Letters for a Spy

by Stephen Benatar

  He gave a cheerful nod and left the cell.

  And left me, as he locked the door, with something new to think about.

  Montagu obviously wanted to have me released; his telegram couldn’t mean anything less.

  But it was nearly half past ten, and if I missed that train at 11.23, I shouldn’t get to Anglesey on time. And if I didn’t get to Anglesey on time, then Operation Mincemeat was kaput. (Whatever my report concerning it. Whatever the reaction of the admiral on reading my report concerning it.) Because I didn’t see what explanation I could possibly give for not being on Amlwch beach by 15.00 hours.

  Especially if I hadn’t first notified Heinrich. And given him the time to notify Germany and alert that U-boat.

  Yes, but! Wait a second! Stop!

  Trains were cancelled in wartime, weren’t they? Or frequently ran late, didn’t they? (Probably in peacetime, too, since here they hadn’t got their Mussolini.) And the freak weather could certainly be held accountable; even back home they would know about that storm. And just so long as I’d be able to get in touch with Heinrich over the next couple of hours…? I began to feel that all was not necessarily lost. I blamed my tiredness for having enfeebled me.

  Although—again—hold on! Wouldn’t Buchholz be inclined to check my story, enquire from Paddington or somewhere? Buchholz was a man to be reckoned with. I suspected that he didn’t quite trust me. What he mistrusted might be nothing more than just my reverence for Canaris, coupled with a certain ambivalence of attitude, but these two things could easily be enough to damn me.

  And then might he not regard it as his duty—since even as it was he was being obliged to break radio silence—to safeguard against any element of risk and slightly to expand on his message to Berlin? Anders claims his findings contrary to general expectation.

  And I’d have no idea, of course, what signal he was sending. That was the frightening part. Or, at least, it could become the frightening part if there were any chance that, after all, I might decide not to delegate. Any chance that, after all, I might decide not to reveal the truth, not even to the admiral himself. (Yet I was here presented with a different worry: what would Canaris do with the information I delivered, whether delivered honestly or, indeed, falsely?) For I had now come to see that—just possibly—I had not made up my mind as unequivocally as I’d thought.

  Another difficulty. It had been on Monday night, hadn’t it, that I’d received notice of my rendezvous on Amlwch beach? Notice of some forty hours, in other words. So why, then, hadn’t I allowed for the probable late running of the trains? Why hadn’t I chosen to spend Tuesday night somewhere considerably closer to the meeting point?

  Like any true son of the Fatherland would unfailingly have chosen.

  And what, for the love of Mike, had I ever been doing in Shrewsbury?

  So perhaps it wasn’t merely tiredness which had been enfeebling me. Perhaps it was a clear awareness of the way things were.

  Or was I now being overly pessimistic? Maybe Sergeant Leighton was intending to contact Whitehall; maybe that problematical train journey could still be achieved?

  I looked at my watch again.

  Two minutes short of eleven.

  No, dear God. It couldn’t be achieved. Not with just twenty-five minutes to get to the station.

  Overly pessimistic? Huh!

  And for the first time since being put in my cell I began to grow agitated. Or, rather, to let people realize I was growing agitated. I started to bang on the door. (And, in the process, hurt my fist.)

  Leighton came to see what I wanted. He probably thought he was anticipating me. “There’s a cup of tea brewing,” he announced.

  I almost shouted.

  “Oh, for God’s sake! There must be something you can do! What about the hospitals? What about the nursing homes?”

  “Eh?”

  “When telephone lines are down, aren’t those the sorts of places which receive priority?”

  “You think the nursing homes get preference over the police?” Leighton spoke sardonically, then spread his hands. “Friend, I’m busy. And the joke is wearing thin.”

  “How can it be a joke? They gave you the bloody phone number, didn’t they? Then test it! Test it! And if you don’t … well, all I can say is, Sergeant, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes afterwards! You can’t imagine what trouble you’ll be in!”

  “There, now. Is that a fact?”

