An Unlikely Spy Read online

  ‘Blitz.’

  ‘A lightning attack, and there may be gas bombs mixed in with the explosive ones. So always carry your gas mask. Another example of how we can each do our bit. If you don’t, then the wardens may arrest you. What must you always carry with you, Billy Anderson?’

  ‘A handkerchief, my mum says, so I don’t have to wipe my nose on my sleeve.’

  Mr Cutter’s good eye looked up at the ceiling in despair. ‘Carry on, Miss Dennison. Show them how to put on their gas masks.’

  Chapter Three

  ‘A German has booby-trapped my mask’

  The Class 4 teacher waddled on to the stage and used a ruler to point to a poster pinned up on the wall. The pupils had seen it all over the city and knew the words on it by heart, but the teacher read them out anyway. She took her own gas mask out of its case and showed the pupils what to do.

  ‘Firstly, you must hold your breath.’ Her cheeks turned into red balloons, but she had to let out her breath to give the next part of the instructions. ‘Hold the mask in front of your face with your thumbs inside the straps… like this.’

  Gladys Turnbull’s mouth fell open and her gaze fell on the pepper pot poking out of her school bag.

  ‘Thrust the chin well forward into the mask… like this… and…’

  There was silence. Then a scream muffled by the rubber mask. Miss Dennison ripped the mask off her face and choked and spat and sneezed and rubbed at her red-raw eyes. ‘Gassed,’ she managed to hiss. ‘I’ve been gassed. I’m blind. Oh, help, Mr Cutter. A German has booby-trapped my mask,’ she sobbed.

  Mr Cutter put an arm round the teacher’s shoulders and led her away to the staffroom. Mr English, the seniors’ teacher, stepped forward. ‘Put your gas masks away and listen carefully. After assembly, you will all be going home. As you leave, the school secretary will hand you a letter. It is a letter for your parents. It will instruct them on Operation Pied Piper. Now, who knows the story of the Pied Piper?’

  A pigtailed girl from Class 3 shot her hand into the air. ‘Please, sir, it was a story about a wicked piper who got rid of all the rats in the city. But the city refused to pay him, so he came back and took all the children into the mountains.’ Her face twisted into one of horror. ‘And he shut them in a cave and they suffocated and died and nobody ever saw them alive again. Or even dead.’

  Mr English looked as though he wished he hadn’t asked. ‘The Pied Piper led all the children to a safe place in the country. And our Operation Pied Piper will lead all of you to a safe place. A lovely new home in the country, far from the bombs.’

  The children believed the girl from Class 3. They didn’t believe the teacher. ‘Go straight home to pack,’ he snapped. ‘School is now closed. Tomorrow you will be evacuated. Don’t forget your letters. And don’t open them before you get home. Or Mr Cutter will cane you.’

  ‘Please, sir, how can he cane us if we’re excavated to the country?’ Jessie Burdess asked.

  ‘Maybe he has a very long cane,’ Billy Anderson sniggered.

  Mr English glared at the boy. ‘Many of the teachers will travel with you and some will stay to teach you in your new schools.’

  A groan ran around the hall. ‘I thought we were going to escape,’ Gladys Turnbull muttered. ‘It’ll be as bad as this dump, but with sheep and cows.’

  ‘Stand,’ Mr English ordered. The pupils climbed stiffly to their feet and shuffled into lines.

  Gladys slipped the pepper pot into Billy Anderson’s jacket pocket as they joined the queue to leave the school hall. She glared at Brigit Furst. ‘Poor Miss Dennison was right. It was a German that poisoned her mask. And we’re going to get our revenge for that, aren’t we, Jessie?’

  Jessie blinked like a mole in sunlight. ‘Not me. I’m going to be excavated.’

  Brigit walked behind Gladys and Jessie. ‘I’m going to open the letter. See what it says.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ Jessie gasped.

  ‘Jess, this is about what’s going to happen to us,’ said Brigit. ‘We need to know.’

  Gladys glared at her but Brigit smiled, tore open the flap on her letter and handed it to Jessie to read. ‘There’s the train times for tomorrow, then there’s two lists of clothes… vests and knickers, socks, blouse and cardigan. It says they’re the things you must send with your evacuee. Then there’s another list of things you might like to pack in your child’s suitcase – overcoat and wellies, comb and toothbrush, boots and gym shoes… and packets of food.’

