Farewell, My Boy

By Garrick Jones

From the deserts of North Africa to the dark forests in the Third Reich, Tommy Haupner, together with his American lover, Henry "Shorty" Reiter, lead their team in a daring mission to rescue a gifted young savant from Nazi Germany's T4 euthanasia program.

They are forced to flee in a stolen bus in the dead of night across enemy territory with a precious cargo of 24 handicapped children destined for extermination. In a supreme effort to save their charges and to avoid capture and execution themselves, they mount the most daring and dangerous rescue mission possible, the results of which almost end in disaster.

This third book in The Seventh of December series is an action packed wartime adventure set in the early months of 1942. Stolen aircraft, kidnapped senior Nazi officials, doctors of death and bloody revenge massacres, all of which are intertwined with the love of a helpless, rescued child. Farewell, My Boy, deals with not only the frailty of men's hearts, but the truth that even the bravest are not exempt from the pain of loss, even when it is for a greater good.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Mar 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781922912305

Garrick Jones

Garrick JonesFrom the outback to the opera. After a thirty year career as a professional opera singer, performing in opera houses and in concert halls all over the world, Garrick Jones took up a position as lecturer in music at the Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Australia.Brought up between the bush and the beaches of the Eastern suburbs, he now lives in the tropics in peaceful retirement.

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This is an IndieMosh book

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Copyright 2023 © Garrick Jones

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Licence Notes

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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author and publisher.

Disclaimer

This book is historical fiction.

Events, names, places, dates, and the activities of real people may have occasionally been tweaked to advance the narrative. No character in this story is taken from real life. Any resemblance to any person or persons living or dead is accidental and unintentional.

The author, their agents and publishers cannot be held responsible for any claim otherwise and take no responsibility for any such coincidence.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank the following people and organisations for their input, advice, and very kind and generous support, especially the archivists at the museums and the Royal institutions:

Aleksandr Voinov, Dr. David Brennan, Carol Gaskell, Bev Sutherland, The Australian War Museum, The British Museum, The Imperial War Museum, The Royal Collection, and The King’s Archives.

AUTHOR’S NOTES

The character of Tommy Haupner is modelled after a true life wartime hero and spy, whose abilities make Tommy’s pale by comparison.

Morris Moe Berg was a premier league American baseball player, who not only spoke eleven languages, but graduated from Princeton University, studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, and graduated in law from Columbia Law School. He was recruited by Billy Donovan (who you’ll meet in this story) and was sent to Zürich during the war to assess the progress of the Nazi’s atomic bomb development by attending a lecture by the famous physicist, Werner Heisenberg. Combat trained and licensed to kill, Berg was authorised to assassinate Heisenberg if he felt the Germans had already progressed far enough to make a viable nuclear weapon. Although there’s no remaining direct evidence, many historians believe that Berg was also gay.

Thousands of classical performers fought during the Second World War, many of them famous in their homelands and many giving their lives. Equally, MI6, the SOE, and the OSS were not averse to using performers as informants, gathering information as they travelled, entertaining troops or giving morale and fund raising concerts.

Noel Coward was one such British artist, running the propaganda office in Paris at the outbreak of war, also working for the OSS to convince the American public that the war in Europe needed support.

The author wishes to stress that this book is historical fiction. Events, names, places, dates, and the activities of real people may have occasionally been tweaked to advance the narrative.

This book is dedicated to the tens of thousands of gay servicemen on both sides of the war who fought or gave their lives to protect those they loved.

Saturday, 7 March 1942

For the four days I’d been in the desert, I’d become accustomed to almost immediate coolness once the sun had gone down. But tonight the Sirocco was blowing, wafting warm air from the great Sahara in the south.

It smelled somehow luxurious—not a word I would normally associate with a perfume—an exotic mixture of date palm resins and coffee flowers overlaid with the smell of sand and dryness, and with just a hint of something that I could only describe as tasting like flint.

The small hamlet, on the edge of the Kufra basin, a mile and a bit outside the oasis town of Al Jawf, was little more than a camel-stop: a few houses and a run-down coffee shop/bar with a dilapidated sign that hung down like a wayward eyebrow over one of its street-facing windows.

