The boy tightened his grip on the rope, and swung out. He sailed through the air like a pirate swooping between two ships, dropped with a satisfying thump on the roof of the dining hall, then scrambled down on to the main school roof. He turned on his heel and ran blindly on – missing the open skylight in his path . . .
With a startled yell, he fell straight through the hole, landing on a large round table then crashing on to the floor, papers cascading around him.
Grimacing with the pain and trying to catch his breath, he glanced up at the skylight. Catchpole was staring down at him. The cricket captain slowly ran his finger across his throat, then disappeared from view.
“So glad you could drop in,” said Professor Maddox.
The boy scrambled to his feet and smoothed back his hair as the dust settled in the room. He was really in trouble now.
“You know, your behaviour continues to confound all standards of English decency,” continued the headmaster. As he spoke, the boy noticed there was another man in the room, sitting opposite. A tall, thin man, with keen grey eyes. He was dressed in a light summer suit and puffing on a cigar.
“Sorry, sir.”
“Stand up straight when you speak to me!” Maddox barked, his eyes darkening.“This is Admiral MacPherson of His Majesty's Royal Navy.”
The young man stood to attention and swivelled his eyes to the other man.
MacPherson was studying him carefully. “That was quite an entrance,” he said.
Maddox rose from his chair. “Incredible as it seems, the admiral has a proposition for you.” He couldn't hide the disdain in his voice. “I'll tell you again, Admiral,” he added in an acid tone, “this boy is trouble.”
“That's the sort we need,” MacPherson replied.
“Yes,” said the boy. “The answer is yes.”
Both men looked at him sharply.
“What?” Maddox said.
“To the admiral's proposition, sir, yes.”
“You don't even know what he's going to ask you, you foolish child!” Maddox said, exasperated.
“Does it get me out of this place, sir?” the boy asked.
MacPherson nodded. “It does.”
“Then my answer is yes.”
“I told you he was a half-wit. I'm afraid your journey's been wasted, Admiral.”
MacPherson ignored the headmaster. He stubbed his cigar out in the ashtray. “Go and clean up, get your things, young man. My car is outside.”
“I'll do that, sir.” The boy grinned, then looked at the headmaster, waiting to be dismissed.
Maddox was incandescent with rage, but could do nothing. “Get out,” he said.
The boy needed no second invitation.
Back in his dormitory, he changed out of his cricket whites and pulled on a short-sleeved grey Aertex shirt, a dark blazer, grey trousers and black shoes. Then he slid under the metal-framed single bed and pried up the floorboard he'd previously loosened to use as a hiding place. He reached down into the cavity and retrieved a small metal tin. Inside was a five pound note, some coins, his father's gold watch and a new British identity card. He glanced at the watch's face, the hands still frozen at 3:20 p.m.
The dormitory was hot and airless and mercifully silent. He put the watch into his blazer pocket, and everything else into a canvas backpack, along with a few other clothes. He left the school uniform behind.
The boy hurried back through the school, past a group of classmates who jeered and gave him the Nazi salute. He ignored them and kept walking until he reached the dining hall. He stopped outside the main door and listened. The two cricket teams were inside having tea. He could hear the familiar voices and laughter of his tormentors. He peeked inside.
“. . . And then the dirty little sausage-eater started screaming for his mummy and daddy.” Catchpole was enjoying embellishing the tale. “Mutti, Vati . . .” The others were laughing hysterically as he leapt up from the table and began to goose-step around, holding two of his fingers horizontally under his nose, mimicking Hitler's moustache. “Vater,Vater . . .” He suddenly stopped as he saw the boy at the door. Silence fell.
The boy walked across the room. “I'll say goodbye then, Catchpole.”
He landed his punch full in Catchpole's face, square on the bridge of his nose. He even heard the bone crack. Then he turned and walked calmly back to the door as Catchpole's knees hit the wooden floor and his hands rose to catch the blood spurting from his shattered septum. The other cricket players were frozen to the spot.
As soon as the boy stepped out of the hall, he sprinted towards the school's entrance. A moment later and a roar of angry voices erupted from inside. If they caught him now, he was a dead man.
Admiral MacPherson was standing beside a blue Hudson parked in the driveway.
The boy slammed to a halt beside him, his shoes skidding on the gravel.
“I'm ready to leave, sir,” he said gasping for breath.
“Now, just a minute,” said MacPherson, resting a hand on the boy's shoulder. “We mustn't be too hasty here.”
Behind them came the shouts and yells of the enraged cricket mob.
“Really, sir, it's fine, let's go.” The boy looked anxiously back. The mob had appeared at the school's entrance, about fifty metres away. They were baying like hounds for blood.
“What the British government is asking of you,” said MacPherson, “is extremely dangerous. In fact, I'll be blunt, it could be life-threatening.”
The mob was almost upon them. Two weeks in the sick bay was the minimum he was looking at for breaking Catchpole's nose. And when he came out, his life would be hell.
“I understand, sir. Really, I do. Can we please go?” The boy was almost pleading now.
“You're sure?” MacPherson said.
The mob was ten metres away.
“Yes!”
“As you wish.”
