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Miller H Caldwell, click here
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The story continues
Chapter 17
I returned to the cottage feeling very low with a determination never to relay another message to Berlin again. How could I ever face the widows of the men drowned on the SS Athenia? How long would it be before the German coders might suspect my renitence?
I had to make plans and make them quick. If I were to hide my tracks I’d have to travel light. The nearest safe house would be the British Embassy in Lisbon but I’d have to pass a seething contingent of spies who had gathered in Lisbon. Surely some of them would be German, assessing who was coming and who was going from the British Embassy. To that end I thought I’d arrive before the Embassy opened. I consulted a map of Lisbon which I had noticed in the bookcase. The British Embassy was located in the Rua de São Francisco Borja. It was in the centre of the city near the sea.
I prepared a bag which I could take if I left in haste but I suspected I’d leave at my convenience. My oboe case filled the bottom of my bag. I would wear as many clothes as I could. Then a trickle of fear ran down my body. I was meant to be an author for goodness sake. There was clearly no time to write a book. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat down to write a potential plotline. I made notes. I added words and crossed them out. On the folder I wrote First Draft and filled it with several blank pages but my outline was in Venn diagram form with shoots of ideas spreading to the corners of the sheet. I tentatively called the novel “My Destiny in the Highlands.” I wondered if it really was. My coffee finished, I had enough to show I had been working on some thoughts of my book. I would have surely taken it with me if I was simply moving on. Nothing must show I had planned my disappearance.
I looked at Inka and she came to me. I stroked her and told her I was going away. Somehow I believed she understood me as she went towards the door. She had come into my life at the right time, a mature cat who thought she’d have me for some time, if not a lifetime. It was not going to be forever. I let her out of the cottage. I hoped she would not betray me. I’d leave the door open for her to return, after I had gone. Indeed that would be part of the plan I was devising but first I had to contact Berlin with the latest readings, my latest death invoking readings.
I opened the radio. I knew what I had to do. There was a clear line and I placed my headphones on.
’50....and...34. x 65 ... and 32 10/3/39.’
I replied, received, over and out. Then I sent the message to Berlin, my final message.
‘43 ....and.... 31 x 62 ..and 31 10/2/39.’
The clock was now ticking. That message would be sent promptly to the pack of submarine wolves. They would be on a wild good chase. They would question their information. They might look to me first or to Nancy in New York to see where the fault lay. I had better not be around when they discovered the discrepancy.
That night, after eleven o’clock, I went to the beach. I took my towel, a jersey I’d never see again and an extra pair of shoes. The tide was out. I lay down the towel in a position that it could be seen from the road. My shoes I laid on a corner of the towel to prevent it blowing away. I lay a book down with a bookmark in it. There was no point leading my steps to the water as the tracks would have to come back. I left my watch in my shoe. I had to make the scenario convincing.
I observed the setting with the pride of a movie director. It may well become a murder scene or a missing person’s enquiry by daylight. I had to move on, with haste.
It was a quarter to four when I set off, leaving the bike resting on the side wall. It was still dark. I walked swiftly and quietly. I did not attract any canine interest. I had a nibble of cheese to keep me going. I reached the village of Sintra at five and made for the bus park. The first bus to Lisbon set off at five thirty. I was in good time.
It was an hour’s bus ride. For most of the journey I was the sole passenger. That pleased me. Every hamlet seemed to have been served by the slow moving bus. As dawn broke I saw many farmsteads with crops of barley and wheat and vineyards galore to support the Porto wine industry. Lisbon was much larger than I had imagined. That gave me some reassurance. I could be lost in the city. The day had started. I wanted an earlier entry into the Embassy. I had to make other plans.
I entered Hotel Duas Nacoes on the Rua da Vitania, a family run hotel and asked for a room for the night. I signed the guest book with a name which came into my head. I don’t know how it arrived but it would do during my stay in the hotel.
I was delightfully taken aback when they produced a breakfast. Deputada Theresa Soares had made tomato omelette which had never tasted so good. I devoured it as if breakfast had been the main course of the day. I explained that I would be leaving very early the following morning and hoped a taxi could take me at 6am. That seemed to be no problem. They understood my broken Portuguese.
I was taken to a room overlooking a park beyond which was a row of tenement buildings, housing the poor of Lagos. Far from salubrious this was an ideal place to hide for the best part of the day. I lay down on the bed still wearing my clothes and rested two tired feet. Soon I was sound asleep. I slept with the window open. It warmed the room and kept me sleeping.
