by Marc Eden
Sinclair would settle for being alive.
After Achnacarry, which was now a permanent part of her dossier, Valerie was grateful to be going to Cornwall. Of what she had just accomplished she was not yet sure, nor did she feel in any condition to evaluate its use in the future. For now, there was no future: just fatigue.
Hamilton drove her to Inverness, where he handed her an envelope of tickets and travel cash. He reached over and opened the door and she stepped out.
“See you in Falmouth.” He saluted her with his finger, she returned it, and he drove away. Shouldering her gear, Valerie walked into the terminal.
Beneath the blue lights, dimmed from the cathedral ceiling, she stood and watched it approaching. Headlight hooded, the locomotive passed the platform, and slowed. The train braked. She boarded and found her sleeper. She undressed, and instantly fell asleep.
Blacked-out countryside thundered past and the cars swayed. She was awakened by the screeching of rails—or, perhaps, by fitful dreams of guns exploding—just in time to have breakfast. The train, its pipes hissing steam, jolted into Euston Station.
There she changed to the fast-moving tube.
She got off at Waterloo, grabbed a quick lunch in the shelter, and connected with the afternoon express to Falmouth. Adept adjustment of the Enigma Code, false information intercepted by the Germans, had gradually steered the deployment of the V1s away from metropolitan London and into the outlying countryside—but it wasn’t enough.
Several had fallen last night near the area in which she now found herself. Mountains of rubble, Home Guard barriers, and emergency trucks clogged the passageways, the hastily posted detour signs causing confusion. The machine-gun sound of jackhammers, amplified in the vast tunnels and mixing with the clouds of dust, were discharging out onto the walkways. Wherever passengers were going, they were going in a hurry. Plywood short-cuts led into concrete walls. Men wearing armbands and Dunkirk helmets were directing passengers, up one corridor and down another, to their respective platforms.
Sinclair boarded the train.
A three-hour trip: she would have a compartment to herself.
As they pulled out of London, she realized why Hamilton had booked her to Falmouth, which was beyond Polperro, instead of to the Addison Street Station, which was reserved for military and where she could have connected directly to Devon. Intelligence strategy, darkly hidden, her tickets to Cornwall concealed the real purpose of the trip.
The train was gathering speed...
Some previous passenger had left a copy of the morning’s paper along with an underwear catalogue jammed into the side of the seat. Published in Liverpool and dedicated to the Male Animal, it had been shipped in a plain brown wrapper.
Satisfaction guaranteed.
One glance was sufficient. Could that passenger, lurking about the train station, be a pervert? Could that pervert be The Spy? Apprehensive since that night in Weymouth, Valerie stared straight ahead, as if watching an invisible man on the seat across from her peering over his paper. Smiling demurely, eyelids fluttering, she zeroed in on his fly.
Spies wore underwear, didn’t they?
When it came to education, she certainly didn’t want to be left out! Her schedule had not allowed her much time for serious reading. Perhaps this was meant to be. Tossing the newspaper aside, she picked up the catalogue. Checking the aisle, she examined it with interest.
The color-photo section opened up on three middle-aged gentlemen, military types, enjoying whiskeys at their Club. Perched on stools, they were admiring each other’s underwear. An arrow, sweeping across the page, was pointing to one gentleman’s crotch: “Tastefully tailored in Madagascar Blue.” A yellow oval sticker, patterned by the catalogue’s art department to resemble a banana, had been thoughtfully pasted over the place—or person, as it were—to whom the arrow was pointing. “Also available in Tropical Tan,” the oval announced.
She licked her thumb, and turned the page.
Spotlight on their new Mandrake line: “For those Magic Moments,” the advert read, “when your Lothar draws the bath.” Something to slip into, if a man dare, when the servant is out of the room. The gentleman in the photograph, a big game hunter type, had a leopard skin over his shoulder and was staring approvingly into a mirror. The hunter’s underwear was in Bengal Buff. A leopard was clutching a pair of black drawers in its teeth. A more serious Sinclair sat up on her seat. Things this good usually didn’t come her way.
