more importantly - beaches which were only supposedly mined. On one occasion, full of solicitude for her welfare, he had spent two careful hours going over the maps with her, showing her exactly where not to go on her bird-watching expeditions.
'I know the situation changes all the time,' she said. 'Perhaps you could come round to the cottage again with those maps of yours and give me another lesson.'
His eyes were slightly glazed. 'Would you like that?'
'Of course. I'm at home this afternoon, actually.'
'After lunch,' he said. 'I'll be there about two,' and he released the handbrake and drove rapidly away.
Joanna Grey got back on her bicycle and started to pedal down the hill towards the main road. Patch running behind. Poor Henry. She was really quite fond of him. Just like a child and so easy to handle.
Half-an-hour later, she turned off the coast road and cycled along the top of a dyke through desolate marshes known locally as Hobs End. It was a strange, alien world of sea creeks and mudflats and great pale barriers of reeds higher than a man's head, inhabited only by the birds, curlew and redshank and brent geese coming south from Siberia to winter on the mud flats.
Half-way along the dyke, a cottage crouched behind a mouldering flint wall, sheltered by a few sparse pine trees, It looked substantial enough with outbuildings and a large barn, but the windows were shuttered and there was a general air of desolation about it. This was the marsh warden's house and there had been no warden since 1940.
She moved on to a high ridge lined with pines. She dismounted from her bicycle and leaned it against a tree. There were sand dunes beyond and then a wide, flat beach stretching with the tide out a quarter of a mile towards the sea. In the distance she could see the Point on the other side of the estuary, curving in like a great bent forefinger, enclosing an area of channels and sandbanks and shoals that, on a rising tide, was probably as lethal as anywhere on the Norfolk coast.
She produced her camera and took a great many pictures from various angles. As she finished, the dog brought her a stick to throw, which he laid carefully down between her feet. She crouched and fondled his ears. 'Yes, Patch,' she said softly. 'I really think this will do very well indeed.'
She tossed the stick straight over the line of barbed wire which prevented access to the beach and Patch darted past the post with the notice board that said Beware of mines. Thanks to Henry Willoughby, to her certain knowledge there wasn't a mine on the beach.
To her left was a concrete blockhouse and a machine-gun post, a very definite air of decay to both of them, and in the gap between the pine trees, the tank trap had filled with drifting sand. Three years earlier, after the Dunkirk debacle, there would have been soldiers here. Even a year ago. Home Guard, but not now.
In June, 1940, an area up to twenty miles inland from the Wash to the Rye was declared a Defence Area. There were no restrictions on people living there, but outsiders had to have a good reason for visiting. All that had altered considerably and now, three years later, virtually no one bothered to enforce the regulations for the plain truth was that there was no longer any need.
Joanna Grey bent down to fondle the dog's ears again. 'You know what it is, Patch? The English just don't expect to be invaded any more.'
3
It was the following Tuesday before Joanna Grey's report arrived at the Tirpitz Ufer. Hofer had put a red flag out for it. He took it straight in to Radl who opened it and examined the contents.
There were photos of the marsh at Hobs End and the beach approaches, their position indicated only by a coded map reference. Radl passed the report itself to Hofer.
'Top priority. Get that deciphered and wait while they do it.'
The Abwehr had just started
'I know the situation changes all the time,' she said. 'Perhaps you could come round to the cottage again with those maps of yours and give me another lesson.'
His eyes were slightly glazed. 'Would you like that?'
'Of course. I'm at home this afternoon, actually.'
'After lunch,' he said. 'I'll be there about two,' and he released the handbrake and drove rapidly away.
Joanna Grey got back on her bicycle and started to pedal down the hill towards the main road. Patch running behind. Poor Henry. She was really quite fond of him. Just like a child and so easy to handle.
Half-an-hour later, she turned off the coast road and cycled along the top of a dyke through desolate marshes known locally as Hobs End. It was a strange, alien world of sea creeks and mudflats and great pale barriers of reeds higher than a man's head, inhabited only by the birds, curlew and redshank and brent geese coming south from Siberia to winter on the mud flats.
Half-way along the dyke, a cottage crouched behind a mouldering flint wall, sheltered by a few sparse pine trees, It looked substantial enough with outbuildings and a large barn, but the windows were shuttered and there was a general air of desolation about it. This was the marsh warden's house and there had been no warden since 1940.
She moved on to a high ridge lined with pines. She dismounted from her bicycle and leaned it against a tree. There were sand dunes beyond and then a wide, flat beach stretching with the tide out a quarter of a mile towards the sea. In the distance she could see the Point on the other side of the estuary, curving in like a great bent forefinger, enclosing an area of channels and sandbanks and shoals that, on a rising tide, was probably as lethal as anywhere on the Norfolk coast.
She produced her camera and took a great many pictures from various angles. As she finished, the dog brought her a stick to throw, which he laid carefully down between her feet. She crouched and fondled his ears. 'Yes, Patch,' she said softly. 'I really think this will do very well indeed.'
She tossed the stick straight over the line of barbed wire which prevented access to the beach and Patch darted past the post with the notice board that said Beware of mines. Thanks to Henry Willoughby, to her certain knowledge there wasn't a mine on the beach.
To her left was a concrete blockhouse and a machine-gun post, a very definite air of decay to both of them, and in the gap between the pine trees, the tank trap had filled with drifting sand. Three years earlier, after the Dunkirk debacle, there would have been soldiers here. Even a year ago. Home Guard, but not now.
In June, 1940, an area up to twenty miles inland from the Wash to the Rye was declared a Defence Area. There were no restrictions on people living there, but outsiders had to have a good reason for visiting. All that had altered considerably and now, three years later, virtually no one bothered to enforce the regulations for the plain truth was that there was no longer any need.
Joanna Grey bent down to fondle the dog's ears again. 'You know what it is, Patch? The English just don't expect to be invaded any more.'
3
It was the following Tuesday before Joanna Grey's report arrived at the Tirpitz Ufer. Hofer had put a red flag out for it. He took it straight in to Radl who opened it and examined the contents.
There were photos of the marsh at Hobs End and the beach approaches, their position indicated only by a coded map reference. Radl passed the report itself to Hofer.
'Top priority. Get that deciphered and wait while they do it.'
The Abwehr had just started
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