I Can't Begin to Tell You (25 page)

‘I imagined that, after the war, you would go home to a family.’

‘I have no family,’ he replied.

‘Oh, I got that wrong.’

‘You did. And it was the one question you could have asked.’

‘I wasn’t sure I wanted to.’

‘I see.’

‘No, you don’t. It was a matter of … honour.’

‘Is that what they call it?’ he said. ‘Isn’t it that, despite your views on personal liberty and sexual freedom, you didn’t want to sleep with a married man?’

She managed a tired smile.

They slept for most of the night. Ruby woke early to find Peter already awake. He was lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling.

‘I’m not making headway,’ he addressed it. ‘How do you solve these turf wars?’

‘Even in an outfit dedicated to the unorthodox?’

‘Even in an outfit dedicated to the unorthodox.’

‘Peter, have you considered you – we – may not be right?’

He turned his head and she read the gnawing doubts in his expression. ‘All the time. But I always return to the same conclusion.’ He gave an exhausted smile. ‘So do you. I know you do.’

Considering someone else in a serious way did not come easily to Ruby. She had been too busy making her own way with mathematics, those sweet, non-temperamental mathematics, to expend much thought on others.

Now
she was obliged to open up areas within herself – to delve into her mental boxes. Those tightly fastened boxes. Peter was making her see differently. ‘Tell me.’ She fumbled for the right words. ‘
If
it helps.’

‘Ruby, Ruby …’ What was he saying? That he needed her to listen to get it all crystal clear? ‘One, we agree the poem code is insecure because it can be tortured out of agents. Two, we agree the alternative of worked-out keys is better. They can be printed onto silk squares, hidden in the agents’ clothing and destroyed after use. Even though we agree – three – it would be disastrous if the Nazis begin using the same system.’

‘And the idea isn’t being taken up?’

Peter sighed. ‘In any organization, in any group, there are always people who set their shoulder against change. In this case, our boss is the chief defender of the poem code.’

‘He should be shot.’ Ruby rolled over towards him. ‘Listen, it beggars belief that this man won’t see the benefit to agents. So, isn’t the next step to make him see it would be to his own benefit? Convince him that there is something in it for him?’

‘Go on thinking.’

‘Is there any country you’re particularly worried about whose traffic we could study?’

‘Can’t go into that.’

She caught a hesitation. There
was
somewhere.

‘Why don’t you organize production of the worked-out keys anyway?’ she suggested. ‘If the chiefs can’t, or won’t, deal with the turf wars, then we can. Because, as we have discussed, we know we’re sending the agents off with faulty tools. And that’s –’

‘Criminal,’ Peter finished the sentence for her.

For a while, there was silence in the cheap hotel bedroom. Ruby closed her eyes, opening them only when he added: ‘I need proof, Ruby.’

‘Let’s get it, then.’

No reply.

She tried again. ‘Why can’t we analyse a country’s traffic?
It might tell us something. I don’t know quite what, but something.’

‘Not a prayer. Each country’s traffic is top secret, guarded with dragons and classified.’

‘Which country has the least traffic? You can answer me that. Surely?’

‘Denmark.’ He touched her breast. ‘Don’t even think of it, Ruby.’

‘Who are we fighting? The enemy? Or idiots on our own side?’

After a moment, he answered, ‘I’m exhausted.’

Ruby joined him in staring up at the crack in the ceiling. ‘To produce the worked-out keys you would need a team of girls to shuffle the numbers, a place for them to work, a supply of silk and a photographer to photograph the numbers onto the silk.’ She grinned feebly. ‘Not much.’

‘Have you ever tried to get silk in wartime?’

‘Bet Gussie knows someone in a ministry somewhere.’

Propelled by an unvoiced desire, they turned to each other.

‘Peter, would we get the go-ahead if we obtain proof that the worked-out key system works?’

He touched the corner of her mouth with a fingertip. ‘If there’s proof, I promise … I promise I will drive the change through.’

The day hadn’t even begun and Ruby craved nothing but sleep. Instead, she lay with gritty eyes and growling stomach and thought about Augustine and Eloise.