Like several other men, the only reason I’d been here for the past three nights was because of a path behind the shop that led to a maze of palms and wild coffee bushes, set below an overhanging stony outcrop.

I leaned against the trunk of a date palm, taking in the scents of my surroundings and feeling the air gently stirring my hair, which I’d not brilliantined and had let fall over my forehead. A young Oberfusilier wandered past me, vainly trying to make eye-contact, which I politely acknowledged but then avoided, staring at my shoes in the semi-dark. Al Jawf was only about ten miles from the nearest German garrison, but, to those in the know, this particular part of the group of oases was a discreet meeting place for men of like mind—Germans and locals alike.

I’d dressed for the occasion: a fawn shirt, open to the fourth button, displaying my abundant tawny chest hair, and jodhpurs—admittedly perhaps one size too small. My wedding ring, threaded through the chain around my neck, rested against my chest behind the identity disk I’d chosen for the evening. Amt für Sicherungsaufgaben, it read. Office for Security Tasks, used by many departments across the Reich, but mainly by the Gestapo for personnel who organised meetings and political protests. It indicated that the person wearing it was a bureaucrat, not a field soldier.

I saw the red of a cigarette tip, blinking as the person holding it moved between the trees. I’d waited three nights and now here he was.

Feuer? the man asked me.

Your cigarette is already alight, I replied, smiling.

I meant for this, he replied, offering me a cigarette from his pack.

I took it and leaned forward as he lit it for me, our eyes meeting over the flame. His were very unusual—the colour of a summer sky, the iris ringed with a deeper, more greenish blue. I grinned into them and he chuckled softly.

Thank you, I said.

He leaned on his shoulder against my palm tree, facing me. We smoked for a bit, not speaking but exchanging glances, he continually breaking eye-contact. He was taller than I’d imagined—not quite as tall as me but close enough. Our builds were similar, but, where I was fair, he was dark, not unlike my brother, Michael. He wore an open shirt over a singlet, his identity discs tucked carefully out of sight, and loose, pale-coloured American military trousers held up with a woven leather belt.

I hope you were nice to the American when you took off his pants, I eventually said.

He laughed, shaking his head at my not-so-subtle flirting, then took off his Egyptian leather sandals one by one and secured them under­neath his belt, at the back of his trousers.

That was very amusing … and very forthright, he said. But I just like to talk.

I snorted softly. Talking is fine with me.

What brings you here …? His voice trailed off, indicating that I should tell him my name.

Despite his self-assured manner, I could tell that he was uneasy under his cultivated, Wehrmacht officer façade. There were telltale signs: rather too much underarm sweat staining his shirt, and unmistakable but frequent and carefully timed sideways glances to see if we were being observed.

Thomas, I said, holding out my hand.

F-Franz, he said, stumbling ever so slightly over the name, affirming that he had just decided on it. We shook hands.

Why don’t we move away from the path? I suggested, You seem quite nervous.

He hesitated for a moment.

"So we can talk more privately," I said. I started to move off between the trees without waiting for an answer.

I’ve had a bit to drink, he said, following me through a stand of white-flowered coffee bushes, heavy with the smell of jasmine. And I really do just want to talk.

I turned to look at him from under my eyebrows, as if to say, I’ve heard that one before. He smiled at my accompanying wink and was about to say something, but I interrupted him before he could get a word out.

You don’t seem the sort of person who would rely on a few Schnapps as a tongue-loosener, I said. But I can be a good listener … if that’s all you want.

That’s all I want, Thomas, he said. If you want more, I’m afraid I’m not the man for you.

I smiled and indicated the direction we should go in with a toss of my head. After a few seconds, I heard him following.

The bushes opened into a narrow, stony gully. A rock shelf ran across the far side of it, perhaps two yards from where we stood. It was perfectly sheltered and private. I moved to the stone outcrop and sat, took my cigarettes from the breast pocket of my shirt, removed two, and held one out to him. He hesitated briefly, but then came to sit next to me, our knees touching. I lit both cigarettes and we sat in silence, looking up above the trees into the sky.

There are so many stars away from the city lights, he said.