  “Why even take the risk? What can you possibly lose by making one phone call?”

  “Oh, nothing, except for time, perhaps? Dignity? Things of that sort? I’ll fetch your tea.”

  “Or forget the Admiralty, then—ring the War Office, direct!” How logical was that? “Demand to speak to Churchill.”

  Oh, but that blessed storm, I thought. Despite all the achievements and advances of mankind, wasn’t it amazing the whole of civilization could simply grind to a standstill, purely on account of a few odd flashes of lightning or a few strong gusts of wind?

  “And tell me,” said Sergeant Leighton. “Supposing I did just like you say, what interesting suggestion do you think Mr Churchill might want to whisper in my ear?”

  “I don’t think. I know. You’d be ordered to release me.”

  “Oh, I would, would I?” Despite the joke’s now wearing thin he still appeared good-humoured. “But I thought you were one of their lot, not ours.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.” Luckily, I had recovered some of my composure. “To be honest, I’m not even sure whose lot I belong to.”

  “Difficult,” he said.

  “In fact, I’m beginning to suspect…”

  But I couldn’t finish the sentence. It would have felt too drastic. Too extreme. I said in its place:

  “And your releasing me—your releasing me right now—could make such a vital difference! If only I could get you to understand! It might make all the difference in the world!”

  “To yourself, yes. I do understand that. But to anyone else?”

  “To everyone. Everyone! To the whole outcome of this crazy war.”

  Again the sergeant laughed.

  “Well, naturally, when you lay it on the line like that, son, what can I do but believe you? Kind of a double agent, then—is that how you might see it? Sort of Bulldog Drummond, like? Or Captain Biggles worth?”

  Oh, that blessed storm, I thought again. That blessed, blessed storm.

  But then I hesitated.

  It was the adjective which gave me pause.

  A storm of such far-reaching magnitude? A storm arriving at that particular time out of all others? Could it be nothing but coincidence? (And actually I was never quite sure if I wholly believed in coincidence.) Didn’t it almost seem as if God were willing me to miss that train?

  Willing me to miss that submarine?

  Then prove it, God. Won’t you please provide me—just this once, I’ll never ask again—provide me with some form of unmistakable proof?

  I mean, if it’s your plan for me to stay in England then make it clear to me. Incontestably clear.

  Please.

  And even before I had articulated this—well, practically before I had articulated this—I knew what needed to be done. Other than in the boxing ring, or during some hand-to-hand training session, I had never set out to disable anyone.

  Therefore it appeared both incongruous and awful that now, when for the first time it was no mere exercise, I should have to pit my strength against somebody so much older. Not to mention somebody so obviously well-disposed.

  Nevertheless, I clenched my fist.

  And swung out.

  41

  And missed.

  I missed.

  My action hadn’t been instinctive; I must have thought about it half a second too long.

  And so the instinctive action (reaction) had turned out to be his. He’d received sufficient warning to enable him to sidestep.

  He almost laughed.

  “Oh, no, you don’t, my son! O
h, no, you don’t!”

  Yet, even then, he didn’t become vengeful or in any way unpleasant. He simply spoke those words and backed out through the doorway. Fast.

  But he needn’t have worried.

  I wouldn’t have tried again. Why? Because I knew I hadn’t pulled my punches. Because I knew the force behind my blow, connecting, would almost certainly have floored him.

  And because I knew I had received my answer.

  I felt satisfied then. Even thankful. Events from now on must simply take their course. It clearly wasn’t meant for me to get away. It wasn’t meant for me to get in touch with Ewen Montagu.

  Nor—come to that—with Heinrich Buchholz.

  Sicily wouldn’t be left undefended … virtually undefended. That just wasn’t going to be the way of it. I had to accept this.

  Or did I?

  I was fully aware that most people—presumably the same who’d earlier have decried the element of coin-tossing—that most people would have seen my easy acceptance as showing a weakness of character: a shocking and pathetic weakness of character. But at least I had tried. I had really meant to knock the sergeant unconscious. I could derive encouragement from that.

