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Thorn Bushes have Roses
based on Capt. W. E. Johns’ Biggles series
She was born in the ancient castle of her father’s family, in the Bohemian province of the Empire. When she was a very little girl, innocent of the world, her parents went off each year to their town house in Prague, leaving her behind with her nurse. She thought then that she would live in Schonschloss forever. When she was only a little older, it was explained that the barony would be inherited by a cousin, who was a man; and the castle would be his. Perhaps as recompense, that year she was deemed old enough to go to Prague with them. She visited the cathedral and prayed. Three years later, they took her with them to Vienna, though she was, of course, far too young to go to court; while there, they hired a governess, Mlle. Charpentier, who taught music and painting and French, and English also. When she was thirteen, though, they visited Berlin, where her mother had been born. In preparation, she proudly practiced greeting her grandmother in her own tongue. Shortly thereafter she was told she would be sent far off to school in England so that she might learn to speak the language properly, with a good accent.
She returned to Bohemia three years later. There had been little brothers and sisters who died; but this time it was her mother she lost. Shortly after the funeral, her father sent her to Berlin; and thereafter she lived in her grandparents’ house. She had a dancing master and perfected her embroidery; heard about the Wandervögel (and greatly envied the freedom of boys); and learned far too much about the state of the world as her grandfather argued with his friends after dinner. “Men’s business,” her grandmother said reprovingly; but the conclusion that she drew was that, boring though much of it might be, it was obviously important—and important matters should be girls’ business, too. A few years’ later there were balls and concerts where she met dashing young men (and not so dashing, but often much wealthier older men), some of whom courted her. “I saw you dance twice with the von Stalhein boy,” her grandmother said, with a raised brow. “He is rather handsome, of course, and dresses well. Just the type to take any girl’s eye.” His father had just returned from a posting abroad, somewhere in the Ottoman Empire. “You are still young to marry,” said her grandmother consideringly, “but not so young that your father—who will, of course, need to be consulted—might not approve a match … if it should be a good match.” No doubt it might have been, had she been interested; but so far no one touched her heart. “That is hardly necessary in marriage,” laughed her grandmother.
Sarajevo she had to look up in the big atlas. It was too small for the globes in the library … too small a place to start a war. Still, war was declared. The young gentlemen now wore uniforms and left to lead their troops. It would, her grandmother assured her, be over by Christmas. A letter came from Schonschloss saying that her father had gone to war as a general in the army of the Österreichisch-Ungarische Monarchie. She was very proud: her grandmother told her she was; so it must be so. She wanted to do her bit, too. It was not ladylike—she was told that often enough!—but she said that it was not right that the men went to war and she could do no more than wave them goodbye.
“Let me see what I can do,” said her grandfather indulgently. She had just poured him a glass of port from the decanter of Bohemian glass, and brought it to him so he need not rise from his armchair, disturbing his gouty foot. He took the glass and toasted her with an amused smile. “To our little Soldatin.” Grandfather, too, had been a general—many years ago, of course—so he knew who to speak to; and she found herself employed in the offices of Abteilung III b, the intelligence service of the German army, working for Oberst Nicolai, who was in charge. “Colonel” her grandmother said, still often thinking in English.
Her first duties consisted primarily of filing. She learned to type. “We need more agents,” she read in one letter, even as her fingers flashed on the keys. “Too many are being lost to arrest; and the information that is being obtained is unreliable.”
She volunteered, of course.
It was explained to her, not entirely gently, that this was impossible. “You do not know what you are suggesting,” said Colonel Nicolai bluntly. “The methods used by female spies are … may I say unsavory? I do not wish to have to speak more plainly. Your family connections alone make it impossible. What would your father say? Your grandfather, for that matter. I have my career to consider—no! more than that! I have this department to consider, and all the good work that we do for victory.”
She thought of writing to her father for permission. (Later, much later, she knew this for the utter naïveté of innocence.) Before she could do so, news came of his death. “In battle,” said her grandfather with dignity. Overhearing him later, she learned that Father had, in fact, been attacked—“strafed” was the word he used, which she had never heard before in this context—by a British aeroplane, whose pilot had spotted his staff car on the road well behind the lines where the general should have been safe, and flown along and back again, shooting down at the easy target.
