Madeleine's War

by Peter Watson

  I lit the gas, cut the bread, and put a slice under the grill. There was a bit of Marmite left, to give a lift to the toast.

  Zola, having worked out that we were not going for a walk just yet, flopped down on the kitchen floor. But he kept an eye on what I was up to. He knew he didn’t get fed until later in the day, but…

  I went into the bathroom to inspect the razor on my shaver. I hated shaving. I was just passing the ball of my thumb over the blade of the razor when the telephone rang.

  I stopped breathing.

  I put down the razor and looked at my watch: it was 5:40.

  Early—very early—for a phone call.

  Was someone ringing me with news of Madeleine? If so, news at 5:40 could hardly be good news.

  I hurried through the kitchen, switching off the kettle and the gas for the toast, and sat on the bed.

  Did I need to prepare for life without Madeleine? I had only known her a matter of weeks.

  An early morning bus accelerated in Grove End Road. I could recognize that engine sound effortlessly.

  The telephone was still ringing.

  I leaned forward and picked up the receiver.

  “Yes? Matt Hammond.”

  “What are you doing? Are you awake?”

  “Hilary? Yes, sir. I was just making breakfast.”

  “Forget it. I want you in here. Have something at your desk. Our troops went in overnight. The invasion’s started. Normandy. Drop everything. Get into the office as quick as you can.”

  He rang off and the line went dead.

  He was right. I had to get into the office, and pronto. No time for breakfast, no time to shave, no time to take Zola for a walk. That didn’t pose the hygienic problems it might have done. Today was a Tuesday, and Mrs. Crosland came in on Tuesdays to clean and change the sheets. She would take Zola for a walk outside. I left her a note just to make sure.

  As soon as I reached the office, I could see that everyone had been called in early. Hattie was already on reception but not yet Freda.

  At the far side of the typing pool, Hilary had erected an easel and on it was a large map of the north of France. Others were gathered round him; and he was just starting to draw on the map. I dumped my bag on my desk and went to stand with the others.

  Hilary nodded at me but didn’t stop what he was doing.

  “The prime minister is going to make a statement in Parliament later today, but this is my understanding of what is happening.”

  He pointed to the map and the lines he had drawn on it.

  “There are five beaches, between here—Quinéville, in the west—and here—Cabourg, in the east. A fifty-mile stretch of beach, being attacked by the United States First Army, and the British Second Army. For those of you who know northern France—Normandy—the landings are either side of Bayeux, near Saint-Lô and Caen. Four thousand ships are involved. There are clear skies over the beaches—for now at any rate—but so far the Luftwaffe has not appeared.

  “Now,” he said, “I’ve told you what precious few details I know—the invasion is only hours old, after all. I will learn more later today and will pass it on as soon as I am told. Eventually, of course, the newspapers and the radio will be full of it. But our immediate job is to make sure that our agents in the field know what’s happening. They may learn something in France, but it will be a time of rumour and counter-rumour, and we owe it to our people to ensure they get the unvarnished truth. We don’t know, yet, whether the invasion is going to be a success, but we must at least tell them that it has started. So we need to prepare coded messages—short and to the point—for when they next check in.”

  He turned and pointed to Ernestine Ridley, Tina to everyone, a handsome older woman, an unflappable senior secretary with immaculate silver hair who was never seen without her cashmere kilt. “Tina here has the schedule of who checks in when, so I want the office manned non-stop from now on until everyone has been briefed. Colonel Hammond, Matt, can you see to it, please?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Tina, can you and I compare notes, please? Would you like to come to my office?”

  She came up to me and, smiling, whispered, “We’ve all been in for a while and it’s not even seven o’clock yet. Shall I pop out and get us a toasted sandwich, and a hot drink, and then come to your office?”

  “Mr. Ridley is a lucky man, Tina. That’s almost as good a prospect as the invasion itself.”

  “Mr. Ridley has been dead these past six years, Matt. If you weren’t so young, I might have my eye on you. See you in a min.” She smiled and was gone.

