Interrogation.
Chapter 21
Outside, it was not really raining, but the fine misty drizzle seemed to add to the burden people were carrying. Everyone she passed had a gas mask round their necks or strung over their shoulders, like Hilda's. Londoners were going about their business stoically, regardless of the war.
Walking along the embankment, Hilda saw two small naval ships in grey and black camouflage: a view was not dissimilar to Hamburg, still so fresh in her mind.
She found a tearoom near the Thames. Most of the tables were already occupied, and waitresses weaved their way around the seated customers like matadors. Hilda was placed at a single table at the back of the restaurant. There was no view, but she didn’t need one. Her thoughts turned to what she might expect at the meeting which would take place in just under an hour.
She ordered soup. It was a thick nutritious broth, and it came with two generous slices of buttered bread. It was filling, and her nerves were affecting her appetite, so she ordered nothing else but a cup of tea, to the evident disappointment of the waitress. Her mind was four streets away from her body.
Where was Thornton planning to send her? She could not imagine. Perhaps there was a desk job with them in London. What could she offer them? Fluent German, some radio experience, maybe even nerves of steel? Perhaps they had an army posting for her, down on the coast, though she felt too old for uniformed service, surely?
She returned to the MI6 office, eager to hear their plans for her. She hoped that whatever they were, they would materialize that afternoon; she had burnt her bridges in Elgin, and Portugal and Hamburg were out of the question. Money was not an issue, of course; her mother's cheque was in the bank. Nevertheless, she had always hated to have time on her hands; she needed something to do.
‘Come in Hilda, have a seat,’ said Dynes.
‘Thank you.’
‘I’ll wait for Mr Thornton. He’s got some interesting news from Portugal.’
‘Portugal?’ she exclaimed. ‘You mean I might be returning there?’ That had never occurred to her, and it was not a prospect she relished.
Dynes was still laughing when Thornton came in.
‘Did I miss a joke?' he asked. 'I could certainly appreciate one right now.’
‘Hilda wondered if she would be returning to Portugal,’ Dynes said, still laughing. Thornton began to smile. Hilda was lost for words, totally unaware why her response should have attracted such mirth.
‘You can’t return to Portugal, Hilda. You are officially dead.’
‘What, you mean they found a body?’
‘Not exactly. We received news from Lisbon today. You made the front page. English woman missing; clothes found on the beach. The chief of police has concluded that Miss Hilda Campbell must have drowned, and he has stood down a coastal search to find her body.’
‘I wonder if they sealed off my cottage before the German Ambassador’s staff reached the house. If so, the radio will still be there, and probably Inka too.’
‘I’m sure the German Embassy sent someone to the cottage as soon as they heard you were missing. They would have found the radio and seized it, it's hard to believe otherwise. That is not our problem. I think you have been very clever. Eicke will soon learn of your demise, if he has not already been informed. On his behalf, I must tell you he cannot attend your funeral. I’m a bit busy too, for that matter.’
Their laughter must have been audible all the way to Nelson’s Column. Hilda even imagined Lord Nelson was smiling.
‘We cannot let you surface again or he will know you are our agent,’ said Thornton.
But the news of her demise was not the main reason she was here. ‘So do you have a future for me now that Portugal is dealt with?’
‘I think we have, Hilda. It is highly secret, and I cannot stress this too much. I am not prepared to talk about it yet.’
‘I see. Can you tell me where will this be, I mean in Britain or elsewhere?’
‘You are pushing me, Hilda. All right, I’ll tell you where. You would be based near London. We have to share your background with higher authorities first. The fact is that you are a fluent German speaker, and your experience of the Nazi machine is invaluable. They feel you could be very useful indeed.’
Useful. Hilda's body tensed like a tightly wound spring. Whatever did they have in store for her?
‘They understand what lay behind your earlier exploits for the Germans, your fears for Otto and your... other relatives. We had to assure them that your work in counter-espionage was well and truly over. They’d like to meet you this afternoon to assess you for themselves, and before that you will need to sit an examination paper, a mathematical paper I believe.’