This only hardened her resolve to play a more active role in the war. With a twinkle in his eye, her grandfather said, once again, that he would see what he could do; and, to her surprise, Colonel Nicolai finally agreed to train her. She was assigned a handler, who took her on long private walks where they could not be overheard and told her as much as he could of the arts and skills of a spy and saboteur. It was, she confided to her grandfather, thrilling to know that she would soon be sent somewhere—she knew not where—on the other side of the entrenched battle zone, to pit her wits against the enemy in their own territory.
It was in the park that she again crossed paths with Erich von Stalhein. She was surprised, for surely such a fit and heroic-looking young man would be at the front. He was, at least, in uniform—ah! on leave, she supposed—and talking with a companion. Later, she met him in the corridor as she headed into the Colonel’s office with a typed report for him to read and initial. He raised a brow upon seeing her there. She bridled; and he apologized. Feeling very daring, she accepted his invitation to Kaffee und Kuchen at his family home that Sunday. He walked her home; and she asked when his leave would be over. He hesitated.
“It’s hardly a State secret!” she laughed.
“Or is it?” he teased. “Well, you work at III b; you must have been cleared. Perhaps you even know—or do you? I don’t know what work you do, except that it’s in Colonel Nicolai’s own office. You may know me by my codename even!”
She looked at him, wide-eyed. “You are—” she exclaimed, before lowering her voice dramatically. “—one of our agents?” she finished in a low voice. “Where? How? Why?”
“Well, you know I can’t tell you much,” he replied sensibly. “But I went to school in England for a few years.”
“I also!” she said, thrilled to find they had that in common.
“I left when I was sixteen to attend military academy here in Germany,” he went on, “but then accompanied the family to my father’s recent posting. I did not waste my time there.” She nodded. “And now,” he finished, “it all proves providential.”
“I too am in training to be an agent,” she confided with pride. Yet, just before he left Berlin, Erich told her the truth: all was farce: it had pleased her grandfather to persuade them to let her play at training to be a spy; but no one, ever, intended to send her into danger.
It was many months later that Erich finally returned to Berlin. She heard this from her grandmother, who heard it from Baronin von Kleist, who had lunched with his mother some days earlier. He had been in hospital, recovering from wounds. “And still, poor lad, must hobble on one crutch with his other arm in a sling,” the account finished.
She paid a call, and found it so. He told her of his mission to Palestine, and the brilliant, subtle, cunning spy who had foiled all his plans. “I don’t even know his real identity,” Erich said, “though he used the name Brunow, Captain Leopold Brunow. I assume it was an alias, though it might be his real name, I suppose. I scarcely escaped with my life, as you can see.” At her concerned look, he assured her he was mending fast. “And how is your news?”
“No news,” she said bitterly. “Except the war reports, of course, and not much of that appears in the papers. Do you think this can go on forever? Or will both sides run out of young men to send to fight?”
That spring, though, as the leaves opened fresh and pale on the trees, it was her grandfather who was found late one afternoon by his valet, sleeping the final sleep in the armchair in the library when he should have been thinking of dressing for dinner. There was a decent funeral, of course; and Colonel Nicolai asked her gently if perhaps she felt the need for some leave from her job to grieve her loss. “What I need,” she told him briskly, “is my proper work to do, the work that I have been training for. I have a handler; presumably I have a codename. Yet I have never been sent into the field.”
He demurred; and she pointed out that, with the men of her family now dead, there was no influential personage to lay complaint. “I am German,” she said boldly, ignoring her Bohemian origin, “and have a duty to my country, just as much anyone.”
“I think perhaps he will,” she said to Erich later. His arm was better, though somewhat stiff; he struggled with a cane. He was still recovering; and they walked in the park together, slowly.
“It is not an easy life,” he warned her, “but thrilling. I will say that. You must be careful though. Remember: if you are caught, you will be shot.”
“I am not afraid,” she told him staunchly.
Well, she was, of course. Not of being shot, for she was sure of success; but of the bold venture into the unknown. He was right about the thrill, though: she was issued with false papers in a new name, an English name; she was drilled in a false past, and given quick training in her role; she was given codes and ciphers, and handled her first pigeon. Then she left for the Netherlands, crossing the border easily in her new identity, to reappear at No. 4 General Hospital in Camiers with forged orders to report for nursing service. “We need information on British casualties,” her handler told her. “How many, from which regiments; how soon they arrive from the clearing stations; any information you can get on troop movements.” For three months she passed on all she could learn to her contact in the town. She was curious what route her messages took after; but she never learned. “The less you know, the less you can tell should you be caught,” she was told.
