How I Became a Spy

by Deborah Hopkinson

  Warden Hawk had said much the same thing, I remembered. And so had George and Jeffrey. Violette had written about the need for secrecy. Everything seemed to depend on it. And now, somehow, we were caught up in it too.

  “Yes, the invasion is coming,” Mr. Humphrey declared as he moved away. “And I intend to stand my ground long enough to witness it.”

  * * *

  —

  As we stepped into the warmth of the cozy bookstore, I mulled over Mr. Humphrey’s words. David and I waited while Eleanor asked the clerk if we could do homework upstairs for an hour if we promised to talk quietly.

  “I can’t imagine the clerk will say no. Eleanor seems a very…determined sort of person,” David whispered. I grinned and nodded.

  Eleanor came over and beckoned us up the stairs. We followed behind her bouncing knapsack. “She said yes, as long as we move if we’re in someone’s way. It’s not a big space.”

  Halfway up, Eleanor turned around, her eyes sparkling with excitement. In a low voice, she said, “And did you happen to notice who I was talking to? That clerk is Nancy Mitford.”

  David and I exchanged a glance. I whispered, “Uh, who’s Nancy Mitford?”

  “Oh, she’s one of the glamorous Mitford sisters. She’s been presented at the royal court. And best of all, she’s a real novelist.” Eleanor sprinted up the steps two at a time.

  “I wonder if all American girls are like her,” David murmured.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think anyone is quite like Eleanor.”

  “Are you two talking about me?” Eleanor gazed down at us from the top. “Come on, don’t dawdle. We have work to do.”

  We settled on the floor in a corner. Eleanor shrugged off her coat and drew in a deep breath, as if she was inhaling the scent of roses. “Maybe it’s because of my father, but I do love bookstores and books and stories. I think when I grow up, I might work for a newspaper.”

  “As a crime reporter?” asked David. “I wouldn’t mind that. I like anything that has to do with detectives.”

  “Maybe. Have you ever heard of Nellie Bly? She’s dead now, but she was a famous American reporter. She went undercover like a detective.” Eleanor reached into her knapsack for her supplies. “I read that once Nellie pretended to be a patient in an asylum, to expose horrible conditions. I’d like to investigate like that. Or maybe travel to faraway places and become a war correspondent like Ernie Pyle.”

  “A war correspondent,” David repeated thoughtfully. “Do you think this war will still be going on five or six years from now, when we’re old enough to have real jobs?”

  I shook my head. “It won’t. We’re going to defeat the Nazis. My cousin Jeffrey says there are thousands of soldiers training in the countryside.”

  Eleanor set out paper and handed each of us a pencil. “Sometimes I wonder if humans will ever stop fighting wars. Nan has told me about World War I. So many men died, some people called it the war to end all wars. But it wasn’t so long ago, was it? And now…”

  “I can hardly remember when we didn’t have rations and blackout curtains and bombs,” I chimed in. The war was like London’s cold, thick, wet fog. It seeped into you, through your clothes and into your skin and all the way inside, until the chill reached your heart.

  “I was eight in January of 1939 when I came to London,” David added in a low voice. “That was eight months before war was officially declared. But it had already started, at least for us and other Jewish families.”

  Eleanor reached out and touched his arm gently. “I’m so sorry.”

  For a minute, we were all silent. I was thinking about how the war was so big, like a giant wave crashing on a beach. And how we were all like tiny grains of sand, being tumbled around or swept away. A bomb from far away had somehow hit our house and almost killed my brother. David had been torn from his family. Eleanor had come to live in a new country.

  And Violette. Violette had decided to dive into the path of the wave.

  So I took out the small red notebook and put it in the center of our circle. “Maybe we should begin.”

  Eleanor looked at David. “Has Bertie told you about Violette and…everything?”

  “Yes, he explained on our way here,” David replied. “And I think trying to break the cipher is the right thing to do. Especially since she set the trap for this week—whatever it is. If something has happened to her, then maybe the answers are in here.”

  I just hope we can find them in time, I thought.

  “You should look at it, David.” Eleanor picked up the notebook and handed it to him.

  We were quiet as David turned the pages. “It definitely seems like a cipher. She’s made it harder to decode since there aren’t any spaces to show where words begin and end, like in a regular sentence. That would make it easier to look for patterns, or small words that get repeated a lot. Words like a or the or I.”

  “Can we solve it?” Eleanor wanted to know.

  “We can definitely try some things. But we might need to get help from a real expert, especially if we get stumped,” David said. “And I have an idea who we can ask. My foster family knows Benjamin Marks, who owns a bookstore. Once, after Shabbat, we were chatting with him and my foster father told Mr. Marks how much I love detective stories.” David lowered his voice. “Mr. Marks told us that his son, Leo, began learning about codes when he was a boy. He sort of winked and said, ‘He’s very good. And these days we tell everyone he’s working for the Ministry of Labour.’ ”

  “Oh, wow. That’s his cover, I bet,” I said. “We could visit the bookstore and ask to meet Leo. What do you think, Eleanor?”