  I went back to my office, took off my jacket, and sat at my desk. I took out a list of agents who were still active in the field. On it there were 116 names. It was going to be a very long day.

  —

  I THREW THE PAPER BAG the sandwich had come in into the waste-paper basket. “That really hit the spot, Tina. How much do I owe you?”

  “Tuppence,” she said. “Sorry the bread was so stale. The man in the shop said he hadn’t yet had today’s delivery.” She grinned. “That’s what comes of starting work so early.”

  I handed the money across. “Any sign in the shop that people know what’s going on?”

  She shook her head. “Business as usual, so far as I could see.”

  “I suppose the PM wants to make the announcement, and to Parliament first. Then all hell will break loose. Now, I have an alphabetical list of agents in the field, alphabetical by code. I need to convert that into an order of agents according to when they are due to contact us next. That means I need both their code names and their access codes. Hilary is preparing the tailored messages now.”

  “I think it might be better if we went back into the typing pool and pushed some desks together. It will be easier to spread out the papers and compare lists that way.”

  “Good idea,” I replied.

  We got up and went through to the typing pool, where more of the junior staff were beginning to arrive. We rearranged some desks so they formed a large rectangle and laid out the sheets of paper and set about what was, in effect, a massive coordination job.

  “Now, let’s see…We need to do some shuffling. I’ll read out the names and the circuits, you tell me the times they are checking in, and then we can sort them into order. Ready?”

  Tina nodded.

  “Acorn. Erica Stanfield. Patron circuit, Melun.”

  “Three thirty to three forty-five,” said Tina.

  I made a note.

  “Apple. Bettany Crace. Hawk circuit, Pontoise.”

  “Four fifteen to four thirty.”

  “Chain. Barbara Hapgood. César circuit, Auxerre.”

  “Five o’clock to five fifteen.”

  “Cloister. Vicky Webb. Spiral circuit, Rouen.”

  “Four forty-five to five o’clock.”

  And so it went on, tedious but vital. Those agents depended on our meticulous attention to detail—we couldn’t let them down.

  Eight o’clock came and went, then 9:00 a.m.; at 10:30 we had another break and went downstairs for more “coffee.”

  Still no sign in the café that anyone was aware of the invasion.

  We were back at our desks at 11:00.

  Twelve came and went and we were still at it. The first transmission we were expecting was at 2:00. We normally had no transmission in the mornings because, after all, agents had work to do.

  At about a quarter past twelve, G. suddenly stood over me.

  “This just came in. You might like to read it in the privacy of your own office.”

  I looked up, then at Tina, then back at G. “Is it from the field?”

  “You could say that.”

  Odd form of words, I thought.

  “Is it from Madeleine? From Oak?”

  A firm shake of the head.

  I took the slip of paper from her, but didn’t return to my office. I read what was written right there in the typing pool. The clatter of keys was a backdrop we had learned to ignore. But
I heard it now, preternaturally loud. Like the rattle of jackboots.

  As I read the message, a slow, itchy sensation squirmed its way up the back of my neck.

  +MANY·THANKS·LARGE·DELIVERIES·OF·ARMS·AND·AMMUNITION·STOP·HAVE·GREATLY·APPRECIATED·GOOD·TIPS·CONCERNING·YOUR·INTENTIONS·AND·PLANS·STOP·WE·ARE·ALL·IN·GOOD·HEALTH·HERE·IN·PARIS·BUT·ARE·SIGNING·OFF·NOW·STOP=PARIS·GESTAPO·STOP+

  I looked up at G.

  My mouth fell open.

  “Has Hilary seen this?” I asked G.

  “No. I thought I’d leave that to you.”

  “You’re a real pal,” I said, getting up.

  I took the paper across the room and walked down the corridor. I knocked on Hilary’s door and entered without waiting. He was on the phone.

  He didn’t like being interrupted unannounced. He glared at me, but reluctantly waved me to a seat, knowing I wouldn’t barge in unless I had something important to discuss. I put the paper in front of him before sitting down.

