29 THE MISSION

The bell rang at 7:30 in the morning, an almost uncivilized time to call around on anyone, even in wartime.

The maid was engaged upstairs so Evelyn answered the door. A tall, thin man in a black bowler hat, a black suit and a long mohair coat requested to see a Mr Jonathan St Croix. Evelyn asked if she could say who was calling. “Mr Charles Dodson.”

Evelyn was taken aback momentarily and absentmindedly muttered, “Dodson, Charles Dodson, that was the name of my father’s private secretary.”

The man raised an eyebrow. “One and the same.”

“Jonathan, there is a man here to see you. He is waiting in the front parlour. He says his name is Charles Dodson. He was my father’s private secretary in the House.”

Jonathan slowly put down his coffee, waited a moment, and looked at Evelyn, then stated, “Really?”

“Sir, I am glad you are doing well.”

“You too Mr Dodson, you too. The last I saw you was at Magnus the Martyrs?

“Yes, Sir, I believe it was. If I may get to the point, I am here in the capacity of the Ministry, and I have been requested to have you accompany me to a certain area as soon as possible.”

“As in immediately?”

“Yes, Sir, that would be beSt”

The cool crisp air of this November morning drove from St Croix any remaining remnant of drowsiness.

He was led to a larger car parked in front of his home. To him, it looked like a large American car, perhaps a Packard. Standing beside the car was a younger member of the British army. St Croix noticed the man's cap badge. It featured a Union Rose (a red rose with a white center) surrounded by a crown and flanked by laurel branches. With his keener vision, he could also read the motto, "Manui Dat Cognitio Vires - Knowledge Gives Strength to the Arm.”

Once inside, he noticed that the windows had been blackened and that an opaque glass barrier separated the passengers from the driver.

Dodson spoke briefly during the ride. “Security,” alluding to the windows. Then. “For all intents and purposes, you are still at home. You are not here, and we are going nowhere. Understood.”

“Understood”

He was more aware than anyone had suspected, and his sense of direction and memory keener. Just as the car stopped, he said to Dodson. “Between Buckingham Palace and the River, perhaps near St James Park?”

He had walked and travelled this area of the city hundreds of times, and it was on the route he had taken between the Royal and the theatres. The ducks nesting in the park’s pond were the most telling points to him.

He was hustled through a heavily sandbagged door, led down a hall to a lift, and down another hall. Then, he was left alone in a small waiting room and told to wait.

A gruff voice suddenly rattled the room. “Mr St Croix, if you are out there, please come into my office, or my little sanctuary in the madness of today.”

He entered the room to see the top of a nearly bald man hunched over a map on a desk with a cigar in one hand and drumming the table with the other.

Looking up, the man said. “St Croix, or if I may take the liberty and call you Jonathan, I have wanted to meet with you or at least someone like you for some time. I hear you have extraordinary abilities. I am unsure what exactly they are, and I did not want to ask as I already have many secrets and facts that should never be brought to light rumbling through my brain.

I know that you have a network of persons like yourself across Europe and elsewhere who, at this very time, could be meeting with somewhat important individuals in other capital cities. Is that not correct?”

“Yes, sir, Yes Mr Prime Minister, that is correct and I…”

Churchill raised his hand to stop him in mid-sentence. “The radio and the short wave have not yet officially announced the news of last night’s horrific raid upon the loveliest of English towns, Coventry. Last evening and through the night, our adversary’s bombers had, without regard to all or any woman or child in the city, sent more than five-hundred bombers laden with high explosive bombs and incendiary devices.  

More than 4,000 homes are said to have been destroyed, and almost two-thirds of the city is now in ruins. There are perhaps more than 2,000 casualties of all manner.

The news of this raid, as bloodthirsty as it may well have been, cannot be made known in its entirety, for the morale of His Majesty’s people, though resolute and unwavering, cannot, I fear, bear the burden of this news. 

We must stop this monster and his dark legions in their march across the face of the Earth like the scourge of Attila.”

“I concur with everything that you have said, Sir, but how can I assist you? I am just a single man...”

