The Silver Hand Read online

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘Take this and lock it in my safe, then take a car to Bray. See that it’s ready for us to set up a new base. Captain Ellis is already there and I’ll be along tomorrow when I’m finished here. Help Captain Ellis till then.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Grimm said and his good right hand trembled a little as he took the envelope of secrets.

  21 March 1918: Bray

  The young children of Bray school hurried past the watch-cat at the door. Its tail swished, annoyed at the bustle and banging of those pupils fleeing school so early in the day. Aimee followed more slowly, then began to run down the street, the nails in her boots chiming on the cobbles. Everyone in the village looked as grey-faced as the morning mist. Grey with fear. Even the red-faced butcher, Mr Albert, had faded to pink.

  Aimee turned into the dusty lane that led to her farm and the cows seemed restless as ripples on the River Somme. The rumble of the guns should have been muffled by the foggy air but it was louder, closer, more menacing now.

  The girl ran into the cobbled courtyard where the washing on the line flapped against her face. Her mother was pegging Aimee’s clean smock dresses to the line. Colette Fletcher was a strong woman, running the farm while her husband fought in the French army. Her dark hair had strands of grey in it and her pale eyes were calm and smiling. Aimee panted, ‘The Germans really are coming.’

  ‘The ribbon in your pigtail is coming loose,’ Mrs Fletcher said.

  ‘You said the Germans were coming, Maman. Before I left for school, you said. We’ll have to move to Amiens. We’ll have to leave the farm.’

  Mrs Fletcher picked up the empty clothes basket and moved into the kitchen. ‘We won’t be going to Amiens,’ she said.

  ‘But...’

  ‘The Germans will not hurt us. We are farmers. They need our land for their horses, our barns for their men, our eggs and cattle for their food. When the Germans were here four years ago they treated us well.’

  Aimee had been so young back then. She had memories seen through a fog of time. ‘They bombed us,’ she said.

  Mrs Fletcher laughed. ‘No, our friends the British bombed us to drive the Germans out. And it worked. If the Germans get this far again they will treat us well.’

  Aimee was soothed by her mother’s gentle voice. She watched her put a log in the stove and heat another pan of water for the washtub. ‘Maman... no one in the school knew the Germans were on their way. Not until a British Captain told them.’

  Her mother didn’t answer.

  ‘But you knew. You knew before anyone in Bray. How did you know?’

  Mrs Fletcher poured a cup of milk for her daughter and sat at the table. She was silent for a long time and finally said, ‘Aimee, I am going to tell you a secret. It is so dangerous I really shouldn’t. But... I want you to know in case the Germans do get as far as Bray. Then I may... I may do some strange things and I want you to understand why.’

  Aimee shivered though the weak sunlight beamed through the dusty window and the stove hissing with logs made the kitchen warm. She waited. Finally Mrs Fletcher started to speak.

  ‘The British and French armies have a team of spies. Not soldiers. Ordinary men and women living in France who want them to win this endless war. The group is known as the White Lady.’

  ‘Are they led by a white lady?’ Aimee asked.

  ‘No. There is a story that one day the ghost of a woman, dressed in white, will appear. When she is seen it will mean the end of the German king’s rule.’

  ‘And are you one of the White Lady group? Are you a spy?’ Aimee breathed. She had read stories about spies but in her mind they were men dressed in black, creeping through night-dark woods.

  ‘In every village there are men and women waiting to serve our armies. If the Germans come to Bray, I’ll report it to the British – I’ll count how many troops and guns the enemy has. I’ll report on where the soldiers are staying... where their railway lines are laid and what fields they are using to land their aircraft.’

  Aimee’s mouth went dry. ‘The Germans would shoot you if they ever caught you doing that.’

  Mrs Fletcher spread her hands. ‘I’ll just have to make sure I’m not caught then. The radio is well hidden in the barn.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you talking on a radio,’ Aimee said.

  ‘I do it at midnight when you’re asleep. The villages to the east have been reporting on the new enemy attacks. The Germans call it Operation Michael.’

  Aimee’s eyes brightened. ‘That’s how you knew they were on their way before anyone else in the village?’

