In a squat, reinforced concrete building outside Hilversum, in the Netherlands, a young woman in her early twenties took off her headset and put it down on the desktop beside her typewriter. She pressed a switch on the radio monitor fixed to the wall above the desktop and removed a single sheet of paper from the typewriter. She rose to her feet and walked across a room that was about ten metres square, filled with other women glued to more radio sets, towards a man seated at a raised desk.

‘Excuse me, please, Herr Kranz,’ she said. ‘This was just sent from the British Special Operations Executive in London.’ She added, ‘It is in clear.’

Her supervisor, Hauptmann Marius Kranz, reached out to take the piece of paper. ‘Thank you, Lise, you may return to your post.’

Kranz did not speak English with any degree of fluency. But he understood enough to know that Lise was right. This was an unencrypted message, sent in plain English. Then again, Kranz smiled to himself, it would not have made any differ- ence if it had been encrypted. The Englandspiel project, under Oberstleutnant Hermann Giskes of the Abwehr, the Reich’s military intelligence agency, had long since broken all of SOE’s codes. As a result, almost all the British agents who had been parachuted into the Low Countries – more than fifty in total – had been captured and then imprisoned or killed.

Until, that is, one agent – a woman – had managed to survive for months undercover and then escape back to England, leav- ing a trail of destruction behind her. And here was her name, COURTNEY, in the message in Kranz’s hand. So what should he do with it?

This was not a serious question. ‘My girls’, as he liked to call his staff, were not cryptographers. Their job was to transcribe encrypted messages, not decipher them. But they had learned to recognise the particular ‘hands’ or Morse code tapping skills of individual operators, and could thus identify where messages were coming from, even when they could not decipher what they said. It was Kranz’s job to prioritise those messages that needed the most urgent attention of the Abwehr’s code-breakers. He was like a traffic cop at an exceptionally busy intersection, deter- mining which intercepts could move and in what direction.

This particular message, which required no decryption, should obviously go straight to Giskes. But it seemed to Kranz that there were other eyes who would want to read it, too. For what the Abwehr did not know was that while Marius Kranz had been a devoted Nazi Party member since 1935, a fierce patriot and a devoted admirer of the Führer, he was also a double agent.

Kranz sent a constant stream of confidential information to another intelligence agency that was both more hostile to, and more detested by, the Abwehr than Britain’s Secret Intel- ligence Service or the Soviet People’s Commissariat for State Security. Its name was the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD. It was part of the larger SS apparatus, and it served as the intelligence service of the Nazi Party.

In the Darwinian culture of Nazi Germany, in which both people and organisations were encouraged by the Führer to compete with one another as savagely as possible so that only the fittest could survive, the Abwehr and SD were mortal enemies. The Abwehr regarded the SD as crude Nazi fanatics. The SD, in return, considered the Abwehr to be a nest of turncoats, whose loyalty was to the old, pre-Nazi Germany, not to the Third Reich.

Both agencies, Kranz reasoned, would be intrigued by this message between two very senior men in separate enemy intel- ligence agencies, apparently linked by a woman. So he discreetly copied it, word for word, handwritten on a sheet from his own notepad. He sent the original direct to Oberstleutnant Giskes. Then he picked up the phone on his desk, called a number and said, ‘Good afternoon. This is Herr Schmidt from the post office. I have a telegram for Frau Müller from her son.’

‘Thank you, Herr Schmidt,’ came the reply. ‘I will ask her to come and collect it.’

 

•     •    •

 

There was a white Bakelite telephone in Saffron’s cabin. At the front, where the dial would normally be, a round piece of card had been stuck to the set, on which the words You can telephone to any part of the world whilst at sea, were printed in neat capital letters. In pre-war days, this had been one of Cunard’s proudest boasts, but now the line was dead. All the pleasures that the boat would have provided for a young woman – from the swimming pool, steam baths and beauty parlour to the restaurants, bars, nightclub, ball- room, and the lounge that converted into a cinema – had been stripped away. Not that Saffron cared. She had a first-class suite with a blissfully comfortable double bed, and a bath- room in which to take long showers and hot, deep baths – extravagant indulgences after two years of rules stipulating no more than four inches of hot water in a bath, no more than once a week. There was even the choice of fresh or sea water. Three times a day, an elderly steward called Clancy arrived with simple but edible meals, accompanied by sensationally good wines. ‘Still got some of the pre-war stuff in the ship’s cellar,’ he told her. ‘Save it for when we’ve got proper VIPs on board.’