MacPherson stepped aside and the boy threw himself inside the car. The admiral followed smartly, slamming the door behind him.
“Go!” he ordered the driver.
The car's wheels spun on the gravel as the mob reached the car. The boy turned to look back through the rear window. His tormentors were standing impotently in the driveway, sprayed by the dust thrown up from the tyres. He flicked them Churchill's famous two-fingered “Victory” sign and settled back into the leather seat, for a moment savouring his settling of scores and successful escape.
“Quite a send-off,” MacPherson remarked drily.
The boy reached into his jacket and felt for his father's watch. It was still there.
“You saved my life,” he said, his heart thumping.
CHAPTER 4
LONDON – THE NEXT DAY
The girl settled herself behind the steering wheel and turned the key. The engine fired. This was always her treat at the end of the “blood run”. Judy allowed her to drive the last few miles back to her home and now, after six months, she had become pretty good at it, it had to be said. Judy watched as she eased the car into first gear and pulled away from the bus stop where they always swapped over. She swiftly changed up to second and third with a hitch. She watched the needle on the speedometer flick up to fifty miles per hour and grinned. She loved being behind the wheel, it made her feel so grown-up, and there was the thrill of doing something illegal, too! Not that anyone cared – after all, young men only a few years older than her were being killed every minute.
“That's it, duckie,” Judy said approvingly. “Feeling much smoother today.”
The sun was just beginning to drop when the girl turned the corner into the modest suburban road where she lived. She couldn't resist accelerating the last hundred yards.
“Look out!” yelled Judy, and the girl had to slam on the brakes to avoid ramming the car parked outside her house. The car screeched to a halt and Judy lurched forward.
“It's practically the only other car in the street. You need your eyes testing, I swear,” she said, but she was smiling.
�
�Sorry, Judy,” the girl said. “See you next week.” She climbed out of the car and Judy slid back behind the wheel.
The girl watched the car pull away, and only then did she study the blue Hudson outside the house. She knew all the different cars in London now. Hudsons were big American cars favoured by the army and navy. This one had a navy pennant on one of its wings.
The girl hurried up the short path to her front door. A modest two-up two-down, with a vegetable patch and an Anderson air-raid shelter, which housed a zinc bath and an iron mangle, it was a long way from their elegant villa in Vienna. No nanny, no maids. But it was home now. Their home.
The moment she opened the front door her two sisters, Zelda and Ruth, aged sixteen and eighteen, pulled her inside and quietly eased the door shut, their fingers on their lips.
“What's going on?” she whispered.
Zelda and Ruth were wide-eyed with excitement.
“Es ist ein admiral from the Royal Navy in der Küche,” hissed her second sister, Ruth, mixing her languages as she pointed to the room beyond the stairs. They had agreed to speak English at home, but Ruth had the most trouble keeping to this rule.
“Are you sure?” the girl said. It didn't sound very likely, but there was the car outside.
“We're sure. And he's come to speak to you!” said Zelda. “He's been in there with Mutti for over an hour.”
”Me?” said the girl. She was astonished.
“Well, go on,” said Ruth, giving her a shove towards the kitchen.
“All right,” said the girl. But she didn't move. She was racking her brains trying to think why an admiral was calling to speak to a fourteen-year-old Austrian refugee in Mill Hill. Nothing so dramatic had happened to them in the three years since their arrival in London. Well, except the Blitz, of course. But that had been terrifying rather than exciting.
“You're not moving,” said Zelda.
“Stop bossing me, I'm going.”
She walked down the hall and knocked on the kitchen door. Mutti opened it almost immediately and stood looking at her with a grave expression. The girl glanced past her; she was taller than her mother now, having grown a good four inches in the last two years. A tall, thin man was standing in front of the small kitchen fire grate. He was wearing a dark three-piece suit, with a gold watch chain hanging in two neat loops across the waistcoat. He smiled at the girl amiably, but his grey eyes were sharp.
“This is Admiral MacPherson,” said Mutti, shutting the door on Ruth and Zelda. “He is here to ask you something.” She sat in her usual place at the kitchen table, her hands tightly clasped and her lips pressed together. She was clearly agitated. The girl moved to the sink and remained standing.
“That is very valuable work you are doing for the Blood Transfusion Service, young lady,” MacPherson said. “And a first class report from your school. Academic, good at languages, and a first-class runner, too, I see.” She noticed he was holding a small grey folder.
“Thank you, sir,” she replied, wondering what else was in the folder. “I enjoy the blood work. I mean . . . I am pleased to help after all Great Britain has done for us.”
“Good, we need all the help we can get right now. Which is the reason I am here. We would like you to do something even more important for the war effort.”
“Important but very dangerous. She's only fourteen, Admiral,” added her mother, sighing heavily.
“As you can imagine, your mother is understandably against your agreeing. However, she has consented to my asking you. So, do you wish to help?”
“Help with what?” the girl asked.
MacPherson smiled. “I like your bluntness. But in order to tell you anything more, I must ask your mother to leave the room.”
“What?” exclaimed the girl's mother, alarmed now.
