A Mighty Endeavor

by Stuart Slade

  “I see. Well, no self-respecting strategist would take this seriously, but I am not dealing with such people out here. The ones who understand strategy know well the threat that faces us and what we must do to overcome it. Those who do not will be convinced by this and will be scared out of their wits by it. Phillip has done me a great service by sending this over. Odwin Noth may have been a fool and a renegade, but he has supplied me with a vital piece of the puzzle I am solving here.” She paused for a moment, “Igrat, is Phillip in a position to get Secretary Hull to ease up on us? The American refusal to sell us arms hurts us badly and may yet force us into the arms of the Japanese.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I don’t think so anyway. I’ll ask when I get back. However, there are great quantities of arms ordered by France and Britain stored in the United States. If you can find a way of breaking them loose, they should solve your problems.”

  “That is a useful thought. Igrat, I will have a car drive you back to the airport. Next time you come here, tell Phillip I will accept no arguments. You and I will go shopping together.”

  CHAPTER FIVE: GAMESMANSHIP

  Egilsstadir Airport, Iceland

  The B-17C lined up with the runway and made a near-perfect three-point landing. It came to a halt about three quarters of the way down the runway, then taxied off on to a parking lane. Once the engines started to spool down, Stuyvesant watched a hatch in the lower part of the fuselage open up and the crew drop out; four men, led by a stocky officer whose command authority was immediately obvious.

  “Stuyvesant?” Stuyvesant had expected the voice to be overbearing and a near-shout; in fact, it was soft and hard to hear over the residual engine noise and the wind. He had to strain to catch the words.

  “I am. Captain LeMay?”

  LeMay nodded. “My crew. Captain Archie Smith, Second Lieutenants Harris Hull and John Paul Bobo. They told me this mission was critical, so I brought the best we have.”

  “Pleased to meet you gentleman. Would you like to rest up from your flight?”

  “I see no cause for rest. The aircraft will be repainted here. Your party has been told we’ll be heading into Prestwick?”

  “They have and they’ll be there. I’ve got your passenger manifest and other documents. My courier brought them out yesterday. She’s in the control tower if you need any additional data. Party is Winston Churchill, Henry Thomas Tizard, Brigadier F.C. Wallace of the British Army, Captain H.W. Faulkner from the Royal Navy, Group Captain F.L. Pearce of the Royal Air Force, Professor John Cockcroft, a nuclear physicist and Assistant Director of Scientific Research at the Ministry of Supply, Dr Edward George Bowen, a radar expert, Arthur Edgar Woodward-Nutt, an Air Ministry official and Frank Whittle, a propulsion engineer. Also, there will be Achillea Foyle, Gusoyn Rivers and Eleanor Gwynne. They’re the security detachment. Twelve people in all. Plus three thousand pounds of scientific documents and prototype equipment.”

  LeMay nodded. “We can manage this. The aircraft has a bomb bay fuel tank. The cargo will have to ride inside. The two women can sit in the radio cabin; everybody else will fit where they can.”

  “Captain, why did you choose Prestwick? There are other bases further north.”

  “No fog there. Ever.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Not your job to.”

  Stuyvesant was getting used to LeMay’s manner. The terse manner wasn’t rudeness; the man habitually used the fewest possible number of words to get his meaning over clearly. Despite the man’s reticence, Stuyvesant found himself liking the Air Corps Captain. That made the next bit uncomfortable.

  “Captain, you have been briefed on this mission. It’s top secret. We’ve got a cover story worked out, but it’s flimsy and will probably fall apart. If it does, the next cover is that you were on leave and took on delivering this aircraft as a private venture. Earning a little money on the side, as it were, to deliver an embargoed aircraft. If it comes to that, your reputation will be pretty much trashed. If you want out, just say so.”

  “I was briefed, so I brought a minimum crew.”

  “Something else.” Stuyvesant hesitated, not quite certain how to phrase this and not wanting to give offense. “Three members of my family are in the party you’ll be picking up. That puts me, and my whole family, in your debt. If this goes wrong, we will look after you. If this goes really, terribly wrong, we will look after your family. They’ll want for nothing. We’ve done that for other people who’ve helped us in the past and we’ll do it in the future. We take pride in paying our debts in full.”

