‘Of course I have not. And supposing I had, wouldn’t they have arrested me and deported me, rather than keep me here?’
‘That’s true. Well, there it is. I protested of course, and he noted my protest. I don’t think there is anything more I can do. After all, if it is only to be a couple of weeks more …’
‘Well, thanks for trying anyway. I’m grateful.’
She telephoned the American embassy. She had met the ambassador, but unlike Sven she knew he was a somewhat heavy-handed character who on being told that an American citizen was virtually under house arrest in Berlin would probably raise the roof and get too many people interested in her. On the other hand, her getting out was now of secondary importance to her message getting out, fast. So she asked for George Munday. George was actually younger than her, but they had met on several occasions and she knew he would like to get together. He was her best bet. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Remember me?’
‘Joanna? Say, what a pleasant surprise. I didn’t know you were in Berlin.’
‘I’ve been here a couple of weeks, and I’m feeling bored stiff. How would you like to have dinner with me?’
‘Gee. Well, that sounds great.’
‘We can eat right here in the hotel. I’ll see you at seven.’
That should give the phone-tappers a giggle.
*
George was a decently tall young man, which Joanna, with her height, always regarded as a bonus. ‘Tell me what you’ve been doing,’ she suggested.
‘Well, not a lot.’
‘You got a line on the Russian situation?’
‘Oh, sure. They’re licked.’
‘I know that’s the German slant. But is it for real?’
‘There is no nation in history that’s taken such losses as the Soviets and survived. The regime, anyway.’
‘You happy about that?’
‘They had it coming. The Reds.’
‘But if the Nazis win there, what happens next?’
‘Looks like curtains for England.’
She finished her dessert. ‘Shall we go up to my room?’
‘What about the house detective?’
‘If any goddamned Kraut house detective tries to muscle into my business I’ll wring his fucking neck. Rudolf!’ She summoned the maître d’. ‘My friend and I wish for a little privacy. Send up some coffee and two glasses of Hine Antique.’
Rudolf bowed. ‘Right away, Fräulein.’
They went to the lifts. ‘You’re terrific,’ George murmured.
‘Keep saying things like that and you may have an enjoyable evening.’ She led him along the corridor and into her room, closed the door. ‘Now kiss me.’
‘Eh?’
‘Don’t you want to kiss me?’
‘Well, sure I do. But I mean, gee … just like that?’
‘Just like that.’ She put her arms round his neck kissed him and hugged him, then slid her mouth round to his ear. ‘I think this room may be bugged,’ she whispered. ‘And I have something very important to say to you.’ She let him go, and he goggled at her. ‘Let’s sit down.’ She held his hand and led him to the settee. ‘Put your arms round me and hold me close.’ He obeyed, and she rested her head on his shoulder. ‘Please don’t make any stupid remarks or exclamations,’ she whispered. ‘Just listen, and say yes or no, as appropriate. Your diplomatic pouch goes to London every couple of days, right?’
‘Yes. But —’
‘Just listen. I would like to send a message to London, very urgently. Could you get it into your bag for me?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so. But —’
‘There’s the door.’ She got up, allowed the waiter into the room. ‘Thank you. I’ll just sign, shall I?’ She took the chit to her desk, signed it. The waiter left, but Joanna remained seated at her desk. ‘I’ll just enter this up.’
‘You on some kind of expense account?’
‘Mom likes to know how I’m spending her money.’ She wrote:
Unable to make St Valery. All booked up with people I don’t like. Do tell the others. Liane has a problem. Paris very unhealthy at the moment. See if you can persuade her to move. Love JJ
She took out an envelope, wrote down James’s address. This was a serious breach of security, but she was in the business of saving lives. She did not seal the envelope, returned to sit beside him, laid the letter on his lap, and again rested her head on his shoulder. ‘You can read it.’
He did so, frowning. ‘You want this sent to England, in our diplomatic pouch?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Is it a code?’
‘Does it read like a code? I arranged to meet some friends in St Valery, and now I have decided I can’t make it.’
He hugged her. ‘Joanna, I think you are the most exciting woman I have ever met, but I’d also hate to think that you consider me a fool. Do you seriously expect me to believe that you arranged to meet some English friends in St Valery, which is in German-occupied France, and which is in any event a prohibited area, being a seaport on the Channel?’
She nestled against him. ‘Will you send it?’
He looked at the envelope. ‘Who is this person Pound?’
‘I can’t answer that.’
‘Are you working for the British?’
‘I am a reporter. I happen to have got hold of a story which my editor commissioned, but which I know the Germans would not let me publish. In fact, the reason they are keeping me here in Berlin is just so I can’t get the story out until it is stale news.’
He breathed into her hair. ‘You are being kept in Berlin against your will?’
‘Yes, I am. They tell me it is only for a couple more weeks, but that’s too long.’
‘Well, we’ll soon see about that.’
‘No, you will not see about that. Too much fuss and they’ll deport me and not let me in again. Just let’s be smarter than them. If I can get that message out, I won’t care how long they keep me here.’ He did not reply for several moments, so she finally asked, ‘Will you do it?’
‘It could cost me my job.’