That summer she received sudden orders to leave. Why, she was not told and never learned. The spring offensive, so promising at first, was failing fast with the arrival of American troops: perhaps it was that. She left quickly via Amsterdam, taking the train to report to her handler in Hanover.
She could not say that she had not been warned. Colonel Nicolai had hinted, perhaps too delicately, that female spies had their own particular skills. Her new handler was rather more blunt. Perhaps he didn’t know he spoke to ein edles deutsches Mädchen. Perhaps he didn’t care: she was, she realized, a tool to be used. An unhoned tool (which again, he might not know); but she didn’t care to have to try to find the words to tell him. And again, he might not care.
“You will be staying at a small country house,” she was told. “Not much of an estate; but the grounds are reputed to be quite pleasant. For simplicity’s sake, we have made the new papers out in your own name. It will pass for French reasonably well, as long as you are careful to pronounce it à la française. Here is your cover story,” and he gave her the details. “We want you to get close to a British officer, as senior as possible, preferably at least of the rank of Oberst—Colonel, that is to say. An American will do, if necessary; but do not try to seduce a Frenchman. Too much likelihood he’ll see through your story, not to mention suspect your accent. We need to know their plans, in particular if they intend a new offensive, where and when.”
“My contact?” she asked. But there was none. A couple of servants were paid to care for the property; and they would serve her needs while she was there. “They are nothing,” he said dismissively. “It is a safe house; you need not worry about that; but we have no true agent in the area. You have learned to handle the birds?” She nodded. “There will be one there for your use.”
This time she took a longer, southerly route, through Stuttgart to the Swiss border and then north via Dijon. The trains were abominably slow, though she had, at least, been given funds to pay for a sleeper. She hired a car to take her to the house, which was indeed quite pretty, with a charming little orchard. There were two servants, Antoine and his wife Emilie, taciturn and deferential, neither of them of a class to give her company. They did, however, keep a large tabby tom cat, quite furry, that sat comfortably on her knee by the fire in the evening. As for the pigeon, it lived in its own little cote behind the house. She fed it daily; and occasionally she unlatched the door to handle it so that it would become used to her. The cat found all this quite fascinating; and, after she carefully put the bird back and latched it safely in, she picked him up and carried him away, petting him extravagantly and bribing him with cream.
There was a pony and trap for hire in the village. So she drove into the closest town—hardly more than a village itself—and sat over café and what passed for a pastry, chatting with the proprietress. Eventually, she worked in sufficient “innocent” questions that she started to learn something about the Allied forces in the area. As for how could she meet the officers, which was what she truly wanted to know, she could not ask that outright. She talked around the subject. When they did get a day or two leave, she was told, they came to town to spend their pay in drinking and visiting the blue-light house and not, to the proprietress’s annoyance, in passing their time in the café. “Blue-light house?” she asked, wondering if she had heard right. She got a knowing wink but gave back only a blank query; and the plump kindly woman then said that a decent mademoiselle would of course not know of such places.
She was halfway back to the house when she finally realized what had been meant. She told herself firmly that she was a woman of the world. Of course, she had heard somewhat of brothels; she was not so naïve that she didn’t know that men, even apparently decent men, would frequent such places. It did, though, raise a very real problem for her mission. She could hardly hang around outside such a place trying to catch a man’s eye before he entered. Quite apart from anything else, she strongly suspected that the “madam” would object to her taking away their custom!
One afternoon several weeks later, by which time she had found considerable information that might be of general interest but nothing of secret plans, she was sitting out in the orchard when she heard the tinkle of a little bell. It meant nothing to her; and she ignored it. Then Antoine, the elderly caretaker, came rushing up as fast as he could. “It’s a message,” he said, with more excitement than she had ever seen from him before. “It must be.” She knew it could only have come from the local Intelligence headquarters at Château Boreau, over the line in German-held territory. “We have cared well for our own bird,” said Antoine as she hurried to the house, “but we never had a new one come before.”
She had only a little trouble catching it. Inside the capsule on its leg was a narrow scroll which, unrolled, told her in code that she must, if at all possible, locate and map the aerodrome where the scout squadron numbered 266 was currently housed, and then send the information back.
By now, she knew that Squadron 266 was stationed at nearby Maranique. That was common knowledge in town. Its precise current location was, however, a mystery to her. She would, she realized, have to stalk the area to find it, and then stay close hidden to map it; and that meant her lazy espionage would finally entail real work. Now she finally, truly understood what Erich had meant when he told her being a spy was thrilling!
