Every morn brought forth a noble chance, and every chance brought forth a noble knight.
Winston Churchill
- 0 -
April 1944
London, Whitehall
The War Cabinet was in session in the bowels of the Treasury building. Field Marshal Alan Brooke was in the middle of a briefing on the Atlantic defences of the Germans when the door burst open and an aide rushed in. He was as white as a sheet.
The Prime Minister unhurriedly put down his unlit cigar and turned around.
"Wigley, my dear man. Why such haste?"
"Beg your pardon, Prime Minister." He held out a piece of paper with a shaking hand.
Churchill took it and opened it with a sense of apprehension. He read the short message twice before he put the paper down on the table before him carefully. His eyes stayed on it for a beat, and then lifted to travel around the faces of his Cabinet.
He said gravely, "Gentlemen, what we have feared most has happened. It appears a German spy has got hold of the plans for Operation Overlord."
Shock, worry and fear pervaded the room. Churchill sat quietly, lost in thought, his chin sunk onto his chest. When he didn't speak again, Sir Stafford Cripps boldly stated what he knew everyone else was thinking.
"We have no choice but to postpone, Prime Minister. If the enemy knows the details of our invasion plan, it is folly to continue with it."
The Prime Minister roused himself and was confronted with a circle of nodding heads.
"No," he stated determinedly. "And give the Germans more time to strengthen their defences? We must push onward. I will put my best man onto this; perhaps it is not too late to turn around this calamity."
He turned back to the aide and said, "Get me Sir Harry Pearce."
- 0 –
Four hours later
10 Downing St
Harry stepped through the door and handed his hat to the porter.
"Evening, Jennings. I've been summoned," he announced.
"Very good, sir," said Jennings as he helped Harry remove his coat. "You'll find the Prime Minister on the third floor balcony."
"The balcony?" Harry asked, concerned. "Does he not know about the V2 rockets Fritz regularly blast our way?"
"Oh indeed sir, he does know. I think it is a show of belligerence in the face of this latest peril the enemy is throwing at us. Perhaps you could persuade him to come down, sir," he added plaintively.
Harry clapped Jennings on the shoulder. "I'll try."
Jennings watched him move off, sadly observing the limp with which he walked. It was much less pronounced now than in those first months after Dunkirk, he noted, and he was glad of that. He knew how much the Prime Minister had come to rely on 'his man'.
Harry groaned slightly as he emerged on the balcony. His knee hurt like the devil after all those stairs. By the light of the half moon he spotted the Prime Minister standing at the parapet. All around them London was dark – or as dark as a city of this size could ever be, he supposed. Here and there chinks of light escaped the best efforts of their owners to hide them. He moved forward.
"Evening, Prime Minister."
Churchill half turned, revealing the trademark cigar clamped in the corner of his mouth.
"Harry." He gestured to the dark city below them. "Look at that. Not one person ignoring the black-out. It never ceases to amaze me how adversity can pull a nation together." His pride in his people shone through every word and Harry smiled. He wondered if this great man was aware how much of the character shown by the British nation had been engendered by his indomitable spirit and his artistry with the spoken word.
"How's the knee?" the Prime Minister enquired.
"It hurts somewhat after all those stairs," Harry said pointedly.
"Good heavens!" Churchill exclaimed, horrified by his thoughtlessness.
"I did not think. In future I will endeavour to meet you at ground level whenever possible."
"That's very kind," Harry said. "But perhaps the Prime Minister should endeavour to stay at ground level or lower for most of his time, now that the Germans are shooting those V2 rockets at us," he suggested laconically.
Churchill bristled. "Those blasted flying bombs are a damned nuisance. We need to show them we will not be cowed by these contraptions. Besides, nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."
"But the exhilaration tends to dissipate rather quickly if they actually hit you," Harry retorted.
The Prime Minister stared at him, and then he laughed. "That's why I like you, Harry. Your bluntness does not diminish, no matter the eminence of your companion. Come along, I feel like a game of chess."
- 0 –
Both men played fast, high-risk chess, and the game progressed quickly. They discussed the progress of the war whilst they played. As the game neared its end, the Prime Minister said, "We plan to invade on the 5th of June, weather permitting."
Harry sat back and nodded thoughtfully. He'd expected it to happen sooner rather than later.
Churchill continued, "We've laid our plans amid the greatest secrecy, all the time knowing that the worst calamity would be if the Germans managed to get their grubby hands on those plans."
The solemnity with which he said those words alerted Harry, who took a deep breath and let it out again. "And that has now happened?" he guessed.
"I'm afraid so," Churchill said, and provided the details before he looked away into the fire. Just for a moment he seemed incredibly weary, the toll the last few years had taken showing in his hunched shoulders and crinkled brow.
He said, "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. The how and when of the invasion is the biggest truth of the war, a secret on which the fortunes of the forces of good and evil will turn. We need to protect it at all costs."
