You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger by Roger Hall

Author:Roger Hall [Hall, Roger]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612513713
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

NINE

RWH vs O.S.S., ETOUSA

I HAD BEEN in the Office of Strategic Services long enough to be fairly certain that no one at our London Headquarters would know we were coming. Several of my companions thought otherwise, and backed up their faith by betting we’d be met at the station.

They paid me after our group had spent a lonely hour huddled together in a corner at Paddington. The Colonel in charge of IJ 900 HP had refused point-blank to ask the military police for assistance or directions. Our travel orders were top secret, and he wasn’t about to let just anyone have a look. The Provost Marshal himself was finally unearthed for the occasion, and after an icy exchange of military courtesies our Colonel went off to make a phone call.

He came back shaking his head. We not only were not expected, but now that we had arrived, he’d had the devil of a time talking Headquarters into sending someone down to claim us. They did, though, and a half an hour later we were set upon by representatives of various branches, each there to lay hands on the designated number of bodies. I knew I belonged to Special Operations, so when a harried-looking first lieutenant identified himself as their chief slave trader, I went over and announced; “I’m yours.”

“You’re mine.”

“We mustn’t.”

I was billeted for the night in the Russell Square Hotel, which seemed partial to U.S. Army officers of company grade and unimportant American civilians. Having received an insignificant amount of English money and orders to report to Headquarters bright and early in the morning, I had an inadequate dinner and went back upstairs to write a few letters.

They all had the same theme: I Have Arrived—Victory Is At Hand—Send Food Parcels. When they were finished, I started to crawl into bed and almost dove under it as the air-raid sirens let loose. It proved to be a false alarm, by which time I was past caring anyway.

Half a dozen of my shipment had also spent the night at the Russell Square, and after breakfast we placed ourselves in the hands of an officer who had visited London in prewar days and “knew his way around.” He’d been yammering about it since the day we sailed, and I let myself be conned into going with him. He knew his way around all right, around and around and around.

“Listen, you dope, you don’t know where Baker Street is and you don’t know where Headquarters is and you don’t know where we is.”

“I know my way around London.”

“The hell you do.”

“The hell I don’t.”

“You don’t know where we are right now.”

“Oh yes I do.”

“No you don’t.”

“I certainly do.”

“Where are we?”

“We’re lost!”

This kept up until we flagged down a bus, asked for directions to Baker Street, and wound up being dropped twenty feet from the front door. We made it from there alone, were greeted with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, and put to work filling out all the blank paper which could be assembled on short notice.

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