All Clear

Kent—April 1944

“WORTHING!” CESS SHOUTED FROM THE HALLWAY, AND Ernest could hear him opening doors. “Ernest! Where are you?”

Ernest yanked the sheet of paper he was working on out of the typewriter, slid it under a stack of papers, and threaded a new one in. He called out, “In here!” and began typing, “On Tuesday, the Welcome Committee of Derringstone held a ‘Hands Across the Sea concert.’ Mrs. Jones-Pritchard—”

“There you are,” Cess said, carrying in some papers. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Didn’t you hear me?”

“No,” Ernest said, typing, “—sang ‘America the Beautiful’—”

“What does Mrs. Jones-Pritchard have to do with the First Army Group?” Cess asked, coming around the desk to read it as Ernest had been afraid he might.

“ ‘—and Privates First Class Joe Makowski, Dan Goldstein, and Wayne Turicelli,’ ” Ernest recited, typing, “of the Seventh Armored Division, who gave a spirited rendition of ‘Yankee Doodle’ on the spoons. A good time was had by all,” he typed with a flourish. He pulled the sheet out of the typewriter and handed it to Cess.

“Ingenious,” Cess said, reading it. “The Seventh Armored Division only moved to Derringstone last week, though. Would they have had time to practice?”

“All Americans are born knowing how to play ‘Yankee Doodle’ on the spoons.”

“True,” Cess said, handing the sheet of paper back.

“Did you come to tell me something?” Ernest asked.

“Yes, we must go to London.”

“London?”

“Yes, and don’t say you’ve got to stay here and finish your newspaper stories because you’ve been in here typing all day.”

“But I have to deliver them to Ashford and Croydon,” Ernest protested.

“Not a problem. Lady Bracknell said we can drop them off on the way.”

“Exactly where in London are we going?” Ernest asked, wondering if he was going to have to fake a sudden toothache.

“Bookshops. We’re buying up travel guides to northern France and copies of Michelin Map 51. The Pas de Calais area.”

Bookshops should be safe enough. He just needed to be careful. And Cess said they were going as British Expeditionary Force officers, but after he handed in his articles to Mr. Jeppers at the Call in Croydon, he put on a false mustache just to be certain. He talked Cess into doing Oxford Street while he did the secondhand bookshops on Charing Cross Road, which meant he was able to make several calls, and the whole thing went off without a hitch, but he was still relieved when it was over—so much so that he didn’t even complain when Lady Bracknell sent him to pick up a load of old sewer pipe for the dummy oil depot Shepperton Film Studios was building in Dover.

The assignment left him smelling so bad no one would come near him for two days, and he took advantage of the time to get caught up on his fake wedding announcements and roadway-accident reports and irate letters to the editor, all referencing Americans and the fictional First Army Group. And to work on his own compositions. He also tried to wangle ways to deliver his work to the newspaper offices on his own, but without success, and on Saturday Cess informed him they had to go to London again.

“More travel guides?” he asked.

“No, rumor-mill duty, and this time we get to be Yanks. Do you think you can manage an American accent?”

Absolutely, he thought. “I believe so,” he said. “I mean, you bet, kiddo.”

“Oh, good show,” Cess said, and Ernest went back to typing, “Special Yank Movie Night at the Empire Theatre in Ashford Saturday. American servicemen admitted half price.”

Half an hour later, Cess reappeared with an American major’s dress uniform. “I thought you said we were on rumor-mill duty,” Ernest said. “Isn’t that a bit dressy for a pub?”

“We’re not going to a pub. We’re going to London. To the Savoy, no less.”

“Is it the Queen again?”

“No. Someone far more important,” Cess said. He draped the uniform over the typewriter. “Make certain you’ve a crease in your trousers and that your shoes are polished.”

“Lady Bracknell will have to find someone else. I haven’t any shoes that could pass as a major’s.”

“I’ll find you a pair.” He came back in a few minutes with a pair of Lady Bracknell’s.

“These are two sizes too small,” Ernest protested.

“Don’t you know there’s a war on?” Cess handed him a tin of shoe polish and a rag. “They need to be shined to a high gloss. He’s a stickler.”

“Who is?” Ernest asked, thinking, It can’t be the King. He’s in Dover with Churchill touring the “fleet.” He’d just written up the press release. “Is this reception for Eisenhower?”

“No,” Cess said. “He’s running the real invasion. We’re in charge of the phoney one, remember? And tonight’s star attraction is in charge of us,” he said mysteriously.

Who did he mean? Special Means was in charge of them, but they didn’t frequent the Savoy, and neither did Intelligence’s top brass. The whole idea was invisibility.

Prism came in, dressed as an American colonel. “Did you hear we’re going to dinner with Old Blood and Guts?”

“Who?”

“The Supreme Commander of the First Army Group.” He clicked his heels together and saluted. “General George S. Patton.”

“Patton?”

“Yes, now do hurry along,” Cess said. “We need to leave. The reception’s at eight.”

