Agent in Peril, page 18
They were satisfied with what he’d told them, satisfied enough for Basil to confidently tell Barney Allen in London that he’d re-established a network in the Ruhr. Yet again Jack Miller had proved his mettle and Basil would write the report to ensure he’d be able to share a good deal of the credit.
He’d also be able to tell the ambassador that he’d managed to expedite matters and there’d be no need for him to go into Germany, though of course he’d have been more than willing.
Around three o’clock they’d casually mentioned to Jack that they were taking him to the safe house he’d originally been taken to when he first escaped to Switzerland back in December 1941.
You look like you could do with a few days rest: good food, fresh air, then back to work.
As the car pulled up outside the house, Basil turned to him. ‘Sophia’s here, Jack.’
The American had looked at them in utter shock, as if he’d not heard what they were saying, and then reacted as if they’d given him some bad news.
‘What do you mean… is she alive, what’s happened to her?’
Noel helped him out of the car and put his arm round Jack’s shoulder. ‘It’s nothing to be upset about: she’s absolutely fine, Jack. Managed to get herself tangled up with the Soviets – we’re still not sure how and why – but we were tipped off about her whereabouts last Friday and managed to rescue her. She’s been here since then.’
Jack was already bounding up the stone steps of the house and followed Noel into a sitting room at the rear. Sophia was sitting in an armchair in the bay window and stood up when they entered.
For what seemed like an eternity the two lovers looked at each other in silence. They moved closer and then stopped, each looking at the other in disbelief and in a manner suggesting they thought this may be a trap. Eventually they moved closer and each held the other’s hands, as if they were about to start a dance.
‘Well, all’s well that ends well, eh?’ Basil had positioned himself next to the pair like a priest officiating at their wedding, smiling at them in an avuncular manner.
‘I’d say this calls for a drink, wouldn’t you? Not yet four o’clock but never too early on an occasion like this!’
Noel coughed and said actually he thought the occasion called for Sophia and Jack to be left alone. Basil got the hint, saying he and Noel had some catching up to do – as he imagined they did too – and maybe they’d have that drink a bit later on.
* * *
Noel had mentioned to Basil that he was slightly concerned that this could all end in tears.
‘Not sure what you mean, Noel.’
‘What I mean, Basil, is what if it turns out that one of them is not as keen as the other is? Maybe they were more concerned for their safety than anything else. If that’s the case then we could be in danger of losing an excellent agent, possibly two.’
But Noel Moore needn’t have worried.
The pair asked to be left alone for the rest of the day and when Basil and Noel returned on the Friday morning, a shocked housekeeper took them aside before they’d even entered the house and told them that the lady and the gentleman had shared a room that night.
‘And they were still in it this morning!’
Basil seemed unsure what to say, but Noel said she really wasn’t to worry and in fact everything was in order and she ought to remember that one of the conditions of her very generous employment here was that whatever went on in this house was to be treated in the utmost confidence.
They couldn’t get much sense out of either Sophia or Jack that day or indeed the following one and in Basil’s opinion they were unlikely to do so for quite a while. The pair only had eyes for each other, although he did manage to extract from them an assurance that now they knew each other was safe they were more than happy to resume their service as British agents.
In due course.
On that basis Basil did a deal with London: give them a week off and then it would be back to work. Basil decided to send them to Lausanne, in his opinion the most quintessentially French city in Switzerland. He booked them into the Hôtel de la Paix on Avenue Benjamin-Constant, close to the north shore of Lake Léman.
He himself drove them down there on the Sunday and said he’d collect them the following Saturday. ‘First of May: new start.’
He left them with strict instructions to keep themselves to themselves and to be as discreet as possible. They weren’t to mix with other people.
They didn’t look as if they had any intention of doing so.
But as so often happened in Basil’s experience, circumstances soon changed. On the Thursday there was a series of urgent telegrams from London, culminating with a coded radio transmission, which was only used as a last resort. Matters were pretty clear. Barney Allen wanted Sophia and Jack back in Berne immediately.
Their holiday was over.
There was a new mission and they were the ideal people for it.
Part Two
Chapter 19
England
April 1943
‘I don’t imagine I’m allowed to ask how your war’s going, Barney, eh?’
Barney Allen raised his eyebrows in a manner to suggest this was indeed so.
‘Quite understand… must be awfully difficult to keep matters to oneself.’
Barney Allen muttered something about it not being a problem so long as people didn’t ask questions he was unable to answer and his cousin Andrew – A. A. – blushed and said he was sorry and Barney said not to worry, really…
‘And how are Christine and the children?’
Barney said they were fine, thank you very much, and if the war went on much longer James would soon be getting his call-up papers!
‘And… Patricia – how is she, and the children of course?’
A. A. said Patricia was well and then went into some detail about her mother’s unsuccessful knee operation and said his eldest, Andrew, wouldn’t be far behind James, though his mother did wonder if his asthma would exempt him from National Service.
