by Alan Evans
Jake watched the lighter as she edged in alongside the Sotheby. She was painted a drab black overall but little rust showed and she looked clean. Lines snaked down from the deck of the ship and the skipper of the lighter cut her engine and jumped out of the wheelhouse, ran forward to seize and secure the line there then dashed aft to do the same.
The Mate asked, “What are you going to do in Montevideo? Got a job?”
Jake shook his head, “I don’t know.” Almost all his savings had gone to pay for his passage. He had a small income from a bequest but it was not enough to live on. What he wanted was time to decide what to do with his life, whether it took a week or ten years … Mike Garrity only worked three or four days a week. So … The winches were chugging again aboard the Sotheby and the first net laden with cargo came swinging up out of the hold then swayed out over the side of the ship at the end of a derrick’s boom.
Jake made a funnel of his hands to bawl down, “Hey! Skipper! I hear you’re on your own!”
Mike Garrity was short and skinny so that the boilersuit he wore hung loose like the skin on an elephant’s rump. His hair had been combed with his fingers that morning. It showed grey at the sides and in the stubble on his jaw. He peered up at Jake and answered, “One o’ your crew’ll give me a hand.”
Jake pointed at the distant harbour, “What about when you get in there?”
“Stevedores.” Garrity answered absently, his attention on the wire hawser as it ran out from the boom and the net dropped towards the lighter.
Jake told him, “You need a crew.”
Garrity shook his head: “I make a living because I don’t support nobody else, I don’t pay nobody.”
Jake moved along the rail to where the ladder hung down the ship’s side to the lighter. “I’ve got a proposition for you.” He swung his leg over the rail and started to climb down. He called up to the Mate, “I’ll be back for my baggage in a coupla minutes!”
*
Smith spent some weeks in a room in a pension in Perpignan. There he met the men who had worked for him in Spain as they made their way out over the border, one way or another. Some would never come out and Smith made what provision he could for their widows. On the day he bade farewell to the last of them he vacated the room to walk to the station. On the way he cabled to Hannah Fitzsimmons, promising to take her to dinner the following evening. He thought he owed her that.
His rented flat in London was cold and empty. When the doorbell rang he answered it and found a middle-aged man in a neat but shiny blue serge suit, a raincoat carefully folded over his arm. He asked, “Captain Smith, sir?”
“Yes?”
The man’s shoes creaked as he fumbled in an inside pocket then took a pace forward to hand the visiting card to Smith. The card bore a printed name and rank, but under them were pencilled the words: “At once.”
Smith asked, “You have a car?”
“Taxi waiting downstairs, sir.”
So Smith handed his case to the messenger and locked up the flat again.
Hannah Fitzsimmons had been dressed and waiting for an hour when he telephoned and apologised. She gripped the instrument and took a deep, steadying breath before asking, “You’re going abroad again — and now? Where, for God’s sake? Oh! Yes, I understand. No, think nothing of it. Some other time. Gimme a raincheck.” Then he was gone.
Exasperated, Hannah wondered for a moment if this was a brush-off. Then she discarded the idea. Neither flight nor subterfuge was Smith’s style.
But what the hell was he up to in Poland?
Chapter Four – The Enigma Run
That day in early August was hot with the heaviness of thunder in the air. Ulrich Bauer’s house in the Wannsee, Berlin, seemed airless although the windows were opened wide. He knew the heat was causing him to sweat, making him irritable, and he made a conscious effort to be patient and reasonable. This girl was not his child but he was fond of her. She seemed quiet on first sight, but had a quick temper. She would sit curled up and still only to suddenly burst into action at the least provocation. Ulrich said mildly, “Your mother and I thought you were happy here with us. This is the first time you’ve suggested leaving.”
He glanced across at Elizabeth, his wife, biting her lip with mystification and worry as she watched her daughter. He and Elizabeth sat on a couch but Sarah stood at the window, her back turned to them. Ulrich’s lips tightened as he asked of that back, “And why? There must be a reason. You suddenly say you want to leave Berlin, leave Germany, but you find no fault with us, the house, your work. You have your own car and come and go as you please, though your mother and I are concerned over some of your late nights. And the young man, Kurt Larsen, you seemed happy with him yet you’re ready to cast him off. Why?”
Sarah did not turn but she answered, “I like Kurt and I think he’s fond of me, but that’s all.”
Elizabeth said quietly, “There is a reason.”
Sarah nodded, “Yes.” She hesitated, then added, “In fact, two of them.”
Ulrich frowned, “What are they?”
Sarah took a breath and confessed, “Those late nights you spoke of — for some time now I’ve been a member of an organisation for smuggling people out of the country. Some of them are Jews, others on the run from the Gestapo. I heard only an hour ago that one of our members has been arrested. He may talk.”
For a moment Elizabeth and Ulrich could only look from Sarah to each other as they took in the enormity of what she had told them. Then Ulrich said grimly, “He will talk. No maybe about it. And you have to get out of Germany, there’s no argument about that, now.” Then he remembered and asked, “And the other reason?”
Sarah exploded in temper, “It’s your cousin Werner in his bloody black uniform! He asks you to put him up for the night, brings a bottle of wine, flowers for Mother. Then he tries to force his way into my room.”
