by Walter Ellis
The act of love had been everything she had hoped. It was raw, exhilarating and tender all at the same time – both a promise and a promise fulfilled. What would her mother think of her now? she wondered. She would be cross, of course, but a little bit jealous, too. The thought made her giggle.
There had been others before her. She knew that. Well, he was 31 years old. But why should she mind about that? If anything, she rather approved. His past was his own business. What mattered from this point on was that they should live each day as if it were the first one. Who knew what would happen to them anyway? Charles was a soldier, a spy. She was a refugee. Their very existence was uncertain. Soon they would be parachuted together into France and there was no guarantee they would make it out alive.
A bird flew past, causing her to catch her breath. O Dios mio! The treetops were not far beneath her. They were rising to meet her. She shouldn’t have let her mind wander. What was it they said she should do? Wasn’t she supposed to pull on the ropes or something? She grabbed at two of the lines connecting her to the billowing fabric above her head and yanked violently. Oh dear Lord! She felt herself lurch violently to the right. It worked. She had done it. Now the trees weren’t below her any more. But the ground was. A field of some kind. It was close. Really close. Oh dear God, here it comes! As she fell to Earth, all thoughts of Bramall vanished. This was reality. She drew her tongue inside her mouth so that she wouldn’t bite it, and bent her knees. Then she prayed. Whoosh! Oomph! Her feet touched down, her body toppled forwards, she twisted to one side, and in a tumble of limbs crashed headlong into the soft summer soil of England.
She lay still for several seconds, hardly daring to move. Her heart was thumping. She could hear a bee buzzing and birds singing. Then the canopy collapsed on top of her. She crawled sideways for a second until she could lift the silk material up, away from her face. A cow was staring at her, its nostrils looking unnaturally large. It had brown eyes and it seemed friendly. “Hola!” she said. She felt her legs. They were all right. And her head? No cuts. She was in one piece. She started to laugh. It was wonderful. Not bad for a little Spanish girl on her first time out, she thought.
Madrid: Office of Kriminalkommissar Winzer, August 9
Operation Willi had interrupted Winzer’s investigation of the embassy raid. Now, with Hasselfeldt’s return in disgrace from Lisbon, it was back on course and the evidence, though circumstantial, was damning. Intelligence material, as yet unknown, had been compromised. Once he had had a chance to discuss with the ambassador what exactly was missing and how best to present the loss to Berlin, a damage limitation exercise would be instituted. That way, the value to England of whatever Bramall had seized would be reduced and its impact minimised. The attack on the Legation would fade into legend: the work of Spanish diehards, nothing more.
A close-run thing just the same. It was the Ambassador, lingering over a glass of brandy, who first noticed the unauthorised photograph on his dining room wall showing the Führer in apparent conversation with Charles Bramall, a key suspect in the case. Exactly as Winzer would have expected, it was Hasselfeldt who had placed the picture. One of the waiters remembered him positioning it on the wall and checking to see that it wasn’t crooked. So convinced was the Austrian that Bramall could be trusted, and so mindless of his duty, that he was prepared not only to frustrate Schellenberg’s plan and the direct orders of the Führer, but to play stupid mind-games with his lunch guests.
Easy to blame the Austrian, then.
If only it were that simple.
Once alerted, the Gestapo Kriminalkommissar realised, with a start, where he had last seen Bramall. It was he who had impersonated the late Fregattenkapitän Gunter Rath of the Kriegsmarine, whose battered body had been found two days ago in a railway tunnel in Andalucia. He should have spotted him at once. He had spent time, after all, observing him at the Ortega garden party – even reported him to Hasselfeldt as a suspicious character. But he had failed to make the connection. As head of embassy security, he had in fact volunteered assistance to this determined enemy of his country and suspected … nothing. That was the simple fact of the matter, and even now the knowledge of what he had done sent a shiver down his spine.
