Operation Armageddon Page 7

  How he reached the priory was a mystery to Lucien. All that he could remember was his lying on top of a pile of potatoes on a handcart with a tarpaulin above him. The cart had bumped and rattled along the cobbled streets of the old town centre. In the confusion of his pain and his delirium he heard the church bells tolling and the cries of a few market traders. The next thing he could recall was being inside the parlour, lying on the cold stone floor. A woman was pleading with the prioress.

  ‘No, I don’t know him. All I know is that he screamed his head off when the ambulance arrived.’

  ‘I see. So, he’s in trouble then?’ asked the prioress.

  The tall, gaunt prioress had a long expressionless face. She found that the stern cold countenance which she used to dominate her novices was equally useful with unwanted visitors. And she had had a lot of those since the war came to Enfer sur Mer. Most, she refused. Rarely did she have to give a reason. Her wordless disdainful gaze was enough to send supplicants off in haste. The unknown woman, though, was unmoved.

  ‘Mother, would Christ turn this man away? He’s near to death. Do you want me to put him on the street?’

  ‘Madame, we are not a hospital. We have no nurses, no equipment. If I take him in, then I take them all in.’

  The two women argued for some time until Lucien’s rescuer feigned acceptance of the prioress’s intransigence.

  ‘May God forgive you, Mother,’ said the woman as she dragged Lucien’s body out onto the forecourt.’

  ‘I can answer to God for myself, Madame,’ said the prioress as she closed the door, shooting the bolt with a decisively powerful thrust.

  Outside, the woman settled Lucien against the priory wall, whispered: ‘May God be with you,’ rang the priory bell and ran. When the duty nun opened the door, there lay Lucien. His anonymous rescuer had disappeared. Lucien was admitted to the priory ten minutes later.

  ‘Only for a few days,’ the prioress said.

  ‘That’s all I need,’ responded Lucien in a weak voice. ‘Then I must go … somewhere … anywhere …’

  ‘We’ll talk about that in a few days,’ said the prioress. ‘First we must build up your strength a little.’

  And so, at great risk to themselves, the nuns put Lucien into a small attic room.

  17

  Bosanquet had had a bad morning. There had been a stack of transcripts of low importance – the sort that were only fit for noting and filing. Perhaps one day they might make sense. For now, they were mere irritants. His mind drifted to thoughts of men in far off places acting on intelligence – or even collecting it from under the noses of the enemy. He saw dark corridors, drawers being opened with knives, miniature cameras recording page after page of a secret file, men shadowing dead-letter drops in dimly lit corners of a busy city centre. And all he was doing was sitting in this smoke-filled, over-heated office, sifting the intelligence gathered by others.

  He saw Harold come in. His arrival was too common an occurrence to distract Bosanquet from his reverie. The elderly messenger, stooping over his battered trolley with its chipped grey paint and its squeaky wheels, stopped at one desk after another. At each desk Harold silently shuffled through his piles of folders as he searched for the right dossiers for that station. His failing eyesight and arthritic fingers slowed this operation to a pace that was painful to watch. A grunt of a certain optimistic tone confirmed that Harold had found the files he sought. Hardly raising his eyes above trolley height, he dropped the pile into an in-tray, grunted once more, and moved on. No one could remember when Harold had last spoken – or indeed, whether he had ever been known to speak.

  By the time that the trolley arrived at his desk, Bosanquet was staring at an open file. The rubber-stamped red “SECRET” on its cover was hardly justified by its banal contents: an outdated report of the movements of some minesweepers off the Baltic coast. He ran his eyes down the report, taking little in. Thoughts of Sally had now taken the place of those of hazardous intelligence gathering. Who was this destroyer commander who had so easily captured his girl? And what had he got that Bosanquet could not offer?

  These thoughts were interrupted by the squeak of the trolley and Harold’s grunting. A file dropped into Bosanquet’s in-tray. Harold moved on: grunt … squeak … grunt … squeak … Anything, thought Bosanquet, would be more interesting than Baltic minesweepers. He reached for the in-tray.