It was the day after she finally located and sketched it, while she was indoors carefully transcribing the map onto thin paper in invisible ink, that the cat finally figured out the latch on the dovecote door. The gentle cooing turned to shrill screams; but she came running too late. Only one bird was dead; but it was the crucial bird trained to home on Château Boreau. The house had a telephone; but no phone lines cross No Man’s Land. She had the information they wanted in Berlin; but how could she send it?
Two days later, providence came calling.
His name was James Bigglesworth; and he was charming. So young, so sweet and tender, like the first shoots of spring. She offered him a glass and the use of her phone; and he thanked her politely. If it weren’t for the aeroplane, which she could see over the little wall at the far edge of the orchard, stranded in the farmer’s field beyond, she could have thought him almost a schoolboy. She knew him to be a killer like the man who had “strafed” her father; yet he was naïve as only a lad in love can be. “Are you English?” he asked; and she realized that, in response to his own speech, she had replied in kind. “My mother was English,” she explained (which was not quite true); and “I have been to school in England” (which was). He told her, smiling, that his friends called him Biggles; and she made sure to call him “Beegles”, feigning a touch of the French accent he would expect. (Certainly, he must hear no echo of German in her voice!)
Without ever quite saying she would love to meet him again (for that would be too forward for the innocent girl she was supposed to be), she nevertheless hoped she’d made it clear that he would be welcome. To her relief, he did indeed come the following day. Or evening, more accurately—after the final “show”, as he called it. And the next day, and the next. He was besotted. Yet always he remained the gentleman. This was so much better than trying to charm some officer looking for the “blue-light house”. Biggles was a man she could have taken home to Grandmother—well, if he had not been an Engländer and an enemy. (But Grandmother had been English herself once. She had to remember that. And the war could not last forever.)
She sighed. Her duty was clear. The information she had must be sent. What precisely would happen then, she didn’t know, not in detail. Yet she knew the gist. There would be a raid. The aerodrome would be bombed, destroyed; the English aviators would all be killed. Dear Biggles would be killed.
“Oh, my Biggles,” she said. And she wept.
She did her duty; and her heart broke. Then another pigeon came, telling her the time of the raid, warning her to stay clear, and informing her of her new orders: to return to Berlin for reassignment. She took up her pen, wrote a note, and hired the pony and trap for the trip to Maranique. Perhaps, if he received her message—her tempting, tempting message—he would skip his dinner that night and come for sweeter fare. Her virtue for his life was an easy bargain.
It didn’t quite work out like that.
When the war was over, she returned from her last assignment and found her grandmother, still in the house in Berlin, waiting to tell her off. She heard the strictures out in silence and gave some manner of apology, if only for worrying her. Neither of them spoke of the treaty, whose terms were still under negotiation. It was still impossible to believe that their mighty, wonderful Germany (and her allies, of course) could possibly actually have been defeated. The next months—indeed, the next couple of years—proved the truth. There was unrest throughout the country, even fighting in the streets. Nor were matters better after the Allies finally decided what they wanted. It was a hard winter, and the spring was no better. Food was desperately short, even for those who had money.
When all was officially settled, the Empire no longer existed: it had been split into various countries; and Bohemia was now a part of “Czechoslovakia”. There was no going home: the castle now belonged to the new baron, whom she had never met. She did write; and eventually the letter must have been delivered for a reply came, very formal and stilted, with condolences for her loss. She presumed that to mean the death of her father. It could hardly mean the loss of her family home. She was not sure Schonschloss even felt like home now. All this did mean, though, that her status in Germany was uncertain.
She mentioned it to Erich. Now walking with scarcely a limp, he had returned to active service for the last months of the war with a promotion. On which she congratulated him when they met for the first time after the ceasefire. “Only an acting Major,” he said ruefully. “And I don’t know what will happen to my career now. The treaty strictly limits our defence forces, and we will be allowed no intelligence department at all.” As for her legal problems, which she had prudently avoided bringing to the attention of anyone else, a few weeks later he brought her the most beautiful forgeries—at least, she assumed they were forgeries—representing her to be a naturalized citizen. “You did, after all, serve our country,” he pointed out. “It’s the least we can do. Or should do, at any rate.” What is more, the documents not only looked genuine but, to all intents and purposes were genuine, though unofficial. “Copies are deposited in all the proper files,” he assured her.
