Dennis Forster
Spies
on Bikes
Spies on Bikes
First published in Great Britain as a softback original in 2019
Copyright © Dennis Forster
The moral right of this author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
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In memory of
Elizabeth Forster née Gray
(1944-2018)
Tuesday 29th August 1939
1
Sir Charles took the call in his study.
‘Are you free to punt the pill?’ asked the familiar voice.
‘Give me time to check the weather.’
What did London want? To find out Sir Charles pressed a red button.
‘You can blab away now, Freddy, I’m on the scrambler.’
‘We need to use our eyes and ears in the North and that’s you, Charlie, my darling.’
‘Bit inconvenient that, don’t you know, it’s the shooting season. If I’m not out with the guns the dogs will sulk.’
‘Don’t play the mossback with me. This is a national emergency. I’m offering you the chance to hunt Germans. Better sport than shooting pheasants, what? And if you catch any, Germans I mean, you can set your dogs on ‘em for all I care.’
‘I’ve taken the fly; explain.’
‘Last week a Focke-Wulf Condor belonging to Danish Air Lines, flying from Croydon to Copenhagen, took a circuitous route home. Before crossing the North Sea it flew up the coast to your part of the world. The pilot was German. We know his name, have his biography, have seen his flight log. He is claiming temporary instrument failure. A cock and bull story if ever there was one. He is a fervent Nazi. He was spying.’
‘You think he’s seen the masts?’
‘That is exactly what I think. Jerry is a nosey fellow. He will want to know more, which brings me to why I might be going to spoil your shooting. Tomorrow a German steamer called the Nord docks at Newcastle’s Corporation Quay; your neck of the woods, what? Her passengers include a posse of Hitler Youth.’
‘Why, at this time of crises, is a German steamer bringing young Nazis to England?’
‘Hitler doesn’t think it will come to war. You and I have had lots of conversations with that pompous ass Ribbentrop … he doesn’t think England has the stomach for another war … and that’s what he keeps telling his boss … and his boss believes him. In the meantime, everyone’s pretending there’s not a black cloud in the sky … that it’s business as usual while preparing for the worst. I don’t know about you, Charlie, but I don’t like these new gas masks … the young Nazis claim to be coming here for a cycling holiday. I think they are coming to spy. If war does break out I can’t see them sitting back, drinking tea … they’ll go down fighting.’
‘Sabotage?’
‘Anything’s possible … if they cycle north our worst suspicions will be realised. The Daily Herald calls them ‘Spyclists’.’
‘Freddy, I only read The Times.’
‘Ditto. I only know the word because a low ranker used it in a report. Despite its origins I thought it apt. I’ll bet my last sovereign that these fellows are on a clandestine reconnaissance mission. Byker-Harrison is undercover on the boat. He spotted ‘em boarding at Hamburg. He’s a fox hunting man … how he manages to ride when he only has one arm I’ll never know but he does, and, like his hounds, he knows when he’s on to something. When he asked permission to follow ‘em … do a spot of low grade intelligence gathering, I told him ‘tallyho’. It is my experience that a sea voyage makes people think they are on holiday, makes ‘em loosen up, makes ‘em talk more, say things they’d never say in the office. He’s a brave chap. Once saw him jump a six foot wall to get a fox. Not for the first time he’s put himself in a bit of a tricky situation. It’s a German ship, you see, so there’s no one on board in authority he can take into his confidence.
‘Charlie, you are one of the small number of people who know the purpose of the masts. They are the visible sign of England’s secret weapon. If the boffins are right, we’ll be able to see Hitler’s Luftwaffe as flickering blobs of light on something like a very tiny cinema screen. It will give us precious minutes to scramble our fighters. We’ll know when and where to post him our reply. If this technology works, we’ll not be caught with our pants down. The Nazis will find that bombing England is not the piece of cake they found Guernica. If those cyclists on the Nord should decide to head your way I want you to flush ‘em out. Set the beaters on them.’
‘And when they break cover?’
‘That is the problem. One would like to shoot ‘em but they are not pheasants. Shooting pheasants is sport. Shooting people is murder.’
‘And we are not murderers?’
‘No, we are not. Some of the reports I’m receiving from Germany make me ashamed to be a human being. Anyone who opposes Hitler is taken away and shot. And as for the Jews, their crime is simply being Jewish. Terrible. Appalling. Which reminds me, how is your refugee, Jacob Schonfeld doing?’
‘Elizabeth and Cook spoil him and Mike and Margaret have all but adopted him. He’s quite a character, insists on being called Jack Field … says he wants to be English. He hates the Germans.’
‘If those ‘spyclists’ do head north best keep him out of their way. The Nazis murdered his mother and father.’
‘So I believe.’
‘After all he has seen and had done to him I can’t think of a better sanctuary for him than your estate in Northumberland. Believe me, I wish I could join you. London’s too full of men digging trenches and filling bags with sand. I saw two soldiers making sand pies … Charlie, I don’t think people realise the seriousness of the situation. All the titles are up north with their Purdy’s. And that’s where I’d be if it wasn’t for Hitler … damn envious of the hospitality you’ll be giving your American guests. When do you expect ‘em?’
