by Marc Eden
Valerie stared at him, trying to listen.
“—calls for a hot bath and a toddy of warm rum. A few years before you’ll know it though”—her legal age, he meant—“strong drinks are not for the likes o’ young girls like you.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Valerie, and she looked over her shoulder. He removed the gun from behind his newspaper, slipping it into a drawer. “Parents staying in the hotel, are they?” She waited impatiently for her key.
“...yes,” she said.
Her stockings and legs were very wet. She moved, feeling a fool, up the stairs to her room. Locking the door behind her, she turned on the taps. It was her second bath of the day. It could also be her last. She undressed and got into the tub. She didn’t much work at it, and toweled off quickly. She put on the pillbox hat, wishing she could take it with her. Picking up her sopping clothes, she threw them into the corner—to hell with them! She draped her raincoat over the chair. Weren’t there dryer things in the closet? Opening the wardrobe, she looked in to see what they were...
Forget it!
Valerie sighed and retrieved the drenched gob from the corner, spreading it out on the floor underneath the Casablanca fan which was threatening to explode at any moment. Did they want that thing up there to fall on her head? Where was the fan man? She picked up her bra and underwear, clutching them in her teeth; then carried the chair, heavy with raincoat, into the middle of the room. Hanging her brassiere on one end of it, she arranged her panties on the other. She glanced at the walls, staring into the mirror. They had done an incredible job.
She would miss Madame Roc.
Wind battered at the French windows. Outside, dark voices of air were shouting. Sinclair threw back the covers, she slid into clean sheets. The Commander had not told her the time of their rendezvous in the Channel but they would be leaving England at nine. The skies had opened, rain was roaring. A few hours, as much hers as Marchaud’s:
She would take them home to France.
The pulse of the storm, like a heart, was beating in the room...the child breathing.
Sinclair sleeping, Marchaud was awake:
A young girl—thin, and twelve—was looking down from a platform high on the center pole: the interior of a circus tent, somewhere in Europe, before the war and the Gestapo. Point-of-view of the Artiste: white-stockinged legs locked confidently to the bar, swinging high above the cheering crowd. Looking down, the great tent turning, her painted eyes aflame with dust. Kisses blown—the buckle breaking—and there is not a net! The bar slips! Fear so deep that no adult can face it, or see it, or comprehend it; for those who do, are converted into children:
Her Performance!
It was rushing up to meet her! Landing now, on the platform! Bowing to them...spiraling down the rope, to the ring.
The Ringmaster, booming through time:
“Merci, Mesdames et Messieurs—!”
Listening to the rain, the child closed her eyes...raindrops applauding. Safe, in the hotel, she was with her friend. The older people sleeping, her other had slipped into the Camera Shop, secretly setting up for some test shots. Valerie wanted the call from the British Prime Minister, approved by Hamilton, to be her greatest photograph.
Something worthy of a studio setting.
Head under the sheet, she was in the process of working out the fine points of various procedures—professional lighting and so forth—when she was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Answer it, will you?”
Marchaud rolled over, she went back to sleep.
“Oh, never mind—!” Valerie popped her head out. “Yes? Who is it?”
It was the fan man.
Sinclair got a phone call.
The Manager of the The Red Lion, ordered to release the Arab, and who had just sent his man up to fix the Casablanca fan, had included a message for the girl, who was urgently wanted in the Manager’s office.
She got dressed and fled down the stairwell, leaving the man and his toolbox staring up at the ceiling. The Manager, meeting her in the lobby, led her past the front desk and into the back, where she was expecting to talk with Hamilton. If the call was coming from the Prime Minister, the Commander would certainly insist upon giving her last-minute instructions.
That wasn’t it.
The first thing she noticed was that the Security people were not in the office. The Manager pointed to his desk, to where the phone was off the hook. He turned and left the room. Valerie sat at the desk and picked up the phone.
“Hello?” she said.
“Yes. Valerie?” He was distant. There was a crackling on the line.
“This is Valerie Marchaud,” she said, hopefully. “To whom, sir, if I may be so bold, do I have the honor—?” It was on the Code Override.