How could she begin to understand the inner world of the agent, a world in which, with each breath, they would be thinking:
They’ll be coming to get me soon
?

Around midnight, as Felix and the team waited at the drop zone, a night wind sprang up and blew coldly across it. He cursed and, with his torch, looked at his watch. There was a chance the plane and its precious cargo could be blown off course. Equally, clouds could blow across the moon and bugger up the navigation.

He did some warm-up exercises, blew on his hands and fingered the Browning pistol slotted into his belt.

They were six miles south-west of Køge in the direction of Haslev. One advantage of this drop zone was that there was only one serviceable route from Køge but plenty of back roads criss-crossing the terrain. Felix had taken enormous care encoding and transmitting the map coordinates, and prayed that the signals clerk at Home Station possessed sharp ears and fingers faster than Freya’s.

He? She? What if the listener at Home Station hadn’t had their mind on the job? What if they had been bored? Anticipating their day off? He thought about the web of connection, so delicately constructed in sound. If that bored listener at Home Station but knew it, the Morse which bounced between them bound them together tighter than any embrace.

Second time check.

Responsibility for the operation was huge. In fact, it was the biggest thing Felix had ever undertaken. The make-up of the Resistance was too changeable to categorize easily and he wasn’t going to try. Instead, he concentrated every ounce of his diplomacy on manipulating the undercurrents, the clashing factions, into working cooperatively.

What had happened to the pacifist architect? For sure, the
Jette of the ‘keep quiet and don’t do anything’ school wouldn’t recognize him. What he did know was that the principles from that previous life didn’t get you far in this one. Stealing, lying and killing did.

‘
We are fighting this war so we don’t end up like the murderers and thugs, too
,’ Freya said. ‘
You can’t put us on the same level
.’

The irony had not been lost on him. But ironies were for safe, peaceable times.

He shifted position. Underfoot, the soil was layered with slippery leaf mould that had accumulated over the winter.

His diet hadn’t been so good lately and he had developed a mouth ulcer at the back of his cheek. Unwisely, he poked it with his tongue.

The minutes were passing.

Did she do her stuff? That listener at the listening station. He was now fantasizing that it was a pretty blonde. Slender and thoughtful, stooped over her wireless transmitter. That made him think of Jette again.

To think about the past was bad practice. It weakened you.

The instructors at The Firm had known what they were talking about.

He closed his eyes.

‘Thou shalt not kill …’ went the Commandment.

As instructed, Freya had passed the message concerning the drunken, loose-tongued agent onto Jacob. A couple of weeks later the message filtered back down the line:
The mustard has been wiped off the plate
.

Now, when he and Freya met, or spoke, there was a shadow cast over their dealings:
We are murderers. Long-distance ones, but murderers
. They never discussed it, but it brought them closer, and yet at the same time, paradoxically, it made each of them wary of the other.

The last time they met, Freya informed him she wanted to be part of the group at the drop zone.

‘You’re a security risk,’ he’d replied bluntly. ‘If anyone spots
you, the well-known
Fru
Eberstern, it will act as a light bulb. God forbid if you were captured.’

No fool, Freya understood the argument. ‘I want to see a plane from England. I want to look up into the sky and think:
This plane has come for me. It’s come from my country
.’

Her eyes were wet.

‘That’s sentimental.’

‘Yes, yes, it is.’

‘Sentimentality is no use to me, Freya. And you’re no use to me if you indulge in it.’

She’d uttered a rude Danish word before turning away.

Time?

As planned, his men, including Jacob, were taking up their positions and fanning out along the perimeter of the field, which was fringed with woodland. The instructions had been to leave home at staggered intervals, to make their way along a back road out of Køge, and to rendezvous by the line of larches that ran between the road and the stretch of scrubby grassland.

It had taken months to reach this point. Getting a drop organized was a miracle of painstaking piecing together of intelligence and planning. Anyway, Felix had taken the decision to avoid the worst of the Danish winter. There had been a couple of drops in the new year on Jutland and Funen which he had known about, one of which had gone wrong when the material had been lost in snowdrifts – all of which hardened his determination not to go operational until everything was as watertight as he could make it.