  So—slowly—I went back to my cot; sat down; opened the newspaper.

  Of course, there was nothing there about the storm.

  In fact, there was nothing much about anything. The Prime Minister had arrived in Washington yesterday for talks with Mr Roosevelt. (So much for my instructions to the sergeant … demand to speak to Mr Churchill!) On Monday the Allies had bombed Sicily: presumably part of their elaborate double bluff, part of their campaign to establish it was still through Sicily they were meaning to come.

  But I found that often I couldn’t concentrate. I was reading whole columns without afterwards being clear as to what they had told me. In truth, I just couldn’t be bothered. I felt no interest. It all seemed so absurd.

  There was a short and very familiar Bible quote—bottom of the second page, obviously a daily feature. This quote was so much my favourite that for a second or two I saw it as a message of encouragement sent expressly to myself … until I remembered that at this particular moment there must be literally thousands of others equally in need—at least equally in need, if not a great deal more so. ‘All things work together for good, to them that love God.’ The Epistle of Paul to the Romans. chapter eight, verse twenty-eight.

  Just above this, an article on concentration camps. Mainly those which had been used in South Africa forty-odd years ago during the Boer War. I only scanned it but it made me think of Pastor Niemoeller in Sachsenhausen and of all those ‘Jews, Communists and other political suspects confined in primitive conditions,’ whom I had read about the previous evening. (Yet St Paul had lived in violent times, as well. No one could say St Paul hadn’t known about brutality.) And indeed there were currently rumours in Berlin about whole trainloads of Jews now being transported east—and to what?—no longer merely to concentration camps, whispered the few, but to actual death camps; although there was as little real evidence for that as for all those tales I’d been subjected to on Monday afternoon concerning the perfidy of the admiral. And surely on occasion, I thought, there could exist smoke without fire?

  Couldn’t there?

  For only look at some of those other rumours in circulation: to do with the Gestapo and the methods they used in interrogation; methods condoned, it was said, or even encouraged, by the great Führer himself. But if only ten per cent of what was hinted at was true…!

  Which, of course, it wasn’t. Couldn’t be.

  Yet, on the other hand.

  Why simply in the matter of Canaris are you now prepared to believe there could be substance in the rumours? As quite obviously you are.

  Why not in the matter of the concentration camps? The extermination camps? And in the matter of the secret state police and their activities?

  You’re twenty-five years old. You belonged to the Hitler Youth. You’ve heard things; you’ve seen things…

  Are you an ostrich?

  I folded the paper; let it fall to the floor. Lay down again and stared up at the ceiling.

  11.23 came. I pictured the train slowly leaving the station, its heavy plume of smoke blown back above the carriages, my erstwhile future powerfully picking up speed and steaming away without me.

  A definitive fork in time.

  From now on, I should definitely be walking down a different road.

  42

  At about 12.45, coinciding with the arrival of lunch—which was heralded by Sergeant Leighton, who remained standing in the doorway with a truncheon in his hand and an ironic expression on his face, but which was actually brought in by another man whom I hadn’t met up to this point—at about 12.45, and in fact coinciding with the very moment at which I reached out to take the tray onto my lap, there came the sounds of abrupt and unexpected activity.

  My cell was at the back of the police station but, even from there, we could hear the damp pulling-up of more than just one vehicle and the almost instant tread of more than just one pair of feet; the opening and closing of swing doors that seemed more purposeful than swing doors usually sound.

  Soon, moreover, the push-button bell on the counter wasn’t merely being pinged to announce someone hopeful of attention; an imperious finger was lodged on it, inflexibly. And, simultaneously, a loud but well-bred voice was calling out for service.

  “Your chums, I wonder?” enquired Sergeant Leighton—and symbolically, yet still with wryly pointed irony, raised his truncheon. Like a war club.

  The large tin tray had practically been dropped; as much by the sergeant’s backup as by me. It was left on the bed with one of its metal domes half sliding off the plate and releasing quantities of steam. Both the deputy and I now headed for the open door, which the sergeant had just hurried away from—no one appeared to have thought about closing it, let alone turning the key. The jailbird followed his jailers down the corridor.

