Agent of the Reich

by Seb Spence

  “Basically, she threw them the ball, but they dropped it – or to be more precise, we knocked it out of their hands. She gave them a detailed report on what her cell had discovered, but we were able to dupe them into disregarding it. It was a very lucky outcome for us. In the three months since the Bletchley Park incident, the Germans have made no changes in their Enigma procedures.”

  The conversation turned to the events at Loch Carran and the immediate aftermath, and then drifted to talk of the various players in what Minton termed ‘the case of the Cobalt ring’: Brigadier Vaughan, Lucy Walker, Bob Mitchell …

  The time passed agreeably but quickly. In a little over an hour and twenty minutes they had got through half of the bottle of whisky. Minton looked at his watch. “It’s 2.45 already. Sorry, Barton, I have to get to that meeting now. There’s a train to London at 3.30. I’ll get Émile to give you a lift back to the station. You’ll have about 30 minutes to wait for the train, assuming it’s not late. You should pop into the station buffet to pass the time; I can recommend it – they do a nice line in local pastries.”

  The two men shook hands. “Thanks for your help, Barton. We couldn’t have cracked this case without those leads you fed us. All the best.”

  #

  At the barrier, Barton showed his rail warrant to the ticket collector, who glanced at it and then informed him mechanically: “London train – you’ll want main line, south – Platform 1, access via the subway.”

  Barton passed by the man and from the large ‘2’ sign hanging from the station canopy near the barrier, deduced he was currently on Platform 2. He walked slowly along it towards the underpass that went beneath the tracks and led to the platform on the other side. The station was not very busy: there could not have been more than a dozen passengers, mainly service personnel, waiting around. He passed by a naval rating lying asleep stretched out on a bench, his kitbag under his head as a pillow.

  Near the subway, another sign slung from the station canopy announced ‘Refreshments’. A hand painted on the sign pointed diagonally down to a door that led into a room off the platform. Reminiscing about the Cobalt case had put Barton in a melancholy mood, and he did not feel like indulging in pastries; so he decided to ignore Minton’s recommendation and skip the visit to the buffet.

  Suspended above the entrance to the subway, a large clock with Roman numerals indicated it was coming up to 3pm. He had half an hour to kill. As he walked slowly by the refreshment room, he glanced in through its window. A member of the station staff was at the counter, chatting to the middle-aged woman who was serving behind it. There were few customers inside: at a table near the window, an elderly couple were sitting opposite each other, gazing silently into space, while a little further away a mother was dipping biscuits in a glass of milk and feeding them to her toddler. At the far side of the room, a young woman in a grey raincoat was sitting by herself; lost in thought, she was staring down at the mug of tea in front of her on the table. Barton felt there was something familiar about her – the dark brown, bobbed hair reminded him of someone.

  In a flash, it came to him that the woman at the table was Grace Harrison, and he stopped. He had not recognised her initially as she looked thinner and paler than when he had last seen her. There was also a sadness in her expression. She did not seem the same untroubled, light-hearted girl he had met a year ago.

  Remembering that he had been rebuffed by her several times before, he dithered at the window, debating whether to go in. He recalled the harsh words she had said to him when they last met at the Silver Masque Club. Though longing to speak to her, he did not want to precipitate another ugly scene.

  As if sensing someone was observing her, Grace suddenly looked up and stared directly at him. Barton froze as he realised she had recognised him. Straightaway, her face lit up with a smile. It was a signal that could not be misinterpreted. He went in directly.

  “Pilot Officer Barton!” she exclaimed, seemingly thrilled to see him. “This is astonishing! I was just talking about you with someone earlier today. What on earth are you doing here?”

  “I’m just up for the day. Do you mind if I join you?”

  “Do, please – take a seat.”

  Barton sat down opposite her. “This person you were discussing me with – it wouldn’t have been a Colonel Minton by any chance?”

  Grace looked round the buffet to make sure no-one was paying attention to them and then said in a low voice: “Why, yes – he was telling me what happened at Loch Carran, how you went down the loch side to find me. I didn’t even know you were there.”

  “And did the Colonel tell you to take the 3.30 train to London?”

  “Yes, I have to attend a meeting in London tomorrow. He made the travel arrangements.”

  “I bet he also recommended you try the local pastries in the refreshment room.” It was clear to Barton that this meeting with Grace was not a chance encounter – it had been engineered by Minton. The same thought occurred simultaneously to Grace.

  “Colonel Minton has set this up hasn’t he?” she laughed. “Why couldn’t he just have brought us together at his office?”

  “Minton told me about how you …” Barton broke off and looked round. “Let’s say he told me how you ‘arrived’ back in the country. I expect he’s taking a risk telling me that. Officially, I guess, no one’s supposed to know you’ve returned, so he can’t very well just bring us together. This way, it looks like a chance meeting, and he can’t be blamed for that.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It’s very devious, though.” She laughed again.

  It also occurred to Barton that by arranging things this way, Minton had given them both a choice: they were not being pushed together, they each had an opportunity to turn away. He was pleased she had not taken that option and, smiling, said to her: “We have a lot of catching up to do. I have to say, I’ve been very anxious about you since Loch Carran. When I saw you’d been wounded, I thought at first that you’d maybe not survive.”

