Disclaimer: Foyle's War was created by Anthony Horowitz, and the characters of Foyle, Arthur Valentine, Elizabeth Addis, Sam and Adam Wainwright, et al., jointly created by Mr. Horowitz, Mr. Michael Kitchen, Mr. Tim McMullan, Ms. Hermione Gulliford, Ms. Honeysuckle Weeks and all the other brilliant actors. No infringement is intended.
Author's Note: Many of the British Liaison Officers and field agents mentioned in this story are inspired by actual people who served in Yugoslavia with the SOE. Some are mentioned by their real names, some names have been slightly altered, but their stories and dates are fairly accurate, at least as far as post-war records, histories, interviews and memoirs can be relied upon.
Thanks: Gratitude to GiuliettaC for beta-reading and offering improvements to the manuscript.
Chapter 3
Thomas Addis was a junior lecturer in history and languages at the Institute of Slavonic and East European Studies in London when the War broke out, and had been recruited out of the regular army by SOE London, a perfect candidate for secret missions in the Balkans.
It was the work of several hours to trace Captain Addis's movements in Yugoslavia in 1942 and 1943 through his reports and signals sent to the Cairo Office while on missions to the local fighting forces. In accordance with British efforts to support all nationalist opposition to the invading German and Italian enemy in the region, Addis had on a number of occasions either been parachuted in or landed on coastal beaches to join the mostly Serbian Chetniks commanded by General Draza Mihailovic. The General was Minister of War for the Royalist Yugoslav Government-in-exile, which operated from London.
Between missions, Captain Addis had served in various capacities at the Cairo Office, where his wife, Elizabeth, also worked, having been recruited from her university to serve as a Planning Officer.
His many factual and detailed assessments of the situation on the ground were in stark contrast to the naive and enthusiastic reports of only slightly younger field agents of the Officer Class.
"Some of his reports are missing, wouldn't you agree?"
"What've you got?" Valentine craned his neck towards the document.
"Wull, it's what I haven't got." Foyle indicated the paragraph,
"Here he refers to a signal he sent two weeks earlier, from the Dalmatian coast. He says, 'still awaiting your action on this recommendation.' But the earlier signal isn't here."
Valentine agreed, "I'm seeing gaps as well."
"And...information on a decisive battle against German forces at Balinovac, in his signal of 28th May, is contradicted by this signal," he laid his hand on another paper, "...sent the next day from another field agent in a different location."
"Who's the agent?"
"Chap named…" He consulted the list of code names, "F. W. Deakin."
"Right. Oxford man. Close associate of Churchill. Field support for the Partisans."
Foyle raised his eyebrows at Valentine's ready information, then remarked,
"...Looks as though Miss Pierce was compiling a timeline of events. It's comprehensive but incomplete. We'll need to fill in the blanks."
Valentine was undaunted as he mentioned,
"Cairo records show contact with over 150 clandestine sets in the Balkans."
Foyle sighed unhappily,
"Wull, thank god this is focused primarily on signals of '43. Won't have to cover the whole War."
Valentine again noticed a weariness in his colleague. More than that, he seemed disheartened by the task. It occurred to him that Foyle might be missing the attentive presence of Mrs. Wainwright. After a pause he offered,
"I'm going to see where the tea wagon is."
As they drank their tea and ate a rare couple of decent biscuits, Foyle asked,
"Was there ever any crossover of field agents on the missions to the Chetniks and the Partisans?"
"That's an interesting question. You know, I don't think there was, after '42. Early on there were attempts made to get the two leaders together, but they wouldn't have it. After that, field agents were sent to one HQ or the other. When the forces were in the same vicinity, agents on separate missions might communicate by wireless transmitter. But there certainly was no cooperation, and often deadly conflict. The two sides hated each other, more than they hated the invading Germans."
"Political or ethnic differences?"
"Both."
He pondered a moment,
"Must've created animosity between the field agents. Divided loyalties."
Valentine attempted to inject some humour,
"Rather worse than enthusiasts of opposing football clubs."
Ignoring the analogy, Foyle rubbed two fingers down his temple,
"...It would be helpful to see clearly which agents were on the different missions and where and when they might have intersected."
"I can have Miss Brown seconded from the research department to go through all of these and create a timeline of Addis's field work. She can even devise a one-page, multi-column accounting of the movements of other agents.* Then we can analyze the information."
"That would be much appreciated."
Charlotte Brown, one of the Security Service's top researchers, produced everything they required in a mere two days. The results of her diligent and precise work yielded the names of several agents who had likely crossed paths with Addis, and two of them resided within easy travel.
To be continued...
*The term 'spreadsheet' didn't come into usage until the 1960s.
