by Wilbur Smith
“Go ahead.”
“As you know, I have the highest opinion of Ensign Courtney, and I have no doubt of the significance of the intelligence she is carrying. But I feel bound to point out, as a devil’s advocate, that this is a high-risk operation. If things go wrong, our enemies in Whitehall won’t hesitate to use it against us.”
“I know that, Major. But let me ask you: if you were in my shoes, would you order this mission?”
“Without hesitation. There’s a danger of losing Courtney if we try to get her out. There’s a virtual certainty of losing her if we don’t.”
“Then we’d better go and get her, hadn’t we?”
•••
Feirstein was not a senior Gestapo officer, yet circumstances had dropped the Schröder/Marais case in his lap and he had the ambition and initiative to take control of it. He was assembling scraps of evidence, like pieces of a jigsaw. He had not connected them all to create the entire picture. But he felt sure that it would not be long before everything became clear.
Piece one: Marais had taken the train to Liège. She had been seen leaving the station and spotted walking through the city, but her destination was unknown.
Piece two: that same evening a Renault car had been stolen from a village outside the city. It was recovered the following morning but its owner, a local mayor who was keen to cooperate with the German authorities, was able to confirm, both from the odometer and the fuel gauge, that it had been driven around one hundred kilometers since he had last seen it.
Piece three: a garage mechanic, working late, recalled seeing a black Renault traveling through the village of Cornémont, twenty kilometers southeast of the point where the car was stolen.
Piece four: a listening station had picked up a message, sent the next evening, from an area that was consistent with the journey taken by the Renault. The message had not been decoded, partly because the cryptographic staff had other priorities and because the code matched none that they had seen before.
Hypothesis: a person or persons unknown had helped the suspect Marais to get out of Liège, hidden her away in the countryside and then contacted her bosses in London. Now it was a matter of finding her.
Feirstein gave two sets of orders. The first underlined the importance of maintaining vigilance in all railway stations and all cross-border trains between Belgium and France. Under no circumstances should Marais, or anyone answering to her description, be allowed to leave the country.
Having trapped her within Belgian borders, the second imperative was to locate her. Gestapo personnel were instructed to contact the thousands of Belgians living in an arc southeast of Liège, between the city and the border of the Reich, who had volunteered information to the Secret Police. Ask them about suspicious movements, anyone who was believed to be involved in subversive or resistance activity, and, in particular, anyone who might possess a radio transmitter capable of sending a message to London.
•••
Fritz Krankl was a colleague, a comrade and, to some extent, a friend of Feirstein. But he had been trained to operate in a world that—on the strict orders of the Führer—ran on brutal Darwinian principles. Nazism did not believe in God, but it possessed a profound faith in the survival of the fittest. One service was pitted against another, units within services competed to see who could produce the best results, and men were in a state of constant conflict, even with their friends.
Krankl could see no good reason to be helpful to Feirstein. Of course, the spy Marais had to be apprehended. But it would be better for Krankl if he were the man to do it, and an act of lunacy to give Feirstein the means to do it himself. The suspect was believed to be hiding in an area of Belgium that fell under the control of the Liège Security Police Office, of which the Gestapo was part. Krankl was the officer assigned to the case. He would therefore be the one to arrest the woman.
He had a lead. Prosper had been useful. There was a woman, a farmer’s wife called Fabienne Moreau, who lived near the town of Spa. So far as her wide circle of female friends knew, she was a delightful, charming, sweet-natured soul, in whom they could confide all their secrets. But Madame Moreau harbored secret resentments. Her husband was a drunk. She was convinced he was having affairs with local women. The other women in her set regarded her as a saint for remaining loyal to her feckless man. But she seethed with hatred at the way they looked down on her, deceived her, stole what little was left of her pleasures from her own bedroom. The thought of her husband coupling with these women enraged and disgusted her, filled her with bitter betrayal. And when the Gestapo offered her the chance to get back at them, she had leaped at the opportunity. But her information had value and she was determined to find the best price.
The Gestapo officer who had contacted her gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. “OK,” he said.
“You should go to the Deforges’ farm,” she told him. “I remember, one of their boys was always tinkering with radio sets.”
“What was the name of this boy?”
Madame Moreau thought: which of them was it? There was Henri, the older one, and then the younger brother . . . What was he called?
“The name, please,” the Gestapo man insisted.
No, it can’t have been him, anyway. Henri was the practical one, forever making things, or fixing his father’s car. It must have been him.
“Henri Deforge,” Madame Moreau said. “I’ve got their address, if you want it.”
•••
The next morning, Saffron had opened the hideaway door and was about to pull the boxes aside when she heard vehicles, a truck and car, coming down the drive that led from the road to the farmhouse.
She closed the door and sat down on her mattress.
There was nothing she could do except sit and wait, and pray that no one decided to find out what lay behind that pile of tea chests.
•••
Julie Deforge was standing at the front door, peering out at her courtyard and doing her best to remain calm as she watched the soldiers get down from their truck. The passenger door of the car opened and Krankl emerged. He was wearing a plain business suit. That frightened Julie even more than the gun that the soldier next to him was carrying. It meant that he was Gestapo.
