LONDON - HQ British Secret Intelligence Service - Basement Levels - With monotonous step and rotely habitual actions, Roger Stoker approached and set to unlocking the frosted glass door of his meagerly appointed office space. He had been 'ashore' for so long now that Evelyn and the boys no longer seemed, even, to expect him to again be called upon to leave, and his usually sporadic family life had settled into a comfortable, if unforeseen, routine.
He marveled that the upper brass did not commit themselves - after his lengthy time back - to having his name painted upon the office door's glass.
After all, he thought, doubtless I shall come into my pension from this room, never setting significant foot outside of it until that time. The Nightwatch and me, forever trapped in our proscribed spheres.
Oddly, today his well-worn key refused to turn as usual in the lock. It took his mind more than a moment to register that the reason for that was that the door was already unlocked - within, the draftsman's lamp at his desk turned on.
With far less trepidation than he ought to have had, he walked into the office.
Before him was (if the size of the shadow the man cast was anything to go on) an absolute beast of a man, so large the modest (and only other) chair within the room could not contain his full bulk, forcing his knees up to nearly the height of his shoulders. However, such personal discomfort did not seem to distract this stranger much (if at all) from the star chart that he was raptly consulting, holding its back up to the bright bulb of the draftsman's lamp, which he had swung 'round to the front side of the desk.
This light flooded the chart's paper, coming from behind it, tiny pinprick holes designating the stars and their courses, which it sought to map.
"Bloody gorgeous, that," the hulk of humanity spoke, wonder, awe and pleasure easily spilling into his rough voice.
Stoker cleared his throat.
The lone spare chair gave groans and complainings as this unexpected visitor fought to expel himself from it. "Right," he nodded sharply to Roger. "Stoker, yes?"
Roger nodded back in reply, somewhere between terribly excited to see another person, and half-terrified of what that person may have arrived to say.
"Ron Legg," the man announced, producing his identity card, which displayed his security level clearance as well as his naval rank of Commander.
As Stoker handed the card back to him, Legg likewise handed over an inter-office communique which clearly stated that Roger was to brief this chap Legg on any and all things relevant to Operation Pellinore, and share this ridiculously small office space (and the already trebly-shared secretarial assistant and single telephone) with him.
"They are beauties." Legg turned back to the desk and the myriad of sea-faring charts upon it (which Stoker had to assume Legg had brought with him, as they had been absent from the room the night before when he had locked up and left). "Everything - from the British Museum, even - on the Channel Islands. Some go back to the era of pirates - and further."
"Pirates?" Stoker questioned. His own research was rather spotty on the subject of pirates.
"Followin' the Black Death, Island of Sark in particular in the 1600s was said to be a place of pirates, thieves, brigands...murderers and assassins." Legg announced these pejorative terms with great relish, as might have Robert Louis Stevenson himself. "Some of these charts are exquisite in their attention to the smallest of details. Mapping even the costal caves - " he pointed to one of them, "though doubtless they have altered some in their shapes and depths since the Seventeenth Century." Legg let out a soundless whistle as he marveled. "Few men can craft a star chart as crackin' good as a pirate living in constant fear of his hoard's discovery." At this, Legg had the presence of mind to pause and turn back to Stoker, appearing slightly sheepish as he offered, "I've had a lot of time on my hands these past few months waiting for Pellinore to take off."
Stoker was about to heartily commiserate with him when Legg withdrew a second paper and extended it, summing up its contents by saying, "you will be glad to know that HQ has agreed to inform Nighten of the report of his father's passing. 'S even been arranged for you to be present when he is told."
Roger's heart fell cold. Oh. Awful timing, that. All those requests, all those frustration-fueled missives to those nameless, faceless gents further up the food chain here. Finally granted. And could have come at no worse of a time. Claire and Clem's newborn child dead less than a week past. News of Sir Edward, such as it was, could not be more ill-timed, more precarious for that family.
"Also I am to inform you of your orders," Legg produced yet another paper," - the man's coat must hold a veritable filing cabinet (certainly by the size of it it well could) - "you are to be sent ashore and rendezvous with Unit 1192, while I, after ferrying you there, wait patiently off shore in the submarine for you to return with what you have been sent to collect: Oxley, to be exact - and all the information that he now carries."
Legg deliberately worked to catch Stoker's eye when he looked up from the letter. "We 'ship by end of week."
Roger could not believe how in the shortest tick of a clock a single moment could so swap the realness of his two worlds. Most days the Channel Islands, the Nightwatch and Unit 1192 consumed him, like a dark obsession - no one with which he could share them. And yet now here stood a man with whom he was tasked with sharing them. He ought to feel elation. He had received his orders - and a timeline for departure. Imminent departure.
