“The invasion!” the soldier exclaimed. “It must be about the invasion.”
“That is not your business,” the driver replied. “Now let us be on our way.”
The car picked up speed again.
“You can come out now,” one of them said, and they both laughed.
“How do you speak such good German?” Margot asked.
“You don’t think they’d send a man on a mission like this who didn’t. Actually, my mother was Austrian. I grew up speaking both languages.”
“Jolly useful, as it turned out,” the other said. “My German is only from a year at the Heidelberg University, but good enough in a pinch.”
They drove on, pausing at a crossroads to consult a map about which route would avoid any more encounters with German forces. Once more, they were halted, but were waved through when the sentry saw their uniforms. Then at last the car bounced off the road and came to a halt among some trees.
“We have to walk from here, I’m afraid,” the posh one said. “This is the dodgy part. Here, put on this black jumper. And do exactly what we tell you to. If I say run, you run like hell, got it?”
Margot nodded. The two men stripped off the German uniforms and left them in the vehicle, then put on similar black turtleneck jerseys. They pulled the turtlenecks up to hide as much of their faces as possible. Margot followed suit. One of the men produced a small flashlight, blacked out so that it only produced a glimmer. It was a cloudy night, and no lights were in evidence. Margot followed them through the woods, stumbling over tree roots and trying to keep up in her impractical shoes. They came to a cottage, but it appeared to be deserted. Nevertheless, they crept past, climbed a fence, and ran across an open field until one of the men held up his hand to halt. Margot smelled salt in the air and heard the hiss and rattle of waves on a stony beach below.
“Now let’s just pray the boat has turned up and hasn’t been blown out of the water. Should be all right. They are supposed to be using a low, little speedboat. Hard to detect.”
The man peeled off the covering from his flashlight and sent out several bursts of light into the dark sea. After a moment they were answered with returning flickers of light.
“Good. They’re there, and they’ve seen us. Now all we have to do is get down to the beach, cross it without stepping on mines, and climb into the boat. Piece of cake, I’d say.” He laughed.
He went to the cliff edge, looked around, then motioned the others to follow him. A narrow path was cut into the chalk, leading down the cliff. They went along cautiously because the path was only a foot wide and strewn with loose rocks that had fallen. Margot kept her hand on the surface of the cliff for reassurance. Farther down the coast, a searchlight beam cut across the sky. Far above came the drone of aircraft, but they were flying high and passed over. Another bombing raid heading for London, Margot thought.
At the bottom of the cliff they waited. Margot was shivering, but she didn’t want the men to see she was frightened. She could make out a dark shape approaching on the sea. There was no sound of a motor, and she realised it was probably being rowed. A figure jumped out and stood in the gentle surf, holding it steady.
“Go. Now!” one of the men whispered in her ear. She ran, stumbling and slithering over the stones on the beach. She reached the boat, waded into the waves, and was hauled on board. One of the men followed, then the other. They pushed off from shore and rowed out again. They were a hundred yards or so off the beach when a searchlight strafed the water, picking them up. Shots rang out. “Get down.” Margot was pushed to the floor.
“Start the damned motor!” one of the men shouted.
The engine kicked, spluttered, then roared to life. The boat shot forward with incredible power as bullets sprayed into the water around them. Then they were out of range. Cautiously, they sat up again, the shoreline already well behind them.
One of her rescuers turned to the other, laughing. “No trouble at all, eh, chum? Just your average, routine rescue from the Gestapo.”
And this time Margot laughed, too.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Bletchley Park
After three days of staring at sheets of printouts, Pamela and Froggy were not getting anywhere and were both frustrated.
“Maybe this is just a wild goose chase,” Froggy said.
“I don’t think they’d have put us to work on this unless there was some kind of suspicion that it was important, do you?”
“I don’t know.” He picked up a pencil and snapped it in half. “Maybe they wanted us removed from our old assignments, and this is an easy way of pushing us aside.”
Pamela thought of her section leader who had been annoyed she had solved a puzzle that proved to be important. Had he asked to have her removed, and this was a way of doing it without losing face? “You know,” Pamela said, “we are sure that there are fifth columnists in Britain. What easier way to contact them than through a broadcast everyone can listen to.”
He nodded. “But we’ve tried everything, haven’t we? No obvious repeated phrases, except for ‘Here is the news. Now a commentary, and now here are some messages from your boys in Germany.’ And we’ve gone through all of those messages for what might be codes. We’ve tried substituting letters, using every third word, every fifth word, and not come up with anything.”
Pamela stared at the sheets of paper. “Maybe there’s something we’re missing by just seeing the words printed out. What if there is a different inflection in the voice? What if the reader coughs or clears his throat before he delivers a line of importance? What if there is a different reader for something significant?”
His face lit up. “You might be onto something there. Yes, let’s ask them to send us the recordings. It will take a lot longer to listen to everything, but it may be worth it.”
This request was met with complications. There was no recording equipment at the listening station, just young WAAF workers with headphones, transcribing as they listened.
“If you want to listen in real time, then I’m afraid you’ll have to sit with headphones on and take notes,” Commander Travis said. “And since the frequencies and hours when they broadcast are not always the same, then you’ll be monitoring this between you, almost around the clock—although they haven’t been broadcasting later than midnight or earlier than six or seven, so you’ll get some sleep. I suggest we send you up to the radio station Y for a few days and give this a try. Boring work, I’m afraid. You sit with headphones on and listen to the radio. But the WAAFs up there are skilled at finding times and frequencies, so you won’t have to do that part.”
“Will we stay up there?” Pamela asked. “Is it far from here?”
“About six miles, so we could have you driven back and forth, but I suggest you camp out there for a couple of days, until we see how things are progressing. We’ll have two camp beds sent up with you, so at least you won’t have to bunk in with the air force ladies.”
“I’d better put a ring on your finger and make an honest woman of you since we’ll be spending several nights together,” Froggy teased as they walked away.
Pamela grinned. “I think a room full of WAAFs might constitute enough of a chaperone. Besides, I’ve already been spending the night with a hut full of men, so my reputation is ruined anyway.”
“It’s dashed difficult not being able to tell anybody anything, isn’t it?” Froggy said.
“It is.” Pamela nodded. “My family thinks I’m not doing anything of importance.”
“Try being a chap and not in uniform,” Froggy said. “I get accosted every time I go up to London. I thought of buying one in a secondhand store. And if you tell them you failed the medical, they look at you as a weakling.”