All Clear

Kent—June 1944

“28 JUNE 1944,” ERNEST TYPED. “DEAR EDITOR, I LIVE IN Sellindge, near Folkestone, and our little village has always been a charming, tranquil place. For the past fortnight, however, that tranquility has been destroyed by a constant stream of troop transports. I’ve been forced to hang my washing inside because of the dust, and my cat, Polly Flinders, has nearly been run over twice. How long will this continue? When I spoke to Captain Davies, he said it might last until—”

He paused, wondering what date he was supposed to use for the invasion. Immediately after they’d invaded at Normandy, they’d discussed July first as an invasion date, but that was when the longest they were hoping the deception would hold was D-Day-plus-five. It was already D-plus-twenty-two, and there was still no sign the Germans had caught on.

“They’ve got to tumble to it soon,” Cess had said disgustedly the night before in the mess. “There are over five hundred thousand Allied forces in France. What do the jerries think they’re doing there? Picking flowers?”

“You’re only annoyed because you lost the pool,” Prism had said.

Ernest had lost the pool, too. It’s too bad I didn’t study the post-invasion period, he thought. I could have won fifty pounds. He’d guessed the eighteenth of June—D-plus-twelve—even though he’d privately believed the whole deception would collapse the moment the troops hit the beaches of Normandy. But here he was, in the last week of June, still typing phony wedding announcements and irate letters to the editor.

He went to find Chasuble, but he wasn’t in his office, and Prism didn’t know where he was.

“Gwendolyn might,” Prism said, and Ernest went out to the garage to find him.

Gwen was underneath the staff car. Ernest leaned under and asked, “Do you know where Chasuble is?”

“He went to Station X to drop off the radio messages,” Gwen said.

Damn. “Do you know—” he began, then stopped and looked up, listening. There was a faint putt-putting off to the east. It sounded like a motorbike approaching.

“That’s odd,” Gwen said, sliding out from under the car. “I didn’t hear the siren.”

“Perhaps they’ve stopped bothering with them.”

Gwen nodded. “Or worn them out.”

It’s possible, Ernest thought, listening to the putt-putt grow louder. In the two weeks since the V-1s had started, the sirens had sounded at least five hundred times.

“What did you ask me before?” Gwen asked.

“I asked you,” Ernest said, raising his voice over the chugging of the V-1, “if you knew when we were invading France.”

Gwen waited till the rocket had passed safely overhead and headed loudly off to the northeast and then shouted, “Invading France? I thought we already had!”

“Very amusing!” Ernest yelled back. “Not the real one. I’m talking about the one we’ve been working on for the last five months!” He was suddenly shouting into silence as the V-1’s motor cut out.

Gwen held up his hand, signaling him to wait. There was a brief silence and then a muffled boom off to the northwest.

“That’s the eighth flying bomb today,” Gwen said. “You’d think Hitler would be growing bored with his new toy by now.” He slid back under the car.

“You still haven’t told me when we’re invading Calais.”

“I think they decided on July fifteenth, but I’m not certain. Cess will know.”

But Cess would follow him back to the office and stand there watching him type.

“Whenever it is, I hope it’s soon,” Gwen said from under the car. “I can’t wait to get out of this bloody place.”

They’d all be out of this bloody place as soon as the Germans caught on to the deception.

And then what? Ernest thought. Where would he be assigned? He had to see to it he wasn’t sent to France. He hadn’t realized deception units had operated over there after D-Day till last week, when an officer from Dover had arrived and requisitioned all their dummy tanks. They apparently planned to set up dummy-tank battalions in France to confuse the Germans, and the officer’d said the units manning them would be drawn from Fortitude South. “We need people who’ve had experience with these bloody unwieldy inflatables,” he’d said, which meant everyone in the unit was vulnerable.

Hopefully, Ernest’s bad foot would keep him from being sent, but he couldn’t count on it—the officer had asked him how much experience he’d had with tanks, and Cess had told him the entire story of the bull.

Ernest wished he knew what other deception missions they’d done after D-Day so he’d know what to avoid and what to ask for. He needed an assignment that would keep him in England, and one that involved sending messages that an historian might have an interest in. It was his only hope, now that D-Day was over and Denys Atherton had gone back to Oxford.

It also had to be an assignment where he wouldn’t have to undergo a background check, and where he wouldn’t be likely to get caught.

He’d had a close call last week. He’d been typing one of his messages when Cess came in, and before he could get the paper out of the typewriter, Cess had begun reading over his shoulder. “I say, haven’t you already used the name Polly?” he’d asked. “It’s a common enough name, but you don’t want to do anything to make the Germans suspicious.”

