Madeleine's War (19 page)

I LAY ON MY BACK IN BED
and looked up at the ceiling. The first light of the day had leaked into the room about twenty minutes before, and there were no more moving shadows. This early in the morning, the traffic in St. John's Wood Road was thin.

How boring the ceiling was in daylight. Since Madeleine had been gone, since she had flown away towards that mottled moon, I couldn't sleep.

I put my arm out to where she should have been. She was slender but she had left a vast, empty space of sheet and eiderdown in her absence. And a faint smell of her, now fading fast.

Madeleine had been dropped near Le Gâvre as planned, thanks to Jack. Or so she had said in her first transmissions, transmissions that were correctly encoded and contained no mistakes, other than the deliberate ones. So far as we could tell, it was her “fist,” and her true and bluff checks were correct. We didn't know exactly where she was, or how she was faring on a day-to-day basis because, quite rightly, she didn't waste time on air with extraneous details like that. But she had clearly bicycled her way towards St. Nazaire, from near to which she had sent us several reports—that the streets were awash with German troops, that more troops were still arriving, and that she had faced several roadblocks but had been let through all of them—no one was interested in a bookbinder of antiquarian books, who read German authors in translation. She was proving just as adept as we had hoped. I couldn't ever relax while she was in the field but…but, so far, she was doing all right. More than all right—
“fan-tas-tique,”
as she might have said.

And, most important of all, she was confirming that the Germans, at the very least, were not pulling their troops out of the St. Nazaire area, rather the reverse. She reported that she had overheard a conversation in a baker's shop, to the effect that an order for a nearby German barracks in St. Nazaire had just been doubled, on account of more troops arriving. Exactly the kind of convincing detail we needed.

She couldn't get within ten kilometres—six miles—of the actual coast, she had told us: the Germans kept the coast fiercely guarded—they had a coastal exclusion zone like we did—but she had familiarised herself with a large hospital in St. Nazaire as a good place to overhear gossip. And she had seen a submariner brought in for treatment after he had been caught up in a fight aboard his ship. St. Nazaire, we knew, was a submarine base, so that seemed to indicate that the subs—or U-boats as the Germans called them—were not being relocated: another piece of good news.

Rondin's reports showed much the same picture. Hilary had communicated this immediately to General Grieves, who had taken the information to Churchill and Eisenhower.

“With any luck,” Hilary had said to me when he came back from the meeting, “our little plan—
your
plan—to convert the penetration of our circuits into a double bluff, seems to have worked a treat. Fingers crossed, eh? I got the impression from the mood of the meeting that the invasion is only days away now.”

That had cheered me no end. It would be good to be having a go at the Germans, taking the fight
to
them, rather than merely soaking up punishment as we had been doing, in London anyway, for five long years. And I was pleased for Madeleine's sake. She had survived the first few very dangerous days of her time on the ground in France alone. More than survived—she had shone. Once the invasion had begun, her life would surely become much easier. She had told us that she didn't think the local circuit in St. Nazaire—code-named Crossbow—had been penetrated.

The ceiling above the bed wasn't getting any more interesting, so I decided to get up. I put on my dressing gown, a gesture which always excited Zola, who clearly couldn't tell the difference between a dressing gown and a raincoat and always optimistically concluded that we were going out for a walk. Instead, I went through into the kitchen and put on the kettle, to boil some water for tea. There were no eggs, but I had some bread, a few days old, and a small block of margarine. I could at least make some toast.

I lit the gas, cut the bread, and put a slice under the grill. There was a bit of Marmite left, to give a lift to the toast.

Zola, having worked out that we were not going for a walk just yet, flopped down on the kitchen floor. But he kept an eye on what I was up to. He knew he didn't get fed until later in the day, but…

I went into the bathroom to inspect the razor on my shaver. I hated shaving. I was just passing the ball of my thumb over the blade of the razor when the telephone rang.

I stopped breathing.

I put down the razor and looked at my watch: it was 5:40.

Early—very early—for a phone call.

Was someone ringing me with news of Madeleine? If so, news at 5:40 could hardly be good news.

I hurried through the kitchen, switching off the kettle and the gas for the toast, and sat on the bed.

Did I need to prepare for life without Madeleine? I had only known her a matter of weeks.

An early morning bus accelerated in Grove End Road. I could recognize that engine sound effortlessly.

The telephone was still ringing.

I leaned forward and picked up the receiver.

“Yes? Matt Hammond.”

“What are you doing? Are you awake?”

“Hilary? Yes, sir. I was just making breakfast.”

“Forget it. I want you in here. Have something at your desk. Our troops went in overnight. The invasion's started. Normandy. Drop everything. Get into the office as quick as you can.”

He rang off and the line went dead.

He was right. I had to get into the office, and pronto. No time for breakfast, no time to shave, no time to take Zola for a walk. That didn't pose the hygienic problems it might have done. Today was a Tuesday, and Mrs. Crosland came in on Tuesdays to clean and change the sheets. She would take Zola for a walk outside. I left her a note just to make sure.

As soon as I reached the office, I could see that everyone had been called in early. Hattie was already on reception but not yet Freda.

At the far side of the typing pool, Hilary had erected an easel and on it was a large map of the north of France. Others were gathered round him;
and he was just starting to draw on the map. I dumped my bag on my desk and went to stand with the others.

Hilary nodded at me but didn't stop what he was doing.

