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Austin Macauley Publishers - Mike Walsham

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164 pages

English

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As early as 1939, the British Secret Intelligent Service was looking for recruits with linguistic talents and other qualities suitable to work for the Service in anticipation of a war in Europe. Andrew joined the Service and after undergoing training at various establishments, and with war now under way, he was chosen to participate in two missions, the second of which severely tested his ability to think on his feet and alter plans due to the changing circumstances. He and his fellow agent carried out a daring raid well inside enemy territory after which they were pursued by the Gestapo as they fled for France. They narrowly escaped their clutches as they entered France but needed the assistance of a young lady - already well known to Andrew - to complete their escape, this time from the French police. The novel is a compelling and fast-paced story of a British agent in the early part of WWII.

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	30 avril 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528963428
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Monique
Mike Walsham
Austin Macauley Publishers
2019-04-30
Monique About the Author Copyright Information Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Early April 1940 Chapter 2 Mid-March 1939 Chapter 3 Wednesday, 3rd of April 1940 Chapter 4 End of March 1939 Chapter 5 Wednesday, 3rd of April 1940 Chapter 6 April 1939 Chapter 7 Wednesday, 3rd of April 1940 Chapter 8 April 1939 Chapter 9 Wednesday, 3rd of April 1940 Chapter 10 Saturday, 6th of May 1939 Chapter 11 Thursday, 4th of April 1940 Chapter 12 Saturday, 3rd of June 1939 Chapter 13 Thursday, 4th of April 1940 Chapter 14 Tuesday, 6th of June 1939 Chapter 15 Friday, 5th of April 1940 Chapter 16 Monday, 12th of June 1939 Chapter 17 Friday, 5th of April 1940 Chapter 18 Tuesday, 20th of June 1939 Chapter 19 Saturday, 6th of April 1940 Chapter 20 Saturday, 1st of July 1939 Chapter 21 Saturday, 6th of April 1940 Chapter 22 Wednesday, 12th of July 1939 Chapter 23 Saturday, 6th of April 1940 Chapter 24 Thursday, 13th of July 1939 Chapter 25 Sunday, 7th of April 1940 Chapter 26 Saturday, 15th of July 1939 Chapter 27 Sunday, 7th of April 1940 Chapter 28 Sunday, 23rd of July 1939 Chapter 29 Sunday, 7th of April 1940 Chapter 30 Monday, 24th of July 1939 Chapter 31 Monday, 8th of April 1940 Chapter 32 Wednesday, 26th of July 1939 Chapter 33 Monday, 8th of April 1940 Chapter 34 Tuesday, 1st of August 1939 Chapter 35 Monday, 8th of April 1940 Chapter 36 Tuesday, 8th of August 1939 Chapter 37 Tuesday, 9th of April 1940 Chapter 38 Thursday, 10th of August 1939 Chapter 39 Tuesday, 9th of April 1940 Chapter 40 Friday, 1st of September 1939 Chapter 41 Monday, 22nd of April 1940 Chapter 42 Wednesday, 1st of November 1939 Chapter 43 Wednesday, 24th of April 1940
About the Author
To my wife, Sandra; our four children: Adrian, Suzanne, Elizabeth and James; our nine wonderful grandchildren: Jerome, Ona, Joy, Hamish, Annabel, Holly, Maisie, Imogen and Henry.
Copyright Information
Copyright © Mike Walsham (2019)
The right of Mike Walsham to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528921398 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528921404 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781528921411 (Kindle e-book)
ISBN 9781528963428 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2019)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgements
A close friend for many years, Paul Yeates, gave me invaluable help on the formatting of submissions to publishers. Other friends and family members have urged me to write this novel for nearly four years.
Many thanks must go to Bill Patterson for his help with the cover design and to my granddaughter, Holly, for the time she spent assisting with the design in the latter stages.
Chapter 1