They exchanged some pleasantries about their fathers, and reminisced about childhood holidays but it was obvious A. A. wanted to say something but was unsure how to broach it.
‘And the RAF, how are you finding it, A. A.?’
His cousin said he was… well ‘enjoying’ would be the wrong word of course, but it was certainly busier and far more interesting than the City and he wasn’t sure if Barney was aware but soon after his promotion to wing commander, he’d been transferred to Fighter Command HQ at Bentley Priory and even though the Battle of Britain was over it still felt like one was at the heart of…
His voice trailed away and he turned round to check no one was listening, even though they were sitting in a near-deserted lounge in A. A.’s club.
‘It’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually, Barney, confidentially of course.’
‘Of course. Is it connected with my line of work?’
‘Possibly, Barney, and if not, you may know who’d be interested.’
‘Go on.’
‘Through my work I’ve had occasion to visit RAF Northolt a few times. 303 Squadron is based there, one of the Polish Squadrons in the RAF, and bloody marvellous chaps they are too. They all managed to escape from Poland before the Nazis could get them. 303 flew Hurricanes in the Battle of Britain: absolute heroes.
‘I’ve become rather pally with an officer called Stanisław Makowski. Stan’s a flight lieutenant in the RAF but his Polish rank is captain. The other week Stan confided in me: he was very nervous, insisted he didn’t want to go through official channels.
‘He said Polish politics in London are very complicated with lots of different factions and just because they were all opposed to the Nazis, it didn’t mean that there weren’t tensions between the different groups and a good deal of distrust too.
‘Evidently he’s involved in one of the smaller resistance groups and they have access to some intelligence that may be of considerable interest to Great Britain. The reason he was approaching me informally was that he felt he could trust me and didn’t want anyone in the Polish Government in Exile to find out about it. If he went through the RAF then there’s a danger it may get back to the Polish Government here, because most things do.’
‘Did he give any hint what it was about?’
‘No, though he did say it was something of enormous importance and Stan’s not a chap normally given to hyperbole: pilots rarely are, in my experience. He said if I thought I could help then he’d arrange for me to meet a more senior member of his group in London – I think Stan’s more of a messenger.’
‘And you said?’
‘I told Stan I’d come back to him – my intention was to discuss it with you first, Barney, and decide the best course of action. But I’m afraid he seems to have taken that as a “yes”: he rang me at Bentley Priory this afternoon to say he’s set up the meeting and how grateful he is and what an enormous contribution I’ll be making to the war effort, et cetera. I ought to tell you, Barney, that I rather jumped the gun and asked him if I could bring someone with me – two of them, two of me, so to speak.’
‘And who did you say this someone would be, A. A.?’
A. A. smiled awkwardly. ‘I told them it would be my cousin: the Poles take family awfully seriously. I didn’t say what you did, of course. I just said you could be trusted as much as me.’
Barney Allen waved away the steward who was hovering in the doorway. Going along would be a breach of various protocols: he ought to clear it first with Piers Devereaux and there was the issue of whether this was actually a matter for MI5 and then it involved a government in exile so the Foreign Office ought to be involved… it was all so complicated. He’d send a note to Piers in the morning, that ought to cover him if anything went wrong.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Barney, but it may well turn out to be useful for you, who knows?’
‘And when will this jolly family outing be taking place, A. A.?’
‘He’s rather sprung it on me, I fear, Barney.’ A. A. glanced anxiously at his wristwatch. ‘It’s in an hour’s time and it all seems to be rather cloak and dagger, though I imagine you’re quite used to that.’
* * *
Barney Allen soon realised that whoever they were going to meet knew exactly what they were doing. He’d thought about getting in touch with Hugh Harper at MI5 – they knew each other from school – to see if he could arrange for one or two of Bartholomew’s Disciples to follow them. The Disciples was the name given to an elite team based in London, skilled at following people and watching what they were up to.
But there was no time for that.
It was all very quick.
A. A.’s instructions were to go to a call box and telephone a number Stan had given him. Barney was with him in the call box.
‘Where are you?’
‘Pall Mall.’
A slight pause. ‘Very well: walk please to Piccadilly Circus and catch the number 88 bus heading west. Stay on the bus until the last stop, which is Acton Green, by the Duke of Sussex public house. Enter it and order a drink and after five minutes use the call box inside the pub to ring this number again.’
A. A. had made the phone call as instructed.
Stay where you are: a woman will find you soon. Do what she says.
For the next half hour, they sat quietly in the pub, impatiently toying with their half pints of warm bitter, the blackout blinds helping to cast the Victorian interior in a gloomy light, as if it were still lit by gaslight. Barney spotted the woman entering the pub, an attractive woman in her thirties, blonde hair falling from under a dark beret. When she’d bought her drink, she moved to the table next to them, everything about her relaxed. Barney was impressed, so much so that he wondered whether he’d been wrong in assuming she was their contact.
She waited five minutes before turning round, an unlit cigarette in her hand. Did they have a light, she asked in a foreign accent. She leaned closer to the flame and spoke very quietly.