 Churchill pointed at him, this time with his cigar, indicating to St Croix the seriousness of the upcoming statement. “Young man, or I should be more precise, man with a youthful appearance who may have known my grandfather’s mother. I know you know that my somewhat distant cousin Franklin has been re-elected to the Presidency of the United States. As your people seem to have ears and eyes throughout Whitehall, I can safely assume that the same can be said for the security and privacy of the Whitehouse in America.

As such, I entreat you to the most secret and sacred task, a matter that has no precedence in our country's long history.

I will draft a letter to my American cousin, which I can only describe as the most crucial letter I shall ever write. I will be unabashedly frank in my prognosis of the current future. Express without any bravado Britain's dire military and economic situation. And reveal that England will soon be unable to pay cash for American supplies, and wish that in his wisdom and by the providence of God almighty, that he can with the help of Congress formulate some manner of leasing or lending vital materials for our war effort.

And it is you, Jonathan St Croix, a man who has dealt with many Generals and Kings, I entrust to you, to drive home the point of this letter. It shall be sent by telegraph early in December as a dire warning to the American people. I would like you to be in America at that time at our Embassy. We need to take to their State Department and Department of War the complete programme of munitions we seek to obtain from them. A more significant part is already agreed upon.

In essence, sir, the letter I will send will request weapons as general sustenance; you will deliver the shopping list.

Leaving the building at Clive Steps, King Charles Street was less theatrical than his arrival. A standard-sized British sedan was waiting for him.

As he got into the car's rear from one side, he noticed an occupant already seated.

A British Army Colonel acknowledged him and told the driver to start the journey.

They drove along the Thames down Millbank, crossing over Vauxhall Bridge, and then onto Nine Elms Lane to Battersea Park. Stopping in a quiet area, the Colonel handed him a wax-and-ribbon-sealed envelope, saying only, “Read and replace in the envelope.”

Johnathan did as he was directed. He was given two pages to read: a yellow dispatch paper and a heavyweight white linen sheet with the royal crest of King George V on the letterhead.

He returned the pages to the envelope and gave them to the Colonel, who exited the car. As St Croix was driven away, he walked to a metal bin and lit the notes on fire.

 

“Darling, what was with that cloak and dagger charade this morning? And oh my, I never thought Dodson was one of us!”

“That was a surprise to me as well. I met him twice before briefly, and I could not sense it either.”

“But why was he here this morning?”

“As much as it pains me, I cannot tell you. State secrets and the official secrets act and all that. Even Devi has to play by the rules.”

“You smell like cigar smoke, and I doubt old Dodson smokes. What dark and mysterious cigar smoker did you secretly meet up with this morning… Oh my god, did you meet with…”

Jonathan raised his hand to stop her from saying anything else. “If you do not ask that question, I will not have to lie. So, leave it there.”

Then, looking at her, he smiled and winked.

“I will be going to America early next month. I will travel light and fast, and no wolf pack will bother me.”

Evelyn nodded and raised her hand from her side, angling it upward and moving it flat before her.

Jonathan nodded back.

Jonathan asked their maid to put on a pot of tea, led Evelyn into the parlour, and made small talk until the tea arrived. Then, he disclosed to her the contents of the yellow military dispatch he had read earlier.

“Darling, there is no easy way to say this or to break bad news. So, I will say it as briefly as I can. Two months ago, the forces in Austria rounded up many so-called ‘enemies of the state’ in various cities, and I do not want to say this, but your friend Julia was among those taken. There has been no further information on her, but we must fear the worSt” 

Other than his short flight aboard the Graf Zeppelin, St Croix had never left Terra firma. He was uncertain how he felt about a 3,600-mile journey and being in the air for more than thirteen hours. It was an incredible speed at almost 300 miles an hour, but even as the Handley Page Halifax long-range bomber was technologically the state of the art in aircraft, having only entered service less than two months earlier, he was nervous.

On December 3, he would travel to Prestwick, Scotland, by train, then fly 850 miles to RAF Reykjavik in Iceland. On the longest leg of the trip, he would go from Iceland to Gander, Newfoundland. That portion of the trip was just over 1,600 miles, with the maximum range of the Halifax just within its 1,850 range. Then, he would travel to New York and Washington.

