Miller Caldwell - A Reluctant Spy

Walking along the embankment, Hilda saw two small naval ships in grey and black camouflage: a sight not dissimilar to Hamburg’s river Elbe, still so fresh in her mind.

She found a tearoom near the Thames. Most of the tables were occupied, and waiters weaved their way around the seated customers like matadors. Hilda found a single table at the back of the restaurant. There was no view, but she did not need one. Her thoughts turned to what she might expect at the meeting which would take place in just under an hour.

She ordered soup. It was a thick nutritious broth, and came with two generous slices of buttered bread. It was filling, but her nerves were affecting her appetite, so she ordered nothing else but a cup of tea, which clearly disappointed the waiter. Her mind was four streets away from her body.

Where was Thornton planning to send her? She could not imagine. Perhaps there was a desk job with them in London. What could she offer them? Fluent German, some radio experience, maybe even some nerves of steel was her total offer. Perhaps they had an army posting for her down on the coast, though she felt too old for uniformed service, surely.

She returned to the MI6 office, eager to hear their plans for her. She hoped that, whatever they were, they would materialise that afternoon; after all, she had burnt her bridges in Forres, Portugal and Hamburg for the time being. Money was not an issue, of course; her mother’s cheque was in the bank. Nevertheless, she had always hated to have time on her hands; she needed something to do.

‘Come in Hilda, have a seat,’ said Dynes.

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll wait for Mr Thornton. He’s got some interesting news from Portugal.’

‘Portugal?’ she exclaimed. ‘You mean I might be returning there?’ That had never occurred to her, and it was not a prospect she relished.

Dyne was still laughing when Thornton came in.

‘Did I miss a joke?’ he asked. ‘I could certainly appreciate one right now.’

‘Hilda wondered if she would be returning to Portugal,’ Dynes said, still laughing. Thornton began to smile. Hilda was lost for words, very unaware why her response should have attracted such mirth.

‘You can’t return to Portugal, Hilda. You are officially dead.’

‘What, you mean they found my body?’

‘Not exactly, of course. We received news from Lisbon today. You made the front page. English woman missing; clothes found on the beach. The chief of police has concluded that Miss Hilda Campbell must have drowned, and he has stood down a coastal search to find her body.’

‘I wonder if they sealed off my cottage before the German Ambassador’s staff reached the house. Then the radio would still be there, and probably Inka too.’

‘I’m sure the German Embassy sent someone to the cottage as soon as they heard you were missing. They would have found the radio and seized it. It is hard to believe otherwise. That is not our problem. I think you have been very clever. Eicke will soon learn of your demise if he does not already know. On his behalf, I must tell you he cannot attend your funeral. I’m a bit busy too, for that matter.’

Their laughter must have been audible all the way to Nelson’s Column. Hilda even imagined Lord Nelson was smiling.

‘We cannot let you surface again or he will know you are our agent,’ said Thornton. ‘That would have dire consequences for your son and your brother and sister in law.’

She nodded in agreement. However, the news of her demise was not the main reason she was here. ‘So, do you have a future for me now that Portugal is dealt with?’

‘I think we have, Hilda. It is highly secret, and I cannot stress this too much. I am not prepared to talk about it yet.’

‘I see. Can you tell me where will this be, I mean in Britain or elsewhere?’

‘You are pushing me, Hilda. All right, I’ll tell you where. You would be based near London. We have to share your background with higher authorities first. The fact is that you are a fluent German speaker, and your experience of the Nazi machine is invaluable. They feel you could be very useful indeed.’

Useful? Hilda’s body tensed like a tightly wound spring. Whatever did they have in store for her?

‘The military authorities understand what lay behind your earlier exploits for the Germans, your fears for Otto and your… other relatives. We had to assure them that your work in counter-espionage was well and truly over. They’d like to meet you this afternoon to assess you for themselves and before that, you will need to sit an examination paper, a mathematical paper, I believe.’

‘Really? It sounds like school all over again.’

‘Precisely,’ said Dynes, his head nodding like a puppet.

Clearly, they did have plans for her, perhaps a desk job. She would be content with that as long as it seemed worthwhile. The espionage business was certainly not for her anymore and it seemed not on their agenda either. That pleased her.

Dynes opened his case and produced a document.

‘Here, read this thoroughly, Hilda.’

It took a few minutes to read the paper and she did so in total silence. It became clear why he thought her possible future role was crucial; her commitment clearly had to be total. At the end of the sheet, she was invited to affix her signature, thus certifying she had accepted the rules. Dynes handed her a pen and she did so with her scrawling signature.

‘There, you’ve signed the Official Secrets Act,’ said Thornton. ‘Forget any similar document Eicke gave you. Your colours are tied to our masts fairly and squarely now.’

‘I thought they always had been,’ she replied.

Later that afternoon, she entered a room on the second floor of the Admiralty office. Two others sat outside the room. They were younger than she was, Wrens, in naval uniform.

‘Good afternoon. All doing the maths test?’ she asked to break the ice.

Their response was a silent smile. Neither of them ventured any information. The poster above their heads declared in bold large letters that Careless Talk Costs Lives , and Hilda rather suspected that this had been the last order they received from their superiors prior to their arrival.

Portraits of royalty and political figures hung from picture hooks on the corridor walls. They seemed to look down on the three of them as if to urge them to do what they could for their country. All the same, a maths test seemed to be the last thing that would contribute to the war effort. Perhaps she should have asked Thornton more questions. He had implied that this would be a new direction for her – but as a maths teacher? She somehow doubted that.

Eventually, they followed a staff sergeant into a room dominated by a dark oak table. They were requested to sit down, one at each end and one in the middle. A pencil, a sharpener, a ruler and a rubber were visible at each position, together with the examination papers.

‘Ladies, you have an hour and a half to complete as many of the questions as you can. There will be no conferring or talking. Do I make myself clear?’ asked the duty staff sergeant.

They glanced at each other.

‘Yes, quite clear,’ they replied, one after the other.

He raised his arm and stared ostentatiously at his watch, then smartly lowered it and gave the instruction: ‘Up pens, begin.’

Hilda turned the paper over to read the questions before starting to work on them. Part 1 consisted of fractions, divisions, multiplications and subtractions, an easy starter. Part 2 was geometry, part 3 trigonometry. Part 4 was a series of algebraic equations. Long ago in school, similar problems had been dubbed bread and butter sums, and more recently, she had supervised Otto’s mathematics homework. She lifted her pencil and began the calculations with confidence.