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  ‘You mean you think you can escape?’

  ‘Certainly I can escape,’ said Britain calmly. ‘Just watch me.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘When they took Britain off to the citadel,’ said Luke, ‘they allowed him to take his washing and shaving kit with him in a sponge bag. And, of course, they searched the sponge bag before they let him have it. They removed the razor and a few spare blades. And they found, among other things, a pair of nail scissors and a nail file. They removed the scissors, but since the file was a lady’s toy, barely an inch long with a mother-of-pearl handle, they left it with him.

  ‘Stupid,’ said Tom. ‘If they were going to take away the scissors they should have taken the file as well.’

  ‘I’m sure they think so now.’

  ‘Why?’ said Joe. ‘What’d he do with it?’

  ‘He must have lain awake half the night. He could reach the wall beside him without leaving his bed. And so, very patiently, hour after hour, he scraped away at the surface of the wall with that file. When he’d collected two or three handfuls of plaster and brick dust, he stuffed his mouth full of it and died, fairly quickly I’d guess, of suffocation.’

  The silence that followed was broken by Joe, who said, ‘I’ve been talking to one or two of the fusiliers. Do you know, they all said the same thing. Word for word. “Sergeant Britain”, they said, “of course, he was mad”.’

  ‘It can be an insult or a high compliment,’ said Tom. ‘It depends on the way it’s said.’

  ‘They weren’t being uncomplimentary. They thought he was a terrific chap. Any criticism they had was for Colonel Fleming. He was a clever bastard.’

  ‘Another unanimous judgement?’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘Odd how accurately the other ranks sum up their superiors,’ said Tom.

  There was a further moment of silence as they thought about the devious, inflexibly determined character who had removed himself so efficiently from the scene.

  ‘Something else I heard,’ said Joe. ‘You remember that bod who came down with the crowd from London? The only one who didn’t talk a lot of balls and bullshit?’

  ‘The trades unionist, Leonard Trench?’

  ‘That’s the one. Well, as soon as he heard the news about Britain he came over.’

  ‘He must have had a hell of a pull to have got here so quickly,’ said Luke.

  ‘He’s a great man,’ said Tom. ‘A dangerous man. Who’ll be greater and even more dangerous if things at the end of the war go the way he’s said they will.’

  ‘He’s certainly got the gift of the gab,’ said Joe, ‘and guess what he’s saying now.’ No one seemed inclined to guess, so he told them. ‘He’s saying that Britain didn’t commit suicide. He was murdered. To keep his mouth shut.’

  ‘That sounds like nonsense to me,’ said Tom. ‘And anyway the truth must come out at the inquest. The pathologist’s report will decide the matter. If his gaolers did knock him off, in some other way, and filled his mouth with plaster and brick dust to suggest that he’d done it himself, no part of it will have reached his stomach. On the other hand, if he committed suicide, he must have gulped down some of it before it finally blocked his wind pipe. Couldn’t have helped it.’

  They could hear, from Tom’s window, the sounds of Montreuil going about its morning business. The clatter of hooves, the rattle and squeak of carts and the shrill comments of women as they searched the market for the food that was becoming less available every day.

  Joe said, ‘Whether he took his own life, or whether it was took, and whichever way he’s gone, up or down, I guess he’s laughing now. And why? Because by keeping his mouth shut he’s landing Fleming in the shit.’

  ‘We’ve given him two leads,’ Luke agreed. ‘First, Marianne. Then, Sergeant Britain. And he’s mucked them both. He can’t expect us to do any more for him. We’ve finished holding his hand. Now he’s on his own.’

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Tom. He said it so seriously that the other two stared at him.

  ‘I may be forced to give him a third chance. I’m not mad keen to do it, but I’ve really got no option, as you’ll understand when I tell you that I’ve solved that riddle. I know what 16987171082694 means. In fact I arrived at a very possible solution several days ago, but so far the only person I’ve told is Routley. I told him because I needed his help, as you’ll appreciate when I tell you the answer.’