  Eleanor cocked her head. “Maybe. But let’s see how far we get. And Violette might still come see me or claim the notebook before Thursday.”

  “And what about asking your father for help, Eleanor?”

  “No, not yet,” said Eleanor. “And it’s not just that Violette trusted me with the notebook. I’m not sure he’d take me seriously. Father already thinks I spend too much time reading Nancy Drew mysteries.”

  “I wonder why Violette didn’t go directly to your father for help,” David mused.

  “Maybe something happened to make her hesitate,” I suggested, glancing at Eleanor.

  “You mean she might be suspicious of people on her own side?” David raised his eyebrows.

  “It’s possible—you never know,” I told them. I couldn’t help remembering George’s words and added, “There might even be traitors or double agents right here in London.”

  David scoffed. “Bertie, this is England! That doesn’t seem very likely.”

  “You’re probably right, David,” said Eleanor slowly. “But the thing is, we can’t be sure, not until we decipher all the entries in her notebook. And maybe not until Violette contacts me again. Or we find out what happened to her.”

  David shot me a doubtful glance. It was clear he thought Eleanor was imagining things. I said nothing. I didn’t want to bring up the other possibility that had jumped to mind: that Violette herself had become a traitor and had started working for the Germans. And that maybe there was something hidden in the cipher that shouldn’t be there.

  “All right, then.” David turned back to the notebook. “Maybe instead of trial and error, we should do some analysis first.”

  “Analysis? What do you mean?” I asked.

  “We need to step back and put ourselves in Violette’s shoes. We should examine what sort of person she is. That might give us a clue to the cipher system she decided to use,” David explained.

  “That makes sense.” I turned to Eleanor. “You know her. Is she very precise?”

  Eleanor twirled her pencil and stared at it. “She isn’t messy—at least not about the way she looks. But she’s not too picky either. She never made me redo my work to make it neater. I’d say she’
s in the middle.”

  “I have another idea,” I said. “I’ve read more of the notebook than either of you.” I picked it up and started paging through it. “Most of it is notes on what she was learning. I got so caught up in that section, I haven’t read much more, but…” I found the page I wanted. “Look here! These pages are her last entries in plain English, before she starts writing in code. Maybe there’s something here that will help us figure out her cipher.”

  “Let me read it aloud,” Eleanor said. I handed her the notebook. She took a deep breath and began.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  At the last minute, I slipped this diary into my pocket. I know I shouldn’t bring it. I should never have begun it in the first place. But I want to remember everything that is happening. Someday, perhaps, the world will be different and I can share it with my children, and with my young friend Eleanor. She dreams of her own adventures, I know.

  “She did think of you as her friend, Eleanor,” I said.

  Eleanor nodded, her face flushed with pleasure. “Oh, listen. Violette mentions my father in this next part.”

  When I first approached Dr. Shea about how I might volunteer, he made it clear I shouldn’t say anything to Eleanor. And then, when he slipped me a piece of paper with a single name on it, he warned me not to tell even him anything more. I never spoke about my interviews. I’m sure he guessed, but I never explained why I couldn’t tutor anymore.

  I expect it’s not easy for Dr. Shea to raise a daughter like Eleanor. She sees more than you realize. That’s another reason I left without saying goodbye. I worried she would see through any lie I might have spun.

  And now the moment has come. I am at the airfield, waiting for darkness. All my training has led me here. After tonight, I will write only in cipher. I’ll keep this tiny notebook hidden. If I’m ever in danger of being caught, I’ll burn it.

  Socks, hat, dress, coat. Getting the right clothes to live in occupied France turned out to be much harder than I imagined. I even tore out the English labels from my underwear. Luckily, I still have a coat and hat I bought in Paris before the war.

  Shoes were the worst! English shoes give you away. We learned that a German could be walking behind you on the street and find you out just by looking at your shoes. It took a while, but I finally found a pair that will do.

  I’ve memorized my cover story too. I’m actually quite delighted with it. It’s so unlike me! I’ll pose as someone working for a company that sells patterns for baby clothes and blouses and dresses for ladies. I’ll go door to door, calling on farmwives in the countryside and women in towns and cities.

  “I hope I don’t have to do any sewing demonstrations!” I joked when I got briefed about my cover. I love nice clothes, but I haven’t ever been good at making them myself. I was given a sample booklet illustrating the garments, and even a few printed patterns in French. If I get stopped by Germans, I’ll have something real to show them.

  It makes sense in another way too. Women are especially suited for SOE work because most young men serve as soldiers or work in war munitions factories. German officers are more likely to be suspicious of a young man walking about in the middle of the day.

  My cover will hide my true work as a messenger for Maurice (not his real name, of course). Maurice is the head of our Maquis—the local French resistance network.

  “Maurice is a wily character. He’s an old hand at this business. You can trust him,” my instructor said. “Up to a point, that is.”

  “Why wouldn’t I trust him?” I asked, alarmed.

  “You should always be on your guard,” he explained. “There may well be informers in the village. We’ve heard of resistance networks being infiltrated by enemy agents. And people can change sides.”

