Web Exclusive
Welcome to our Web Exclusive section. Each month we will be bringing to you poetry, flash fiction, columns and more! With that, we welcome you to our November exclusives!
British Agent ZigZag and the Apotheosis of Aesclepius’ Daughter
E. W. Farnsworth
The darkest days for Britain during this new World War have coincided with rumors of the god Aesclepius's imminent departure from Earth. We know Jupiter has decreed the gods and goddesses should not help any side in the bloody war among humans, and he mustered them and their progeny in Heaven for the duration of hostilities. Yet we cannot have a world without deities. If only we could convince Aesclepius to remain on Earth while the other gods flee and close their ears to prayers, we might save many English lives—and win the war.
— Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, June 1940.
In a ghastly underground command center in bomb-ravaged London, beset with nightly German raids and other cataclysmic disasters on all sides, Prime Minister Winston Churchill desperately sought options for how to interdict the medical god's withdrawal, so he could, instead of retreating from the world, help treat wounded soldiers and civilians. This unconventional idea posed numerous ponderous problems for a people who had not a single active temple dedicated to any Classical deity and only crackpots and charlatans for “true believers.”
The PM ordered his secret warriors to identify a champion operator for an unspecified ultra-classified mission. He did not place ordinary constraints on the person they were to search for, but he specified the person must be competent, flexible and prepared to depart immediately after he had accepted the mission.
The Special Operations Executive (SOE) and Admiralty had by then simply run out of “acceptable” candidates for this “impossible” mission. For example, brilliant, suave and resourceful Ian Fleming was currently occupied on the Continent behind enemy lines, and the “neutral” Americans would not dispatch any of their special OSS operatives to indulge Churchill's obsession about coopting the Classical god devoted to health and healing. It was true Canadian-born William Stephenson volunteered to accommodate the PM, but his request was denied as he was deemed to have more important work cultivating the Americans as first among eventual allies.
In short, only the intrepid but mercurial English Agent Eddie Chapman, aka Agent ZigZag, remained to be tapped. The PM felt he had no other viable choice, but he expressed deep reservations about deploying the shifty and unpredictable Agent ZigZag, who was always difficult to control on a mission. On the other hand, as a student of the Classics, Churchill admired how much Chapman’s personality aligned with the known attributes of the god Mercury and his family of gods and goddesses.
In a private audience at Blenheim, Churchill and his closest advisor Frederick Lindemann, 1st Viscount Cherwell, briefed the reluctant Agent ZigZag on his mission. They orchestrated their meeting with the latest newsreels prophesying a Nazi strategy to overrun Greece and music including an inspiring recording of Rossini’s William Tell Overture. Nevertheless, the agent’s eyes wandered throughout the briefing, and he yawned as if bored. He seemed not much interested at first in accepting what he termed “a simple snatch and grab operation,” but Lindemann persisted as the stakes were high while Churchill sat speechless in a state bordering on despair.
Cherwell said, “This solo mission has elements of physical danger since the Germans will be actively working their own agenda in Greece. Its complexity will require ingenuity and wit as the executive agent must deal with ruthless military men and an insouciant god simultaneously. Further, the mission’s parameters are likely to change as it progresses. London will necessarily be out of touch and therefore unable to impose its usual bureaucratic safeguards or to provide expert counsel if the field agent requires advice.”
Agent ZigZag brightened up and laughed outright at the viscount’s last remark. “Viscount Cherwell, your point about the lack of bureaucratic meddling is the first favorable element of this crazy mission I actually like. I would expect the danger, complexity and dynamics as givens, but I like the freedom of execution best of all.” Mortified by the agent’s cavalier comment, the PM buried his bulldog face in his hands, but his chief counsellor ignored the PM’s discomfort and continued his exhortation.
“Please hear me out, Mr. Chapman. In some ways, this mission seems composed only for you among all agents of the SOE.” The viscount opened a thick folder with the red slanting stripes that indicated MOST SECRET intelligence. He leafed through a few papers before he found one he liked for his purpose. Recalling salient aspects from Zigzag’s extensive personal file, the viscount raised the highly confidential information about the agent’s youthful enterprise of stealing blueberry pies from windowsills when he lived in the Channel Isles. He quoted directly from the paper he was holding:
The subject Eddie Chapman enjoys frustrating the authorities by taking extraordinary risks to steal a single slice of blueberry pie—always blueberry. It was by baiting a trap with such a pie that the thief was eventually caught and subsequently was encouraged to work with the SOE rather than to go to gaol for an indeterminate period.