  Her mother nodded. ‘Your father is fighting with rifles and bombs. I will fight using my eyes and ears.’

  ‘And me?’

  ‘You can go to Amiens, if you like. You have cousins there who’d take you in. You’d be safe there.’

  Aimee had met her older cousins before the war. They treated her like a maid-servant and called her ‘stupid peasant’.

  ‘I want to stay,’ she said.

  Colette Fletcher grinned. ‘And I want you to stay. The enemy would never think a schoolgirl could be carrying secret messages.’

  ‘You’d let me carry messages for you?’ A shadow crossed Aimee’s face. ‘If they caught me I would never betray you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have to,’ her mother said. She picked up a broom from the corner of the room. ‘This is a magic broom.’

  Aimee looked cross. ‘Don’t be silly. Magic is for fairy tales.’

  ‘Maybe. But this broom holds a secret message that may help us win the war.’

  Aimee frowned and picked it up. ‘It’s a broom,’ she said. ‘Stop teasing me, Maman.’

  The girl had left the door of the kitchen open. A man’s voice said, ‘It is the broom of a White Lady.’ And Aimee thought her heart had stopped.

  21 March 1918: East of Peronne, Northern France

  Marius Furst had walked eight weary kilometres before he came across a canteen at the side of the road. It was well away from the smoke-fogged street of houses. The ruined buildings had broken windows and cracking walls. They trembled with the roar of the guns. The boy joined a line of soldiers grumbling as they waited for the thin soup and black bread.

  ‘Oh I wish I was back in my bakery,’ a large man with a dust-covered face moaned. ‘My bread is the best in Uttfeld.’

  A skinny man beside him sneered. ‘That was in the days before the war. When we had real flour... not this acorn powder.’ He dipped the black crust in the soup and sucked on it.

  The fat baker poked the skinny man in the chest. ‘I could still get real flour... if I paid enough.’

  ‘Yes and then charged us poor folk enough.’

  ‘The baker’s hand grabbed the little man’s tunic and shook him. ‘It’s the farmers who grow the corn that make the money. Not me. It’s the millers who grind it in their mills that are getting rich. Not us poor bakers.’

  ‘I only said...’

  ‘Well don’t say anything, you worm.’

  A sergeant stepped forward and slapped the baker’s hand away from the little soldier. ‘Save your fighting talk for the British or I’ll have you charged. You’ll be peeling potatoes for a week.’

  Someone in the queue sniggered. ‘What’s a potato? I haven’t seen one of them in years.’

  The weary men laughed. ‘Don’t let Franz near any potatoes – he’d eat the lot, skins and all.’

  Marius watched in wonder. He never dreamed the soldiers could squabble like foxes fighting over a chicken bone.

  ‘If you’ve all finished your delicious soup, get back in the wagon,’ said the sergeant. ‘We’ll be in Peronne tomorrow if you fight your way there. The Brits are running so fast they’re leaving their supplies behind. By Saturday night you’ll be feasting like King Wilhelm.’

  The men gave a cheer and began to climb on the truck. ‘Feasting like the king... if we’re not shot first,’ the skinny soldier grouched. The cheering died in the throats of the
men.

  ‘Or if the flu doesn’t kill us,’ a pale man in a worn and faded uniform wailed. His eyes were rimmed with red and his skin was shiny as wax. He gave a ratcheting cough and the men on the seats shuffled away from him. They were all aboard, the driver turned a starting handle and the engine gave an answering cough.

  The sergeant looked back at Marius standing by the canteen. ‘Come on, lad. Get aboard.’

  ‘He’s not one of ours, Sergeant,’ someone said.

  ‘Where are you headed?’ the sergeant asked.

  Marius glanced at the map he’d torn from a school atlas. ‘A hospital... near Peronne.’

  ‘Jump up, then.’

  Marius was pulled up on to the crowded lorry as it popped and wheezed, rolled and groaned along the rutted road. The soldier in the faded uniform wheezed like the lorry. ‘Hospital worker, eh? Can you cure the flu?’

  Marius frowned. He knew his grandmother had a potion for fevers. ‘I have a cure. Yes,’ he said.

