The months he had spent in London had left him fatigued and unfit, but in these last four weeks he had been exercising intensively every day and there was a huge difference in his energy level.
It was still frustrating. There was no word yet as to when he was to go to the Netherlands. He chafed at being kept perpetually in the dark. The only information he had received was that the plan developed for him had not been approved, as no one wanted to be seen to be undermining the Expeditionary Force’s efforts with the French. He would be advised as soon as a decision was made. In the meantime, he should continue to prepare himself.
Rory had driven himself hard this morning. After a good sweat he thought more clearly. He stood back on the lawn, looking over the house and its grounds. Since moving here a month ago, he had spent fifteen hours a day preparing himself for his task in the Netherlands. Still, he wondered how much he had accomplished. He had organized all of his training by himself. Harris’s section was still running on vapours; as far as he could tell, the much promised infusion of new staff was a long way from ever happening, and there was no one else in the Ministry of Economic Warfare who knew anything about Holland. There were fewer still who knew anything about clandestine warfare; but there was no point in being pessimistic.
At least now he had a passable cover story. Harris, Crossley, and he had agreed that he would travel in Holland as Martin Becker, a German- and French-speaking Alsatian businessman from Strasbourg. Even though it was deadly serious, it had been fun for the three of them making up Becker’s persona. They created Becker together one night over a bottle of brandy in front of the fireplace in the estate’s study. Wherever possible, Becker was given a similar background to the one Rory had used as cover in Germany in the Great War. And so it transpired that Becker had been seriously wounded while fighting the French on the Marne. He had served with the 9th Landwehr Division and was invalided home. This meant reluctantly becoming a French citizen after the Versailles Treaty. But Becker was a man with an easygoing disposition; his late wife, who he greatly missed, was half-French.
If questioned, Rory would only admit to speaking German and French. Becker would be travelling in the Low Countries, intending to expand his seed and fertilizer business on behalf of an old but sickly friend back in Strasbourg with whom he had been employed for eleven years. To flesh out his cover, someone in London prepared Becker a dog-eared French passport and a wallet-sized card with a picture of his deceased wife on one side and a memorial prayer printed on the other. He had yellowing discharge papers, a prescription for migraine headache medication from a French doctor in Strasbourg, a library card, and in his briefcase he would carry a series of letters and files from several Dutch farmers and agricultural distributors to an address in Strasbourg. Rory had even travelled down to a wholesale seed distribution firm in Kent, spending two days learning some of the fundamentals of the seed and fertilizer business.
Now he spent each day reviewing and strengthening his cover story, doing his physical exercises, practising Morse telegraphy, shooting at the pistol range, studying Dutch, and reading anything he could get his hands on that was remotely connected with the country or the agricultural supply business. His days were full, but it was exasperating. Nobody in the Ministry of Economic Warfare was prepared to risk compromising his security, and because the Dutch were still obsessively neutral and hoped to escape the war, he had been forbidden to make contact with anyone in the Dutch embassy. As a result, Rory found himself in the ludicrous position of preparing to risk his life on a clandestine mission without benefit of actual prior contact with a Dutchman. He shrugged his shoulders and rolled his head to stretch his neck muscles. There was no point, he thought, in getting worked up about it. If you were going to be successful in war, or anything else, you had to be accommodating about things that were beyond your control and ruthless in pursuing the things you could influence.
In one respect, Rory conceded that he was fortunate. In the last two weeks he had been able to practise his German and French with four newly arrived trainees. They were mostly expatriate Polish officers, and he knew them by their cover names only. They were an optimistic bunch, anxious to fight the Germans. Amongst this group were two who could speak fluent German and French. On the other hand, having the chance to talk to them was not always a great comfort, as Rory found his French and German were rusty and he often struggled for simple words. It was an asinine way to prepare for a deadly serious mission. And notwithstanding his attempts to stay optimistic, whenever he saw Harris, he told him what he thought about the training regime.
He walked slowly up the stairs leading to the front door. Despite his misgivings about the mission, he liked it here. The great stone house was a magnificent example of Elizabethan construction, and over the centuries the landscaping had been steadily updated by some of the world’s finest designers. The house and grounds were a glorious illustration of what could be done when good taste and money converged over several generations. Someone once told him at dinner that the southern wing of the building had been designed by Christopher Wren. The glass in the front door could possibly be three hundred years old.
For the last two weeks Rory had been packed and prepared to leave Ramsford House on short notice. But even these final preparations hadn’t been easy, and getting a radio proved to be a serious trial. In the end, he had badgered Ewen Crossley and was given one of the first new, experimental, long-range Morse sets that the section had been allocated. The radio and its specially designed electrical hand crank weighed almost forty pounds and took almost all the space in a large leather suitcase. He only had one other smaller case for his revolver, two hand grenades, his clothes, false papers, false letters, money, and emergency rations. Both pieces of luggage were packed and sitting by his bed.
As he climbed the stairs to his room, one of the clerks from the newly formed administrative section came tearing breathlessly after him. “Mr. Ferrall, sir! There’s a call for you downstairs in the orderly room. It’s Colonel Harris and he says it’s important.”
He took the call in one of the converted drawing rooms.
“Ferrall speaking.”
“Rory, thank you for taking this call before breakfast. I do hope I haven’t disturbed your exercises.”
“Not at all, Geoffrey. What’s happening?”
“I don’t know if it will come as any surprise to you, but the Germans launched their invasion of France and the Low Countries this morning. The news will be on the radio within the hour. The Phoney War’s over. I’ve just finished speaking to my superiors, and I think you have a very good chance of travelling as we’ve planned. I can’t be any more specific as this is a civilian telephone exchange, but can you be ready to leave Ramsford House by noon?”
“I can be ready in five minutes if you like.” Rory’s heart quickened and he did his best to sound controlled.
“No need of that. Take your time. I’ll have a car pick you up at noon.”
* * *
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY, and like so many other shocked residents of Amsterdam, Annika and Saul had been drawn to the city centre in the days after the Dutch government surrendered to the Germans. There was nothing festive or jolly about their desire to come together. It was like a family being close after the sudden and tragic death of a loved one.
It was such a shock. The Netherlands had done nothing to deserve this. It seemed so unreal, a steady stream of uniformly bad news. It was as if they had lived through a nightmare and couldn’t wake from it. Even now, it was hard to remember what had happened in the proper sequence. German paratroops had landed on the first day; those were followed up by a ground invasion with tanks and motorized infantry. Pitched battles had been fought for three days, in which the Dutch were steadily hammered by the larger, stronger, and more professional German Army. And finally, on the fourth day, Rotterdam had been pulverized from the air. More than a thousand civilians were dead and tens of thousands of homes destroyed. The Germans threatened to repeat the bombing, and so the Dutch government signed an armistice.
It seemed like it was over before it started. The royal family had fled the country and was headed for Canada. And now there were German troops in Amsterdam in large numbers. There were even rumours of thousands of Dutch prisoners of war already being marched en masse into Germany to work in war factories.