Or you, he thought. Or Tensing. And he had dutifully Xed out the name and typed “Alice” above it.

Maybe the safest thing to do would be to try to get invalided out and land a job on a newspaper. Whatever he did, he had to do it soon, before they were shut down and he was assigned elsewhere. Once he’d been assigned, it would be almost impossible to get it changed.

And in the meantime he needed to finish his news story and get it put away before Cess caught him using “Polly” again and got suspicious. He went back to the office and changed the sentence to “When I spoke to Captain Davies, he said it was scheduled to last another full month. I realize Sellindge is located on the direct route to Dover, but is it necessary for the entire First Army to parade past my door? At my wits’ end, Miss Euphemia Hill, Rose Gate Cottage—”

“You may as well stop typing,” Cess said from the doorway. “The Jig’s up.”

Ernest looked up at him, startled. Cess was leaning lazily against the doorjamb, his arms folded. “What?”

“I said, the jig’s up. It’s American slang. It means we’ve been found out. Hitler’s finally tumbled to the fact that there’s no First Army. And no second invasion.”

Ernest waited a moment to give his heart time to stop thudding and then said, “Hitler’s caught on to the deception?”

“Yes, and about time. I’d begun to think he’d only realize he’d been tricked when he saw Monty rolling into Berlin.”

The Russians, Ernest thought. And Hitler won’t be there. He’ll already have killed himself in his bunker. “Who told you he’s caught on?”

“No one,” he said. “I’m in Intelligence, remember? I’ve deduced it from the clues.”

“What clues?”

“One, Algernon’s here. And two, Lady Bracknell’s called a general meeting in the mess.”

Cess was right. It looked like the jig was up. In more ways than one. I should have talked to him earlier about being reassigned, he thought. Or perhaps there was still time. “When’s this meeting scheduled for?”

“Now,” Cess said, showing no sign of leaving.

And Ernest couldn’t leave either, not with a story with the name Polly in it still in the typewriter. “Coming,” he said, putting a cover over the machine and standing up. “You need to go tell Gwen. He’s in the garage underneath the staff car.”

“Oh, right,” Cess said, and left. Ernest yanked the cover off and the letter out of the typewriter, hid it in the file cabinet, and was at the door when Cess returned.

“Gwen wasn’t there,” he reported. “He must already be in the meeting.”

He was, and so was everyone else except Chasuble. Lady Bracknell, in full-dress uniform—another bad sign—was saying, “Colonel Algernon has something to say to you.”

“Thank you,” Tensing said, standing up. “First of all, I want to thank all of you for your hard work during these past months and to tell you how handsomely it’s paid off. Our efforts to deceive the Germans as to the time and place of the invasion have been successful beyond our greatest hopes. Even after receiving news of the Normandy invasion, the German High Command continued to believe that that was a diversion and that the main invasion was still to come at the Pas de Calais.”

He was talking in the past tense. Cess was right. The jig was up.

“As a result of this belief,” Tensing went on, “they held significant numbers of troops and tanks in readiness for that invasion, numbers which, if sent to Normandy, would have significantly altered the outcome. Fortitude South’s work was decisive in the outcome of the invasion, and you’re to be congratulated.”

The men began to clap and cheer. “We did it!” Cess shouted. “We beat them.”

“Right,” Prism said wryly. “Single-handedly. I’m certain all those destroyers and planes and paratroopers and landing forces had nothing to do with it.”

“Lieutenant Prism makes an excellent point,” Tensing said. “The invasion was a combined effort, and there are countless others who deserve credit for its success.

But they’ll receive medals, and there will be speeches praising what they did. And newspaper accounts.” He nodded briefly at Ernest. “You won’t. Your part in all this must unfortunately remain secret. My thanks and the knowledge of a job well done are all the reward you are likely to get. And”—he paused dramatically—“a bottle of Scotch with which to toast your accomplishment!” He held it up, and there was more clapping and cheering.

“That’s not dummy Scotch, is it?” Cess asked suspiciously.

“It’s an inflatable rubber bottle,” Prism said.

“No, it’s glass,” Tensing said, tapping it with his finger. “I’m quite certain it’s authentic. The label says, ‘Aged at Shepperton Film Studios.’ ”

Everyone laughed. “Can we open it now?” Gwen shouted.

“Not just yet,” Tensing said.

“Watch out,” Cess whispered to Ernest.

“I said the Germans were deceived into thinking there would be a second invasion,” Tensing went on. “That isn’t quite correct. The German High Command continues to believe that, and it’s essential that we perpetuate that deception for as long as possible.”

“I was wrong,” Cess whispered. “Apparently the jig isn’t up.”