“At present this matter is known only to myself, the Prime Minister and a small number of highly trusted individuals. I can only speak of it to your daughter alone, subject to the Official Secrets Act.”
Mutti reddened. “I'm sorry. I have made a mistake in allowing you to speak to her. She is far too young for such things. Far too young!”
But the girl was intrigued. “It's all right, Mutti. Let me hear what Admiral MacPherson has to say.”
Her mother shook her head but, even so, she got up and walked out of the room.
Now they were alone, MacPherson wasted no time.
“We want you to go to Germany, southern Germany, and bring back an item to England. Is that something you think you could do?”
“Go to Germany?” The girl stared at the admiral.
“Just for a few days. You would be helping the war effort enormously.” MacPherson added, “Helping your father and brothers, too, and all of your people left behind.”
The girl turned to the sink and found a glass resting on the drainer. She turned the tap on and filled the glass, then gulped it down. It gave her time to think.
It had been a little over three years since the packet ship from Copenhagen had docked at Tilbury, three years since she had last seen her brothers and her father. Saying goodbye to them at the border between Austria and Czechslovakia on that fateful night in 1938 was the hardest thing she had ever done. They were supposed to have followed them to England, but nothing had been heard of them since.
She felt her heart racing. “What is the item?” she asked.
MacPherson studied her, as if trying to decide something. “A child,” he said, at last.
The girl tried not to look surprised by his answer. A child? A child who was very important to the war effort? Now she felt even more intrigued. “Would I be going alone?”
“No. You would go with a boy, a German boy. And rest assured, you would be trained and prepared.”
The girl could hardly think. It was all so unexpected.
“There, I have laid the matter out for you,” he said. “I don't mean to pressure you but I have two other candidates to see tonight.” He smiled lightly back at her.
That's exactly what he meant to do, she thought. Pressure me. “Two other candidates?” she said.
Macpherson nodded. “You happen to have the required qualities for this mission: you speak German and have the right character, as well as athletic and academic aptitude. But I would be a fool it I had placed all my eggs in one basket, if you are familiar with that English expression?”
She wondered if he was calling her bluff. She stared at him, trying to work it out.
He met her gaze unwaveringly, then looked at his watch. “Well, I shall have to go, I think,” he said.
“Mutti,” she called out.
There was a pause and her mother returned to the kitchen, her face etched with worry.
“I have decided to help the admiral, Mutti.”
MacPherson smiled.
“I want to do something important for Father and the boys.”
CHAPTER 5
THE FISCHERS OF SALZBURG
It was just after seven in the morning and the girl had been awake for two hours already. She'd arrived at Wanborough Manor the day before. It was a beautiful old house, perched on a part of the Surrey North Downs called the Hog's Back. MacPherson had told her that the house had been requisitioned by the Ministry of Defence at the beginning of the war and was now one of the main training establishments for Special Operations.
Special Operations. She couldn't quite believe that she was a part of it. Not yet.
Her room was right up in the eaves and it had taken her almost the whole of yesterday to find her way around the rambling rooms and staircases. She'd hardly set eyes on anyone, except for one or two Royal Marines, who paid her no attention. A member of the Women's Royal Naval service, Wrens as they were known, had been there to meet her and settle her in and then she too had disappeared after supper. Perhaps the Wren and the marines would be training her? She also hadn't seen MacPherson since he had dropped her off.
Suddenly the door opened and a boy walked in. He was tall and quite thin, with bro
wn eyes. His hair was wet and rather dishevelled, as if he'd washed it quickly. He stopped suddenly when he saw her, and his cheeks coloured a little. He ran a hand through his hair.
“Hello,” he said, evenly.
“Hello,” she replied.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I'm your sister.” Leni smiled at his look of confusion and surprise.
“What on earth are you talking about?” the boy said. His English was very good, hardly a trace of a German accent.
“I'm Leni, your sister. And you're Otto.”
“Otto? Who told you my name was Otto?” She could see he was beginning to get rattled.
“I did.” MacPherson was standing in the doorway. “From now on you are the Fischer family from Salzburg.” He handed them each a buff-coloured file, and plucked a piece of toast from the rack. “I realise this is throwing you both in at the deep end, but time is rather short. You'll find your Reich passports and other items of identification inside the folders.”
The girl looked at the cover of the file that bore her new name. Leni Fischer. She knew she'd have to get used to it. She flipped open the folder and withdrew a grey passport. She stared at her photograph on the inside page. A good German, a Nazi now. And nearly nine months older than her real age. Fifteen at last. The Reich's eagle was stamped across the picture, its talons holding a swastika.
She felt a familiar wave of fear return to her stomach. Living in England for the last three years had somehow blunted the feeling she had whenever she saw this hateful emblem. But now her mind flashed back to Vienna, her home, and to the Nazis parading down the street at night with their torches, their chants and most of all their swastika banners held high. She closed the passport, dropped it on the table.
“It looks real,” she said.
“That's because it is.” MacPherson said, ignoring her look of revulsion. “We've secured a source in Berlin who can supply us with anything we need in the way of identification. All the necessary stamps and inks, blank passports, the whole shooting match. Look at the rest of the stuff.”
Hitler's Angel Page 2