“What about the casualty lists in the papers?” Ernest asked. “Won’t the addresses of the people killed give the location away?”

“We’ve thought of that,” Tensing said. “You’ll need to write false death notices to go with the incidents, and we’ve requested the newspapers to hold theirs for several days and list only the name of the deceased. In instances where several members of the same family are killed, we’ve asked them to publish them on separate days, and you’ll do false corroborating stories.”

“What a bloody business,” Ernest said bitterly.

“Yes,” Tensing said. “I’ll need captions and news stories to go with the photographs, and anything else you can come up with—eyewitness accounts, personal ads, letters to the editor—the same sort of thing you were doing before. No direct mention of location, of course. We want the Germans to work that out on their own, and our double agents will be confirming it.”

“When do we begin?” Cess asked.

“Now,” Tensing said, pulling a sheaf of black-and-white photographs from his briefcase and handing them to Cess. “These need to be checked for identifying landmarks or signboards which may need to be cropped out.”

He handed a second sheaf to Ernest. Each one had a memo paper-clipped to it with the actual time and location and the falsified one. “A basic news story for the London dailies,” Tensing said, “and a local connection for the village papers—local resident visiting someone in the town when it hit. You know the sort of thing, Worthing.”

He knew exactly, and he couldn’t have asked for a better job. Not only did he not have to worry about being sent to Burma, but he’d be able to imbed his own coded messages in the articles.

“Cess, you’ll do the London dailies,” Tensing said. “Worthing, you’ll do the village papers. Chasuble will be in on this, too.” Tensing shut his briefcase. “I’d like to speak to him before I leave.”

“I’ll go see if he’s back,” Cess said, and went out.

“Shut the door,” Tensing said to Ernest, and after he did, added, “It is a bloody business. That’s why I chose you. I know I can count on you.”

“What do the higher-ups say about this scheme?” Ernest asked.

“They don’t know yet. We have a meeting to discuss the deception plan with them week after next.”

“And if they vote not to approve it?” Ernest asked, looking at Tensing closely.

“Then I suppose we shall have to think of something else,” he said. “But I can’t imagine them doing anything so irresponsible. It would mean jeopardizing hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives—so many that if I was told they’d voted the idea down, I’d be forced to conclude that the person who told me had got the story wrong.”

In other words, he intended to ignore the order and continue deceiving the Germans till he got caught and then plead ignorance. Like Lord Nelson had done at the battle of Copenhagen. Tensing was risking his career. And his future. He could be court-martialed, or worse, for disobeying orders, but he’d do it anyway. In order to save lives.