  “I appreciate your concern, but there was no need to worry – it was only a flesh wound.”

  “Where did the bullet hit you?

  “I’m sitting on the spot.”

  “You mean you were wounded in the …?”

  “Gluteus maximus is the medical term, I believe.”

  Slightly embarrassed, Barton decided to change the topic. “What exactly does Minton do at that country house where he works now? It seems a far cry from the Refugee Reception Centre at Crystal Palace.”

  “You ask far too many questions.”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

  Grace studied him momentarily and then smiled. “I suppose you’re trustworthy – the house is a training camp.”

  “For what?”

  “Can’t say, but the Colonel runs mock interrogation sessions, teaching the trainees how to cope with questioning should they fall into enemy hands.”

  Barton digested this information. “It’s a spy school, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve told you too much already.”

  He was pleased that she had confided in him: sharing this secret seemed to bring them closer. Still, he did not want to pry too far into these matters in case it should get her into trouble later. “How is your father doing?”

  “I’m told he is doing very well. He’s in a nursing home in Kent, near Sevenoaks. I hope to see him in the next few days. Of course, he doesn’t know about any of this counter-espionage stuff. When I disappeared off to Germany, Colonel Minton arranged for him to be told that I had been sent to tour with an ENSA group in Scotland and could not get away to visit him.”

  “Minton certainly seems to have been looking after your interests while you’ve been absent. A week after the Loch Carran incident, he gave me the news that you had pulled through.”

  “That was very good of him.”

  “I was obviously relieved to hear it, but then I began to worry that the Germans would find out you were working
for us and you’d end up in some ghastly POW camp, or worse.”

  Grace laughed: “You need to have more confidence in me, Mr Barton. I can be very duplicitous when I want to be."

  Barton was silent for a while. Though they could joke about it now, it had been a nasty business. “I hope you’re not intending to stay mixed up with these intelligence types? Even working with Roy Miller is preferable to that”

  “Have you had any news of Roy?” she said, evading his question.

  “As a matter of fact, I have. I saw a wedding announcement in the paper a few weeks ago – he’s getting married.” Barton stroked his chin, trying to recall the details. “To some woman called Ada something, if I remember correctly.”

  “Ada? She used to be his assistant before me.” Grace looked down wistfully at the table. “That rainy afternoon at the village hall in Bramlington – it seems so far away.”

  “Talking about your old jobs, I never found out exactly what you did at that beastly Silver Masque Club.”

  She looked up surprised and then smiled. “Perhaps one day I’ll show you.”

  5.

  Sunday, 31st August, 1941, 3pm: Milnham Village, near Diss, Norfolk

  This Sunday, like every other, Dan Warby had a half-hour nap on his sofa after finishing his lunch and then left his cottage to take his black fell terrier, Jasper, for a walk. He set off along the lane that ran past the cottage and, preferring solitude, headed in the opposite direction to the village. For twenty minutes, he and his dog followed the lane as it curved round the boundary of the great meadow – known locally as the Old Oak Field – that lay opposite his home. On reaching a gap in the hedgerow that enclosed the meadow, he stopped and looked across to the ancient oak that stood at its centre and gave the field its name. His gaze then drifted to the far side of the meadow, to the spot where all the activity had taken place earlier that week. Wednesday it had happened, just four days ago.

  He went over the events again in his mind. It had started just after dawn, as he set off from his cottage and headed for the farm where he worked. As usual, he had walked down the lane in the direction of the village, towards the stile a hundred yards away that gave access to the Old Oak Field. In the half-light, he made out a figure standing near the stile and as he approached, he was surprised to see it was a young woman. Dressed in a grey raincoat and flat shoes, she was carrying a small suitcase. A good-looking girl, she was, with brown hair and grey eyes. She asked him politely where the nearest phone box was, and it was clear from her well-spoken voice that she was not from around those parts. He directed her to the one on the village green, about a mile away down the lane, and noted that, for a girl wandering about the countryside in semi-darkness, she did not seem to be very concerned. On the contrary, she seemed quite cheerful.

  It was partly curiosity and partly suspicion that made him decide to keep her under observation, so after leaving her by the stile, he strode off across the Old Oak Field and, instead of following his usual path to the farm, headed for the village, taking a short-cut that he knew would get him there ahead of the girl. On reaching the village green, he had gone into the nearby graveyard and had concealed himself in the porch of the church. Through the small trefoil window on its west side, he had a good view of the area around the telephone kiosk.

  The girl arrived at the green shortly afterwards and went straight to the phone box, where she made a call lasting about five minutes. On emerging from the box, she looked around the green and then sat down on a grassy bank nearby. There she waited patiently, admiring the scenery and watching the ducks on the village pond. She seemed to be enjoying the early morning sunshine. He guessed she was waiting to be collected and, sure enough, after about half-an-hour, a police car pulled up by her. She got in and was driven off at speed.