  ‘Pah,’ Gladys snorted. ‘Why don’t they just have one list?’

  ‘Because not everyone in our class has wellies and an overcoat, boots and a toothbrush.’ Brigit spoke quietly. ‘Billy Anderson hasn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ Jessie asked and swallowed tears.

  ‘His mother can’t afford much,’ Brigit explained.

  Gladys turned on her furiously. ‘That’s right. Billy’s dad was gassed in the last war. It took him a dozen years to die but the gas finally did for him soon after Billy was born. The gas your dad poisoned him with,’ she raged at Brigit, delighted to have something new to goad her with. She tugged at Jessie’s sleeve. ‘Come on, Jess. I told you we’re going to get her, and we are.’

  Jessie Burdess was dragged down the road and into the black-brick rows of crumbling old houses. Half the gas lamps had been broken but no one walked those streets after dark anyway.

  Brigit frowned. She wondered what Gladys’s plot was. It didn’t take her long to find out.

  Chapter Four

  ‘It’s full of sheep isn’t it?’

  The milkman, Adam Bell, had finished his morning round and his horse was plodding over the cobbled street, the milk bottles rattling in their crates. ‘Good day, Mr Bell,’ Brigit called, but the sour-faced old man just glared at her, spat into the gutter, then rattled the reins to make the old horse hurry past. Brigit shrugged. Someone else who hated her for being half-German.

  She let herself into her home, expecting it to be empty, and was surprised to hear a radio blaring out news of the war and the dangers the country faced. ‘Maman?’ she called.

  ‘In the kitchen,’ Aimee Furst called back. Brigit hung her school coat on the stand in the hall and looked back at the front door. It was solid oak and painted blue. It would have made the hallway dark but above the door was a window that let in some light. The window was of stained-glass panels that made a picture of a sunrise over gentle green and very English hills. The scarlet and lemon of the sun’s rays in the pale blue skies over emerald fields always made Brigit feel warm and safe.

  She hurried towards the kitchen where a second surprise was waiting for her. Her father, Marius, sat there with a cup of tea in front of him.

  ‘Dad? Why aren’t you at the factory?’ she asked.

  Marius shrugged. ‘They sent me home,’ he said slowly, staring into his saucer. ‘Castle Bromwich will start to make Spitfire aeroplanes soon. It will be a top-secret place. They don’t want a German working there… not even as a doctor doing their first aid.’

  ‘Tea?’ Aimee asked her daughter and started pouring a cup before Brigit could nod. ‘Sorry, no milk,’ she said. ‘Mr Bell must have forgotten us.’

  Brigit nodded, but even her fierce spirit was suddenly slipping under the tide of hatred that was washing around the family.

  ‘I suppose your school sent you home too, Maman? The same as us?’

  Aimee Furst was a teacher. ‘Yes, the children were sent home to prepare for evacuation. You all leave tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Me too?’ Brigit said, pretending to be surprised. ‘But I’ll be as safe here as anywhere in the country if the Ger— if the enemy starts to bomb us.’

  ‘No,’ Marius said quietly. ‘The Spitfire factory will be a target. When the bombers miss the factory, they could hit anywhere in our town. They won’t be aiming for some village in Wales.’

  ‘Wales? Is that where you want me to go?’ Brigit said. ‘It’s full of sheep isn’t it?’

>   Aimee nodded. ‘The enemy won’t waste bombs on farms. Even in the last war my parents’ farm in France, in the middle of the war zone, was spared because both sides needed the food we produced.’

  Brigit opened her mouth to argue but was stopped. What happened next was so swift and unexpected she remembered it for the rest of her life. First came the faint sounds of children in the street, stamping and jeering.

  Then a sudden silence.

  The family rose from the table to find out what was happening.

  Before they reached the kitchen door they heard the sound of shattering glass and a heavy thump on the rug in the hall.

  Brigit was first to the door and pulled it open. September air blew through the place where the window over the front door had been. The stained glass lay on the rug like spilled jewels from a treasure chest… amethyst and ruby, emerald and amber. In the middle of the glittering ruins of the window sat an ugly half-brick. Wrapped around it was a piece of paper tied with brown string.

