Eagle Has Landed Read online

  ‘Of course I remember,’ Mrs Grey said. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘She’s been posted to a bomber station only fifteen miles from here at Pangbourne, so I’ll be able to see something of her. She’s coming over this weekend. I’ll introduce you.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to that.’ Joanna Grey climbed on to her bike.

  ‘Chess tonight?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Why not? Come around eight and have supper as well. Must go now.’

  She pedalled away along the side of the stream, the retriever, Patch, loping along behind. Her face was serious now. The radio message of the previous evening had come as an enormous shock to her. In fact, she had decoded it three times to make sure she hadn’t made an error.

  She had hardly slept, certainly not much before five and had lain there listening to the Lancasters setting out across the sea to Europe and then, a few hours later, returning. The strange thing was that after finally dozing off, she had awakened at seven-thirty full of life and vigour.

  It was as if for the first time she had a really important task to handle. This—this was so incredible. To kidnap Churchill—snatch him from under the very noses of those who were supposed to be guarding him.

  She laughed out loud. Oh, the damned English wouldn’t like that. They wouldn’t like that one little bit, with the whole world amazed.

  As she coasted down the hill to the main road, a horn sounded behind her and a small saloon car passed and drew into the side of the road. The man behind the wheel had a large white moustache and the florid complexion of one who consumes whisky in large quantities daily. He was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant-colonel in the Home Guard.

  ‘Morning, Joanna,’ he called jovially.

  The meeting could not have been more fortunate. In fact it saved her a visit to Studley Grange later in the day. ‘Good morning, Henry,’ she said and dismounted from her bike.

  He got out of the car. ‘We’re having a few people on Saturday night. Bridge and so on. Supper afterwards. Nothing very special. Jean thought you might like to join us.’

  ‘That’s very kind of her. I’d love to,’ Joanna Grey said. ‘She must have an awful lot on, getting ready for the big event at the moment.’

  Sir Henry looked slightly hunted and dropped his voice a little. ‘I say, you haven’t mentioned that to anyone else, have you?’

  Joanna Grey managed to look suitably shocked. ‘Of course not. You did tell me in confidence, remember.’

  ‘Shouldn’t have mentioned it at all actually, but then I knew I could trust you, Joanna.’ He slipped an arm about her waist. ‘Mum’s the word on Saturday night, old girl, just for me, eh. Any of that lot get a hint of what’s afoot and it will be all over the county.’

  ‘I’d do anything for you, you know that,’ she said calmly.

  ‘Would you, Joanna?’ His voice thickened and she was aware of his thigh pushed against her, trembling slightly. He pulled away suddenly. ‘Well, I’ll have to be off. Got an area command meeting in Holt.’

  ‘You must be very excited,’ she said, ‘at the prospect of having the Prime Minister.’

  ‘Indeed I am. Very great honour.’ Sir Henry beamed. ‘He’s hoping to do a little painting and you know how pretty the views are from the Grange.’ He opened the door and got back into the car. ‘Where are you off to, by the way?’

  She’d been waiting for exactly that question. ‘Oh, a little bird-watching, as usual. I may go down to Cley or the marsh. I haven’t made up my mind yet. There are some interesting passage migrants about at the moment.’

  ‘You damn well watch it.’ His face was serious. ‘And remember what I told you.’

  As local Home Guard commander he had plans covering every aspect of coastal defence in the area, including details of all mined beaches and—more importantly—beaches which were only supposedly mined. On one occasion, full of solicitude for her welfare, he had spent two careful hours going over the maps with her, showing her exactly where not to go on her bird-watching expeditions.

  ‘I know the situation changes all the time,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you could come round to the cottage again with those maps of yours and give me another lesson.’

  His eyes were slightly glazed. ‘Would you like that?’

  ‘Of course. I’m at home this afternoon, actually.’

  ‘After lunch,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there about two,’ and he released the handbrake and drove rapidly away.

  Joanna Grey got back on her bicycle and started to pedal down the hill towards the main road, Patch running behind. Poor Henry. She was really quite fond of him. Just like a child and so easy to handle.

