A Secret Courage Read online

  “But there’s something else. I have two additional contacts in the area. First is Ruth Weatherstone, a Great War widow who has taken in war orphans from London, including two children I sent to her recently. She’s a childhood friend, and we’ve touched base many times in recent years. She’s lived just outside Henley for going on ten years—bound to the community and all that.” Will narrowed his gaze. “And then there is one of the Abwehr agents…”

  Christopher sat straighter in his seat. “In Medmenham?”

  “No, Henley, but it’s just a stone’s throw. Albert has also been living in the village for many years. He’s one of the most diligent in sending in reports. He ‘discovered’ the underground factory in the old chalk tunnels. He’s been reporting the number of workers, the types of machine parts, and other information. He’s quite efficient. Or at least he was. I haven’t heard from him in a week or so. When I return I’ll check in.”

  Christopher nodded, seeming to catch that Will had used when and not if he returned.

  “And you’ll be painting—” A knock at the door interrupted Christopher’s words.

  “Come in.”

  A mousey secretary in a plain blue dress peeked her head inside. “Sir, you are needed for just a moment.”

  “Fine, Gertrude.”

  He turned to Will. “Can you excuse me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Christopher rose and walked from the room. Even though Christopher was dressed in uniform, Will could still see the muscled rugby player in his gait. Thinking about it, Will suddenly began to wonder and worry about Albert. It had been over two weeks since his last dispatch. Perhaps his thoughts of Emma had caused him to lose track. As he sat there, Will remembered it was in this very room that he first learned about Albert. Geoffrey Martin had been the director then.

  “Got anything for me, sir?” Will had asked, standing erect just inside the door. He knew better than to sit. Better than to try to befriend the man behind the desk. With Geoffrey it was work and nothing more.

  At the time Will had also believed the more detached he was from the people he interacted with, the better. Since that time he’d learned that one’s defenses only went down with closeness and familiarity.

  Geoffrey had slid a file across the desk. “Yes, another man just in from Berlin. He claims his postal savings book was stolen. He came in and reported it…just as he was taught.” His eyes twinkled. “It’s all in the file.”

  Will took it from the man’s hand, flipped open the file, and immediately recognized the face. Albert. Nice to see you again, old friend. Will’s eyes scanned the new address and new last name, and then he closed the file and handed it back.

  “Need a copy?” Geoffrey had asked.

  Will shook his head. “No, sir. Thank you, though. Better to keep it here”—he tapped his forehead—“than to worry about losing it.”

  Albert was just one of the many spies Will had trained in Germany—trained in British customs and manners. These German immigrants—returning claiming to be English citizens who’d lived abroad—settled down like foxes in a den, waiting for the perfect time to strike. Albert had stayed just where he’d been planted, doing the duty he’d been asked to do. It was easier, they discovered, keeping tabs on German spies than attempting to find them. In Germany Will had trained them. In England he had watched them, and like Albert, most were content to do their simple jobs until they received orders to carry out a mission. And as far as Will was concerned, their waiting would continue until the war’s end—an immobilized army held in the palm of his hand.

  The door opened, and Christopher entered. He wore concern on his face.

  “All good?”

  “I wish. One of our agents in North Africa was captured. We have fingers all over this globe. I swear, how in the world are we supposed to keep track?” He plopped into his chair.

  “North Africa. I just read that Patton took over there, replacing Major General Fredendall.”

  “I read that too. I hope it makes a difference. I’m tired of losing men.” Christopher released a heavy sigh and turned his attention back to Will. “Speaking of which. Can you promise to be careful?”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  Christopher pulled a package of cigarettes from his desk and tapped one from the package into his hands. “I would say yes, but there’s never been a girl involved before. At least one you really cared about.”

  Will stood, knowing to take his leave before Christopher changed his mind. “All the reason to be more careful—higher stakes and all that.”

  “Yes, but just remember this time you’re not only looking for enemies from without, but also within.”