Seeing a light of interest sparkle in ZigZag’s mischievous eyes, no doubt from his memories of the enticement that transformed the juvenile delinquent into the spy, Churchill looked him in the eyes and solemnly promised Chapman “a lifetime's supply of blueberry pies and an exclusive royal patent for baking them” if he should return alive from his successful mission to Greece.
“Prime Minister, no earthly reward could be more tempting for me, so I accept this mission and your generous terms for it without further ado. Do you want me to sign a formal agreement? Or should we just shake hands on our bargain?”
Churchill observed Agent ZigZag was smiling and sweating in equal measure. His hosts had no way to read his mind, but he had given them the commitment they had been looking for. The PM shook his agent’s hand as theirs was still the age of binding handshakes. They told him to be ready to depart for Greece on a moment’s notice and allowed him to proceed with a military escort to his temporary lodging in the underground bomb shelter nearest the Tower of London.
Each night the Jerries dropped their incendiary bombs, but none struck near enough Agent ZigZag’s deep shelter to injure him. As he had been instructed to do, he daily resorted to the secret organization’s safe house in Piccadilly where his preparations were honed to perfection in the usual way by four most seasoned, retired operatives of the SOE.
The important preparations for the young agent included positively identifying Aesclepius and his daughter Hygeia. For this, his tutor used picture postcards made for the Victoria and Albert Museum. Whether standing or seated, the god wore a toga around his waist and over his back and down his left shoulder. He was fully bearded, and he was usually featured with a long staff with a snake wrapped up and around it, its fanged mouth open. In some representations, the god’s staff was shortened, and two snakes were entwined around it, looking at each other. Chapman thought the god looked both wise and stern.
As for the god’s daughter Hygeia, she was depicted as a beautiful, stately young woman with an enormous snake wrapped around her waist. In some views she was shown seated, supporting her snake’s head with one hand while she fed it with food offered in her opposite hand. In other works of art, she was drawn or sculpted with a sturdy staff entwined by a large snake, similar to the iconography used for her father. Eddie Chapman fell in love with the goddess at first sight. He could hardly wait to meet her. But he thought her father a caution and a force to be reckoned with.
Of the other gods and goddesses in the briefing, Mercury as the pater familias was not neglected. Chapman was particularly interested in that god’s cap of invisibility and winged feet. As to Hygeia’s siblings, Iaso, Panacea, Aceso and Aglaea, they received scant treatment as the agent’s briefers did not think they would affect the mission’s outcome. Besides, the briefing leader confided, precious little was known about them outside of their names.
Chapman’s weapons handling refresher concentrated on the agent’s hitting numerous moving targets. His SOE handlers had no doubt ZigZag would perform well in a close-combat environment with a rifle and a handgun. They drove him out to a field west of the city and observed him practice shooting his revolver at dummies of paratroopers dropped from aircraft and hitting them before they reached the ground. Whether he was stationary, running or making a parachute drop himself while he fired, the agent had no difficulty firing a bullet through the head of each descending target.
Parachuting was another key area for practice for the infiltration. The expert trainer for that aspect of the mission told him, “You must expect to be under enemy fire during your descent. Your plane will, of course, be a prime target for the Germans. I need not remind you if you break a leg or sprain an ankle, you will not be able to complete your mission. So aim for a level, soft landing area, keep your knees flexible, not stiff and straight, and watch what the wind is doing to your chute. Where you will be jumping has thick air pockets followed by sudden volumes of vacuum. Don’t panic if your parachute buckles on one side or another. We don’t make the gear like the Jerries do. Why, you could ride down on the top of one of their open chutes.”
Finally, the post-mission exfiltration details were punctuated by encouragement to improvise as his briefers said Agent ZigZag would be pretty much on his own for his return trip to England.
“Greece might be overrun by the Germans by the time you return, and all of Continental Europe might have fallen too, for example. Such are the kinds of dynamic changes we in the SOE anticipate in the rapidly expanding, always transforming theater of war.”
The leader of his prep group joked that Chapman might take advantage of “Mercury Air Services,” by which he meant Aesclepius’ father’s reputation for flying from one place to another rapidly with wings on his feet denoting his great speed. At the time, this jest drew uproarious laughter, but the thought lodged firmly in Agent ZigZag’s fertile imagination.
Within the week after he had conferred with Churchill and the viscount, the agent was pulling the ripcord on his parachute after catapulting himself from an unmarked aircraft high above Mount Helicon under constant Nazi anti-aircraft fire. As it happened, the Germans were simultaneously unleashing a combined air and ground assault on the sacred Greek mountain on a parallel secret mission directed by Herr Hitler personally.