I woke to a knock on the door. It was my landlady announcing an evening meal was ready. I came down the stairs pleased to see I’d be dining alone. I sat with my back towards the main window and found a plate of lobster with melted cheese on the white meat. Small tomatoes and roasted potatoes with a few runner beans lay on the plate and a carafe of red wine was provided with a glass for me to fill.
The lady’s husband arrived and came into the dining room. He spoke broken English.
‘English lady welcome. We welcome all spies,’ he laughed loudly. His comment put me on edge. How could he have come to that conclusion I wondered.
‘You think I am a spy?’ I laughed to seem less worried.
‘In Lisbon you are either a spy or Portuguese.’
I joined him in his laughter, taking a drink of the wine while I assessed this maverick host.
He opened the reception book.
‘I apologise. Spies are usually men anyway, so you can not be a spy, er...Miss Brackenridge.
‘You must be a spy detector to come to that conclusion,’ I said to please him.
‘No, I am Chefe de Policia Edmundo Soares in charge of the south of the city.’
I finished my meal and asked to pay my expenses. The landlady said she’s have a taxi waiting at six the next morning.
I hardly slept all night. In darkness I saw Lisbon come to life. Street music and dancing went on till after 10.30pm and I watched every movement from my bedroom vantage point. My body was not ready for sleep. That left worry on my mind and my thoughts returned to abandoning Inka at first then the sending one of our ships to the bottom of the Atlantic. I would never ever come to terms with this crime. I stifled some crying to prevent detection but my heart was heavy.
It was nearer one o’clock in the morning before I lay down and took a few naps.
The morning was another rotten day with squalls of rain shining on the cobbled streets. I had been awake since four. My excessive afternoon sleep was coming back to hit me. No wonder my stomach was in knots. My future was in the balance and my eggs all in one basket to be smashed or served at the British Embassy, if I got there. And when I did, would they believed me?
At 6.12am the car arrived. Twenty minutes later I had paid him and walked smartly towards the side of the Embassy. A few people were on their way to set up their market stalls and many rode on bicycles. But men in suits were not around nor cigarette smoking characters on street corners, taking in the vista. I saw the front door had not been opened. The smell of wet vegetation caught my senses as I passed by some garden growing vegetation at the side of the property. I continued round the building and was surprised to see a lawn with beautiful flowering autumn colours of chrysanthemums and creeping juniper with a common walnut tree at the end of the walled garden. Then I heard some noise. A voice or two speaking, coming from the Embassy. I approached the open window. It was the kitchen. I peered into the room and caught the eye of a cook. She was startled. I smiled to show I harboured no harm.
‘I have travelled, I have come to the Embassy too soon,’ I said.
‘Who are you to see?’
‘The Ambassador himself,’ I said.
‘That will not be possible. He’s in London.’
‘Then I must see his deputy. I have important information to give the Embassy.’
‘Wait.....I am coming.’
I looked both ways. I saw no eyes looking at me. Then a woman in white trousers and a checked apron arrived. She was small and round. Her hair was black tied up in a bun and her skin olive. Her eyes danced in their sockets.
‘Come, this way,’ she motioned by her hand.
I was taken into the kitchen and my overcoat was opened out beside the roaring fire to dry. A hot cup of tea arrived and I relished it. I felt safeness around me yet it was not guaranteed. I watched the cooks prepare breakfast for the staff. I kept out of their way.
Eventually I heard English voices in the dining room and that pleased me no end. I felt I should be there with them but I had to bide my time. They had to find out who I really was.
I was informed that the Embassy opened at 8am. I kept my eye on the kitchen clock.
The cook returned from the dining room and told me she had mentioned I was here, in the kitchen. She asked of my name and I told her. She returned to the dining room.
At ten minutes to 8am as I was looking out at the wet garden through the kitchen window, a man entered.
‘Miss Campbell?’
I turned round to see a man at least ten years younger than myself. He wore a dark blue suit with a white shirt. He sported a lighter blue tie and his shoes shined as if ready for a Guardsman’s parade. His accent was midland I thought but I was wrong. I was to learn it was a cultures north east accent, from Sunderland.
‘Yes, I am Hilda Campbell. I arrived very early. I hope you didn’t mind.’
‘Not at all, I’m glad the cooks looked after you. I am third in command here, Gavin Stevens.’
‘They certainly did refresh me,’ I said lifting my overcoat from its warm surroundings.
‘Please come with me to my office.’
I thanked the kitchen staff in my best Portuguese which brought smiles to their faces revealing bright white teeth and they seemed to bow as I left.