The catalogue was vibrating.
The train, pawing like a leopard, thundered up the singing tracks and over gullies thick with jumbled railroad ties hiding barrels bound round by rusting hoops and blackbirds. The long pull of a whistle acknowledged the British Rail System to be on time. In its wake, clacking all together, the birds relanded in squawking rituals; safe once more, behind their thick protectorate of trees, within the secret Britain of the animals.
Sinclair flipped the page.
The Wildebeest Waistline. Against a background of stampeding wildebeests, thin-legged models in knee-length underwear stood stiffly against fake Roman columns or lounged backwards along the rim-seats of fountains, arms straight with hands flat behind them on the stone, a pose that more closely resembled a group of women confiding things of tremendous importance to each other. Sinclair, who didn’t get it, turned the page.
One of the models, forwarded from the fountain, had the next advert all to himself. Crotch cradled in Plato Pink, standing with his open palm thrusting forth like Apollo, blazing blond hair carefully crimped, he was reading a book. Unseen by this Greek god, a unicorn was galloping towards him, head down with horn pointing straight at his Plato.
“Classic Hit,” the caption read.
Long underwear followed.
“Snow-jobs in Satin,” it began. Sinclair didn’t wait. She jumped straight ahead, bypassing the explorer who was showing off his shorts in Igloo White to a roaring polar bear, not stopping until she reached the accessories section near the rear of the catalogue. Bedecked with wall plaques, it was appropriately entitled “Athletic Supporters of the Crown.”
While the jock straps from their latest Safari line, in limited lots of Lavender Lizard and Casablanca Crimson certainly seemed practical—attached as they were to those billybags in Badger Blue and Rhinoceros Red—it was the two-page spread at the end, The Tarzan, in which no expense had been spared, that was causing her consternation.
Suffragette, she didn’t have to take it!
It was the same model who had flopped on the fountain, who had survived the unicorn, and who was now wearing a wig. Just because three bull elephants were turning up their noses at his Jade de Jane undies didn’t give him any right to swing across that pond of crocodiles, using a python for a vine, while grabbing by the throat that poor defenseless lady chimp—who up to that time had obviously been cackling contentedly, and understandably so, in her own pair of Junior Jungle Jim Jockies, the poor dear having done her best to decide between these and the Daring Dan Diapers, in Small, Medium, and Large at manufacturer’s close-out prices.
While supplies lasted.
Valerie was calculating on her fingers: a dozen assorted, less discount? She would have to place her order soon. Satisfied with her figures, finished with the catalogue, and rolling it up, Valerie leaned forward and stuffed it into the side of the seat across from her. She was feeling new zip in her thoughts. Her heart thumped with mystery, in tune with the bouncing of the train. Having memorized prices and stock numbers, she had photographed the address: Loincloths of Liverpool.
Why not? Mr. Loincloth’s creations couldn’t look any worse on her than those issued by her own government, the representative of whom would be meeting her train in Falmouth. Valerie Sinclair got up and went to the ladies’ room, returning to enter into a series of energetic push-ups, pitting herself against the movements of the floor. The floor winning, she curled back up into the seat, resigned to her comer and staring out the window.
The girl browse
d through the paper, then snoozed for awhile. The express, having pulled out of Bournemouth, was soon flying down the tracks again, fighting its way across the glorious countryside of Poole. Weymouth Harbor had passed behind her to her left. The channel, refracting light, was coming up. Awakened by the banging of the cars, Valerie glanced out the window, looked at her watch, and yawned. Ahead of her, the sun was running forward on the line, and she could see the locomotive. The train was slowing. She opened her compact to do her face. Bruises... Gathering her gear, she opened the door and entered the aisle.
FALMOUTH.
The Commander was waiting downtrain when Sinclair stepped out onto the platform. Back from Downing Street, she suspected, he appeared to be trim and rested. She recalled the part played by Leslie Howard, whom she adored, and those famous lines from The Scarlet Pimpernel: “Is he in heaven, or is he in hell, that damned elusive Pimpernel?”