He told her.
Speechless and wanting to thank somebody, Sinclair looked up—to where she thought God was. Would he be watching this, wearing sunglasses? For more than several minutes, she listened intensely. Finally, she spoke. As Hamilton’s officers would try to explain it to him later, the nearest they could recall was that she said: “—I understand. Yes, certainly I do. But even if I did, having already done it, or will do it, or wanted to, the hotel address is still the—!”
They listened, hunched forward in their chairs on the other side of the wall.
“The name is Smythe,” they heard her say. She was taking notes: rapid prints, clicked by her emergency camera. The caller appeared to be sending best wishes, for she was smiling shyly, lips slightly parted. There could be no doubt. Sinclair was impressed.
“Oh my—” she gasped.
Clear as bells, came words, ringing with AUTHORITY.
It was simple enough, the mysterious voice was asking her to remember: “—who? Yes...I think so.” She remembered, “but I don’t know the people there—I do? I don’t—? But you—we do? Yes, of course, if you think he won’t mind—he won’t? I see—he doesn’t? But we should? Certainly—I do. No, I really couldn’t—what? Really?”
Time...
“Where?”
Place...
“Yes, if I decide...yes, I understand.” Sinclair hung up the phone. “Thank you,” she said.
My pleasure...
It was not an order: she didn’t have to. The mission was still on. When it came, as it had to, she had hoped that it might be different. Life was truth. It was like that, wasn’t it? Get it all ready, and somebody had to go to the bathroom. She looked about the room. It had taken her two and a half years, but here she finally was: sitting at the Manager’s desk. She started sorting through a stack of mail.
“Decisions...decisions.”
The Manager opened the door and bristled quickly back into the room asking her if she had finished with her call and throwing her out of his chair. He was busy, having to attend to his guests. She was in the doorway, he looked up. “ ‘Smythe,’ right?”
“Stick it,” she said.
“Stickett?” Certainly, not one of the Bedford Sticketts! He’d no idea! Unfortunate oversight, these things happened. He would send complimentary champagne!
Valerie returned to her room.
Out of their telephone booths, up from their armchairs, and from behind walls, Security rushed in to fill the places they had vacated. Hamilton’s Operatives were feeling privy to greatness, to that unexpected event in the affairs of men which had just included them, personally and precisely, at this moment in history. Follow-up orders were now coming in, instructing them to withdraw all surveillance the moment Sinclair headed for the marina.
There was something new under the sun. They were looking at it: it was called trust. They were a part of it! Unprecedented, this respect shown to Sinclair was viewed as a major policy change in British Intelligence.
The word had come straight from Olympus:
The girl in the pillbox hat was the envy of the Firm.
Meanwhile, up in her room, sorting it out and knowing she had to decide, Valerie Sinclair was sitting down on her c
hair underneath the Casablanca fan, which had been fixed by the fan man, who had also detached the electronic bug from her lamp. Arranged by Blackstone, unknown to Hamilton, it had been placed there to ensure that the Commander carried out his orders. Now, overridden by a higher authority, it had been removed. Valerie, who was noticing that the lamp was no longer sputtering, got up and turned it off.
She returned to her chair.
Uneasiness had arrived, as it had at Achnacarry, through the corridors of sleep. There, fighting for her life, instruction had entered. The Spy had helped her. But where was he now? She spun round to the mirror. Panic stared back. The peripheries of her mind had just expanded, a widening crack in the walls of containment, where light was pouring in. Through this tunnel of comprehension, she had her first glimpse of the other side, of the other man’s side; and what she was looking at were the facts. They had told her, and had trained her to believe, that these facts did not exist. It was not just the tunnel had widened, but the war; and fear had gripped her, the way it grips a child, because of their lack of love. The Allied cause, not all of it in concert, dedicated to protect the right of free people to live, had not changed. But men of greed and vision had come, wearing masks of brightness and smiles; and they had used her, the way they would use a tool: their questions, designed for responses that had excluded her right to be. It was who she was that mattered, they had told her that; yet they were making sure she would be somebody else. Denied the right of choice, how could she give them what they wanted?
