All Clear (80 page)

He’d had a close call last week. He’d been typing one of his messages when Cess came in, and before he could get the paper out of the typewriter, Cess had begun reading over his shoulder. “I say, haven’t you already used the name Polly?” he’d asked. “It’s a common enough name, but you don’t want to do anything to make the Germans suspicious.”

Or you
, he thought.
Or Tensing
. And he had dutifully Xed out the name and typed “Alice” above it.

Maybe the safest thing to do would be to try to get invalided out and land a job on a newspaper. Whatever he did, he had to do it soon, before they were shut down and he was assigned elsewhere. Once he’d been assigned, it would be almost impossible to get it changed.

And in the meantime he needed to finish his news story and get it put away before Cess caught him using “Polly” again and got suspicious. He went back to the office and changed the sentence to “When I spoke to Captain Davies, he said it was scheduled to last another full month. I realize Sellindge is located on the direct route to Dover, but is it necessary for the
entire
First United States Army Group to parade past my door? At my wits’ end, Miss Euphemia Hill, Rose Gate Cottage—”

“You may as well stop typing,” Cess said from the doorway. “The jig’s up.”

Ernest looked up at him, startled. Cess was leaning lazily against the doorjamb, his arms folded. “What?”

“I said, the jig’s up. It’s American slang. It means we’ve been found out. Hitler’s finally tumbled to the fact that there’s no FUSAG. And no second invasion.”

Ernest waited a moment to give his heart time to stop thudding and then said, “Hitler’s caught on to the deception?”

“Yes, and about time. I’d begun to think he’d only realize he’d been tricked when he saw Monty rolling into Berlin.”

The Russians
, Ernest thought.
And Hitler won’t be there. He’ll already have killed himself in his bunker
. “Who told you he’s caught on?”

“No one,” he said. “I’m in Intelligence, remember? I’ve deduced it from the clues.”

“What clues?”

“One, Algernon’s here. And two, Lady Bracknell’s called a general meeting in the mess.”

Cess was right. It looked like the jig was up. In more ways than one.
I should have talked to him earlier about being reassigned
, he thought. Or perhaps there was still time. “When’s this meeting scheduled for?”

“Now,” Cess said, showing no sign of leaving.

And Ernest couldn’t leave either, not with a story with the name Polly in it still in the typewriter. “Coming,” he said, putting a cover over the machine and standing up. “You need to go tell Gwen. He’s in the garage underneath the staff car.”

“Oh, right,” Cess said, and left. Ernest yanked the cover off and the letter out of the typewriter, hid it in the file cabinet, and was at the door when Cess returned.

“Gwen wasn’t there,” he reported. “He must already be in the meeting.”

He was, and so was everyone else except Chasuble. Lady Bracknell, in full-dress uniform—another bad sign—was saying, “Colonel Algernon has something to say to you.”

“Thank you,” Tensing said, standing up. “First of all, I want to thank all of you for your hard work during these past months and to tell you how handsomely it’s paid off. Our efforts to deceive the Germans as to the time and place of the invasion have been successful beyond our greatest hopes. Even after receiving news of the Normandy invasion, the German High Command continued to believe that that was a diversion and that the main invasion was still to come at the Pas de Calais.”

He was talking in the past tense. Cess was right. The jig was up.

“As a result of this belief,” Tensing went on, “they held significant numbers of troops and tanks in readiness for that invasion, numbers which, if sent to Normandy, would have significantly altered the outcome. Fortitude South’s work was decisive in the outcome of the invasion, and you’re to be congratulated.”

The men began to clap and cheer. “We did it!” Cess shouted. “We beat them.”

“Right,” Prism said wryly. “Single-handedly. I’m certain all those destroyers and planes and paratroopers and landing forces had nothing to do with it.”

“Lieutenant Prism makes an excellent point,” Tensing said. “The invasion was a combined effort, and there are countless others who deserve credit for its success. But they’ll receive medals, and there will be speeches praising what they did. And newspaper accounts.” He nodded briefly at Ernest. “You won’t. Your part in all this must unfortunately remain secret. My thanks and the knowledge of a job well done are all the reward you are likely to get. And”—he paused dramatically—“a bottle of Scotch with which to toast your accomplishment!” He held it up, and there was more clapping and cheering.

