Furthermore, Fenna’s night drop near Voorthuizen has been fictionalized, though not its location as a drop zone nor its typical sabotage during that period. The Abwehr, or German military intelligence, successfully used captured Allied radio operators and their codes to infiltrate and communicate with the SOE. In the counterintelligence operation Englandspiel, German for England game, this led to the entrapment and execution of nearly all the agents sent to the Netherlands. Similarly, Arie’s mission, while fictionalized, was based on failed efforts at the time to unite various Dutch underground groups that worked largely independent of each other. Serving as additional inspiration was the formation of the Binnenlandse Strijdkrachten, which united three major Dutch Resistance groups in 1944. While “Bogart’s” specific organization is never confirmed in the story, I imagined his role to be part of a precursor to the Bureau of Special Assignments, the Dutch secret service established in London, which worked closely with the SOE to support Allied Resistance efforts.

I should also point out that the daylight bombing run on March 31, 1943, was based on recollections in a Dutch memoir, but I can only guess that the planes were visible in Utrecht, and to prevent confusion, at times I simplified German and Dutch military specifics, such as referencing Ziegler’s rank strictly with the SS over that of the Gestapo. (Besides, Kriminalrat somehow doesn’t sound quite as intimidating.) Speaking of which, although Ziegler is a made-up villain, his twisted sense of game playing derives from various historical accounts, same for a jail breakout to free Resistance members through bribes and donning police uniforms, much like with Arie’s janitor disguise.

Many more incredible experiences are documented in the series The Dutch in Wartime, Survivors Remember, edited by Tom Bijvoet and Anne van Arragon Hutten. Without question, Tony Stroeve’s “How We Escaped to England,” in the volume Resisting Nazi Occupation, particularly helped inform Fenna’s crossing of the North Sea, even aligning almost eerily with her timeline. Of the approximately 1,700 Engelandvaarders who successfully fled the Netherlands, some even made the harrowing voyage in canoes and kayaks. The fact that more than a hundred Dutch escapers then returned as secret agents—roughly half of whom were soon captured—represents a level of courage hard to fully comprehend.

In closing, I’d be remiss not to add a delightful note regarding Fenna’s surname. When selecting it, I loved that due to its translation, Vos is a frequent nickname for someone deemed crafty as a fox. What I didn’t discover until many months later was that despite the fox’s reputation for being a solitary creature, the vixen will go to great lengths to protect her pups. An article about one such mother who kept her ensnared pup alive by bringing it food every day for two weeks, risking her own life and freedom, only confirmed that, for Fenna, I couldn’t have chosen a better name.