Especially now, that she knew.
She would have to tell them something!
She walked to the window, staring out over their world and hers. It had just been dumped in her lap. She felt humiliated because she was trembling, and her brown eyes brimmed with tears. The masters of that world were waiting for her answer:
Hamilton, in particular.
“Fuck you,” she said.
Outside the skies were dark. Blue shadows shimmered about her eyes. Lustrous as agates, they were the eyes of the living camera.
She wet her lips, tasting its current.
Recalling the conversation in the Manager’s office, she remembered his voice on the phone. Having placed it, she was looking at the picture of his face:
He didn’t have one.
Quelle heme est-il?
Where was she?
The girl was coming awake. Wind was blowing. It was the rain on the roof. A force shook the windows and the room was cold. She rolled over and looked at her watch: 8:15.
She must hurry!
Her raincoat was nearly dry. Sinclair opened the wardrobe, and stared at her uniform: was it forever, as Hamilton had said? She took a last look round the room, then hurried down the stairs. She turned in her key.
“Checking out, Miss?
“Yes. I’m all paid up, I believe.”
“Right. The bill has been settled.” Buttoning her coat, Valerie caught a quick glimpse of two military types, both Royal Navy, through the partially opened door of the Manager’s office. One of them was on the telephone, and his partner was lighting a cigarette. Spotting her, he walked over and closed the door.
She glanced at the clerk. His eyes, holding hard admiration, were the same eyes she had been looking at all week; now sharing victory, bigger than themselves.
They do not know...
How could they? Security was so tight not even the fog could penetrate. He saluted. “Come back and see us,” he said.
Valerie looked about the lobby. It was deserted. She turned then, and moved through the doors. The girl pulled up her collar and entered the street. Leaning into the wind, she crossed. The storm had taken over. Water rushed along the curb, furrowing into culverts. Lightning shot across the sky. Raindrops ran down her cheeks. Recording them, she crossed her eyes. They were like droplets of silver light. She looked up, stopped, and stared. Arrived at the crossroads, she remembered, instructions on the phone:
House of ghostlight, bluish in the rain...
She mounted the steps, feeling welcome.
She could hear the cat. He was inside somewhere. Sinclair waited on the porch, under the dripping eaves. She had been told who to expect. Turning the corner, the limousine came into view. It pulled up to the curb and stopped. The door opened on the driver’s side. He was alone. She stepped to the railing. There was no mistaking the figure—tall man, dark coat—standing just off the walk, in the downpour.
Valerie ran down the steps. She came up to him and he gripped her hand. Rain stung their faces. “Sorry you had to wait,” Ryan said, “but I felt it best to avoid the sea road. Any problems at the hotel?”
“Two of Hamilton’s officers spotted me on the way out.” Ryan was staring up the street. “They were in the back room. One of them was on the telephone.”
“Do they know who called?”
“No,” she said, “I’m totally alone in this.”
It was her decision.
“How do you know they were his?”
“I—” The girl looked at him helplessly. Her lips were slightly parted. She was trembling.
“Get in.”
He guided her into the back seat, out of the elements. She shook the rain from her hair. It was waiting for them, this journey, the storm, a challenge they could not avoid. Fear was flapping at the glass, she let it out.
It had come, on the wings of weakness.
Rain drummed on the roof, water slamming into metal. Valerie Sinclair could hear the song of her heart. From somewhere, over and above, the sound of the great motor.
They were moving...
Valerie asked him if he would be so kind as to loan her a cigarette. “For you? Sure, why not?” She looked good for it. Ryan handed her a crumpled pack of Pall Mall, three left. He had a gold lighter. It twirled on a ratchet, they had them in New York. “Light?” She leaned forward, his arm swung to the back seat.
Retractable thumb, knuckles of steel...
Dark eyes sparkled, assessing him through the flame.