“To that end, you’ll continue with your current deception and disinformation campaigns. In addition, you’ll increase the number of radio messages to the Pas de Calais’s Resistance Underground cells, and you’ll disseminate disinformation regarding the location of the Third Army, which is currently in the process of embarking for France under the tightest possible security. Your job will be to keep its presence in France—and General Patton’s—secret until General Patton takes official command of it.”

“Oh, Lord,” Moncrieff muttered.

“With him swaggering about in that star-studded uniform of his and making incendiary statements?” Cess whispered. “He must be joking.”

“But,” Tensing said, glaring at Cess, “in the event that his presence is detected, we will obviously need an explanation for what the commander of the army poised for attack on Calais is doing in France. We’ve developed a cover story in which General Patton made a controversial statement and has been demoted to the command of a single army under Omar Bradley.”

“Who’s been put in command of the First Army?” Gwen asked.

“General Lesley McNair,” Tensing said. “We’re putting out the story that he is being leashed until the German High Command sends the Fifteenth Army to Normandy, and then he’ll strike. That way we needn’t commit to a particular invasion date.”

So it’s a good thing I didn’t put one in Euphemia Hill’s letter to the editor, Ernest thought.

“I’ve given Lady Bracknell the script,” Tensing said. “Your job will be to work up an array of supporting materials—wireless traffic, dispatches, doubles if necessary, photographs, newspaper articles.”

Good, Ernest thought in relief. That means I can go on sending messages. And articles referring to Patton were something historians were even more likely to look for than the planted Fortitude stories.

“It’s rather a rush job, I’m afraid,” Tensing said. “It all needs to be in place before Patton leaves.”

“Which is when?” Moncrieff asked.

“July the sixth.” Tensing ignored the groans. “Moncrieff, I also want your report on the convoy activities before I leave. And again, my hearty congratulations on a successful job. And let’s hope the next one is as successful as the last. That will be all.” He stood up. “Cess, Worthing, I want to see you in Bracknell’s office in five minutes.”

He walked out.

“Sounds like you two are for it,” Prism whispered, and Cess nodded, looking worried.

“You don’t suppose we’re being sent on one of those secret missions no one comes back from, do you?” Cess asked Ernest anxiously. “What do you think?”

I think I waited too long to speak to Tensing, Ernest thought.

They went into the office. Tensing was sitting behind Bracknell’s desk. “You wanted to see us, sir?” Cess said.

“Yes,” Tensing said. “Shut the door.”

Oh, God, it is something big. We’re being sent to Germany. Or Burma.

Cess shut the door. Tensing walked stiffly over to Lady Bracknell’s chair and sat down. “Don’t look like you’re about to be court-martialed,” he said, and smiled. “I called the two of you in here so I could congratulate you.”

“For what?” Cess asked suspiciously.

“For the success of the Normandy invasion. We’ve received word—I’m not at liberty to say through what channels—”

Ultra, Ernest thought.

“—that the decisive element in the High Command’s refusal to release General Rommel’s tanks for use in Normandy was the eyewitness account of the massive numbers of troops and matériel in the Dover area from a repatriated high-ranking German officer.”

“And not all those letters to the editor Worthing wrote?” Cess said, sounding disappointed. “Or all those dummy tanks we inflated? Worthing here risked life and limb for those tanks.”

“I’ve no doubt the tanks and the letters to the editor both played their part,” Tensing said wryly, “though even if they didn’t, they still had to be done. That’s unfortunately the nature of intelligence work. One does a number of things in the hope that at least one of them will work.”

Like going off to Biggin Hill and Bletchley Park and Manchester, Ernest thought, and putting messages to the retrieval team in the personal columns.

“One rarely ever knows which schemes succeeded and which failed.”

It was true. He would never know which, if any, of his messages had got through, never know whether Polly had been pulled out in time.

“It’s unfair, but there it is,” Tensing said. “We were lucky in this case to have found out, though I’m certain we don’t know the full story, and I doubt we ever shall.

That will be for the historians to sort out long after we’re dead.”

“I wonder what they’ll make of the Reverend T. W. Ringolsby and the condoms,” Cess said. “Do you suppose that will merit a chapter of its own?”

I hope so, Ernest thought.

“With footnotes,” Cess said. “And—”

“As I was saying,” Tensing interrupted, “what we do know is that you two were responsible for keeping Rommel and the Fifteenth Army tied down in the Pas de Calais during a critical time. You’ve saved countless lives. The original casualty estimate for D-Day was thirty thousand. We had ten thousand, and every day those tanks have stayed in Calais, even more lives have been saved.”