  Marius Furst strode past his daughter, crunched over the broken glass and pulled open the front door. When Brigit joined him, she looked out to see a dozen children in school uniform racing round the corner of their street. Only one boy stood there, rooted as a hedge, with his mouth hanging open.

  ‘Did you do this?’ Marius asked.

  The boy nodded dumbly.

  ‘Billy,’ Brigit said to her classmate. ‘Why?’

  He licked his pale lips and found his voice. ‘Because Gladys Turnbull told me to,’ he croaked.

  Marius glared at him. ‘Stay there. I am calling the police.’

  But Billy found his legs as well as his tongue and turned to race after the others. Marius walked to the telephone on the hall table and dialled zero. ‘Hello? Operator? Can you put me through to the Castle Bromwich police house, please? Yes… it is urgent.’

  While he waited, Aimee picked up the brick and unfastened the string. She opened the paper. ‘Jerman natzis,’ Brigit read. ‘Terrible spelling. Must be Gladys.’

  ‘Hello? Police?’ her father was saying. ‘A mob of kids has just thrown a brick through the window above our door. Yes, we know who it was… at least my daughter knows them from school. My name? Marius Furst,’ he went on, and gave the address.

  He turned to his wife and daughter and said, ‘They are sending a constable.’

  Her father hadn’t closed the front door, so Brigit was able to see when a black Wolseley Wasp pulled up outside. The sign above the car’s windscreen said ‘Police’. Two men in navy suits and black homburg hats stepped out and came through the front gate.

  ‘They don’t look like constables to me,’ said Brigit.

  ‘They were amazingly fast,’ Aimee said, nervous and uncertain. ‘Are you from Castle Bromwich police house?’ she asked the men.

  The older man, who was so broad the buttons on his waistcoat seemed as if they would burst, looked past her to her husband. ‘Mr Furst?’ he asked. ‘Mr Marius Furst?’

  ‘I am Doctor Furst,’ Marius said, walking carefully over the broken glass towards the door. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald,’ the man said. ‘I have some important business to carry out, and then my friend here can tell you what he wants.’

  The sergeant reached into his pocket, took out a pair of handcuffs, and pulled Marius towards him to fasten them on his wrists. He spoke in a husky voice as if he were reading from a rulebook. ‘Mr Furst… I am arresting you.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘Don’t go hiding no guns or bombs in there’

  Marius stood calmly and raised his chin a little. ‘It is Doctor Furst, if you please.’

  ‘Mister Furst, you have been identified as an alien. It is my duty to take you into custody for relocation to an internment camp for the duration of the war.’

  ‘Marius hates the Nazis. That’s why he left Germany years ago,’ Aimee objected fiercely. ‘He’s a doctor in the Castle Bromwich aeroplane factory. He’s helped dozens of workers setting up the Spitfire production line. It’s your friends who will suffer if you lock him away.’

  The policeman sniffed. ‘Working in the Castle Bromwich aeroplane factory will give him the perfect chance to spy on the work that’s going on there. He can report back to his mates in Germany and guide them to the factory.’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ Aimee exploded.

  ‘Stupid, am I?’ The sergeant’s eyes went narrow. ‘Mrs Furst… you are French, aren’t you?’ Before she could answer he went on in a low voice. ‘It’s just as well the French are on our side or we’d have you in the internment camp with Mister Furst here. I’ll wait while you pack him a case. But I warn you, the case will be searched before it is handed to him so don’t go hiding no guns or bombs in there. Just spare clothes and a toothbrush. Oh, and don’t forget the gas mask. It will be such a shame if his German friends drop gas bombs and traitors like Mister Furst choke to death.’

  Aimee turned on her heel and hurried inside the house. ‘How long will you keep him?’ Brigit asked.

  ‘Weren’t you listening?’ the policeman barked. ‘For. The. Duration. Of. The. War. Do you know what that means, little girl?’

  Brigit shrugged. ‘Yes, I do know what it means. Would you like me to explain it to you? It means: For. As. Long. As. The. War. Lasts.’

  The sergeant’s eyes bulged as dangerously as his waistcoat buttons. ‘You’re half-German, little girl. If I had my way we’d be locking you up with your father.’