That gave Saffron the opening to ask, ‘So what’s going on here? On this voyage, I mean.’

Clancy frowned. ‘What do you mean, miss?’

‘Well, I’m basically stuck in my room, except for a bit of exercise time up on the promenade deck, morning and after- noon. But when I do get out, I keep seeing young chaps rush- ing about the place, some in civvies, some in uniform, and then there are the bigwigs wandering around, too. I’ve seen at least one field marshal and a couple of admirals, and all sorts of important-looking chaps in suits.’

Clancy looked puzzled. ‘You mean, you’re not with them?’ ‘Not really. I’ve got one of their cabins, apparently, but I have no idea what’s going on.’

‘Oh . . . Well . . . Then I’m afraid I can’t say. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’ve looked after some fancy passengers in my time. But there’s one on this voyage that takes the ruddy biscuit.’ He winked and tapped the side of his nose. ‘You keep your eyes peeled, miss. That’s all I can say.’

By dinner on the second day, Saffron and Clancy were firm friends. ‘Do you have any contact with the rest of the ship, where the Americans are?’ she asked.

‘Not personally,’ the steward replied. ‘But I’ve got mates working on that side of the ship. Why do you ask?’

‘I was wondering if you could get a message to one of their officers. I don’t know where he is exactly . . . but I don’t think there’ll be anyone else with the same name.’

‘I should think not, miss!’ Clancy exclaimed, casting an eye over the envelope that Saffron had handed him. ‘US Army Air Forces Lieutenant Clayton Stackpole the Third, MD . . . Blimey! What is he, American royalty?’

‘He does sound a bit like it, I agree.’

‘Well, you leave it to me, miss. The Yanks have set up a hospital bay for their wounded lads. I expect they’ll know your doctor there.’

Shortly after noon on the following day, Clancy reappeared, bringing lunch. ‘Got something else for you,’ he said, rum- maging through his food trolley. He held out an envelope. ‘Your Dr Stackpole replied,’ he said. ‘And I don’t blame him, I’d have done the same.’

The envelope contained a short note and a Hershey’s choco- late bar.

Hey, Saffron II, great to hear from you. But it would be even better to see you. There’s a big open space at the back of the sun deck, I think it’s called the cabin class games area. Can you meet me there, starboard side, at 1600? I think I can get away for a few minutes then. I’ve got to warn you, it won’t exactly be private. But I can bring more Hershey bars. How can you say no?

Saffron smiled, then looked at Clancy. ‘Please tell your friends to tell my friend that the answer’s “Yes”.’

 

•     •    •

 

In the Reich Main Security office on Prinz-Albrecht-Straße, in the heart of Berlin, a couple of hundred metres from Hitler’s Reich Chancellery, two officers of the Ausland-SD – the overseas intelligence service of the SS, and therefore the direct competitor of the Abwehr – had met to discuss the intercept passed to them by Marius Kranz.

One of the officers, Sturmbannführer Hertz, represented the organisation’s Section B, whose responsibility was espio- nage in Western Europe. His counterpart, Sturmbannführer Preminger, worked for Section D: espionage in the American Sphere. Both were involved, because the matter at hand involved a British agent travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States.

‘The message seems to be very simple,’ Hertz said. He had gone over it often enough to be able to recite it from memory. ‘“Miss Courtney is safely embarked. ETA at your end, five or six days. Hope she’s of use. But don’t work her too hard. Remember she is on holiday.” It is addressed to Stephenson. He is, as you well know, the chief of British intelligence in America, based in New York. It is signed Gubbins, who is the chief of the sabotage and espionage agency, SOE.’

‘The two men are known to be friends,’ Preminger observed.