  ‘Don’t hold out on us,’ said Luke. ‘We’re both bursting with suppressed curiosity’

  ‘Well, here it is. Actually it was Hickory’s last letter that put me on the track.’

  ‘You mean the one about the pie? But that was a load of nonsense.’

  ‘It was nonsense. And that’s what gave me a lead. It demonstrated a fundamental point; that we had to think about the recipient of the message, not the sender. Bear in mind that the people concerned weren’t stupid. They were fairly intelligent soldiers. Some of them were gunners, or sappers, who’d be quite used to dealing with numbers. On the other hand, they were none of them advanced mathematicians. So, along with the address they were to go to, they were given a string of numbers, which would remind them of it any time they cared to use it. But the method of using it had to be simple enough for them to remember it, and they would be forbidden to write it down. Which cut out any idea of a purely arbitrary solution. That would have to be set out in writing. Now apply these facts to Mick Donovan. He’d got a group of figures scribbled down on the back of his money envelope—which he was due to hand over to the men who carried him over, or he may have meant to destroy it anyway. But the one thing we didn’t find was any written explanation of the code.’

  ‘I think you’re right,’ said Luke. ‘If the method was in his mind and not on paper it must have been simple.’

  ‘Certainly. And the one idea produced by Hickory that I did accept was that since the numbers ran from one to twenty-six, there was a strong probability that we were dealing with a straight letter-number exchange, and the only two methods that made any sense were a straight swap. 1 for A, 2 for B, 3 for C, and so on. Or, just possibly, a reversed alphabet, 1 for Z, 2 for Y.’

  ‘And so,’ said Luke, who had been following this with calm attention, compared to Joe, who looked as though he was going to die of apoplexy if Tom didn’t come to the point, ‘You have a choice of two messages: PIHGQJHZID or KRSTJQSARW Both nonsensical.’

  ‘No. Not equally so. The second is far more promising if you bear one other fact in mind. Suppose, for instance, that the address you were jotting down was a house in London. Something like, “27 Regent Street, NW18”. There would be both words and numbers in it. The numbers wouldn’t have to be encoded. They could be left as numbers. After a bit of juggling with alternatives I decided that in the reversed alphabet version the opening “K” and the final “W” could both be read a numbers. This gave you 16RSTJQSAR4.’

  ‘God save us and bless us,’ said Luke. ‘And it’s been staring us in the face for weeks. Sixteen rue St-Jacques, in the fourth arrondissement. Is there such a street in one of the likely towns?’

  ‘If you remember that the town must be large enough to boast four or more arrondissements, that meant Arras or Béthune—or possibly Doullens, though it’s a bit far away. In any event, I found that such a street existed in the murky warren of streets behind the meat market in Béthune, which was the most likely place anyway, being in the middle of 91st Division leave area. I refrained, with considerable self-restraint, from making a personal search. I was sure there would be sharp eyes in and around the building. But I got Routley to make a search of the records. He’s a policeman. It was quite natural and unsuspicious that he should make such an enquiry and he was helped by the French system of recording land ownership—much more up-to-date than our system which is still almost feudal. I was particularly anxious to know who owned the house, because I’d already placed him as Mr X.’

  ‘Mr X?’ said Luke and Joe in unison. Joe adding,
‘That’s a new one.’

  ‘Didn’t it seem to you—it did to me—that the desertion machine, though effective and smooth running, was, somehow, lopsided? On the Belgian side you had Rudi Naroch in charge and running everything; on this side you had a lot of different bods—a detachment of Rudi’s private army, members of the sisterhood, helpful farmers, and a number of originally helpful, but now much less helpful, fishermen. But if the machine was going to balance there must, I felt sure, be one person, on this side, in charge. Someone able to communicate with Rudi through that convenient smuggler’s line. Someone who could see that each deserter was chosen, picked up and dealt with.’

  ‘And paid for,’ said Joe.

  ‘I thought of him as Mr X. And when we heard about the house in the rue St-Jacques it made good sense that he should actually be the owner of it’

  ‘With you so far,’ said Luke. ‘What did Routley do next?’