Casting his net as wide as was practicable, Felix had pulled in the men. One step forward, one step back, observing security procedures to the letter. Each recruit had been interviewed, either by him or by Jacob, but they did not share any names. All he knew for certain was that they represented a mixed bunch of allegiances and vested interests: communists, members of the newly formed Danish Unity Party, loners, almost
certainly a criminal or two. He had had to trust his instincts, which were pretty sharp by now, but it was impossible to be absolutely sure.

Further discreet surveillance had been mounted to find out who in the Haslev police force was loyal and who had gone over to the Reich. ‘Some of those bastards,’ reported Jacob, ‘are serving up patriots to the
Gestapomen
like hot meals.’ He swiped a finger across his throat. ‘We’ll be waiting for them.’

The men were jumpy. Nervous. One of them urinated into the bushes and farted copiously. Knud lit a cigarette, keeping his hand cupped over the tip as he smoked it. Felix decided to let him. In the field, the cattle were spooked by the unaccustomed activity and had gathered in a restless group.

The chill wind knifed through Felix’s clothing.

ETA of plane: five minutes. Miraculously, the sky had cleared, revealing a gibbous moon.

‘What do you think?’ whispered Jacob in his ear.

‘The pilot will probably use the river to navigate and turn left at the bend.’ He glanced up. ‘It would be the best approach with the wind.’

One of the men materialized out of the cover of the trees and hissed: ‘Something’s coming.’

The trees threw shadows too dark to make out exactly what was moving along the road but the clunk of metal as the vehicle hit the winter potholes travelled through the night silence. The men melted into the trees. Felix snapped off the safety catch of the Browning. What a pitifully small weapon it was. He thought lustfully of the guns that were coming in with the drop.

Crouched down, breath held, he and Jacob watched as a bicycle with a trailer came into sight. Thickset and well wrapped up, the rider parked and flashed his torch twice. Felix relaxed. ‘It’s “Erik”.’ He signalled back, but as the torch beam hit the trailer it illuminated a cartoon pig painted on the side. He swore under his breath. If the police spotted pigs on vehicles, painted or otherwise, they asked questions.

He
rose to his feet and loped over to Erik. ‘Don’t you know transporting pigs is forbidden?’

‘It’s a joke.’ Erik was out of breath and reeked of herring cut with beer. ‘Nazis got your sense of humour?’

‘Nazis don’t get jokes painted on trailers,’ Felix commented sourly. ‘When they don’t get things, they shoot.’

Erik’s hand shot out and grabbed Felix’s arm. ‘Remember our bargain.’

It wasn’t for nothing that the motley bunch of instructors at STS, Old Tiny Tim in particular, had insisted on parachute discipline. Hands like hams, complexion the colour of claret, with a couple of black Labradors at his heels, Tiny Tim had been emphatic.

Destroy parachutes
.
Parachute silk is your ticket to hell
.

But Erik, who had three marriageable daughters all clamouring for wedding dresses, insisted that keeping the parachute was part of the deal. ‘Do you want me, or don’t you?’

A van pulled up in the road, followed by a horse-drawn covered cart and both of them parked in the shadows. Leaving its owner to deal with the horse, the men spread out.

Felix counted the shadowy figures. Eight. Good. Further down the road, two others were on lookout. He had the full compliment.

As he looked around the drop zone he recalled another piece of STS advice.

Adapt to the terrain
.

Ja
.
Ja
.

Other agents in other countries had mountains and valleys, which were kind to them and made it difficult for the enemy. But Denmark? Denmark was as flat as … as a piece of paper.

The wind freshened.

One of the men coughed and spat before being shushed by his companion.

For the past few weeks, messages had streamed back and forth over the ether. Felix had begged London for more of
everything: guns, wireless sets, money. Begged them. Gone down on his radio knees.

IMPERATIVE WE BEGIN ACTION
stop
MAYONNAISE

Later messages spelled out the situation on the ground more clearly.

