Susan MacNeal - Princess Elizabeth's Spy

As Maggie tried to right herself once more in the slippery black mud, Burns was shouting, his face turning red from the exertion. “Come on, keep going! The Nazis are after you! What are you waiting for? Move! Move! Move! ”

With grim determination, Maggie struggled to her feet and ran onward through the mud, toward the next obstacle, a ten-foot chain-link fence they were supposed to scale and then drop from. With a running start, she jumped up onto the fence, then began clawing her way up to the top, blinking away raindrops. Her teammates who’d already finished the course were on the sidelines.

“Come on, Maggie!” the girls chorused. “You can do it!”

Her hands were clumsy from the cold and her breath burned in her lungs, but she made it to the top, swung her legs over, then jumped down to the ground.

Something popped and started to burn in her right knee, but she ran on to the next challenge, picking up one of her fallen mates in a fireman’s carry. The girl, a tiny thing named Molly Stickler, lay on her back in the mud, waiting. “Don’t drop me again, Hope,” she warned. “Not like you did last time.”

Maggie ignored Molly and reviewed the task at hand. As she’d practiced, she rolled Molly over onto her abdomen and straddled her. She extended her hands under the girl’s chest and locked them together. She lifted Molly to her knees as she moved backward.

“Careful!” Molly complained.

“You’re ‘the casualty,’ “ Maggie muttered. “Casualties aren’t supposed to talk.”

Maggie continued to move backward, straightening Molly’s legs and locking her knees, then walking forward, bringing the limp girl to a standing position. Gently, gently, every muscle burning, Maggie maneuvered the girl’s body into the proper position.

“The Nazis are coming, Hope!” Burns yelled from the sidelines. “They’d have shot you both by now!”

Undeterred, Maggie followed protocol. Rising to her feet, she carried the girl over her shoulders toward the finish line, hair dripping, covered in mud, oblivious to the agony in her knee.

But just before she reached the end, her foot slipped in the mud. She skidded like an ice skater, and then toppled backward, taking Molly down with her.

“Ooof,” Molly gasped as they hit the ground. “Ow! Goddamn it, Maggie, that hurt. ”

“Under ten minutes today, Hope. Better.” Burns looked at his stopwatch. “Slightly.”

Maggie gave him a pinched smile as she got up, then offered her hand to help Molly. His “slightly” was a small victory, considering her legs felt like rubber and her injured knee throbbed. Then she limped over to the rest of the group, to cheer on the next girl, who was just starting the course.

“No,” Burns called over to Maggie, through the rain. “Get cleaned up and dressed, Hope. And meet me in the dining room.”

Was this it? Was she going to be thrown out of the program?

The dining room had a lingering sense of the house’s former grandeur. The faded and water-stained wallpaper had squares of bright perfection, where large paintings must have once hung, four-sided ghosts of the manor’s former opulence. Still, a cheerful fire crackled and popped in the grate and the brass was polished. Mr. Burns was already seated at the table when Maggie came in, washed and combed and dressed in clean, dry trousers, a white blouse, and a cabled wool cardigan.

The wireless was on. Maggie could hear the fourteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth addressing in bell-like tones the children who’d left London for the relative safety of the British countryside: “Before I finish, I can truthfully say to you all that we children at home are full of cheerfulness and courage. We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers, and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war.…”

Mrs. Forester, an older woman with a tight gray bun and wide hips, both chaperone and housekeeper, peeked through the door. Maggie knew from several conversations over cups of tea that she was grateful to have the job—a widow, both her sons were in the Royal Navy, floating somewhere in the North Sea. She found that cooking and cleaning for the girls of Camp Spook kept her mind occupied and tired her out enough during the day so she could manage at least a few hours of sleep at night. “Will you be wantin’ any tea, Mr. Burns?” she said, her plump face folding into a smile as she walked into the dining room and turned off the wireless with a loud click.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Forester,” Mr. Burns replied. In front of him was Maggie’s file, a thick folder labeled MARGARET HOPE.

“Very well,” she said and left.

Burns looked at Maggie, then gestured to a straight-backed chair. “Please sit down, Miss Hope,” he said.

Maggie did.

He cracked his knuckles. “Mr. Frain, head of MI-Five, sent you to me, with the highest recommendations,” he began. “He let me know a bit of your role in taking down the Prime Minister’s assassination plot and preventing the bombing of Saint Paul’s.”

Maggie permitted herself the slightest—just the slightest—feeling of pride.

“Frain also tells me you have excellent instincts when it comes to code breaking. Also that your French and German are flawless.”

The slight feeling grew just a bit brighter.

“During your time here, you’ve applied yourself and worked hard.”

I passed! Maggie thought with a glow of pride. So where am I going? A mission here in England? Dropped behind enemy lines in France? Undercover in Germany? Her pulse quickened with excitement.

“However,” Burns said.

However?

“However?”

“Your background in academics and then as secretary to the Prime Minister hasn’t been conducive to the, er, physical aspects of spy work. We have certain standards for our candidates, and, Miss Hope, I’m afraid you have not attained them.”

What? Despite the warmth of the fire, Maggie felt cold. She’d worked hard. She’d learned how to shoot Sten and Bren guns and hit targets. She’d learned to transmit Morse Code, jump out of a plane, and kill with various implements—a pen, a dinner knife, her bare hands. She’d been (with Mrs. Forester supervising, of course) tied to a chair, blindfolded, and interrogated for hours and hours by “Gestapo” officers with no rest, food, or water.

In the mental aspects of the training, Maggie had excelled; in the endurance aspects, she’d failed. The most egregious was a twenty-five-mile cross-country trek all the candidates had to do in the cold and rain. Only a few miles into the course she’d tripped on a tree root, fallen, and knocked herself unconscious. After coming to, she’d limped almost a quarter of a mile before Burns and his men picked her up. The doctor at Camp Spook diagnosed her with a sprained ankle and hypothermia.

“I cannot, in good conscience, recommend undercover work in Europe. I’m not convinced you’re physically up to it.”

There has to be some mistake. “Mr. Burns, I can assure you—”

“My mind is made up, Miss Hope. I’ve spoken to Mr. Frain, and he’s asked that you return to London. He’ll inform you of your new position when you arrive.”

“New position?” Maggie was bewildered.

“Probably reading through mail for possible codes, that sort of thing. Desk work.” Burns struggled to let her down gently. “But it’s all important work, Miss Hope. There are no small jobs. After all—”

Maggie bit her lip to hide her disappointment. After everything she’d been through, she was, once again, going to end up behind a typewriter, fighting with no more than the stack of papers in her inbox? No, no, no—she was not.