We walked along a corridor and then climbed the staircase. Before we reached the top, Gavin Stevens had a question.
‘A stranded lady wishing to return home before the war gathers pace or needs to renew a passport. Am I right?’
I shook my head from side to side, ‘Mr Stevens, the war is underway and I have much to report.’
‘I see. Then I think you are not one of our usual visitors.’
‘No, I think you will find me most unusual,’ I said to him. ‘I may have to make some important requests to you.’
I could see he was assessing me. The war had not come to the fore of his mind in a neutral country. He seemed a little out of his depth.
‘MI6 must know I am here. They are my handlers.’ The words took him to a different level of expertise.
His expression was serious. It seemed as though he was wondering if a more senior member of the Embassy would be required to attend. He lifted the phone.
‘Nigel, can you come to my room. I have a lady I’d like you to meet.’ He replaced the handset.
I was seated in front of Mr Stevens’ oak desk. A portrait of King George VI hung from the wall which made me feel very much at home. The older man arrived closing the door behind him.
‘Mr Sloan, this is Miss Hilda Campbell,’ said
Mr Stevens.
‘Good morning,’ I said bringing my hand forward to shake his.
‘Now Miss Campbell, what are you wishing to tell us?’
‘I am a spy, a somewhat reluctant double agent whose activities before the war were in Germany but now MI6 directs me. They need to know where I am and I need to inform them about the loss of shipping in the Atlantic.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Stevens.
There was a pause. I did not wish to say more than I needed at this stage but one question was at the tip of my tongue.
‘Can you get a telephone line through to Mr Thornton or Mr Dynes at MI6?’
Mr Sloan looked at Mr Stevens and nodded to him. Rank seemed to have been pulled and Mr Stevens left the room.
‘So what are your German connections?’ asked Mr Sloan.
‘Herr Eicke in Hamburg was my first handler but when I arrived in Britain I was quick to show where my allegiances were. I was sent back to Germany by MI6 but then the war began and I was sent to Portugal to receive messages from America and send them to Berlin. That put me back in the German camp.’
‘So you are a counter spy. Of course I need to know which side you are really on, you understand.’
‘If we get through to either Dynes or Thornton, then I’ll be pleased.’
He drummed his fingers on the desk. I tried to ignore the resultant threatening beat.
‘And if not?’ he asked stroking his chin.
I hesitated. I had to think what the consequences could result if my story faltered against someone else’s version. Then I remembered what might be happening at the cottage.
‘I need to stay here. I will have been reported as a missing woman, probably drowned at sea two days ago.’
I saw Mr Sloan crease his eyes and pout his lips. I suspected he might be thinking I was deranged with feelings of grandeur.
The telephone rang. Mr Sloan lifted the handset. He listened. Then he looked up at me.
‘It’s for you,’ he said.
‘Really?’
He handed me the telephone. ‘A Mr Thornton,’ he said. I smiled and was ecstatic. I took the phone with indecent haste.
‘It’s wonderful to hear your voice again.....yes.... I’m fine. I need to return to London. I can...what?.....yes. I will give the names and their jobs to you.......understood....certainly.’
I handed the telephone back with my heart beating in triumph. Mr Sloan took over.
‘Hello again. Yes, so that’s who she is. Definitely one of ours?..... Okay, it’s almost 10am now. Yes....okay. When? Let me see...ah...the flight will leave at er.....at 2pm. Yes...we will. Easily arranged, it is no problem. Can I pass you back?’
He held the phone to me once again.
‘Hilda, it’s looking like you won’t be going back to Germany now,’ said Thornton.
‘I certainly won’t. I decided to drown yesterday...so locals will come to terms with my disappearance and when the German Embassy follows that up, they should swallow the hook. That gives me some time. Looks like I could be Stateless today. ’
‘No not Stateless. We’ll see to that. You will be flying back today. We’ll pick you up when you land.’
‘Wonderful, I look forward to that very much indeed. Goodbye.’ I said replacing the telephone.
Mr Sloan took off his jacket and placed it behind a chair. ‘I guess you are a bit of a celebrity,’ he said straightening his tie.
‘Far from it. I have not finished my work. In fact it has hardly started.’
Chapter 18
I was driven to an airfield outside Lisbon that afternoon. I felt the breaking of this umbilical cord would start a new life, as I relaxed in the Embassy car. Perhaps I would return to help mother run the hotel. That would undoubtedly be delayed while I was debriefed. Was I thinking ahead of myself, I wondered, as the car approached a fixed wing propeller-driven Breda Ba.65 sitting in the sunshine of the forecourt. The only doubt I could contemplate was if the flight might not fly safely through a war zone.
