up as a double agent, they always treated him properly. He never had to deal with the tall Englishman again, which was a relief. Contact with Magpie was intermittent, but he did everything he was told.

  He had begun to wonder what would happen at the end of the war and had asked his handlers that on more than one occasion. There was an understanding that he would have to be returned to Belgium, but the authorities there would be told how co-operative he had been. Maybe six months in jail, certainly nothing more than that.

  Life changed a bit at the end of April 1944. He never saw Magpie again. They moved him from the safe house in Acton to somewhere in North Wales. It was not a prison they told him. Not at all. But the house they kept him in was in a locked compound and the house itself was locked and guarded. Soon after that he heard about D-Day and then it was just a matter of time before it was all over. Allied troops entered Belgium in the September and he was not sure how he felt about that. Not relief, but not a sense of defeat either. He just wanted this whole, dreadful business to be over and done with. To get back to his old life, his flat, his records and the familiar surroundings.

  After VE Day in May 1945 he was moved to a house somewhere in England. He had no idea where it was. It was in preparation for being sent back to Belgium they had said. He had begun to worry, but then that was in his nature after all.

  He had heard some dreadful things on the radio. In April, the Belgian authorities executed sixteen Belgian citizens for their part in torturing prisoners during the war. The sixteen were all shot in the back. He could not get the image out of his mind.

  In the middle of May, the tall Englishman reappeared. ‘You are going home,’ he told him. ‘Tomorrow.’ He had asked the Englishman whether all these assurances he had been given – about how he would be well treated, just six months in prison etc. – whether he would have them in writing. The Englishman smiled and left. Arnold was sure that he nodded.

  He saw him again the next morning when he arrived at the remote airfield. He asked him again whether he had those assurances in writing and he just smiled and patted his coat pocket. There was just one plane there, no RAF markings as far as he could tell, and not much else around them. The tall Englishman boarded the plane first and two of his guards came too.

  And now the plane was descending, much sooner than he had expected, actually. He had thought it would be a few minutes more before they arrived in Brussels, but then he had never flown before so he was not sure. The plane had started to descend before it had reached the coast and it appeared to be landing almost within sight of the coast. He was worrying needlessly again. He realised that he was unsophisticated. What did he know about air travel? As the plane came in to land, there was just countryside around them, no sign of anything else. He was not worried, just confused. Maybe they were using a small airport, not the main one and that made sense. The main thing was, he was home. Back in Belgium.

  After that, it was all far too quick and dreadful to take in. The plane had bounced along the landing strip and then come to a sudden stop. As he looked out of the window, he saw a van pull up alongside the plane. The tall Englishman got out and he heard a brief conversation going on, but could not make out what was being said or even what language it was in.

  Then he was bundled down the steps of the plane and manhandled into the back of the van, which was filthy and smelled of soil. Scatterings of earth and gravel littered its floor. A man had put handcuffs on him and another tied a blindfold round his head. He had not expected to be greeted with flowers and the Belgian National Anthem, but nor had he expected this. He began to worry. The van sped off. They seemed to be driving over rough terrain, certainly not on roads.

  It came to a halt and he was roughly hauled out of the back and marched along. The blindfold was removed. He was in a large barn, lit by streaks of sunlight breaking in through the gaps in the walls and roof. Large parts of the barn were charred and it looked as if there had been a big fire in it.

  He was led in front of a small trestle table, behind which sat three men. The one in the middle spoke to him in French. From his accent, he was French, not Walloon.

  ‘Are you Arnold Vermeulen?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You were recruited as a Nazi agent in Brussels in May 1940?’

  He looked round, his head darting from side to side. If the tall Englishman was here he would be able to explain. There was no sign of him.

  ‘Yes, sir. But I don’t think you understand...’

  ‘And subsequently operated as a Nazi agent in England?’

  If the two men had not been on either side of him he would have collapsed by now. He was not in Belgium. These people were French. He had trouble getting the words out to reply.

  ‘There has been a terrible misunderstanding. You see, I co-operated with the British. I promise you. They even said...’

  ‘Did you ever operate as Nazi agent in England?’ The man to the left was now speaking, repeating his colleague’s question.

  ‘Yes, for a while... but only as...’

  ‘Does the name Magpie mean anything to you?’

  ‘Certainly, but again I...’

  The man in the middle stood up.

  ‘It is clear that you worked with the enemy against the people of France. Now you will suffer the consequences.’ He nodded to the two men on either side of the Belgian.

  They dragged him screaming across the rough floor of the barn to where a long rope had been slung over a beam, with a stool under it. The ground around where the stool stood was blackened with soot and scorch marks. Another man came over and attempted to tie his legs together, but he resisted. One of the other men kneed him hard in the groin and Vermeulen collapsed to the ground, doubled up in agony.

  His legs were tied together and an oily rag was stuffed into his mouth. The two guards picked him up and hauled him onto the stool.

  A blindfold, he thought. Why can’t they blindfold me?

  The taste in his mouth was indescribable and he could feel himself starting to vomit.

  They appeared to be in no rush to tie the noose round his neck, holding him carefully in position as they ripped the collar from his shirt so that the thick rope was in contact with his flesh.

  He noticed two things just before they kicked the stool away. The first was just how much sunlight was seeping into the vast barn. And the second was the sight of the tall Englishman, silhouetted in the open door of the barn, his long shadow being thrown almost as far as the stool he was standing on. He would help him now.

  When the stool was finally kicked away, it was at least twenty choking seconds before he even began to lose consciousness. And during that time he was sure that the barn was consumed in flames.

  The last sound he heard was of screaming children.<
br />
  ooo000ooo

  The German agent known as Cognac continued to move around England for a good eighteen months after the war, frequently changing his identity and appearance.

  He considered moving back to Germany, but realised it was probably safer in England.

  By 1949 he had settled into his identity as a Czech refugee so comfortably that he felt able to put down some roots.

  He married a war widow in Derbyshire and became step-father to her two young children. It was a happy marriage, though both his wife and step-children knew to avoid discussing the war or his life before it. They were aware that it was too painful for him. The Germans had done terrible things to his family, he told them.

  Whenever he read that the British had caught every single agent that the Abwehr had sent to the United Kingdom it would cause him quiet amusement and satisfaction. It was just a shame that he could never tell anyone his story. He tried not to think too much about the past, because there was too much of it. But from time to time, he did wonder what had become of the beautiful Frenchwoman he had kept an eye on during the war.

  His wife died in 1959, but he continued to work as a wages clerk in a local engineering factory and he stayed close to the children and became very close to their children, his grandchildren.

  He only let his guard down once. When he was dying in 1974, his step-son, to whom he was especially close, asked if there was anything he would like to do before it was too late. He replied ‘to see Germany once again’. His step-son looked confused, but he attributed this to the heavy dose of morphine he was taking.

  Cognac had always attended the Remembrance Day parade at the town’s small cenotaph. It would have seemed churlish not to do so and he was anxious to fit in, not to draw attention to himself. But he made sure to stand on the edge of the ceremony. Be part of it, but separate too. There, but not there. He was used to that. It was how he had lived his life since 1939.

  When he died, the local branch of the British Legion placed a wreath on his grave.