The Best of Our Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  Twenty-four hours ago, all had appeared to be well in his world. Then it collapsed. Now, like this train being led along on the tracks, he was being led along, with little control of his destination.

  ooo000ooo

  Cognac prided himself on his composure. He had always considered that to be a secret agent’s most important asset. Staying calm, making careful judgements, avoiding silly mistakes. His composure had been fully tested this morning.

  The previous day had been hard enough. After the early morning excitement he had taken the tube down to the bedsit in Clapham where he had deposited his large suitcase and then taken a taxi to Victoria. Short walk so as to be near Quinn’s place for eight o’clock and, of course, it was a full three hours before he emerges. Follow him to Duke Street, watch him go in, wait five minutes which was as long as he could risk and then a taxi back to the house in Hendon for the last time. Final transmission to Berlin, letting them know that Quinn in work as normal, then pack up his remaining bags.

  Settle rent with Mr Fraser. The stooped figure of his landlord had opened his door before Cognac had finished knocking on it, no doubt having been peering through the spy-hole as was his habit whenever the front door of the house opened. Mr Fraser’s slightly hunched back made him appear shorter than he was. His accent had the very slightest trace of Scotland from where he had moved many years ago. As ever, he had a cold and was constantly dabbing at his nose with a crumpled handkerchief that may once have been white. Whatever his landlord’s intentions had been, they soon changed. Not only did Cognac tell him to keep the deposit (‘I am sure there will be the odd scratch and chipped saucer’) but he also pressed a five pound note into his grateful hands (‘Just in case any of my lady friends or their fathers come looking for me! If you could tell them as little as possible. I am a married man myself, you’ll understand.’) Knowing nod from Mr Fraser, who would very much have liked to be a married man himself, but flattered that the gentleman thought he would understand. He left Mr Fraser a fictitious forwarding address and then embarked on a series of criss-crossing bus journeys to Clapham. They confused him and hopefully would have the same effect on anyone following him. As the day wore on he had the occasional pang of regret: Stephanie, which he was now sure was her name, had been an enthusiastic lover — far more responsive that most women he’d come across in this country. It was a shame, he could have had a few more days’ fun.

  Later that night he cycled up to Pimlico, a journey vindicated by seeing Quinn’s distinctive profile by the window.

  Back there eight o’clock the next morning. Good job that the warren of roads afforded plenty of discreet places to wait. Street corners were always good, a couple of small blocks that he could walk round, sure in the knowledge that if Quinn left his flat he would not have gone very far by the time he came back round the block.

  The round little civil servant with the red face with the funny hat had come out as usual. Quinn left at a quarter to nine, but today was carrying a suitcase — and not a small one either. This was interesting. He turned left rather than going right or straight on as he normally did. Cognac was not altogether surprised to find themselves heading in the direction of Victoria Station.

  The crowds in the station were helpful. Plenty of cover. Of course, he had to work that much harder keeping an eye on Quinn, but that was not too difficult – his quarry was tall and his Royal Navy peaked cap distinctive enough to be very helpful.

  He stood in the queue alongside Quinn. The best way of following someone, he had been taught all those years ago, was by not being behind them all the time. People take too much notice of what’s behind them. You would never be expected to be followed by someone in front of you. Bit of a risk, if he reaches the ticket window before Quinn, but he is a Dutch refugee today and English his poor, so his failure to understand the clerk could delay matters long enough until he hears Quinn’s destination.

  Dover. He had never been there, though in the past few months he had had to make a few trips to Kent to see what he could find about all the Allied forces gathering there for the invasion. ‘Lots of them’ had been the essence of his subsequent reports. ‘All over the bloody place,’ as the English would say. Lots of security though. You needed to be careful down there. He was pleased he had chosen his Dutchman today, it was his most robust identity.

  The journey ought to have taken just under two and a half hours, but by the time they changed at Maidstone East and then Faversham, it had taken them the best part of four hours. He had nearly lost his man at Maidstone East, the platforms were so crowded. On the final train, from Faversham to Dover, he had ended up sitting in the compartment next to a young Navy officer. He chose a seat right by the door so he could keep a check on his movements.

  But the journey itself had been most useful. Tanks parked in fields in the distance, hundreds of them, literally. Around five miles outside of Dover he noticed heavy guns mounted on rail wagons parked in some sidings. They were covered in camouflage and would have been hard to spot from the air. He counted five of them in total. He memorised all the details. Large troop camps just outside the town and when the train pulled in to Dover Priory the station master’s announcement:

  ‘This train terminates here. All change please. There are no services to Dover Marine.’

  Even if he lost Quinn now – and there was a chance he would have a car waiting for him – he would still have plenty to report back tonight.

  He made sure he went through the ticket barrier ahead of Quinn and then paused to light a cigarette. The station appeared to have been bombed quite heavily. The end of one platform was fenced off and one of the buildings had been reduced to a pile of rubble. Quinn waited outside the station, looked around, glanced at his watch, looked up at the skies and then set off.