  There were four sturdy men wearing motorcyclists’ gear; and a fifth, more slender, wearing naval uniform.

  This fifth man—in his early forties, thin-faced, with dark eyebrows and determined green eyes—ignored both Sergeant Leighton and Sergeant Leighton’s colleague.

  “Herr Anders?”

  “Lieutenant-Commander Montagu?”

  Swiftly—even brusquely—we shook hands.

  “There is all the paperwork you need,” said the naval officer to the policeman, indicating a letter and two other documents spread across the desk. “You’ve five seconds flat in which to read it. If you try to detain us after that, we shall have to use force. We’re taking this man away on a matter of national importance and there’s not one moment to be wasted.”

  “But, sir, are you aware that he entered this country under a false name and on a forged passport—?”

  “Sergeant, have you read those papers yet? Are you now prepared to sign his release form?”

  I felt sorry for the sergeant. I sent him a small, apologetic smile—although he probably didn’t see it. Even as I gave it, he turned to ask his subordinate to fetch my suitcase from the cell.

  And, at the same time, was pulling a fountain pen from his tunic pocket. Less than a minute later, we were out on the pavement.

  Parked at the kerb side—and receiving a good deal of interest from a growing cluster of pedestrians—was a grey Rolls Royce. In the front of it sat a chauffeur in rating’s uniform.

  Immediately behind him sat Sybella.

  Yet I scarcely had time to take my place beside her, and Leighton scarcely had time to close the rear door after myself, and the front one after Montagu, before we were already moving away from the kerb and beeping at people to get out of our path. Then we were purring along the centre of the road, with two of the motorcyclists several yards in front, and the other two bringing up the rear. The early afternoon was shrill with the sound of sirens.

  Montagu sat for the most part in silence. I felt grateful, b
oth for this and for the fact he wasn’t sitting next to me. No last-ditch bids for cooperation; no eleventh-hour form of emotional blackmail, subtly involving Sybella. Whenever he did speak it was only to the driver, and pertained to consideration of detours we could take in order to avoid possible holdups; advice on how best to circumvent a flock of Welsh sheep that at one point was herded across our route; and questions and comments as to whether we might be keeping to our target regarding speed. He was more often occupied in gazing out of his nearside window and didn’t appear to be listening to any of the murmurings which took place behind him. As a matter of fact even we, Sybella and I, weren’t talking all that much. We were content merely to be sitting close to one another; to be discreetly holding hands.

  But I still hadn’t come yet—not completely—to tolerate loose ends.

  “How did you get into Shrewsbury this morning? Did Gramps bring you?”

  “No, I cycled.”

  “Cycled!”

  I paused in the act of rethreading my shoelaces.

  “Yes! It may surprise you, Liebchen, but I couldn’t sleep. So I finally gave up trying—and for an hour or two just sat in the kitchen with the back door open, flicking through magazines and waiting for that storm to finish. It was light by the time it did. Then I set out practically at once.”

  “I hope you had some breakfast.”

  “You sound like my mother. No, good heavens, I did not have any breakfast—couldn’t have felt less like having any breakfast! But your grandfather had come down after my third or fourth Picture Post and we drank two cups of coffee together. As a matter of fact, he did want to drive me into Shrewsbury; seemed disappointed when I decided against it. Yet the thing was—their little Austin hasn’t any roof rack and there wouldn’t have been room for even one of the bikes inside, let alone two. So eventually we worked it out that Gramps could cycle in later, riding yours, at the right sort of time to catch the bus back after he’d spent an hour or so in paying you a visit—though fat chance of that ever happening, judging from my own experience! But in the end I was really glad to have the bike ride. It made me feel as if I was actually doing something. The air was wonderfully fresh after the storm, and instead of choosing the Watling Street route, I even decided to take a sentimental journey, along those very same roads the two of us had travelled yesterday.”