“That’s not dummy Scotch, is it?” Cess asked suspiciously.

“It’s an inflatable rubber bottle,” Prism said.

“No, it’s glass,” Tensing said, tapping it with his finger. “I’m quite certain it’s authentic. The label says, ‘Aged at Shepperton Film Studios.’ ”

Everyone laughed. “Can we open it now?” Gwen shouted.

“Not just yet,” Tensing said.

“Watch out,” Cess whispered to Ernest.

“I said the Germans were deceived into thinking there would be a second invasion,” Tensing went on. “That isn’t quite correct. The German High Command continues to believe that, and it’s essential that we perpetuate that deception for as long as possible.”

“I was wrong,” Cess whispered. “Apparently the jig isn’t up.”

“To that end, you’ll continue with your current deception and disinformation campaigns. In addition, you’ll increase the number of radio messages to the Pas de Calais’s Resistance Underground cells, and you’ll disseminate disinformation regarding the location of the Third Army, which is currently in the process of embarking for France under the tightest possible security. Your job will be to keep its presence in France—and General Patton’s—secret until General Patton takes official command of it.”

“Oh, Lord,” Moncrieff muttered.

“With him swaggering about in that star-studded uniform of his and making incendiary statements?” Cess whispered. “He must be joking.”

“
But
,” Tensing said, glaring at Cess, “in the event that his presence is detected, we will obviously need an explanation for what the commander of the army poised for attack on Calais is doing in France. We’ve developed a cover story in which General Patton made a controversial statement and has been demoted to the command of a single army under Omar Bradley.”

“Who’s supposed to have been put in command of FUSAG in place of Patton?” Gwen asked.

“General McNair,” Tensing said. “We’re putting out the story that he is being leashed until the German High Command sends the Fifteenth Army to Normandy, and then he’ll strike. That way we needn’t commit to a particular invasion date.”

So it’s a good thing I didn’t put one in Euphemia Hill’s letter to the editor
, Ernest thought.

“I’ve given Lady Bracknell the script,” Tensing said. “Your job will be to work up an array of supporting materials—wireless traffic, dispatches, doubles if necessary, photographs, newspaper articles.”

Good
, Ernest thought in relief.
That means I can go on sending messages
. And articles referring to Patton were something historians were even more likely to look for than the planted Fortitude stories.

“It’s rather a rush job, I’m afraid,” Tensing said. “It all needs to be in place before Patton leaves.”

“Which is when?” Moncrieff asked.

“July the sixth.” Tensing ignored the groans. “Moncrieff, I also want your report on the convoy activities before I leave. And again, my hearty congratulations on a successful job. And let’s hope the next one is as successful as the last. That will be all.” He stood up. “Cess, Worthing, I want to see you in Bracknell’s office in five minutes.”

He walked out.

“Sounds like you two are for it,” Prism whispered, and Cess nodded, looking worried.

“You don’t suppose we’re being sent on one of those secret missions no one comes back from, do you?” Cess asked Ernest anxiously. “What do you think?”

I think I waited too long to speak to Tensing
, Ernest thought.

They went into the office. Tensing was sitting behind Bracknell’s desk. “You wanted to see us, sir?” Cess said.

“Yes,” Tensing said. “Shut the door.”

Oh, God, it
is
something big. We’re being sent to Germany. Or Burma
.

Cess shut the door. Tensing walked stiffly over to Lady Bracknell’s chair and sat down. “Don’t look like you’re about to be court-martialed,” he said, and smiled. “I called the two of you in here so I could congratulate you.”

“For what?” Cess asked suspiciously.

“For the success of the Normandy invasion. We’ve received word—I’m not at liberty to say through what channels—”

Ultra
, Ernest thought.

“—that the decisive element in the High Command’s refusal to release General Rommel’s tanks for use in Normandy was the eyewitness account of the massive numbers of troops and matériel in the Dover area from a repatriated high-ranking German officer.”

“And not all those letters to the editor Worthing wrote?” Cess said, sounding disappointed. “Or all those dummy tanks we inflated? Worthing here risked life and limb for those tanks.”