Elizabeth paled and Ulrich’s hands clenched into fists. Sarah went on more quietly, her voice shaking, “I’m sorry. But now he says he has been keeping the Gestapo off our backs and if I don’t — cooperate …” She fell silent at the thoughts conjured up.
Ulrich rubbed at his face then put out his hand to Elizabeth but spoke to Sarah, “That is an empty threat. I apologise for Werner and he won’t enter this house again.” He glanced at his wife, “Elizabeth and I have talked a lot about him and his kind lately. So far I’ve gone along with this so-called National Socialism that Hitler and his cronies preach. I’ve complained and protested but I’ve stayed in line. Now I find I can’t do that any longer. I’ve been invited to speak at a meeting next week. I know what they want me to say but I won’t do it this time, I won’t be a ‘yes-man’. I’ll speak my mind. It will make me even more unpopular than I am already in certain quarters but this is my country and I am not alone; there are others. And someone has to speak out. I’m not afraid of Werner and his friends. I will have committed no crime and I am a prominent member of the business community. They daren’t touch me.” He squeezed Elizabeth’s hand, “But you go with Sarah. Please.”
“Next week! I didn’t know it would be so soon.” Elizabeth bit her lip, then she shook her head. “We’ve already talked this out. You will do what you believe is right. So will I.” She had broken and run once before, and always regretted it. She would not do it again.
And Ulrich, who knew he would not move her, kissed her.
Elizabeth smiled at him, then at Sarah. “You must go to your father.’’ She saw the girl’s start of surprise and explained, “I had a letter from him only yesterday. He’s in the Bristol Hotel in Warsaw, attached to the Embassy there for some weeks.” Elizabeth did not say that Smith had written because he believed a war was coming and had warned: “If you and Sarah are caught in Berlin then as British subjects you may well find yourselves in danger.”
Her father? Sarah remembered when she and her mother had last spoken of him, when Elizabeth had applied for Sarah’s British passport and told her, “You have your f
ather’s name of Smith but you were called Bauer in Berlin because we thought it would be easier for you. When I married again your father wrote to say he would not insist on access to you; he thought those visits might only upset you. But he was always ready to bear a father’s responsibilities and I had only to contact him.”
Sarah had said, “He can’t take me away!”
“Of course not. And he isn’t an ogre.”
So Sarah had slipped back into her own world of the present, happy with her mother and Ulrich Bauer. But now? She looked from one to the other and pleaded, “You must both come with me! You cannot speak out! They won’t let you!” And more. And she wept. But they would not be moved.
Next day they travelled by train to Rügen and Sarah took passage on a steamer bound for Malmö in Sweden. Few Germans were trying to cross the border into Poland. From Malmö she would cross to the Polish port of Gdynia. Sarah waved to her parents where they stood on the quayside under the harsh lights. But as her ship drew away she had an awful premonition that she was going out into the world on her own.
*
Six thousand miles away, off the coast of South America, Able Seaman Robert Hurst wrote his letter on the end of the table on the mess deck of HMS Ajax. The cruiser was out of Bahia Blanca and bound for Rio de Janeiro. She was one of the four ships in Commodore Harwood’s squadron off the coast of South America. Besides the other light cruiser Achilles there were the bigger, 8-inch gun cruisers Exeter and Cumberland. Ajax was almost new, a slender, lovely ship mounting eight 6-inch guns in four turrets, two forward and two aft.
Hurst had not been long in Ajax. He was known as quiet, reliable and studious, often with his nose buried in a book so he was sometimes called ‘Professor’. He fitted in and did his share of the work but had no particular friend. His detachment was accepted by most of the men around him, who dismissed it as his business.
The knife-scar on his forearm was barely visible now, burned brown by the sun. He wrote steadily, knew what he wanted to say and set it down, neatly and methodically. He also wrote with affection, relating his doings and the events of the cruise. He said nothing in the letter to his guardian of the girl he expected to meet in Rio.
He paused once, thoughts harking back. His guardian had kept a pub on Tyneside and Hurst grew up on the quay and next to the ships, happily. As he day-dreamed now he absently watched Bill Donovan squaring up to a big signalman on the other side of the mess deck. Donovan was one of the biggest, certainly the strongest man aboard and always sparring. He was a boxer. He ducked and weaved, hands moving as quick as light, until he caught Hurst’s bleak, impersonal stare when he stood back and demanded, “What’s up wi’ you, Professor?”
Hurst blinked, crooked one corner of his mouth in a half-smile but then bent again to his letter. Donovan stared at the lowered head then shook his own.
*
Most of the foreign correspondents in Warsaw stayed at the Europejski Hotel in the Pilsudski Square that was expensive, archaic and uncomfortable. But Hannah Fitzsimmons made some discreet telephone calls first and then took a room at the Hotel Bristol. Smith was registered there in his own name and she bumped into him in the bar on her first evening: “Well, hello!”
The three men with him looked surprised but Smith did not. He said, “Excuse me.” The other three nodded to her and went on, leaving him alone with Hannah.