I’ll leave in a few minutes: please follow me.
They did so as she headed north up Beaconsfield Road and soon after it became Acton Lane, she turned into Somerset Road. She opened the gate of a bay-windowed terraced house, a slight nod of her head indicating they should follow her.
Stanisław Makowski was waiting in the back room in his RAF flight lieutenant’s uniform. Standing alongside him, with his back to the curtains, was a taller man in a dark suit and with a scowl on his face. He indicated they should sit down, and for a while he studied Barney Allen, trying to weigh up his unexpected visitor before a smile briefly crossed his face and he nodded.
‘Very well: if Stanisław trusts Andrew and Andrew assures us you are most trustworthy then… then perhaps I will take that view too. When I explain the situation, you will appreciate the risk I’m taking. Pull your chairs closer together, please, and I ask you to listen carefully.’
The man ran his long fingers through a head of thick hair and then pressed the tips of the fingers of both hands together as he gathered his thoughts.
‘I obviously hope that you will be in a position to act upon the information that I am about to share with you. However, for reasons that will become obvious, I don’t want you to divulge the identities of Stanisław or myself.’
He coughed and then drew himself up. ‘My name is Piotr Drobiński: prior to the Nazi invasion of Poland, I was a diplomat in our embassy in The Hague. I managed to escape and am now an official with the Polish Government in Exile here in London. I work out of our headquarters in Portland Place.
‘Before becoming a diplomat I was a lecturer in Polish History at the University of Poznań and while I was there, I became part of what is known as the Poznań Group. Have either of you heard of it?’
Both shook their heads.
‘Few people have, thankfully. Life really is too short for me to go into detail now about the complexities of Polish politics and the various factions within it, but for the purposes of this conversation let me just say that the Poznań Group was a collection of like-minded individuals in the city: it was initially based around the university, which is how I became involved, but also included some professionals in the city and a number of Polish air force officers at Ławica airport: hence Stanisław’s involvement. If we had one common denominator it was that we were democrats – centrists if you like: not right wing, but not communists either. Poznań has a high proportion of ethnic Germans, but our group comprised Poles and a few Jews, which was unusual too. One has to acknowledge there’s a very strong strain of anti-Semitism in Polish society.
‘Very few members of the Poznań Group remain in Poland. Some have been killed, others have fled or been captured, some have disappeared. The few who remain have to be very careful, but they are hoping to keep the group going: with the way the war is turning against the Nazis we want to have some influence when the war ends. Recently I received a message from a close friend at the university, Bolesław Piotrowski. Bolesław was also a member of the Poznań Group and has remained in the city, though I understand he’s now working in a factory. According to this message, in February Bolesław was approached by an emissary from the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. At one stage half a million Jews were crammed into it, but last summer the Nazis deported hundreds of thousands of them to a death camp called Treblinka. Now only fifty thousand remain.
‘According to this emissary, one of those remaining in the ghetto is a man called Roman Loszynski. Before the Nazi invasion, Loszynski was a very brilliant professor in the Department of Advanced and Applied Electronics at the university. He was also at the centre of the development of a secret device for the Polish air force to use in their new PZL bomber. This device would improve the capabilities of the plane’s bombing function. It would make it more accurate. As I understand it, the device came in two parts: a transmitter and a receiver. The receiving device would be on the bomber and signal the optimum time to release their bomb.’
‘If I may interject.’ Stanisław Makowski looked apologetic but keen to speak. ‘From the point of view of the air force, I can assure you this device could totally transform aerial bombing. Even though I’m a fighter pilot, I was aware of this project. General Brygady Wiśniewski, Air Vice Marshal of the Polish Air Force, was in charge of the project and thought very highly of it.’
Piotr Drobiński continued. ‘Apparently, they were terrified the device would fall into German hands, so everything to do with it at the university was destroyed. However, Roman Loszynski had already gone into hiding and no more was heard of him. It was assumed he’d been murdered along with his family and most of the other Jews in Poland.
‘This emissary told us Roman and his family had in fact escaped to Warsaw and were in the ghetto using the name Fiszer. And not only that, somehow Roman had managed to take with him the prototypes of the devices and many of the plans and his notes.
‘Another member of the group – Henryk Kamiński – has gone to Warsaw to try and rescue Roman and his family and the devices. This happened in February, but it has taken all this time for the message to reach us in London.’
‘And… you want… what precisely?’
Drobiński waited as he lit a cigarette and looked round for an ashtray. ‘We want the British to have the devices. We don’t doubt they will be of inestimable benefit. We will undertake to get Roman and the machines to the Polish border and hand them over to you. In return, the Poznań Group wants an assurance you will look after Roman and ensure he’s able to complete the development of the device in safety. We want the device to be given to the RAF. We also want recognition for the Poznań Group, that we have been responsible for this, and we need money and arms smuggled in to us – we know the British supply the Armia Krajowa and the Soviets arm the Gwardia Ludowa. If we have more weapons, then we will have more influence. That’s how Polish politics works these days.’