I nodded. You are very handsome, Franz. I moved my hand onto his knee.

He placed his hand on top of mine and shook his head. You are very handsome too, Thomas, but I meant what I said.

I removed my hand and cupped the side of his face, stroking his chin with my thumb.

Please, don’t … he said, gently grasping my wrist.

For the briefest of moments, I saw a stab of pain and longing in those sky-blue eyes. I recognised it as longing for someone other than me. It was swiftly replaced by a look of alarm as he registered the barrel of my companion’s Walther pistol, dark blue in the reflected desert moonlight, pressed against his cheek.

I knew you were too good to be true, he said, softly, sadness now in his eyes.

No, Dietrich, you are wrong, I said. I have just saved your life.

At first, it was puzzlement: how did I know his real name? Then the butt of the Walther swiftly connected with his head and he fell forward into my arms.

CHAPTER 1

No matter how many times I’d said it would take many months for things to change, my British friends had gone about their lives with a new lightness in their stride and a look of hope on their faces.

The attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbour in December last year had immediately raised everyone’s spirits; as if by the following weekend they’d expected to see columns of Yankee soldiers and marines marching down The Mall in their thousands and great flocks of American bombers winging overhead on their way to drop lethal loads on the good and not-so-good inhabitants of the Greater Reich.

It didn’t work that way. Ask any military man. The great behemoth of war—a war that for the Americans would no doubt be fought on two fronts, in Europe and in the Pacific—took a lot of time to get moving. Mobi­lisation, at its best, was a time-consuming business. Turning industry to war production, enlisting and training a professional fighting force, which at the time of the Japanese attack was anything but combat-ready, and moving the economy to a war footing—would take months and it would be perhaps the best part of half a year before we saw the start of anything tangible.

It had therefore come as a major surprise when Shorty had come home from the office not more than two days after news of the Japanese attack and told me he was going to be sent away for two weeks and hadn’t been told why. If things went well, he’d said, he was due to return on Christmas Eve. All he knew was that he’d be initially going to Ringway for ten days, after which four days at Lochailort.

Ringway? More parachute training? I’d asked, surprised because he’d already done his hours last year, not long after we’d met. He’d merely shrugged, and gone upstairs to start packing.

As I had a lunchtime concert the following day, I had gone back to my practice, interrupted after no more than a few minutes by a knock on the door and a summons delivered by a policeman: I was required to attend a meeting with Anthony Eden in Whitehall. Damn, that meant the telephones were down again, otherwise his office would have called. A police car was waiting outside, so I’d packed up my violin and put it in the safe, leaving me only enough time to run upstairs to kiss Shorty goodbye and to discuss some very hasty plans for Christmas should he not return in time.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised to find Stewart Menzies, head of MI6, already seated when I arrived at Whitehall. The moment I saw him there, chatting to Eden, I guessed that our meeting would have something to do with what Stewart had discussed with me and my adjutant, Gavin Smiley, nine months earlier. You know precisely what I mean, Tommy, Stewart had said then. There will always be the need for special operations behind the lines—tasks too sensitive for normal field agents from the SOE to perform. It’s hoped your future unit might be the one the Crown and the Government could call upon if such deeds were deemed necessary. Deeds that will not bear scrutiny from any of the other agencies and which will fly under the radar of nosy parliamentarians and other busybodies.

After the exchange of pleasantries, and once I’d taken my seat at the table with Eden and Menzies, I was told that the proposed new unit was to become effective immediately—with one proviso. I was informed that, although the group was to be run out of our office at No. 4 Montagu Row, among the field personnel I selected for the unit I’d have to include one or two of the Americans we’d brought back from Boston.

Do I detect a faint, lingering whiff of Colonel Donovan wafting over this? I asked.

Menzies raised an eyebrow, but Eden stretched back in his chair with a soft smile at one corner of his mouth.

I was then informed that the Americans would also be running their own team and Shorty was to be its head. With a few more of the men who’d come back from Boston with us—and two as yet unchosen additions—the US group would be conducting their own undercover operations, similar to the unit for which I’d just given the green light. I barely suppressed a pleased smile when Menzies suggested that from time to time our two teams would be involved in joint operations.

