by Peter Watson
Katrine looked from Madeleine to Ivan to me and said, “What do you think?”
“I think it’s brilliant,” I replied. “I wish I’d thought of it.”
“And so do I,” said Katrine, stepping forward and giving Madeleine a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. “But I want you to write in it, in French of course. Something personal and warm—that will be even more convincing, yes?”
“Me too,” said Ivan. And he gave Madeleine a kiss and a hug as well. “I should have done that a long time ago,” he said, blushing.
Madeleine smiled at him, took back the books, and manoeuvred herself to the bar, so she could write on something firm. She took out her fountain pen. “Anyone, any ideas?” She looked at us one by one.
Neither Katrine nor Ivan had any suggestions.
Then Ivan said, “How about ‘Not all Germans are the enemy’?”
I looked at him sharply. “A bit obvious—no? Not personal enough.” He nodded. “Maybe. Yes, you’re right.”
Madeleine said, “How about ‘If this makes you think of me every time you open it, I will be happy’? It sort of implies that the person who gave it was a German, or a lover of German culture. It might reinforce the message.” She looked around. “You can always say it belonged to someone else before you owned it, so the dedication doesn’t apply.”
“Brilliantly ambiguous,” said Katrine. “You always were the most inventive among us, Maddie, and you haven’t lost your touch.”
Madeleine started writing the inscriptions as the pianist returned.
He launched into “Long Ago and Far Away” and in no time the pub was again a riot of music and noise amid the smoke.
As I joined in, I asked myself whether I would see Katrine and Ivan again.
Madeleine’s brilliant idea—and it was a brilliant idea—had just made their lives marginally safer. But only marginally. She herself was going into even more danger than they were. But I couldn’t tell her that. Not yet.
MAY
· 11 ·
THE MINUTE I GOT INTO THE OFFICE in Tewkesbury House on the following Monday, I sensed a change in atmosphere. I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly—but there was an urgency about people, an intensity even, and what I detected as a slight bounce in everyone’s step.
I entered my office none the wiser. My half-secretary wasn’t there, but she came in soon afterwards.
“There you are. Good weekend?”
I turned and nodded. Was Geraldine implying I was late? I was not late and my weekend was none of her business.
“What is it, G.?” I sat down at my desk and examined the papers that had arrived that morning.
“Meeting in the conference room, upstairs, in…” She looked at her watch. “Twenty minutes, at ten thirty.”
I nodded. “Subject?”
“I haven’t been told.”
“But you know, don’t you? I can sense it, I can feel it.”
She looked at me for a moment, savouring the fact, relishing the moment that she knew something, something important, that I didn’t. It was normally the other way round.
“Well?” I said.
“Robert Wingate has turned up. He wasn’t shot—he escaped.”
I looked up sharply. This was very good news. Wingate had been one of our best agents, operating south of Paris, and occasionally in Paris itself, but he had gone missing about six weeks before in mysterious circumstances and hadn’t been heard from since. We had all assumed he was dead.
“Get me his file, will you?”
“I have it here.” She handed across a buff manila folder. On the cover it said, simply, MAGPIE, Wingate’s code name.
“Coffee?” I said. “Or what passes for coffee these days?”
“Coming up,” she said, turning on her heel and disappearing through the door.
I spent twenty minutes leafing through Magpie’s file and arrived in the conference room upstairs on the stroke of 10:30.
And there he was, Robert Wingate. About forty-five, with a slight stoop, due to some congenital spinal defect in his make-up, salt-and-pepper hair, lots of it, and heavily pockmarked skin. Hilary had thought that Magpie’s stoop made him look so unathletic that no one in the Gestapo would give him a second glance. It also explained why he wasn’t away in the army—he was so obviously unfit for combat. Hilary had been right, up to a point: Robert had worked undercover in France from early 1942 to the spring of 1944 without any problem.
We shook hands. “Welcome back, Robert,” I said. “And well done for making it home. Which ratline did you use?”