  And that seemed to be that. Dan felt it was something of an anti-climax. Disappointed, he set off for the farm, and as he headed for the fields again, he began to formulate his excuse for being forty minutes late for work.

  But it turned out that the girl’s rapid departure from the village was not the end of the story. Five hours later, around 11.30am, he happened to be repairing a gate at the east end of the Old Oak Field when his eye was caught by movement way over at the far side, near the stile where he had met the girl earlier in the morning. Two army staff cars had parked up in the lane beyond the hedgerow at that point and a crowd of folk were emerging from them: he counted five men in army uniforms – officers judging by their caps – and two more in dark suits. In amongst them was a woman. It was impossible to make out her face at that distance but, though he couldn’t swear to it, he was pretty sure from the grey raincoat and brown hair that it was the girl he had seen that morning.

  One-by-one they climbed over the style, and then the woman led them along the side of the hedgerow that bounded the field. After twenty or thirty yards, she stopped and pointed to a spot beneath a stretch of hawthorn bushes. It was then that he noticed one of the officers was carrying a shovel. The man stepped forward and began to dig at the place she had indicated. Very soon, he stopped, bent down and lifted up an object from the hole he had dug. It looked like a backpack of some sort. As the man shook the earth from it, another of the officers came up, and they then began to rummage through it. Together, they pulled out what seemed to be an enormous piece of white cloth, which they partially unfurled and held up between them. It was easily bigger than a double bed-sheet. Dan reckoned it was a parachute. There seemed to be other items in the backpack as well, but at that range, he could not make out what they were.

  It had certainly made for a good yarn in the village pub that evening, and one which had earned him a few free drinks. The consensus in the taproom was that the young girl must have been ‘one of ours’, otherwise why would she have called the police? But there was much that was mysterious. What was she doing parachuting into Norfolk? Had that slip of a lass really come down in the parachute? If not, who did, and how, then, did she find it? And what was in the suitcase she was carrying? There was a deal of debate but few conclusions. At the end of the evening, the general feeling was that she had probably been taking part in some kind of training exercise. The incident had been a talking point in the village for days.

  Dan chuckled to himself, then called his dog and continued on the walk. He strolled on along the gently meandering lane for another twenty minutes until he came to a long, straight section bordered on the left side by a small wood and on the right by a flat expanse of ploughed ground. Realising that his dog was nowhere in sight, he turned and looked back down the lane, but the animal was not behind. As he scanned the verges, he noted that the Old Oak Field was no longer in view.

  “Now where’s that dog of mine?” he asked aloud and then, turning back, called out, “Jasper! Here boy!”

  There was no sign of the animal, but Dan guessed it had gone into the wood on the left. This suspicion was confirmed when, from the trees nearby, came a distant rustling sound punctuated with occasional growling. He called out again, several times, but when the dog did not appear, he went into the wood and headed for the undergrowth from where the sound was emanating. Thirty yards in from the road, he found the dog scraping away at the earth beneath a low bush. He noticed that a largish branch had been placed under the bush and, looking about him, saw it had been broken off a tree a little further into the wood. Judging by the freshness of the break, the branch had been wrenched off within the last few days.

  The dog was alternating feverishly between pulling at the branch, which was now entangled in the bush, and digging beneath it.

  “Watchyer got there boy? Let old Dan have a look.” He shoed the dog away and dragged the branch out from under the bush so that he could examine the ground below it. He could see that sods had been dug up there and then replaced. Grabbing hold of the long grass on the clumps of earth, he lifted them to one side and then began to scoop out the loose soil that lay underneath where they had been. The ground had been disturbed recently, for the
earth was not compacted and was easy to remove. He guessed that whoever had been digging there had done it within the past week. Suddenly, his hands felt something in the earth. He took a grip of it and pulled it out. It was a large, green canvas backpack.

  Opening it up, he found a set of overalls on top, together with some kind of harness made of webbing. Beneath these items, a mass of fine cords and soft, white material had been rolled up and stuffed in the bottom; he recognised immediately that this was another parachute.

  His first impulse was to hand it over straightaway to the police. That would make another good yarn, he thought – how old Dan found a second parachute. It would surely earn him a few more free drinks in the taproom. But, as he rubbed the fine silk cloth between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand, it occurred to him that he might be able to make a bit more by keeping his find for himself. He knew a man in Norwich who might pay him something for quality cloth like this: ten shillings, perhaps, or even a pound.

  He mulled it over. What good would it do handing the parachute in to the authorities? They probably already knew it was here, anyway: likely, the girl had told them, but they couldn’t be bothered to pick it up. Wasn’t worth the effort to them. Or, more likely, they didn’t have the time. Yes, that was it – no time. They were busy people, these army types.

  No, he thought, he would just hang on to it. Finders, keepers, eh? They could surely spare it: they probably had a warehouse full of them somewhere. What was one more parachute to them?

  -------------------------

  RDEUE LNGDE MDENX

  NOTES

  Abwehrstelle — Abwehr Regional Office

  ARP — Air Raid Precautions

  BP — Bletchley Park

  crib — A piece of text believed to exist in a coded message.