Colonel Reiter doesn’t know anything about this yet, Eden said.

Then, when I suggested that he wouldn’t find out until he got back from his mystery tour of the northern training bases, it was explained to me that the reason Shorty and his new group were going away was twofold. First, each man was to clock up thirty hours of basic pilot training, another ten of glider pilot instruction, and three days of parachute training at Ringway for those who hadn’t had it. After that, they were going to Lochailort to refresh their own combat training while working with some newly arrived Norwegians and Danes.

I’d barely taken a breath after hearing this news when Eden asked me if I’d given any thought to the make-up of my own team.

But of course, I replied; we’d been prepared for this for some time. I was about to outline my thoughts when Smiley surprised me by withdrawing a large folder from his briefcase, revealing documents containing our detailed suggestions for the staffing of our new unit and its operational parameters. He, Gladys and I had indeed spent a great deal of time deciding on the best combination of people with the skills we needed, and, equally importantly, whom we trusted.

I hoped my surprise at the appearance of the documents from Smiley’s briefcase hadn’t shown on my face and that both Menzies and Eden would realise that we at Montagu Row went about our business seriously. I glanced quickly at Smiley, who returned my look with a smile, blinking a few times, the last of which was definitely more of a wink. Perhaps my adjutant had already known something about this meeting that I hadn’t.

Eden and Menzies missed our exchange, their heads down, reading our proposals, obviously pleased. When they’d finished, Eden started to put forward his ideas for the Americans on my team. I’d had time to think while he and Stewart were reading, so I interrupted, firmly stating that I’d already chosen the two men who would fit most comfortably within out new unit: Szymon Grajewski, the young man who was currently working with the new Polish recruits for the SOE at Baker Street, and Allison Jenkins, who, along with Szymon, had helped us a great deal during the Lavender Spider affair last year.

We left, some three hours later, with an agreement for all of our proposed list of members bar one—my brother, Michael. Both Eden and Menzies had said his work at Hayling Island was vital. However, I was told that we could second him, plus the newest of our friends, William Stanfield, the Marquess of Harrogate, when contingency requires it, although William was to be used only for domestic operations and not to travel to any country or place that wasn’t under our control. I’d smiled and agreed, my fingers crossed in my mind. If we needed both Michael and William outside the country, that would be my decision, repercussions be damned. I’d been promised autonomy and by God, I’d use it as I saw fit.

*****

MI-t, we, Gladys and I, had called our new group later on, once it was up and running. Our take on the various MIs that existed in Britain; MI5, MI6, MI9, MI19, etc. It was as if a finger had slipped while typing and had fallen between the 5 and 6 in the keyboard. MI-t soon became known among us as Mighty, the way one might say the acronym out loud.

The core of Mighty consisted of Smiley and me, Gladys, Andrew McGillivray, Al Jenkins, Szymon Grajewski and Peter Farnsworth. Two Aussies, two Brits, a Scot and two Americans—one of them a Polish-speaker. All of us, bar Peter, fluent in varying degrees in both French and German.

Tonight’s operation in the desert was the first MI-t had launched. Of course, any operation behind enemy lines that included our two Americans had had to be cleared with their superiors at the embassy, and after my insistence that his experience abroad impersonating a German officer would be invaluable, Shorty had been officially invited to join us.

The extraction of our guest from the oasis had gone seamlessly, although I’d started to wonder whether our particular German would ever gather the courage to come looking for some company. I’d never done anything like that in my life—solicited a stranger in such a place. I’d stayed until the very early hours of the morning for the three nights before he’d arrived, hoping he’d turn up. We’d learned that the last time he’d been there had been the day after Rommel had left the base at which he’d been working as a temporary staff member for the general.

