Henry was itching to go back into the navy, and he really wanted to see his shipmates again. Since our return from Liverpool he was getting impatient. However, his parent's worries about his not quite yet healed wounds, and his growing affection for me, was keeping him from re-joining on the spot. After all, he did have the right to several months of leave.
On the 25th of April, Henri got the news that HMS Cairo had returned to the Atlantic. The Light Cruiser was rebased to Dover and after quickly resupplying, it was quickly sent out on Patrol along the West Coast of England, under the Authority of Commodore Mitchell. Knowing HMS Cairo was back in action, and close to home. Today, we went to the local Royal Navy recruitment station, as Henry was determined to get back to work for the war effort. He was soon given a job, despite still being technically unfit for duty for at least two more week, they decided that he could get to working part-time, teaching and motivating newly drafted young men to become sailors. An experienced Chief Petty Officer should make a good instructor, or at least an inspiring one.
Sailors marching at HMS Raleigh. Join the navy they said, you'll see the world they said... but first...we'll teach you to march right.
While this wasn't necessarily what Henry had in mind, he was glad to finally do something useful for the war, and thus, starting on the 29th of April, Henry moved to HMS Raleigh in Cornwall for three days every week. I'm not allowed to go and stay with him, but have been assured that there is medical personnel on the base that will tend to his wounds.
Suddenly finding myself walking the countryside alone again, I decided to explore the wider surroundings, especially the grounds of a Manor nearby. Walking close to the fence, we (Henry and Me) did hear some suspicious explosions. At the time Henry said that they were probably testing something there, and that it wasn't any of our business. Now that I wasn't being escorted by dear Henry, I decided to have a look for myself...
On the morning of the 30th of April, after my morning mail run, I gathered what gear I could muster and went over to the mysterious place. It was raining and there was a decent amount of fog which would make my approach more likely to remain unnoticed went through a hole in the tall hedge, and had to stop dead in my tracks. The perimeter of the lawn was riddled with tripwires, and I could see some strange mortars hidden in the bushes. Not that this was that much of a problem... you surely remember that I managed to make it into your compound... I just needed to carefully plan every step of the way to make sure I wasn't blown up on the way. After 15 minutes, I figured out a way through the mess that would, probably, not get me killed.
Brickendonbury Manor, side view of the 'house'. In this picture, before the arrival of Cecil Clarke, the flower arrangements still look great.
Once I made it onto the lawn I hid behind some bushes and took a look around. In front of me was a large mansion, I could only see one large facade of the building, suggesting a rather large house. Surrounding it was what used to be a well-kept and fancy garden with meticulous flowerbeds, perfectly trimmed hedges, and perfectly mowed lawns. However, the current tenants of the estate seemed to have a different concept of gardening. There were several craters in the lawn, and a few of the flowerbed had big holes in them, probably from small calibre Mortar fire. Any sane person would have probably turned back by now, but, curious as I am about secret facilities and exploding things, I slowly, and silently, moved closer to the house, avoiding several sentries. Going around the house, I noticed that the facade I had first laid eyes on was actually the side of a very large Manor. One window was open on the ground floor, and I could hear a man talking in the tone one would use when giving a lecture or teaching people something.
As I approached the window to listen, the man stopped talking, and a second later I only just managed to dodged a strange-looking explosive device flying through the window. It landed on the lawn and I dropped to the floor as far away from it as possible, covering my ears. Then it exploded, soon I could smell my own burnt hair, luckily I only had some superficial burns on my left arm. The room the bomb had flow out of erupted with nervous laughter, no-one had seen me, but I couldn't very well stay under this window, I might not be so lucky with the next bomb. I tried to move away from the window, but before I could properly get up, a joyful British Army Lieutenant came out of the house to inspect the damage, followed by a ragtag group of young men, who all seemed to be doing their best to hide just how shocked they were about what had just happened. At first the Lieutenant, a large, round-faced, bespectacled and Mustachioed man, didn't seem to notice me, more interested in pointing out just how large the blast from the device was to his students. But as he got closer to the point of impact, he suddenly turned towards me, the ensuing conversation was somewhat unexpected in tone:
“Lieutenant Cecil Clarke, acting commander of Brickendonbury Manor... And who might you be, young lady?”
I replied, as innocently as I could, my ears still ringing from the blast:
“Well, I'm a refugee from France, and I sometimes deliver mail around here. I heard explosions and other strange noises coming from here on my rounds, and I wanted to see what was going on, make sure no one was hurt...”
Lieutenant Cecil Clarke was not convinced, but nevertheless he seemed impressed:
“ I don't believe you... there's no way an ordinary French woman who delivers mail for a living got in here without setting off any of my blank charges, or getting noticed by one of the guards... So, who are you really, French Lady, and where did you learn to make your way through booby traps and minefields?”
From that point, I just winged it and made up, what I thought was a somewhat believable story:
“My father was a Sergeant in the French Colonial forces, and when I was a child he thought me how to notice and avoid booby traps and primitive mines sometimes used by insurgents in Northern Africa. 'Papa' died fighting the 'Boche' in France last year... He had previously sent me and 'Maman' back to Tanger, but when my mother was killed by an Italian mortar strike, I fled to England. There is a Caporal-chef de première classe de Fourcadeau who can vouch for me as he is the one who proposed I stay with the family of your local mail man Charles.”