  The station was at the top of a hill. Quinn walked down the hill into the town centre, stopped to ask directions of a policeman and then carried on, this time up another hill. Around half an hour after leaving the station he arrived in front of Dover Castle. The security was very high. Cognac knew he had reached the end of his own journey. In the reflection of tea-shop window, he saw Quinn pass through the security barrier in the road outside the Castle and then through the heavily guarded main entrance, being saluted as he did so. He would have to go into the tea-shop and have a cup of disgusting English tea, in case anyone wanted to know the purpose of his walk up the hill. Then it would be back to London.

  Cognac was weary by the time he arrived back at Dover Priory Station. It was four o’clock and the station was quiet. Three policemen were on duty outside the station, taking care to check everyone as they entered it. This was going to be too risky. Cognac had taken care to remove his coat and hat, but he still needed to be careful. It would be difficult to have to explain to a policeman why he had come to Dover for less than two hours to purchase a cup of tea (‘Don’t they sell tea in London then, sir?’).

  He decided to go cross country. They taught you to do that, of course, but it was notable how tempting it was to disregard it. If you are in Manchester and need to get to London, it is very easy to take the direct route. But if you are being followed — and you must always assume that you are – then you are making it so easy for whoever is following you that you may as well have a sign on your back saying that you work for the Abwehr. Cognac had once left Manchester at seven in the morning and not arrived in London until nine o’clock that night. Four trains and six buses. Three department stores visited in between buses and trains. Hard to beat a good department store for losing someone in, with their lifts, back-stairs and gloomy corridors.

  There was a small bus station across the road and he headed there. One of the three buses that displayed any sign of going anywhere that day showed ‘Deal’ on its destination board and the driver had just started the engine. That would have to do. It was the opposite direction from where he was heading, but that was not a bad thing in itself. He knew the map of Britain better than his own country now.

&nb
sp; He paid the fare and slumped in a seat at the back. A mother and two noisy girls were occupying most of the back row and Cognac chose to sit in front of them.

  They arrived in Deal just after five. There was another bus waiting as they pulled in showing Ramsgate as its destination. That would still be heading away from London, but he could catch a train from there. Ideally he’d have tried to spend an hour or so in Deal, just in case he was being followed, but it was beginning to get late so he got on the bus.

  The journey was another long hour. The bus stopped in Sandwich for a while where it filled up with people and then wound its way to Ramsgate. He went straight to the train station. The restricted service on the south coast routes that had been so evident this morning had not improved. His best chance, the man at the ticket office told him, was to go to Chatham. From there he ought to get a direct train back to Victoria.

  The journey back was punctuated by a series of delays. Not long after the train left Chatham it pulled into a siding to allow three trains laden with troops and equipment to pass. He carefully counted the number of carriages on each train and even managed to spot some serial numbers on tanks. He closed his eyes as he tried to memorise the numbers, fighting sleep as he did so.

  It was about nine thirty by the time he walked out of a now quiet Victoria Station, buying a copy of the Evening News on the way. It was still light, although night was not too far away. He noticed four taxis waiting at the rank, but knew he must resist the temptation. He’d pushed his luck with taxis the previous day. Two bus journeys would be four times longer, but safer.

  It was a quarter past ten by the time he arrived at the bedsit in Clapham. He would encode his message and keep it as brief as possible, though there was plenty to tell Berlin tonight.

  He sank onto the narrow bed, with its greasy candlewick bedspread and a gentle tilt towards the wall. Not the kind of place he could bring anyone back to. He would have to find another place soon anyway. He fought sleep.

  He knew he was good, quite possibly the best, which was why he had survived so long. From the little that he could gather, he was one of the few German agents still active in Britain. Maybe now that the woman was in France, he was the only one still around, though he did suspect that she possibly had a radio-man somewhere out there and of course whoever had made the phone calls the day before. He had been careful today, he always was. But in his heart, he knew that they would catch him sooner or later. A policeman would be lucky or he would make a mistake. He had been so exhausted on the journey back that he did not like to think what would have happened if he had been stopped by the police in Deal or Ramsgate or if some officious train guard had decided to be difficult.

  And all for what? Germany was going to lose the war. Even allowing for the Allied propaganda, the evening paper made it clear that the invasion of Normandy seemed to be a success so far.

  What would happen then?

  Where would he go?

  Would someone in the Abwehr turn him in during an interrogation?

  And had it been worth it?