Almost a month ago, and upon my request, MI6 had placed an Algerian spy in the town near the German camp. He’d been told to employ a few trusted locals to keep an eye on our German officer and follow him if he left the area—that was how we’d come to know about the oasis and what went on there. When we’d arrived in Alexandria, across the border in Egypt, we’d met with the Algerian at MI6’s headquarters in the city and he’d told us that, since he’d been sent to follow his movements, the German had visited the oasis half a dozen times. However, the most he’d ever done was have a smoke with someone—usually someone tall and blond, like me—and they had only chatted. That had been the extent of his activities—once or twice he’d arrived, done a circuit of the oasis then left within fifteen to twenty minutes. On the occasions he had met someone, he’d talked and had sometimes laughed with his companion for a while before leaving with his flies still buttoned.

I was informed by our Algerian spy that for decades the oasis had served as a refuge for locals and travellers who were looking for either sex or just companionship. Being so closely placed to Rommel as he had been, I couldn’t begin to imagine the risk the German was taking. But then, I was lucky to live with the man I loved, so I didn’t know what loneliness could do to a man. I supposed a bit of flirting and friendly conversation might soothe the pain for a short while. And the Algerian had told us that Germans of all ranks had started to trickle in merely a few weeks after the garrison had been established. He said that one of the local men he’d talked to while following our officer had informed him that a tacit understanding of anonymity existed among the Germans who went to the oasis. Even if someone did recognise someone they knew, it was a generally accepted rule to pretend otherwise. When I’d asked him how he knew this to be true, he’d merely smiled and changed the subject. MI6 had clearly chosen him wisely.

I hadn’t been supposed to be the bait. It should have been Andrew, but his replacement at the French desk at the SOE had been killed in one of the sporadic raids that still continued in London. Andrew had only been with us at MI-t for about six weeks when it happened and had been ordered to return to his old desk for a few weeks to help train someone in the section to take over. The timing couldn’t have been worse, but we all understood why he’d had to return to Baker Street.

We’d already drafted one or two plans on how to kidnap the German, should the possibility or the necessity arise. But out of the blue, we’d received information that had moved it to the top of the queue of our projects. With so little notice, the oasis at Kufra and the officer’s visits there made the choice the only one with any chance of success.

Having Peter Farnsworth as a member of our group, and the ability to request our own aircraft for any such operation, it had seemed an easy enough project to organise. But then, when we’d received the news that had made our operation a case of now or never, we’d discovered that Peter had still not been given permission to transfer to our unit. The paperwork had been done but was still sitting on the desk of some Ministry official, waiting to be signed off on. That meant we had to make other arrangements. I phoned Whitehall.

I didn’t know how he arranged it, but Anthony Eden’s assistant had quickly organised a series of concerts for me in Alexandria, spread over a few weeks. Had I arrived there for no reason in particular, I was well enough known that there was a risk I’d be recognised by any number of the thousands of British soldiers based in Egypt—I’d become very popular in Great Britain, having toured all over the country playing concerts for the troops. He’d also asked me to submit suggestions for travel for Gladys, Smiley and me, and the Americans in our unit, who were to travel separately. The day after I’d called him with our suggestions, he’d had everything already in hand, having liaised with the Americans to organise a separate US army flight for Shorty and our MI-t Americans. Gladys, Smiley and I were to take a special RAF flight via Lisbon and Morocco—which was now in Allied hands.

As Andrew couldn’t come, it had fallen to me, as the only blond man with experience in impersonating a German officer, to do the job. Szymon’s German, though vastly improved since I’d first met him in Boston, was still a little clumsy from time to time, even though he had a German mother and a Polish father. His German was sometimes dotted with American loan words and others from dialects that a native German-speaker would naturally avoid.

Had our German officer not turned up when he had, we might have missed him. I had concerts to play and couldn’t continue to wander around the oasis every night. That was why we’d needed Andrew in the first place.

The Hotel Maurice, right on the harbour in Alexandria, was where we’d been staying for the past two weeks until we flew to Al Jawr, touching down in the desert some ten miles away from the oasis where our contact was waiting. It was a French colonial hotel of the Belle Époque, on El-Gaish, overlooking the circular harbour. As the staff were all French, not only was the food wonderful, but the courtesy that went with it was exceptional. It was merely fortuitous, if anyone cared to enquire, that Smiley and I were booked in to stay at the same hotel as Gladys, Shorty and the other men. Besides, the hotel was very convenient to the El-Khoury School of Music, a few blocks from our hotel, where I had been given access to a practice room and an accompanist.