“The prime minister is going to make a statement in Parliament later today, but this is my understanding of what is happening.”

He pointed to the map and the lines he had drawn on it.

“There are five beaches, between here—Quinéville, in the west—and here—Cabourg, in the east. A fifty-mile stretch of beach, being attacked by the United States First Army, and the British Second Army. For those of you who know northern France—Normandy—the landings are either side of Bayeux, near Saint-Lô and Caen. Four thousand ships are involved. There are clear skies over the beaches—for now at any rate—but so far the Luftwaffe has not appeared.

“Now,” he said, “I've told you what precious few details I know—the invasion is only hours old, after all. I will learn more later today and will pass it on as soon as I am told. Eventually, of course, the newspapers and the radio will be full of it. But our immediate job is to make sure that our agents in the field know what's happening. They may learn something in France, but it will be a time of rumour and counter-rumour, and we owe it to our people to ensure they get the unvarnished truth. We don't know, yet, whether the invasion is going to be a success, but we must at least tell them that it has started. So we need to prepare coded messages—short and to the point—for when they next check in.”

He turned and pointed to Ernestine Ridley, Tina to everyone, a handsome older woman, an unflappable senior secretary with immaculate silver hair who was never seen without her cashmere kilt. “Tina here has the schedule of who checks in when, so I want the office manned non-stop from now on until everyone has been briefed. Colonel Hammond, Matt, can you see to it, please?”

“Of course,” I said. “Tina, can you and I compare notes, please? Would you like to come to my office?”

She came up to me and, smiling, whispered, “We've all been in for a while and it's not even seven o'clock yet. Shall I pop out and get us a toasted sandwich, and a hot drink, and
then
come to your office?”

“Mr. Ridley is a lucky man, Tina. That's almost as good a prospect as the invasion itself.”

“Mr. Ridley has been dead these past six years, Matt. If you weren't so young, I might have my eye on you. See you in a min.” She smiled and was gone.

I went back to my office, took off my jacket, and sat at my desk. I took out a list of agents who were still active in the field. On it there were 116 names. It was going to be a very long day.

I THREW THE PAPER BAG
the sandwich had come in into the waste-paper basket. “That really hit the spot, Tina. How much do I owe you?”

“Tuppence,” she said. “Sorry the bread was so stale. The man in the shop said he hadn't yet had today's delivery.” She grinned. “That's what comes of starting work so early.”

I handed the money across. “Any sign in the shop that people know what's going on?”

She shook her head. “Business as usual, so far as I could see.”

“I suppose the PM wants to make the announcement, and to Parliament first. Then all hell will break loose. Now, I have an alphabetical list of agents in the field, alphabetical by code. I need to convert that into an order of agents according to when they are due to contact us next. That means I need both their code names and their access codes. Hilary is preparing the tailored messages now.”

“I think it might be better if we went back into the typing pool and pushed some desks together. It will be easier to spread out the papers and compare lists that way.”

“Good idea,” I replied.

We got up and went through to the typing pool, where more of the junior staff were beginning to arrive. We rearranged some desks so they formed a large rectangle and laid out the sheets of paper and set about what was, in effect, a massive coordination job.

“Now, let's see…We need to do some shuffling. I'll read out the names and the circuits, you tell me the times they are checking in, and then we can sort them into order. Ready?”

Tina nodded.

“Acorn. Erica Stanfield. Patron circuit, Melun.”

“Three thirty to three forty-five,” said Tina.

I made a note.

“Apple. Bettany Crace. Hawk circuit, Pontoise.”

“Four fifteen to four thirty.”

“Chain. Barbara Hapgood. César circuit, Auxerre.”

“Five o'clock to five fifteen.”

“Cloister. Vicky Webb. Spiral circuit, Rouen.”

“Four forty-five to five o'clock.”

And so it went on, tedious but vital. Those agents depended on our meticulous attention to detail—we couldn't let them down.

Eight o'clock came and went, then 9:00 a.m.; at 10:30 we had another break and went downstairs for more “coffee.”

Still no sign in the café that anyone was aware of the invasion.

We were back at our desks at 11:00.

Twelve came and went and we were still at it. The first transmission we were expecting was at 2:00. We normally had no transmission in the mornings because, after all, agents had work to do.

At about a quarter past twelve, G. suddenly stood over me.

“This just came in. You might like to read it in the privacy of your own office.”

I looked up, then at Tina, then back at G. “Is it from the field?”

“You could say that.”

Odd form of words, I thought.

“Is it from Madeleine? From Oak?”

A firm shake of the head.

I took the slip of paper from her, but didn't return to my office. I read what was written right there in the typing pool. The clatter of keys was a backdrop we had learned to ignore. But I heard it now, preternaturally loud. Like the rattle of jackboots.

As I read the message, a slow, itchy sensation squirmed its way up the back of my neck.

I looked up at G.

My mouth fell open.

“Has Hilary seen this?” I asked G.

“No. I thought I'd leave that to you.”

“You're a real pal,” I said, getting up.

I took the paper across the room and walked down the corridor. I knocked on Hilary's door and entered without waiting. He was on the phone.

He didn't like being interrupted unannounced. He glared at me, but reluctantly waved me to a seat, knowing I wouldn't barge in unless I had something important to discuss. I put the paper in front of him before sitting down.

He read it while listening to the conversation at the other end of the line. Then, “Sir, something's just come up. Can I ring you back—say fifteen minutes? Okay.”