by Marc Eden
The Commander also had instructions for Valerie but felt it prudent to wait until they were alone. His first opportunity came after Pierre dropped them at the terminal, before they boarded for Falmouth. “Now, I realize, my dear, that while looking like a child is one thing, being one may prove quite a different matter. The older, the more experienced the adults you encounter, the greater their likelihood of spotting you. Believe me, the Germans know the difference, and we’re calling upon you to outsmart them. You can best do this by doing what you do best. Do what a child would do. Do it the way that a child would do it. Be the child, in their eyes, that they want you to be.”
The girl with the scalded face looked up.
“What’s important is that no one suspect you. You may count it as a certainty, they will try to entrap you. If you can, divert their attention. If they offer to bribe you—with food, for example—shake your head. If you must, put the guilt on somebody else.” He stressed this. “After all, who is the finger going to point to, you—or him? Adults will also be looking for good manners, you see, upbringing, that sort of thing.” He patted her head. “Got it?”
“Got it.”
Rushing through the busy terminal Hamilton and the girl ran the last few yards, jumping aboard the Falmouth Express with seconds to spare.
Unfortunately, the train was crowded and they had to share the compartment with an older couple. The husband was snoozing, but the wife kept peering over her magazine:
Something odd about that child...
With the rails clacking beneath them, the Commander sat as quiet as the summer wind, browsing through The Times, clearing his throat occasionally, and helping the girl sort through some item or other in her bag. The woman across from him could not help but notice, he had caught her look. She was thinking he was traveling with his daughter.
Something the matter with her face?
Hamilton wet his thumb, and turned the page.
Valerie, scattering things in her bag, smiled up at her: she healed quickly from cuts. Alarmed, the woman looked. Valerie was clutching the box lunch, staring at it mournfully, as though it were not for her.
“Hungry, are we?” Hamilton noted, intent upon his article.
“No, sir.” Valerie said quietly. She dabbed at her eyes.
“Would you like a biscuit, dear?” the woman asked, concerned.
Valerie shook her head. When Hamilton wasn’t looking, she touched gingerly at her face. Getting the woman’s eye, the sweet little girl jerked her head to the child-beater sitting next to her, who, as the woman could plainly see, was hiding his guilt behind his newspaper. The eyes of the woman narrowed. She nodded slowly, letting the desperate girl know that she understood.
The Commander sat sternly.
When the train pulled into Falmouth, the woman woke up her husband, pulling him quickly to the door. There, she turned to the Commander, who was looking about for the box lunch. He was unprepared then, when the woman screamed at him:
“Beast!”
“I beg your pardon?” Sinclair handed him the lunch, afraid to hold it.
So!
Valerie, having moved to sit behind him, out of danger as it were, tapped her temple and made a spiraling motion with her finger: it’s his brain injury, she informed the woman, who was reading her lips; and who had become so flushed with outrage, she could hardly contain herself.
Hamilton jumped up.
“The fact that you have a brain injury, sir, is no excuse to visit its horrid consequences upon this Innocent!”
Her husband grabbed her. The door slammed. The train had stopped. “What in the hell is going on?” Hamilton demanded. Valerie shrugged. “Let’s get out of here,” and he picked up the sack into which she was still stuffing the rest of her things.
Valerie followed the sack.
“That’s what I mean,” he explained over his shoulder, as he hurried them down the aisle. “This war makes people crazy.”
“Mum’s the word, sir.”
“Necessary to stay ahead of it, you see, constantly alert.”
“You can count on me, sir.”
Disembarking, they connected to the local for Polperro where the Commander immediately secured them an empty compartment. Unnerved by the deranged passenger, he tested the lock on the door. Valerie wished their schedule had allowed time for a few rounds at Trelissick House, famous for its bar. She sat down, sighed, and crossed her legs. Settled in, and with the train moving, the Commander doused the lights and raised the blackout shade.
They had dinner, the miles slipping past them.
Hamilton wasn’t hungry and the girl ate most of it.