It was fortunate that the only person privy to this disquieting piece of information was Winzer himself. It was Hasselfeldt who recruited Bramall, not realising he was a “double.” It was Hasselfeldt who apparently recorded the Ambassador’s confidential meetings. It was Hasselfeldt who had failed to account for two missing tapes from his Magnetophon, and it was Hasselfeldt whose office was broken into by an assailant whose accomplices had committed mass murder in the foyer of the Legation. Now, it transpired, it was Hasselfeldt whose incompetence and inability to follow the instructions of a superior officer had led to the collapse of a scheme initiated by Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and approved by Hitler.
Winzer’s relief was unqualified. There could be only one possible response to such behaviour.
“Are we ready, gentlemen?” he asked.
“Ready, Herr Kriminalkommissar.”
“Very well. Let’s go.”
Accompanied by two SS guards, Winzer descended the steps from the second floor of the Legation to the first and walked in step with his men along the corridor leading to the SD office. Von Stohrer and Colonel Bruns stood at the far end, looking on. The Ambassador nodded, willing the unpleasantness to be over as quickly as possible. Winzer knocked.
“Who is it? Who is there?” The voice was thin and anxious.
Terrified.
Winzer stood back. Some instinct told him to be wary. It was SS Rottenführer Frans Müller, on his instruction, who pushed open the door.
Hasselfeldt was standing by his desk. Seeing the corporal’s outline, with his machine pistol, through the frosted glass of his door, he reached, panic-stricken, for the brand new Walther P-38 in his holster. His head filled with a picture of him being dragged, gagged and bound, toward a waiting hangman’s noose. As Müller advanced, brandishing his weapon, he shot him in the shoulder. The guard collapsed, hissing like a wet log on a campfire. Winzer, still in the corridor, dropped to a crouch and took out his Luger. The second SS guard meanwhile fired a burst through the open door with his machine pistol. There was a low cry, followed by a gurgle. Winzer stepped forward. Hasselfeldt was on his knees, clutching his hand to his chest.
Winzer’s contempt was total. “Too bad, Klaus, I would have enjoyed your trial.” As the Austrian looked up, confused, his face registering all the agony of chronic disappointment, the Kripo officer shot him once through the head.
Stohrer stood outside the office, accompanied by Bruns. “Is it safe to go in?”
Bruns nodded.
The Ambassador observed the tableau in front of him with unambiguous distaste. “The fellow had talent,” he pronounced gravely. “Such a pity he was a fool.”
Winzer nodded. But not the only one. What will they think of you, Herr Botschafter, when they find out what has gone missing from your embassy?
Colonel Bruns wandered over to Hasselfeldt’s desk. He felt contempt for Hasselfeldt, but also just a twinge of regret. There was a note, next to what looked like a cyanide capsule. It read simply: “I was at all times a true servant of the Reich and a devoted follower of the Führer. I regret my errors. Heil Hitler!”
Bruns handed the note to Winzer, who read it, then crumpled it up and threw it in the wastepaper basket. The Gestapo officer could not conceal a bitter smile. “Do you know?” he said. “At the academy it was always suspected he had Jewish blood.”
Madrid: August 9
Dominique had just stepped out of her bath when the telephone rang in her bedroom. According to Beigbeder – whose garrulousness after sex was so blatant it was almost charming – her number was not among those being tapped by the secret police, but she was aware that as much as 10 per cent of the
“regular” telephone traffic of Madrid was listened in to by someone or other.
She reached for the receiver. “Bonjour! Who is speaking, please?”
“Citoyenne?” A pause followed. “We are in luck. I think the bougainvillea is in bloom.”
“Comment?”
The caller, whoever he was, was speaking in French. He sounded familiar – English, perhaps. But she couldn’t quite place him.
There was a sigh at the other end. “I was hoping to take the waters. These things are important, don’t you think? And I was wondering if you might care to join me.”
