by Marc Eden
Hamilton felt better.
“Personally”—he had paused to light his cigar—“I think that women should go on missions...gives them a good gallop. That’s what I do. I’ll see you at Hyde. Good-bye, David.” The Prime Minister handed the phone to an Aide, who asked the Commander if he had any questions.
Hamilton said that he didn’t and hung up.
August 6th!
“Any problem, sir?” Seymour was closing his desk.
“Not really.” Five weeks! “Lord Louis hasn’t decided yet.”
Hamilton handed Seymour his personal address book. “I’ll be off to Beaulieu, let’s get to work.”
For the next hour, from Southampton, the lines turned hot:
“This is Red Code Zero, come in please...”
“SAINT IVES calling?”
“Hang on.”
SAINT IVES calling...
“You’d better wait...”
“—thank you, Major Farvillant. Yes, thank you very much. I appreciate your doing this for me on a Sunday.” The relay of details went down the line. The answers came back. Seymour checked them off.
They called the harbor master at Polperro, who would be honored to keep small craft away from the quay. Seymour hung up the phone and it rang again. It was The Red Lion. Something about Smythe. The Lieutenant listened. “Oh, shit—!” Seymour said. “So? What’s his problem? No, let him go. Don’t be ridiculous! Certainly, I’ll vouch for him...yes, of course. Fine. Same to you!” Seymour tossed the phone back on the hook.
The Commander threw him a look.
“—Security, Polperro. Case of mistaken identity—”
“Keep on it,” Hamilton said.
They called the Commander of the Free French...yes, Farvillant has it...nothing new on de Beck...make sure he’s on time, “—yes, attend to it personally, will you?...yes, if you don’t mind...thanks ever so much.”
They called London.
They called Weather down coast.
“They’re on, sir.”
Hamilton picked up the phone to his Security Team at The Red Lion. Something about an Arab. “Settled, is it? How’s that? Yes. All right. Let me have the rest of it later, will you? That’s a good fellow.” Of the two officers assigned to street watch, one of them had noticed a silver and black limousine, in town since mid-morning, but had not thought it important enough to say so. It was raining there, people did wear trench coats. It would come up at the review meeting, on Tuesday, when Hamilton would fasten on it.
They couldn’t raise Transport on the phone, so Hamilton sent Seymour to get the driver and bring the car around. While waiting, he called Weather again, the submarine slip, and Grimes at Beaulieu, who told him he was expected. Finally, he got through to Transport. Seymour, with driver, had just left and they were on their way. About bloody time...Hamilton glanced impatiently at his watch. He lit a cigarette. Had he forgotten anything?
Yes, he had forgotten to have lunch.
Lieutenant Seymour appeared in the doorway. The Commander was stuffing final papers into his case. “Put my address book in the safe, will you?” He accepted his hat and Seymour helped him on with his coat. He turned. “So then! I’ll ring you, if we’re scrubbed. Otherwise, expect me Tuesday—”
Hamilton moved through the door, and was gone.
Within twenty minutes, his driver had him out of the Yards and through the suburbs, onto the Bournemouth Road. From there, it was a straight shot. Hamilton, as was his custom, retreated into himself and took a catnap. They reached the Abbey in late-afternoon, the dark windy air portending rain.
Lord Louis, dear to the hearts of all Commandos, received him personally in one of the large upper chambers he was using for an office. They shook hands energetically, Mountbatten breaking into a broad grin. Invited for tea, Hamilton got straight to the point.
“Is it a go? That’s all I want to know.”
“Sit down, Commander, and let’s talk about it.”
The question predominant in Lord Louis’s mind was the reliability of the girl, Sinclair. Hamilton immediately suspected Blackstone. But it was Mountbatten’s right. This remarkable man had spent all of his active life in the Royal Navy. There was a seriousness of purpose about him, an attention to detail, which Hamilton had observed before, and which he respected. In a very profound way, it was a hallmark of both their characters. Hamilton reiterated his case in his usual blunt and straightforward way, emphasizing Valerie’s ingenuity and photographic memory:
The man without a face came up.
