by Amy Stewart
I was about to bring the whole operation to a close when an unusual package for Mrs. Wilmington arrived from England.
Mr. Wilmington was away on business overnight (he goes to Philadelphia to call on new prospects once a year), and Sam Archer, the counter man, was quite agitated about the unexpected delivery.
“Mrs. Wilmington doesn’t like to wait,” he told me. “If there’s something here for her, she wants it brought over immediately. Mr. Wilmington carries them home himself.”
“But he’ll be back tomorrow night,” I said. “Isn’t that good enough?”
“Not at all.” Mr. Archer makes a good counter man because he’s meticulous about his counter, and anything having to do with receiving, delivering, or shipping. You could put him up for Postmaster General and you wouldn’t be disappointed.
“I’ll have to carry it over myself,” he said, but he sounded displeased about it. It was a busy day behind the counter and he doesn’t like to leave me in charge. (I should say in my defense that I’ve never mangled an order or mishandled a package.)
“It must be terribly important, if she’s in such a rush to have it,” I said.
At that he rolled his eyes. “It’s nothing but a family keepsake. She used to get them all the time. Vases and figurines and the like. She’s having them shipped over because she doesn’t want them bombed in London. I thought they’d have run out of valuables by now.”
“I’m sure it’s the sentiment that matters,” I said, trying to sound womanly about it. “Let me carry it over. They don’t live far, do they?”
They don’t, and Mr. Archer was happy to send me out with the package.
Once out of the office, I had to move quickly. I rushed home—ignoring Mrs. Spinella, who doesn’t like to see her tenants home in the middle of the day when she’s cleaning—and proceeded to pry apart the box. It was nothing but a flimsy wooden carton, nailed shut with tiny finishing nails. It took a bit of delicate work with a letter-opener, but I was able to pop them out without any sign of damage.
The sender had filled the carton with sawdust—what a mess that made, but never mind—and within the sawdust, wrapped in plain cloth sacking, was a ceramic figurine of a lady dancer, with a full ballroom skirt like our grandmothers might’ve worn. Although it lacked a maker’s mark on the bottom—more about that in a minute—I suspect it wasn’t of English manufacture. It looked German or Austrian to me. My mother, who was born in Vienna and immigrated with her parents at the age of sixteen, had such keepsakes in her curio cabinet, as did my grandmother.
More important than its origin, however, was the fact that it rattled when I shook it. Something was inside.
It wasn’t a loose, hard rattle. The insides must’ve been similarly packed with sawdust or some other material. It was a slight, dull, muffled rattle—but there was no mistaking it.
And about the base of the figurine: the original base had been very carefully cut away and a new ceramic piece glued into place. I could see the seam around the edge, and I noticed a slight difference in the color of the glaze between the bottom and the sides of the base.
I could’ve broken it open, of course, and kept whatever was inside without Mrs. Wilmington ever being the wiser, but Sam Archer knew I had the package. I decided to put it all back together, deliver it, and learn what I could of Mrs. Wilmington. I nailed the carton shut and took it directly to her.
The Wilmingtons live in a rather elegant apartment building of the sort you might see in New York but rarely in New Jersey. Most shopkeepers and factory owners live in one of the more congenial neighborhoods away from downtown, where they can have a lawn and a tree with a swing dangling from it. But Mr. Wilmington says he prefers to live like a Londoner and walk to work. “I’d live above the shop if it were up to me,” he once told me, “but Mrs. Wilmington thinks it’s cheap and common. This is our compromise.”
I bustled over to the place and was greeted by a trim, plainly dressed woman of about forty. I noticed right away something severe in her manner: hair back in a tight bun (hairstyles might not matter to you, but they tell me quite a bit, and Mrs. Wilmington’s style suggested a woman not given to frivolity or vanity), and lips pressed together in a humorless greeting. She didn’t seem inclined to let me in, but I took a step over the threshold as if I’d already been invited—it’s best in our line of work, I’ve found, to behave as if one belongs—and she stood back to let me pass.
“Mr. Archer sent me,” I said. “I’m Miss Sedgewick, the secretary, come to deliver a package that only just arrived.”
“Put it down, then,” she said. She offered nothing else by way of greeting, and why should she? I was of no consequence to her. A secretary is, in this way, the perfect cover. Nobody thinks twice about me.
The Wilmingtons’ apartment is a portrait of London life before the war, or at least what I’d imagine London life to be. As I understand it, they left in the fall of 1914, presumably to seek a better situation for themselves before Germany advanced too far. They brought absolutely everything with them: gilt-edged mirrors and marble-topped bureaus, framed engravings of pastoral English countryside scenes of the sort a man in the printing business might collect, high-backed chairs and carved settees, and good Indian rugs. Beyond the sitting-room I caught a glimpse of Mr. Wilmington’s study. Once again, it was the picture of an Englishman’s retreat: a leather chair, a roll-top desk, and a pair of brass lamps.
There were no figurines on display. The lady dancer would not, as far as I could tell, be joining any companions.