  Half-an-hour later, she turned off the coast road and cycled along the top of a dyke through desolate marshes known locally as Hobs End. It was a strange, alien world of sea creeks and mudflats and great pale barriers of reeds higher than a man’s head, inhabited only by the birds, curlew and redshank and brent geese coming south from Siberia to winter on the mud flats.

  Half-way along the dyke, a cottage crouched behind a mouldering flint wall, sheltered by a few sparse pine trees. It looked substantial enough with outbuildings and a large barn, but the windows were shuttered and there was a general air of desolation about it. This was the marsh warden’s house and there had been no warden since 1940.

  She moved on to a high ridge lined with pines. She dismounted from her bicycle and leaned it against a tree. There were sand dunes beyond and then a wide, flat beach stretching with the tide out a quarter of a mile towards the sea. In the distance she could see the point on the other side of the estuary, curving in like a great bent forefinger, enclosing an area of channels and sandbanks and shoals that, on a rising tide, was probably as lethal as anywhere on the Norfolk coast.

  She produced her camera and took a great many pictures from various angles. As she finished, the dog brought her a stick to throw, which he laid carefully down between her feet. She crouched and fondled his ears. ‘Yes, Patch,’ she said softly. ‘I really think this will do very well indeed.’

  She tossed the stick straight over the line of barbed wire which prevented access to the beach and Patch darted past the post with the notice board that said Beware of mines. Thanks to Henry Willoughby, to her certain knowledge there wasn’t a mine on the beach.

  To her left was a concrete blockhouse and a machine-gun post, a very definite air of decay to both of them, and in the gap between the pine trees, the tank trap had filled with drifting sand. Three years earlier, after the Dunkirk debacle, there would have been soldiers here. Even a year ago, Home Guard, but not now.

  In June, 1940, an area up to twenty miles inland from the Wash to the Rye was declared a Defence Area. There were no restrictions on people living there, but outsiders had to have a good reason for visiting. All that had altered considerably and now, three years later, virtually no one bothered to enforce the regulations for the plain truth was that there was no longer any need.

  Joanna Grey bent down to fondle the dog’s ears again. ‘You know what it is, Patch? The English just don’t expect to be invaded any more.’

  Three

  IT WAS THE FOLLOWING Tuesday before Joanna Grey’s report arrived at the Tirpitz Ufer. Hofer had put a red flag out for it. He took it straight in to Radl who opened it and examined the contents.

  There were photos of the marsh at Hobs End and the beach approaches, their position indicated only by a coded map reference. Radl passed the report itself to Hofer.

  ‘Top priority. Get that deciphered and wait while they do it.’

  The Abwehr had just started using the new Sonlar coding unit that took care in a matter of minutes of a task that had previously taken hours. The machine had a normal typewriter keyboard. The operator simply copied the coded message, which was automatically deciphered and delivered in a sealed reel. Even the operator did not see the actual message involved.

  Hofer was back in the office within twenty minutes and waited in silence while the colonel read th
e report. Radl looked up with a smile and pushed it across the desk. ‘Read that, Karl, just you read that. Excellent—really excellent. What a woman.’

  He lit one of his cigarettes and waited impatiently for Hofer to finish. Finally the sergeant glanced up. ‘It looks quite promising.’

  ‘Promising? Is that the best you can do? Good God, man, it’s a definite possibility. A very real possibility.’

  He was more excited now than he had been for months, which was bad for him, for his heart, so appallingly strained by his massive injuries. The empty eye socket under the black patch throbbed, the aluminum hand inside the glove seemed to come alive, every tendon taut as a bow string. He fought for breath and slumped into his chair.

  Hofer had the Courvoisier bottle out of the bottom drawer in an instant, half-filled a glass and held it to the colonel’s lips. Radl swallowed most of it down, coughed heavily, then seemed to get control of himself again.

  He smiled wryly. ‘I can’t afford to do that too often, eh, Karl? Only two more bottles left. It’s like liquid gold these days.’

