James Benn - Billy Boyle

“Everyone goes through the heavy weapons course here,” Carlyle told us. “We might need to use captured weapons if things get dicey over there. Care to fire a few rounds, Lieutenant?” Carlyle tapped a German MG-34.

“No thanks, captain. I don’t plan to get that close to either end of one of those things.”

“Well then, come in here. We have a few subtle tricks that may be more to your liking, the kind of thing I’m sure you haven’t seen before.”

He opened a door to the shed. Inside there were long benches, boxes marked PLASTIC EXPLOSIVE, disassembled guns, and all sorts of tools and metal devices. It was like an insane Santa’s workshop.

“What is all this?” asked Daphne, looking around incredulously.

“The SOE special-devices chaps work in here,” Carlyle answered. “They’re wizards at coming up with all sorts of nasty tricks for the Jerries.”

I walked over to a crate filled with what looked like oversized jacks, the kind kids play with when they bounce a rubber ball and try to pick up a bunch. Except these had three-inch sharp-tipped steel prongs.

“Those are caltrops,” said Carlyle. “Any way you throw them, they end up with a sharp point sticking up. We scatter them in the road to inhibit pursuit. They’ll pierce any tire.”

“I’ll bet,” I said as I tested the tip with my finger, almost drawing blood. “Isn’t it dangerous having plastic explosive lying around, especially so close to a firing range?”

“Absolutely not, Lieutenant,” Carlyle said as he led us over to a workbench stacked with blocks of the stuff in different forms. “Plastic explosive is completely malleable and harmless without a detonator. Why, you could even eat the stuff if you had to get rid of it.”

“Yum.” Daphne laughed.

“Here,” he said, handing me a block about six inches by four by two. “This is a clam. With a detonator attached, it would be deadly. Without it, you could jump up and down on it with no effect.”

“What’s it used for?” I asked, handing it back without bothering to test his claim.

“A single clam could bend a piece of railway line, break an axle on a large vehicle, that sort of thing. These larger pieces are limpets, water-proofed and magnetized, to be placed against a ship’s hull. Three or four of these could sink a good-sized ship.”

“Ahhh! A rat!” Daphne, startled, grabbed my arm. She pointed at another bench at the end of the room.

“Not to worry, my dear,” Carlyle said calmly. That’s just one of the chaps’ latest ideas. The explosive rat!” He walked proudly over to it and lifted it up by the tail.

“An authentic black rat, quite dead, its body cavity hollowed out and stuffed with plastic explosive. Fitted with a time-delay fuse, it can be safely left about under a building or just about anywhere. The idea is that no one wants to bother with a big black rat, so there would be ample time for an agent to get away.”

“I suppose that this thing operates on the same principle, or is this item not too sanitary?” I asked, pointing at a pile of well, shit on the bench as Daphne wrinkled her nose.

“Exactly. The explosive turd, believe it or not. Not the real thing, but filled with plastic explosive and set up with a pressure switch. It’s made to look like horse or cow droppings.”

“So an officer orders some poor slob of a private to clean it up, and boom?” I asked, somewhat dubious about the military value of this thing.

“Well, that’s the general idea. One hopes the officer is nearby, or it’s under a vehicle.”

“Do you bring all this with you on raids, captain?” Daphne asked.

“These items are more for single agents, or the underground. We do use the clams and limpets, as well as this little device, which the SOE agents also like.”

He picked up a short round tube with one end flattened. There was a small switch at the flat end. He handed it carefully to Daphne.

“This is a pressure switch. The tube is filled with plastic explosive. You jam the flat end under a tire, which depresses the switch and activates it. When the vehicle pulls away off the tube, the switch pops up and the tire bomb instantly explodes.”

“Should do a good job of discouraging pursuit,” I offered.

“Exactly. We once placed them at night under the tires of a row of trucks outside a German barracks. Then we went on to hit our target, about two miles away. A few minutes after we began, there was a lovely row of explosions off in the distance as the fuel tanks went up!”

“Delightful,” said Daphne, gingerly putting the tube back down on the bench.

“Oh yes, quite,” the captain said with unabashed enthusiasm.

I could see Carlyle enjoyed all these devices. I couldn’t begrudge the commandos anything that might give them an edge, but there seemed to be a glint in his eye that said he was in it for the thrills as much as for God and country. Maybe that was natural for someone who climbed mountains for fun. Me, I didn’t even like walking up Beacon Hill.

Captain Carlyle had to get back to his patients. He offered to drive us to the headquarters office to wait for Rolf, but we decided to walk. It was a nice day, and we could take the roadway along the beach. I wanted to talk, and I didn’t want to talk about murder suspects and spies with a company clerk listening to us.

A cool breeze blew in from the ocean, or the North Sea it was, I guess. There were puffy white clouds high in the sky, and the sun came in and out as they passed over, sunlight drenching us for a minute until the next cloud rolled by. A couple of Lockheed A-28 Hudsons with RAF markings flew overhead and straight out to sea, their engines snarling as they took off, the sound fading as Daphne watched them disappear toward the horizon.

“Probably hunting U-boats, or watching for surface raiders sneaking out from Wilhelmshaven along the Norwegian coast,” she said.

“Like the Bismarck?” I asked.

“Yes. It’s hard to believe how worried we were about one single German ship. Everything seemed to be hanging by a thread in those days.”

“There’s still plenty to worry about.”

“Worrying about Diana is not quite the same thing as worrying about the Nazis marching into Buckingham Palace. That’s something Americans safe across the Atlantic may not understand.”

“Safe across the Atlantic is just where I’d like to be right now. But I’d settle for Diana safe on this side of the channel.”

“Until this war is won, Billy, none of us will have the luxury of such choices. I wonder if even then we can ever relax again, knowing what evil the world is capable of.”

“Daphne, you don’t need a war to learn about evil. Spend a few days with a cop in any city and you’ll get a fair taste of it.”

“But it never touched us before. Now it’s reached out and grabbed all of us. My brother, my sister… I don’t want to lose them, too. Losing Mother was awful enough. I can’t imagine…” She started to cry and dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief.

I didn’t know how I could tell her everything was going to be OK, so I didn’t.

“I’m sorry, Billy. Let’s talk about something else, all right?”

“OK.” I smiled and gave her hand a squeeze.

“So tell me, Billy, why did you ask Captain Carlyle about Rolf’s gold coin?”

“Just to see if Rolf’s story holds up, about someone stealing his little souvenir.”

“You didn’t believe him?”

“I just wanted some verification. Maybe that was the coin that showed up in Knut Birkeland’s room. Maybe it wasn’t.”

“But if Carlyle never saw the coin, and only heard about it after Rolf said it was stolen, then maybe it wasn’t stolen at all.”