Then pilot, Marco Matti, descended from his plane and approached me. He was dressed in flying gear with his helmet permitting his chin strap to swing in time with his swagger. An escaped curl of brown hair was all I could see, the rest hidden to reveal a broad tanned forehead and in his smile two rows of brilliant white teeth.
‘Good morning, I am Marco, your pilot. I’m pleased to meet you.’
‘I am Hilda Campbell,’ I said shaking his hand.
‘My orders are to take you to England. I have the right passenger?’
‘You have indeed but, your accent seems more German than Portuguese, not so?’ I asked with more than a degree of concern.
His response was to laugh. I thought it odd.
‘Yes, my German is very good as is my French but my first language is Italian.’
‘So you are from Italy,’ I deduced.
‘No, let me settle your nerves. I am Swiss, as Swiss as an army knife, as pure as the water falling from the Matterhorn and prepared for our flight with our famous Emmental cheese. I have some on board. You will enjoy it.’
His response put my nerves at ease. His rotund body shape gave him a slightly comical look. I imagined him to be the soul of any party.
‘I’m more than glad to be your passenger.’
He pointed a finger at my bag. ‘Is that all your luggage?’
‘Yes, not much, just the essentials to travel home.’
He lifted it and walked me towards the plane.
‘A definite solid bottom to the bag, a picnic box perhaps?’
I smiled and shared my joy.
‘It’s my oboe. I’d never part with it.’
‘If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it,’ we both laughed.
‘Twelfth Night?’ I suggested.
‘Lovesick Orsino, yes in Twelfth Night.
‘Love sick?’
‘Not I. I just love my flying,’ he said in a slightly effeminate manner.
I eased myself into the plane sitting behind Marco. He placed the flying cap on my head with the microphone securely held in front of my lips. I was strapped into the seat.
‘Testing 1, 2, 3. Over.’
‘Receiving loud and clear, 3, 2, 1,’ I replied.
He turned round with his thumb up and offered a generous smile. I interpreted that digit appropriately and reciprocated with my thumb sideways on in error. His thinking must have been that I was a rookie at telecommunications. I wonder what he’d think if I told him I was German trained.
Then I saw my driver run towards the plane. His hands were waving. He frantically sought Marco’s attention. He drew back the hooded cover and peered down at him.
‘I have just heard, Miss Campbell. Police are making enquiries in Peniche that the English woman has drowned. Nobody yet found her body but they have definite circumstantial evidence. They have much to go on. They are searching the coastline and her cottage. The whole town are involved. They are very concerned. They say she was a lovely woman. English they said.’
For a moment, Marco tried to assess the information.
‘Then it’s a ghost I have in the rear, behind me?’ teased Marco.
‘That’s right. I’ve never really existed,’ I said with smug satisfaction.
There would be pressure on the German Embassy to recover the radio. They had to make their own enquiry and be satisfied with an explanation why their valued trained spy was no longer receiving messages.
The driver continued with his messages. ‘The police have been asked to trace another English woman as she may have known the missing woman.’
‘Really,’ I asked in disbelief.
‘Yes, a Miss Brackenridge they said. But she had been staying in Lisbon. Perhaps they never knew each other. There are a few English women around the city. ’
‘Thanks,’ I said realising that if they linked the two names they may resolve that I have not drowned after all. ‘I think it’s time to take off. Pronto, I think they say in this country.’ God, perhaps I should have gone directly to the Embassy. I had been too cautious in trying to avoid the spying community. That had led to the creation of Miss Brackenridge who nobody would be able to identify. Two missing English women. I had made mistake there. I really hoped the German staff would not detect a ruse. Time might tell if they do.
The hood was closed and we taxied to the end of the runway. I saw Marco give a final check of his instruments to ensure the plane was ready to fly. We set off. Then a force pinned me to my seat and moments later the nose of the plane rose and we were flying. I saw Lisbon’s red pan tiled roofs shine in the afternoon sun. The contrast with the white speckled azure blue of the Atlantic was an artist’s dream.
I held the microphone close to my mouth. ‘Marco, so why is a Swiss pilot in Lisbon flying me to Britain?’