The Commander fielded it.
The girl’s insistence that he didn’t have one, Hamilton thought best to keep to himself. Credibility was delicate enough. There was nothing new to add to the girl’s first report, but they were working on it.
“Let us hope so,” Lord Louis pointed out. “One has to stay on top of these things, if they’re not to get out of hand. You will keep me apprised directly, won’t you?”
Hamilton said that he would.
“Well then!” There was really no battle, and the Commander could have relaxed. Mountbatten, enjoying this younger version of himself, had already decided. He reached over, clasping Hamilton warmly by the shoulder.
“Let’s go for it.”
“The mission is on then?”
The gracious man handed the Commander a sealed envelope. Hamilton, as Mission-Commander, knew it contained the rendezvous coordinates for the submarine. Lieutenant Pryor, the pilot, would have the other copy. If there were any lastminute changes, they could be radioed aboard ship. By this time tomorrow, de Beck would be behind enemy lines, in charge of disposable cameras. Sinclair, instructed to entrust the resultant prints to Pierre, would do so. The Frenchman, approved by John Blackstone, would then carry them back to England using the special codes arranged by Parker. That Blackstone’s future was veering away from that of Lord Louis had become obvious to the Commander. But it was the future of Valerie Sinclair, once emptied of data, that now worried him. Surgically altered to fit Farvillant’s Biographie, the biological profile of the French child reputedly killed, what were her own chances of survival? Rather poor, actually. It was not that Hamilton wanted this to happen; his own position on the Blackmail List made it expedient for him not to know:
He accepted death in war.
Lord Louis was wanting to wrap it up. The younger man rose to thank him, but Mountbatten waved him aside. “You have it, old boy. Get to work. However”—he pointed to the large clock on the wall,—“if I were you, I’d hurry. Your Captain Grimes is waiting downstairs...the basement. Lift’s to your right.”
“By the way, sir,” Hamilton thought to ask, picking up his case. “I understand that Bridley came in with you. Is he about?”
“He did, indeed. We sent him over to Truro.” Lord Louis smiled. No one would be able to reach him. “I expect James will keep the Overseas Security Group on their toes, what?”
The two men shook hands. Lord Louis walked him to the door, his thoughts centering in Friday’s phone calls. “If we’re wrong, David, they’ll have your head.”
It was Hamilton’s first kindness of the day.
He caught the lift to the basement, and found Arnold Grimes in the middle of Emily Blackstone’s call to her husband: something about not enough credit to the Rubinstein woman. Hamilton waved him off, some things were personal. The Commander questioned him for late information, and Grimes handed him the weather charts. He leafed through them. “If Commodore Blackstone calls you on the bloody carpet, play dumb,” the Commander advised him, and Grimes grinned.
A cold fish, Hamilton decided, pleased.
Light rain met him at the bridge, and a lowering sky. He was still ninety miles from The Red Lion. Smythe and Longchamps—Valerie and Pierre—would be checking out, records proving they were never there. Hamilton tested the air. It was coming, all right. According to the latest, the storm should be hitting Polperro just about now.
Toward the East, he saw the wall of darkness forming. F
eeling chilled, he asked the driver to turn on the blower. He leaned back. It had been a long day, and he had won. Rain, coming faster, swept before them on the dusty road, peppering the windshield.
In the skies beyond, lightning flashed.
It began to pour.
V
Click!
Practically all the Operatives, in MI.5, appeared to be somebody else. They could think what they wanted, of course, but wasn’t she wasting her film? Photographs of ghost men, she had captured them as pictures of their shadows. Was Hamilton really Hamilton? She listened. Distant thunder was rumbling. If she was to see the town, she had best get on with it.
Sundays were not her favorite.