He and Cess had saved more than twenty thousand lives. And he’d been worried when Hardy’d told him about his saving five hundred and nineteen.

“Congratulations,” Tensing said, standing up and coming around the desk to shake hands with them. “I can’t overstate the importance of what you’ve done. We had only sixteen divisions. If Hitler had brought those tanks up, we’d have been going up against twenty-one. It’s my personal opinion that you may very well have won the war.”

Not lost it. Won it. He’d been afraid every single day since he’d unfouled that propeller, since he’d saved Hardy’s life, that he had somehow irrevocably altered the course of history, the course of the war, and that Hitler would win. And now—

“Does that mean we can go home and rest on our laurels now?” Cess was asking, grinning.

“Not just yet, I’m afraid,” Tensing said.

Oh, no, here it comes, Ernest thought.

“I’ve asked Bracknell to assign the writing of newspaper articles about Patton to someone else, Worthing,” Tensing said. “I have another job for the two of you.”

Oh, God, they were being sent to Burma.

Tensing leaned across the desk and folded his hands. “The Germans have contacted their agents—or rather, our double agents—and ordered them to report the times and places of V-1 incidents.”

“Why?” Cess asked. “Don’t they already know that? I thought the V-1s were remote-controlled.”

Tensing shook his head. “The Germans know where they intended them to go, not where they went. They’re aimed at the target, Tower Bridge—which, by the way, they have thus far not hit—and a mechanism is set to make a certain number of revolutions and then cut off the fuel supply, at which point the engine switches off and the rocket goes into its dive. But whether they reach the target depends on whether that mechanism was correctly set.”

“So they need the times and locations of the incidents to see whether the rockets are reaching their target so they can make the necessary course corrections?” Ernest asked.

“Yes,” Tensing said, “which puts us in a rather nasty situation. If we provide accurate information to protect our agents’ credibility, we re providing aid to the enemy, and a particularly deadly form of aid at that—obviously an unacceptable situation. If, on the other hand, we give the enemy false information, and it’s disproved by German aircraft reconnaissance, it will—”

“Blow our agents’ cover,” Cess said.

Tensing nodded. “And jeopardize any future deception plans. Which is equally unacceptable.”

“So we need to deceive the Germans into thinking their rockets fell where they didn’t,” Cess said. “How do we do that? Create dummy bomb sites?” Ernest had a sudden vision of an inflatable heap of rubble. He suppressed a smile.

“We did consider that,” Tensing said. “Already-existing rubble moved to another site was used effectively in North Africa. But one of our science chaps has come up with a better plan.”

He unrolled a map of southeastern England on the table. It was marked with a number of red dots, which Ernest assumed were V-1 incidents. “We know from our intelligence that in the trials at Peenemünde, the V-1 tended to fall short of the target, and, as you can see from the map, that problem has continued, with the largest number of bombs falling here”—he pointed at an area southeast of London—“rather than in the center of the city.”

“Which is what the Germans are worried about,” Ernest said, “and why they’re demanding the information.”

“Yes, but it’s in our interest to keep them from correcting the trajectory, to see to it that the V-1s continue to fall short.”

“So you switch the bombs that fall short for the ones that reach their target,” Ernest said.

“Exactly.”

“What?” Cess said, looking thoroughly confused. “How can you switch bombs?”

“Bomb A falls in Stepney at nine o’clock at night,” Ernest explained. “Bomb B falls on Hampstead Heath at half past two in the morning. Our agent tells the Germans bomb A was the one that fell at half past two.”

“In Hampstead,” Tensing said. “And the Germans think it overshot its target, and they shorten its trajectory.”

“Which makes the next one fall short,” Cess said, catching on. “But how do we ensure it falls somewhere where it won’t do any damage?”

“Unfortunately, we can’t, but we can increase the chances of a rocket falling in woods or a field—”

“Or a pasture,” Cess said. “Worthing, this is your chance to eliminate that bull that caused you so much trouble.”

Tensing went on as if Cess hadn’t spoken. “But we can increase the chances of their landing in a less-populated area than central London.”

That’s why you were so eager to point out the thousands of lives we saved, Ernest thought. Because now we’re going to start killing people.

“The retargeting will allow us to provide false information without arousing suspicions regarding our double-agents,” Tensing said. “And to significantly lower the number of casualties.”

And kill people who wouldn’t otherwise have died, Ernest thought. “So what’s our job?” Cess asked. “We’re to match up the bombs?”

“No, I need you two to provide corroboration,” Tensing said, and handed Ernest a photograph of a pile of rubble. It was impossible to tell what it had been from the tangle of bricks and lengths of wood.

