A Dangerous Game Read online

  ALSO BY JOHN WILSON

  YOUNG ADULT FICTION

  Shot at Dawn

  Written in Blood

  Ghost Moon

  Victorio’s War

  Death on the River

  Red Goodwin

  Adrift in Time

  Ghosts of James Bay

  Across Frozen Seas

  Flames of the Tiger

  And in the Morning

  Flags of War

  Broken Arrow

  Wings of War (Book One in the Tales of War series)

  Dark Terror (Book Two in the Tales of War series)

  YOUNG ADULT NON-FICTION

  Desperate Glory: The Story of WWI

  Failed Hope: The Story of the Lost Peace

  Bitter Ashes: The Story of WWII

  Righting Wrongs: The Story of Norman Bethune

  Discovering the Arctic: The Story of John Rae

  Norman Bethune: A Life of Passionate Conviction

  John Franklin: Traveller on Undiscovered Seas

  AVAILABLE ONLY AS EBOOKS

  The Alchemist’s Dream

  The Final Alchemy

  The Heretic’s Secret

  Where Soldiers Lie

  Germania

  Four Steps to Death

  Lost in Spain

  The Weet Trilogy

  Battle Scars

  North with Franklin: The Lost Journals of James Fitzjames

  Ghost Mountains and Vanished Oceans: North America from Birth to Middle-Age

  Copyright © 2016 John Wilson

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing agency—is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Doubleday Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House of Canada Limited

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Wilson, John (John Alexander), 1951–, author

  A dangerous game / John Wilson.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-0-385-68307-4 (paperback).—ISBN 978-0-385-68308-1 (epub)

  I. Title.

  PS8595.I5834D35 2016 jC813′.54 C2015-907205-0

  C2015-907206-9

  Ebook ISBN 9780385683081

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover images: (sky) © Positiveflash | Dreamstime.​com ; (explosion) © Yuran | Dreamstime.​com; (lady on bike) © Tachporn Sirithamrak | Dreamstime.​com; (blimp) Library of Congress; (plane) Australian War Museum

  Cover design: Rachel Cooper

  Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited

  www.​penguinrandomhouse.​ca

  v4.1

  a

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by John Wilson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: Zeppelin Nights—September 3, 1916

  Chapter 2: Fear of Flying—December 8, 1916

  Chapter 3: Home—December 9, 1916

  Chapter 4: Contact—December 9, 1916

  Chapter 5: Settling In—January–March 1917

  Chapter 6: A New Threat—April 6, 1917

  Chapter 7: Giants—April 7, 1917

  Chapter 8: Escape—April 7, 1917

  Chapter 9: Final Break—April 7, 1917

  Chapter 10: An Unpleasant Surprise—April 8, 1917

  Chapter 11: Back to Gontrode—April 29, 1917

  Chapter 12: Bombed—April 29, 1917

  Chapter 13: Rescue—April 29–30, 1917

  Chapter 14: Betrayal—April 30, 1917

  Chapter 15: An Idea—April 30, 1917

  Chapter 16: The Plan—April 30, 1917

  Chapter 17: The Answer—May 11, 1917

  Chapter 18: Preparation—May 11–12, 1917

  Chapter 19: The Raid—May 12, 1917

  Chapter 20: Going Home—May 12, 1917

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  For Violette Szabo, a real spy from the Second World War, who, at age twenty-three, was executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp in February 1945

  “Baby killers! Violators! Demons of the night!” The woman shouting this abuse is standing in the middle of Charles Street in the heart of London, her hair flying, her mouth open in an ugly scream, her mad eyes bulging and her fist raised, shaking violently at the sky. She’s not an escapee from the insane asylum but a well-dressed society woman on her way home from a night at the theater or a gathering in some upper-class parlor.

  It is two-thirty in the morning and the only light comes from the half-full moon when it appears through the clouds, the flashes from the anti-aircraft guns and the reflections of the waving searchlights. It’s like a scene straight out of hell—guns and bombs crash all around, bright lights explode in the sky and the sharp taste of explosives catches in the back of my throat. Hundreds of shadowy figures either rush about madly or, like me, stand immobile, overwhelmed by the spectacle.

  Almost directly over me, in the crossed beams of two searchlights, I can make out a cigar-shaped airship pinned like some giant moth to the black heavens above. The lights play along the zeppelin’s vast length, and I can see the gondolas hanging below the craft. Inside those gondolas are German airmen, like those who invaded Belgium two years ago, and who still occupy and ravage my homeland. I am only Manon Wouters, a refugee girl who has become a nurse, but it seems as if my enemies have followed me all the way from Belgium to try to kill me with bombs from the dark sky. I feel like joining the woman in the middle of the road and screaming my fury at them.

  “Quite the spectacle, isn’t it?” My companion, Major Thomas Owen Macleod, speaks calmly and I’m not sure whether he’s referring to the pyrotechnics in the sky or the woman screaming in the road. He’s immaculately dressed and the creases in his uniform are still crisp, despite the fact that he’s been working in it for almost twenty hours.