  ‘The Herr Oberst shouldn’t excite himself so,’ Hofer said and added bluntly. ‘You can’t afford to.’

  Radl swallowed some more of the brandy. ‘I know, Karl, I know, but don’t you see? It was a joke before—something the Führer threw out in an angry mood on a Wednesday, to be forgotten by Friday. A feasibility study, that was Himmler’s suggestion and only because he wanted to make things awkward for the Admiral. The Admiral told me to get something down on paper. Anything, just so long as it showed we were doing our job.’

  He got up and walked to the window. ‘But now it’s different, Karl. It isn’t a joke any longer. It could be done.’

  Hofer stood stolidly on the other side of the desk, showing no emotion. ‘Yes, Herr Oberst, I think it could.’

  ‘And doesn’t that prospect move you in any way at all?’ Radl shivered. ‘God, but it frightens me. Bring me those Admiralty charts and the ordnance survey map.’

  Hofer spread them on the desk and Radl found Hobs End and examined it in conjunction with the photos. ‘What more could one ask for? A perfect dropping zone for parachutists and that weekend the tide comes in again by dawn and washes away any signs of activity.’

  ‘But even quite a small force would have to be conveyed in a transport type of aircraft or a bomber,’ Hofer pointed out. ‘Can you imagine a Dornier or a Junkers lasting for long over the Norfolk coast these days, with so many bomber stations protected by regular night fighter patrols?’

  ‘A problem,’ Radl said, ‘I agree, but hardly insurmountable. According to the Luftwaffe target chart for the area there is no low-level radar on that particular section of coast, which means an approach under six hundred feet would be undetected. But that kind of detail is immaterial at the moment. It can be handled later. A feasibility study, Karl, that’s all we need at this stage. You agree that in theory it would be possible to drop a raiding party on that beach?’

  Hofer said, ‘I accept that as a proposition, but how do we get them out again? By U-boat?’

  Radl looked down at the chart for a moment, then shook his head. ‘No, not really practical. The raiding party would be too large. I know that they could all be crammed on board somehow, but the rendezvous would need to be some distance off-shore and there would be problems getting so many out there. It needs to be something simpler, more direct. An E-boat, perhaps. There’s plenty of E-boat activity in that area in the coastal shipping lanes. I don’t see any reason why one couldn’t slip in between the beach and the Point. It would be on a rising tide and according to the report, there are no mines in that channel, which would simplify things considerably.’

  ‘One would need Navy advice on that,’ Hofer said cautiously. ‘Mrs Grey does say in her report that those are dangerous waters.’

  ‘Which is exactly what good sailors are for. Is there anything else you’re not happy with?’

  ‘Forgive me, Herr Oberst, but it would seem to me that there is a time factor involved which could be quite crucial to the success of the entire operation and frankly, I don’t see how it could be reconciled.’ Hofer pointed to Studley Grange on the ordnance survey map. ‘Here is the target, approximately eight miles from the dropping zone. Considering the unfamiliar territory and the darkness, I would say it would take the raiding party two hours to reach it and however brief the visit, it would still take as long for the return journey. My estimate would be an action span of six hours. If one accepts that the drop would have to be made around midnight for security reasons, this means that the rendezvous with the E-boat would take place at dawn if not after, which would be completely unacceptable. The E-boat must have at least two hours of darkness to cover her departure.’

  Radl had been lying back in the chair, face turned up to the ceiling, eyes closed. ‘Very lucidly put, Karl. You’re learning.’ He sat up. ‘You’re absolutely right, which is why the drop would have to be made the night before.’

  ‘Herr Oberst?’ Hofer said, astonishment on his face. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s quite simple. Churchill will arrive at Studley Grange during the afternoon or evening of the sixth and spend the night there. Our party drops in on the previous night, November fifth.’

  Hofer frowned, considering the point. ‘I can see the advantage, of course, Herr Oberst. The additional time would give them room to manoeuvre in case of any unlooked-for eventuality.’