“We’re supposed to be Yanks,” Ernest said, trying on the shoes. “It’s not ‘Do hurry along.’ It’s ‘Hurry up, chum, or you’ll miss the bus.’ And ‘lieutenant’ is pronounced ‘lootenant,’ not ‘leftenant.’ ”

“Not to worry,” Cess said and pulled a pack of Juicy Fruit gum out of his jacket pocket. “All I need to do is chew this, and everyone will be convinced I’m a Yank.” He held out a stick to Ernest. “Want some gum, chum?”

“No, I want a pair of shoes that fit.”

But due to all the time spent in muddy fields and muddier estuaries, there wasn’t another decent pair in the whole unit. He didn’t change into Lady Bracknell’s shoes till London, but still, by the time they entered the lobby of the Savoy, he could scarcely walk. “You’d best not limp like that in front of General Patton,”

Moncrieff said. “He’ll likely slap you for being a weakling.”

But Patton wasn’t there yet. A number of British officers and middle-aged civilians in evening dress stood in small clusters. “Are they dummies as well?” Cess asked.

“I don’t know,” Moncrieff said, “but just in case they aren’t, steer clear of them. I don’t want any of you hanged for impersonating an officer. You’ve got two ideas to push tonight: one, the invasion can’t possibly take place till the middle of July. And two, it will definitely be at Calais. But I don’t want any of you talking outright about it. You’re supposed to have been sworn to secrecy, and an obvious breach will look suspicious. I want subtle hints, and only if the subject comes up in the conversation. I don’t want you introducing the topic yourself.”

“What about a careless lapse, the sort you’d make if you’d had a bit too much to drink?” Cess asked, eyeing the guests’ cocktail glasses.

“Fine,” Moncrieff said. “Chasuble, fetch them their drinks. Mingle. And remember—subtle.”

Cess nodded. “This is just like a night at the Bull and Plough only with superior food and liquor.”

“An American would say, ‘better chow and hooch,’ ” Ernest corrected, but he soon found out that wasn’t true. The cocktails Chasuble handed them were weak tea.

“Sozzled lips sink ships,” he explained. “Moncrieff doesn’t want us spilling what we really know.”

“Are those dummy canapés, too?” Cess asked, watching the white-gloved servants circulating with small silver trays.

“No, but don’t make pigs of yourselves. You’re supposed to be officers.”

That turned out not to be a problem. The elegant-looking hors d’oeuvres on the silver trays turned out to be cubes of Spam and rolled-up pilchards on toothpicks.

“This damnable war,” a red-faced man in the group Ernest had drifted over to said, waving a toothpick. “There hasn’t been anything decent to eat in five years.”

The conversation turned to the deprivations of rationing and the “criminal” shortage of sugar, fresh fruit, and “a really nice brisket”—none of which would have afforded any opportunities for hints about the invasion, if they’d included him in the conversation, which they didn’t. They hadn’t even noticed him. He stared into the weak tea at the bottom of his cocktail glass and mentally composed a letter to the East Anglia Weekly Advertiser: “Dear Editor, The present rationing situation is simply criminal, and it has been made far worse by the arrival of so many American and Canadian troops in our area …”

“Oh, and that dreadful wheat-meal loaf,” one of the women was saying. “What do they put in it? One’s afraid to ask.”

Ernest let Chasuble give him another weak-tea cocktail and wandered over to where Cess was talking to an elderly gentleman. The gentleman appeared to be deaf—a good thing, since Cess seemed to have completely forgotten he was supposed to be using an American accent.

“So then the bloke says to me,” Cess said, “ ‘I’ll wager we won’t invade till August.’ ”

Ernest wandered back to within earshot of the first group. The woman was still talking. “And jam’s simply disappeared from the shops. Even Fortnum and Mason’s haven’t—” She stopped, staring at the door.

Everyone did, including the deaf gentleman and the white-gloved servants. “Sorry I’m late,” General Patton boomed. He was standing in the doorway, flanked by aides and looking even more dramatic than Ernest had expected, in full brass-buttoned field uniform, from his star-studded helmet liner right down to his polished riding boots. There were spurs on his boots and more stars on his collar and his field jacket.

Cess had abandoned the deaf gentleman to come over for a closer look. “He looks like the bleeding Milky Way!” he whispered to Ernest.

“Not bleeding. Goddamned Milky Way,” Ernest whispered back.

“And look at that armament!”

Ernest nodded, staring at the pair of ivory-handled revolvers on his hips. And at the white bull terrier panting at Patton’s feet.

“Darforth!” Patton bellowed, and strode into the ballroom and over to the host, followed by the bull terrier. And his aides. “Sorry we didn’t get here earlier.” He grabbed Lady Darforth’s hand and began pumping it up and down. “Came here straight from the field. Didn’t have time to change. We were down in Keh—”

“Would you like me to take Willy outside for you, sir?” an aide cut in, stopping him in mid-word.

“No, no, he’s all right,” Patton said impatiently. “Willy loves parties, don’t you, Willy?” He turned back to the host. “As I was saying, I just got back from—” He glared at the disapproving-looking aide. “From an undisclosed location, and didn’t have time to change.”

“I quite understand,” Lady Darforth said. “Allow me to introduce you to Lord and Lady Eskwith, who’ve been eager to meet you.” She led him over to the far side of the room.