Early April 1940
As the fully laden train of twenty wagons started to move slowly out of the siding, he shovelled more coal into the furnace, as instructed. Artur Selmer had been working as a fireman with the burly German senior driver/engineer, named Hans, for a month. Hans was in his late forties. He was a tall, well-built man with a shock of fair hair and a florid complexion. His sleeves were usually rolled up when he worked on the train that revealed strong, muscular arms. He liked his steins of beer when off duty, but this affected his waistline. He had originally been employed by one of the private state railway companies in the 1920s, but had been selected to join the newly reorganised authority, the Deutsche Reichsbahn (DRB) , in 1937.
Hans was a full-paid member of the National Socialist Party and was proud of having been given the responsibility of ferrying high quality armour for the Reich. His family lived in a village near Leipzig and he would be allowed a week’s leave after this trip. His two young sons would be celebrating their seventeenth birthdays during the time he would be at home, and they would have been members of the Hitler-Jugend for nearly three years. One of the twins was destined to be transferred to the SS as a result of his attitude and commitment to the Party. Hans was very excited to be going home after four weeks of work. He looked forward to being with his attractive wife, Heidi, and to be updated with what the family had been up to during his absence.
Artur was thirty-one years old. He had all the correct papers to substantiate his position. He had a Danish passport specifying he came from the village of Løgten, northeast of Aarhus, in Jutland. He had a Nationalist Party member’s card showing that he currently lived in a village near Munich. He also had a German passport linking him to a small village near Munich. He had sharp blue eyes and a good head of straight, fair hair. He was lean and fit after all the training he had recently been through as a British agent, but was about 4ʺ shorter than Hans.
Artur had learnt German from his governess, Helga, who came from Munich. She was only nineteen years old when she had been taken on by his mother soon after he had been born ‒ his mother was not at all keen on babies at the nappy stage. Helga adored Artur and was never far from him, singing German lullabies and talking about her little sister, Ingrid, who she hoped Artur might meet one day. Artur enjoyed all the attention he received at this early stage of his life and was quick to learn all that Helga taught him. Artur’s mother would only speak Danish to him and talk to him about her family and the family’s farm animals back in Denmark.
Artur had to be careful with his Danish that he had learned from his mother as she came from a village inland from the coastal town of Rungsted, north of Copenhagen. There were significant differences in pronunciation and the use of words from these two parts of Denmark ‒ Jutland and the east of Sjaelland ‒ and would be easily detected by anyone who was familiar with the language. Danish was not likely to be needed by Artur until he completed this current assignment with his planned escape through Jutland back to England.
Even after only six months since the outbreak of war, Artur was already on his second operation as a British agent into mainland Europe, but this one was much longer and more dangerous. His superiors thought it a very risky assignment for such a new, inexperienced recruit; one that required Artur to use his initiative, to be clear-headed at all times about the objective and to trust nobody. He was, as a result, given much less than a 50-50 chance of being successful and less than one in a hundred chance of escaping capture and returning to England safely. He was, however, very confident of his own abilities and his general Arian appearance could be of significant assistance, not to mention his language skills.
Artur worked well with Hans; he initially had a shaky start but now he was trusted as Hans’ assistant and had worked hard on his relationship with him. Artur had a natural ability of making people feel at ease with him, especially in this situation where he was not really a German national, but a very fluent and competent German speaker. His aptitude for making people laugh was used to great effect with Hans, who enjoyed poking fun at the English and how they didn’t stand a chance of winning the war against the Germans this time around.
About ten days earlier, in one of Hans’ favourite bars with the steins flowing so freely, Hans had told Artur that he had received information from one of his sons that Germany would soon walk into Denmark and thence into Norway. Artur was aware from his occasional coded communications with London that Hitler and his Chiefs of Staff were in a dilemma as to whether the army should occupy the neutral countries of Norway and Denmark, or march into and occupy the Low Countries. Hans confirmed that Hitler favoured the former because the much needed Swedish iron ore for armament manufacturing was coming from the Norwegian port of Narvik during these harsh winter months. In addition, France and Great Britain wished to persuade neutral Norway and Sweden to let them take their troop ships into Norwegian and Swedish waters in order to give support to the Finnish resistance that was fighting the Russians.
London would be very interested to hear what Hans had told Artur, and knew that it was classified information that had been carelessly given to him that evening. Artur had listened to every detail so he could relay it to London at his next opportunity. One of Artur’s many strong points was that he had trained himself to make a beer last very much longer than most other people, and yet give the impression that he was getting drunk. Hans even apologised on behalf of the German army and hoped none of Artur’s family in Jutland would be caught up in the skirmishes that were bound to occur. That reflected the trust that Hans had in Artur; it wasn’t the first mistake that Hans had made and it would probably not be the last.
It was early April 1940. The weather had been bitterly cold over most of mainland Europe during January, especially Germany, Scandinavia and the Low Countries of Belgium and the Netherlands. Snow still lay around and, earlier in the day, the pale grey clouds suggested more was to come. It transpired to have been one of the coldest winters on record, with temperatures reaching as low as −40 °C in some places. It was not nearly so cold now.
Artur had been operating trains with Hans for the last four weeks on a route from the Daimler-Benz engine m