‘How’s Helen?’ he wanted to know.
‘Naturally she’s sad and lonely because she is missing you and Daisy. She tried to find the address of the professor, but it’s a safely guarded secret to all but a few. She wanted to thank him for having you and bring you both some gifts . . . mainly food, I believe.’
‘She was checking up on us,’ Miro said.
Simon wished he could remove that smiling mask from Miro’s face and find out what was going on behind it. He should be looking exhausted and depressed. Instead he was withdrawn, but otherwise unchanged.
By now the PWE had an excellent record of Miro’s progress through kindergarten, junior school and his eventual graduation to high school in Sudetenland. While they had no access to reports or his teachers’ views, via the Jewish Union they obtained an assessment of the boy’s abilities compiled by Rabbi Isaac Rabinowitz, who had coached him for his Bar Mitzvah.
‘A brilliant intellect, but sadly uncommitted to Judaism,’ the rabbi had written. ‘None of his close friends are Jewish, but he scores in Hebrew studies because of a good memory and a traditional Jewish background. Miro prefers soccer to music practice, but again he attains high marks because of his talent. He spends too much time at parties with his school friends. Uncommitted. Speaks Yiddish, Hebrew, French, Czech and German fluently.’ At the bottom of the report he had written: ‘God knows what he could do if he actually tried.’
Simon went over his file with him. ‘You’ve scored, Miro,’ he told him. ‘Your staunch refusal to pass on any information that in your view might be damaging to the Allied cause has brought you safely through this mess. I trust you, and so do the members of the PWE. What I’m going to tell you now is classified. Listen carefully: deception is destined to play a major role in the Allied campaign to invade the Continent. Basically, the job is to mislead the Germans into believing that Pas de Calais will be the site of the coming invasion. Eisenhower’s staff have created a mythical 1st Army Group, with an order of battle larger than that of Montgomery’s 21st Group. The phantom force will be based near Dover, just across the Channel from the supposed target; construction crews are building dummy installations of plywood and canvas and filling the space with inflated tanks and vehicles. Plus, a vast armada of rubber landing craft is being placed in the Thames River estuary, where German reconnaissance aircraft will be sure to spot it. General Patton, the American general the Germans respect the most, is to command this phantom army.’
Only the slightest inclination of his head showed that Miro was taking this in. Simon wished he would be more outgoing.
‘Supplying information on the progress of Patton’s force will be our immediate task. We shall be small cogs in a vast network of intelligence agents whose job is to signal to German analysts that a major military organization is in fact functioning. I am being supposedly transferred to the phantom army, so I shall spend more time in London, which I have to do in any event, in order for you to filch my information when I return. I shall carelessly tell Helen of these Allied plans. You will listen in to our fictitious conversations via a hole drilled into the back of your wardrobe and through the intervening wall. You got that?’
Miro nodded.
‘Improvise a bit, Miro. You might even ask Brannigan if he thinks this is a good idea. Heavy aerial bombardment of Calais will back up the ploy. Prior to the invasion, Allied airmen will drop more bombs on the Pas de Calais than anywhere else in France.’
‘Wow! What else can I say,’ Miro said, with a lurking smile.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Miro. Hold tight. It’s almost over.’
‘No, wait a minute, Simon. The worst of this is being so cut off. What’s the latest war news?’
‘Most of it is good. Allied tanks moved into Naples a couple of days ago; the Corsicans have turfed the Germans out of Corsica; Italian partisans are fighting the Germans, and the Red Army has cut off 150,000 German troops in the Crimea, plus the bulk of the Seventeenth Army. Allied air forces have stepped up bombing raids on Germany and countless wounded troops are being saved by a new wonder drug called penicillin.
‘That’s all I can remember. See you tomorrow. Goodnight, Miro.’
I am being taken apart and rebuilt, Miro told himself. I am learning to be useful, to be more of a man, to throw off whatever remains of my millstone of guilt. He felt depressed at the prospect of another long, lonely night and he missed his home desperately, but Miro had no intention of letting Simon know about his weaknesses. It was dark by seven p.m., so he faced twelve hours of loneliness, with only a dim electric bulb hanging from the high ceiling, which was hardly adequate to read the many military textbooks Simon had brought him.