  He read it while listening to the conversation at the other end of the line. Then, “Sir, something’s just come up. Can I ring you back—say fifteen minutes? Okay.”

  He put down the phone.

  “Is this genuine, or a prank?”

  “I think we have to assume it’s genuine. They obviously know about what’s happening in Normandy, and that their days in Paris are numbered.”

  “It could be someone playing silly buggers.”

  Just then there was a knock on the door and G. came in. She had another piece of paper with her. She just said one word before going out again. “More.”

  I took the paper.

  +FROM·ALL·AT·HEXAGON·CIRCUIT·THANKS·FOR·THE·MONEY·AND·THE·CIGARETTES·NOT·TO·MENTION·THE·EXPLOSIVES·WHICH·HAVE·FOUND·A·GOOD·HOME·STOP·ALL·YOUR·PEOPLE·ARE·SAFE·SAFE·IN·OUR·HANDS·THAT·IS·AND·WILL·BE·HEADING·EAST·WITH·US·STOP·SIGNING·OFF=RENNES·GESTAPO·STOP+

  I passed it to Hilary.

  He hunched over it, running his fingers through his hair. “This is awful,” he breathed. “We thought one or two circuits were penetrated—yes. But Paris is the French headquarters of the Gestapo; and we had no hint that the Rennes circuits were compromised. This is…this is a catastrophe. I must tell upstairs.”

  “And I must tell our agents, to keep clear of their circuits—unless of course it’s too late. They must all disappear. Anyone in the Paris or Rennes ambit.”

  A thought struck me. “How is Rondin doing?”

  Hilary nodded. “Fine. Good.”

  “Is he still independent?”

  “I told him he could contact Proctor circuit once the invasion had begun—”

  “No! We must tell him to hold off, at least until he gets the go-ahead from us. And the same goes for Madeleine. She’s nowhere near Paris, but all agents not yet integrated into the Resistance must hold off until we know how far this goes.”

  I stood up. “It looks as though Robert Wingate was right, and we have a mole somewhere in SC2.”

  Hilary shook his head. “That doesn’t bear thinking about. We’ll need to go back over transmission transcripts, to see when and how they first became…well, not kosher.” He looked up. “I’ll brief Grieves later today, and I’ll cope with Rondin. This doesn’t change your job—we must let every agent know the invasion has started. But you’re right—tell them to steer clear of any circuits until we know more. And you’ll see to Madeleine, right?”

  I left him and returned to the typing pool, where, during the rest of that day, Tina Ridley and I briefed seventy-nine out of our total of one hundred and sixteen agents on the new situation. We were in the office until one the next morning.

  By the time I went home that night, by taxi because the tube had stopped running, there were thirty-seven agents we hadn’t heard from. One of them was Madeleine.

  · 14 ·

  “IT BEGGARS BELIEF,” GROWLED THE HONOURABLE member for Stafford South, whose name I hadn’t caught. “It beggars belief,” he said again for those who hadn’t heard him the first time. “It beggars belief that the Gestapo should have penetrated one of our most secret defence initiatives in this war—and got away with it for so long.”

  Cries of “Hear, Hear” and “Shame” were heard from both sides of the House of Commons. Some members stamped their feet.

  “I call upon the secretary of state for war to dismiss the officer in command of this operation, and replace him with someone who can do the job properly, and I call upon you, Mr. Speaker, to lift the reporting restrictions on today’s session of Parliament.” The member for Stafford South was not a big man, but he did his best to seem substantial. “God knows, this failure does very little credit to our secret services, but we are not going to capitalize on the early successes of the brave invasion forces unless we learn to look disaster in the eye, recognize it as such, and then act promptly to eradicate the defects that have been identified.”

  He sat down.

  Hilary turned to me and pulled a face. We were sitting in the gallery of the House, in the seats reserved for civil servants, looking down at the chamber.

  It had been just over a week since the invasion. The assault was going well enough. Bayeux had been captured, despite fierce fighting in Normandy, and our troops were sixteen miles from Cherbourg. Major roads were being taken, lost, and retaken. It had emerged that the beach landings had been postponed by twenty-four hours at the last minute on account of the weather, which had since improved markedly.