MI6 had also made a safe house available for us and, after a doctor had examined our captive and had given him something to help him sleep, I informed him that I was going back to my hotel. Al and Szymon were staying to keep an eye on him.

Please, before you go, tell me why I’m here? he asked. He was still more puzzled than afraid, but I merely replied that he had my Ehrenwort—my word of honour—that he wouldn’t be harmed and that, apart from not leaving the safe house, he was free to do whatever he wished.

You said back there that you’d saved my life? he asked as I stood up to leave.

I promise you’ll come to no harm; you’ll be treated well. I’ll pop in tomorrow to see if you need anything and I’ll explain everything properly the day after tomorrow.

What? That’s a long time to wait without knowing why I’ve been kidnapped, and by fellow Germans.

The day after tomorrow, I said.

*****

The reason for the delay, which I hadn’t been able to explain to our captive last night, was that tonight I was to play the Beethoven concerto for the first time in my life in public and I needed the day to practise and prepare.

It had been the first of my surprises when arriving at the hotel in Alexandria—discovering that London had organised an orchestral concert with the local symphony orchestra at very short notice and which hadn’t been on the original list of performances I’d been given. But I’d been delighted to hear that I was to play the great work by Beethoven. It had been on my wish list with Eden’s man at Whitehall, but I hadn’t had the chance because, in Great Britain, it had become somewhat unpopular, having been given endlessly before the war.

As the head of the strings department had also been a pupil of Konstanze Pfeiffer, my teacher in Munich, the music school had been delighted to let me use one of their rooms. Over the days I’d been practising, Marla Smith had asked to sit quietly in the corner of the room to watch and listen to my practice. I didn’t mind at all.

In the past, the Beethoven concerto had always frightened me a little, only because it was by this concerto that all world-class violinists were judged. However, over the past eighteen months, with my man at my side, love in my heart and a return to regular performing with the Stainer under my chin, I was really looking forward to the performance.

Marla Smith’s violin wasn’t an exceptional instrument, but I was more than grateful that she’d loaned it to me for the time I was in Alexandria—for some inexplicable reason I’d been denied permission to bring the Stainer to Egypt, even though I’d taken it to the United States, to Portugal, once to Stockholm, and had travelled with it all over Britain. Before I’d left, I’d been presented with a very nice Amati, not of the same calibre as my usual instrument, but which had a lovely warm tone especially suited to chamber music. Marla’s, however, was a superior instrument for working with a large orchestra, due to its resonance and brilliance of tone, and she’d happily offered it to me for the Beethoven.

Today, as every day since I’d arrived, she sat in the corner of my practice room smiling while I started my day by playing scales, the smile growing to a grin as the scales turned into passages of thirds then sixths in major, harmonic and melodic minor keys.

How do you make E-flat melodic minor sound so easy in sixths? she asked, as I dropped my bow from her instrument. I was about to reply when we were interrupted by a soft knocking at the door. I recognised the rhythmic pattern and intensity as that of Shorty’s knock. I knew it would have to be important for him to interrupt my practice.

Why, Colonel Reiter, how delightful, Marla said, genuinely pleased to see Shorty when she opened the door.

Good morning, Marla. He took off his hat and kissed her hand. I’m really sorry to disturb your practice, Tommy, but I knew you’d want to see this.

He held a despatch in his hand but waited for me to pass back Marla’s violin to her before giving it to me. I took a deep breath when I finished reading the British Intelligence report. The Japanese had started the invasion of New Guinea and Bougainville that morning.

I’ll get us some mint tea, Marla said.

Jesus, Shorty, I exclaimed, once she’d gone.

I wanted to tell you, babe, before anyone else did because there’s more. But hopefully it’s good news.

I stood in the window of the room in which I’d been practising. It was on the first floor of the building and had a fine view down a wide boulevard and over the harbour. Shorty stood beside me, an arm around my waist.

I got a despatch from Washington saying the same thing. But, as I said, there’s more, and it’s just been declassified. On the seventeenth of last month, MacArthur left Corregidor and was sent to Australia to run the rest of the Pacific campaign from there.