‘Quite so. “Miss Courtney”, though, is a less familiar name. But I have made some inquiries. Now, as you know, the Abwehr have turned a small number of SOE agents who were sent into the Low Countries. It struck me that these agents may have known of, or even worked with, Miss Courtney while they were all still in London. So I asked the Abwehr to speak to their people.’

‘Were the Abwehr their usual helpful selves?’ Preminger inquired.

Hertz laughed. ‘It took a little persuasion, not least because the former SOE agents were initially reluctant to co-operate – until it was made clear that if they didn’t, they’d get the same treatment as every other captured British agent. Which is to say, interrogated, tortured, sent to a camp and then killed.

‘So, I can now tell you that her full name is Saffron Courtney. Age, twenty-three. Height, approximately one hundred and seventy-five centimetres. Athletic build, blue eyes, natu- rally dark hair, almost black.’

‘She sounds like a very attractive woman.’

‘That is one way of describing Saffron Courtney. Another might be that she is a dangerous enemy of the Reich. Because the description that I have just given you is remarkably close to that of the Hatpin Girl.’

‘Mein Gott! . . . The hell-bitch who killed Schröder, in The Hague? Why has no one made the connection before?’

‘As you can imagine, that same question occurred to the Abwehr. After Schröder’s death, all SOE agents in captivity, whether they had been turned or not, were given a description of Marlize Marais and asked if she was one of their people. Not surprisingly, those agents who were not co-operating said nothing. But even the doubles said that they did not recognise the description. Yesterday, when they were asked why they had not identified Saffron Courtney, they swore that it had not even occurred to them that it could be her. This is not entirely implausible, because, for obvious security reasons, active agents do not have any idea about one another’s missions, and they often do not fraternise with one another.

‘Anyway, so far as the Abwehr’s people know, Courtney has never engaged in espionage duties. Her job at SOE is to liaise with the Dutch and Belgian governments-in-exile in London. One of her former colleagues admitted that he did not know her, but said she had a reputation as, quote, “a spoiled little rich girl”. Apparently she has her uniforms hand-made, and lives in a luxurious apartment bought by her father.’

‘So why is she going to America?’ Preminger asked. ‘Clearly it is not for a holiday. The British can be frivolous people, but surely not even they would send anyone across the Atlantic for no other purpose than rest and recreation. It must be code for some other kind of activity. Would you agree?’

Hertz frowned. ‘Yes. But if this is an operational matter, why was the message not encoded? And what are we to make of the phrase, “Hope she is of use”?’

Preminger shrugged. ‘That is the mystery. What kind of mission would a British spy carry out in the homeland of her nation’s greatest ally?’

‘What we do know,’ said Hertz, ‘is that she is “safely embarked”. It seems certain that the ship in question is the British ocean liner Queen Mary, which left Scotland on the fifth of May, the date the message was sent, bound for New York. I am reliably informed that Admiral Dönitz has ordered his U-boats to intercept it.’

Preminger nodded. ‘Well, that would solve our problem at a stroke. But let us assume that Miss Courtney reaches New York on the tenth or eleventh of May. We have agents in New York. We can pick up Miss Courtney’s trail as she disembarks. The Queen Mary may now be painted grey, but from your descrip- tion, Hertz, Miss Courtney will be easy to spot. So we will keep her under observation until her true purpose in America becomes clear.’

‘In the meantime, I will see if we can find more evidence linking the SOE agent Saffron Courtney to the killer Marlize Marais.’

‘And then,’ said Preminger, ‘if they are truly one and the same woman, our superiors can decide what they want to do with her.’

 

•     •    •

 

Getting to the sun deck was not exactly straightfor- ward. Saffron had to show her ID to the British mili- tary policemen guarding the VIP area and be checked off the list of passengers in Colonel Warden’s party – and she couldn’t help wondering why it was his party, when there were plainly so many officers aboard who were far above his rank. When that had been done, she was handed a pass that would allow her back in.

A few steps later, she had to be checked into the US Army Air Forces section of the ship and be handed a second pass to allow her back out. Saffron’s cabin was on the main deck. The promenade deck was the next one up, with the sun deck above that. Saffron forced her way through teeming throngs of men who crowded each deck and all the ladders – as she had been told by Clancy to call the stairs – between them. All the men were friendly, most of them respectful, but some were a little too friendly, and even Saffron became worn down by the suggestive remarks, the whistles and the men’s hands on her arms, her body and her backside as she went by.