She remained on the veranda for a few minutes, trying to figure it, enjoying the feel of the wind. Just last night, Hamilton said, if she were left alone—! In France, he’d meant, by Pierre. Dunkirk reared in her mind: dunes of blood, salt water and screaming; Pierre, clawing through the corpses to the boats, already shot, his body bleeding...
His comrades slain.
It was the Frenchman’s face now, locked in her mind, handsome and strong. She could have done worse. She rested comfortably in the thought that he would kill for her, even if Hamilton had put a tail on both of them for security reasons.
Security reasons!
Sinclair arose and stepped to the edge of the veranda. Beyond that sea, lay France. “Valerie Marchaud,” she said. Fist gripping the rail, dress cleaving to her legs, she stared out over the bay. Boats jerked at chains and the town waited within the cradle of its weather. On all sides, from the wild cliffs above, through the vast crater of stone, narrow and nervous streets cascaded down precipitous stairwells, leveling off onto platforms before depositing themselves, at last, at the foot of the wider avenue that ran along the seawall. Sinclair sniffed the air. The humid charm of Cornwall, thick with waves of heat, smote her senses with the lush, provocative perfume of flowers—invitation to the host of insects, gossips on wings, bearing down in angry clouds of silver from the blind and troubled sky—as if bringing messages of wickedness. She thought of the couple next door; their bed, night after night, thumping against the walls in tawdry joy. A place where men came with other men’s wives, Polperro was the perfect hideaway for spies. Was that why Hamilton had selected it? Valerie, lugging her chair, walked back inside, slamming the French doors. She placed the chair in front of the mirror and sat down.
“Let’s talk,” she said.
A dichotomy had come between herself and Marchaud. It wasn’t the child’s fault. Having entered into the body of a French girl, she was having difficulty finding room for her own. She was also having difficulty in finding the girl. Sinclair did not have all day. Supporting this was an ultimate argument: it was the last day she had.
By this time tomorrow, she could be dead.
Before the mirror, Sinclair told Marchaud:
“We are going to France on the most dangerous mission of the war.” She waited, to get her eye. When she had it, she said: “We are a one-girl team.”
Comment?
“A one-girl team. I am Valerie Sinclair. You, my other, are Valerie Marchaud.”
“Oui?”
The French girl smiled shyly, glad to know her name. Lights of chalister blue haunted their faces. Hadn’t Valerie seen her before in a dream? A memory intruded, elusive...Brittany...but she couldn’t seem to get her hands on it. The room was still where Sinclair spoke but she could not hear her own voice. Now, beneath an orchid-colored sky, hidden from adults by the wisdom of children, she had come. Marchaud’s pale hands were reaching out towards the mirror, her thin dress tattered. The English girl moved closer, wanting to help her. Marchaud did likewise, wanting to care...each girl passing through, exchanging catalytically with, and into, the identity of the other. They were running...a tunnel, shrill of a nightbird, flatlands in moonlight, the smell of the dunes.
The entrance flew towards them!
Something was calling her; someone was there...
She opened her eyes.
“—que faire de mes cheveux?” spoke her other, pointing with uncertainty. The Camera Shop, turning the CLOSED sign around, had allowed her to enter. “Oui,” said Sinclair, busy. Her bobbed hair, shaved high at the neck like a bird’s, shimmered blue-black in the light of the lamp. Sand clung to the clothes of the girl. Marchaud looked frightened. Behind her, spilling into the sea, Valerie could see the cliffs of the vicarage. Shrouded in fog, negatives were turning the color of blood.
She must not have taken her camera—!
Traveling on the current that lay somewhere between them, they had met in the foyer of time. They shook hands. Immediately, the woman made room for the child, who was just about her size.
“Il faut se dépêcher?”
“Of course!” Valerie was having trouble with her English. She listened. The grounds were empty, and dark with dreams. Bells were singing. Voices, more beautiful than bells themselves, echoed ringing in the yard.
Behind her, a door was opening.
Something shimmered, moving through the trees.
“Now, here’s the Plan....”