‘Really? It sounds like school all over again.’
‘Precisely,’ said Dynes, his head nodding like a puppet. Clearly they did have plans for her, perhaps a desk job. She’d be content with that as long as it seemed worthwhile. The espionage business was certainly not for her.
Dynes opened his case and produced a document.
‘Here, read this thoroughly Hilda.’
It took a few minutes to read the document and she did so in total silence. It became clear why he thought her possible future role was crucial; her commitment clearly had to be total. At the end she was invited to sign, to verify she had accepted the rules. Dynes handed her a pen and she did so.
‘There, you've signed the Official Secrets Act,’ said Thornton. 'Forget any similar document Eicke gave you. Your colours are tied to our masts fairly and squarely now.'
‘I thought they always had been,’ she replied.
Later she was sent to a room on the second floor of the Admiralty office. Two others sat outside the room. They were younger than she was, Wrens, in naval uniform.
‘Good afternoon. All doing the maths test?’ she asked to break the ice.
Their only response was to smile. None of them ventured any information. The poster above their heads declared in bold large letters that Careless Talk Costs Lives, and she rather suspected this was the last order they received from their superiors, before they were sent here.
Portraits of royalty and political figures hung from picture hooks on the corridor walls. They seemed to look down on the three of them as if to urge them to do what they could for their country. All the same, a maths test seemed to be the last thing that would contribute to the war effort. Perhaps she should have asked more questions of Thornton. He had implied that this would be a new direction for her – but as a maths teacher? She somehow doubted that.
They were led into a room dominated by a dark oak table. They were carefully placed, one at each end and one in the middle, where the examination papers lay face down, with a pencil, a sharpener and a rubber beside each one.
‘Ladies, you have an hour and a half to complete as many of the questions as you can. There will be no talking or conferring. Do I make myself clear?’ asked the duty staff sergeant.
They glanced at each other.
‘Yes, quite clear,’ they replied, one after the other.
He raised his arm and stared ostentatiously at his watch, then smartly lowered it and gave the instruction: ‘Up pens, begin.’
Hilda turned the paper over to read through the questions before starting to work on them. Part 1 consisted of fractions, divisions, multiplications and subtractions, an easy starter. Part 2 was geometry, part 3 trigonometry. Part 4 was a series of algebraic equations. Long ago in school, similar problems had been dubbed bread and butter sums, and more recently she had supervised Otto’s mathematics homework. She lifted her pencil and began the calculations, quietly confident.
She decided to start with the more advanced questions; if she ran out of time, it would be better to have omitted the simpler ones. She sharpened her pencil without checking whether it needed it. One trigonometry question sent her mind off at a tangent; she was required to calculate the time it would take a cruiser sailing at thirty-five nautical miles per hour to come to the aid of a sinking ship at point B, while evading U-boats at positions C and D. The radio messages giving co-ordinates of the convoys came rushing back to her.
She shook off the unwelcome memory and began to enjoy this new challenge. She remembered sitting with Otto, guiding him through mathematical hoops. When she looked up at the wall clock, she saw she had forty-seven minutes left. She turned to the geometry paper. This was something she relished; she tackled the questions with ease.
Then came the algebra. The equations and formulae came back to her like a mantra, and when that page was complete she had a little more than twelve minutes to finish part one of the paper. She took great care over this part; a slip here might persuade an examiner not to pursue her efforts any further. Yet the questions were embarrassingly easy. Hilda supposed the entire exercise was designed to rate the three of them, but there was still no indication of what came next.
Hilda read through her answers, checking the logic she had applied to each question. She was satisfied that her efforts had been diligent and her answers were correct; at least she had done her very best. She put her pencil and ruler down and gazed at the second hand of the large clock at the end of the room as it counted down the last couple of minutes.
‘Time, ladies, pencils down,’ the staff sergeant said, approaching to gather up the papers and make sure their names were on the top of the front pages.