  “Duly noted.” Will moved to the door and placed his hand on the doorknob. “Let’s just hope you’re wrong about Claudius. I hate to have to mistrust a friend.”

  Christopher narrowed his gaze. “You should mistrust everyone in this business. It’s the trouble with war. Enemies we have. Allies we claim, but friends we only dream about.”

  Will walked out the door with a heaviness that hadn’t been there before. Would the same be true of love? Even if he sought it, would it only be a thing of dreams in the end?

  FOURTEEN

  Will took no time at all in returning to London from Blenheim Palace in Woodstock. At his flat he packed more painting supplies and his kit to head back to Medmenham. As he drove down the London streets, his thoughts turned again to Emma. He couldn’t help but smile as he drove through one of the busiest parts of town. Around him the men and women moved with quickened steps toward the Tube, heading home for the day. During the Blitz many found it easier to bed down there for the night than to have to worry about being woken up by the church bells announcing an air raid. Not many slept there any longer, but that didn’t mean the threat had lessened. The Boche still bombed, though not daily like during the Blitz.

  The rain started to fall, and his windshield wipers moved in a steady rhythm. He noticed a mother with a baby in her arms hurrying to the Tube, and he thought of the event he’d read about just a few days ago.

  A new station had been put in at Bethnal Green as the Central Line had been extended from Liverpool Street. Yet work had been stopped at the outbreak of war, and no tracks had been laid. Will had stayed more than one night there during the Blitz, when he was working in the area. They were a cheery bunch despite the bombing outside. They had group sing-alongs, and tea was dispatched from watering tins with narrow spouts—ones that were usually used in gardens. There was even a library set up, and five thousand bunks, yet just a few days ago tragedy had struck.

  The Royal Air Force and Americans had heavily bombed Berlin on March 1, and the Londoners had worried about reprisals. When the sirens wailed, three buses full of passengers stopped, and people rushed from their flats—all of them heading to the Tube. It had been raining then, as it was now, and the stairs had no handrail in the middle, no white edgings on the steps, and no police on duty.

  He’d read the report in horror. One woman carrying a baby had fallen as she attempted to go down the stairs. During her fall she’d tripped an elderly man, and it started a chain event. Being dark, more people shoved in. Being wet and slippery, more people fell, tumbling on top of each other. Around three hundred people were wedged into a space of fifteen by eleven feet. Twenty-seven men, eighty-four women, and sixty-two children were crushed to death. The worst part was, no bombs were dropped on the East End. The sound they thought was falling bombs was a secret antiaircraft rocket battery being tested in Victoria Park nearby.

  The traffic was tight, and Will breathed a sigh of relief when he exited the city. A heaviness that he carried around while in London seemed to lift as the twilight road wound through the country of fields and woods.

  During the day, people tried to be blasé about the raids, but the truth of their fear came out in the night. The older Londoners had experienced the pain of the Great War. They’d lost sons and brothers, husbands and friends, but this w
as different. This touched home in ways the last war hadn’t. Everyone, from the very old to the very young, felt it. London’s children had been taken years ago into the countryside for safety. The evacuation was called Operation Pied Piper, and it wasn’t a happy tune. The only joy came when families were reunited over the weekends. That would happen this weekend too if the railway station wasn’t hit. One bomb hitting its mark could mean hundreds of children would miss visiting their parents.

  Will thought of two of the London children who found themselves in the country under the care of a stranger. Charles and Eliza had become like family to him, and he hoped to take a trip to see them soon. Like many children, they’d been taken into the country for safety. They were being cared for by his mother’s friend Ruth, whom he was planning on visiting often when he was in Henley.

  As he drove, Will’s mind took him back to the night he was injured during the Blitz. Even as he’d helped an elderly woman down the stairs toward the Tube—holding his arm out to make more space for her from the crowds that pressed in—he’d looked for the tall man he was supposed to meet. The stairs had ended, and the tunnel had opened around him. Will had scanned the faces, like always, looking for the Germans among them. His trained eye never stopped working, and he’d trained most of the spies who’d come to London.