  ‘He got the name of the owner. Madame Laspinasse.’

  ‘And who on earth is she?’

  ‘That’s what he set about finding out. He got hold of an attic, nearly opposite the Laspinasse house, fortunately a building that could be approached from the rear. And he’s been sitting in that attic, equipped with a strong pair of binoculars, for four days. On the first two days all that happened was that a pair of Naroch’s thugs—two of the eight that are over here, no doubt—paid her a visit, both times at around five o’clock in the afternoon. When she opened the door to let them in, he got a good look at her. A black-haired old hag he described her as, supporting herself on a stick. The men pushed straight past her, into the house. He saw her again when they left, though less clearly, as by that time it was between eight and nine and dark and the lantern she was carrying didn’t shed much light.’

  Luke said, ‘But he’s certain it was the same woman and that she was alone in the house?’

  ‘Quite clear. And on the morning of day three she actually emerged. Again the same woman—but somewhat changed. The black hair, which must have been a wig, had gone, the stick had been discarded, and she strode away down the street, a robust woman of early middle age. He was unprepared for this development and could not get down in time to follow her, but this morning, when she appeared, he was ready and did get down in time. She was carrying a basket and was heading for the market He followed discreetly, keeping his distance, and when she had finished her first purchase—fruit and vegetables—and had moved on, he spoke to the stall-keeper. Asked him who his customer was. The stall-keeper said that he didn’t know her, but Routley got the idea, from the way he said it, that what he really meant was that he wasn’t going to admit to knowing her. The next person he spoke to was more communicative. Certainly he knew the woman. All knew her: Tante Marie.’

  Joe said, ‘Well, whaddyer know.’ Luke was temporarily speechless.

  It was as though a large and complicated jigsaw puzzle had been completed by the insertion of one central piece, which had welded together a number of fragments into a visible whole.

  Finally he said, ‘So Mr X was really Madame X.’

  ‘So it seems,’ said Tom. ‘And what a perfect set-up. Tante Marie and her sisterhood locate the deserter. Rudi’s thugs carry him to the coast. The fishermen take him by night along the coast and hand him over to the Germans. A first-class through service. The only mistake they made was quarrelling with the fishermen. If they hadn’t done that I don’t believe we should ever have broken into it.’

  ‘And now we know the names of everyone concerned?’

  ‘Not everyone, but most of them. Minette has located the members of the sisterhood who are actively involved. They all have houses in or around Saint-Omer and Béthune and thanks to some excellent work by Emil and Bo we’ve located the farmer who stabled their horses.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We’ve got no option. We can’t handle the next bit ourselves. We hand it over, lock, stock and barrel to Fleming.’

  ‘And what will he do?’

  ‘If he was a Frenchman he’d kiss you on both cheeks. Being an old Etonian he’ll probably say, “Oh really—well—thanks a lot”.’

  In fact, when Tom Braham had passed on this latest information to Colonel Fleming he had demonstrated, in equal parts, astonishment and gratitude. After which he had summoned a conference of the parties concerned to work out the best way of proceeding.

  ‘I gather,’ he said, ‘that one or more of these Belgian criminals attend pretty regularly at Madame Laspinasse’s house.’

  Routley said, ‘It’s usually a couple of them—they seem to work in pairs. They arrive around five o’clock, leave at eight.’

  Joe, who had attached himself to the meeting said, ‘I expect they were tired of boy-scout meals in their hideout and wanted a bit of home cooking.’

  ‘Quite possibly,’ said Fleming coldly. He had not got used to Joe’s habit of interrupting his seniors. ‘We go in around six o’clock. Routley comes with me. But apart from him I feel it would be better to leave this, as far as possible, to the Military Police. The men are foreigners, without any right or permission to be here. It’s a job for the CMPs to deal with people like that.’

  ‘Very glad to leave it to you,’ said Tom. ‘As long as you impress on your men that the one person we want—preferably in one piece—is Tante Marie.’

  ‘She’ll have a few questions to answer,’ agreed Fleming.