Tomorrow would be the fifth and last day of Miro’s interrogation, Simon had been told, so he arrived in the morning to witness the proceedings. Josh, of PWE, was discussing Miro’s relationship with his controller as Simon walked in and took a seat at the back of the room.
‘Surely you knew that you should have reported this man to the authorities.’ Josh leafed back through the pages. ‘Just how many items have you given Brannigan?’
‘At least one a week, sometimes more, over a thirteen-month period.’
‘And you claim that during this time you gave him nothing relevant that could help the German war effort.’
‘Every piece of information is listed in detail, in the file. You’ve read the file.’
Simon stirred uncomfortably, but Josh carried on.
‘Do you regret giving him any one of them?’
‘Yes. All of them.’
‘And specifically?’
‘Well, maybe the one about the American equipment stashed around the streets. I estimated it all to the best of my ability and then I divided by five and gave him the figures. I reckoned they must know that the Yanks could not invade without this equipment, but still . . . maybe they didn’t know the true extent of it.’
The day dragged on. Simon was considering creeping out and then Dave took over from Josh and moved to another tack. He picked up a file and read from it.
‘I suppose you know that on September 9, 1941, the Parliament of so-called “independent” Slovakia, a Nazi puppet regime, ratified the Jewish Codex that stripped Slovakia’s Jews of all their civil rights. The government press boasted that the Codex was even more severe than the Nazis’ Nuremburg Laws. The full expulsion of Slovakia’s Jews to the camps began in March 1942. The fascist Slovak leaders were so impatient to be rid of the Jews that they paid the Nazis DM 500 for every Jew that the Nazis deported. Slovakia was the only Nazi satellite regime that paid cash to expedite the expulsion of its Jews. How does that make you feel, Miro?’
‘Are you asking me that? Don’t you understand how I felt and how I feel?’
‘I’m asking you . . . yes.’
‘When I was still in Prague, I felt second class. No . . . worse . . . let’s say tenth class. I saw the posters going up. I remember one read: “No Jew is ever going to be a parasite on the flesh of the Slovak Nation.” I longed to be anything but Jewish. Tension gripped me . . . and guilt because I was a Jew, and of course fear about what would happen to me and my parents. I wondered why we had nowhere to go, no country of our own. To be honest, until that time we had been patriotic Czechs. Later, after I was sent to England, I felt quite differently. No longer a Czech, but a Jew.’ For a moment he fell silent. Then he said, ‘I want you to understand that Helen, my foster mother, gave me back my self-respect and taught me to like myself. When the war ends, I hope to get involved with others in creating a Jewish Homeland, but for that I need to study law. Helen has offered to sponsor me, but I don’t want to take advantage of her. She’s not rich. I hope to save enough myself.’
‘And how do you feel about your boyhood friends now?’ Josh asked.
‘I miss them sometimes in moments of nostalgia. They were all right. Full of fun and derring-do. Later they were brainwashed. I don’t blame them. I blame the Nazis.’
‘Yet after this,
you still signed up to spy for the Third Reich. Why was that?’
‘Have you ever seen a young woman garroted?’ Miro asked. ‘I was taken to watch one woman dragged out to the garroting machine. She was beautiful, a recent arrival, not yet gaunt and hollow-eyed. She screamed piteously as they dragged her across the yard. I don’t want to describe what happened next. I expect you have guessed why I was taken to watch this execution: it was the fate they had planned for my mother if I refused to help them – or so our Gypsy supervisor told me.’
Dave interrupted Miro. ‘Terezin concentration camp was created to cover up the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews. A high proportion of artists and intellectuals are incarcerated there. A recent Red Cross inspection found Terezin to be a “model ghetto”. Are you saying that this is not true?’
‘It has to be a cover up. What the Red Cross wouldn’t have seen was starvation and disease, but worst of all was the constant dread of being transported to camps that were far worse. When I was in Dachau there were rumours of mass deaths – we never knew for sure. We all wanted to believe that we would be safe.’