  Although even if they were here, Will knew he might not recognize them. Many wore work uniforms during the day, but in the Tube everyone looked the same in their nightclothes. They’d also all worn the same weariness, the same fear, in their tired expressions.

  Will had helped the old woman to a wooden bed by a wall that had yet to be occupied.

  She’d thanked him with a pat on the hand and a wrinkled smile. “Such a nice boy. It’s good to know the Germans haven’t cost our dear country all the good ones.”

  The Germans…the words were used daily, and each time Will heard them the same thought trailed through his mind.

  If they only knew how close those Germans really are.

  And then, just as he’d gotten the woman settled, Will had spotted Claudius in a far corner. The satchel was at his feet. His eyes had met Will’s, and he nodded toward it. Maureen had passed a coded note the day before in the pages of a book he’d purchased at her bookshop. Claudius would be passing on the information about double agents among them. Will just didn’t know why he did it here, now. Surely there had to be a better plan.

  Yet when Claudius’s eyes had met his again, there was an urgent desperation there that Will could not deny. So against his better judgment he’d approached Claudius, pretending to look for a place to sit. Then he’d bent over to tie his shoe, picking up the satchel as he did. The booming of bombs falling had begun. They shook the ground, and the sound was deafening. Will hoped that the crowds would be so focused on the bombing that they wouldn’t be watching as he picked up the satchel and attempted to leave the building. He was wrong.

  He’d just gotten to the base of the stairs when the constables’ voices split the air, “Halt!” And that’s when the chase had begun. Will had trusted that the information in the satchel would be worth running out into the bombing. But he would never know. The last he’d seen it was the moment before he went unconscious, and the memories were fuzzy. He did remember someone trying to help him. A tall man with a limp. Or maybe he’d just imagined it. It was hard to remember what had happened that night. And it angered him, considering the possibility that Claudius had been on the list even then and had unknowingly passed on the report that could have brought him down.

  FIFTEEN

  The distant sound of a car motor punctuated the night air as Will carried the last of his belongings into the cottage. Blank canvases filled his arms, and gravel crunched under his feet with every step as he returned to the front door. Stepping inside, he ducked under the front door’s low beam, aware that men had been doing the same for more than a hundred years. The place was smaller than his flat back home, and it consisted of a living area, kitchen, and one bedroom with an adjacent bathroom that appeared to be a new addition. He quickly set to work starting the wood-burning stove and then sat at the kitchen table under the glow of a single lightbulb. In a few minutes’ time he’d jotted down all he could remember about Henley-on-Thames, and it turned out to be a substantial amount.

  Since Will had been the English cultural trainer in Germany, and the Abwehr students had seen his face day in and day out, no one who made it to England doubted his loyalties to the führer. And once he’d established himself in Henley, Albert had been an efficient German spy. He’d discovered Warren Row, a series of underground tunnels in which workers—men and women—manufactured aircraft components. These components were later assembled into Spitfires down the road at Upper Culham. They worked in twenty-four-hour shifts, employing a great number of the local population. Albert had even provided descriptions of the car park, located opposite a pub called the Red House. Before heading to the tunnels, the drivers covered the cars with camouflage netting, hiding them from any German reconnaissance. Not that the bombers would make it anywhere near Henley. Even if the Germans wished to bomb the factory, they’d be off by a good ten miles after Will’s editing—bombing a large field surrounded by hedgerow. Switching a few numbers in the coordinates had been easy enough.

  Will washed up and got ready for bed, knowing tomorrow would be a good day to get a pulse of the place. He’d heard American troops were billeted in hutted encampments in the grounds of Phyllis Court, Shorlands Meadow, Dry Leas, Henley Town Football Club, and other spots. Albert had been good about recording such things too. And after that, Will would visit Albert himself to determine why his friend had been so silent of late. It wasn’t like the man, and it made Will wonder just what he was up to.

