I hope this war might end soon, as my flippin feet are bloody well blistered because our stupid heavy boots wore thin as wafers on our grim march over here. Would give hundred pounds to cobbler Phil! Any shoes apart from my dodgy, old, sodding, damn smelly, delapidated footwear! I must complain every day to the Huns but they couldn’t be slightly bothered. I wonder whether German POWs have found their guards equally tough nuts?

Please forgive constant complaning! Things well? And you and Ian doing well? We’re so happy married life suits both of you and your Jimmy is coming along helthily. I miss following his progress week by week! Sitting him on my knee was one happy moment!

Take care Sis! With love, your

Lockhart deliberately left out a name. That would come courtesy of whoever it was that sent the letter. The code was simple, but it was unlikely that the German censor would have either the wit or the time to uncover the eighteen-word message contained within it:

In renegade unit British Free Corps in Hildesheim have learned nerve gas sarin held in place starting Mitt

Lockhart folded the letter and put it in an envelope addressed to a Mrs. Susan Dykes of 1 Glenilla Road, Belsize Park, London NW. The address was fictitious, but it would end up in the right place. He lay on his bed and held the unsealed envelope to his chest. Its contents, he reflected, could save the lives of millions.

MARCH 1940

He’s proud of his script—it’s one of his best, he thinks. He knows that much of it is overblown, but they pay him handsomely for it, and have even given him and Eileen a smart apartment in the Kastanienallee in the Charlottenburg district. They told him a Jew once owned it, but he and his family no longer needed it. The apartment makes Eileen happy, but she still says she feels uncomfortable here. Well, too bad. Let her moan—she’s not going anywhere.

The clock on the studio wall in the Reichsrundfunk indicates that it is nine minutes past seven. Young James Clark will be finishing off reading the news as part of the Germany Calling program, and then it will be his turn. He’ll have twenty minutes all to himself, twenty minutes in which he can tell the whole of Britain the truth. Not just a crowd of the curious at Hyde Park Corner, not just a hall full of loyal blackshirts, but anybody back home who can listen to a radio. Apparently, they told him, he has already earned himself quite a reputation. That made him feel proud, made him feel that he has made the right decision.