  LeMay said nothing but nodded slightly. “You coming, Stuyvesant?”

  Stuyvesant was about to say no, but he suddenly realized it had been a long time since he had done something arguably stupid just for the sheer joy of it. “If you can fit me in, yes.”

  “You can ride in the co-pilot’s seat.” The two men walked over to the control tower. A hastily-built structure, it offered only nominal protection from the biting wind. Tucked in one corner, Igrat was reading a fashion magazine. The collar of her fur coat was turned up and her nose was reddened by the wind.

  “Igrat, this is our navigator and mission commander, Captain LeMay. Captain, our courier, Igrat Shafrid.”

  Igrat gave LeMay her most charming smile and got virtually no response. LeMay looked at her curiously. “You went to England and relayed the plan details?”

  “Yes. The code is a Morse letter V. Dit-dit-dit-dah. Flash it on your landing lights as you come in. I also weighed all the equipment and papers they wanted to bring and made each member of the party weigh themselves. The list of weights is on that manifest. I thought it might help you load quickly.”

  “It will.” LeMay looked through the sheets of paper. “I find no cause for complaint here. Commendable.”

  He left to supervise the repainting of the Flying Fortress. It was already beginning to sport the British “sand and spinach” color scheme with its belly painted black. Igrat looked at Stuyvesant and raised a carefully arched eyebrow. “Why do I think that he believes the proper reward for a perfect performance is the absence of punishment?”

  “Iggie, I think you just got the highest praise you’re ever likely to receive. I doubt if he’s ever told more than one or two people that their performance was ‘commendable’ in his life.” Stuyveasant thought for a second. “People like him are rare. Planners and administrators are commonplace, but our Captain LeMay is an operator. He doesn’t talk or lecture. He just makes things happen.”

  Bestwood Lodge, Arnold, Nottinghamshire, United Kingdom

  “Osbourne, please, one last chance. Come with us.” Eleanor Gwynne pleaded with the man standing next to her. She was shabby; her clothes were torn and her face streaked with makeup that appeared to have run from continuous weeping. In fact, the appearance was deceptive and the result of patient preparation. It was essential that she looked like a maltreated prisoner and that their safety could depend on it.

  The Duke of St. Albans shook his head. “My place is here. Somebody will have to organize a resistance to That Man. The regular army wouldn’t take me and I won’t sit around on a pension in a foreign land. This is where the de Vere Beauclerk family lives and where we will stay. Charles has his part in all this and must stay. By the same logic, I must stay and do my part. Now run along Nell, and get our people to safety.”

  The trucks and the Humber staff car were waiting outside. Gusoyn and Achillea wore the black shirts and khaki pants of the Police Auxiliary. Both had Thompson submachine guns hanging over their shoulders and Webley revolvers in holsters on their Sam Browne belts. Eleanor had another Webley carefully hidden beneath her clothes. Her shackles, ragged clothes and bruised face would cause her to be ignored as a potential threat if the back of the lorry was searched. A little judicious weeping would add to the effect. The combination would cost the man taken in by it his life. Eleanor Gwynne wasn’t a fighter and did not hold the principle of a fair fight in any great regard. She had n
o compunction about shooting people in the back.

  Four other members of the party, the youngest ones, were also dressed as Auxiliary Police carrying Thompsons. The rest were in the trucks, also appearing to be prisoners. They too sported bruises and ragged clothing. Of course the primary ‘prisoner’ was the stout figure of Winston Churchill. The instructions that had been passed via Igrat were quite clear. He was to escape even if it cost everybody else their lives.

  Gusoyn took Eleanor by the elbow and helped her up into the back of the small lorry. She settled down on the wooden bench and checked that the shackles she was wearing would slide off without any delay. If she had to spring an ambush, split seconds would be vital. Her job was to shoot the man nearest to her and the most threatening man and then draw fire. If it went well, Achillea would cut the others down with her Thompson before they had the chance to kill anybody. Eleanor didn’t want to know what would happen if it didn’t go well.