‘The next few days … Elizabeth is flapping.’
‘I don’t need to remind you, but I’m going to anyway, to give the red carpet treatment to Professor Striker. She may be young and female but she is close to the President. She’s spent the last month touring Germany as his unofficial eyes and ears. I have it on good authority that when she gets back to the States she will be sending him a report on everything she’s seen. By all accounts she’s very good looking … not at all the bluestocking. Woo her, Charlie; treat her like one of your gun dogs. If it comes to war we must have America on our side. Too many Americans are isolationists. Any influence we can bring to bear to make that great democracy our ally will have the most tremendous consequences. Blow the dust off your box of diplomatic conjuring tricks; see if you can pull a few rabbits out of the mess that is Europe. In the meantime, missing you terribly. Your cook might be a dragon but her soufflés are out of this world. Charlie, this is an order … stay close to the phone. I have a funny feeling on this one. I think your country is going to need you. All my love to Elizabeth.’
Beneath the green shaded lamp on hi
s desk a cat purred. Sir Charles chucked its chin. Though it was summer, rain and gusting wind made it seem more like winter. He ordered a fire to be lit. The play of flickering flames on leather bound volumes and a collection of porcelain chamber pots soothed his anxiety. Yet, no doubt about it, Freddy’s phone call had made the unseasonal bleakness worse. The cat stretched out its head begging for more. He absentmindedly obliged, all his thoughts being on the deteriorating international situation … American isolationism, German aggression, the British guarantee of Polish ‘independence’. If Hitler did invade that country and Britain kept her word then the unthinkable would happen … Britain would once again be at war with Germany. In his left arm he had a piece of shrapnel from the war meant to end all wars. He put his hand down the sleeve of his tweed jacket. When it was damp, like today, it rose to the surface. And on top of all that, England was under attack from the IRA. In July one of their bombs had exploded in the King’s Cross left luggage office. One man had been killed and two counter assistants seriously injured. In Coventry, department stores had been wrecked. Another bomb had devastated Victoria Station. It was all too depressing. He added coal to the fire. When the world seemed on the brink of falling to pieces a chap needed warmth.
2
Vomit sloshed in the Nord’s stairwells. On a spray swept deck a less than stalwart member of the Hitler Youth asked a seaman if they were going to sink. In the vessel’s lounge bar a waiter slopped water onto a table cloth.
‘To stop the drinks go fall,’ he explained to the young woman sitting at the table. ‘Same again?’
‘Why not.’
‘That is ja?’
‘Yes, Gunther, that is ja.’
‘While you’re here,’ the middle aged man with one arm at the next table butted in, ‘mine’s a double Johnny Walker … none of your foreign rubbish, mind … with a splash of soda and I mean a splash … not half of what’s rattling this ship’s steel plates.’ He addressed the young woman. ‘It’s alright for a pretty young fraulein like yourself … you attract waiters … me? They ignore. As far as young Lohengrin’s concerned I could die of thirst. Byker-Harrison.’ He held out his one and only hand. ‘Odd shaking hands with your left hand … still can’t get used to it … the Somme.’
‘Marigold Striker … is it Byker-Harrison with a hyphen?’
‘Actually, yes.’
‘It makes you sound aristocratic … Byker-Harrison, how very English.’
‘American?’
‘Yes. I suppose if you were a German you’d be a ‘von something’. I wonder if there are any ‘vons’ over there?’ She gestured towards the group of Hitler Youth drinking at the bar. ‘You know, when those guys start ‘sieg heiling’ and clicking their heels I just want to laugh … it’s so comical, like watching an operetta set in Ruritania … the Boy Scout uniforms … I mean, are they for real?’
Men like Byker-Harrison liked to talk and expected women to listen. She often reflected that if ears increased in seize according to the amount of work they did then hers would be as large as an African elephant’s. She knew four categories of men: Oglers … Gropers … those who made a girl feel patronised and those who, for unfathomable reasons, a girl fell in love with … even if they were Oglers, Gropers and Patronisers. She prepared to be lectured.
‘Are they for real? I’m afraid they are, my dear. A few years ago, no one took the Nazis seriously, they were a joke, an extreme right-wing group that sane people thought had no hope of gaining power … now look where we are … on the brink of war. The master race is on the march and the rest of us had better keep out of their way. If we don’t wave ‘em through to wherever they want to go, expect trouble.’
‘Will Britain “wave ‘em through” if they attack Poland?’
‘Au contraire, my dear, the British Lion will roar.’
‘To defeat Germany in any future conflict I rather think the British lion will need the help of the American eagle.’
‘Your ambassador to the United Kingdom is an isolationist.’
‘Mr Kennedy wants to be president. He thinks Americans don’t want any part of a second war between Germany and the United Kingdom. He thinks being an isolationist is his ticket to the White House.’
‘You sound very well informed.’
‘In Boston the Strikers and Kennedys are neighbours. Daddy has done lots of business deals with Mr Kennedy.’