  “Can you be trusted?” I asked, half teasing.

  He scowled. “Just be careful.”

  Maurice has found me a host family. Neighbors and friends will be told I’m a distant relative trying to earn money to attend university someday. I have a cover name: Marie Billard. I’ll have to get used to being called Marie. I have a code name too, of course. But I won’t write it here.

  My duties will include making weekly reports to London on our sabotage activities and on German troop movements in the area. I’ll code my reports myself, then bring them to Philippe, our radio operator.

  In training, we learned various types of codes and ciphers. We were also given pre-arranged key phrases to use in telegrams or personal notices in newspapers. For instance, an agent might send a telegram saying: “Looking forward to seeing you at the wedding.” What that might really mean is: “The operation is proceeding as planned.”

  The best sort of personal advertisement to put in a newspaper is one saying something has been lost. Otherwise, if you print a notice about, say, a bicycle for sale at a certain address, you might have people showing up to actually buy it!

  My eight weeks of training are over. It was harder than I imagined, especially the parts on how to use dynamite and explosives. But the most terrifying thing of all was practicing the parachute jump.

  And yet, somehow, I did it. I feel ready. Tonight—or after midnight on the morrow—under a full, bright moon, I’ll drop into a field somewhere in France.

  Eleanor paused and looked at us, her eyes wide. “There’s no doubt, is there? Violette parachuted into France.”

  “And at night too,” I said.

  “Did you pay attention to what she said about codes?” David whispered. “I didn’t realize spies placed hidden messages into notices in newspapers.”

  Eleanor was examining the notebook. “There’s a little more in regular English. It’s scribbled in pencil.”

  “Maybe she wrote it on the airplane,” I guessed. “They might not have let her bring an English-made pen with her. It sounds like any tiny, small thing could give an agent away.”

  “Keep going, Eleanor,” David urged.

  And she did.

  I’m on the noisy, cold, smelly plane. It’s just me, alone in the back behind the pilots. So I can jot down a few more sentences.

  I received last-minute instructions at the airfield. First, to my surprise, the boss came over to shake my hand and wish me good luck. “We have confidence in you.”

  Next, the code master walked me to the steps of the plane. “Be careful,” he told me. “Sometimes agents get rushed and sloppy with their coding. Follow every step, and don’t forget your personal security check. We’ve had to remind agents to do that in the past.” The security check is a few extra letters of special code that are unique to each agent.

  I promised. “Remember, I did well on my coding, better than on parachute-jumping practice.”

  We’ve been in the air for an hour now. The English Channel looks silvery in the moonlight. But I know the seas are much rougher than they look from here. And sometime—sometime soon, perhaps—hundreds of ships carrying soldiers will journey across these waters to liberate all of Europe from Hitler’s grasp.

  The moon is playing peekaboo with rolling clouds. I hope the pilots can find the right field. I repeat the instructions to myself. “There are two ponds on this farmer’s land. I should look down, situate myself, and pull at the parachute strings if I’m too close to the water.”

  Beside me sit two bags, with my clothes and supplies. One of the pilots will drop them out after me. There are explosives too. And I’m carrying a lot of French money. It’ll be used for bribes and to help members of the Maquis with food and lodging costs.

  Out the window, the clouds are dissipating into thin wisps. Soon we’ll be over land, where the rivers will shine like silver ribbons in the dark landscape.

  It’s time.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Good cryptographists are rare indeed.

  —Edgar Allan Poe, “A Few Words on Secret Writing,” 1841

 
; When Eleanor finished, no one said anything for a long while. At last I cleared my throat. “Hearing it out loud like that makes her seem so real.” As real as the young woman I’d found lying alone in the cold.

  “She took such a risk,” said Eleanor. “From one day to the next, she couldn’t know who might be watching her; she couldn’t tell a friend from an informer.”

  “I think it’s brave to live undercover in that way, always in fear,” David agreed. “I keep thinking of my parents back in Germany.” He explained to Eleanor, “They sent me here for safety. But they couldn’t escape, not in time. Horrible things were happening in Germany. One night in November of 1938, thousands of Jewish businesses were burned and destroyed. That was Kristallnacht—the Night of Broken Glass. Many Jewish people were arrested or sent away. Others were killed.”

  “You must have been frightened,” Eleanor said.

  “Yes, I wasn’t even eight. Our train was full of children, some only two or three years old.”

  “Did you understand why you were coming to England?” Eleanor asked.

  “Not really. I knew my parents were worried. Also, I’d already been forced to leave school because they’d made a rule that Jewish children weren’t allowed. Papa said he and Mama would join me later. But they couldn’t, especially after war was declared that September.” David raised his thin shoulders in a slight shrug. “We don’t know what’s happening at home now. I don’t get letters anymore.”

  We were all quiet for a long moment. I closed my eyes and felt a sharp pang of longing. I missed Mum. But at least I could see her again.

  After a bit, David looked up. “Listen, maybe we should do more of that analysis now. Any ideas, Eleanor?”