 

One of the ground crew warned him that the ride across the Atlantic would be akin to being rattled about like a loose bolt in a biscuit tin. During the flight, he understood why none of the officials had mentioned this. He was travelling with two Royal Canadian Air Force officers, who slept most of the way and seemed not bothered by the freezing temperature, the noise, or the tossing about.

He was surprised to be able to finish the hot tea and sandwiches he was served at both his departures from Scotland and Iceland.

New York was a shock; it seemed that the city was bigger, faster, and more crowded every time he arrived. The Empire State Building now dominated the skyline. What was unnerving to him was the openness of the city, with people in casual clothes and no sandbagged doorways, no cross-hatched tape on windows and no armed troops in the street,

He was told to stay in the city until Secretary of State Cordell Hull arranged a special train carriage for him and a few others. With such service at such a high level, he wondered who his liaison was. If Charles Dodson had been working in Whitehall for more than one hundred years and had direct access to Churchill, and if Churchill knew about the Devi, he wondered who the insiders were at the top level of the United States government and the White House.

The Embassy was on Massachusetts Avenue, between Observatory Circle and Whitehaven Street.

He was immediately taken to see Ambassador Philip Kerr, 11th Marquess of Lothian. Lothian was popular with American media and on almost hostile terms with his American counterpart in the UK, Joseph Kennedy.

Kennedy had dissuaded Churchill from asking the Americans for many older destroyers. However, Lothian leaked the secret memo to the media, and England received the ships.

Lothian carried a copy of the telegram that Churchill sent to FDR. Before leaving London to fly to Lisbon, he hinted at the letter's contents, thus using the American media to encourage FDR to work towards a Lend-Lease solution.

Lothian favoured American aid for England and fought tooth and nail to encourage Roosevelt and many members of Congress. He believed that America could become the arsenal of democracy. And spoke against American isolationism at every event and in every speech.

He knew that St Croix carried the memo or the shopping list of what Churchill would request in American weaponry. He was shocked to see to what extent the British munitions had been depleted and the almost impossible task of replenishing those stocks in light of the losses of merchant marine tonnage of shipping each month.  

Next, St Croix mentioned the note from King George that he had read in Battersea Park. It listed the names of three people who knew of its contents and three names to whom St Croix could divulge its nature. Lothian was on that list.

“Mr Ambassador, you are only one of three people to whom I can repeat this to Mr Hull and the President are the only others. I will not reveal it to them unless your efforts to achieve a new financing plan fails.

His Majesty the King, King George V, has burdened me with the task of obtaining American weapons against the fascist forces in Europe if all options, endeavours, and avenues fail. I am to return to America in six months, in June 1941, and offer America complete sovereign control of the Dominion of Canada in exchange for unlimited weapons production.

I shall meet with Mr Hull tomorrow and present the Prime Minister’s request for weapons to him. I will urgently and stridently push for a deal before that date. And only allude to the notion of a ‘Fortress America” as a last bastion of democracy in the world.”

Lothian turned white and collapsed in a chair. St Croix called for assistance. As he was being helped out of the room, he turned and said to St Croix, “Never.”

Within a week, Lothian, whose health had been failing, died. Ten days later, Churchill announced Edward Frederick Lindley Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, as the new Ambassador to America.

In January, St Croix was with the President on board the presidential yacht, the Potomac, as Lord Halifax arrived on the British battleship HMS George V in Chesapeake Bay.

Halifax started his tenure as Ambassador, casting aside diplomatic protocols, yet being overly cautious.

Jonathan had been with the President for five meetings over the past month, so he asked Roosevelt to meet privately with Cordell Hull, Halifax, and himself.

He went against King George’s wishes in the meeting and briefed everyone on the weapons for Canada proposal. The three politicians all rejected that notion and set to work to finalize a new Lend-Lease agreement.

In the early morning of March 11, 1941, St Croix departed Port Washington, New York, for Lisbon on Pan-Am’s Yankee Clipper, a Boeing 314 flying boat. The ship flew the southern route across the Atlantic, landing in Lisbon the next afternoon after a flight of approximately 20 hours, which included a stop at Horta in the Azores. Mid-flight, the radio operator relayed a message to St Croix that Roosevelt had just signed a comprehensive Lend-Lease package.