  Brigit clapped her hands in front of her nose in a mock-childish glee. ‘Ooooh, would you, big man? I’d like that.’

  The sergeant took a deep breath. He looked at the front door and gave a thin smile. ‘I see someone has already told you what they think of your type.’

  ‘The constable is on his way,’ Brigit said.

  ‘No, he isn’t. A war started today. The police have hundreds of important things to do – arresting spies like this for a start.’

  Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald gave a savage tug on her father’s handcuffs and led him to the car. He opened the back door and bundled Marius roughly inside. He turned back to Brigit. ‘No one is going to investigate a broken window, little girl. No one.’

  ‘A bit like Mr Hitler’s Germany, then,’ Brigit said with a loud sigh. ‘The Germans turned on the Jews and smashed all their shop windows. They called it Kristallnacht – the Night of Broken Glass.’

  ‘So?’ the policeman hissed.

  ‘So, the Nazi police stood by and watched the windows being smashed and didn’t lift a finger to help. If we are at war with Mr Hitler’s Nazis, why are you behaving like one? Will you be happy if they win and march into Britain? I’m sure they’ll love to find people like you in the police.’

  Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald raised a huge hand to slap Brigit, but the younger man stepped forward and grabbed the sergeant’s wrist. The policeman breathed heavily for a few moments then shook off the hand that held his wrist. A look of fear, or respect, crossed his wide face. He lowered his hand and then his head. He glared angrily at the path.

  At that moment Aimee appeared on the doorstep with a small brown cardboard suitcase and a gas-mask box. ‘Don’t I get to say goodbye to my husband?’ she asked.

  The sergeant snarled. ‘They may let you visit him if you’re lucky.’

  ‘Not if you send him to a camp in Scotland or somewhere hundreds of miles away.’

  The sergeant spread his hands. ‘In this case you’re in luck, my Frog friend. The camp has been set up on the golf course.’

  ‘Which golf course?’ Brigit asked.

  The sergeant gave a brown-toothed grin. ‘Hodgehill. A mile down the road.’ He leaned towards Brigit and whispered, ‘Your mum will be able to visit you both when I get a warrant to lock you away with your dad, eh?’

  The other man had patiently stood silent while all this was going on. He didn’t move towards the car when Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine.<
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  Brigit looked at her stony-faced mother. ‘What shall we do, Maman?’

  ‘We can start by sweeping up the glass and filling the gap with cardboard to keep the draught out.’ She turned and began to walk back inside.

  ‘Mrs Furst?’ The younger man spoke for the first time. ‘Aimee?’ He raised his hat to show a kindly face and dark hair that was starting to go grey at the sides. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  Aimee Furst’s eyes widened. She swayed as if her knees were going to give way and clutched at the frame of the door.

  ‘It can’t be,’ she murmured, and tears sprang to her eyes.

  Chapter Six

  ‘You know Mr Churchill?’

  ‘Come in, Captain Ellis,’ Aimee Furst said. The man smiled at Brigit and followed them into the house.

  He frowned when he saw the broken glass in the hallway. ‘Can I help you clear this up?’ he offered.

  Aimee shook her head. ‘Don’t worry about that now,’ she said as she pointed to a chair at the kitchen table. ‘Can I make you some tea, Captain?’

  ‘Yes please… and it’s Major Ellis now.’

  Aimee smiled. ‘I thought you would be a general at least.’

  The man laughed. ‘In the secret service we don’t go around flashing gold buttons and badges.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be secret then, would you?’ Brigit said.

  ‘Good afternoon,’ Major Ellis said, turning to her. ‘You must be Brigit. I’ve heard a lot about you. Your mother was a wildcat when she was your age. I’ve learned from your school you’re just as bad.’

  ‘Just as good,’ Brigit corrected him. ‘But how do you know what my mother was like at my age? That must have been during the last war.’

  ‘It was,’ Aimee said. ‘I was a schoolgirl in Bray-on-Somme in France. The British had a spy in their army and I helped prove he was a traitor.’

  Brigit’s eyes sparkled. ‘Was that when you helped Dad get back to Germany? You told me about that. But not the bit about the spy.’