“I’ve no doubt the tanks
and
the letters to the editor both played their part,” Tensing said wryly, “though even if they didn’t, they still had to be done. That’s unfortunately the nature of intelligence work. One does a number of things in the hope that at least one of them will work.”

Like going off to Biggin Hill and Bletchley Park and Manchester
, Ernest thought,
and putting messages to the retrieval team in the personal columns
.

“One rarely ever knows which schemes succeeded and which failed.”

It was true. He would never know which, if any, of his messages had got through, never know whether Polly had been pulled out in time.

“It’s unfair, but there it is,” Tensing said. “We were lucky in this case to have found out, though I’m certain we don’t know the full story, and I doubt we ever shall. That will be for the historians to sort out long after we’re dead.”

“I wonder what they’ll make of the Reverend T. W. Ringolsby and the condoms,” Cess said. “Do you suppose that will merit a chapter of its own?”

I hope so
, Ernest thought.

“With footnotes,” Cess said. “And—”

“As I was saying,”
Tensing interrupted, “what we do know is that you two were responsible for keeping the Fifteenth Army tied down in the Pas de Calais during a critical time. You’ve saved countless lives. The original casualty estimate for D-Day was thirty thousand. We had ten thousand,
and every day those tanks have stayed in Calais, even more lives have been saved.”

He and Cess had saved more than twenty thousand lives. And he’d been worried when Hardy’d told him about his saving five hundred and nineteen.

“Congratulations,” Tensing said, standing up and coming around the desk to shake hands with them. “I can’t overstate the importance of what you’ve done. We had only sixteen divisions. If Hitler had brought those tanks up, we’d have been going up against twenty-one. It’s my personal opinion that you may very well have won the war.”

Not lost it. Won it
. He’d been afraid every single day since he’d unfouled that propeller, since he’d saved Hardy’s life, that he had somehow irrevocably altered the course of history, the course of the war, and that Hitler would win. And now—

“Does that mean we can go home and rest on our laurels now?” Cess was asking, grinning.

“Not just yet, I’m afraid,” Tensing said.

Oh, no, here it comes
, Ernest thought.

“I’ve asked Bracknell to assign the writing of newspaper articles about Patton to someone else, Worthing,” Tensing said. “I have another job for the two of you.”

Oh, God, they
were
being sent to Burma.

Tensing leaned across the desk and folded his hands. “The Germans have contacted their agents—or rather, our double agents—and ordered them to report the times and places of V-1 incidents.”

“Why?” Cess asked. “Don’t they already know that? I thought the V-1s were remote-controlled.”

Tensing shook his head. “The Germans know where they intended them to go, not where they went. They’re aimed at the target, Tower Bridge—which, by the way, they have thus far not hit—and a mechanism is set to make a certain number of revolutions and then cut off the fuel supply, at which point the engine switches off and the rocket goes into its dive. But whether they reach the target depends on whether that mechanism was correctly set.”

“So they need the times and locations of the incidents to see whether the rockets are reaching their target so they can make the necessary course corrections?” Ernest asked.

“Yes,” Tensing said, “which puts us in a rather nasty situation. If we provide accurate information to protect our agents’ credibility, we’re
providing aid to the enemy, and a particularly deadly form of aid at that—obviously an unacceptable situation. If, on the other hand, we give the enemy false information, and it’s disproved by German aircraft reconnaissance, it will—”

“Blow our agents’ cover,” Cess said.

Tensing nodded. “And jeopardize any future deception plans. Which is equally unacceptable.”

“So we need to deceive the Germans into thinking their rockets fell where they didn’t,” Cess said. “How do we do that? Create dummy bomb sites?” Ernest had a sudden vision of an inflatable heap of rubble. He suppressed a smile.

“We did consider that,” Tensing said. “Already-existing rubble moved to another site was used effectively in North Africa. But one of our science chaps has come up with a better plan.”

He unrolled a map of southeastern England on the table. It was marked with a number of red dots, which Ernest assumed were V-1 incidents. “We know from our intelligence that in the trials at Peenemünde, the V-1 tended to fall short of the target, and, as you can see from the map, that problem has continued, with the largest number of bombs falling here”—he pointed at an area southeast of London—“rather than in the center of the city.”