Naturally I remained suspicious of the figurine, but I could nonetheless conjure up a reasonable explanation. Someone could’ve hidden jewelry inside of it, for instance, to avoid customs duties.
Then, just as I turned to leave, Mrs. Wilmington bent down to sweep aside a rug caught under the door. In doing so, she managed to pop a button loose on her blouse and cursed softly under her breath. I was standing just close enough to hear her say, “Herrgott nochmal,” which translates loosely from the German as “Oh, my Lord.” It’s something my mother would say if she was particularly exasperated.
Until that moment, the few words Mrs. Wilmington had spoken to me suggested no trace of a German accent, but now I had to be sure.
“I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you,” I said, as I stepped outside. (She was practically pushing me out the door.)
“It’s no trouble,” she said. That wasn’t enough conversation for me to get a clear impression of her manner of speaking.
She was fingering the gap where the button had broken away. It was a flimsy shirtwaist with button-holes so poorly stitched that the fabric could tear easily. With that in mind I added, “I have a waist like that myself, and I had to do all the button-holes again. They just don’t hold.”
She smiled ever so slightly at that and said, “I should do the same, but I wouldn’t know how. Mr. Wilmington complained from the day we were married that I couldn’t so much as darn a sock. He wants me to take a class or hire a tutor.”
There it was—just the slightest trace of German in that word, “tutor,” under an otherwise perfect (to my ears) English accent. I’m not sure I would’ve noticed it had I not been listening for it.
“I don’t like to sew myself,” I said. I started to explain that I had a sister who handled all our seamstressing, but just as I did, I had an idea—which I’ll explain later, if it proves necessary.
In that moment, there was nothing more I could do without inviting suspicion. I wished her a good day and returned at once to the office.
I’ve given you as full a picture of the situation as I can, with the idea that you might decide to keep me on here for another week or two while I continue my duties as secretary, but take an opportunity to investigate the wife.
Is it at all possible that we’ve been looking at the wrong Wilmington?
Yours very truly,
Constance Kopp
Constance to Norma
September 10, 1918
&nbs
p; Dear Norma,
My work has taken an interesting turn. You won’t be surprised to learn that I’ve uncovered something that only a woman might notice. (In fact, it was something that only a German-speaking woman might notice.) It might lead nowhere—we never know, when we set out on an investigation—but if I’m right, I will have succeeded once again in convincing my superiors on this point: The Bureau needs every sort of American. Men, women, of German extraction or French or Spanish, Catholic, Protestant, and so on.
I saw something—or, more specifically, I heard something—that might’ve gone unnoticed by another agent. How much does the Bureau miss—or any police department, for that matter—if every officer is just like the next?
You don’t need to answer that. I only want to tell you that my quiet little case has just become unexpectedly lively.
I wonder how many letters you sent in August, and if they’ll ever arrive, or if they’re gone for good. It seems that every week we hear another awful story of mail being lost at sea. Just recently a German submarine sank a boat right off the New Jersey coast with forty thousand letters on board, plus another fifty sacks of parcel post. You’d be forgiven for writing only a line or two if you thought it was going to end up at the bottom of the Atlantic, but please don’t let that stop you.
It’s maddening not to know what you’re up to over there, and to have the letters be so terribly behind when they do arrive. I pore over the newspapers every day for news of a village of the sort where you might be stationed, but of course it’s impossible to guess. You could be anywhere. As long as you’re not at the front, I just have to trust that you’re safe.
Bessie has been going door-to-door in an effort to adopt French war orphans—not in the sense of bringing them here to New Jersey, of course. It’s a type of charity by subscription, in which a family pledges to send ten cents a day to benefit the child of a fallen soldier, so that the child may be kept at home with its mother or relatives and not placed in an orphanage. Bessie says that Americans have “adopted” 85,000 French orphans so far, and by Christmas it is hoped that our nation will adopt another 250,000. I’ve taken on two myself. They give you the names of the children: I am responsible for little Armandine Jourdren, of Vincennes, and Charles Vilfeu, of Sarthe. I don’t suppose a few dollars from an American does much to comfort a child whose father gave his life for France and for all the world, but when I’m absolutely staggered by the reports of bloodshed, the way I gather myself together is to think of Armandine and of Charles, and to imagine them asleep in their own beds, with someone to look after them.
Aggie must see the horrors of it first hand, every day. How is she faring at the hospital, and how are you getting on at the fort? I wish you could tell us more about it. You’ve made it clear that the men attached to your particular unit hadn’t ever given messenger pigeons any serious thought before now. Have patience with them. (I know you won’t, but absent any particulars, it’s the only advice I can offer.)
Yours,
Constance
Norma
Langres, France
Norma to General Murray
August 1, 1918
Dear General Murray,
I’ve had a few days to put a new operation together and I can now report on my progress.
As you know, the pigeon program has, for all practical purposes, been put into mothballs, owing to a litany of failures on the part of certain officers, beginning with the failure to dispatch field manuals along with the pigeons, thus making it impossible for soldiers in the trenches to deploy them properly. Military resources are now being squandered on the care and feeding of birds that will not, unless conditions change, be put to any use at all in our fight against the Germans.