“Thank God he isn’t really in charge of the invasion,” Cess whispered. “They’d never be able to keep it secret. He stands out—what’s the American expression?”

“Like a sore thumb,” Ernest said. “Which I’d imagine is why he was chosen for this assignment.”

“Mingle,” Moncrieff whispered, coming up behind them.

Ernest nodded and wandered over to the edge of another group who had watched Patton and then begun talking animatedly among themselves, but they were discussing food, too. “Last night I dreamt of roast chicken,” a horsy-looking woman said.

“It’s pudding I always dream of,” the woman next to her said. “They say things will be better after the invasion.”

“Oh, I do hope it will come soon. All this waiting makes one so nervy,” the horsy-looking woman said, and Ernest moved closer.

“Of course it’s coming soon,” the plump woman’s husband said. “The question is, where will it come?” He, and the rest of the group, turned to look pointedly at Ernest. “Well, sir? You’re undoubtedly in the know. Which is it to be, Normandy or the Pas de Calais?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be allowed to tell, sir,” Ernest said, “even if I knew.”

“Oh, bosh, of course you know. Wembley and I have a wager going,” he said, pointing with his glass to a mustached man. “He says Normandy, and I say Calais.”

“You’re both wrong,” a third, balding man said, coming over. “It’s Norway.”

Which meant Fortitude North in Scotland was doing its job.

“Can’t you at least give us a hint?” the horsy woman said. “You can’t know how difficult it is to make plans, not knowing what’s going to happen.”

“Everyone knows it’s Normandy,” Wembley said. “In the first place, the Pas de Calais is where Hitler will be expecting it.”

“That’s because it’s the only logical point of attack,” the other man said, his face getting red. “It’s the shortest distance across the Channel, and the shortest land route to the Ruhr is from there. It has the best ports—”

“Which is why we’re going to invade at Normandy,” Wembley said loudly. “Hitler will be concentrating his troops at Calais. He won’t be expecting the attack to come at Normandy. And Normandy—”

Ernest had to stop this. It was all much too close to the truth. “You both make interesting cases,” he said, and turned to Mrs. Wembley. “Have you read Agatha Christie’s latest mystery novel?”

“Hmmph,” Wembley said, drawing himself up.

Ernest ignored him. “Have you?”

“Why, yes,” she said. “Are you saying her book—”

He leaned toward her confidentially. “I can’t say anything about the invasion—it’s all top secret, you know—but if I were in charge of it,” he lowered his voice,

“I’d take all of Agatha Christie’s novels off the shelves till fall.”

“You would?” she said breathlessly.

“Or I’d have their titles painted over, like you English did with your train stations,” he whispered, emphasizing the word train.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, ladies,” he said, then bowed slightly and limped back over to Cess and Chasuble, who were plotting how to get their hands on the real liquor.

“I fail to see what detective novels have to do with the invasion,” he heard Wembley grumble as he walked away.

“It’s a riddle, darling,” his wife said. “The answer’s in the title of one of her books.”

“Oh, I do love puzzles,” the horsy woman said.

“He mentioned railway stations,” Mrs. Wembley said musingly. “Let’s see, there’s The Mystery of the Blue Train. And The A.B.C. Murders. A.B.C. Could that be some sort of code, do you think?”

Cess looked over at the group. “What did you say to them?” he asked curiously.

Ernest told them. “I got the idea from those mysteries Gwendolyn’s always reading. Moncrieff told us ‘subtle,’ ” he said, picking up an impaled pilchard-on-a-toothpick and eyeing it dubiously. “But I think it may have been a bit too subtle.” He put the pilchard back on the tray and rejoined the group.

“It could be something with a place-name in it,” Mrs. Wembley was saying. “There’s Murder in Mesopotamia—”

“As much as the Allies cherish the value of a surprise,” the balding man said, “I doubt very much they will invade by way of Baghdad.”

“Oh, of course,” she said, flustered. “How silly of me. Oh, I can’t think. What else did she write? There’s Murder at the Vicarage, but that can’t be it, and the one where he did it, and the one where the two of them—”

“I’ve got it,” the horsy woman said, looking triumphant. She turned to Ernest. “Very clever, Major, particularly the clue about trains.”

“Well?” Wembley said impatiently to her. “What is it?”

“We should have guessed it at once,” she said to Mrs. Wembley. “It’s one of her best-planned-out books, and one the reader won’t guess till the very last moment.”

And when Mrs. Wembley still looked blank, “It’s set on a train, dear.”

“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Wembley said, “the one where everyone did it.”

“Are you or are you not going to tell us what the title is?” Wembley said.

“I’m not certain we should,” Mrs. Wembley said. “As the Major said, it’s top secret.”

“But since all we’re discussing is mystery novels,” the horsy woman said, “you simply must read Murder in the Ca—”

“Anderson!” Patton’s unmistakable voice bellowed, and everyone looked over at where he stood, riding crop raised, waving at a British officer on his way out.

“Goodbye! See you in Calais!”

Ultra was decisive.

—GENERAL DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER