Miller Caldwell - A Reluctant Spy

Mr Sloan’s eyes creased. She suspected he might be thinking she was deranged.

The telephone rang. Mr Sloan lifted the handset, listened, and said nothing. Then he looked up at her.

He thrust the phone towards her. ‘It’s for you,’ he said.

‘Really?’

‘A Mr Thornton,’ was all he said.

Relief flooded through Hilda, and she sank back into her seat. She had not realised how tense she was. She grabbed the phone from Sloan’s hand.

‘Mr Thornton? Thank goodness! It’s wonderful to hear your voice again…’

‘Hilda, it’s really you. Are you all right?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I need to return to London as soon as possible.’‘Of course. Where are you now? I hear you are in Portugal? Can you tell us who you’ve been working with?’

‘Yes, I’m in Lisbon at The High Commission. And yes, I can give you some names and a lot more besides.’

‘We’ll get you home as soon as we can. Let me speak to the embassy man again – Sloan, isn’t it?’

She handed the telephone back with her heart beating as if it would burst out of her chest. Everything was going so much better than she had dared hope.

‘Hello again,’ Sloan said. ‘Yes… yes, I see. So that’s who she is. Definitely one of ours?… Okay, it’s just past eight a.m. now. Yes… okay. When? Let me see… Ah, a flight will leave at er… at two p.m. Yes… of course. We will take care of everything. Easily arranged. That is no problem. Can I pass you back?’

He passed the phone to her once again.

‘Hilda, it’s looking like you won’t be going back to Germany for some considerable time now,’ said Thornton.

‘I certainly won’t. I decided to drown yesterday, so locals will report my disappearance, and when the German Embassy follows it up, they should swallow the bait. That gives me some time. Looks like I could be stateless for a while.’

‘No, no, certainly not stateless. You are a British citizen, there’s no doubt about it. Now, you are not to worry. Sloan is making arrangements for you to fly home today, and we’ll pick you up when you land.’

Hilda struggled to control the tremble in her voice. ‘Thank you. I look forward to that very much indeed. Goodbye for the moment.’ She replaced the handset on the cradle but her hand seemed unable to let go of it. She closed her eyes, and a potent mixture of disbelief and joy coursed through her veins. She would be back in Britain in a few hours and surely, they would grant her some leave to get home to Forres to see her mother.

Mr Sloan looked at her and shook his head, and then his face broke into a broad smile. ‘I guess you are a bit of a celebrity,’ he said.

She managed to let go of the telephone and opened her eyes. She returned his smile back and shook her head. ‘Far from it. I am just a fortunate woman. My work is not finished. In fact, I suspect in some ways it has hardly started.’

‘A double agent’s work never ends, I suppose?’

She shook her head. ‘It ends in one of two ways, death or retirement.’

‘Doesn’t that apply to everyone?’

‘I mean premature death and nerve-racking retirement. I have much to tell Mr Thornton.’

A car arrived to take her to an airfield outside Lisbon that afternoon. It was a beautiful day and she should have been able to relax, but she found herself sitting in the foot well in the back of the car covered by a blanket, in case she was recognised. She wondered if posters of the missing English woman were already circulating and felt a little like a mouse smelling a cat in her necessary but most uncomfortable position.

During this bone aching drive, she pondered on the new life which was about to begin for her. Perhaps she would be able to return to Forres permanently to help her mother run the hotel. First, there would be a delay to debrief in London. Or, was she getting ahead of herself?

The car approached the airport and the blanket removed. She gulped in some fresh air and caught sight of a fixed-wing propeller-driven, Breda Ba.65 parked in the sunshine on the forecourt. A sudden fear caught at her throat; if they had to fly through a war zone would they be safe?

The pilot descended from his plane and swaggered towards her, swinging his helmet by its chinstrap. His hair was brown and curly, his face tanned and his smile revealed brilliant white teeth.

‘Good morning, I am Marco Matti, your pilot. I’m pleased to meet you.’

‘Hilda Campbell,’ she said, shaking his outstretched hand.

‘My orders are to take you to England. I have the right passenger?’

‘You have indeed. Your accent seems more German than Portuguese.’ Under the circumstances, and understandably she thought the question crucial.

His response was to laugh. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘my German is very good, as is my French, but my first language is Italian.’

Her heart missed a beat. He was certainly not British.

‘I can see you’re a little worried. Let me put your nerves to rest. I am Swiss, as Swiss as the pure water falling from the Matterhorn. I have for our flight a supply of our famous Emmental cheese. You will enjoy it.’

It was hard not to be at ease with this sunny-natured man. His rotund body shape gave him a slightly comical look, and she rather thought he would be the life and soul of any party.

‘I look forward to it,’ she said, returning his smile.

He pointed at her bag. ‘Is that all your luggage?’

For a moment she thought of her abandoned shoes, clothes and possessions back in Peniche. ‘Yes. There’s not much, just the essentials for travelling home.’

He lifted her bag and led the way towards the plane. ‘This is heavier than it looks. Have you brought a picnic box?’

‘It’s my oboe. I would never travel anywhere without it.’

‘If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it.’

They both laughed. ‘ Twelfth Night ,’ she said.

‘Lovesick Orsino, yes, in Twelfth Night .’

‘Lovesick?’

‘Me, I just love my flying,’ he said with a flamboyant bow.

She climbed the steps into the plane and eased herself into the seat behind Marco. He handed her a flying cap and she put it on her head with the microphone in front of her mouth, and then strapped herself securely into her seat.

‘Testing 1, 2, 3. Over.’

‘Receiving loud and clear, 3, 2,1,’ she replied.

He turned round, grinning, and gave her a thumbs-up. He had probably expected her to be a rookie at telecommunications. She wondered what he would think if she told him, she was German-trained.

She glanced out of the window and saw the driver who had brought her from Lisbon running towards the plane, waving frantically. Marco drew back the cockpit hood and peered down.

‘Miss Campbell, Miss Campbell, I have just heard from the embassy. Police are making enquiries in Peniche about an English woman they believe to have drowned. Nobody has yet found her body but they have a great deal of circumstantial evidence. They are searching the coastline at present and of course her cottage, for clues. The whole town is involved. They are very concerned. They say she was a lovely English woman.’

‘Thank you for passing that on,’ Hilda called out. ‘It’s very interesting. You know I’m not English?’ she shouted back.

Marco turned to look at her. ‘Is this a ghost I have behind me?’ he said teasingly.

‘Oh, they couldn’t possibly mean me. I’m Scottish, not English,’ she said with a contented smile. Her ruse had worked, and she was free; the Germans would not come in search of her. There would be pressure on the German Embassy to recover the radio, but it looked as if enquiries were in progress. Even Eicke would be told why their agent was no longer receiving messages from America. Would he shed a tear? She doubted that.