  “Everybody on board?” Gusoyn had taken over the leadership of this party. He and the other ‘Auxiliary Police’ pulled down the canopy on the two lorries and tied off the rear panels, sealing the occupants in and also concealing them from view. Then, he got behind the wheel of the Humber staff car and put the vehicle in gear to lead his little convoy off. They had a two hundred and fifty mile drive in front of them. He’d allowed a whole day for the trip, plus a little spare. Twenty four hours has to be enough, he thought, but we have to be there when that plane comes in.

  Standing on the gravel drive, Osbourne de Vere Beauclerk, Duke of St Albans, watched the convoy leave. Sadly, he shook his head. What kind of country has this become when to travel safely needs such deception? How low have we sunk? Another question pushed its way into his mind despite his efforts to prevent it from doing so. And how much lower will we sink before this is all over? As the tail-lights rounded a curve and vanished he asked himself another question. Just how does one start a resistance movement anyway? There has to be a book on it in the library somewhere.

  Junction of the A611 and the A60, Mansfield, United Kingdom

  ‘Damn, I wasn’t expecting a checkpoint this early.” Achillea was worried. They’d been driving for less than an hour and were only roughly 20 miles north of Nottingham.

  “I was. Two main trunk roads coming together just short of a major town? It is a natural place for a checkpoint. There will be others. We will just have to bluff our way through each.”

  The checkpoint was manned by two uniformed police officers. Bobbies, Gusoyn noted, not the already-hated Blackshirts. He stopped the Humber beside the line of old tires that had been placed on the road and got out. He saw the expression of dislike on the face of the policemen as they saw his uniform, but they also noted the revolver in its holster.

  “Auxiliary Police Chief Inspector Rivers. Let us through.” Gusoyn flashed his badge. It had been made up by guesswork with some helpful advice on heraldry from the Duke. The gamble was that nobody else would know what an Auxiliary Police badge looked like either. The same applied to his orders. They had the same badge printed on the paper and the typing looked authentic. The Auxiliary Police were virtually unknown this far north.

  “Not so fast, Sir.” The sir was grudging. Gusoyn had assumed that the Auxiliary Police would be over-ranked to give them the authority they needed. Also, the more the local police disliked them, the better. “What are you doing up here? We don’t see your kind around here.”

  “Read my orders.” Gusoyn never liked being rude to people, but his assumed identity demanded it.

  “Taking prisoners up north.” The police officer was hesitant. “Why? What’s going on?”

  Gusoyn winked. “Take a look.”

  He led the two police officers around to the tailgate on the first lorry and lifted the rear flap of the canvas. “See who we’ve got on board.”

  “My God, it’s Winnie.” The policeman gasped. He shone his torch inside, showing the unmistakeable features of Winston Churchill. The other occupants, two men and a crying woman, hardly gained any notice.

  “That is right. In protective custody.” Gusoyn laughed nastily. “And will be all the way up north. Down for disposal, this lot are. Subversives and saboteurs of the Armistice. All to be disposed of, if you get my drift. Quiet like.”

  “Get out of here.” The police officer nearly snarled the release.

  Gusoyn climbed back into the car and rolled past the checkpoint. The two lorries followed.

  “Can we expect a checkpoint every twenty miles?” Achillea was concerned at how often their bluff would hold up. It only needed one checkpoint to smell a rat and the whole escape would fall apart.

  “I do not think so. We must follow the A618 to Rotherham and then the A633 until we hit the A61 at Wakefield.” Gusoyn had spent most of the previous night studying maps. “I think the next checkpoint will be where the A61 and A64 meet north of Wakefield. That is another fifty miles or so.”

  Behind them, the two police officers watched the trucks disappearing. The younger of the two men was angry. “Poor Winnie, he deserves better than this. Bloody Blackshirt bastards. Think we ought to tell somebody?”

  “Poor bastards.” The older officer was less excited. “Too stupid to realize they’re on the chopping block as well. You think they’ll be allowed to live with what they know? And, Bert, we tell nobody. Everybody who’s seen that little procession and who’s in it are dead men. We say nothing. They never passed through here, we never saw them and we don’t know anything about them. As you value your life Bert, keep your blooming trap shut.”