If he had asked her to marry him then, it would have been difficult to refuse. Her heart still lay in Maranique (though she was sure her love was no longer returned); but she had always had a fondness for Erich. He was a dear friend; and that was almost enough. Might once have been quite enough. Indeed, he came round to see her often; and her grandmother was almost certainly expecting him to propose. He was too tactful, though—too much the gentleman—to try to press an advantage based on gratitude. She valued that, and him all the more. Whether his reticence also lay in his own changed circumstances she did not know; but his family’s property had been in territory now ceded by treaty to Poland. His widowed mother journeyed to Berlin with a fair proportion of the family goods and a young daughter; and Erich had therefore to take on the responsibility of their support. If she were to marry him, she would be living with in-laws she had scarcely ever met: there was that to consider, too. Also, there was the marriage itself, and all that meant.
In the meantime, as she pondered her putative future, he acted towards her with the propriety of friendship. After her war experience, she appreciated it. She did indeed count him the best of friends, and richly enjoyed his companionship. It was months—and only later did she realize that, to him, those months were a subdued and civilized courtship—before he spoke to her. “With both your father and grandfather now deceased,” he said, “I am unsure upon whom I should call. Your grandmother, perhaps?” And she realized that a decision was upon her.
She tried to think of marrying him. So many young men, the flower of their country, had died in battle that there were millions of widows, bereaved sweethearts, and fresh young girls who would never find a man to love and cherish them. She should be grateful for the chance. Yet … yet … she loved her friend, but as a friend.
She tried to tell him this. “It is your Captain Bigglesworth,” he said, getting straight to the heart of the matter. Her heart, which was all that mattered. (He had not been in intelligence for nothing.)
She nodded. “I do not know if he is still alive,” she admitted, “and I’m sure that I am not alive to him. He probably thinks I died when the house was bombed. If they bothered to rake the ruins, they would at least have found two bodies; I dare say they took mine for granted to be there too. And, if he should know that I survived, I’m sure he wouldn’t care. I must be nothing more than a shameful memory to him. Still, he is not that to me. Yes, I know he was the enemy; but he was a good man, I’m sure of it. A sweet, a very charming, and a very decent young man.” She twisted her hands, embarrassed to say so much of her feelings, and to a man who must surely want nothing less than to hear a rival praised.
“I understand,” he said. With a faint, rueful smile, he added, “You know, my feelings for that canny bastard Brunow are not so far different. If I had caught him, instead of the other way round, I would have shot him as a spy—but that would, in no way, have lessened my regard for him as an honourable enemy. As a spy yourself, you will understand that. As a spy myself, I understand you.” He hesitated uncertainly and then said, very tentatively, “Perhaps in time? It is too soon.”
“Perhaps,” she allowed, and left it at that.
Her grandmother, when she told her, had her own opinions. Not about dear Biggles (she had more sense than to mention any of that to Grandmama) but about her refusal of Hauptmann von Stalhein’s proposal. “You won’t get a better,” she pointed out acidly. “These are going to be hard times, as if they aren’t already. You need to think about your future, my girl.”
That was true. If she were not to marry, even later rather than sooner should her memories of Biggles fade and she meet another man she loved, then what might she do instead? For some reason that she never could quite grasp, money seemed to have less value all the time. Her grandmother’s income stretched less and less. They had to let go first one of the servants, then another, though the old lady tried to live as she always had. Her grandmother’s maid, Greta, stayed loyal; she did most of the cooking, dusted and swept, and still dressed her lady and did her hair. The only request she made of them in return, besides room and board, was permission to marry. It fell to herself to persuade Grandmother that this was reasonable. She pointed out as well that, if all were to eat, they needed more than someone to set the table. One must also put food on it. She cast her mind back, and remembered Carriers. Though it had been enemy soldiers she had tended, the work itself had been rewarding whatever her true motive in being there. It was, she thought, a way to serve; and, as the men of her family had always served, so should she. “I shall train as a nurse,” she told her grandmother.
Over the next few years her life became very busy. She tried to keep contact with old friends: the girls she had known from before the war, the men she had met at Abteilung III b. Erich she saw too, now and then. Occasionally, he invited her to the theatre; but, for the most part, she did not accept. As a nurse, her morals had not only to be, but to be seen to be, above reproach. More often, he would invite her for a Kaffeeklatsch. They talked of the world, ever changing around them, and of politics in Germany, which never seemed to settle. He spoke little about his work. She knew he had been fortunate enough to retain his position in the new Reichswehr. As Germany no longer was supposed to have a military Intelligence force, whatever his duties were, they could not be that—unless, of course, it was that, in which case he had secrets to keep. After a while, she decided it would be politic not to show curiosity, and asked no longer.