DANISH ARMY REMOVED FROM JUTLAND
stop
GERMANS TAKEN OVER ARMS DEPOTS
stop
MAYONNAISE

REPORTS OF ALUMINIUM PLANT UNDER CONSTRUCTION AT HEROYA
stop
ENEMY WILL SHIP IT THROUGH DENMARK
stop
MAYONNAISE

Plus the request.

DEVELOPMENT OF RADIO SETS PROGRESSING
stop
URGENT NEED FOR CRYSTALS
stop
MAYONNAISE

Finally, there was the one which was written, so to speak, in blood.

MUSTARD HAS BEEN WIPED OFF PLATE
stop
MAYONNAISE

Did they understand what he was trying to tell them?
God Almighty, did they understand?

He imagined the conversations taking place at the London headquarters.
Is Felix a firebrand? Has he read the situation correctly? Has he proved able? Is he the right leader? Should we replace him?
The bigger question:
Do we need Denmark on board?

Smug bastards. Tucked up in London, they couldn’t begin to understand how potent the mixture of rage and patriotism could be.

Were they as sleepless as he was? Did they function almost
entirely on adrenalin? Did their confidence dip? He pictured them in their smoky offices littered with paper and army-issue pencils. With the blackboards and the chalk dust and the anti-shatter tape on the window panes.

Did he trust
them
?

And yet, of course, there should be a healthy gulf between the eminences at headquarters and the Joes in the field. Asking questions ensured survival.

The moon seemed to grow brighter.

ETA: minus three minutes.

There was a faint rumble, and Felix spun round. A mutter went up from the men.

The noise grew. The throb of engines sounded above them like an echoing drumbeat.

He had forgotten how much noise an aircraft made and, for a shameful second, he was stricken with panic and an urge to flee. Responsibility for the men’s lives rested with him and, if anything went wrong, he couldn’t bring himself to think of the women and children who might curse him into the future.

The area vibrated with sound. Where are you?
Where are you?
In answer, a Whitley lumbered into view: nose down, Rolls-Royce Merlin engines throttled back. It gave the horse the jitters so the owner had his work cut out controlling it.

In reflex action, three torches flashed: the letter S.

‘What’s he playing at?’ growled Jacob as the pilot failed to acknowledge the signal, flew straight across the drop zone and swooped out of sight, leaving trails of sound.

‘Taking a fix,’ said Felix.

Correct. The Whitley returned and circled. Once. Twice.

The torches flashed in a concerto of light.

‘Go,’ ordered Felix. ‘
Go
.’

Two parachutes bucked and jerked down towards the drop zone. Two more followed. Dandelion seeds tumbling, shaking, falling through the moonlit sky.

The noise was fit to waken the dead.

The
wind slapped at Felix’s face as, along with the men, he ran over the tussocky grass towards this descending manna. One by one, the containers landed with a slap and crack.

The Whitley returned for its final run. It approached, throttled back but anyone could see that it was off target. A fifth and sixth parachute tumbled out of its belly and went sailing way past the drop zone in the direction of Haslev.

But there was nothing they could do about it.

Laboriously, noisily, the plane wheeled. Then it dipped its wings in a signal from pilot to agent, homage from warrior to warrior, before flying away into a glimmering velvet sky.

‘Go, go,’ shouted Felix.

The men got to work, untangling the webbing, rolling up the parachutes. Weighing up to two hundred kilos each, the containers were buggers to move. But he had thought out the problem ahead of time and had instructed the men to bring wooden battens. These were now strapped onto the containers so that they could be hoisted shoulder high. In places, the turf was wet and unstable and it was touch and go to keep the load aloft.

The men poured with sweat.

Two containers were loaded into the van but proved much too long. One of the men climbed into the back and fastened the doors from the inside with his belt.

‘Go!’ Jacob banged on the driver’s partition.

The van’s engines ground into life. Felix ran back to the field.

The wireless set? The precious additional wireless set which was so badly needed to supplement the one now hidden in the city. It had landed in the centre of the drop zone – a bulky thing with its own defenders and careful padding. Felix tugged and ripped at the wrappings to reveal the familiar case.

The men lifted the final container onto the cart but it was too heavy and the cart’s wheels sank down into the soft ground. The horse baulked.