  The men in the back of the lorry laughed. ‘Then you’re not a doctor – they don’t have a cure, son. You are a magician. A miracle worker.’

  The boy smiled shyly. The coughing soldier leaned towards him and his breath stank and stung Marius’s nose like dragon smoke. ‘Have you got something for me, lad?’

  Marius reached into his backpack and pulled out a small brown glass bottle. He handed it over and said, ‘A little sip...’

  But the soldier had pulled out the cork and sucked on the bottle greedily. ‘That’s all I had,’ Marius whispered.

  The lorry trundled on and the men began to sing softly. A gloom-filled song of a soldier’s girl who’d died of a fever.

  ‘A long black coat, I must now wear.

  A sorrow great, is what I bear.

  A sorrow great and so much more,

  My grief will last for evermore.’

  As the sun sank in the west, and the amber sky turned to old bronze, the men fell silent and began to doze. Marius fell into a deep sleep, exhausted.

  21 March 1918: Bray

  Captain Ellis stood at the kitchen door of Mrs Fletcher’s farmhouse and grinned at Aimee. ‘Did I startle you? I’m sorry.’

  The soldier took off his cap and strode across the room, holding out his hand to Mrs Fletcher. ‘Colette Fletcher? I am Captain Ellis.’

  Aimee’s mother smiled warmly. ‘We’ve spoken on the radio. It’s good to meet you.’ She turned to her daughter. ‘Captain Ellis is a spy chief in the British army. He’s my contact there.’ She turned back to the soldier. ‘Sit down. Have a glass of wine. I was just telling Aimee about the broomsticks.’

  ‘Sounded like a fairy tale to me,’ the girl grumbled, still annoyed because she felt she was being teased.

  Captain Ellis sat down at the table as Colette Fletcher served him red wine in a stone flagon. ‘The broom handles are hollow,’ he explained. ‘Our White Lady spies put beans inside the hollow handle to send us a message in code. Runner beans are the number of German soldiers in the area... three runner beans means there are three thousand men in Bray, for example. Haricot beans are the number of heavy guns the enemy have to attack us with, and so on.’

  Aimee nodded. ‘So then you know how many British soldiers and guns you need to fight against them?’

  ‘Exactly. When the Germans get to Bray your mother will send messages to General Bruce in Amiens using the brooms and beans code.’

  Aimee was shocked. ‘When the Germans get to Bray? You mean if?’

  Captain Ellis leaned forward and lowered his voice. ‘Your mother knows this – so it’s not a great secret – but the enemy are attacking in great numbers and at great speed. It is best if we back off.’

  ‘Run away?’ the girl cried. ‘Leave them to capture Bray?’

  The soldier stayed calm. ‘They are moving so fast they will leave their supplies far behind. By the end of the week they will have to stop and wait for food and bullets and hospitals to catch up. Especially the hospitals. We will pull our army back to Amiens. Then, when they are exhausted, we’ll strike. We’ll drive them all the way back to Germany.’

  Aimee frowned. ‘What do you mean, especially the hospitals?’

  Captain Ellis gave a small smile. ‘You’re a bright girl, Aimee. What I mean is we have reports coming in from our White Lady spies to the east. The enemy hospitals are filling up... and so are their burial grounds.’

  ‘Because you are shooting so many?’

  ‘No. Because there is disease spreading through the German army. They are falling sick in their thousands with influenza – or flu.’

  ‘Master DuPont, our teacher, had that last Christmas. He was off for three days and I had to teach the little ones,’ Aimee said with a shrug. ‘Then I was sick for a week.’

  ‘Then you are lucky. This is a new type of flu. It is deadly, but if you’ve had it – and then got better – you won’t catch it again.’

  ‘But it’s killing the Germans?’

  ‘When their soldiers are crammed into the motor-lorries that carry them forward they are spreading it. A few recover. Many are dead in three days. By the time the enemy reach Amiens they will be starving, they’ll have empty rifles and full hospital tents.’ He drank the red wine and rose to his feet. ‘Now I must get back to the school. General Bruce will arrive tomorrow morning and I want you, Colette, to be there.’