Massive thunderbanks rolled out of the sky, dimming the daylight along the shore. The storm was coming, the wind racing before it. She walked to the windows, pulling the curtains. Returning, she sat on the bed.
An hour passed.
Within that time, a casual passerby would have heard two girls conversing, the younger in French. As for the passerby, Hamilton’s Security Team was making sure there weren’t any. The conversation in the room continued and the tone became friendlier. Ultimately, there came sounds of agreement, then silence.
At four o’clock, Valerie gathered up her raincoat and left the hotel. Storm or no storm, it was time for her walk. In Polperro, that could have limits. She headed towards the beach, turning south, and away from the marina. She walked down the stairwell which led to the sand and stopped at the balustrade. A beam of light was shining on it.
Sitting down, she looked up:
“Get me God,” she said.
Was it him had sent The Spy? Churchill had talked about God. Sometimes, Hitler. The Pope, too. How could he have so many partners? Until a few years ago, certainly, she would have expected him to take care of it personally. Did he have an address? God, it seemed, was in the credit business: He sent cheques. World leaders prayed to him, for loans. Afterwards, they sent him the bills. While it was not her place to speak for Higher Powers, as was obvious to any thinking person, she and Marchaud knew what they would do! She wondered where God was. When there was a war, he left town.
Smart chap.
Valerie prayed:
On her cheeks, glowed the roses of hope. Her heart felt full of sunshine, her life was full of joy. Running through her prints, she saw they were snapshots of flowers; but The Spy was holding them, too, and they were the snapshots of dreams. Valerie Sinclair closed her eyes. She imagined a happy day. She concentrated. As she bent her head, she heard a sound—!
Something good?
SPLAT!
Raindrops, big as shillings, splattered on the stone.
She jumped! Thunder rolled in the distance. The sky was growing black. Some prayer! If he didn’t want to hear it, he should have said so. Valerie hurried from the quay and turned down a side street. Following her, the storm was throwing rain. It caught up with her, dropping down, overtaking the buildings...encompassing the streets.
A giant hand had hit her on the head!
Where was her pillbox hat? She’d left it in the hotel. Valerie ducked under an awning. It had a hole in it. She turned up the collar of her raincoat, it made a funnel. Water poured into her clothes. A drenched tomcat cut in front of her, running across the street, tail straight up. Was it a message—from BEYOND? There had been so few of them, she’d best not take a chance. She ran after the cat, who turned the comer. Valerie did the same. The cat turned again and ran up onto the porch of a house.
It meowed, voice like a
bell.
Valerie walked by, adjusting the hat she wasn’t wearing. Blinking a couple of blinks, she took a picture of the house. It did not seem to have an address. The door opened and the tomcat walked inside. In those few seconds, from a doorway of the room within, she could see blue sparks cascading, as though from an arc welder. The cat, who had stopped, turned and looked back at her, the door closing as mysteriously as it had opened. What kind of town was this? Working, on Sunday? Valerie looked:
Ahead of her was the entrance to The Red Lion.
She was back!
About to mount the steps, she happened to glance to her right. There, two comers away, she saw a man wearing a trench coat! The Spy! His chauffeur was opening the door of a limousine...
It was them!
She moved around the stairwell, peeking out. The sleek silver and black juggernaut stood silently in the rain, as though waiting for ghostly passengers. Somehow, from its entrance into Hamilton’s watertight security, she knew this graceful machine must be centered in laws and actions created by men who had proceeded to this small town, in this terrible raging weather, at a risk she could not imagine.
Through the windy air, through pouring rain, she observed they were preparing to leave. The Spy had entered the back seat, saying something to his driver. Sinclair looked. The limousine accelerated, moving swiftly away towards the Falmouth Road.
Valerie ran up the steps, into the hotel.
Why did she keep seeing him?
“—what?” she said, distracted: it was her own voice.
The cheerful brogue of the Porter: “It’s going to be a nasty night, wi’ the look of it. See now, your friends have left you to get all wet, have they? You’re drenched!” His hands drummed nervously on the folded newspaper.