She had her own mind about the election of 1933, but was curious how he read the issues. “I think the National Socialists should win,” he said. “They have a positive agenda that, if their Leader proves as competent in practice as he is persuasive in oratory, may restore our country to its rightful influence in the world. One can hardly object to expanding the military, after all—well, not if one always intended a career in the Army. As the daughter of a military family, I dare say you agree with that. And the Rheinland: that should be ours. Our industrial capacity depends on it.”
With much of this she could hardly disagree, though she had her doubts. “He does seen quite dogmatic on the subject of Jews,” she pointed out, “and we all know people of that religion who are quite unexceptionable, indeed in all walks of life.”
“Oh, that,” Erich said dismissively. “All parties have these minor quibbles; nothing ever comes of them.”
“Still,” she persisted, “did you not say, about your time in Palestine, you had a friend named Mayer. Was he Jewish? Of course,” she added quickly, “it’s a common enough name.”
“Obviously, he served our country,” said Erich stiffly. “None of this could affect him anyway.”
The election came; the people voted. The results had no significant effect on her own life, of course. For Erich, things were different, if only because the Army did, once again, have a proper intelligence department and he was tapped to join it. This meant that she saw him even less. He often left the country, that she did know. There were letters, over time quite a few. If she had been a philatelist, no doubt she would have rejoiced in the fine collection of stamps she might have made.
In 1935, he phoned her at work, which was not allowed, but she took the call anyway. When they met, he seemed strangely nervous and hardly met her eye, which was not like him. He proposed that they walk in the park. “We cannot be overheard,” he said as they went in through the gates and headed for a less travelled path. It reminded her irresistibly of the days of her training at Abteilung III b. She said as much. He gave her a curious look. “Odd you should mention that,” he said.
For a while, though, they simply walked. He commented on the flowers and the weather, which was disturbingly unlike him; but she waited. Eventually, she hoped, he would get to whatever point he was hoping to avoid.
“Do you still remember the war?” he asked. She looked at him incredulously: how could anyone of their generation forget the war? “I mean,” he said quickly, “do you remember that mission of yours, when you met that British airman.”
“Of course,” she said.
“What did you say his name was?”
“Biggles!” she replied. She was fairly sure he’d not really forgotten.
“But that was a nickname, was it not?”
“Bigglesworth,” she said. “I never forget, Erich. Captain James Bigglesworth.”
“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. His eyes drifted back to the flowerbeds.
“Erich,” she said firmly, “my lunch hour is nearly over, and I have to return to the hospital. If you have something you are trying to say, please find the words.” She stopped, and turned to face the route back to the park gates.
“I think I’ve met him.”
Her eyes flew to his.
“No, I’m sure I’ve met him,” he admitted. “There can’t possibly be two of them with such an odd name. I recognized him immediately I saw him.”
“You never met him!” she said indignantly. “And I’m reasonably sure I never described him that precisely. Or,” she rethought her response, “you mean you recognized the name.”
“No, I recognized him.” He gave her the weirdest look. “I met him in Palestine. He’s Brunow.”
She looked at him incredulously. “Your Brunow?” she exclaimed. “How?”
This amused him. “He is a very skilled agent,” he said simply. “Obviously. I said that to you, I’m sure I did. I saw it at the time; but I didn’t know the half of it.” He looked thoughtful. “Whether he deceived you as he did me, that I don’t know. He was certainly in the Royal Flying Corps, for he was known to be one of their Experten; and I do not think that was a ruse or a cover story, for he is a pilot still today. But he is also, still to this day, a British agent. And a damnably good one.”
She could read between the lines. “You mean he foiled you again.”
He nodded ruefully. “I had him in my grasp, and he got away.”
Her Biggles in his grasp? The man whom she had loved in the hands of the man who loved her? And by then he must have known the identity of his captive, that he was not only Brunow but Biggles. “Did you tell him?” she asked.
“About you?” He shook his head.
“Good.”
He was startled. “Good? I should have thought you would want him to know. If I had been certain that Brunow—that is to say, Bigglesworth—was indeed the ‘Biggles’ of whom you told me, then I dare say I might have told him.”
