A Courage Undimmed


 
 
 
 
 Table of Contents
 
 Also by
 Title Page
 
 Copyright Page
 Dedication
 Epigraph
 Chapter 1 - Observation
 Chapter 2 - Propaganda
 Chapter 3 - Operational Orders
 Chapter 4 - Ambushes
 Chapter 5 - Communications
 Chapter 6 - The Use and Care of Binoculars
 Chapter 7 - Minor Tactics and Fieldwork
 Chapter 8 - Informant Service
 Chapter 9 - How Much to Use
 Chapter 10 - Personal Meetings
 Chapter 11 - Innocent Text Letter
 Chapter 12 - Double Transposition
 Chapter 13 - Opinion Sampling
 Chapter 14 - Selection and Appreciation of Targets
 Chapter 15 - Tactics of Small Raiding Parties
 Chapter 16 - Surveillance
 Chapter 17 - Handling
 Chapter 18 - Use of Premises
 Chapter 19 - Principles of Camouflage, Concealment and Disguise
 Chapter 20 - Final Arrangements
 Chapter 21 - Individual and Collective Security
 Chapter 22 - Interrogation
 Chapter 23 - Motives
 Chapter 24 - Objects and Methods of Irregular Warfare
 Acknowledgments
 Author’s Note
 
 
 
 Acknowledgments 
 If this were the end of a movie instead of a book, I would beg for the credits to be presented as an exuberant dance scene. It could be a lineup of contributors, like at the end of Hitch, or more of a free-for-all, like When in Rome. But everyone involved would get a well-deserved moment to strut their stuff. 
 I can just imagine my editor, John Scognamiglio, and agent, Rebecca Strauss, getting the party started, and then the whole Kensington crew, from design and marketing, to production and editorial, shimmying in to celebrate a job well done. Next would come the booksellers, reviewers, and librarians, who have shown Olive so much love, and finally, the screen would fade to black, with all those lovely book people dancing. Perfection. 
 As long as I’m imagining this book as a movie, why not go whole hog? When filming (on location in Hertfordshire) finally wrapped and my time across the pond (as consultant to the production) neared its end, I’d throw a little party in the garden of my rented cottage. I’d invite all the family and friends who have supported, assisted, and buoyed me through the writing of this novel (and every day). We’d have a lovely celebration amid Lady of Shalott roses and hollyhocks, under Chinese lanterns and fairy lights. There’d be epic charcuterie boards and gluten-free fairy cakes, and a gazillion Instagram posts. 
 But since this is a book and not a movie (at least for now)—and because things have gotten a little convoluted—let me be brief: 
 Thank you to everyone who has cheered for Olive and her pigeons. I’m so grateful to be writing her story. 
 And merci beaucoup to my nephew, Whitney Martin, for the French translations. Any errors are my own. 
 
 
 
 Books by Stephanie Graves 
 
 
 OLIVE BRIGHT, PIGEONEER 
 
 A VALIANT DECEIT 
 
 A COURAGE UNDIMMED 
 
 
 
 Published by Kensington Publishing Corp. 
 
 
 Author’s Note 
 The Special Operations Executive (Baker Street) operations mentioned in this book were all actual missions carried out during the Second World War, and the men chosen to participate in Operations Anthropoid, Silver A, and Silver B were trained in part at Brickendonbury Manor. Training was rigorous—even more so than was typical for SOE agents. Jan Kubiš and Josef Gabek, the two soldiers chosen to carry out the assassination of acting Reich protector of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, were accounted imminently qualified for the task. Their mission, while extraordinarily risky, was undertaken with the dual purpose of rousing the demoralised Czechoslovak citizenry and reasserting the country’s commitment to the Allies. The Sudetenland was ceded to Germany in 1938, in accordance with the Munich Agreement, and the entirety of Czechoslovakia was subsequently occupied by the Germans in 1939. As the war went on, its people, living under the terror of Nazi rule, were not seen as putting up much resistance against the German war machine, and the Czechoslovak government-in-exile was determined to counter that impression. Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, was the perfect target. 
 Gabek and Kubiš and their compatriots were parachuted into the protectorate at the end of December 1941. After months biding their time in hiding, they were able to carry out their mission successfully, despite a jammed Sten gun and somewhat faulty aim. The modified grenade thrown by Kubiš exploded beside the right rear fender of Heydrich’s Mercedes, and on June 4, 1942, the Butcher of Prague died of septicemia, a bit of the car’s upholstery having lodged itself in his spleen. But his assassins had gone to ground. 
 The Germans were indiscriminate in their reprisals, rounding up and killing members of the Resistance and families of the paratroopers, and tracking down every individual they imagined might have helped the men. In a grossly inhumane decree from Hitler himself, the village of Lidice was decimated, its men shot, its women dispatched to Ravensbrück concentration camp, its children murdered in an extermination camp in Chelmno, and every building razed to the ground. A smaller village, Ležáky, was also targeted, its buildings destroyed, its thirty-three men and women shot, and all but two of its children sent to Chelmno. The Nazis thought to warn others against similar treachery, but they succeeded only in convincing the world of their cruelty. In response to the reprisals, towns across the world renamed themselves Lidice in remembrance, and the Munich Agreement was deemed null and void by both Britain and France, a decision that would warrant the return of the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia when Germany lost the war. 
 The paratroopers were eventually betrayed by one of their own, who led the Germans to various safehouses, where members of the Resistance were tortured for information. Eventually the Germans ran the perpetrators to ground in Prague’s Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius. Seven hundred fifty Schutzstaffel (SS) soldiers, armed with automatic rifles, grenades, water hoses, and tear gas,