  ‘It would also mean that there would no longer be any problem with the E-boat,’ Radl said. ‘They could be picked up as early as ten or eleven o’clock on the Saturday.’ He smiled and took another cigarette from the box. ‘So, you agree that this, too, is feasible?’

  ‘There would be a grave problem of concealment on the Saturday itself,’ Hofer pointed out. ‘Especially for a sizeable group.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ Radl stood up and started to pace up and down the room again. ‘But it seems to me there’s a rather obvious answer. Let me ask you a question as an old forester, Karl? If you wanted to hide a pine tree, what would be the safest place on earth?’

  ‘In a forest of pines, I suppose.’

  ‘Exactly. In a remote and isolated area like this a stranger—any stranger—stands out like a sore thumb, especially in wartime. No holidaymakers, remember. The British, like good Germans, spend their holidays at home to help the war effort. And yet, Karl, according to Mrs Grey’s report, there are strangers constantly passing through the lanes and the villages every week who are accepted without question.’ Hofer looked mystified and Radl continued. ‘Soldiers, Karl, on manoeuvres, playing war-games, hunting each other through the hedgerows.’ He reached for Joanna Grey’s report from the desk and turned the pages. ‘Here, on page three, for example, she speaks of this place Meltham House eight miles from Studley Constable. During the past year used as a training establishment for commando-type units on four occasions. Twice by British commandos, once by a similar unit composed of Poles and Czechs with English officers and once by American Rangers.’

  He passed the report across and Hofer looked at it.

  ‘All they need are British uniforms to be able to pass through the countryside with no difficulty. A Polish commando unit would do famously.’

  ‘It would certainly take care of the language problem,’ Hofer said. ‘But that Polish unit Mrs Grey mentioned had English officers, not just English-speaking. If the Herr Oberst will forgive me for saying so, there’s a difference.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Radl told him. ‘All the difference in the world. If the officer in charge is English or apparently English, then that would make the whole thing so much tighter.’

  Hofer looked at his watch. ‘If I might remind the Herr Oberst, the Heads of Section weekly meeting is due to start in the Admiral’s office in precisely ten minutes.’

  ‘Thank you, Karl.’ Radl tightened his belt and stood up. ‘So, it would appear that our feasibility study is virtually complete. We seem to have c
overed everything.’

  ‘Except for what is perhaps the most important item of all, Herr Oberst.’

  Radl was halfway to the door and now he paused. ‘All right, Karl, surprise me.’

  ‘The leader of such a venture, Herr Oberst. He would have to be a man of extraordinary abilities.’

  ‘Another Otto Skorzeny,’ Radl suggested.

  ‘Exactly,’ Hofer said. ‘With, in this case, one thing more. The ability to pass as an Englishman.’

  Radl smiled beautifully. ‘Find him for me, Karl. I’ll give you forty-eight hours.’ He opened the door quickly and went out.

  As it happened, Radl had to go to Munich unexpectedly the following day and it was not until after lunch on Thursday that he re-appeared in his office at the Tirpitz Ufer. He was extremely tired, having slept very little in Munich the night before. The Lancaster bombers of the RAF had pressed their attentions on that city with more than usual severity.

  Hofer produced coffee instantly and poured him a brandy. ‘Good trip, Herr Oberst?’

  ‘Fair,’ Radl said. ‘Actually, the most interesting happening was when we were landing yesterday. Our Junkers was buzzed by an American Mustang fighter. Caused more than a little panic, I can tell you. Then we saw that it had a Swastika on the tailplace. Apparently it was one which had crash-landed and the Luftwaffe had put it into working order and were flight testing.’

  ‘Extraordinary, Herr Oberst.’

  Radl nodded. ‘It gave me an idea, Karl. That little problem you had about Dorniers or Junkers surviving over the Norfolk coast.’ And then he noticed a fresh green manilla folder on the desk. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The assignment you gave me, Herr Oberst. The officer who could pass as an Englishman. Took some digging out, I can tell you, and there’s a report of some court martial proceedings which I’ve indented for. They should be here this afternoon.’