“I’m glad you did not,” she declared. “I may still have fond memories of those days, few as they were; but I strongly doubt that he has. You call him a skilled agent? He may have been, I can’t say; but he was not yet twenty. I think I was his first love; I know he was mine. I broke his heart, Erich. He probably thinks I died; and it’s better that he continue to think that. He, at least, has the chance to get on with his life.” She smiled, a thin and sorrowful smile. “He’s probably married now, to some cherished English rose, I dare say with children whom he adores.”
Erich hesitated. Finally, he said, “No, he’s not married. The Abwehr has quite a dossier on him. He is not particularly political; but he has got his name in the news more than once. And then, of course, there is the recent matter—the one that brought him back into my business—which meant that a more intensive investigation of his background and current occupation became a matter of urgency. He is definitely connected with British Intelligence … observed to meet with some of their senior officers, in fact. He has close associates. The files on that make interesting reading, if rather speculative. He is not, however, married.”
Which was interesting, even intriguing; but not in any way important. She simply nodded, and began to walk slowly back along the path. He joined her, looking concerned; but all she said was, “Thank you for telling me.”
Now and again, he came to her with yet more news of Biggles. “You’ll never guess,” he began. “Biggles again?” she would tease. “I had him under lock and key,” he’d exclaim. “But of course he got away,” she’d reply. If Erich had been another, different man, there might have been a shot in the back on a quiet, dark street, eliminating rival and foe in one stroke. The thought barely crossed her mind when she dismissed it. Erich was not that man. He was a gentleman and a soldier, a man of scrupulous honour. He always had been and he always would be. Of that she was sure.
“I wonder what he thinks of you,” she said once.
“Much the same as I do of him,” he replied.
“I swear, at times you seem to admire him … even love him.”
“As the hunter loves the king stag of the herd,” Erich said. “I honour him, and I respect him. Yes, I suppose that is a sort of love, in its way.”
Shortly after that, he confided that things were not quite all right in the Abwehr. “Not that I have anything to do with it,” he said. “Well above my pay grade. Jurisdictional conflicts, basically, with the Nazi security forces. I may be moving sideways, or some such.”
The next time she saw him, Erich was in the Gestapo. It disturbed her, mightily. There was a certain reputation … perhaps it was prudent to say no more than that. Not that she knew anyone who had ever been investigated, of course not; but one could never tell. There were rumours, let’s put it that way, about the Gestapo and those in whom they took an interest; and one could never tell what rumours about oneself might spread, and be heard by whose ears, and what might come of that. She said nothing to Erich—and feared to think that that, in itself, might be prudent. Perhaps he was no longer the Erich she had known and almost loved. He came to Grandmama’s funeral in uniform; and, as he entered the church, she felt the atmosphere chill. By the start of the war, therefore, she had largely lost touch; and it was not entirely because he had his duties, though she tried to tell herself so. Nevertheless, there were common courtesies that should not be forgotten. She congratulated his sister on her marriage and attended their mother’s funeral the following year.
At first war went well, and all rejoiced. Then the bombing began in earnest. Nothing prepared Berlin for the bombing it endured. When her family home was hit, by luck she was at work. Greta was dug alive from the rubble. (Her husband, of course, was at the Front.) They rescued what they could and moved into the basement kitchen, which was all that remained habitable.
No one wanted to believe the end was nigh. How could the Fatherland be defeated? She, who had lived through one Allied victory, dreaded another; yet the news became increasingly dire, at least if one read between the lines. Where Erich might be, she neither knew nor cared; Biggles might be pilot of one of those very aeroplanes that razed the city round their ears. The war moved ever closer; and the refugees from the east had too many stories which rumour magnified into Armageddon. In the end, all that was left was the hope that it would be the Americans and British who reached Berlin first and not the Soviets.
It was not to be.
For a while, then, there was a time of terror. Afterwards, she tried not to think of it, ever. Her nurse’s uniform proved no protection; the hospital no refuge; “Frau komm,” a curse on all womankind. After the worst few days, though, she went in to work daily to do what she could, in so far as there was anything that anyone could do with supplies so slight. Bombing victims were still injured, babies were still born. She still had a job to do.