* * *
A Flying Dutchman sort of night, the sea was of one mind and those who faced it another; with harbor buoys just beyond the breakwater writing lethal sonnets of sound on the plates of tremendous tides, hurling spume from the agony of their dreams into the black disgorging air. The wind was roaring; rain falling in patterns like bullets; tearing at trees and screaming high above them: voices of drowned seamen shouting demonic prayer and sweeping accusations before them along emptied streets, calling the wicked to account.
Hamilton looked up.
The report of the call to the hotel, on Code Override, had been waiting for him upon his arrival from Beaulieu; the girl having already left. While the mission was go, Valerie Sinclair would arrive at their Brittany rendezvous by an alternate route. A sudden stabbing thought intruded. Could she have been abducted? Hamilton grabbed at his mind, this was no place for fear. No, it was clear enough: unless the sending parties delivered the girl to the marina at the last minute, they were to proceed without her. The message, ciphered OPERATION TUNNEL and signed PAPA, had Blackstone’s confirmation attached. Straight from the Top, this unexpected directive had caught David Hamilton flat.
His trained eyes experienced in discerning movements, the Commander peered down the street. It was approaching out of the darkness, hunched and running, often stopping, and staring up. It was formed like a werewolf, and its name was doubt. He got up from the bench, stepping closer to the curb. The werewolfs shadow, splintered by rain, and moving along the wall of a warehouse was down-funnelling now into the form of a man: fighting the wind, and navigating the comer. A branch crashed! Someone jumped, he raised his arm.
“Over here!”
Pierre came up, drenched.
Collar turned, he greeted the Englishman cheerfully. “Bonsoir! Or, should I say bonne chance?” Hamilton’s frown welled up from the sounds of the sea.
Pierre grinned. “I hear she’s not going with us.” On arriving from London, he had checked it out.
It looked like Blackstone.
“So it seems.”
Messages burned in Hamilton’s brain. He stepped forward, urgency in his voice. “We mustn’t keep our rendezvous waiting.” He led the Frenchman to a small launch. Unseen before now, it bobbed uneasily in a protected shield of the quay. From the boat, the pilot saluted them sharply.
“Filthy night, Pryor!”
“Yes, sir!”
Hamilton and the Frenchman jumped aboard, breaking out oilskins and sou’westers. Lines were cast. Free of the marina and the inlet, Lieutenant Pryor and the Commander compared coordinates. The launch circled east. Polperro’s harbor flattened behind them, the shores of Britain disappearing into a black line.
Air-dropped, would she come by moon plane, or—?
“Better allow for a second sub, Pryor!”
“Right, sir!” The pilot refigured his bearing, he needed to look at the charts.
“Me for the Con!” the Commander announced.
Taking over, he slammed the hatchway. Gripping the wheel, Pryor forward, Hamilton thought he heard something, but at a distance: a vibration of some sort, more like a ship’s engine, and driven by the shriek of the wind. There were no running lights on the horizon; and, for that matter, no other shipping of any kind tonight, according to Weather. No one but a madman would take a boat out on a night like this! Hamilton tugged at his hat and wondered if they were being watched, if the enemy could possibly be aware of their purpose. He was not a man to take chances; yet he felt reasonably certain that no one had seen them leave. Nothing recent on The Spy, was there? He had meant to call Seymour; and he glanced over his shoulder. He listened. Whatever it was, it was not there now. The wind slipped for a moment, and he eased forward on the throttle. The air was black, and slippery with rain.
He had dreamt of such nights as a boy. Propped on his elbows before the fire, intent on the book before him, he had stood then where he stood now. The great sea novels of Herman Melville, Howard Pease, and Jack London had decided his life as much as the uncompromising naval sternness of his father. Later, studying Maritime Law at King Alfred College, at Brighton and Hove, David Hamilton had carried a thin volume of John Masefield in his coat the way other men carried cigarettes. He had read all of these books by the end of his first term, dreaming at night of tramp steamers...ships with names like Maura Queen and Excalibur and Singapore Hattie...ships carrying Peter Lorre-looking people in white hats...slicing through Oriental waters, and furrowing through fog.