Under the circumstances, I’m left with little choice but to find alternative methods of deployment that are not strictly under the command of the United States Army Pigeon Service. I realize that this is highly irregular and that I take some risk in reporting it to you, but I will take you at your word when you say that you wish only to have as complete a picture as possible to improve the training program at Fort Monmouth. If, however, you believe yourself to be obliged to report my activities, please do so without delay. I stand ready to face the consequences.
I now spend my days at the fort doing what I’m ordered to do, which is to keep the pigeons fed and housed and in sufficient condition to fly a mission, should they be called to duty—although it has been made plain to me that they will not be.
But my nights are my own, and with the time I have to myself I am doing all that is in my power to return the pigeons to their original assignment, that of aiding our soldiers in defeating the enemy. To that end, over the last several evenings I have constructed the following:
Twelve (12) cylindrical pigeon carriers, each meant to accommodate an individual pigeon, fashioned from discarded wicker-work and fitted with a metal clasp and a leather carrying strap.
Twelve (12) rubber bags, cut and fitted to drape over the carrier in case of gas attack.
Twelve (12) metal feed canisters to protect against rot and rats.
I then packed these supplies, along with twelve of the program’s best pigeons, into a crate and wheeled them to the train station to be distributed to those soldiers discharged from the American hospital and deemed fit to return to the front.
It must be noted that on the way, I encountered the town baker, Madame Bertrand, rushing back from the hospital with a cart piled high with crumpled flour sacking and bread-baskets. It was from her bakery, the Patisserie Confiserie, that I obtained the discarded baskets now in use as pigeon carriers. Madame Bertrand stopped to have a look at my handiwork and remarked that if I was capable of repairing wicker-work so tidily, I might repair hers rather than fish them out of the bin for my own use. I mention this only to make the point that the baskets are of a high quality, in spite of having been fashioned from ruined French wicker rather than anything supplied by the United States Army, which is no longer a party to this project.
I arrived at the train station just as the men from three units were being shipped back to the front, along with a rail-car full of supplies. With all the loading and unloading, there was a great deal of chaos on the platform. This provided an opportunity to speak to the soldiers without attracting the attention of their commanders.
To a man they proved unreceptive to my message. Soldiers on their way to the front are a nervous and morose group: many in this batch had only just been released from the hospital and were not terribly eager to go back. Three young ladies from the YMCA canteen were on hand to offer up sandwiches and words of encouragement. A custom has developed among the canteen girls to adopt a soldier as a filleul de guerre, a war-time godson, which entails a promise to write letters, with no romantic entanglements. A few more filleuls were hastily adopted on the platform as the men paced and fretted.
Into this scene of misery I waded, and addressed the soldiers as follows: “I’ve come to give you a pigeon to carry with you to the front for the purpose of testing a new messaging program. There’s a blank form attached to the bird’s leg already. You have only to write your name and the time of release. They’ve all been fed and won’t want anything for twenty-four hours. That should give you plenty of time to send one from the trenches.”
I had not anticipated that any reminder that they’d be living in a trench within twenty-four hours would be enough to send the men into another nervous fit. “You don’t know what it’s like out there, miss,” they each told me in turn. “I can’t look after a bird.”
Again I explained that the birds were no trouble to look after and came equipped with their own rations. That only got them talking about Army rations and how they’d miss the treats the canteen girls brought over to the hospital every day.
“Only the Brits use pigeons,” another told me, “and we don’t take orders from the Crown. General Pershing likes his telephones.”
Efforts to persuade them that a message sent by pigeon m
ight help save a life or win the war were met with disbelief and incredulity. When the train pulled away, I was left with a dozen birds in baskets, having failed to convince a single soldier to take up the experiment.
It’s no wonder the program as we had implemented it previously failed, as the men are entirely consumed with their own immediate needs and unable to grasp the strategic importance of messenger pigeons to the Army’s overall mission, that of defeating the Germans and liberating Europe from tyranny.
I’m forced to conclude that the commanders won’t order the use of the birds, nor will the men take them willingly. However, this is by no means the end of the project.
Another train departs next week. There will be pigeons on board that train.
Yours in service,
Norma C. Kopp
Aggie to Constance
August 7, 1918
Dear Constance,
I want to tell you about a kindness your sister extended to a soldier. She has warned me not to say a thing about her work, but I think that if you (or the censor, hello, Mr. Censor) read this carefully, you will find not one line that gives anything away.
A few weeks ago, she met a soldier named Forrest Pike who was in the hospital for what, I’m sad to say, passes for a minor injury around here. He lost a finger, when most men lose so much more. He’s quite healthy, otherwise, and has been bored during his recuperation. Nonetheless we must keep him here until his wound closes completely. There’s no possibility of a fresh bandage in the trenches, and we don’t want him back with an infection.
I begged Norma to go and visit him, but she genuinely didn’t see the reason why. She said she hadn’t anything to say to him. I explained that all the men are so lonely, and happy for any company at all. Forrest himself told me that the sight of American girls makes him want to get up and fight again.