“This happened in Fleet Street Tuesday afternoon at 4:32 P.M., but we’re telling the Germans it’s Finchley. The high level of destruction makes substitutions comparatively easy. We’ve told the newspapers they’re not to print any photographs or information about rocket attacks without our authorization.”

“What about the casualty lists in the papers?” Ernest asked. “Won’t the addresses of the people killed give the location away?”

“We’ve thought of that,” Tensing said. “You’ll need to write false death notices to go with the incidents, and we’ve requested the newspapers to hold theirs for several days and list only the name of the deceased. In instances where several members of the same family are killed, we’ve asked them to publish them on separate days, and you’ll do false corroborating stories.”

“What a bloody business,” Ernest said bitterly.

“Yes,” Tensing said. “I’ll need captions and news stories to go with the photographs, and anything else you can come up with—eyewitness accounts, personal ads, letters to the editor—the same sort of thing you were doing before. No direct mention of location, of course. We want the Germans to work that out on their own, and our double agents will be confirming it.”

“When do we begin?” Cess asked.

“Now,” Tensing said, pulling a sheaf of black-and-white photographs from his briefcase and handing them to Cess. “These need to be checked for identifying landmarks or signboards which may need to be cropped out.”

He handed a second sheaf to Ernest. Each one had a memo paper-clipped to it with the actual time and location and the falsified one. “A basic news story for the London dailies,” Tensing said, “and a local connection for the village papers—local resident visiting someone in the town when it hit. You know the sort of thing, Worthing.”

He knew exactly, and he couldn’t have asked for a better job. Not only did he not have to worry about being sent to Burma, but he’d be able to imbed his own coded messages in the articles.

“Cess, you’ll do the London dailies,” Tensing said. “Worthing, you’ll do the village papers. Chasuble will be in on this, too.” Tensing shut his briefcase. “I’d like to speak to him before I leave.”

“I’ll go see if he’s back,” Cess said, and went out.

“Shut the door,” Tensing said to Ernest, and after he did, added, “It is a bloody business. That’s why I chose you. I know I can count on you.”

“What do the higher-ups say about this scheme?” Ernest asked.

“They don’t know yet. We have a meeting to discuss the deception plan with them week after next.”

“And if they vote not to approve it?” Ernest asked, looking at Tensing closely.

“Then I suppose we shall have to think of something else,” he said. “But I can’t imagine them doing anything so irresponsible. It would mean jeopardizing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives—so many that if I was told they’d voted the idea down, I’d be forced to conclude that the person who told me had got the story wrong.”

In other words, he intended to ignore the order and continue deceiving the Germans till he got caught and then plead ignorance. Like Lord Nelson had done at the battle of Copenhagen. Tensing was risking his career. And his future. He could be court-martialed, or worse, for disobeying orders, but he’d do it anyway. In order to save lives.

I didn’t get to observe Chaplain Howell Forgy at Pearl Harbor, Ernest thought, or the firemen at the World Trade Center, but I’ve done what I set out to do. I’ve gotten to observe heroes. Not just Tensing, but the Commander and Jonathan. And Cess and Prism and Chasuble, fighting recalcitrant inflatables and angry bulls. And Turing and Dilly Knox, patiently deciphering code.

And Eileen, driving an ambulance through burning streets and coping with the Hodbins. And Polly, dealing daily with the threat of certain death.

If I ever get back to Oxford, I won’t need to go to the Pandemic and the Battle of the Bulge, he thought. I’ve collected more than enough material for my work on heroes right here.

“So, I take it you won’t be at this meeting where the policy’s to be discussed?” Ernest asked.

“Of course I’ll be there.” Tensing drew himself up indignantly. “Unless, of course, my back is acting up. Old war injury, you know.” He allowed himself a smile.

“Lord Nelson’s not the only one who has a blind eye he can turn.”

Cess opened the door and came in. “Chasuble just rang from Tenterden. He says the Austin’s acting up again.”

Right outside the Plough and Bull, no doubt, Ernest thought, where his barmaid Daphne works.

“You two will need to bring him up to speed, then,” Tensing said. He picked up his briefcase and started out. “Those photographs need to be in the dailies by tomorrow and the village papers by their next deadline.” He opened the door.

“Wait,” Cess said. “I’ve only just thought of something. These rockets, we wouldn’t be sending any of them down on our own heads, would we?”

Tensing shook his head. “You’re too far east. If this works as planned, the bulk of the bombs will fall on Bethnal Green, Croydon, and Dulwich.”

Time, which was once said to be on the side of the Allies, has turned out to be, after all, Hitler’s man.

—MOLLIE PANTER-DOWNES,

15 JUNE 1940