The Allies chopped the city up between them; and the hospital proved to come under the governance of the Soviets. The years after the war were … what they were. There was a time of hunger, which did not surprise her (though starvation made its own work for the hospital), since she’d lived through the aftermath of war before. The eastern part of Germany became a new country, ostensibly independent but tightly tied to the U.S.S.R. Life got organized. Some things were good; others not so much. Now, though, she was quite senior among the nursing staff, and earned enough to live in a small flat. Greta and her husband Max, who had returned from the war with shattered nerves, shared it with her. It was hardly the life she’d been born into; but it was the life she now had. It could, of course, have been much worse.
In 1951, a letter arrived. For a long while she looked at the postmark on the envelope, wondering who could possibly be writing her from Czechoslovakia, of all places. Finally, on Greta’s urging, she took her grandmother’s silver letter opener—which, being metal, had survived—and slit it open. The letterhead showed that it came from a firm of lawyers in Prague. She did not recognize the name; but then why should she? She read it, first to herself, and then aloud to satisfy Greta’s curiosity. The baron her cousin had been killed in the War, like so many; and, as he was unmarried and no male heir could be traced, the title was now deemed to be extinct. The land around had been held forfeit to the State, since the Communist Party did not recognize the property rights of the nobility. However, there was no interest in the Schloss itself, particularly considering its current condition; and, as his sole living relative, it had been determined that the castle now belonged to her.
Once upon a time, long long ago, she could have imagined nothing better. It was a dream that should never come true, a prayer that no God should answer.
“You must write,” urged Greta.
She saw no point in it. Nevertheless, reluctantly, she acceded to the duties of blood. Re-reading the letter carefully, though, she could not help but find the phrase “considering its current condition” to sound ominous. The castle must be in poor condition indeed. A caretaker clearly was needed. She discussed it with Greta, who agreed that the quiet life of Rodnitz should suit Max. All the necessary arrangements, which were many, were made by herself, barring signatures; they departed amid a flurry of farewells; and thereafter her salary was diminished by their wages and keep. This left her the flat; and the privacy was precious, especially when there were neighbours so close and the walls were thin. At times she was reminded of other years when one watched one’s words lest the walls have ears. So she made no friends among the neighbours. Life in the DDR being what it was, she scarcely even dared to trust her colleagues—and she had known many of them for years.
How did she spend her time? She read. There were books, there were newspapers. She tried to keep up with the world, though she had no one now with whom to discuss affairs. She bought the Berliner Zeitung, of course, and also the Neue Zeit. One day in 1957, “Von Stalhein” caught her eye. It was in an article about the latest trial in the People’s Court. There were always trials; this was no novelty. They were always reported in the paper; and she read them always with an eye for the invisible ink between the lines, her cynicism honed all the sharper with each regime.
She swept her eyes back up to the top of the article. There was no picture; but the name was right, the details of his life much as she knew them, the charge—ah, well, the charge was always a matter of rhetoric and not to be taken as gospel. She read the story through with great care, and finished it with great sorrow. He was found guilty, of course. (They always were.) He had been sentenced to life imprisonment. She sighed and laid the paper down, and took off her reading glasses to set upon it. It would be a Gulag, she supposed; or perhaps some even stricter custody.
She saw the pale threads in the gold each day in her mirror. His smooth dark hair would be silvered now. They were neither of them young and beautiful. Hard labour from now till whenever…? It was a death sentence, of course.
Oh, to be young and innocent and brave, she thought. I could have married him once; perhaps I should have. Now, it is far too late—as it was once too late for me and my Biggles, over before anything had even a chance to begin. I am tired. Women retire younger than men; I am pushing sixty, and should get my full pension. It could be worse.
She looked around her little flat. It could all be packed into a suitcase or two. Or perhaps a small trunk. Not much to show for a life.
I should go back.
The idea occurred to her suddenly; and she set it aside. It was ridiculous. She had sent Greta to Schonschloss, of course; but that was duty to the fabric of family history, not nostalgia. Why should she yearn after Bohemia? Her childhood had been happy, but then so had her youth—and, for that matter, she had found satisfaction in her career. Most of her life had been spent in Germany.
But her roots lay in Bohemia. Schonschloss lay in her heart—at the heart of all she’d become since then. Her childhood memories were still with her; and the Germany that she once had loved was not the country where she lived now. All the people who mattered were gone for good. Or gone for ill, which only made it worse.
There would be a Gordian knot’s worth of bureaucratic busywork to fill the time before she could retire and depart. But yes, she decided: she would go home.
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This story was written as a gift for Philomytha in the 2023