And now all he could feel was the pressure of his family's reality. The notion that Clem (and Claire) would receive further troubling news heaped upon his (and her) already grieving mind.
Great Scott, he needed to find paper and pen - and with all haste - and look for that blasted secretary. Get his one-third's (well, one-fourth's, now) use out of her. He had to send off to that nameless superior with all dispatch, and put a stop to this impending catastrophic collision he had so unwittingly set into motion.
In the accomplishing of this, the Nightwatch, Unit 1192, Naval Commander Ron Legg, and the never-fading boyish lure of pirate-made maps would all simply have to wait.
Northern ISLAND OF SARK - Nearby gardens of La Seigneurie - La Moinerie ruin - Naturally, with the history of the island, one was not entirely unaccustomed to finding bits here and there of an unusual nature when working as one of the groundskeepers at the home of Sark's ruling Seigneur.
But here in the remains of a Sixth Century medieval monastery, of an early morning one, was more likely to find pottery shards, a button carved of bone - a curiously shaped bit of rock worn down by crude man-made tools. But a glittering stone - what was surely, even to an inexperienced eye, an emerald - of considerable size, and mounted into an impressive ring?
Philippe did not pause to even think about keeping such a found treasure. Off he sped with it (though it was still muddy from where it had been pressed into soft ground and - he assumed - lost) to the main house so that someone might be sent after Sark's lone Constable, Paxton (often to be found at the Dixcart of such a morning, his passion for gaming with the Germans stationed on the island well-known by all).
Whomever had lost this jeweled bauble - so large one nearly expected it to be paste and glass until one saw into its undeniably endless depths - would of a certain be missing it, looking for it.
Turned one's mind, it did, imagining what the worth of such a ring might buy someone. A ring of such great price.
What, Philippe wondered, shifting it in his hand to catch the light, might it have cost its owner?
Southern SARK - Farm of Blind La Salle - As Wills Reddy sat the watch this early morning, his mind had turned to windmills, and the inevitability of disappointment.
How well his plan, his retrofit of Sark's Le Moulin had gone. How successful. And yet how brief in its practical use. With the loss of Lady Marion's unfettered ability to walk the flat roofs of Barnsdale House on Guernsey and make use of the spyglass Robin had gifted her with to easily sight Le Moulin and the counterturning signal Wills had developed, it was infrequently utilized at present.
Wills made a mental note to himself to suggest locating a similarly elevated spot on the larger island to which Marion (now self-exiled from her estate home) might travel - perhaps at pre-set intervals - in order to check and see if the signal were operating. If she needed to exercise any particular caution, or needed, as speedily as possible, to get in touch with the gang.
She had begun to spin tales of the unit's exploits on the Nightwatch, no longer simply coded chatter to HQ (assuming - as one might on a good day - that they were listening in), but plainly spoken tales to the Islanders who illegally listed to her programme. Jack the lad and his Merrie Men she called them. And if they waylaid a trio of Jerries for the ammunition they carried, or liberated a month's food rations by snatching it at Creux Harbor from under the Jerries' noses and redistributed it to those in need, the Islanders now heard about it.
Wills could not imagine how she had convinced Robin to allow her to do such, though he believed that she had gained some further degree of sway over their commanding officer since the time of her father's death, the deepening level of Oxley and Marion's relationship - particularly obvious to those at La Salle's themselves living in forced celibacy, removed from all possible pursuits of physical love (which they were, to a man, save Allen) - far from unnoticed by the unit.
No, he did not know the specifics of how she had done it, but here he agreed (whether Robin did or not) with Marion's gut instinct. It would cheer, and possibly embolden the people to know someone was fighting back against their oppressors. And (he could not say for sure, but suspected) that it irritated - and may even have frightened - some of the Jerries to know that not everyone on these Islands was ready to roll-over at their command.
Since Marion had been occasionally broadcasting their feats they had run into a surprisingly attuned and (sometimes ridiculously so) vigilant - rather, say, spooked - German army. Especially on dark nights, post-curfew. Even Allen had reported in that despite the fact that most Jerries had no way to listen to the Nightwatch, the news of Jack and his men had filtered through the Reich's ranks like a new/old bogeyman.
As the Guernsey Whichman taunted the enemy within - Islanders who dabbled (or dived) into collaboration - Jack and his men clearly existed to devil the enemy without.
At the sound of a disturbance upstairs in the farmhouse, Wills turned his focus away from the kitchen window where he had been at watching the road into La Salle's farm.
Carter was shouting in a tongue Wills could not identify. It was not Russian - over the past months he had heard enough of that to at least know when it was being spoken.
"Medic! Medic!" the downed RAF pilot began to cry in English, waking the house entire, then falling silent again before the interior echo of his own voice had yet died away.
...TBC...