‘Follow me,’ Stackpole said when he met her at the entrance to the games area. He wasn’t wearing his cap, but his brown eyes were still hidden behind his Aviator glasses. It had been raining earlier and the deck was slick with water, but the clouds had now passed and the sun had emerged.

Stackpole tapped the shoulder of a man wearing a khaki uniform, who was standing by the rails, looking out to sea. ‘Thanks, Mac. I’ll take it from here.’

‘No problem, Doc,’ Mac said.

‘I gave him five bucks to save me a prime spot,’ Stackpole told Saffron.

She barely managed a smile. Stackpole looked at her, frowning. ‘Something wrong?’

Saffron leaned against the balustrade, looking out to sea.

She sighed and said, ‘Oh, it’s all right.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Stackpole nodded. ‘Guess that’s female for, “No, it’s not all right at all.” Right?’

Saffron put on a brighter smile. ‘Yes, I suppose it is. But it’s nice to see you, Clay. Better than sitting alone in my cabin all day.’

‘Gee, thanks. Good to know I’m better than that.’

‘Oh, don’t worry, you are. The only company I’ve had since we left Gourock is the steward, Clancy. He’s very sweet, but about a hundred and ten years old.’

‘Whoa! Hold up! You have a steward?’

Saffron smiled, feeling a little better. ‘I have, and he serves me three meals a day, plus elevenses and tea.’

‘What? Three meals? We only get two. And we have to stand in line with our mess tins and pray that whatever gets slopped into it is edible.’

‘At last!’ Saffron exclaimed, delighted by the news of Stackpole’s privations. ‘For the first time in the war, there are Americans getting less food than the British. And,’ she went on, deciding to rub it in further, ‘I have a rather splendid suite with my own private bathroom.’

‘Oh, I get it. The Limeys are all in the lap of luxury while Uncle Sam’s boys are crammed tighter than steers in a rail- road truck. Well, I gotta tell you, lady, I am calling my senator about this when I get home.’

‘I’d happily let you share my cabin, but I don’t think that would be allowed,’ Saffron teased.

‘Would you now?’ Stackpole replied with a grin. ‘Separate beds, of course.’

They both laughed and turned to look out to sea. Stackpole fell silent. He grimaced.

‘What’s the matter?’ Saffron asked.

‘Just praying a U-boat doesn’t get us,’ Stackpole said. ‘All the guys I’m looking after . . . Be kind of ironic if they survived bombing missions at twenty thousand feet over Europe, then got sent to the bottom of the ocean. I guess we’ve got a couple of little friends riding shotgun. Hope that’s enough.’

A Royal Navy escort destroyer, HMS Ottoman, was sailing beside the Queen Mary, steaming slightly ahead of the liner and a few hundred yards off its beam. There was another, just like her, HMS Ondine, on the other side of the ship. They were both tiny by comparison to the vast ocean liner. ‘I imagine the Admiralty knows what it’s doing,’ she said, but her mind was elsewhere.

The promenade deck on the ship, where Saffron took her daily walks, was enclosed. Tall windows ran along its entire length; they could be opened to let in the sunshine and sea air, but the weather had not been good, so they had remained closed. This was her first chance to look at the sea and test Dr Thackeray’s theory that water might be a trigger for her panic attacks.

She stared hard at the rolling grey swell of the ocean waves and the creamy bubbles of the ship’s wake, but felt nothing. ‘Maybe it has to be a lake,’ she murmured to herself.

‘What’s that?’ asked Stackpole.

‘Oh, nothing . . . Just thinking about something a doctor said to me.’

‘You want to tell another doctor about it?’

‘He wasn’t your kind of a doctor – more interested in my brain than my bones.’

‘Well, I gotta admit, brains are not my specialty, but I can certainly—’

Before Stackpole could finish his sentence there was a piercing screech from the tannoy speakers located all over the ship, a crackling sound, and then a very English voice saying, ‘Attention! Attention! This is a message for Miss Saffron Courtney . . .’

