By John Newton
One cold and misty November evening I entered my London Club and found it quiet and empty.
‘Probably the weather, Sir,’ said the concierge. ‘Sir William is alone in the library with his brandy. He’ll probably welcome company. What can I bring you?’
‘I’ll have a brandy too, thanks.’
Concierge took my heavy coat and I found Sir William deep in one of those soft leather chairs that are part of the uniform of such clubs, along with dim lights.
‘Ha, Smith. Glad to see you. Is Smith your real name?’
‘It’s the one I use, Sir Henry. It does the job. Simple and easy to remember,’
‘Yes. Of course. Best to be simple in your line of trade.’
My brandy arrived. I sipped and looked at Sir William, apparently deep in thought, a slender finger stroking his silken moustache.
‘Are you thinking through a difficult diplomatic conundrum?’ I asked.
‘No. I’m thinking of a phrase I read many years ago. Someone had written, ‘In five minutes Kings can be dead and Kingdoms changed.”
‘I suppose that’s true. A bullet. The slash of a knife or sword. Dead king. Long live the next one.’
‘My thoughts are on a different kind of five minutes, old boy. No bullets. No swords. Just a simple ordinary mistake. So simple you would, in normal times, never notice it.’
‘Do tell,’ I said.
‘In the closing years of the war, we sent a very clever and beautiful young woman to Paris with the perfect cover of an Indian princess and the task of setting up a special network composed only of young women. She thought up the idea and planned to use only high born ladies to squeeze information from colonels and above. Those were the johnnies who knew it all.’
‘Brilliant.’
‘Yes. As an idea. But we were not sure of it succeeding in practice. We tried to dissuade her, but she determined to go ahead and do her bit. She already knew all the top officers in our own forces and realised that when faced with a good-looking girl, all powder and paint, a sweet smile and a willing ear, even the most guarded of officers let all sorts slip in an effort to impress.’
‘Did it work?’
‘We never knew. Having been brought up in France she had the language to perfection, including the Parisian accent and all the current slang and fashion. Even the most French of Frenchmen would never have twigged. She breezed through all the training, fantastic memory, tough as any man in combat training. Could out-walk and out-climb most of the fellows across swamps, up cliffs or mountains and the hardships of survival training never gave her a moment of distress on land or sea.’
‘She sounds perfect. What went wrong?’ I asked.
‘The stupidest little thing. Something in no training manual. I took full responsibility and resigned. She arrived safely in Paris on a beautiful sunny day. Went to the apartment her family had owned for centuries and instead of waiting for Jean-Pierre our Station Chief, freshened up and went for a walk along the boulevards.’
I said, ‘She broke protocol. She should have waited.’
‘Exactly. Jean-Pierre arrived exactly on time, saw her a hundred meters away and followed. He watched her pass several cafes before settling at a table next to four Gestapo officers drinking wine. Naturally they eyed her up. Any man would. A pretty woman shining in the sun.’
‘When do the five minutes come in?’
‘Now. She ordered tea and a small jug of milk. Not quite normal in a Paris pavement café, but not too abnormal to be an error. In the four minutes before the tea arrived, one of the German officers engaged her in conversation. When the tea arrived, she took the tiny jug and poured milk followed by the tea.’
‘Wait.’ I said. ‘That’s not the way the French do it.’
‘Exactly. They pour tea then milk. On the fifth minute Jean-Pierre saw the officer she’d been chatting with stand and with a perfectly polite bow and say, ‘Mademoiselle, I must ask you to come with us. It is my duty to arrest you.’
‘Jean-Pierre, greatly distressed, watched our Princess climb into a staff car, her bright hair reflecting the sun. We later heard that, although tortured, she revealed nothing of our training or methods. They took her first to Sachsenhausen, then to Belsen. As soon as I heard we’d taken the place I rushed to Germany, hoping to bring her home, but she died of cholera two days before our Army arrived.’
‘How terrible. How utterly awful.’
‘Yes. I tried my best to stop her from going. In the hour before she boarded that tiny ‘plane, I took her privately to my office to tell her how much I loved her and begged, hugging and kissing her, almost weeping at her proud insistence fighting in some way for the two countries to which she owed so much.’
‘You were in love with her?
No. Not in love. I loved her as a father loves his only daughter.’
‘Your daughter? You sent your daughter to France?’
‘Yes, I did. In the end I saw it as my duty. I knew she may be captured, tortured and probably shot. But I did it, never knowing that five minutes and a little drop of milk would be the end of her.’
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This is one of the short stories from the book John Newton’s Short Stories Volume One, which is available on Amazon – Click to buy
Author Bio:
I have written around 500 short stories, all meant to entertain or intrigue and consider this is one that you will find intriguing.
Contact Author:
Email: nbi.john@gmail.com