‘Oh, don’t tell me you guys don’t use the pouch for personal correspondence.’
‘So it happens. Nobody is supposed to know. And if this is some seditious or illegal material —’
‘No one is ever going to find out. Listen, George, this means a whole lot to me. If you’ll send it, well …’ She lifted his hand and placed it on her breast. ‘Maybe you could stay the night.’
*
‘Now stop looking like a long streak of misery,’ James suggested. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Or not at all,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘And you’re going to be seasick. You told me you’re always seasick.’
‘One of those things. If I can stand it, so can you.’
‘Oh, you …’ She handed him various items. ‘Haversack. I’ve been right through it and it’s got everything you’ll need. Gas mask.’
‘For God’s sake.’
‘You never can tell. Anyway, it’s required gear. Revolver. Box of cartridges.’
‘I imagine I’ll be given a tommy-gun.’
‘Again, required gear. Well …’ They gazed at each other, and then were in each other’s arms. ‘Just come back,’ she whispered.
‘That’s what I have in mind.’ He kissed her and left the little flat.
Rachel sat at the desk and gazed at the closed door. She sometimes found it impossible to accept that she had spent most of the last year in this room, with James, waiting for news of death and destruction, condemning other human beings to risk that death and destruction simply to thwart the ambitions of other men and women who she had never seen. Because they were evil, she had been told, and believed. It had all been jolly hockey sticks two years ago, when Britain had gone to war in defence of Poland. Just how England was going to defend Poland, with the two countries separated by the width of Europe — including Nazi Germany — had never been adequately explained, but the war had c
ome as a welcome end-of-season diversion to the bright young things of her then set, the products of schools like Benenden and Roedean and Cheltenham, who spent their summers drifting from Ascot to Wimbledon to Henley, vying to see whose photograph would most often appear in Tatler.
Rachel liked to feel that she had, even then, been seeking some more serious aspect to life, but she knew she had not considered the call to arms as more than another social adventure. She had been one of the first volunteers for the newly formed ATS. She had actually had little choice about this. Her father was a general and he had quickly intimated that he expected her to do her bit. Mum had been appalled at the idea of her daughter having to share a barracks with a bunch of shop girls. Rachel had also been appalled, less at the prospect of slumming it, which she found rather amusing, than at having to exchange her silk lingerie and stockings for the coarse cotton of the army.
The work itself she had found boring and repetitive. As an avid amateur aviatrix, she had hoped to become a driver, and had instead wound up in the typing pool. Thus when the call had come for volunteers for special training she had jumped at it, and with both feet, into a world she had never supposed to exist, from dawn rising and cold showers, always shared with half a dozen other girls, to ten-mile runs before breakfast, to intensive training in unarmed combat, to a study in cyphers and undercover activity of all sorts. That had certainly been interesting, even if she had had no idea where it might all be leading. It had led here, to this somewhat claustrophobic office which reminded her of a spider’s web, but in which she was at least the assistant spider.
It had also led her to James. When she thought of all the bosses she could have wound up with, the moustache twirlers, the bores, the misogynists who regarded women in uniform as monstrosities, the homosexuals, the lechers … Was James a lecher? Of course not. She had seduced him, because she had found him at once attractive and exciting, and because she had been, and remained, on an euphoric high at being at the very centre of the great game that was being played all over Europe and indeed all over the world. James had allowed himself to be seduced. Sharing so much at work, spending so much of their time exclusively in each other’s company, it would have been unnatural had it not happened. It was only after it had happened, and she had realized that she was falling in love with him, that she had discovered he was already in love with somebody else, the Frenchwoman Liane de Gruchy, whose life he now controlled.
Oddly, learning about Liane had not affected their relationship. Rather, it had come as something of a relief. While she knew she was in love with James, she was also level-headed enough to understand that it was an emotion created by the war and their special circumstances that could well dwindle with the return of peacetime routine. Not to mention the enormous difficulties that would lie in the way of a marriage between upper and lower middle class. James’s father was a schoolmaster; hers came from a long line of generals. So when it was all over, he would go looking for his French inamorata — a woman she had never met — supposing, in view of the life she was leading, she was still around — and she would go looking for … what?
She went out to lunch, came back to a thoroughly boring afternoon, springing up every time the radio crackled. At six she decided to call it a day. James would have embarked by now. All she could do was wait. She was billeted at an ATS hostelry not far from the office, but she rather felt like going home tonight. Mum understood that she was engaged in top-secret work without having a clue what she was actually doing. She never asked questions, but was always glad to see her, and she felt like enjoying a decent meal off decent crockery and with a decent bottle of wine. She closed down the radio, put on her hat — she wore civilian clothes when on duty — and turned as there was a rap on the door. ‘Mrs Hotchkin, Miss Cartwright.’
‘Come in. I’m just packing up.’ She frowned. ‘Is there anything wrong?’
‘This letter.’ Mrs Hotchkin, a Dunkirk widow, short and plump with an almost uncontrollable moustache, might also not know exactly what her tenants were up to, but she also knew it was top secret. ‘We’ve never had a letter before. But it says Pound.’
Rachel took the envelope. ‘And our address. That’s not good. Thank you, Mrs Hotchkin. I’ll deal with it.’