She hastened to meet him.
Hamilton stepped out into the sun. “Well now Sinclair, had a good journey, did we?” As her superior officer, Commander Hamilton was about as romantic as yesterday’s newspaper—The Daily Telegraph, she had left it on the train. He gave her the once-over, making notes. She was looking better since the beating: her face was powdered, and her lipstick bright.
Lips a bit puffed.
Outside the station a car pulled up. The driver, in Free French military blue, walked across the tracks to greet them. Pierre was feeling good. He had just got laid. Valerie was happy to see it was Captain de Beck.
“Lieutenant! What’s going on? You look so charming.” Smiles flashed in the sun. “I realize I may have asked you before, but may I call you Valerie?” He grinned, indicating the girl with the shake of his head. “Valerie Sinclair, right?” It was addressed to Hamilton.
“Try Valerie Marchaud,” he said.
Her cover had arrived.
Valerie brightened. “Marchaud?”
The call from General LeClerc’s headquarters at SOE had come from the Missions Research Officer, a Major Guy Farvillant, who had determined the name from records: a twelve-year old French circus performer reputedly killed by the Gestapo in the earliest days of the war. Blessed with an exceptional memory, the French child had expressed a grace far beyond her years: a normal attribute with children of the trapeze. Fascinated by her uncanny physical resemblance to Sinclair, Farvillant, genius in genealogy, had continued to follow her, eagerly exhuming dusty histories, until Valerie Marchaud had disappeared. Something odd, about the death certificate—dates left open, witnesses shot instead of the victim. Could she still be alive? Sharing this with Hamilton, the Commander had assured him it wouldn’t matter. After all this time, would she still be twelve? Farvillant had to agree. Following further talks with Seymour, the French officer had turned this background, complete with its mysteries, into the girl Valerie Sinclair would become. A man whom she had never met had just renamed her, assigning her to history in the world of yet-to-be.
The candidate had turned Pro.
The Commander pulled them close. Passengers were walking past them. “So then!” It was fifty miles to Polperro. “Shall we be off?”
Pierre picked up the gear.
A breeze tugged at her hair; the air felt cooler.
The Frenchman escorted them to a green Rolls Royce, the result of a dockside deal between Seymour and Bridley, following their confrontation with the Irishman at the El Flamingo. Leased to MI.5, specifically to Hamilton, the car was at the Commander’s disposal until such time as the Free French delivered it back to SOE for the exclusive use of General Charles De Gaulle. As part of the deal, the French had insisted on their own driver. De Beck got a chauffeur’s cap, Seymour got a black eye, and Bridley had got away. Blackstone would get the bill.
“Together, are we?” Hamilton purred.
Sinclair got in. Luxurious leather and rosewood surrounded her on all sides. Her hand caressed the rich felt. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply of the car’s perfume, whose name was power. Blimey, she thought, now ain’t this the cat’s meow.
Hamilton, on whom her reaction had not been lost, joined her now in the back seat, and Pierre closed the doors. Up front, he was fiddling with something. It was a chauffeur’s cap.
“Problem, Pierre?”
Pierrre adjusted his cap. “Ready when you are, Commander.”
Hamilton lit a cigarette, offering one to Sinclair, who took it like a lady. The Frenchman started the motor and soon had them out of Falmouth. He pulled a hard right, swinging the southern sun behind them, then accelerated. Dark clouds stood distant.
Sinclair leaned back.
The sleek green Shadow sped down the narrow English road. In the back seat, Hamilton had turned, so that he could see her, while addressing them both. “Within a few days,” he said, “we will leave Polperro by motor launch to rendezvous with a submarine in the Channel. It will be at night, when we expect the cover of a major storm. The submarine will take you up to Brittany. Once ashore, and in contact with the Underground—the DSM, Pierre—they will send us a signal.” The Commander paused. It was vital that de Beck understood.
Lé Direction de La Securite Militaire?
He had it.