  One glance at the cover confirmed his prediction: this was more interesting than the minesweepers. The file was headed “Cap d’Enfer”. With a quiver of excitement, he took the flimsy message transcript out of its docket, got up and walked over to the fireplace. He adopted his usual pose – left arm leaning on the marble shelf, cigarette in hand. He read the transcript in eager anticipation of momentous news.

  Half-way across the room Oakland was toiling at his files. The half-dozen tattered buff folders in his out-tray were evidence that he had had a productive morning, at least in terms of throughput. Yet not even Oakland – who was easily satisfied by minor bits of intelligence – would have claimed that his morning’s work had progressed the war in any way. He too was ready for some distraction. Bosanquet’s occupation of the hearth was enough excuse.

  ‘Got a good one at last?’ Oakland called out from his desk.

  ‘I’ll say. Defiance have come up trumps.’

  ‘What do they say?’ asked Oakland as he joined Bosanquet at the fireplace.

  ‘Only that this Armageddon thing “will be devastating for the enemy in the Mediterranean”.’

  ‘That’s a bit strong. Just boasting, do you think?’ queried Oakland.

  ‘That’s always possible, but one thing this war has taught us is not to underestimate Jerry.’

  Oakland gave a quizzical lift of one eyebrow.

  ‘You don’t agree then?’ asked Bosanquet.

  ‘Not underestimating Jerry is one thing. Overestimating Defiance is another.’

  ‘Okay, so Defiance has had its problems—’

  ‘When did it have anything other than problems?’

  ‘Oh, do stop behaving like the DNI, Oakland. I’m certain there’s something here.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘It’s the details: “night and day repairs” and “departure imminent”. Whatever it is, it’s something both important and urgent.’

  ‘What are you going to do? See how it develops?’

  ‘I don’t see how we can. At this rate, whatever it is will have happened before we make a move.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Back to the DNI, I suppose.’

  ****

  Forster was in his office when Bosanquet telephoned to ask for an appointment to talk about the Defiance network. He mulled over how to present the latest news. He knew Forster and his love of “hard facts” so he decided that it was best not to over-play the latest development. When Forster asked: ‘What’s new?’ Bosanquet merely told the Admiral that he thought he might want to be kept up-to-date. He was surprised at Forster’s reaction:

  ‘You did right to come back. I think you’re onto something this time. I’ll talk to the First Sea Lord.’

  What Bosanquet did not know was that the First Sea Lord had been bemoaning the lack of useful intelligence over the last few weeks. Forster was desperate for something to show that his department was not as idle or incompetent as the First Sea Lord appeared to think.

  An hour or so later an aide in the First Sea Lord’s office rang Forster to say that his master had returned from his Cabinet Office meeting and was free to talk. The DNI was upstairs in minutes, eager to get an opinion on the latest development. He handed the transcript to the First Sea Lord who, after perusing it, pointedly asked: ‘Have you known about this for long?’

  ‘We had a sort of forewarning a week or two back, sir.’

  ‘I should have been told,’ responded the First Sea Lord. ‘My God! Just think about it. We’ve got hundreds of ships out there for Operation Torch.’

  ‘True, sir, but no one is able
to explain how one cargo U-boat could do enough damage to the North Africa invasion fleet to merit all this fuss.’

  ‘Fuss? What fuss?’

  ‘A vice-admiral has twice visited Cap d’Enfer in connection with the operation.’

  ‘That’s fuss alright. My vice-admirals don’t have time to waste on jollies.’

  ‘What do you think we should do, sir?’

  ‘Only one thing you can do: find out the day and hour of sailing – this boat must not get anywhere near the Med. It deserves the best welcoming party we can muster. And, better still, see if those Resistance chappies can sabotage it while it’s still at the base – even a delay in sailing would be helpful.’

  ‘Sir, …’

  ‘Something wrong, DNI?’

  ‘I don’t think we quite trust the Defiance network, sir. Haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory on the operational front.’

  ‘Who’s looking after this?’

  ‘Bosanquet, sir.’

  ‘Let’s have him in then.’

  Bosanquet was both intimidated at joining the august company and excited at the interest at last being shown in Armageddon.

  ‘Bosanquet,’ began the First Sea Lord, ‘the DNI tells me the Defiance lot aren’t up to much. What do you think?’