“Good to see you, Matt,” he said. “How’s the lung?”
“I’ll live, but go on…Tell me, how did you get out?”
“Hold on, Wingate. Don’t throw that away on Colonel Hammond alone. We all want to hear what happened.”
That was Hilary arriving, with our superior, Lieutenant General Frank Grieves, the overall head of SC2. Grieves was a tall man, with spiky hair and a moustache so bushy you could have brushed your shoes with it. He was in civilian clothes.
With him was Leslie Coates, Hilary’s opposite number in the Balkans section; Preston Brodie, head of the Dutch section; and James Goldsworthy, of the African section. Such high-level gatherings were rare and, Magpie apart, I was the most junior member, there only because Wingate was himself from the French section, and I had helped train him and sent him into the field.
We settled around the table.
“Where’s Penny?” said Grieves.
“She’s here,” said Penelope Poole, sweeping into the room. “She’s here.”
Penny was Grieves’s personal assistant and kept the minutes of such high-level meetings as were held. She was a handsome woman of about fifty, in a khaki-coloured frock that buttoned down the front. She had a pad and a pencil with her and an impressive pair of spectacles, which she put on as she sat down.
“Fire away,” she said, setting the pad and pencil in front of her.
“Hold on,” said Grieves. “We require minutes of this meeting but I remind you all that such meetings as these are top secret. You can’t tell your spouses or lovers, if you have them, or your secretaries, who I sincerely hope are not the same person. With the invasion so close, there has to be a clamp down on all information. I don’t know what Robert here is going to say, any more than you do, but before the meeting ends we’ll discuss what use—if any—we’re going to make of his information. After that, outside this room, you are all to watch your tongues. You are all senior enough for me not to have to say that twice, so I won’t.”
He turned to Magpie.
“Robert, you have the floor. What can you tell us?”
“Thank you, sir,” said Wingate. “It’s good to be back—I’ve had a few scrapes in the past weeks, I can tell you.” He took off his jacket and loosened his tie. “I’ve got two main things to tell you, but, for the record, and to answer Matt’s question, I got out via the Gustave ratline. That goes south, over the Alps, from Grenoble to Digne to Castellane to Grasse, and I was picked up at La Napoule, from where I was ferried to North Africa, and flown back here yesterday. All that the people in this room need to know is that that ratline works very well—everything is done at night, it is all very efficient and professional, and I was well fed. Morale is high—people know the invasion is not far off and they are all keen to convert from being a ratline to being active saboteurs.”
“Who are they run by?” said Grieves.
“I don’t know, sir. That’s part of their professionalism. I only knew them by their code names and they only knew me as Magpie. I did know the name of the man who runs the César circuit south of Paris, near Auxerre, who passed me on to Grenoble—his name was Paul Dutuit, and he was—is—impressive. A big bear of a man whose circuit members do as he says without question. He makes things happen very quickly. They are standing by, waiting for instructions come the invasion. They have one of our agents among them, with a wireless transmitter. That person is a woman, code n
ame Chain.”
Grieves was nodding. “Good, good. All very useful. Especially that bit about morale. But you said you had two things to tell us. Is this the time to move on?”
“Yes, sir. Of course. Do you mind if I smoke? I haven’t had an English cigarette in weeks.”
Grieves fished out a packet of Craven A. “Have one of mine, if you like the brand, that is?”
“Perfect, sir. Thank you.”
He lit his cigarette and took a few puffs. He exhaled.
“First, the thing is…the Gestapo have penetrated several of our circuits—”
“What?”
A collective shiver went round the room. Hilary and I exchanged glances.
“How do you know this?” Grieves was leaning forward. He knew what Hilary and I knew, of course, but he wasn’t going to let on. Was this independent corroboration of what we suspected?