“I am sorry, Monsieur, but I am not …” And then it hit her. Of course. That voice. Bramall! He was talking about Vichy. “The waters, you say? That sounds delightful.”
“I’m glad you approve. It would help, however, if you were to make the necessary reservations. You know the people who run the place so much better than I.”
“When did you have in mind?”
“Next week. Monday, I hope, perhaps Tuesday. I’ll have to fly in and, as you know, these things can be so complicated to organise.”
“I understand. So is it the directeur-en-chef you wish to see?”
“His deputy might be better.”
“I think so. You can rely on me, Monsieur … Monsieur?”
“ … Le Duc. To be accompanied by a Mademoiselle La Roche.”
“Ah!. Very well. I look forward to it.”
“Splendid. Au revoir, Citoyenne.”
Hanslope: August 10, midday
When Isabella got back to her room, Bramall was waiting for her, sat on her bed smoking a cigarette. He put it out as soon as she came in. It was cold and damp inside the Nissen hut, and he was dressed in his Army great coat. The other bunk in the room belonged, he’d been informed, to the girl who was on her way to Prague. Her English clothes were neatly folded on top of the bed; on the wall, to the right of her pillow, were the photographs she had pinned up of her fiancé, dressed in naval uniform, and her parents, smiling sheepishly for the camera.
“Hola!” Isabella said, still not quite recovered from the surprise. Her hair was up and she wore some kind of flying jacket, with a fur collar. “I didn’t know you were coming.”
Bramall stood up. “Nor did I. But I needed to talk to you.”
She stood stock still for second, just looking, then ran toward him and threw her arms round his neck. “I’m just so glad you’re here,” she began.
“I gather we’re alone,” he said, looking round.
“Yes. She left this morning. Her name is Angela. I didn’t get talk to her, but they tell me, it is a very dangerous mission. She may not come back.”
Bramall bent down and joined his lips to hers. They kissed, at first tenderly, then with increasing passion, until suddenly he pulled away.
“What’s wrong?” she said. She looked faintly alarmed.
“Well, that’s just it, you see. Your room-mate – what’s her name, Angela? She’s off on a dangerous mission and she might not come back. And I can’t stop thinking, what if you don’t come back? What if you don’t make it?”
Reaching up to stroke his hair, Isabella, drew his mouth back down to hers. “I will come back,” she said, between kisses. “We will both come back. We have a lot of time ahead of us. This is only the beginning.”
“I could always go alone.”
Isabella’s eyes narrowed. “No! I won’t hear of it.”
“It’s not your fight. You don’t have to do this.”
She pushed back his head. “Yes I do. And it is my fight. I helped get us into this, and I will see it through to the end. We are together. We are a team.”
“I don’t think you quite understand. You could be arrested. You could be thrown in jail. They could torture you.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? I have thought about it, and I am ready.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you, Isabella,” he said.
“Then keep me by your side.”
“Very well.” He wiped her tears from her cheeks with his fingers and threw his arms around her. They kissed once more and he drew her tightly to him so that he could feel her breasts against his chest. Moments after, they fell back on the bed.
Half an hour later, as they lay naked, there was a knock at the door and a young brunette from the Intelligence section of the Women’s Royal Army Corps stepped in. Immediately, Isabella drew the blanket up to cover herself. When the girl saw Bramall, who was once more smoking a cigarette, she pulled up short, not knowing where to look.
“Erm … sorry to barge in like this, Miss” she stammered, “but it’s just been confirmed that you’re to fly out to France tomorrow. There should be an aircraft available sometime after nine in the evening. You’ll be travelling with Captain …”
“ – Captain Charles Bramall reporting for duty,” Bramall said, saluting smartly.
“Oh,” said the WRAC girl, returning the salute. “Right, Sir. I assume you’ve got the news already. Well in that case, I’ll leave you alone. I expect you’ve got things to, erm, organise”
“We’ll get right on it, Private,” said Bramall.