  That was all good news.

  What was much less good news was that thirty-one of our agents in the field—fourteen women and seventeen men—had still not been heard from. We simply didn’t know what had happened to them, but of course we feared the worst. It seemed that as many as nine circuits might have been penetrated by the Gestapo, before they advertised their breakthrough on D-Day. Seven of those circuits were in and around the Paris region, while the others stretched west, to Poitiers, Tours, and Nantes—barely thirty miles from St. Nazaire and Crossbow, the circuit Madeleine had been preparing to contact the last time she had been in touch.

  We had heard from Madeleine, but not in a way that settled my nerves.

  The day after the invasion G. had brought me the decoded version of a message from Oak. It read:

  +NRBH·TWO·BRIDGES’NEAR·LA·ROCHE·BERNARD·AND·CRAN·BOLWN·YESTERDAY·STOP·RAILWAY·STATION·AT·REDON·HI

  And then it just stopped.

  It was a genuine message—her true check, the ninth word, was misspelled, as it should have been—but then it just stopped, in mid-sentence, mid-word. That didn’t mean Madeleine had been captured, but it did mean that she had been interrupted in the middle of sending her message. But she might have escaped when she saw that her whereabouts had been discovered. She might have retreated, knowing that escape was more important than completing what she had to say—she could always do that later.

  Except that she had not been in touch since her incomplete message, now over a week ago. And we hadn’t had a chance to warn her to steer clear of all circuits.

  I was beside myself with worry.

  What am I saying? A week without any contact, a week when the news was dominated by the fighting in France, when we were constantly hearing from agents in the field, moving around, facing new and perilous conditions, a week of German cruelties as their troops, under increasing pressure, took it out on the surrounding population, one massacre or outrage after another—people shot, tortured, and raped.

  And still no word from Madeleine.

  Nothing.

  Day after day, every time I was in the office, every time the teleprinter clattered into life, I stood over the machine until the stuttering stopped, ripped off the paper myself, and took it to the decrypters, and waited there, holding my breath, while it was decoded, hoping that the message was from her.

  It never was.

  She was the best of her bunch, as I kept telling myself. She would surely have spotted if she was be
ing followed, she would have sought out a place to transmit her messages that was safe, where she could see anyone approaching, where she had an escape route to hand.

  She would know that we had received a truncated message from her. That we would know something sudden had occurred. That we—I—would be worried. So she would, as soon as she could, try to send us another message to say that she was all right. If she could.

  But she hadn’t.

  On the other hand, she had almost certainly abandoned her transmitter, so how could she send us a message? She couldn’t unless…unless she contacted the local circuit. But if she had done that, she had almost certainly walked into a trap. Because of the way she had abandoned her own message, we hadn’t had a chance to alert her to the danger of contacting the local people.

  If she had spotted that the local circuit had indeed been penetrated—as she was quite capable of doing—then she was alone in France, without the surrounding cloak of safety that a circuit would have provided, and without a transmitter and even, conceivably, without her bicycle, which she might have had to abandon.

  She did have her cyanide pill with her. That was another source of worry.

  Devastating as all this was, and wrecked as I privately felt, those weren’t my only problems.

  A couple of days before, Hilary came back from a meeting with his superiors, at which he was told that the Daily News had somehow got hold of the fact that many of our circuits had been penetrated by the Gestapo. How this information had escaped no one knew, though Hilary said that General Grieves privately suspected MI6, which had been suspicious of SC2 ever since its inauguration.

  For the time being, under the fourteen-day rule, military censorship prevented this information from being made public at least for two weeks: the censor at the Ministry of Information was clearly worried about the effect the news might have on military and civilian morale.

  But then the Opposition, which was of course represented in the wartime coalition cabinet, had called a debate in Parliament to discuss the matter. Despite it being wartime, and the government being a coalition, several days were still set aside for motions the Opposition wished to discuss.