Saffron recognised Jock Colville’s voice, as he repeated her name again. ‘Would Miss Saffron Courtney please proceed at once to the promenade deck. I repeat . . .’

The massed American airmen on the sun deck burst out in mocking catcalls, whistles and impersonations of Colville’s very British accent. ‘I’ve got to go,’ Saffron shouted over the noise. ‘I don’t know where I’m staying in New York, but you can get hold of me through Mr Stephenson at the British Passport Control Office, Rockefeller Center.’

‘Stephenson . . . Passport . . . Rockefeller . . . Got it,’ Stackpole shouted back, then added, ‘Follow me! I’ll run interference!’

Saffron frowned at the unfamiliar phrase, but its meaning became obvious as Stackpole barged his way through the crowd, clearing a path for her. He came with her all the way to the US checkpoint.

The MP grunted and held out his hand for Saffron’s pass and ID. As the MP let her through, Stackpole shouted, ‘Stephenson, at the Rockefeller Center, I won’t forget!’

Saffron waved back, then turned to present her papers to the English guard, a corporal. Jock Colville was standing beyond him, tense with impatience and pent-up nervous energy. ‘For God’s sake, man, let her through!’ he called as the corporal carried out the slowest, most painstaking of inspections. Finally he waved her through.

Colville grabbed Saffron’s arm and practically dragged her after him. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he snapped. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere!’ She shook herself free of his grip.

‘Why? What’s so important?’

‘Not what – who,’ Colville said. They had reached the door to the cabin class promenade. ‘Well, here we go,’ he said. ‘You’re about to meet Colonel Warden.’

Saffron was at the stern end of the promenade deck. The man she was meeting was right up by the bow. But even at a distance of more than a hundred yards, with his back turned, wearing a navy-blue greatcoat and matching peaked cap, the silhouette was unmistakable. It was something to do with the sturdiness of his posture, the legs a little apart to support the short, stocky body. But the puffs of cigar smoke being swept away in the wind were the clincher.

‘Excuse me a moment,’ Colville said. He upped his pace and went ahead. He bent his head to speak to the cigar-smoker, who turned around to observe Saffron as she approached.

‘This is Miss Saffron Courtney, sir,’ Colville said. ‘Miss Courtney, may I introduce you to the prime minister, Winston Churchill.’

Saffron found herself shaking hands with her country’s leader, the embodiment of British defiance. The set jaw, the glowering eyes . . . the features of the man she was facing were so familiar to her from a myriad of photographs and newsreels that there was something strangely unreal about seeing them in the flesh. And yet, here he was, so close that she could smell the cigar smoke.

Churchill had been in conversation with two other men: a silver-haired naval officer, who appeared to be in his late six- ties, much like the prime minister, and another younger, much taller man in a smartly cut double-breasted suit.

‘Ah, Miss Courtney,’ Churchill said. ‘I have heard a great deal about you.’

‘Sir . . .’ Saffron began. ‘Prime Minister . . . I hope that what you’ve heard has not been too off-putting.’

‘On the contrary, it made me eager to meet you for myself. Now, may I introduce you to Sir Dudley Pound, the Admiral of the Fleet? He is the man who, by winning the Battle of the Atlantic, has made it safe for you and me to cross the ocean on this magnificent vessel. And this is Mr Averell Harriman, the president’s special envoy to Europe.’

Harriman gave a practised smile. It was broad, but flat, Saffron noticed. The corners of his mouth barely rose above the horizontal. ‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Courtney,’ he said. Before the conversation could go any further, a naval officer with a lieutenant commander’s stripes on his uniform jacket appeared and hovered, somewhat anxiously, behind Admiral Pound. He coughed politely and then said, ‘You’re wanted on the bridge, sir. The news we were waiting for has arrived.’ ‘Ah . . .’ said Pound. ‘Excuse me, Prime Minister, Mr

Harriman, Miss Courtney.’

‘Off you go, Pound.’ Churchill watched the Royal Navy men hurry off, then turned back to Saffron. ‘I believe they’ve found a U-boat. They told me earlier today that there might be one in the vicinity. I replied by ordering a machine gun fitted to my lifeboat. I won’t be captured, Miss Courtney. I refuse to give Herr Hitler the satisfaction of parading me in chains through the streets of Berlin. And it is my conviction that there is no better way to die than fighting the enemy to the last.’