"With a bodyguard of lies," Harry murmured to himself. They had already created Patton's phantom First Army Group near Dover to confuse the Germans and to persuade them that the invasion would indeed take place at Calais, but was this enough? Which would Hitler believe – the phantom army or the plans stolen by a German spy?
He pondered the chess board, and then said, "I think it's time to activate Operation Royal Flush."
The Prime Minister looked troubled. "It is a high risk operation, with little chance of success. And whoever we send into the breach is unlikely to come back from it." He gave his companion a piercing look. "We simply cannot fail, Harry."
In response, Harry picked up his Knight and, in a daring move, used it to remove the Castle that was the last protection his opponent's King had.
He looked up at Churchill. "We won't fail. I'll go myself."
Churchill leaned forward and studied the move Harry had made long and hard, before he took Harry's Knight with a pawn. "You willingly sacrificed your Knight," the Prime Minister said gravely.
Harry smiled. "Yes. But some sacrifices are worth the reward it brings." He moved his Queen into place. "Check mate, Prime Minister."
Churchill looked at the board in consternation, shook his head and laughed. He tipped his King over and stood. His demeanour sobered instantly.
"Very well. Operation Royal Flush is so ordered." He held out his hand and Harry shook it.
"Godspeed, Sir Harry," the Prime Minister said formally. He watched the other man limp from the room, only turning away when the door had closed behind him.
"I like a man who grins when he fights," he said admiringly.
- 0 –
The next day
Bletchley Park
Ruth Evershed sat at her station in Hut Seven, doodling on a pad as she waited for the wires to come alive. Her job was to listen to the communications of German embassies in Europe. It was quiet today and she was bored. She knew what she was doing in its own small way contributed to Britain's war effort, but she longed to do more. She was certain she could do more if given the chance. But, even here in Bletchley Park, opportunities for women were limited. The men in authority seemed to think that women were only useful for listening and writing down messages, which others (usually men) then decrypted. Women, it seemed, were deemed incapable of breaking codes, or anything that amounted to more than clerical work. She'd heard rumours, though, that there was one department where women were used for far more. They were trained and sent into France, and even Germany, to act as spies. It all sounded terribly exciting, and she was seriously considering asking for a transfer.
The door of the hut opened and Mr Murray, the thin, tall stooping man who oversaw Hut Seven scurried in. He was accompanied by two other men that Ruth had never seen before.
"We're in the middle of a shift," Mr Murray explained to the men, and raised his voice to bellow, "Carry on, girls, nothing to see here."
Most of the women had paid no attention to his arrival and only looked up when he raised his voice.
A flash of irritation crossed the face of the man on Murray's left. His gaze swept across the women, and a pair of brown eyes met hers briefly before moving on.
"It'll do," he said shortly and they moved to the corner where a table had been set out for the girls to sit at during their tea breaks.
While the third man set up two machines on the table, Ruth surreptitiously observed the man who'd spoken. He paced to and fro, and favoured his left leg slightly. He was of average height, stockily built, and wore an impeccable three piece suit and a sober tie. His blond hair was cut short and she wondered whether he had a military background. Most of the civilians seemed to prefer longer hair, as if they wanted to distinguish themselves from military personnel in every manner possible. Ruth rather liked the look of him. He was older – she guessed he was about forty – but there was something about him that appealed to her. He said something to Mr Murray, who scampered out. The third man stopped fiddling with the machines, and the blond man took off his jacket and slung it over a chair before leaning over the table to look at one of them. His back was to her. Nice, she thought irreverently, and suppressed a smile.
A wad of paper hit her on the head and she looked round to see her neighbour watching her with amusement.
"Don't stare, Ruth dear. It's terribly rude."
Ruth cleared her throat and looked embarrassed. "I wasn't, I mean, I was trying to figure out who they are and what they're doing here, Connie."
Connie James rolled her eyes. "No, you weren't," she said gleefully.
Ruth felt a blush push up her face, which annoyed her. She liked the older woman very much, but she could be awfully blunt at times. She was extremely well connected, though, and seemed to know everyone.
Connie enjoyed the discomfort of her younger friend for a while longer before she relented.
"Don't mind me. He is rather pleasing to look at. Not in the classic sense of an Adonis, mind you, but there is a certain appeal."
Connie leaned forward. "But a word of advice, Ruth. Stay away from men like Harry Pearce."
"You know him?" Ruth asked, surprised.
"By reputation," Connie said. "It's said he is the PM's most trusted adviser on intelligence matters. He used to be in the Army – the Light Dragoons. They're a crack reconnaissance unit, and they were one of the first into France at the start of the war, and the last ones out at Dunkirk. The unit he commanded helped the French fight off the advancing Germans to allow us to evacuate thousands of troops. He was seriously wounded; took bullets in the knee and shoulder. He received the Victoria Cross."
Ruth was impressed. She watched as he rubbed his knee with a slight grimace. "That explains the limp," she said, filled with sudden sympathy at the idea of him living with constant pain.