‘And very well connected.’
‘Plug me in and I’ll light up Manhattan … and you, Mr Byker-Harrison, could you light up Mayfair? And why are you carrying a gun?’
‘What sharp eyes you have.’
‘That’s what Little Red Riding Hood said to the Big Bad Wolf. When you leaned over to hector the waiter I caught the hint of a shoulder holster.’
‘I’m a policeman.’
‘British cops don’t carry guns.’
‘They do when their job is to protect the British ambassador in Berlin.’
‘You say you are a bodyguard but, excuse me, you only have one arm. Would it not be better for a bodyguard to have two arms? Mr Byker-Harrison … I do not believe you. You’re as phoney as the salt dough cookies dime stores put in their windows to advertise their wares … they look the real thing but eating them will break your teeth. I think you are what you Brits call “top drawer”. Cops crawl out of bottom drawers. Cops don’t have hyphens. I know a well-tailored suit when I see one … that’s not a rag you have on your back … that’s Savile Row. Daddy has one just like it and he’s a millionaire.’
‘Your Bloody Mary, fraulein.’
‘Thanks, Gunther, and keep the change.’
‘Danke. Your Johnny, sir.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
‘The Johnny Walker you ordered, sir … your whisky splash.’
‘And bring me the change … that’s a British pound note.’
‘Mr Byker-Harrison, has it ever occurred to you that waiters ignore you, not because you ain’t sexy but because you are mean? Try tipping. No wonder India wants independence. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dress for dinner.’
3
‘Are you free to punt the pill?’
‘Give me time to check the weather.’ Sir Charles pressed the red button. ‘Go ahead.’
‘Since our last parley-vous,’ began Lord Frederick, ‘I’ve been making enquiries … turned over a few stones you might say. A chap never ceases to be surprised. You know how it is, there you are enjoying a nice mouthful of juicy grouse, giblet gravy and all, when a molar breaks on a piece of shot. The amazing news is that thanks to the Boy Scouts … I mean thanks to the Boy Scouts of all people … we now have the Spyclists’ itinerary. Baden-Powell’s changing their nappies, don’t you know … arranging campsites for the blighters through his Scout movement. BP’s a nice chap, heart in the right place and all that, but like so many in the first echelon of our society, a dupe. He left my den this pm a chastened man. I bowled him a few home truths. He boasted that he’d met von Ribbentrop. I said, “Hasn’t everyone?” He thought the German “charming”. He’s been hoodwinked into thinking the Hitler Youth is an organisation similar to his own. Are the Nazis mesmerists? What a load of tosh!’
‘Boy Scouts do not murder Jews.’
‘Quite … if these bastards stick to their schedule they will be spending tomorrow in Newcastle. Then, and this is where you come in, Charlie, they are planning to travel north. They have expressed a wish to go bird watching on the Farne Islands. I’ve checked the map. If they take the coastal route, which I’m certain they’ll want to, they’ll pass close to the masts. And when they do they’ll use their Leicas like machine guns. Click. Click. Click. The Scouts have been instructed … now they know the score they are batting on our side … to point them in the direction of your estate … make their campsite where you can keep an eye on them. I want them where they can be stalked. Get your man Bert
involved.’
‘Freddy, Bert’s my butler. I think you mean Mike. Mike’s my gamekeeper.’
‘Sorry, Old Thing, never very good with names. It is my view that when a chap rises to the rank of butler he should be obliged by law to change his name to Butler, unless of course he’s already called Butler; same with gamekeepers, they should all be called Partridge, that way the lower orders know their place and yours truly doesn’t get confused; not good for HMG when the head of MI5 is made to look an ass. As I was saying, Bert or Mike, or whatever he’s called has a spot-on eye for the lie of the land. Without his help last year I’d never have bagged that five-pointer … damn proud of that shot. The Vicarage will also come in handy … lots of our men there if they should be needed … lots of expertise. Never thought we’d be using that facility so soon … and the war hasn’t even started. I’m no voyeur, Charlie … take no pleasure in snooping, but the spooks tell me that if it comes to war and we put wounded Nazis into Ward Nine of your cottage hospital our men in the Vicarage will be able to hear them taking a pee, scratching their what’s it … and other things. I mean we can’t say to their wounded we’re not going to give you medical help unless you tell us your secrets, can we? That would be against the Geneva Convention. And we are British, aren’t we? So, we listen to them farting on their bed pans telling each other how they never expected to be treated with such kindness, oh, and by the way, our secret weapon that Tommy knows nothing about is … Charlie, fill your twelve bore with black powder and when you see ‘em … let ‘em have it … turn ‘em into chimney sweeps. I have a meeting in ten minutes with Mr Churchill. He may not be in the government but he’s got lots of influence. If he bumped into your Nazi campers he’d use real ammunition on them. Please give my love to Elizabeth. I’m missing the moors something rotten.’
The barometer began to rise. Better weather was on its way. Through rain streaked windows Sir Charles observed drooping delphiniums and lopsided lupines. He enjoyed summer rain. It refreshed the land. The downpour had been needed.
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