  ‘I can’t spy on the Germans from Aimee’s school,’ the woman laughed.

  Captain Ellis put his hat back on his head. ‘No but you can help me spy on the British. The Germans have spies too. And one of them is in our general’s office, passing our secrets to the enemy. I want you to help me trap him.’

  ‘How?’ Colette Fletcher asked.

  ‘Act as a cleaner for the old school. Then you can go everywhere. The spy is too careful to let me see him at work. But he won’t pay any attention to a cleaner.’

  ‘Or a girl,’ Aimee said. ‘I’m coming too, Maman. I’m going to be a White Lady like you. Intus est hostis,’ she said.

  ‘The enemy is within the gates.’ Captain Ellis nodded. ‘He is indeed. You are welcome to join us in the hunt for him.’

  And that was how Aimee set off on the search for the most dangerous man in France.

  22 March 1918: East of Peronne

  Marius woke from a restless sleep with dreams of finding his wounded father on a battlefield, pouring the potion into his mouth and seeing him rise up as strong as ever. He shook his head. He knew it was just a dream and he remembered a poem from his school days...

  ‘That no life lives for ever;

  That dead men rise up never.’

  He remembered where he was and looked up into the face of the fat baker who was grinning down at him. ‘Well done, lad, well done.’

  ‘Sorry? What?’ he muttered as he rubbed at his tired eyes.

  ‘Your magic drink. Look what it did for the little shoemaker.’

  The skinny man who had seemed so sick the night before was looking as pale and grey as ever, but his eyes were clearer and his breathing was now easy. ‘I thought I was finished,’ he said. ‘I was sure I’d wake up dead.’

  The lorry had stopped at a camp of tents in a field that led down to the River Somme. There was bustle and the noise of lorries with groaning springs and coughing engines, the smell of petrol and horse sweat and the toilet trenches.

  ‘Come on, lad, they need you over there,’ the baker said. Marius clutched his backpack and let the large man lead him over to a long tent bearing a white circle with a red cross inside. The smell of blood hung heavy. ‘Who’s in charge?’ the baker cried. A worried-looking man in a red-stained white coat glanced up from where he was kneeling beside a croaking soldier.

  ‘What do you want?’ he snapped. He pushed his spectacles back on his nose. His brown hair fell over his face, too long and neglected.

  ‘This lad wants to join the hospital service, doctor. He has the most marvellous cure for the flu.’

  The doctor snorted. ‘We
need nurses not miracle-workers. Here, lad, take your pack off, put a white coat on and help me with this new lot of wounded. Mostly shell and shot wounds from the battle for Peronne.’

  The baker shrugged and walked back to the lorry waving. ‘Good luck, lad.’

  Marius found himself spending the rest of the day cutting off boots and uniforms so the doctors could see the wounds then changing the bandages that had been roughly tied on in battle. He pressed down on spouting wounds while the doctors sewed them shut and he helped when there were shattered arms and legs to be removed. There were lice to be dodged, which was tricky as some men were swarming with them.

  And still lorries arrived with new batches of sick and dying. Some of the wounded stayed cheerful. ‘We’ll be in Peronne tomorrow,’ a limping soldier told the tent and there was a weak cheer from those who had the strength left.

  ‘We’ll be in Amiens a week from now,’ he went on.

  Someone laughed and shouted, ‘Not with these wounds, my friend. The war’s over for me.’

  ‘Where will I be on Tuesday?’ the sour-faced doctor asked. ‘It’s my birthday. Will I get to spend it in Paris with the best French wines?’

  The limping soldier seemed to take the question seriously. ‘Paris in June, I’d say. But next Tuesday? Ah, next Tuesday I’d guess we’ll be nice and comfy a dozen kilometres down the Somme... probably that nice little village by the river. We took it four years ago.’

  ‘What’s it called?’ Marius asked, looking at the tattered map he pulled from his pocket.

  ‘Bray, I think it’s called,’ the soldier told him. ‘Bray-on-Somme.’

  22 March 1918: Bray

  As Aimee and her mother walked down to the school they struggled to get through the traffic. The sleepy village of Bray had become a whirlpool of war.