Mrs Hotchkin withdrew, as reluctantly as ever; she was dying to be involved. Rachel waited for the door to close, then went to the desk, sat down, drew a deep breath, and slit the envelope. It was so unusual she had simply had no idea what to expect.
She looked at the signature first. Oh, the silly bitch! Sending a letter … But by hand? Revealing the address to everyone? Then she read the text, and suddenly felt quite cold. Joanna was telling them both to abort the raid and to recall Liane from Paris. But Joanna did not know about the raid, or that Liane was in Paris! Yet somehow she had found out. She grabbed the telephone, gave the brigadier’s number ‘Pound. Is Pound there? Pound Two speaking.’
‘I am afraid he has left the office.’
‘Look, this is most urgent. Will you give me the number of Commander Lewis in Bosham?’
There was a brief hesitation, while the woman, hopefully, looked it up. But she was looking up her instructions. ‘I’m afraid that number is not available at this moment. If you wish, you may try again tomorrow.’
When the raid would have been completed. ‘Tomorrow will be too late. Look, this is Pound Two. We are involved.’
‘I am sorry, miss.’
Rachel drew several deep breaths to stop herself from screaming. ‘All right. Will you tell me how I can get in touch with Pound.’
‘You can reach him in this office tomorrow morning.’
‘That will be too late!’ Rachel shouted. ‘Look, can you get in touch with him.’ Silence. ‘I will take that as yes,’ Rachel said. ‘So will you please do that, now, and ask him to call me. Tell him it is a matter of life and death. A whole bunch of lives and deaths.’
She hung up. Going home was obviously out of the question. So was going out to find a bite of supper. So was having a drink to calm her nerves. And there were no cigarettes available; James did not smoke himself and did not like them used in the office.
She went into the bedroom, lay on the bed, and actually fell asleep, to awake with a start when the phone rang. She dashed into the office, nearly dropped the receiver. ‘Pound Two!’
‘Pound,’ said the brigadier. ‘Is there something the matter?’
‘Yes, sir. I have received this message.’ She read it out.
There was a moment’s silence. Then he said, ‘That means of communication breaks every rule in the book.’
‘She obviously feels the situation is desperate, sir.’
‘How did she know of these operations, anyway? I hope James did not confide in her.’
‘No, sir, he did not. But the fact that she does know of them leads me to believe that her source in Berlin confides them to her, which means that somehow Jerry has learned of them.’
‘Hm. Yes. There will have to be a full investigation of this business.’
‘Yes, sir. But what about our people?’
‘Yes. What a goddamed shame.’
‘Sir? Aren’t we going to abort?’
‘That is not an option.’
‘Sir?’
‘It’s past midnight. They will be nearly across the Channel by now, and the French people will be about to launch their attack. To attempt to abort now would lead to the most tremendous snafu, even if we could get in touch with everyone in time. Bury that report, Sergeant.’
‘But sir, the people —’
‘People get killed in war, Sergeant. Let’s hope some of ours get back. Kill that report. That is an order.’
Part Three
The Survivors
Against the hour of death.
The Book of Common Prayer
Seven - The Invitation
Rachel stared at the phone in disbelief combined with anger. Past midnight. The brigadier, having sent his people into battle, had obviously go
ne out to dinner. No doubt he would say that as there was nothing he could then do, his best course was to do nothing. She supposed it was a testimony to his dedication that he had troubled to check with his office at all before going to bed.
But if he had stayed in that office instead of going out she would have reached him in time. Now … She did not know the call sign for the Commando boats, and even if she did, to recall them on her own initiative would lead to a court martial. But she did know the call sign used by the Resistance group, and she knew Liane’s call sign too. She could still save some lives, perhaps. Liane, she knew, would only listen at six in the morning and six in the evening, She would have to wait. But the others …
She switched on the radio, selected the required wavelength. ‘Pound Two,’ she said. ‘This is Pound Two. Come in please.’ There was no reply.
*
‘Perfect night for it, what?’ Lewis asked, standing beside James in the little wheelhouse, immediately behind the helmsman. The wheelhouse was situated right aft in the thirty-foot boat; forward was filled with uniformed Commandos, crouching with their weapons. To either side, another fishing boat kept pace with the leader. ‘I mean,’ Lewis said. ‘No moon, flat calm sea … I say, old man, are you all right?’
‘No,’ James gasped, opening the door and almost falling outside to hang over the side. Lewis waited for him to return, but made no comment. ‘Happens every time,’ James said, wiping his lips. ‘The sea and I just don’t get on. Don’t worry; I’ll be all right when the show starts.’
‘Of course you will, old man. Nelson was always seasick.’
‘Do you know where we are?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Lewis bent over the little chart table, which was illuminated by a pencil-thin ray of light from a small lamp. ‘Twenty miles off.’
James peered through the salt-encrusted windscreen at the utter darkness in front of them. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘Dead reckoning, old man. We take the speed of our boat, the rate and directions of the tide, any leeway caused by the wind, which isn’t a factor tonight, calculate our position, and mark it off on the chart.’ He indicated the last little pencilled X.
The Game of Treachery Page 14