“In Paris, which is a big, messy place, there is, as you can imagine, a lot of gossip. We in SC2 operate circuits, with British agents and French Resistance members, as you all know, and the French, some of them, operate undercover, working for German officers. Some of the French even work at the Paris headquarters of the Gestapo, and of course they overhear things. They even see things. As I understand it, several British agents have been captured, some of them have been held prisoner in the Gestapo headquarters—which is in avenue Foch by the way. And…here’s the most important point—some of them have been turned, or else forced to transmit wireless messages back to London, as if from agents in the field.”
A short pause occurred while we all took this in. Penny’s pencil, scribbling away, was the only sound.
“Do you know which agents have been captured or turned?” Grieves himself lit a cigarette.
“No, sir.”
“Do you know how many have been turned?”
“No, sir.”
Grieves nodded. “What was the other thing?”
“I met one of the French Resistance workers who doubles up as a cleaner in the Gestapo offices. According to her, one of our SC2 agents is a double agent. He—or she—has been turned, and is now working for the Germans. The main aim of this double agent is to find out—obviously enough—the timing and the location of the invasion.”
Grieves leaned forward. “You don’t have a name or a code name?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know when and where this ‘turning’ took place?”
“No, sir. But the conversation I had was a week before I left for Grenoble and I’ve been in the ratline for more than a month.”
“You couldn’t let us know this news any sooner?”
Wingate tipped ash into the ashtray on the table. “Oh no, sir. Transmitting from a ratline risks the direction finders locating a whole set-up. I couldn’t endanger that.”
Grieves nodded. “I understand.”
He smoked his cigarette. “So this agent was turned at least five weeks ago—and very probably more than that.”
“Yes.”
“And tell us,” said Grieves, “what happened to you? Why did you have to leave? You’d been doing so well.”
Wingate nodded. “Actually, there’s a story there, too, sir. At least I think there is.” He finished his cigarette and crushed it out in the ashtray.
“Now that the invasion is getting close, French national politics are beginning to divide the Resistance groups. Some circuits are communist, some are Gaullist, and, basically, they hate each other and, when and if liberation comes, and elections eventually follow, they will be at each other’s throats—you can bet on it. It’s something to bear in mind in briefing recruits, if we’re not doing it already.”
“Do you hear that?” Grieves’s gaze swept the room.
Hilary and the rest of us nodded.
“And what happened with you? Did you get caught in the crossfire between Gaullists and communists?”
“No, sir. I don’t think they will turn on each other quite so nakedly while France is occupied—that would look too bad later. No, my case was because of a slightly older motive.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think he means an affair of the heart,” said Preston Brodie.
“Do you?” said Grieves. “Were you having an affair with—?”
“No, sir, not me,” said Wingate quickly. “But Colonel Brodie is right, indirectly at least. The Resistance operated a bar in a suburb of Paris, Le Léopard in rue de Nôtre Dame. It made sense—a bar is where people go to relax. They could meet apparent strangers and talk and swap information without it seeming odd. Unfortunately, the head barman, Didier Filbert, was two-timing two women and, when one of them was given the heave-ho, she got her own back—by denouncing Didier and his other amour to the Gestapo. It’s not the first time it’s happened, but it did mean that Didier would almost certainly be tortured, and who knew what he would divulge under pressure? He knew all about me and I had no choice but to assume he would give away my code name and whereabouts. Everyone who is captured knows they will be tortured and so they are told to try to hold out for forty-eight hours, to give other people a chance to disperse and/or escape. I assumed that’s how long I had before they came for me.”
Grieves nodded but was silent for a while.
“Very well,” he said at length. “Thank you, Robert. I take it we’re giving you some leave and that after that you’ll come back in a different capacity—is that right?” He looked at Hilary.
“Yes, sir,” said Hilary. “To begin with, he can brief our agents on the latest developments in manners, language, French ways of doing things.”
Grieves nodded.
“Good. Now, that was all very useful, but since it is all about France, it means I need to talk to Hilary and Matt. If the rest of you would excuse us, please…”
The others got up and ambled towards the door.