‘Perhaps you might care to go inside, Miss Courtney?’ Harriman suggested. ‘For your own safety.’ He was clearly worried that the images conjured up by Churchill’s words might have unsettled her.

‘No, thank you, sir. I was once on a ship that was sunk by Stukas, and it’s an awful lot easier to jump into the water if you’re on deck to begin with.’

‘You were on deck in the middle of an air raid?’ ‘Yes, I was manning some anti-aircraft guns.’ ‘Were there no men to do that?’

‘They were all injured or dead.’

‘The girl stood on the burning deck, my dear Harriman, whence all but she had fled,’ Churchill remarked. ‘Now, this is a distinctly inadequate vantage point for any naval engage- ment. Might I suggest that we relocate to the sports deck, where we will be in the open air with a greater elevation and able to see to both port and starboard? Colville, would you be good enough to ask the captain if he could spare that young officer to join us there and keep us in the picture. As a former First Sea Lord, I flatter myself that I have a reasonable grasp of the rudiments of anti-submarine warfare. But it may be less familiar to my guests.’

‘Of course, sir,’ Colville said, and hurried away.

Churchill turned to Saffron. ‘I hope I have not been too pre- sumptuous in assuming that you would wish to join us?’

A few minutes later, Saffron was standing just aft of the first of the Queen Mary’s funnels. The young officer Churchill had requested – a lieutenant commander, whose name was Quicke – had joined them. Suddenly, from deep in the bowels of the ship there came a roaring, thunderous noise; seventy feet above her, the plume of smoke from the engines thickened and the deck beneath her feet trembled.

‘Full speed ahead – that’s the spirit!’ Churchill exclaimed, and Saffron saw in his eyes the gleeful – almost manic – excitement of a much younger man, the Lieutenant Winston Churchill who had taken part in the last great cavalry charge in British military history at the Battle of Omdurman.

Another memory of her father suddenly came to her, and the excitement in his voice as he’d exclaimed, ‘Good Lord! It says here that the Queen Mary will have a top speed of almost thirty-three knots. That’s equivalent to . . . let me see, thirty-eight miles an hour. Why, she’ll be the biggest speedboat in the world!’

‘How fast can a U-boat go?’ Saffron asked Quicke. ‘About ten knots on the surface, four when submerged.’

‘So there’s not the slightest chance of a U-boat keeping up with us, then?’

‘No, none whatsoever. That’s why our escorts are sailing slightly ahead of us. No enemy could catch us from behind.’

‘You mean they have to be ahead of us already, and hope to ambush us as we go by?’

‘Exactly. Imagine a fairground shooting range, with ducks passing across the stand, and some chap trying to shoot them as they go by. The U-boat is the chap with the air rifle. We are currently aboard a very large, very grey duck.’

Churchill laughed. ‘A capital description! I shall forever think of the Queen Mary as a large grey duck.’

‘But actually, sir, it’s much harder than a shooting range, from the U-boat commander’s point of view. After all, the position of those fairground ducks is clear for all to see. But he does not know where exactly we are, or what course we are taking.’

‘Or so we must fervently hope,’ Churchill murmured. ‘How fast does a torpedo travel, compared to the speed of this ship?’ Saffron asked Quicke. ‘You know, in case we need to get out of the way.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, roughly, if we are going at full pelt, a torpedo is pretty much twice as fast. That’s not exact, but it’s a reasonable rule of thumb.’

Before Saffron could respond, Quicke said, ‘Hang on.’

Something had caught his eye. He was looking across the deck, squinting. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, then strode across the sports deck to the starboard rail, which faced almost due north. No sooner had he got there than he raised his binocu- lars and looked out to sea. He turned and waved back towards the prime minister and his companions. ‘I say, sir, come and take a look at this!’

Saffron followed Churchill and Harriman across the deck. ‘Look, sir,’ Quicke said, handing his binoculars to Churchill. ‘Ottoman’s caught the Jerries’ scent.’