  “I hate them,” I say, my voice rough with emotion. The zeppelin raid has caught us as the major is escorting me back to my flat. We’ve just finished a late session at Waterloo House, the new headquarters of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 6, where I am being taught how to create a false new life for myself and not be discovered. I am being taught to become a spy!

  “Hate is a strong motivation, Manon,” Major Macleod says. Even in the dim light, I can see his brow furrowed in worry. “Hate can make you strong, but in our line of work, it can also kill you. You have to hide every emotion at all times—even the slightest slip can give you away. Can you do that?”

  My hate is cold—like ice, not fire—but it can still burn. It began when Belgium was invaded and grew as I watched the Germans march arrogantly down the cobbled streets of my hometown in their drab gray uniforms and sinister spiked helmets. But my hatred became complete when they shot the grocer in the town square.

  “Do you want to know about my hate, Major? My hometown, Damme, was an important place hundreds of years ago, but now it is a backwater. My father, mother, brother and I lived in a small house by the canal, and my brother and I grew up without a care in the world, playing and riding our bicycles around the flat countryside. When I finished school, I took up nursing. Every day I would cycle half an hour along the canal bank into Bruges to study at the hos
pital. It was a perfect life, and even after the invasion, I assumed it would continue.”

  MANON’S HOMETOWN, DAMME

  I take a deep breath to steel myself for the next chapter. “The week after the Germans arrived, they claimed that one of their soldiers had been shot at from a window on our street. The shot missed and the soldier was frightened rather than injured, but the Germans were nervous. They took three hostages, including the town grocer. They demanded that whoever had fired the shot come forward for punishment. No one did, and so, on a rainy Autumn morning, the grocer and the two others were executed by firing squad in the square.” I keep my expression emotionless and stare straight into Macleod’s eyes. “The grocer was my father.”

  Macleod does nothing, simply returning my stare. Deep inside, I want him to put his arms around me, comfort me and give me a shoulder to weep on, but I force myself to go on. “I heard the shots from the square, and those sounds changed me forever. They crystallized my hatred into a hard, cold ball that I have nursed inside me ever since.”

  Macleod nods. “And you ran away after that?”

  “I didn’t run away,” I say calmly. “Mama sold the grocery store and I left home to fight. She begged me to stay, but I was determined. I knew that shooting from windows wouldn’t work—the Germans would simply kill more hostages—yet I had to do something. I crossed the border into neutral Holland and found a ship to England. I used my nursing skills in Egypt and France to help young soldiers recover so they could go back to the war and kill Germans for me. Now that I’m being trained as a spy, I finally have a chance to go home and do something direct to help drive the invaders out of my country—and to avenge my father’s murder.”

  A bomb explodes with a dull crump a few blocks away. Macleod says, “We should get on. There are scarcely enough hours for sleep before we begin again tomorrow, and we still have a lot of preparation to do.”

  We leave the well-dressed woman, still screaming her hate to the sky, and walk west.

  “Did you know that this is one of the routes the condemned took to be hanged at Tyburn?” Macleod asks. He often comes out with apparently irrelevant pieces of information. He’s told me this one before.

  “I know,” I reply. “It’s the origin of your English expression ‘going west,’ meaning to die.”

  “We’ll make you a fluent English-speaker yet,” he laughs.

  “Not that it will do me much good in Belgium,” I say. “I suspect that my German will be of more use.”

  “You’re one of the best agents we’ve trained, and it won’t be long until we send you home. But it’s a dangerous game you’re getting into. Do you have any doubts?”

  We walk in silence for a minute while I consider my answer.

  “I’m scared,” I admit. “Nursing wounded soldiers was hard work, but it was safe.” I think back to the day when Macleod came to the hospital in France and offered me the chance to become a spy. “And there was a young tunneler from Newfoundland, Alec Shorecross, at the hospital where you recruited me. I was—am—very fond of him, and I think he felt the same way about me. In an ideal world, I would go and find Alec, and we would run away to a place where there’s no war and be happy. But that can’t happen. There is a war and we can’t run away.

  “Of course I have doubts about what I’m going to do. What will my homeland be like? After two years of occupation and war, will I even recognize my mother and brother? But I can’t let these thoughts sway me. You are offering me a chance that might make a difference in a cause I believe in. I can’t let my fears and the way I feel about Alec stand in the way of that. I only worry that my contribution won’t be worth much.”

  Macleod nods and says gently, “I would be concerned if you didn’t have doubts. But be absolutely assured that the work you do will be of vital importance. Trench warfare can’t last forever. Next summer or the one after—perhaps sooner if the Americans see sense and join us—we will break through. Then it will be crucial that we have accurate information about the enemy dispositions in Belgium as we advance.”

  SOLDIERS ON THE FRONT LINES

  Macleod looks up and gestures to the north, where the searchlights are still playing on the zeppelin as it moves away from the city and out over the countryside. “More immediately, those monsters are coming here from airfields in Belgium,” he says, “and there is word of new zeppelins that can fly too high for our anti-aircraft guns or fighter planes. The Germans also have huge bombers that could be used against us. We need to know what’s going on.”

