the officers. But how?
“Help!” she wanted to call, but no one would hear her.
In the dim light, she rolled over on her back and started kicking the metal side of the van with both feet, with all of her might.
Before the officers could react to the banging from the back of the van, they were dead.
While Poulter grabbed the men and dragged them, one by one, to the side of the road, Audrey went to the back of the van and opened up the rear doors.
“You little bitch,” she hissed at Lilibet, then slapped her hard across the face. “Thanks to you, they’re dead.”
Lilibet recoiled at the pain but wouldn’t allow herself to cry. She’d bitten her lip and tasted blood. They were dead? She was responsible for the deaths? Poulter had pulled the trigger, but if she’d only kept still.…
“Don’t even think of pulling a stunt like that again! Unless you’d like to change this little scenario from kidnapping to murder. I, for one, would be more than happy to oblige.” Then she slammed the doors shut.
In the darkness, the Princess realized she had to be good, that she couldn’t risk any more deaths of innocent civilians. She would have to see this through, on her own. She blinked away tears and set her mouth. She would wait for an opportunity and then use it. Yes, that was what she would do. They wouldn’t get away with this.
As Audrey climbed back into the front passenger seat of the van, shaking out her hand still burning from the slap, Poulter consulted the map. “We’re not far now.”
Finally, finally, Audrey, Poulter, and Lilibet reached Mossley by Sea. The tiny white cottage appeared in light from the dim headlamps. And Audrey was relieved to see a man standing in the drive with a kerosene lantern, directing them in.
The man was Gregory Strathcliffe.
She allowed herself a brief warm moment of hope that she would actually make it back to France.
Gregory, holding the lantern as well as his nearly empty flask, led them inside the cottage. The interior was cold, with just a few plain furnishings. He took off his hat and unbuttoned his mackintosh. David was lying, passed out again, on the stained sofa. Audrey was behind the Princess Elizabeth, whose feet had been untied to walk, although her wrists were tied. Every few moments, she prodded the Princess in the small of her back.
“Christopher Boothby, you already know Mademoiselle Audrey Moreau and Mr. George Poulter.” Gregory gestured grandly, as though they were at sherry hour. “And, of course, Her Royal Highness, the Princess Elizabeth.” He gave a sardonic bow. He pointed to David’s still form. “David Greene.” He walked to the window and peeked out. “The BBC’s been airing reports about a shoot-out at Windsor Castle. I don’t suppose that has anything to do with you two?”
“What’re the reports saying?” Poulter asked.
“Nothing about the attempt on the King. Just that you killed one guard and wounded another. Oh, yes, gave your names, your descriptions—everything. Mounted a nationwide search. By dawn, the entire country will be out in force to look for you.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing we’ll be in France,” Audrey said.
Gregory, swaying slightly under the influence of all the alcohol, took down a radio from the cupboard. He placed it on the wooden kitchen table and switched it on. Static hissed from it. He took out his pocket watch and checked it again.
“It’s almost two,” he said. “The U-boat should be waiting just off the coast. We’ll let them know we’re here and then set out. They’re going to be ten miles due east of Mossley and wait for us until six a.m. If we don’t make it, they’ll head back out to sea and try again in three days.”
“We’ll make it,” Poulter said, as Gregory sat down and began keying Morse code into the radio, alerting the U-boat that they were on their way.
“How are we going to meet the sub?” Audrey asked. “All the ships and boats have been confiscated since Dunkirk.”
“We have a small fishing skiff hidden in the barn,” Boothby answered. “We’ll use that to meet the submarine.”
“In this weather?” Poulter said. “Don’t you think that’s a bit dangerous?”
Gregory narrowed his eyes. His escape from the RAF, from Britain, from all of his problems, was in his reach—he wasn’t about to let the chance slip away. “Do we have another option?”
Beeston Regis was a village just in Norfolk, near the coast of the North Sea. Roman in origin, it was mentioned in the
Mary Manley, a young slim girl of just eighteen, was making her way from the house she shared with her mother, father and five sisters just outside of town, up the hill to Beeston Bump. She was going to work, as a radio operator at the Y-station. Beeston Bump was one of the many Y-stations in a network of Signals Intelligence collection sites. These stations collected material to be passed to the War Office’s Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley.
It was a damp, dark evening and the higher she climbed, the stronger the icy wind blew. It smelled of salt water and seaweed. Cold and wet, Mary was grateful to reach the concrete bunker and go inside. Once past the entrance, she took off her coat, hat and heavy wool mittens and put them in her cubby. She flashed her badge to the guard on duty, Lenny Doyle, even though they had known each other since they had been toddlers and in the first grade he’d stuck chewing gum in her long, honey-colored hair and she’d had to get it cut out. She hated him from then on and got in the habit of avoiding him. But now they worked together. He scrutinized her photograph on her card.
“Come on, Lenny,” she said, “it’s the same as yesterday and the same as the day before that. And it’ll be the same tomorrow.”
“Just doing my job, Mary. Just doing my job.” He handed it back to her.
“Yes, I feel
She marched into the radio room, her the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking on the concrete, and slid into her seat between two other women before Mr. Leaper could notice she was late.
It was dim in the room, and damp, the smell of wet concrete pronounced. In front of her, the dials of her RCA AR-77 communications receiver glowed. She slipped on her heavy black headphones and listened.
Her job was to eavesdrop on Morse code that German senders were tapping out throughout Europe. She turned her receiver to “her” band of frequencies and listened in.
The German Morse code senders were fast, especially the professionals at BdU, the Kriegsmarine headquarters. However, they each had their own fist. Mary and the other operators had nicknamed some of the more distinctive: Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. They could recognize them as easily as seeing a familiar face across a room.
This evening, however, Mary heard an unfamiliar fist.
Instead of the typical burst of fast-paced typing, this transmission was slow, with awkward pauses, indicating uncertainty and unfamiliarity with the transmitter.
After the tentative sender had finished, there was a rapid-fire burst of code as response from whomever received it. Mary recognized the fist. They’d nicknamed him Hegel. He was a radio operator on one of the Nazi U- boats, one that was very close to the coast.
They went back and forth a few times, the amateur and Hegel, and then the channel went ominously silent.
Mary felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. She went to the ossillograph and collected the printout. Usually she just put it in a metal basket to be collected at the end of her shift, bundled up with the rest of the