  ‘I’ve checked their file in the Registry, sir, and the reporting officer reckons they’re a waste of valuable resources,’ responded Bosanquet.

  ‘What else have we got in the area?’ said the First Sea Lord.

  ‘Nothing,’ replied Forster.

  ‘In that case,’ said the First Sea Lord, ‘we’ll have to do what we can to prop up Defiance. Send someone in, or something like that.’

  ‘You mean one of our people, sir – with all the security risks?’

  ‘I doubt you’ve any choice. This sounds urgent. If you go to Special Ops that’ll take weeks.’

  Forster frowned and fussed with his papers.

  ‘What is it now, DNI?’

  ‘I’m not happy letting one of my men loose in occupied France. Jerry will smell him out in no time.’

  ‘Can’t you lay your hands on a Frenchman? De Gaulle is always boasting about how many men he has,’ suggested the First Sea Lord.

  ‘And train them … in a few days!’ said Forster.

  ‘I see your point, DNI.’

  ‘I’m a Frenchman – near enough,’ butted in Bosanquet. ‘Send me.’

  ‘You! French?’ queried the First Sea Lord.

  ‘British actually, sir, but I went to school in France. I’m bilingual.’

  ‘Are you, by Jove! DNI, there’s your man.’

  ‘It’s most irregular, sir.’

  ‘There is a war on, you know, DNI. Needs must …’

  ****

  Back in the DNI’s office, Forster admitted defeat and got down to the practical details of despatching Bosanquet to Cap d’Enfer.

  ‘We’ll fix you up with a French identity. It’ll have to be somewhere in Vichy France. From Marseille, or somewhere big like that – Jerry can’t check up on you then. You’ll need an excuse for being out and about in the occupied territories – say a commercial traveller. Your first job is to find out how long we have before the boat sails – radio that back as soon as you can. At the same time look into the sabotage possibilities … and … We’ll I’m damned if I know what you can do next. You’re more or less on your own with this one.’

  ‘And if it sails, sir?’

  ‘It damn well better not sail. You know what the First Sea Lord is like once he gets smitten with an operation: failure not an option. Your job is on the line with this. And so is mine.’

  18

  Two days later, Bosanquet was ready to take up his new life as Raymond Lapointe of Marseille. He was standing in his bedroom, eyeing the material manifestation of his new existence. At his side was a French rucksack with French clothes, French toothpaste, French soap … His rough leather jacket, black baggy trousers and black beret completed his transformation. The only possession that was truly his was his watch – that was Swiss, which gave nothing away. His English cigarettes and cheroots lay on his bedside table. Now he was condemned to reek of French tobacco.

  Much as he understood the importance of these preparations, the clothes irked Bosanquet. He never left his flat without looking in the mirror to check his collar and tie, the fall of his lapels, the precision of his neatly combed hair, and the shine of his hand-made shoes. In his boyhood dreams of wild adventures, he had always seen himself as smartly dressed. When imagining himself out on the hills chasing spies he would be in well-cut tweeds and wearing a suitably rakish and expensive hat. Operational reality had reduced his tailoring to that of an ill-dressed worker with no self-respect for his appearance.

  A car picked Bosanquet up from his flat early in the evening. He was still telephoning a few friends when the doorbell rang. By the time he closed the door on his old existence, he was already fifteen minutes late. As he walked down the steps from the front door, the Wren driver stood by the car and held the nearside rear door open. She glanced anxiously at her watch. The RAF did not take kindly to unpunctual passengers. The dalliance of her latest charge reinforced her brusque manner, acquired from her experience of the difficulties of keeping the top brass to time.

  ‘They’ll be waiting for you, sir.’

  ‘Sorry – it’s all been a bit of a rush,’ replied Bosanquet. ‘Where are we off to?’

  ‘An airstrip that doesn’t officially exist, sir.’

  ‘Sounds odd.’

  ‘Well,’ explained the Wren, ‘if it doesn’t exist, they can always deny that you flew from there.’

  At last, thought Bosanquet, he was in the cloak-and-dagger world of practical intelligence.

  Their deniable destination was RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire. Few people had heard of this secret base, from which so many special operations teams had flown. Bosanquet’s driver, though, knew the route by heart. The station hosted a variety of aircraft, amongst which were the Lysanders of 161 Squadron.