She said cheerfully, “My editor, his London mouthpiece that is, sent me out here because of the crisis.” And because she had begged, demanded and threatened: “All right, so I just got back from Spain! But we all know Poland will be the next big story and I’ll get it for you. Or for Associated Press! So what d’you say?”
Now she went on, “There’s talk of war but so there was when Hitler went into Austria and Czechoslovakia. Will Germany fight? Will Poland? Will Britain and France? Any ideas? And what are you doing in Warsaw, anyway?”
Smith took her arm and led her towards the bar, “I’ll buy you a drink.” And when he handed her the glass he said, “I’m here as a university professor, a colleague of those three gentlemen. Will you remember that, please?”
“OK.” She smiled at him, “Any story for me?”
But he only grinned at her and shook his head. He took her into the restaurant for dinner, glad to see her. He told himself that was because it had been a long time since he had enjoyed the company of an attractive woman. Hannah, always elegant, turned heads.
She returned the compliment the following evening. Hannah talked about her work and Smith talked about — hers. He never gave a reason for being in Poland. Nor did he explain the other three men. They were British, and from snatches of their conversation she would have judged them to be academics, possibly university professors, but now she wondered. Early one morning as she stood at her window she saw Smith go off with the three in a car that picked them up at the door of the hotel. At other times she would find Smith in their company in the bar but he would excuse himself to them and go off with her. He never introduced her.
He saw the curiosity in her eyes, the unspoken question: What’s going on? He could not tell her that two of the men were cryptographers and the third was Colonel Stewart Menzies, head of the British Secret Intelligence Service.
Smith was sent out from London with the instruction: “You’re to bring out a package. It might be dangerous.” In Warsaw he learned that the three in the Bristol were watched by German agents — and so was he. One or two of the agents were known to the Polish anti-espionage police, but they were sure there were others.
On the morning he accompanied the three in the car they were taken at speed by the Polish driver to the Pyry forest and a concealed, dank, concrete bunker. They showed him what looked like the carrying case for a large portable typewriter and told him, “You’ll be carrying something like this.”
He asked, “What is it?”
“It’s called an Enigma. It is a coding machine.” And they opened the case so he could see the rotors and switches inside. “But yours will be like this only on the outside. Inside there’ll be just a couple of bricks.” The case was closed then patted lovingly with the flat of the hand: “The Poles have given us two of these. They are the machines used by all the German armed forces. With these, and a lot of work, and luck, we will read every signal they make. Without them we will be fighting in the dark. You see their importance?”
Smith nodded, “But you want me to take a dummy.”
“The French are sending both machines out in their diplomatic bag.” The French mission were there in the bunker that morning, listening and watching, as were the Polish officers. “But our German friends are suspicious and they know we are getting something from the Poles. We think they may try to snatch whatever we carry when we leave Poland. We wouldn’t put it past them to attempt to steal the diplomatic bag. If they succeeded it would be disastrous. They would know we could crack their coded signals and therefore take action to prevent it. So we’re going to start a hare for them to chase. Then we and the Enigmas can quietly steal away.”
They waited for his reaction, as he coldly accepted that he had been named as a moving target. But he also accepted that this was a risk that had to be taken, and nodded.
He only went once more to the bunker in the forest and that was in the first week in August. When he returned with the other three that night he carried the ‘Enigma’ case. He tried to speak to Hannah Fitzsimmons but she was out of the hotel and he presumed she was chasing a story or being briefed with other correspondents in the Press Section of the Polish Foreign Office in a corner of the Pilsudski Square.
He went to his room, packed his razor and toothbrush in a spongebag and thrust it into a pocket of his trenchcoat. It had been cleaned since Spain but was worn and ancient. He threw it over his shoulder, picked up the case and left. As the taxi he had ordered pulled up outside the Bristol another stopped behind it and Hannah Fitzsimmons got out.
She stared at the case and asked, “Is that a typewriter?�
�
Smith answered, “Sort of. Look, I’m sorry, but I have to catch a train. I’m going back to London.” He held out his hand.
Hannah took it, saying, “Have a good trip.” And thinking, Oh, boy, here we go again!
Smith stooped to enter the car and Hannah watched it drive away. And wondered why Smith wore a pistol in a shoulder holster.
*
He shoved into a crowded compartment on the night train to Gdynia, squashed in a corner with the ‘Enigma’ under the seat and tucked in behind his legs. The German agents could not get at him here, among a dozen strangers. Gdynia was the Polish port in the Danzig corridor, their only exit to the sea, and he knew a British destroyer, HMS Lancer, lay in the harbour. And a car would be waiting at the station to take him aboard. He settled down for the night, trenchcoat wrapped around him and hat pulled down over his eyes, hand tucked inside his jacket with fingers curled around the butt of the Colt.
Before sleep came he found that he was sad. Sad to leave the American woman behind, and that war was almost upon them. Surely when it came they would give him a ship.
The train pulled into Gdynia before the dawn, under lights like furred globes seeming suspended in the mist. Smith picked up the case in his left hand then got down from the train, moving with the crowd but wary now; here they could strike and run. He covered fifty yards at a stroll, hemmed in by the people flooding from the train now at the end of the line, shuffling towards the exit.