Sure enough, the slender little destroyer was turning from its westerly course on to a north-westerly bearing, and haring away across the water.

‘Goodness, she’s nippy!’ Saffron exclaimed.

‘Absolutely,’ Quicke agreed. ‘The O-class ships have a top speed of almost thirty-seven knots, so they can more than keep up with the Queen Mary.’

‘So how did the Ottoman, as you put it, catch the scent?’ Harriman asked.

‘ASDIC, sir – or “sonar”, as your American navy calls it. You tow a unit behind the ship that emits sound waves. When the waves hit something, they bounce back. A trained operator can tell if that something is a U-boat.’

‘There goes Ondine, too!’ Churchill cried.

Saffron could see the other destroyer cutting across the Queen Mary’s bows and racing to join the Ottoman. ‘Always best to use two ships on a sub hunt,’ Quicke said. ‘If you’ve got two ASDIC readings, that helps to pinpoint the enemy’s posi- tion. And it means one ship can attack while the other keeps track of the sub’s movements.’

‘Would you like a view of the ships through these, my dear?’ Churchill asked, handing Saffron the binoculars.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Holding up the glasses, Saffron saw the two destroyers make another slight change in their respective courses. They were now converging on each other, heading for the same position, about a mile up ahead, and roughly the same distance to starboard, away from the line of the Queen Mary’s course.

The Ottoman changed course once again, but the Ondine kept steaming on. Saffron understood what was happening: the Ottoman was getting out of the Ondine’s way, keeping her ASDIC homed in on the U-boat, while the other destroyer went in for the kill.

‘Ondine’s launching her depth charges!’ Quicke called out. ‘You should watch this, sir,’ Saffron said, handing the binoculars back to the prime minister.

A dozen or more black specks flew from the stern of the destroyer, arced high into the air, and then fell like a shower of meteorites into the water. A few seconds went by. Nothing happened. Then suddenly the water behind the Ondine was punched from below in a series of foaming, frothing white eruptions.

Surely nothing could have survived the cumulative power of so many explosions, but as he scanned the surface, Quicke grimaced and muttered, ‘Damn! Missed!’

Now it was the Ottoman’s turn. She wheeled around and dashed towards the same patch of water that the Ondine had assaulted.

‘Why isn’t the U-boat moving?’ Saffron asked. Quicke shrugged. ‘You tell me . . .’

‘Oh, God . . .’ Saffron whispered. The answer to her own question had just struck her, but before she could say anything there was another burst of depth charges, arcing through the air before plunging into the sea.

They waited. The seconds dragged on. The distance between the Queen Mary and the battle between the destroyers and the U-boat had closed.

Then the explosions came, in quick succession: a smattering that looked the same as the ones before, and then a vast geyser, streaked with grey and black. The noise of the explosion ech- oed across the water.

‘Got him!’ Quicke shouted. From the far end of the ship, Saffron could hear the Americans crowded onto the aft of the sports deck cheering the U-boat’s destruction.

Churchill and Harriman were shaking Quicke’s hand, all talking at once as they exulted in the victory.

But Saffron had fallen silent. She felt no joy at the U-boat’s demise. Her eyes were fixed on the water between the Queen Mary and the site of the explosion.

‘May I have the binoculars please, sir?’ she asked Churchill. ‘By all means,’ he replied, handing them over.

Saffron looked back at the open water. She saw what she’d known was bound to emerge. Two parallel lines a fraction paler than the blue-black Atlantic water. The submarine had remained motionless because the captain was waiting for the perfect moment to strike. He was willing to sacrifice his own vessel, his own life and those of his crew for the chance to sink the Queen Mary.

‘Torpedoes!’ Saffron shouted from the top of her lungs, her voice clear above the joyful cacophony. She gestured franti- cally towards the two lines.

The celebrations fell silent in an instant. Quicke turned towards the rail, followed the line of Saffron’s finger and gasped. ‘Oh, bloody hell . . .’ He ripped the binoculars from Saffron’s hands with a cursory, ‘Sorry,’ took a closer look at the torpedo trail, then dashed to the foot of the ladder that led up to the bridge.

Quicke cupped two hands to his mouth and yelled, ‘Torpedo! Starboard bow!’