“Do you want me to stay?” said Penny.
“You’d better,” replied Grieves.
After the others had gone, and the door had been closed again, the general went on, addressing Hilary and me equally.
“Where does that leave us, do you think? Rondin and Dirac are due to go into the field at any moment—right? Does this change things for them? Matt?”
I shook my head. “Magpie’s information is very useful, sir, very. It confirms what we thought, that some of our circuits have been penetrated, but Robert’s information doesn’t tell us just how wide the penetration is. It also tells us—so far as it goes—that the Gestapo isn’t aware that we are aware of their penetration, if you see what I mean. But we still need to find out if they have been taken in by our deception regarding the invasion. That means Rondin and Dirac must go ahead as planned. But obviously no one outside this room must know, in case this double agent, if he or she exists, finds out.”
Grieves tapped his fingers on the table. He shook his head. “They are going to be very exposed, aren’t they? Rondin and Dirac, I mean.”
“Yes,” I said. “But, from what Magpie told us, it’s more important than ever for us to know how the Gestapo and their fellow Germans are reacting. And if they’ve turned one of our agents, it also means that Rondin’s and Dirac’s missions are all the more important. But they must be warned of this extra risk.”
Grieves nodded. “When will they be told? And when do they go?”
I looked at Hilary.
He looked at me. “The May moon is tomorrow.” He transferred his gaze to Grieves. “I am going to brief Rondin later today, sir. Matt here will do the same with Dirac.”
Grieves nodded his head. “Such brave people,” he breathed. “Do they know how poor are the odds of their getting through this?”
Neither Hilary nor I answered.
Grieves stroked his chin with his hand. “But we do need to know if the Germans have been taken in. The PM will ask me. Eisenhower will want to know—it’s natural. Even Stalin might want to know.” He collected up his cigarettes and his matches. “And Magpie only confirms that the Resista
nce has been penetrated even more than we know.” He stood up. “There’s no alternative, I’m afraid. If it’s any comfort to their families, I will ensure that Rondin and Dirac are decorated for their efforts.”
He looked at Penny. “Don’t put this in the minutes.”
He turned back to us. “What empty words I’ve just spoken. If it were my child going on such a mission, and she or he were to be killed, nothing would be of any comfort.”
—
FOR THE BRIEFEST OF MOMENTS, Myra Hess’s fingers were stilled above the keyboard of the Steinway grand. No one in the room breathed. The noise of the traffic in Trafalgar Square seemed more distant than it was. Dust particles hovered in the sunbeams spilling on to the floor, waiting, like us.
Hess’s lunchtime concerts in the National Gallery were reasonably safe affairs, now, in 1944—London hadn’t been bombed, by day or by night, for some months. But at the beginning of the war, and especially in the Blitz, when the Steinway and the audience had been removed to the basement of the gallery, for safety’s sake, the legend was that Myra Hess would pause just before beginning her playing, in case the Luftwaffe should be overhead, as they had been on many occasions, ready to drown out her music.
She launched into a Bach prelude.
I had been several times before, but that day, after the meeting with Robert Wingate, was a first for Madeleine. As the music filled the hall—the first square gallery at the top of the entrance stairs, now devoid of pictures, of course, which had been hidden away somewhere safe, I hoped—she leaned into me and rested her hand on my thigh. She hadn’t been feeling well earlier on but she seemed all right now. I didn’t know whether the perfume I could smell was actual perfume or whatever she washed her hair with, but it had a freshness that the gallery lacked. After five years of war, London had a knocked-about, jaded, lived-in look and feel about it. People were still cheerful, waiting for the invasion, but you could tell they were weary too, and would be grateful when the war was over.
I was particularly on edge. Today, Madeleine had been supposed to be seeing her mother for lunch but someone had phoned on Mrs. Dirac’s behalf, to say she was ill in bed with the ’flu that was then going round, and had a temperature of 101 degrees. She would travel to London in a few days.
