Chapter 14 #2
Gerrit palmed the wedge of cheese in his greatcoat pocket and extended his hand to the Ukrainian. “Thank you for helping those men.”
Marchenko accepted the handshake and slid the cheese into his tunic pocket. “I can’t help them all.”
“Neither can I. But I’m concerned about you.”
Marchenko raised his unscarred eyebrow. “I know which guards listen to reason and which don’t. I fight only the battles I can win. This battle was worth fighting. Like Stalingrad.” His eyes gleamed.
“Soon to be liberated,” Gerrit said in a low voice. The Soviets had surrounded the German-occupied city, each day tightening their stranglehold.
“Someday we shall all be liberated.” Marchenko turned to the lorry.
Back at the bunker, Bernardus saluted Schmeling. “Thank you, Herr Oberbauführer. Van der Zee and I are due soon at Rozel.”
“Yes.” Gerrit saluted Schmeling as well. “I need to finish my periodic progress sheet.”
“Very good.” Schmeling rolled up the tunnel plans. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Gerrit and Bernardus mounted their bicycles. Petrol was in short supply, even for the occupying forces, and Gerrit preferred to cycle anyway, especially on a brisk winter day.
The road wound along wooded slopes surrounding the bay. Gerrit did indeed need to finish his progress sheet at Rozel, but first they had a more cryptic appointment.
After church the day before, Charlie Picot had mentioned his favorite ramble through St. Catherine’s Wood and suggested Gerrit and Bernardus might enjoy it. Then he’d leaned closer and whispered, “Tomorrow. Three o’clock.”
With a little creativity, Gerrit and Bernardus had fit it into their workday.
Following Charlie’s directions, they turned right at a crossroads, heading inland.
What did Charlie want to discuss? After Gerrit’s lemony maps had been delivered, a few weeks of silence had followed.
Then Marie, the young girl who had greeted Charlie at the docks, told Charlie they should not use lemon juice because it wasn’t secure.
Yet plain ink was even less secure. Once again, their plans had come to naught.
The road turned to a muddy path, and the men dismounted and pushed their bicycles deeper into woods of moss-covered oak and ash trees, their bare branches dripping from the recent rains.
About half a kilometer into the woods, Charlie Picot leaned back against a tree. He grinned at the men. “We’re in business.”
“Pardon?” Bernardus said.
Charlie beckoned them closer. “On Friday, Marie introduced me to a British agent.”
Gerrit’s bicycle slipped from his hands and clattered to the ground. “A British—”
“He liked your map, Gerrit. He wants more, and he provided a way.” Charlie pulled a pen from his pocket.
“The end screws off and forms a measuring cap. Inside are crystals to make secret ink. Dilute one capful in one ounce of water. You must use this particular pen nib, he said, with a light touch, and hold it at the smallest angle you can.”
“My goodness,” Bernardus murmured. “The tool of an actual spy.”
An ordinary-looking pen lay in Gerrit’s hand, with a turned-up brass nib. His fingers pulsed, not claiming the pen. Not rejecting it.
“We mustn’t use paper anymore.” Charlie squatted beside a duffel bag and unbuckled it. “We’re to use silk.”
“Silk?” The shops were stripped bare of wool and cotton, much less silk.
“This should last a while.” From the duffel bag, Charlie pulled a large bundle of white.
“Is that a parachute?” Bernardus said.
Charlie tipped up a grin. “I believe it’s how our British friend arrived in France.”
“Charlie!” Gerrit’s fingers clenched around the pen. “Do you know what would happen if the Germans found you with an English parachute?”
Bernardus grabbed the parachute and stuffed it back in the bag. “They’ll think you found a downed RAF pilot and didn’t report it. The penalty—”
“Is death,” Charlie said. “That’s why I have a cover story. I bought it in France from a man I don’t know in exchange for some of my father’s tobacco. I’m bringing it to my sisters so they can make . . . girl clothes.”
Underthings, he meant, but the boy’s innocence didn’t amuse as usual. Instead, a shudder ran up Gerrit’s arms.
Bernardus sat back on his haunches and looked up into the bare tree branches with a thoughtful look. “Yes, and when you travel to France, you can say something similar, but you bought it in Jersey and are bringing it to your girlfriend in Saint-Malo. You’re young enough. They’ll believe you.”
“And if they don’t?” Gerrit brandished the spy pen. “If this ink is visible in any way—”
“They want your maps.” Charlie shot up to his feet. “Need them. It’s no more dangerous than carrying them in my shoes.”
“I don’t like it.”
Bernardus gave Gerrit a little smirk, but with a fond look. “You don’t like anything.”
Gerrit huffed, but he lowered the pen.
“I need to do this,” Charlie said in a low, hard voice. “Everyone thinks the Picots are collaborators. Let me prove I’m not like Fern—at least to myself.”
Gerrit and Bernardus exchanged a confused look. “Like Fern?” Bernardus asked.
“Haven’t you heard?” Charlie knelt to the earth again and buckled the duffel. “She’s working as a secretary at the Field Commander’s headquarters at College House.”
The German civil administration? “Why would she do such a thing?”
“Money, she says.” Charlie shrugged, his head lowered to his task. “Pride, I say.”
Gerrit’s mouth drooped open. If Ivy was appalled to see Gerrit in her dining room . . .
“She says she’s trying to save the medical practice, but she’s ruining it. Dozens of patients have left.” Charlie stretched up to standing, now nearing Bernardus’s height, and his gaze firmed. “Let me do this. Let me fight for the Allies in the only way I can.”
“And the only way we can,” Bernardus said.
Gerrit’s left hand opened, then flexed around the spy pen. Every day, he built German defenses. The least he could do, the best he could do, was to tell the Allies every detail of those defenses.
Dappled light shimmered through the leaves and onto the brass nib. Mightier than the sword? No, but he could fight with it.