There was no reply. The captain had already got the message. The noise from below increased and more smoke jetted from the funnel. Saffron could imagine the men in the engine room, watching the arrows on the dials that indicated the boiler pres- sure going further and further into the red.

The calculation was simple. The torpedoes had to cover about a mile to travel to the point where they would meet the Queen Mary. The ship needed half a mile to get past the tor- pedoes. The torpedoes were going twice as fast as the ship. You didn’t need to be Einstein to work out that they were both heading for the same place at the same time.

A story from a play she’d once seen suddenly sprang into her mind: a man sees Death in the marketplace and, terrified, rides away as far away as he can, only to find the town where he finally halts is the very place Death has planned to meet him. This was what the ship seemed to be doing: heading for the exact place where the torpedoes would find her.

‘Can the captain alter course?’ Saffron asked Quicke.

‘Yes, but an ocean liner isn’t a destroyer,’ he replied. ‘Ondine and Ottoman are both about three hundred and fifty feet long and weigh a little over two thousand tons fully loaded. So they’re like a pair of whippets – skinny and nimble, and can turn on a sixpence, relatively speaking.’

His voice was quite calm, as though nothing dramatic was happening. Saffron knew he was using this little lecture as a distraction from a situation he could do nothing whatsoever to affect. But all the while, the torpedoes were getting closer to their target. She needed distracting, too. ‘And the Queen Mary?’ she asked.

‘Ah, well, she’s like a huge, lumbering, eighty-thousand-ton elephant. It’s a lot harder for her to change course. And she would take many miles to slow down, let alone come to a halt, so we can’t just stop and let the torpedoes go by. The only asset she’s got is speed.’

‘Not to mention, her hull is a thousand feet long,’ Saffron said, trying to sound as casually stiff-upper-lipped as Quicke. ‘So that’s another three hundred yards to cover before the stern gets clear of the torpedoes’ line of attack.’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Quicke grimly.

Saffron heard a commotion and turned to look. The Amer- icans at the starboard rail were all pointing and shouting. Some were frantically looking around, as if trying to find a place to hide. Others – more resigned, perhaps – were staying still, watching, and making the calculations.

There was nothing to be done now except wait and hope that the numbers didn’t add up the way Saffron thought they did. Maybe the submarine was further away than she’d esti- mated. Maybe the torpedoes were more sluggish than Quicke had thought. One way or another, she wouldn’t have to wait long to find out.

Saffron wasn’t afraid for herself. She was with the one man whose life would be guarded above all others. She noticed now that a dozen or so Royal Marines had gathered a few yards away, ready to clear a path to Churchill’s lifeboat. She gave a half-smile as she thought, the one with the machine-gun mounted on it.

If she tagged along, her proximity to power, as well as her gender, would guarantee her a safe passage onto the lifeboat. ‘Women and children first,’ and all that. What worried her more, creating a sickly chill in the pit of her stomach, was the fate of the Americans. The number of men far exceeded the quantity of lifeboats. And what about the German prison- ers, under lock and key on the very lowest decks? What about the wounded in their hospital beds? What about Stackpole? He’d said he had to get back to work. He was probably below decks, too.

‘Get out, Clay,’ Saffron muttered. ‘Just get out.’

She looked back at the torpedo line. It was clearly visible now, far closer, heading for the very centre of the ship’s hull.

The breeze had freshened, whipping up the water. The Queen Mary was bucking up and down as she ploughed through the ocean swell.

The two destroyers had turned back on themselves and were heading towards the Queen Mary. If the torpedoes hit, they would soon be there to pick up survivors.

The torpedoes were less than four hundred yards away. They were on course to hit the stern of the ship.

Two hundred yards away – less than ten seconds to impact. Saffron was alone by the rails. Quicke had discreetly herded Churchill and Harriman to the far side of the deck, as far away as possible from any explosion.

One hundred yards. The torpedoes were so close. The Queen Mary was travelling at top speed, but to Saffron it felt as if she was hardly moving at all.

She couldn’t escape. The torpedoes were going to hit them.

Saffron closed her eyes and turned away to shield her face from the blast.

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