  ‘The colonel may not be over-stocked with brains,’ said Routley, who had arrived in Tom’s office at seven o’clock on the following evening. ‘But one thing he’s not lacking is courage. He had three men with him. We’d seen two of Rudi’s boys go in and when we got to the front door we could hear them in the room at the back, talking and laughing about something. When Fleming knocked on the door the laughter stopped, but no one emerged. The door was a pretty ropy affair. One of the men had brought a sledge-hammer with him and a couple of blows broke it open. Then we surged into the hall, Fleming leading. I was in the rear, and glad to be there, because I didn’t share Fleming’s idea that the men would give themselves up quietly. And I was right! They had the door of the room they were in wide open. And were standing, well back, inside. When Fleming reached the door they opened up. The first shot must have parted his hair. The next one hit the man on his left and knocked him down. After that things became confused. Both sides did a lot of shooting.’

  ‘But not you?’ said Tom.

  ‘Not me, no. On occasions like that I prefer to keep what you might call a low profile. Most of the time I was flat on the ground. When it was over, both Rudi’s boys were dead. Two of ours were wounded, one badly, one very slightly.’

  ‘And Tante Marie?’ said Luke anxiously.

  ‘I’m afraid she got away’

  ‘For God’s sake! How did she do that?’

  ‘She had her private escape route all lined up. A hole in the cellar wall led to another cellar, and a further hole to a third. When she finally surfaced she was at the far end of the passage that runs behind the houses. And it was pitch black. Can’t blame the men for missing her.’

  ‘We can’t blame them,’ agreed Luke, ‘but you realise what the result will be? By now she’ll have been in touch with Rudi Naroch. He won’t be pleased to hear that he’s lost two of his men.’

  ‘Not pleased,’ said Joe. ‘He’ll be bloody mad. Our next visitor’s going to be the good ship Liebling, packed with fighters, all guns blazing. Seems to me that this is where we need a bit of help.’

  ‘We may need it,’ said Fleming. ‘But from what my friends at GHQ tell me, we shall be unlikely to get much, if any.’

  ‘If any’ agreed Tom, who had also been following the course of the fighting.

  At that same time, and not far away, another conference was taking place. This one was at Doullens, a small and unimportant village fifteen miles south of Saint-Pol.

  The eight men who were present at it were a great deal more important than the five men in Fleming’s office, but were no less
worried.

  The President of France, Raymone Poincaré was in the chair, supported by Georges Clemenceau, now Prime Minister, and by his top army men, Ferdinand Foch and Henri Pétain. The British were represented by General Haig, with his Chief of Staff, Sir Herbert Lawrence and – hastily summoned from England – Lord Milner and Sir Henry Wilson.

  The conjunction of eight such notable men underlined the extreme seriousness of the situation.

  Haig gave them the unpalatable facts.

  After five weeks of fighting, cosdy to both sides, he had only a single division in reserve. Sixteen of his remaining divisions were made up of 18 and 19-year-old boys. They were now manning the last tenable line south of Amiens.

  During all that time, General Gough, in command of the British Fifth Army, had been conducting a rearguard action so skilful and so determined, that it should have been rewarded by a peerage and the thanks of the nation, but, on the grounds that a scapegoat had to be found, had resulted in his dismissal and return to England.

  Shortly before he left, he had signalled to Haig that his line had, for the third time, been re-established, but had added that he was so short of men that he would welcome any reinforcements – ‘Though made up of grooms, mess servants and horseholders, provided they could stand on their feet and fire a rifle, I could find a use for them’.

  ‘Pétain had the appearance of a commander in a funk,’ wrote Haig in his diary. ‘But Foch was sound and sensible’. Appointed at long last to command all the allied forces, he had saved the day, not by any lavish handing over to Haig of French troops, but by dribbling men into his line whenever he felt able to spare them.

  ‘Like an old woman,’ said Haig, ‘paying for her purchases with pennies extracted one at a time from her purse.’

  It was abundantly clear that this was not a situation in which men would be detached to assist in side shows.

  ‘If we were stupid enough to ask for help,’ said Fleming, ‘we should get a dusty answer.’