“A possible story, but I have a feeling you're forgetting to tell me about a stint in French Intelligence, or at least in organised French resistance. At least part of that story does seem too good to be true...”
Then to the Sergeant of the guard who seemed to have finally caught up with the situation.
”Sergeant. Place this woman in my office, get a nurse to tend to her burns and get the nurse to search her. Keep an eye on her -and then,noticing how the Sergeant was looking at me - and keep your hands off her. If she could get in here without being noticed, she can certainly get out just as easily.”
And then, looking at me with a smirk, and a twinkle of amusement in his eyes:
“And you, 'mademoiselle' don't you run away on me, I need to have another word with you once I finish giving this lesson.”
“Oh. And Sergeant, get someone to send out a message that I need to see a certain Free French Caporal-chef de première classe de Fourcadeau who is probably based out of Portsmouth, if he even exists.”
In the interwar period, caravaning really took off in the United Kingdom, at first as a luxury pursuit. This isn't one of Clarke's caravans, though it is also a streamlined model, but without an additional floor, nor a second axle. A picture of Cecil Clarke's unusual prototype couldn't be located.
I was told to wait in a large office with many strange bits and bobs around. I noticed one of the drawers was filled with condoms, and several large jars of aniseed balls stood on the window sill. I was told not to touch anything if I didn't want to hurt myself, or end up in jail, especially not the plastic explosive on the workman's bench. So I picked up an old issue of 'Caravan and Trailer' a magazine that I found to be quite interesting, especially as one of the caravans in the magazine was a double-decker affair built before the war by Cecil Clarke himself... The article, by Stuart Macrae, an Engineer, called it a revolution in caravan design and technology. After bout fifteen minutes, a nurse came in and took care of my burns, she was clearly an expert in these kinds of wounds, which really wasn't that surprising, considering the amount of craters on the grounds.
I was stuck in the office for however long I would have to wait. Leaving would have been counterproductive to my mission, not to mention that, despite the apparent kindness and relative lack of hostility I had faced until then, running would still have been a serious risk to take. But above all, I wanted to know more about what was going on at this strange facility.
Major Millis Jefferis, commander of MD1, and second in command of MIR
After about an hour, I heard a car coming up the driveway, and a couple of minutes later, Lieutenant Clarke, walked into his office, and remained standing by the door while a serious-looking Major entered the room. The man promptly introduced himself:
“Major Millis Jefferis, commander of Lieutenant Clarke here, and of the programme he is a part of. Now, I came over to see this for myself... you, a French young lady no less, got to the Manor without setting of any of Lieutenant Clarke's traps, and without being noticed... The Lieutenant then proceeded to inadvertently throw an armed Limpet in the general direction of your face, and that might be the only reason your presence was even discovered. This is a serious threat, and a flaw in our security, and we'll have to do something about that. But, while most departments of the War Office, or the British Military would see this only as a threat, and get you locked up, or even executed, on espionage charges, my department is different. You see, we spend months training people to do what you just did, sneak into heavily guarded places unnoticed. Now, from what I can make out, you might be, or have been some kind of spy, or resistance fighter, but, the fact that you didn't run, and that you didn't try to cause any damage to this facility makes me believe that, wherever you're from doesn't care for the Axis of evil.
Now, I would like to have you vetted more thoroughly before we let you go on any missions, but for now, I will offer you a training position right here at Brickendonbury Manor, your talent for the kind of work we do is obvious, and being a French woman, you might be ideally suited for several missions I have in mind. Now, if you were to refuse, we might just have to lock you up. Lieutenant Clarke will take it from here, I have a meeting to get to at Whitehall, they want to cut our budget again, unbelievable... if only Winston Churchill was in the Government, he would surely see reason. To be continued...”
Before I could bring in a word, Lieutenant Clarke said:
“You are relieved from your duties with the Royal Mail. You are now a trainee under my command. You will report at the gate tomorrow at 0600 hours. You will be living on the grounds as of tomorrow, bring only clothes and a few belongings, everything else you need to live will be provided on site. Your correspondence will be limited and censored of anything pertaining to what we do here, or over there. Say goodbye to everyone you know in the world out there, you're part of MIR now. What we do exactly will be clarified tomorrow. You're dismissed Private, you may go home now. If I do not see you tomorrow, you will be branded an enemy of the state, and you will be pursued by law enforcement to be brought up on espionage charges.”
He didn't have to tell me twice, I pulled a half-hearted salute and ran off. After all that, the last thing I was expecting was to be drafted for service by a secretive department of the War Ministry.
I went straight to the home of Charles, and Martha, my home for several months now. I told them that I had been recruited for the war effort, and that I would be gone for a while, maybe forever, they understood, but were sad all the same. I burned all that was left of the things I had brought from the Soviet Union for fear that they might figure out my connection to the country. Oh, and I wrote a loving letter to Henry, for when he returns from Cornwall tomorrow.
You should not expect a report for some time after this one. I will write, only when an opportunity to do so, and to send said writing on it's way, covertly arises. I'm going deep on this one.
I'm off for some very hush hush training. Best of luck to all of the Soviet Union. I'm sure you'll hear from me again, someday.
'Odinatsat'