She heard Luc walking down the hall behind her, then felt his hands on her shoulders as he gently moved her out of the way, saying, “I’ll deal with this.” He stepped outside.
Julie followed her husband through the door. Luc was a good, brave man, but his nature was too honest, too direct. She loved him for those qualities as a husband. When dealing with the Germans, however, honesty was rarely the best policy, and he could panic under pressure. He might need her to protect him from himself.
Luc stood in front of the door, legs apart, hands in his pockets, looking Krankl in the eye as he asked, “What do you want?”
“Are you Luc Deforge?”
“Yes.”
“And this is your wife, Julie Deforge?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“You have a son, Henri, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And he is a keen radio ham?”
Without thinking, Luc responded, “No, that’s—”
Before he could finish the sentence, Julie dashed forward, grabbed her husband’s arm and said, “Don’t, Luc! Don’t try to deny it!” She looked into his eyes and prayed to God that he understood what she was doing. “Don’t you see? It’s not worth it.”
She turned toward Krankl and said, “Yes, it’s true. Henri has been keen on radios since he was a small boy. Why do you ask?”
“We have intercepted radio transmissions being sent by British spies to their masters in London. The transmissions came from this area.”
“Well, Henri can’t have sent them, officer.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s in Germany, working in a factory. Your people called him up and sent him away.”
“I see . . .”
Krankl inwardly
cursed the informant who had sent them on this pointless mission. But all might not be lost. “It is possible that someone else may have used his equipment. Show it to me now . . . or my men will find it and believe me, you will regret your non-cooperation.”
“Yes, of course, officer,” Julie said. “Follow me.” She had taken charge now and Luc, seeing what she was up to, was letting her get on with it.
Krankl turned to the senior sergeant next to him. “Stay here, Schmitt. Make sure your men are ready if I need them.” He went into the house with the Deforges.
Julie led Krankl to André’s bedroom, which was much as it had been when he was a boy. A basic crystal radio set was sitting by a window that looked out onto the garden.
“That’s my son’s radio,” she said. She gave a laugh and said, “But I don’t think it could reach London. My son had enough trouble speaking to his friends in the village.”
“Is this all there is?” Krankl asked.
“I think there are some more parts for it in the table drawer, but don’t ask me what any of them are.”
Krankl opened the drawer and was met by a mass of wires, old valves, a radio crystal and some screwdrivers and other tools.
“I hope that reassures you, officer,” Julie said. “We are good people. We want a quiet life. We don’t want to cause any trouble.”
She could see the German weighing up what to do next. Please, God, don’t let him search the house, she prayed. Don’t go up to the attic. Don’t try to look in the tea chests.
Krankl sensed Julie was nervous, on edge. But that meant nothing. Anyone the Gestapo ever met was terrified.
He walked downstairs. Everything the Deforges had said was unremarkable, and it would only take a couple of hours to check whether their son was in the country or not. He would have done that basic background check already if there hadn’t been such a hurry to solve the case. There was something nagging him: Why did the wife interrupt her husband like that? What was he about to say?
He looked back at the farmhouse. There was something going on here, he was sure of it. But there was no point interrogating the Deforges if he didn’t know the right questions to ask, nor in tearing the house apart if he didn’t know what he was looking for. It would create further resentment among the locals.
The better option was to make them think they’d got away with it and then let them hang themselves.
Krankl walked toward his car, telling the sergeant, “Let’s go.”
Once he got to the car, he told the driver, “Take me to the police station in Spa.”
The car set off, followed by the truck. When they reached Spa, Krankl spoke to the chief inspector who ran the local police station. He gave him the address of the Deforge’s farm.
“I want it watched,” he said. “Round the clock. Be discreet.”
He headed back to his vehicles. Fabienne Moreau had not been the only informant claiming to have information about radio users. Word of the money they had paid Moreau passed from house to house. And Prosper had given them another six leads to check.
•••
The pilots of R.A.F. 161 (Special Duties) Squadron were based at Tempsford, in Bedfordshire, an airfield whose existence was as secret as the work they did there to the Nazis. For it was 161 Squadron’s task to fly by night, ferrying the agents working for SOE and various other intelligence agencies in and out of Occupied Europe. The few men and women who knew what they were up to called them the Moonlight Squadron.
In his office, Wing Commander Percy Pickard, known to all his men as “Pick,” perched his lanky figure on the edge of his desk, one hand in his pocket. Opposite him sat one of his best men, Flight Lieutenant Bobby Warden, whom he’d called in to discuss an urgent assignment that had been dropped into the squadron’s lap.
“It’s a rush job, Bobby, can’t pretend otherwise, but I thought it would be up your street,” Pick began. “A damsel in distress needs a knight in shining armor to rescue her. Damned good-looking damsel too, from what I hear.”
“I hope she’s suitably grateful, sir,” Warden had replied. “Happily ever after, and all that.”