  Two sentries at a sandbag-walled chicane controlled movements in and out of the field. Bosanquet heard one of them refer to ‘Betty’, so revealing that his driver was a regular visitor. She dropped off Bosanquet outside the low, nondescript reception building – a black-painted regulation Nissen hut with windows cut into its sides. The interior was barren apart from a few fold-away chairs and a trestle table in the same style. The room stank of stale tobacco. An orderly was sitting at the table, on which were a couple of folders and a telephone. He got up to check Bosanquet’s Admiralty flight authorisation. Back at his table he ran his eye down a list of flights and recorded Bosanquet’s arrival.

  ‘All in order, sir. I’d better take that,’ he said as he reached for Bosanquet’s flight authorisation. ‘Wouldn’t do to have it on you when you land.’

  As Bosanquet handed over the incriminating slip of paper he winced at having been so careless. How easy it was to betray his inexperience in field-based intelligence.

  An airman, who had been sitting in one corner, approached Bosanquet. The tall, slim young man looked about twenty yet had the confident, authoritative air of a much older person. Bosanquet thought of himself at that age: a newly-minted sub lieutenant on HMS Revenge. How little responsibility he had had in those days – just one of a compliment of nearly 1000 men. Now this young pilot had the responsibility for flying him hundreds of miles into enemy territory. His sheepskin jacket and heavy boots were a warning of the nature of the flight to come.

  ‘Allsopp,’ said the pilot in a clipped and commanding voice. ‘Your taxi for this evening, sir. This way, please.’

  As they walked the short distance to the Lysander, Allsopp kept up a vigorous chatter on the joys of flying. His cheery mood did not match Bosanquet’s thoughts as he sighted the flimsy-looking plane.

  ‘Nervous?’

  ‘It looks a bit …’

  ‘Small? They all say that.’

  Bosanquet suspected that people
only said it because it was true. He was used to the solidity of the hundreds of tons of a destroyer under his feet. Solid, thick steel was his expectation of a war machine.

  ‘You won’t regret a spin in this crate,’ said Allsopp brightly, in the hope of bolstering Bosanquet’s morale. But he undermined his efforts when he added: ‘She’s responsive. Swoops and dives like a bird. It’s the most exciting thing in the air.’

  Bosanquet would have preferred to hear that Lysanders were steady as a rock. Allsopp made the plane sound more like a cross between the bumper-cars and the roller-coaster at a funfair.

  ‘See, snug as a bug,’ said Allsopp as he strapped Bosanquet into the rear seat. ‘Exit practice now. Remember, I’m not going to hang around when we drop. I’ll land, brake and then shout “Now!”. You hit the release button, pull back the canopy, throw out your bag, and shoot down that ladder like a bat out hell. Then I’m off. No “goodbyes”, no “thanks”.’

  Allsopp, used to passengers who made a mess of this part of the flight, got Bosanquet to make two dry-run exits. His own survival might depend on the plane barely halting in the swoop down and the following swoop up. Tonight, he realised, he had no need to worry: Bosanquet could exit with the agility of a monkey falling branch by branch down a tree.

  ‘Well done! A sailor knows how to abandon ship, eh?’

  Once in the cockpit, Allsopp completed his final take-off checks while he warmed up the engine. Meanwhile, Bosanquet attempted to survey the airstrip. He could make out nothing in the darkness. Overhead, patchy cloud revealed a half-moon from time to time and he caught the odd glimpse of the stars. He was still lost in thoughts of the flight to come when the noise of the idling engine changed to a roar. The plane shuddered in response as Allsopp called out: ‘Cap d’Enfer, here we come!’

  The stumpy plane thundered and crashed over the runway as if the aim of its take-off was to test it to destruction. Suddenly the roaring noise of the tyres and the bone-rattling bouncing from the uneven airstrip ceased. Bosanquet marvelled at how easily they had risen above the grip of gravity. He was airborne for the first time in his life. He looked down, but could recognise nothing in blacked-out England. Later, when they crossed the Channel, he could see the white horses, picked out by the moonlight, which burst through the occasional gaps in the cloud.