‘Please take a seat outside. You will each be called to interview with Sir William Raeburn, in alphabetical order. Baker, Campbell, then Wheeler.’
‘Always last, the problem with being a Wheeler,’ one of the Wrens said.
‘Madam, if the first may be last then surely the last may be first? I shall reverse the order. Miss Wheeler, you will be first,’ said the staff sergeant with an air of superiority.
It made no difference to Hilda: she would still be in the middle. She would have preferred to be interviewed first, but that was never going to be an option.
Miss Wheeler’s interview lasted almost twenty minutes. Now it was Hilda’s turn to be interviewed by this man with a distinctively Scottish surname. Perhaps that was a lucky omen.
Sir William sat at the end of the room. His head was bowed over his hand, which scribbled on a sheet of paper in front of him. He had white hair, neatly trimmed coiffure. He wore a dark suit, a gold waistcoat spattered with black spots, a white shirt and a dark blue tie. The pen was in his left hand; he held his spectacles in the other. He ignored her for a few moments, allowing her to appraise him, and wonder again what this interview was for.
He put down his pen, and without raising his head, he barked,
‘Frau Richter, sit down.’
She was taken aback, but sat down as she was bidden on the hard-backed chair opposite him. This man clearly knew her background. Was he merely showing her he did, or were his intentions more sinister?
‘You are German. We are at war with your country. Why should I not lock you up for the duration of the war?’
Her knees tensed, her pulse rate rose and she felt blood rushing from her face. ‘My country is Scotland, my loyalty to the king,' she said firmly. 'My preferred name is Hilda Campbell. I have specific qualities which this country needs.’
‘Your son is in the German army and you have a home in Hamburg. Or is that a fabrication?’
She swallowed hard. It appeared he knew much about her past but very little of her recent activities.
‘Yes, I have a son in the German army and he has access to our old home. I am a widow. I do not deny any of this. I have lived under the appalling regime which the Third Reich has become. I was housebound in the First World War, but I would not be treated so gently in the present climate in Germany. Hitler will stop at nothing. He is not just a menace to Great Britain; he is a menace to the world. I will play my part in defeating this terror, even, if you insist, from a British prison. Sir, your assessment of me is misplaced.’
It was a struggle to control herself, but she managed to keep her voice steady and unemotional. The interview had hardly begun, but she was prepared to give as good as she was getting.
Sir William Raeburn had not finished with her. ‘You were sent to Portugal by Herr Eicke of the Gestapo. You provided intelligence to the enemy. This is a treasonable offence.’
She did her best to stay calm but her legs were shaking. ‘I do not deny being a double agent. I had to carry out Eicke's instructions to avoid becoming a suspected thorn in their side. If I had not, I am confident that I would not have survived. I did send one message to Berlin, to earn credibility with them, but I was also instrumental in identifying a German spy ring based in America. Why would I have done that if I was a German spy?’
It was growing harder and harder to remain calm, especially when he launched his next sally.
‘Why were you awarded an Eagle Civilian Cross?’
God, she was being turned over like a pig on a spit. She was appalled to find he knew that, but she refused to flinch, or show any weakness. She lifted her chin and struck back.
‘It was given, not awarded, to retain my loyalty to the Reich. It was not for anything I had done for the glorification of the Reich. I have been open with MI6 about that, as well as everything else I have told them.’
Her eyes welled up and she groped for a handkerchief, hoping against hope that he would not see it as a sign of weakness.
‘Crocodile tears?’ he jeered.
His rudeness was cutting and heartless, and she offered no riposte. She hated this man. This was not an interview; it was a nasty interrogation, on a par with Gestapo questioning.
‘How else can I convince you of my loyalty to this country?’ she demanded.
‘Through a period of detention?’ he suggested.
She had heard enough. She pushed her chair back and rose to her feet, drawing herself up to her full height.