As soon as the unfortunate messenger left, they both burst out laughing. Then they stopped, as if forewarned at the same instant of something terrible to come, and they held each other, and for nearly a minute neither of them spoke.
RAF Newmarket: August 11
Braithwaite rang through to Bramall with the news of Romero’s death a couple of hours before he and Isabella set off for the airfield at Newmarket. He had spoken with Croft, who the previous evening had met with Hoare in Madrid. Bramall was shocked. Isabella went white. She turned away as tears began to trickle down her cheeks.
Bramall put his arms about her shoulders. “It all happened a couple of weeks back. He killed Luder, but in the aftermath he got shot by that bastard Hasselfeldt and ended up in the hands of the Gestapo. I hate to tell you this, but he was garrotted. The Spanish only released his name yesterday.”
Isabella gasped for breath, placing both hands to her chest. “Poor Eddy,” she said. He was a crazy man, like no one else I ever met. I think he did a lot of things during his life that bothered him. But he believed they were right and necessary. And he valued friendship. You were his friend.”
She paused. “Do you know what he told me, after we escaped from the border police?”
Bramall shook his head.
“He said, ‘Tell Charlie I did my part. Tell him I kept my word.’”
“I never doubted it,” Bramall said, avoiding her eyes.
“He called you ‘Charlie.’”
“Yes.”
“I think I shall call you Charlie.”
“If you like.”
She remembered how Romero spared the life of the second border guard. No one had spared him. “Hasselfeldt is a pig,” she said, “and I hope he is punished for his sins. But I’m not sorry Luder’s dead. He was truly evil. Not even a real Nazi, just a thug. He twisted my father round his little finger.”
Bramall drew her toward him and kissed her forehead.
“Do you think we’ll ever be able to go back?” she asked him.
“I doubt it. Not for years anyway. But you did the right thing. Eddy was proud of you.”
“Yes,” she said, drying her eyes. “I think maybe he was. And that is something.” She paused, looking up into the trees and the sky beyond. “Is there a chapel here – somewhere I could pray?”
“I’m sure there is,” Bramall said, taking her hand. “Would you like me to ask?”
“Please. He died without absolution. Someone should beg forgiveness for his sins. Then we need time to prepare ourselves for what is coming. Eddy wouldn’t like it if we – what is it he would say? –
fucked up.”
“No,” said Bramall, remembering Romero’s lopsided grin and his unsparing dissection of every plan he laid before him. “You’re not wrong there.”
The aircraft that would take them to Vichy was a twin-engine Whitley of 138 Special Duties Squadron. It could fly high up to 26,000 feet – and, in steady flight, made little noice. Without its usual payload, it had a range of almost 2,000 miles. It was just about the only aircraft available that could make it to Vichy and back without refuelling.
They mounted the steps and clambered inside. Jump seats set against the bulkhead were the only accommodation, but an RAF corporal was waiting for them with sandwiches and a flask of coffee.
“It’s a good night for it,” he said, handing each of them a plastic cup. “There’s not much of a moon and quite a bit of cloud cover. ’Long as the captain can work out where we’re going, we should have you over the target in less than three hours. Your chutes are ready and the material you’re delivering is in this ‘ere box that you, sir, can strap to your chest before you leave.”
“I see.”
The two 78 rpm records, Bramall was amused to discover, had been given labels identifying them as Maurice Chevalier’s Ça sent si bon la France and On Ira Pendre Notre Linge sur la Ligne Siegfried by Ray Ventura. Someone obviously had a sense of humour. He looked up. A discreet cough had interrupted his train of thought. The corporal was still standing there. The fellow looked embarrassed.
“What is it, man?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’ve been told to give you these.”
He held out two small glass ampoules.
Cyanide.
“They fit into specially made pouches in your lapels,” he said. “If the Germans capture you, or you’re handed over, you might want them.”
Bramall took Isabella’s hand. She had gone white. “Thank you, corporal,” he said. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.”