Susan MacNeal - Princess Elizabeth's Spy

“Do we have a plan?” Lilibet asked.

Oh, Your Highness, if only we did. “Let’s climb to the top of the sail,” Maggie said, sounding surprisingly reasonable as she felt the sweat in her hair start to freeze. At least they’d be farther from the hatch that way.

Maggie, helping a limping Lilibet, and David all scrambled over the top of the hull until they reached the sail. They climbed up yet another long, thin ladder to reach the highest peak of the sub.

Cold, damp winds gusted around them. They held on to the railing of the sail for dear life—David muttering curse words, Lilibet with her mouth set in a grim line, and Maggie, fighting panic, trying desperately to think of a next step. While she was overwhelmingly grateful for an escape from inside the submarine that had seemed impossible, being up on the sail of a Nazi sub in the middle of the gray-green North Sea didn’t seem all that much better.

The submarine could continue sailing this way, on the surface, all the way to France. Unless they wanted to swim in the freezing waters, they were as trapped on the sail as they were in the bowels of the submarine. Here eyes scanned the horizon for any sign of a British ship. Come on, Mr. Churchill, I’m running out of tricks.

She looked at David and Lilibet. David had a nasty head wound; his blood still caked in his hair and on his face. Lilibet’s face had scratches and bruising and was stained with tears. Around them, on all sides, was nothing but sky and the ocean.

Gregory emerged from the hatch. He had a desperate expression on his face. He was followed by Boothby and two armed crewmen.

“No!” Gregory cried, his voice getting lost in the freezing wind, as he approached their perch on top of the sail. He climbed towards them as Boothby and the two sailors came behind him.

“Come back inside! You’re safe with me! I never meant to hurt anyone!”

The group stared at him in disbelief, as though he were an apparition. He certainly looked like one, his face gaunt, his eyes haunted.

“You don’t understand!” Gregory called. “I can’t go back to England!” His eyes leaked tears, as his voice grew frenzied. “I can’t do it!” He kept climbing. “It’s freezing cold up there in those planes, it’s dark—they shoot at you, you shoot at them. People die, but before they do, they scream—horrible high-pitched screams. Men cry. I’ve seen people with limbs burned off, with melted skin and bone.”

He reached them and raised his hands in supplication; his eyes had a cold, dead look to them. “I just want it all to stop. The nightmares and the memories and the horror—I can’t go back. Can’t even seem to drink myself to death! That’s why I made this deal with the devil. This way I don’t have to go back !”

Gregory’s pain was palpable. Was he a villain, or just a casualty of war? Maggie felt a mixture of both horror and sympathy wash through her. She knew him—or thought she did.

“Then no more killing,” she said. “End it. You’re not your father—you don’t have to be.” Just as I don’t have to be mine, she thought, almost absently. “Don’t sell us all out to the Nazis just to save yourself. You might live, but what about your conscience?”

But he couldn’t meet her eyes, and turned away. “Let me worry about my conscience, Maggie,” he said, calmer now.

The wind began to die down and the waves weren’t quite as violent. The gray at the edge of the horizon was turning a delicate pink. And she could also hear the rumbling engine of a ship. They all looked towards the direction of the sound.

Whose ship was it? German or British?

“It’s German,” Gregory said, as if reading their minds. “You quite cleverly disarmed the sub, but they’ve radioed to France for a pickup from a German patrol boat. There’s nowhere for you to run. Even if I wanted to help you now, I couldn’t. Things are in motion and have taken on a momentum of their own.”

“That’s pathetic, Gregory,” Maggie called. “Don’t be a coward. Be the hero I know you can be.”

The sound of the engine seemed closer, and Maggie felt a tingle of horror. She knew what she had to do, if the worst happened. David would have to use his cyanide tablet, and she’d have to jump overboard. The Nazis weren’t going to take them alive. And she had to believe that Lilibet would be treated well in Germany and that Frain and Churchill would somehow rescue her.

The sky was turning a streaked scarlet. Maggie could see the Nazi patrol boat coming toward them, and she put her arm around Lilibet. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning, Maggie thought absently. She looked around her. So, this is how it ends, she thought. Well, she thought, looking over at David, at least we’re fighting the good fight together.

And then, without warning, the world seemed to explode. There was a wall of noise. Bright flashes and flares of light. The stench of smoke. Time itself was pierced by a thunderous detonation. The waves roiled and crested and the sub lurched to one side and back again. Boothby and the crewmen struggled to keep their balance.

Lilibet fell against Maggie, whose back hit the guard rail, hard.

David took advantage of the swaying to grab Gregory by his coat and sideswipe him with the briefcase, which hit his face with a loud crack. Gregory staggered back, stunned. He put his hand to his cheek, and his face lit with rage. He lunged for David, grabbing him by the throat and squeezing, eyes wild.

Maggie saw David struggling to get free from Gregory. She ran to Gregory and tried to pry his hands off David’s neck. Lilibet, seeing what was happening, crawled over to Gregory, brave as the Prince in Sleeping Beauty. Just as Maggie kneed him in the groin, Lilibet bit down on his ankle as hard as she could. “Good girl!” Maggie managed.

Gregory cried out in anguish and released his grip on David, who fell to the deck, gasping for air. Gregory stumbled backward and fell as well, curling into a fetal position.

“ That’ s for calling him a poof!” Lilibet yelled into the wind. Maggie was filled with both amazement and sisterly pride.

Before anyone had a chance to recover, there was another enormous blast—the approaching German ship exploded in smoke and lacy white froth. One final detonation, and the ship burst into a ball of orange and red flames, reflected in the grey water. Boothby and the two crewmen watched helplessly.

Gregory managed to turn himself over and whistled through his bleeding teeth and lip. “Goddamned British Navy.”

“You want to know a British military secret?” David shouted, propping himself up on his elbows. “We’re equipped with really big guns, you … jerk!” he said, realizing the Princess was there.

Maggie went to Lilibet and cradled her in her arms, keeping her eyes west. “The British are coming.”

“About time, Paul Revere,” said David, before turning back to Gregory. “You’ll have quite the story to tell before they hang you for treason.”

But Gregory was already unlacing his heavy boots and stripping off his mackintosh. “But it seems like such a lovely morning for a swim,” he said, a man with nothing to lose, nothing to live for.

“No!” Maggie screamed. “Don’t do it!” She didn’t know how she felt about Gregory—disgust, hate, pity? But she did know she didn’t want him to die. “You’ll never make it!” Even if he could swim to France, the water was too cold. It would kill him before he could reach the shore.

“But I might,” he said, winking at her with his good eye. “And it’s better than the alternative,” he called back to them before he dove into the sea.