‘So how do you feel about spying for the enemy of your people?’
‘How do you think I feel? Of the two alternatives the other was so much worse. How could I abandon my parents?’
‘And what do you think your parents would say about your decision?’
‘They would tell me to leave them to die, to always remember that I am a Jew.
‘I remember what my father said when we arrived at the camp. He knew that we would be separated. He said, “Hang on to goodness, Miro. There’s always a choice, you see. Choose the moral path and never forget that you are a Jew.”’
‘So you chose the immoral path and you forgot that you were a Jew. You betrayed your race.’
‘Not race, please, religion,’ Miro objected. ‘Or you could call Judaism a culture. Other than that, yes, I agree with you. But I made that choice because I love my parents. I wish you had known my mother as she used to be: gracious, cultured, beautiful and kind. She had so many friends, nearly all of them were musicians and she loved to entertain. So I decided that it was worth being a traitor, even at the risk of losing my soul, if there was a chance of keeping her alive. I thought about it and I made my choice. I don’t regret it for a moment.’
‘Yet you didn’t play the game with the Nazis, either. You betrayed them as well.’
Miro was smiling. ‘Nothing like enough. I wanted to kill them all. I would have killed Paddy, but Simon stopped me.’
‘Thank God! Well, Miro, we’re offering you a third choice . . . to be a double agent, undertake some vital work for us and keep your parents alive at the same time. This is a chance to redeem yourself, but make no mistake, it will be dangerous and you will have to be very smart indeed not to be caught by your controller. I don’t want to deceive you. Paddy will kill you if he finds out you are betraying him, make no mistake. That’s one of the reasons why we’re sending you to a special training camp in the north where you will learn a great many things you might need, such as unarmed combat.’
‘OK, Simon. This is where you take over,’ Dave said, looking over his shoulder. ‘He’s all yours.’
‘Welcome to MO, Miro.’
‘Which is what exactly?’ Tears of relief were threatening to shame Miro. He blinked hard. ‘Could the damn lights go off? My eyes hurt.’
‘Not so much of the “damn” Miro.’ Simon looked over his shoulder. ‘Could we have the lights switched off?’
Sudden darkness left Miro blinking and unable to see, but he could hear.
‘The Morale Operations Branch of G2 is part of US military intelligence. MO is cooperating with British Intelligence in this all out effort to fox the enemy. We practice covert strategic and tactical morale operations based on deception and subversion. In plain language this means that we attempt to break the enemies’ morale, also confuse them so that they cannot make the right decisions. We’re a late starter to the intelligence forces. Basically, from the US point of view, this group is only a few months old. MO output is unofficial, disclaimed by Federal Authorities and it is usually covertly disseminated to make it appear to be of enemy origin. You will continue to work with me and you will pass on whatever disinformation is given to you – solely by me, for the time being – and from now on you don’t have to make your own alterations because what we give you will be just what we want them to believe. Everything will have been passed by the Foreign Office.’
‘By the way, Miro,’ Alf cut in. ‘How did you change the messages to make them real enough to fox Paddy?’
‘I retyped the memos on Helen’s typewriter – she thought it was school work.’ Miro glanced apologetically at Simon. ‘Then I stuck my message on to Simon’s memo and photographed it. As I mentioned, Paddy gave me a camera. This made the operation much simpler.’
‘Are you old enough to drink, Miro?’
He grinned. ‘Officially or unofficially? Well, either way I’d like a lemonade, if you have such a thing. I’m dying of thirst.’
He was introduced to the PWE guys by Simon. Dick shook hands with him. ‘Your languages are going to come in handy,’ he said. ‘Particularly for our broadcasting stations. Just how good is your German?’
‘As good as my Czech. Sudetenland was mainly German speaking, but there’s a strong local accent.’
‘I’ll send you some tapes, via Simon. Shed the accent. We’ll probably need you – and many others like you – when we move into Berlin.’
Miro leaned back in his chair, sipping his lemonade and hoping that at last he was going to get into the fight against the Nazis. He indulged himself in his favourite dream, but just when the tank reached the gates of Terezin, Simon broke into his daydream as he said, ‘Finish your drink, Miro. We have to get moving.’