Really? How is it that we didn’t hear of this before?

He gave me one of those looks. Not everything was shared between the Allies.

Did you know? I asked, but he shook his head.

This was good news. It meant that if the Pacific campaign was to be organised from my home country, and the Yanks were based there, then we would probably be safe from invasion. I felt a small glimmer of hope mixed with relief. God knew how long the war would go on, but at least I could go to bed at night knowing that my parents would be safe. Unless, that was, the Americans somehow lost the war in the Pacific.

There’s also this, he said, handing me a telegram. Gladys asked me to give it to you.

I quickly read the message. It was from Andrew, informing us that a package would arrive in two days and asking if someone could pick it up early that morning. The word package in a message stood for a replacement for a person we’d left behind.

A replacement? Someone is coming to replace Andrew?

That’s what Gladys and I assume, Shorty said.

But who on earth? The only possible person I can think of is one of the two men we sent to Norway to organise Resistance groups while I was still at the SOE.

Which guys are those? Do I know them?

I shook my head. It was before we met, and it’s the reason you were sent to Boston.

Ah, I remember now. The three men in your team who were killed in the Blitz the day after we met. You were panicked because apart from you and your brother, you had no one who’d been trained to impersonate German officers except for Andrew and the men in Norway.

It has to be one of them. We’ll know more soon.

How, Tommy?

The way it’s signed off.

Trevor Babel?

Trevor is the name Andrew decided to use for messages that can be intercepted easily. However, Babel is the SOE code for something that will follow later. In a radio transmission, it means to call back in a few hours, but in a telegram or a letter it means more information coming soon.

Could that be bad news?

Unlikely, otherwise we’d have had a visit from someone at the British consulate or from one of the MI6 lads from the office here.

*****

I practised for another few hours then met up with Gladys in the suq for lunch. We ate a wonderful kushari, followed by something new to me—ta’meya: balls of crushed fava beans deep-fried and served in a flatbread with a delicious tangy sauce tasting of sesame.

How was he this morning? she asked.

"Our captive? He slept well and, although he’s still a bit suspicious about what we might do to him, he’s relatively quiet. He’s very taken with Shorty’s beautiful Prussian accent and smiles at me when I start to speak in Elsässerditsch, or Bavarian, then switch to Berlin German."

Why do you do that?

To put him at ease. Most people in Britain don’t find regional dialects amusing, but they do in Germany. It’s a small step on the road to trust. He asked if someone might find him a local newspaper and said he’d prefer an English edition because he didn’t speak French or read Arabic.

There was nothing in his notes about him speaking English, Gladys said.

"He probably learned it at the Ritterakademie. Learning the English language was quite the thing before the war. Anyway, I’d seen that The Times from two days ago had arrived at the hotel, so I had Al fetch it for him. His reaction was interesting. ‘Is that really what the British public thinks is going on? How can anyone believe such propaganda?’ he asked, after reading that the German Baedeker raids were launched on us as reprisals for the bombings of German cities. He insisted that not one Allied bomb had fallen anywhere in the German Reich."

Oh, dear, Tommy. This might be harder than you think.

I don’t believe so. I told him we’d speak more over the coming days and that he should take advantage of listening to the radio—he can tune into any European station, something not permissible in Germany—enjoy the excellent food, which we’ve arranged to be brought in, and spend some time reading and relaxing, or even playing cards with Al and Szymon, or the two MI6 men who’ve been assigned to take over when our men come back to the hotel to sleep or to meet with us. I promised him that I’d return tomorrow in the afternoon and we’d start to discuss the reasons we’d rescued him.

How did he take that?

"He was initially startled that we’d let him listen to the radio. He’ll probably want to tune in to hear news from home, but I’m sure curiosity will get the better of him and he’ll start to listen to Swiss radio stations or the new German-language programme on the BBC. If he could understand what he read in The Times, his comprehension must be fairly good, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that he can speak English well, or understand the spoken word."

I hope you were careful?

I omitted some truths, but didn’t lie.

Does he suspect you’re not German yet?

I shook my head. "No. I’ll wait until tomorrow before I tell him that, otherwise he’ll really start to get anxious and I want