  Emma pulled out the magnifying glass and looked at yet another set of photographs before her. It was after midnight, and though she was only halfway through her shift, her eyes already felt gritty with weariness. Yesterday, even though it had rained in Medmenham, it had been clear in Germany, and the pilots had gotten wonderful shots of the bombing damage from the previous night’s raid. As with every photograph she investigated, Emma studied the shadows first. She turned the photos so the shadows faced toward her. This ensured the ridges and hills looked like ridges and hills instead of rivers and valleys. From the shadows she was able to calculate height and depth.

  After giving them a once-over, Emma moved to her stereoscope. When she’d first seen the stereoscope, Emma had thought they’d simply attached a pair of eyeglasses to a piece of metal with a four-legged support. Yet she soon discovered they were so much more than that.

  Stereo photography, she learned, happened when two photographs were taken a split second apart. When put under the stereoscope, Emma’s left eye naturally looked at the left photograph and the right eye at the right one. Then, as if by magic, the two images blended together, just as they did in real life, making the photo leap from the page.

  The first time Emma had witnessed it, she’d jerked back. Now when she studied the photos, she felt like a kite on the wind, floating over a scene, taking it all in. Only the voices and the sounds of the other workers in the room kept her tethered to the ground, reminding her that she was sitting at a desk at an English country estate rather than floating above Germany, taking in the weight of the destruction.

  Emma studied the photo. Some days she noted vehicles, busy roadways, and new construction, but not today. Today was a snapshot of destruction, smoldering rubble, burned-out vehicles, and men scrambling over buildings, possibly looking for missing family members and friends. When her head started aching, Emma knew she needed to take a break and stretch.

  She rose and moved toward Georgette, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to stretch my legs for a few, Georgie.”

  “Do you need company?”

  “Nah.” Emma waved her hand. “I see you’re in the middle of something.”

  “How can you tell?”

  Emma smiled. “By that cre
ase in your brow. How else? The more you concentrate, the deeper it gets.”

  “Oh dear.” Georgette rubbed her forehead. “I hope my mother doesn’t see it. She might have to face her fears that her daughter is aging and most likely won’t settle down and have children.” She sighed. “Mum is still clinging on to hope.”

  “Yes, well, I’m certain my mother worries that I will fall in love and want to stay.” She clucked her tongue. “But I suppose that’s the prerogative of mothers.” Emma strode away from the desks and out into the hall. It was empty and quiet. It was cooler too, without the added heat of numerous bodies at work.

  Emma lifted her arms over her head, stretching her shoulders, and then she moved down the hall with long strides. As she walked, her mind replayed the images she’d just been studying.

  Essen was an industrial town they’d been monitoring since before Emma arrived in the fall. It was decided that the Krupp factory located there needed to be taken out. Around Oxford, Emma had heard of Krupp. In an address to the Hitler Youth, Adolf Hitler had stated, “In our eyes, the German boy of the future must be slim and slender, as fast as a greyhound, tough as leather, and hard as Krupp steel.”

  Yet she also knew that many of the Krupp workers had been conscripted from around Europe, forced to work against their will. They were victims. And so far, in the two nights of bombing, the factories still stood. So far homes and a church had been hit, along with a few other buildings. She knew that the bombing would continue until they hit their mark. She tried not to think too much about the citizens’ fear. Of the bombs’ whistles or of the fire. But she’d heard enough from those who’d been in London during the Blitz. And once she’d heard those things, it was hard to forget.

  “Grace Darling just had to think about saving lives…” Emma spoke just under her breath.

  “Excuse me? Were you talking to me?”

  Emma turned and noticed a man standing in an open doorway. He wore simple blue pants and blue shirt, and he was using a large bin to collect trash. She immediately recognized him as the man who’d been sweeping in the foyer, but today his gaze was softer and he wore a gentle smile.