Twenty-Eight
Daisy was depressed. Leslie noticed and spoke to the other land girls, but no one could find out what was wrong. Big shadows appeared under her eyes and she tackled her work listlessly. Daisy was badly shaken. She loved Mike passionately, but he had not replied to her letter.
One morning, just before breakfast, Leslie handed her a letter which had just arrived. One glance told her it was from Mike. She fled to her room to read it in private.
Dearest Daisy,
I tried to call you at home. Finally I got through to John who told me that you’d left home and no one knows where you are. He said your mother is worried and depressed. She’s a great lady, Daisy, so please call her. I’m sure a call from you would transport her to heaven, just as your letter did me. Remember that our letters are censored and we can’t give any vital facts away, such as where I am.
Don’t expect a romantic letter, since so many others will read it, but my feelings for you remain constant, as I told you in the stables and at our last meeting. I was transferred here later that same evening.
It’s very pretty here. They have dances at the hotel on the cliff top, but I couldn’t bear to go without you. I think about you most of the time and I remember you telling me that when you turned sixteen, you and your mother joined your father for a short holiday, because he was working away from home. I think of this often and I dream of meeting you by chance, as I walk along the beach, which I like to do on my afternoon off, which is usually a Wednesday. Guess what! Yesterday I picked up a few pieces of coal wedged between the rocks. There is a wreck here, they tell me.
Daisy threw down the letter in a rage.What a lot of nonsense! Why couldn’t he write something sensible? Who cares if Mike found coal on the beach. But wait a minute . . . coal! Dad was in Brixham to refloat a tramp steamer full of coal, holed by six direct hits. The family stayed with him for the summer holidays in a hotel on the cliff top. ‘He’s there,’ she shouted. ‘Mike’s right there!’ She danced around the room, round and round, until she was so dizzy she collapsed on the bed. Suddenly she felt sad. They’d had a lovely holiday and now Dad was gone forever. He had succeeded in salvaging the boat, but
on the very day when it was due to be towed to Southampton, enemy bombers came and blew it to bits. The much needed coal was scattered all over the place.
She hugged her letter and sat on the bed, laughing and crying at the same time. ‘I will be walking along the beach on Wednesday afternoon if I have to kill to get there,’ she promised Mike solemnly.
Daisy sang to the goats as she milked them, and she talked to the pigs as she fed them and cuddled the cat and gave him some cream – which wasn’t allowed – and never grumbled when Mrs Jenkins asked her to sweep the floor and make her a pot of tea and some egg sandwiches, which strictly speaking wasn’t allowed, since she wasn’t a char. Nothing could dampen her spirits, she was as happy as a skylark, rising up and up, from one euphoric state to the next, bursting with joy.
‘My, you must be in love,’ Leslie said, when Daisy arrived at the hostel, having cycled three miles in the pouring rain. ‘Look at you, drenched, but smiling. It’s that letter you got, I’ll be bound. I’m going to run you a hot bath. We’ll forget about the five-inch rule for once. You have a good soak or you’ll be down with pneumonia. There’s a nice beef curry for supper, so don’t be late.’
Asking for a five-day holiday turned out to be more difficult than she had thought. Mrs Jenkins was alone and they had to find a replacement before she could leave, but then a young land girl complained that the farmer’s son where she worked was hitting on her, so she took over Daisy’s job at short notice.
‘Don’t be late back. Five days . . . that’s all,’ Leslie begged her.
So here she was, sauntering along the water’s edge at Brixham, just as she’d dreamed, wearing her rolled-up corduroy slacks and a thick, hand-knitted jersey under her duffel coat. She had arrived on the previous evening and found a room in a boarding house offering bed and breakfast, just around the corner from the sea. She had bought a sandwich and a lemonade for supper and shivered madly as she undressed, but whether this was from the cold lino, or the decor, she couldn’t say. Photographs of troops in the Boer War hung above her bed and around the walls were pictures of Victorian ladies clutching flowers, with pale swains on their knees before them. The entire catastrophe was set against ghastly mauve and green wallpaper.
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