  For the first few years, of course it had been. He’d been a believer then. But now it was just a matter of survival. Maybe it was now time to put himself first. To contemplate retirement. He hauled the transmitter from under the bed. Ask me if it has been worth it when they lead me from the condemned cell. Ask me if it has been worth it when they slip the noose round my neck. Ask me then.

  ooo000ooo

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Pas de Calais

  5–7 June 1944

  Just before ten thirty on the night of 5 June, Geraldine and Jean left the house on the edge of the village where they had been listening to the BBC broadcast. The curfew was well underway, so they left their bikes in the house and returned to Jean’s cottage via the covered bridle path at the rear of the house. It brought them out into a country lane which they had to cross before entering the churchyard through the back gate. The graveyard was wrapped protectively around the church, the moonlight picking out some of the inscriptions on the gravestones. They crossed the graveyard, past the bleak memorial with the large cross on top of it, with the names of the twenty-five villagers who had fallen in the Great War picked out in metal characters. In her less composed moments, she imagined them pointing accusingly at her. The memorial had even started to appear in her dreams. The stone angels that adorned the gravestones had developed a habit of flying into her dreams, quick to arrive, reluctant to leave like the worst type of guest. She could barely sleep at night for the noise they made on the windowpane. When she entered the churchyard these days she looked down all the time, doing her best to avoiding the accusing looks. When she was very young, her father would take her to the cemetery where his parents were buried. ‘The people here,’ he would say, pointing at the statues and the graves, ‘they are the only ones who know everything that is going on.’ It had taken her nearly twenty five years to come to believe it.

  The peacocks in the chateau grounds could be heard in the distance as they entered the Impasse de l’Église and Jean’s cottage.

  The curtains in the front room were drawn tight and they sat around the table in darkness, apart from a band of pale light coming in through the half-open door that led to the kitchen. Jean poured two glasses of wine.

  ‘What do we do now, Geraldine?’

  When she had first met Jean, she had seen him as little more than a boy, deferring to her, seeking her approval and enjoying having a woman in the house. At other times, he was a man, strong and fast, and when they were out in the fields or woods at night, there was no one she would rather have with her. He never panicked and displayed a rare courage. She could never anticipate whether the Jean she was speaking to would be Jean the boy or Jean the man. The previous week she had got up in the middle of the night to fetch a glass of water and caught sight of Jean in his room, towelling himself down. What had unnerved her that night was not the sight of Jean, but the memories seeing him like that evoked of Owen. She lay in bed that night, not knowing what she would not give up for the chance to have him there with her for just one, unsettled night. By the time dawn pricked through the thin curtains, she wished she had spent the night with the stone angels.

  Now he was Jean the boy, relying on her to know what to do.

  ‘You heard the message tonight. Plan Green, the railways. Tomorrow we will need to contact London, so we will have to use the transmitter. Then we will know when we are to begin the sabotage. They will also give us more information. We need to sleep, Jean, the invasion could be starting very soon. It could even be underway now.’

  Neither of them slept well that night. Few people in the Pas de Calais did either. The Allied planes overhead were incessant. The sounds of bombs exploding in the direction of Boulogne and further to the north was deafening. At one stage Jean knocked on her door and asked whether they should be doing anything.

  ‘Like what, Jean?’

  ‘Maybe we should take to the hills, if the Allies are coming in tonight, they will need help.’

  ‘We stay here; try to sleep.’

  He hesitated in the doorway. For one tense moment she wondered whether he was going to come in. She could not possibly risk that happening.

  Pierre stopped by the house early the next morning. There were rumours that the Allied invasion had started, but much further west, perhaps in Normandy. The priest had told him that some villagers had reported seeing British paratroopers. No doubt there were other reports that General de Gaulle was already marching down the Champs Élysees. Was the tricolour flying over the Hôtel de Ville in Boulogne?

  ‘We will meet again this evening. By then we will know if anything has happened. Until then, we go about our lives normally. I go to school, Jean, to the farm. Geraldine, you go to the factory.’

  There were more roadblocks than usual on the road into Boulogne and in the town itself. Each roadblock had had at least one extra soldier on duty. One soldier who examined her card in the last roadblock before the fa
ctory looked no more than eighteen. His helmet was a size too big, but what was most noticeable was that his hands were shaking as he examined the identity card, holding it upside down at first. Geraldine gave him a smile when he returned it and he looked as if he was about to burst into tears of gratitude.

  She could see plumes of smoke rising from the port area in the distance and she cycled past one block that had been reduced to rubble overnight. But if the invasion had begun, it was not in this area. Apart from the normal sounds of the town, there was none of the noise and activity she would have expected with an invasion. But the coded messages on the BBC had been very clear. The invasion should have begun by now.

  The cacophony of noise in the factory made it difficult to talk. It also made it difficult to be overheard, which was always an advantage in her passing conversations with Françoise.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’

  ‘Just the same rumours that everyone has heard. Philippe says there has been a broadcast on the BBC that the invasion has begun, but no one has heard anything or seen anything.’

  An hour later Françoise brushed past, pushing her slightly against the bench. Geraldine did not look up, carried on assembling a plug and when she had finished went to the toilet. Françoise was washing her hands, they huddled closer together. Françoise turned up the tap to help muffle her voice.

  ‘One of the drivers has just returned from Calais. He says that German radio has announced a big Allied invasion in Normandy – on the beaches. They say that their forces are defending successfully.’

  ‘They would do.’

  ‘Surely, they wouldn’t report something if it hadn’t happened. I thought that the invasion was supposed to be in this region?’

  ‘I thought so too. It still could be. This could be an attempt to trick the Germans – to get them to move their forces away from this region.’