  “But you have spies already in Belgium who can tell you that.”

  “True, but we have very little information on the submarine bases at Bruges, Zeebrugge and Ostend.”

  “And my brother, Florien, works at the submarine base at Zeebrugge,” I say, guessing where Macleod is going with this.

  “Exactly. He’s uniquely placed to get information to pass on to you, and through the network we’ll put you in contact with, you’ll be able to pass that information on to us.”

  “Are the German U-boats as dangerous as those?” I ask, pointing at the departing zeppelin.

  “Possibly much more so,” Macleod says. “Our naval blockade of Germany is working. People are beginning to starve, and the Germans are just as frustrated as we are that the war has stagnated in the trenches. One way they can change that is to try to starve Britain out of the war.”

  “Can they do that?”

  “With enough U-boats, yes. Britain can’t last long if all the ships bringing food are sunk. We would have to make peace or starve. Russia is already showing signs of falling apart, and if we dropped out of the war, France would have to make peace as well. Germany would win.”

  “But sending the U-boats against unarmed ships is barbaric,” I say.

  Macleod nods. “It is and it would cause international outrage. It might even force America into the war. America is immensely powerful, but if we starve and Russia collapses and France surrenders while all the American troops and guns are still sitting in New York harbor…” Macleod doesn’t need to finish his sentence.

  “What can we do?”

  “If we can destroy the U-boats before they put to sea, we will save dozens of ships and hundreds—possibly thousands—of lives. And maybe we’ll prevent the Germans winning the war. Is that important enough for you?”

  “Of course it is,” I agree. “I just have to keep remembering that.” We’ve reached the door of my flat. “I’m tired. A few hours’ sleep and I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll come by and pick you up a bit later,” Macleod says. “That’ll let you get an extra hour or two of sleep.”

  “Thank you.”

  I’m lifting my key to the lock when the sky brightens to the north. We both look up and see a ball of fire above the buildings. The fire expands into the shape of an elongated cigar that breaks in the middle and slides in slow motion down the dark sky. We both stand transfixed by the beautiful sight. I know men are dying horrifying deaths up there, but I cannot feel pity for them. I hope the screaming woman is watching this too.

  “Well,” Macleod says, “that’s one that won’t be back to terrorize us. Good night.” He walks off down the street into the darkness.

  I stand and watch the zeppelin’s fiery end. By sunrise, there will be nothing but twisted girders and charred bodies for the curious to gawk at. I unlock the door, go quietly up the stairs and collapse onto my bed.

  But despite my tiredness, sleep won’t come. There is too much information spinning around in my brain. I will go back to Belgium with my real identity—Manon Wouters, a trainee nurse from the town of Damme, near Bruges. What will change is the story of my life over the past two years. Instead of nursing Allied soldiers back to health, I will have been working on a farm in eastern Belgium for a distant relative. Of course, the relative who can confirm this is a resistance worker for an organization called La Dame Blanche. I have seen photographs of this woman and the farm, and I have learned about this false life tha
t has been created for me. I have returned to Damme, I will say, because I miss my mother and my younger brother.

  It will work if nobody looks too closely, and why should they? As Macleod continually tells me, “The most convincing lies are based on truth,” and most of my life is true. Once I am back in Damme, I will return to work at the hospital in Bruges, which will give me the opportunity to collect information from wounded German soldiers and sailors. Macleod also says, “Wounded soldiers often fall in love with their nurses. They tell them things they shouldn’t.”

  Talk of wounded soldiers rekindles thoughts of Alec Shorecross. He fell in love with me. As Macleod said, that is not surprising for a soldier and his nurse. The difference is that I think I fell in love with Alec too. I pray constantly that he is still alive—that he is surviving the madness that’s overwhelming this world. I wish I had said good-bye to him properly, but I couldn’t. I’m sure Alec was on the verge of telling me he loved me when we were interrupted. If I had gone back to talk to him after Macleod made the offer to train me as a spy, he would have said it and I would never have had the strength to leave the hospital and do what I am about to.

  Thoughts of Alec, sad as they are, comfort me and ease the turmoil of my mind. As I drift off to sleep, I promise myself that I will write to him before I leave for Belgium. I don’t wake up until one of my flatmates bangs on my door to tell me that Macleod is waiting downstairs to take me off to another day of training.

  I am more terrified than I have ever been. My training has been thorough and detailed: I know the false pieces of my life so well that I dream about them. I have my identity papers, I’m wearing clothes made in Belgium and I’ve polished my German until it is flawless. There’s just one thing Major Macleod forgot—he never sent me up in an airplane.

  I knew perfectly well that to begin my work, I would be flown over the trenches and landed in a field near Damme, but I was focused on more immediate issues and assumed it would be no problem. As time passed, I found myself watching planes overhead and thinking how fragile they looked, but I still viewed my flight as just something unpleasant that had to be done. Now I’m in a field in France, sitting in the open cockpit of what my pilot calls an F.E.2b, and even though we haven’t yet left the ground, I think I’m going to throw up.