“Seriously, old chap, this one’s top priority. Baker Street wouldn’t go into any details, you know what they’re like. But they made it plain that this young lady’s picked up some damned important gen. The Photographic Reconnaissance Unit have sent a Spit over the area; should have the pictures midafternoon. Feast your eyes on them before you take a shufti down to Tangmere for fueling and the final check-up.”
“I can’t help noticing that you haven’t told me where I’m going.”
“The destination will tell you how desperate they are to get this girl back to Blighty . . . You’re going to Belgium.”
Warden could not believe his ears. “Belgium? But I thought it was a matter of policy: no drops or pick-ups from the Low Countries. Too crowded, too little open country, too much ack-ack.”
“That is the policy, yes. But not tonight. Here are some crumbs of comfort: the moon’s almost full tonight, and the weather men are predicting clear skies most of the way, so visibility shouldn’t be an issue. As an added bonus, Bomber Command have got a big show on tonight. Seven hundred Lancasters and Stirlings bound for Frankfurt. They’ll be flying over Belgium, so that should keep the local ack-ack and Luftwaffe boys busy, provide a spot of diversion for you.”
“Well, it should be an interesting ride, sir. We’d better hope she’s worth it.”
•••
An hour or so after Krankl’s visit to Spa, one of the local police took up his station outside the Deforges’ farmhouse. At lunchtime, Luc rode a bicycle through the gates of his property. It had a basket on the front, inside which were a bottle of home-made cider and a ham baguette. He waved to the policeman, dismounted and wandered over, carrying the provisions.
“Salut, Pierre!” he said. “Julie thought you might like some lunch.”
“Ah, Luc, my friend, you’re a lucky man to have a wife like that.”
“Oh, I know, believe me. So, you’re watching us, eh?”
Pierre shrugged. “Pah! What can I do? Some Gestapo son of a bitch said you were to be put under observation, round-the-clock.”
“I wonder why?”
“Who knows what goes on inside their crazy Nazi heads?”
“You won’t have much to observe, I’m afraid.”
The policeman chuckled. “Even if I did, I’d be sure not to see it.” He looked around to make sure that he could not be overheard and added, “Whatever it is they think you’re doing, I hope it goes well.”
“Thank you, Pierre, I hope so too. Whatever it is. I’m going to Manu’s bar to get some cigarettes. Do you want any?”
The policeman shook his head, unwrapped the paper that surrounded the bread and ham, and took his first, delicious bite.
At the bar, Luc bought his cigarettes and used the payphone to call the university laboratory, where his son was studying for a Master’s degree.
“Hello, André, it’s Papa. We’re very much looking forward to seeing you for dinner. I thought you should know that we have some unexpected guests. We’ll see you at eight.”
•••
Unlike Tempsford, R.A.F. Tangmere was anything but secret. During the battle of Britain it had become famous as one of Fighter Command’s key bases and since then it had been home to two of the R.A.F.’s most celebrated aces: Douglas Bader and Johnnie Johnson. It was also the base from which 161 Squadron flew missions that required agents to be delivered or picked up from the ground in Europe, as opposed to those who were parachuted in. But the Moonlight Squadron’s presence was so clandestine that its pilots never entered Tangmere’s officer’s mess.
They prepared for their missions and relaxed after they had been completed at a cottage outside the airfield gates. It was a charming, rustic place, with low ceilings, black-painted beams and roaring log fires to ease the chill of the cold night air.
On this evening, Bobby Warden, who had flown any nu
mber of missions in and out of France, was sitting at a table in the cottage living room, doing his best to familiarize himself with the route to Belgium.
Over the eighteen months of their squadron’s operational activities, Warden and his comrades had learned that a man’s survival had little to do with his daring or skill as a pilot, but depended almost entirely on the thoroughness of his preparations.
That afternoon, at Tempsford, he had been provided with a number of charts, which showed the land and water he would cover on the three-hundred-and-fifty-mile flight to the landing point near Spa. He had drawn the line of his course across the charts in a thick grease pencil. Around the line were notes, arrows, stars, exclamation marks and other symbols reminding him of any threat, like a Luftwaffe base, or a known anti-aircraft battery that he had to steer clear of.
He had cut out a series of rectangular sections of the chart, each of which showed a portion of his course, and the terrain, or water, on either side of it. Finally, he stuck the sections of his course onto pieces of cardboard of matching size, numbered them and piled them in sequence, with the first section of the journey at the top.
Experience had shown that this was the handiest way for a solo pilot, in a cramped cockpit, who could not unfold and examine charts, to give himself some chance of navigating his way across the Channel or North Sea and across long stretches of hostile territory to destinations that tended to be in the middle of nowhere.
Warden also had a selection of the reconnaissance pictures taken earlier in the day. They revealed both good news and bad. The good news was that his destination should be easy to spot, since it was off a main road, with the town of Spa a few miles to the northwest and the Spa-Francorchamps motor-racing circuit to the southeast. This, however, was also the bad news. He was going too close to too many people for comfort.
Another of the squadron pilots wandered over to where Warden was sitting and looked over his shoulder at the charts he was butchering. “Where’s that?” he asked. “Doesn’t look like anywhere I know.”
“Belgium,” Warden replied.
“Bloody hell.”