It was a clear horizon, soft with moonlight and sharp with stars, and with the River Fal behind them, flowing to the sea. Trees were bending in the wind. Finished with eating, she was stowing the garbage.
Hamilton, who had been observing the onrushing scenery, handed her his newspaper and leaned back, comparing their present location to his home in Northern Wales. As in a background, she could hear the great Welsh voices; see, in eyrie green-veined sunlight, the mouldering dark-eyed castles. Cardiff reared in her mind, and cities of pain, where blood turned to coal and where the salt-brined sea made prisoners of those who joined it.
They had been on the train for some time now. It had not seemed that long coming in. Maybe it was because of what had happened today and because it was Saturday. To the Commander, picturing the child Marchaud across from him, the flashing night in this setting of sea and sand was as pretty as a postcard. To Valerie, his voice seemed trapped in time, cloaked with curtains, somewhere in a darkroom.
Prints were emerging: the family album in her head.
As he talked, her photographic memory took her back to the days before the war. Her hair was long. Her parents had brought her here, to Falmouth, for a holiday; with some Egyptian friends of her father’s. They had attended a concert together in the second-story hall of the old Conservatory. It was ten years ago, and the temperature was 79°. She knew, because one of the Egyptians, who was five feet seven and a half inches tall, asked her why she had blinked her eyes. The vicar, not wishing to hear his daughter described as a camera, explained it as a nervous twitch.
She had been looking into the sun.
The Programme that Tuesday night was Dvorak’s String Quartet in F-major, The American. She recalled the composer had also written Humoresque, one of her favorites; that the boy next to her had a gold tooth; that his mother, wearing fuchsia lipstick, had also worn a dead corsage and that she had reeked of Lady Esther, splashed on a lavender dress.
“Beautiful night,” Hamilton noted.
She mentioned the Conservatory. Did he know it? He did. For security reasons, it was closed for the duration. Enemy agents, posing as patrons, might use it to signal. Situated on a hill, the cobalt-blue windows stared darkened at the sea:
Sunglasses worn by The Spy...
In her mind, a periscope had surfaced:
Lights blinking in the night...
She stared out at what was passing—bushes and blazoned buildings—bone-white houses of sleep. In Europe, rain would be drilling into the mud; men shivering in ditches without warmth. Had spies, sent by Hamilton, not prayed to the same God as the Germans, until captured and shot, they had died with their mouths full of the same earth? Would they be alive now if they had asked questions—staring at these blue-white stars holding high above the window of this speeding train? What were the nights like in France? She leaned forward and touched his knee.
“Yes, my dear?” The Commander looked at her curiously.
Valerie chewed her lip. “Sir? What happens to us if I get killed? Or if Pierre...?” The question was important to her. They were not in the cave now.
The train turned, its darker shadows sweeping across the landscape. “My dear—Lieutenant—you must try not to concern yourself with such dreadful questions.” She sat cross-legged on the seat. “We will face that if the time comes—”
Wind wa
s batting at the windows of the train. Polperro was coming up. The air seemed colder, pressing into her body. She wished she had something warmer to wear. She definitely missed her uniform. Riding along, they looked at each other. The Commander was neither anxious, nor was he not anxious. The question nagged her, though he had answered part of it. She had been thinking of France. She felt Roc’s cigarette in her pocket. “May I ask you,” Valerie Sinclair said, “are you yourself afraid to die?” The train was slowing.
Hamilton smiled.
“Well now, I wouldn’t welcome it. You don’t welcome it, do you, Sinclair?”
“Never!”
“You see, we’re cut from the same cloth.” Hers was tacky cotton, he was wearing his. They felt the screech of brakes. She jumped up and pulled the shades, plunging them into utter blackness. Death, he had told her at Achnacarry, is an unfathomable darkness. From its eerie silence had come a voice:
“Got a light, sir?”