Connie nodded. "He couldn't go back to active duty, so he joined the SOE. It is rumoured that his main job is to catch and turn German spies, and to play them back against their own country. He's been so successful that he was recently knighted."
"Hmm. So tell me again why I should stay away from men like him?" Ruth asked drily. Everything she'd heard only strengthened her interest.
"Because," Connie explained impatiently, "men like him think the most worthwhile contribution they can make is to die for their country. Everything is about duty, and you'll be a distant second. Believe me, you'll only get your heart broken."
Ruth considered that. Harry Pearce laughed at something the other man had said, and his whole face lit up. It made Ruth smile. "And what if I agree that dying for one's country is a most worthwhile contribution?" she asked Connie mischievously. It was all a somewhat theoretical discussion, as she would never have the courage to speak to the man anyway.
"If that's the case," Connie retorted, "then it may just be a match made in heaven."
Ruth laughed, and cast a final wistful glance at him before turning resolutely back to her work.
- 0 –
Harry surveyed the three men Mr Murray ushered into the hut with dismay. If these were the only candidates that answered all his criteria, the operation was in trouble. He studied them intently as they filed past him and took their seats at the table, but found nothing to reassure him. What he was looking for was a keenness of eye, a curiosity and awareness of one's surroundings, a spark of defiance. He did not find it in any of them.
"Mr Murray, a word."
He took the man aside.
"Is this the only candidates you could come up with?"
Mr Murray bobbed his head. "These are the only men who meet your criteria: fluent in both French and German, trained in Morse code messaging, and experience with decrypting German diplomatic ciphers. Those are rather limiting parameters, if I may say so," he added reprovingly.
"You may not," Harry stated flatly, and stalked off.
He raised his voice slightly to make himself heard over the din of clattering telex machines and the hubbub of twenty or so female voices.
"Gentlemen. I'm going to put you through an exercise."
His words carried clearly to Ruth, who pricked her ears. He had a lovely voice. He explained that a German message would come in on one machine, in Morse code, which they had to take down and decipher. They then had to translate it into French, encipher it and use the second machine to send the message.
"First man to succeed in doing so will get to spend some time away from Bletchley Park," he concluded.
Harry was blessed with an ability to tell when he was being observed, and he could feel it at that moment. He glanced up and saw a dark head dip down hastily. It was the girl with the striking blue-grey eyes he'd noticed earlier. She wasn't doing a very good job of pretending that she hadn't been eavesdropping, and he suppressed a smile. Inquisitive. He liked that quality in people.
"Ready?" he enquired, and the three men nodded.
Harry's associate pressed a button and one of the machines started beeping.
He stood with his back against the wall and observed. Every now and again he would glance at the inquisitive girl. Her head was bent over her work, but he could see that her earphones covered only one ear. The other was very definitely tuned into the sounds coming from his corner. Her pen was flitting over the blank paper in front of her, and halted the moment the machine stopped broadcasting its mysterious beeps. Harry turned his attention back to the three men, who were busily working on decoding the message. He estimated that it would take about fifteen minutes to complete the exercise. After ten minutes had passed, a siren sounded to indicate the end of shift for the women. They cleared their stations and put all scraps of paper in the incinerator tray placed at each station, before filing out. Harry's eyes followed the dark-haired girl, and he decided that he was doing her a disservice in calling her a 'girl'. She was older than he'd originally thought – mid-twenties, he estimated idly. She glanced at him once before she disappeared through the door, and their eyes held for a moment. What he saw intrigued him – there was a definite spark of defiance in those blue eyes.
Once she was out the door, Harry walked over to her station and picked the papers out of the incinerator tray. As he thumbed through them, Mr Murray hastened over and said indignantly, "I say! You can't do that!"
Harry ignored him. Two pages filled with illegible doodles, although he was able to make out a rather amusing cartoon sketch of Mr Murray underneath the scribbles on the second page. The third page contained, at the top, the dots and dashes of a Morse code message. Underneath was the decoded message in faultless German, and underneath that the translation in equally faultless French, followed by its encrypted version in Morse code. Harry looked over to the corner, where the first man had only just jumped up and moved toward the second machine to send his message. He rounded on Mr Murray.
"Did I not ask you to identify everyone who met the criteria I set?"
Mr Murray hesitated; there was an edge to the man's voice that made it plain that he was not pleased.
"Yes sir, and I did." He flapped a hand at the three men at the table.
Harry smiled sardonically. "Did you only consider men, Mr Murray?"
Mr Murray looked taken aback. "Well, yes-"
"Did I ask for only men?"
"Er, no. I assumed-"
"That women are only good for secretarial work? To sit with earphones on their heads all day?"
Mr Murray had the good sense to keep his mouth shut under Harry's glare.
"Whose station is this?"
"Ruth Evershed," Mr Murray replied after swallowing heavily.
"I want to see her file," Harry commanded and headed for the door. "Oh, and you can dispense with those three specimens."
The door slammed loudly behind him.
tbc