“Presuming your mission successful, that is, that you get the information—you will be returning on that same submarine, at coordinates to be announced. Or one of you at least, hmmm? Should either of you fail, for any reason, to make your appearance, we will assume that you have either been captured or, that you are somehow returning via an alternate route.” She was listening intently. “In that event, naturally, you will be beyond our help.”
“This rendezvous point off Brittany,” said Pierre, “where exactly?”
Valerie sat up.
Hamilton threw her a glance. “Two hundred yards straight in, two hundred yard straight out. For the month of July, no currents, a flat sea. You will move in to the beach at a direct right angle to the sub, so observe your route.”
“Suppose the Boche intercept the signal?”
“You mean from the Underground?” Hamilton queried.
“Oui.”
“You do your job, that’s highly unlikely. However, nothing is ever really certain, is it?”
Capture, he meant.
Pierre caught the inference, he had a question.
“No cyanide,” Hamilton said, answering it.
Hedges flew past, yellow sun emerging from clouds.
“Why no cyanide?” Pierre now insisted, checking his mileage. “Surely if we’re caught...”
“If caught, you could still be rescued,” Hamilton pointed out.
“But we would be tortured!”
The Commander silenced him with a gesture. He did it from the rearview mirror. The argument was over. Suicide was out. Obviously, de Beck had expected the last minute issuance of the poison. Sinclair, who hadn’t thought about it, had not. She stared at the back of the Frenchman’s head, noting a thick neck.
“When you know we’re coming, will you signal from the sea?”
“No. We are foregoing the navigational beacon.”
“I see.” Pierre, mind like a ferret, was mulling it over. No beacon, no cyanide. He looked up, into the mirror. “What kind of submarine, Commander?”
“The kind you can get blown up in, old boy.”
“Excuse me, Commander...”
“What is it, Lieutenant?”
Sinclair took a drag on her cigarette, she was planning ahead. “Will we be wearing life-jackets?”
How would she find one to fit her?
“We are not planning for you to swim, Sinclair! You will be provided with...whatever is appropriate.” Life-jackets? He had never been asked that before. “You will leave, you will rendezvous. The submarine will take you to a point just off the extreme north coast of the Bay of Biscay. You will then continue in a Carley float, that’s a raft, Lieutenant”—she put out her cigarette—“landing you below the village of Lorient—”
“South of Brest,” Pierre s
aid.
“Right. Now then, we are assuming you will meet no one on this lonely stretch of beach. If you are questioned, Valerie, you are merely a student...lower form, as it were, at a northern Catholic lycée. Your identification will place you in the School for Orphans at Combourg, near Avranches. Difficult to check, you see? Pierre is a friend, or cousin if you will, and the two of you decided to do some fishing after visiting with his family.”
“Who live inland?”
“Yes. Their farm, isn’t it Pierre?”
“Our farm, that’s right.”
“That’s good,” Sinclair said, “where are the Germans?”
“Intelligence has it that there is little if any German activity near this particular landfall.” The latest report, it had come from Blackstone. “There will be Germans, of course. But no significant patrols, major gun emplacements, that sort of thing. The main Jerry movement is towards Caen. Our area is well south and seaward of the Contentin Peninsula, at least fifty kilometers, I’d say.”
“More,” said Pierre, glancing at her in the glass, “it is further.”
“Well, you should know,” acknowledged Hamilton. “You see, Valerie, Pierre’s parents are in touch with DSM, the Underground. But things could change. As the Germans bring up reinforcements and strengthen their positions, well...”
They could find themselves in the thick of it.
“Radios?”
“No. Your time will be critical. We do not intend to waste it by encumbering you with radios. Germany, as I have explained to the Lieutenant, has very sensitive detecting equipment, its ECMs. In all probability, the agents already sent were located through just such means. Any questions, Captain?”
“Not at the moment, sir.”
“Sinclair?” Hamilton, getting no response, turned. “I say, Sinclair!” She was on her knees, staring out the window. Her rump was up; she was looking good. The Rolls Royce had shot past a flock of sheep, and she was straining backwards. Trying to count them, she was practicing her memory.