  Egilsstadir Airport, Iceland.

  “I wish I knew how Nell and the others are doing.” Igrat wore her mink coat, a pilot’s silk scarf wrapped around her neck. She was still shivering with the biting cold. “For all we know, they’ve been caught already and this is all for nothing. And why do you have to go?”

  “We need to have somebody who recognizes our people when we get there. Iggie, this can all go badly wrong. We’ll just have to keep going and hope that it doesn’t.”

  “You made that up to justify going on this flight, didn’t you? I know you. You’re bored and this is a little adventure. You could stay here.”

  “I could, but there are good reasons for going. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be working pretty closely with our Captain LeMay for a long time and I want our relationship to start off on a sound footing. Going along with him will be a good way to do that. And yes, I am bored. So are we all; you know that.”

  “I also know that doing foolish things from boredom gets us killed.” Igrat was near tears. “Isn’t organizing this bombing campaign enough for you?”

  “It will be, once we get things really moving. But this is different. It’s actually doing something instead of sitting behind a desk.” Stuyvesant caught the warning in Igrat’s eyes and carried on smoothly. “Anyway, I’ve never ridden in a Flying Fortress before.”

  “Four hour flight.” Captain LeMay spoke from behind Stuyvesant. “Seven-twenty nautical miles. We have a thirty percent fuel reserve. This is satisfactory.”

  Stuyvesant looked at the B-17C on the runway behind them. It had been fully repainted in British colors. The red-white-blue roundels stood out in the moonlight. “You know, those full-color markings show up pretty clearly. Can’t we dim them down a bit?”

  “Attract suspicion. The British are still using full-color markings. We look different and people start to ask questions.”

  Stuyvesant nodded. “When do we take off?”

  “Sixteen hours time.”

  “I’ve arranged for some hot food to be ready and the barracks are heated. The Marines did a good job up here.”

  “I have no cause for complaint.” LeMay nodded brusquely. “Eat and get some sleep. Miss Shafrid, you need it. You look like hell.”

  Igrat eyed his retreating back. “Quite the diplomat, isn’t he?”

  Junction of the A6120 and the A58, North of Leeds, United Kingdom.

  The numbers f
lowed past Achillea’s eyes as the convoy headed north. A642, A63, A6120 and now the A58. The one blessing was that they’d only been through one more checkpoint, where the A6120 hand joined the A58; they’d just been waved through. “How are we doing?”

  “Very well. We stay on this road until we hit the A1 at Boroughbridge, then we follow that road all the way north to a place called Melsonby. The A1 is dead straight most of the way, Achillea; it is a Roman road. A good augury, I think.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Then we have to follow a road called the A66 from Melsonby until we hit the A68. They’re both Roman roads as well, and they take us all the way to a place called Culgaith where we change to the B6412 to Langwathby. From there, follow the A686 all the way north to Brampton, switch to the A6071 over the Scottish border and join the A7. That puts us barely seventy miles out. We just have to wiggle through some B class backroads to join the A74. Then, take the B743 and it drops us right into Prestwick airport. We are doing very well.”

  “I should hope so. My rear is getting stiff.”

  Gusoyn laughed. “If you think you have problems in this comfortable staff car, imagine what it must be like in those lorries. Sitting in the cab will be bad enough; the poor people in the back on those wooden benches will be feeling really bad by now.”

  “Can’t we stop and give them a rest? Or change around a bit?”

  “Not really. We will need to stop for gas … I am sorry, petrol … but we will be in public view then. I am a bit worried about the last leg. We will have to wriggle across country on B roads for a bit and that will be slow and we could get lost. At least they have put the road signs back. I was a bit worried last night that I could not find a way through on that last stretch.”

  “You’ll manage it Gus; you always do.” Achillea closed her eyes and let herself be lulled into sleep by the drumming of the road on the tire surfaces. She woke briefly at another checkpoint at Melsonby after being on the road for ten straight hours. She was also awake then the convoy commandeered a resupply of petrol at a station shortly afterwards. Idly, she wondered just how much chaos Gusoyn’s casually-signed requisition would cause.