Telegraph lines were jumping, chattering like clowns. Disembarking, the man and the girl walked the short distance to The Red Lion. It was after eleven and the streets were deserted. Bags, leaves, and discarded newspapers scudded across the cobbles, plastering themselves against curbs and at the bases of trembling lamps. The wind, stronger now, had followed them up the coast.
She accepted his arm, and burrowed into it.
The wireless that day had hinted at foul weather, but the details were vague. As usual these days, shipping was being warned in a roundabout way. Polperro felt sucked dry, as if by a giant vacuum, common before a larger storm.
The Commander tested the air. By tomorrow night, all hell would be breaking loose. Hamilton was no stranger to it. Often, prestorm weather at sea had left him eager and apprehensive, on the keen edge of coiled and explosive excitement. Sinclair could feel it, in his grip. Entering the hotel, she could hear the raging of the wild air, high above them and along the abutments of the cliffs.
The lobby was deserted, fronted by a single clerk. As they passed him, Hamilton nodded. They hurried up the stairs, the Commander silencing her with a look.
Arriving at Valerie’s room, he took the key from her hand and unlocked the door. Checking the hallways, he motioned her inside. They must not be seen together. “Why is that, sir?” the girl whispered. The Commander did not answer. He would not acknowledge it. Closing the door behind them, he remembered why:
If you still have doubts, said Blackstone, perhaps you could try de Beck on her for size. Intended to assess the Frenchman’s weakness, it was actually to determine the girl’s. Once on the mission, each spy’s vulnerability would affect the other spy’s life. No British officer worthy of the name would leave that determination to a Frenchman.
Hamilton had decided.
After weeks of delays, and days of duty, after briefings and bullets, Achnacarry and caves, after Bridley and Farvillant, Elstree and LeClerc, and underneath the Casablanca fan, Commander David Hamilton officially kissed Valerie Sinclair. In the history of the Royal Navy, no Lieutenant ever surrendered faster.
Valerie tasted him; it wasn’t right.
“Sinclair, how can I ever let you go?”
She heard his voice coming back to her, mechanically and distant, as if from the soundtrack of a foreign film. She had heard such arrogance before. This officer, for all of his pride and honor, was no better than the gate guards at Weymouth. At least they were honest about it. Hamilton, on the other hand, was acting as though bestowing a blessing.
Sinclair opened her eyes.
She kissed him quickly. “Think of the waterproof makeup!” A line reserved for the Frenchman, she had just thrown it away on a fish. Having offered himself as bait, he was now swimming away.
Hamilton wasn’t worth a damn at these things!
It was embarrassing. The man was inept. Sinclair was off the hook. If he hadn’t planned to fuck, he should have said so! A breach of promise, she shook off her shoe.
He threw up his arm, but not in time—his cap deflected the blow. Hamilton stared in alarm, at the bent insignia. “My god!” he muttered. “What strength!” With fingers of steel, he pulled it right.
“I am so sorry!” she cried. She was wiping her nose on the chenille. “I didn’t mean to throw it at you!” Feeling safer, he popped on his hat.
“Bloody thoughtless of me.”
Blackstone sighed, it was in disgust.
“More ‘tests,’ sir?”
“Come now, Sinclair! You know better than that!” It was easier, when they cried. “But we had to be sure, you see. Whatever I do, whatever we’ve planned—the shit, as you would put it—is all geared to keep you alive.”
“That’s not how I would put it!”
“Of course not,” he fended, “of course you wouldn’t, but you understand. We must probe their armor, their weaknesses, you see.” Valerie had moved to the wardrobe, she was hanging up her clothes.
Drat!
“Sinclair?” Feelings hurt, she was jabbing in her bag. Commander Hamilton walked over to her, he touched her arm.
“Sir?”
“Sit down.” Unhappy, she would get over it. “Now listen to me...”
He knelt, gripping the chair. A military professional, his voice was sincere. “If Pierre de Beck leaves you alone at any time—for anything other than a reasonable time”—and he emphasized the words—“be on your guard.”
Her lips parted slightly, her eyes were puzzled.