‘I demand to see Mr Dynes and Mr Thornton. They have faith in me even if you don’t.’ She turned to leave. ‘Good day.’
‘Miss Campbell, please return to your seat.’
She stopped with her back to him. His tone had softened and he said please. Very well; she had nothing to lose. She turned and looked him squarely in the eye. Her lips were tense and dry, and she was furious. Her knees trembled and she put a hand on the back of the chair to steady herself.
‘Tell me, do you like crosswords?’ he asked.
First an interrogation, and now a question about puzzle games. The man really was the limit. She wondered for a moment if he had said cross words, and not crosswords at all.
‘Cross words?’ she snapped.
‘Yes, crosswords.’
Crosswords, then. Still mystified, she replied, 'I have always done them when I had time on my hands. As a matter of fact, I completed one this morning. I usually do, in German as well as English.’
‘Cryptic or not?’ he asked.
‘Cryptic are certainly more satisfying, but any will do when I have time.’ She wondered if she should sit down again, and decided she would not. Standing, she felt she had a slight advantage.
‘You enjoy them?’
‘Very much so. Why?’ It was time he answered a question himself.
He did not, of course. Instead he made a note on his paper.
A knock on the door distracted him and he barked, ‘Come in.’
A women in her middle years approached the desk and handed him a brown folder. She departed without saying a word or sparing a glance at Hilda. Sir William opened the folder and studied the contents; she waited, watching closely. Was this a directive for her detention, requiring his signature and?
‘Please,’ he said extending his hand to the empty chair. She hesitated. His venom certainly seemed less potent now. She sat down, clasping her hands on her lap.
‘Ninety-eight per cent, Miss Campbell,’ he said. 'Admirable.'
She frowned, not understanding, then realized he meant the maths test. And he had called her Miss Campbell, not Frau Richter. But caution was still her watchword.
‘How did I lose two marks?’ she inquired dryly.
He turned over the pages in front of him and smiled. It made him seem more human, almost handsome, though not her cup of tea.
‘The trigonometry caught you out.’
‘Trigonometry? Really?’
‘Yes., Your mind must have wandered momentarily. The answer was correct, but the working-out was not all there. The marker chose to fault you on the missing line in your calculation. Your mind must have been racing ahead of your hand. But that is a minor detail. Yours was by far the best result of the three candidates.’
‘So I'm going to be a qualified maths teacher in a detention camp.’
She detected a smile on his ruddy face.
‘Not at all, Hilda. I think you will do well in the position now available to you.' He laid his hands on the desk and leaned towards her. 'I cannot emphasize strongly enough how secret this operation is. Have you signed the Official Secrets Act declaration?’
‘Yes, I have,’ she said cautiously.
‘I will need to have that verified, of course. You realize that any deviation from the Act's requirements will result in the death penalty for treason? I’d have no hesitation in seeing you hang if you turn against your home country,’ he said sternly.
She gave him a wry smile. 'Yes, of course I understand.' It was difficult to understand this complete volte-face, but it appeared he was seeing her in her true light after all.
He stood up and offered his hand.
‘I had to be hard on you, Hilda. I believe you, I assure you I do. Your loyalty had to be tested, hadn’t it? German son and so on... I know it must be hard for you not to know where your son is.However, I don't question your loyalty to Great Britain. I hope that one day you will be reunited with Otto.’
‘Thank you. You did have me worried,’ she said, warming to him at last.
‘What we have in mind for you is top secret. I mentioned that before, but I cannot stress that enough. Listen carefully. I’d like you to go to Bletchley Station this afternoon. You will be met by a car.’
‘And where will I spend the night?’ she asked.
‘That will be taken care of, I assure you. Regard this as a crucial assignment. You bring to the task some much-valued qualities. Now, can I ask you to wait outside, please? You may have a colleague to join you.’
‘Just one colleague?’
‘Ninety-eight per cent, ninety-two per cent and seventy-four per cent. Yes, there will be just one other to accompany you.’
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Ron