‘Hilda, I used to fly with light cargo all over Europe. When war was declared, I hesitated about how I could find work. I had lost my freedom. I had delivered cosmetics to Lagos, down there. At the airport I was approached by one of your Embassy staff. He told me they had a very secret mission which demanded a woman to be flown to Britain. I guess that’s you. So why did I do it? They paid me well. You seem to be a very precious cargo.’
His answer satisfied me but I had one more question.
‘How long will the flight be?’
‘We head straight north to the coast of southern Ireland then sharp right to England. We don’t want to get too near the English Channel or the French coast. I make it a three and a half hour flight, if the wind is in our favour.’
‘And if it’s not?’
‘It could delay us by as much as three quarters of an hour on this flight. That is of course...if......we are not shot down.’
‘And the likelihood of that?’
‘I’m not a betting man. But I’d not fly if I didn’t think I’d make it.’
‘Even for the money?’ I asked but there was no mirror. He’d not see the mischief in my eyes.
‘I have a wife and two daughters at home in Cevio. After this flight I’ll fly in Switzerland. I’ll work there till the war is over. We will not be partisan. It would tear our country apart. We will not fight.’
‘Cevio, near Lake Como isn’t it?’ I asked from a school geography lesson, of many years ago.
‘No, Cevio is north of Lake Lugano.’
I did not know my Italy as well as my Germany.
The Swiss cheese sandwich was enough to satisfy me. A bottle of water was passed to me over Marco’s shoulder.
‘That should keep us going.’
I agreed. Then he passed a brown paper bag over. Inside were three chocolate bars.
‘Three? I doubt if I could eat even one of these bars. They are huge.’
‘Then keep them in your bag. A present from Switzerland,’ he said.
I caught a glimpse of what must have been the south coast of Ireland. It vanished quickly under increasing cloud. By the time we crossed over the Irish Sea it was dark. Land was difficult to see. There seemed to be a night black out in force as not a light gave any direction.
‘How long now?’ I asked feeling my return home was almost immanent. Where would I spend this night, I wondered?
‘Not long now. We’re over friendly land at last. You can relax. We’ll be at Northolt in less than an hour.’
‘Northolt? Where’s that?’
‘Not far from London, on the north side.’ he replied.
That hour passed by ever so slowly as I thought through the repercussions of a year under the control of the German Nazi secret services. What if I wasn’t believed, when I landed? What if I was imprisoned? Was I already starting to wish I had never boarded this flight? I could have happily lived in Portugal on the cliff with Inka, sending the occasional wrong coordinates claiming a faulty line? Then I’d be acting in no-one’s interest.
‘Ready for landing in two minutes,’ Marco announced.
I looked out of the side window. All I could see was darkness. I felt the descent, glad that there had been no flak or attack on our journey. The mother country like a magnet seemed to pull me back home. I felt a relief about that and I was ready to face the music in whichever form it came.
Landing was jumpy. I felt we bounced a couple of times before the brakes were applied. I was pulled forward, restrained by my strapping digging in to my shoulders.
‘Well done, a safe landing.’ I said.
‘Not one of my finest. But we made it.’
‘So where will you go now?’
‘Back home.’
‘To Switzerland, as I said.’
‘Ah yes, but flying across Europe might be dangerous.’
‘I would think so too. I’ll fly to Portugal, then east along the Mediterranean and then north to Switzerland tomorrow. That should be safe,’ he said turning around to see me.
‘I’ll be thinking of you,’ I said looking into his eyes. He saw my sincerity.
The plane came to a halt. I unclipped my leather helmet and my strapping. The hood drew back and I breathed a cool breath of British air. I could see a car approach. Marco got out and came to assist me. I gathered my bag and came down the improvised stair backwards.
‘Hilda, welcome home.’
I turned round to see Messrs Dynes and Thornton. In turn they came forward to shake my hand. Their smile was one confirming in my mind to which side they saw me. To them I was really loyal to the King. That was all that mattered.
‘It’s getting late. You will be staying here for the time being. We’ll return tomorrow at 9am and we can debrief then. Is that understood?’
‘Perfect. I think after a good night’s sleep, I’ll unload.’
‘I’ve left a wee dram as you might see by your bed table. You’ll sleep soundly tonight,’ said Dynes.
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Web Site:
The Reluctant Spy
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I noted a couple of things that you might want to change: first I believe you meant, "go on a wild [goose] chase." And second, you mentioned Lagos twice. First when she was looking out the balcony of her Lisbon hotel, and then the pilot Marco said he had delivered cosmetics to, "Lagos down there," as though the city were directly below them instead of in southern Portugal some distance from Lisbon.
Ron