“Yes, you see, unknown to you, the Germans could have captured him or shot him. Do you understand?”
She studied his face. “Of course,” she said, “but couldn’t the same thing happen to me?” She jumped up. “Surely, if Pierre could be shot or captured, I could. What’s important, I would think, is to get the information.”
Otherwise—!
The question eluded her, it was something he said on the train. “Even together, Commander, we may have but a fifty-fifty chance.”
“My dear Sinclair, it is not a matter of statistics; the information we’re after is far more complex....”
“But if we’re equal in our purposes—?”
“But you aren’t.” His voice had metal in it. Hamilton then made a strange admission: “You’re a daughter of the Commonwealth. You are a part of England, and England is a part of you. You represent her, but Pierre does not.”
“He doesn’t?”
“No, he represents the Allies.”
“The Allies? but aren’t we—?”
“How can I put it?” The Commander’s hand went to his forehead, as though to alleviate unseen pain. “It is England, you see, who stands to be destroyed.”
She was stunned. Hamilton spoke for Churchill.
“That other weapon, you mean?” Her eyes widened. “The one you spoke about at Grasshopper Bay?”
“The Waterfall, yes. Actually...” He hesitated, then decided. “Waterfall is the German Code inversion for ‘Heavy Water.’”
Did he mean rocket fuel?
Without knowing why, she suddenly felt uncomfortable. “I’m not sure I understand—”
“Of course you do!” But she didn’t. Hamilton now made a second decision: to withdraw the option of disclosure. He would not return to it. One did not share physics with one who did not already know, “—far too technical, really. Suppose we leave it for the experts, shall we?”
She could see it: the world in flames.
“It is England’s problem, you see, and it is for the English to solve it.”
“It is not an Allied problem?”
“No...not exactly?”
“Then whose?”
Hamilton looked deep into her eyes. Finally, he said: “It is mine.”
Valerie was aghast. She turned and walked to the curtains. She peeked through them and out over the town, which was sleeping. Churchill, she now realized, was not without a certain lack of trust in his friends. Hamilton had as much as said so. It was as if the Prime Minister, after Coventry—perhaps as a consequence of it—
had grown ever more secretive, ever more paranoid, as the war thundered to its conclusion. As to whose conclusion, delivery in Brittany would tell. That was their position, was it not? As the Commander had made clear to her at Weymouth, without this information—vital to national survival—England would lose.
But what was “heavy water”?
She remembered that afternoon, when he had first told her; and she remembered his words: Waterfall...a weapon, which if deployed, will render us absolutely defenseless against it. What kind of weapon? Hamilton had mentioned Einstein. She recalled from files since destroyed—one of her first jobs following her Clearance—that Einstein and a man named Szilard had written a letter to Roosevelt...that a copy of it was in a folder called the Manhattan Engineering District, intended for Bletchley Park; but that it had been routed to Weymouth instead; because of the mistake of an officer who was no longer there. A man in civilian clothes had come—just as Hamilton had—asking her if she remembered anything. She had lied, and told him no.
“How do you spell Oppenheimer?” he had asked.
Photographing his motives, they spoke to her a picture:
The London Financial District had not forgiven Washington for excluding them, and making them wait in line. And what they were concealing: was a tool of power. War or no, there were men willing to steal these tools of power from other men in order to use them for themselves. Later, looking at her prints, photographs of this picture had not developed. Something had happened in the dark room. It had to do with guilt. Beyond the limits set by MI.5, she was forbidden to see: truth was for experts. It was all very much an ULTRA secret, heavily censored, and far too dreadful for her to know. Whatever it was, whoever was after it, whatever the cost, MI.5 was counting on her to photograph it.
That’s why there was a mission.
“I understand,” the girl said. But what was it she understood? She was staring at men without faces; at pictures without parts. This weapon...could that explain the presence of The Spy? Was that why he had followed her? Dark pathways into the truth ended before steel doors; and people like her were not supposed to go there.
She sat down on the edge of the bed.