According to Lindemann’s intelligence as delivered to ZigZag beside his plane just prior to its takeoff from England, “Der Führer’s objective is to retrieve any artifacts of the ancient gods and goddesses as talismans to help the Germans win the war. As a ‘health enthusiast,’ Hitler also has his private designs on the sacred springs that run through nearby Dion.” So ZigZag was mentally prepared to be challenged by a formidable human enemy, backed from the highest level, while he countered the defenses of the gods protecting their sacred abode and artifacts. He was glad the Germans would be concentrating the majority of their activities on Mount Olympus while he would be focused on Mount Helicon.
Adeptly having evaded flak and bullets during his descent from his delivery plane, Agent ZigZag landed on the level, flowery meadow near the summit of Mount Helicon. There, he had been briefed, the ancient Classical gods and goddesses once played their earnest games before they were evacuated by decree in Jupiter’s disgust at human behavior. No signs of the Pantheon were evident now, but, as British naval intelligence had divined, Aesclepius and his daughter Hygeia stood like colored statues dressed in their togas near the Hypocrene Spring waiting to ascend to Heaven on a giant, golden stairway clearly visible in the distance. The stairs originated in the grassy meadow and rose high into golden clouds that seemed to be hovering, frozen in their celestial places above Earth.
Agent ZigZag wasted no time introducing himself cheerily to both deities.
“Good day! By your staff and green snakes, you, Sir, must be the god Aesclepius. And you, Miss, must be this god’s daughter Hygeia. I am Eddie Chapman, from Great Britain. I am here to make you a proposition from my Prime Minister, William Churchill.”
Aesclepius seemed barely interested in the agent’s salutation, but his daughter Hygeia took an immediate fancy to the intelligent and handsome young British operative. She blushed and gazed at Chapman, her wide, innocent eyes wandering from the enormous snake that encircled her lower body and fed from her hand and the gallant, smiling human in front of her. Her father was alarmed at her apparent visceral attraction to the young mortal, so he decided to listen to the man’s proposition.
“Go right ahead, Young Man. My daughter and I have urgent business to attend to, but we have a few minutes to spare. What is your leader’s proposition?”
Churchill’s proposition took only a few minutes to deliver. Agent ZigZag eloquently made his PM’s case for Aesclepius to remain on Earth to help the British, but the god seemed adamant about hewing to his plan—particularly for his daughter's segue from Earth to Heaven.
After the proposal had been stated, the dialog between the agent and the divinity started reasonably, but soon it devolved into a shouting match in a heated interchange of ZigZag with the medical god while the spy began fending off attacking Nazis.
The god was adamant, but the agent was determined to overcome the god’s objections and accomplish his objective. “As I said, I am here in behalf of my Prime Minister, to implore you not to climb that stairway to Heaven with your daughter.” He was pointing to the stairway with both his hands and extended arms for emphasis. “As you are doubtless aware, your unparalleled mastery of medical arts can save countless human lives as the senseless, wasting war grinds on.”
Hygeia was now frowning and looking daggers at her father. She was clearly convinced by the agent’s logic. “Dad, how can you deny the humans your healing powers?” Her father, however, struggled not to look at her but raised his chin at Chapman in defiance. The two green snakes that interlaced and graced his caduceus mimicked the two antagonists’ belligerent attitudes toward each other.
Agent ZigZag asked, “Great Healing God, what will convince you to remain on earth to accomplish your sacred duty to save lives?”
Indignant, Aesclepius stood to his full height and with angry, flashing eyes said, “You speak as if I have a duty to humankind. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jupiter has decreed all deities must refrain from taking sides in this war among you humans. From ancient times, at least in your human understanding of time, our interference in wars has meant more, not fewer casualties for humans. The Trojan War was a case in point. For ten years Greeks and Trojans perished and deities stirred the strife the whole time. Proxy wars of the gods are always costly to humans though immortality protects us deities from any but psychological harm.”
“I have never read of a medical god or goddess becoming involved in the intrigues of humans at war.”
Stroking the head of her serpent, Hygeia said, “Father, I believe this human is correct on that point. We are here on Earth to save human lives and to lend succor to the sick and needy, aren’t we? Think only of Hippocrates and his oath. And I am here for now, at least, to prevent illness and keep humans healthy.”
ZigZag could see the man was torn between his daughter’s speech and the decree of almighty Jupiter.
With the tone of finality, the god said, “I cannot listen to your importuning, which is no use, Mr. Eddie Chapman. We gods and goddesses have been sworn to neutrality for the duration of the human conflict.”
“Surely an exception can be made for medical relief and succor. Those are humanitarian, not military matters after all.”
“At the moment, my only concern is for my daughter’s imminent transit to Heaven. She is reluctant to leave this locus amoenus, a green, watery and most pleasant place. She is notional and headstrong. I am merely her doting father. I don’t suppose you as a mere mortal can assist me with her transition to Heaven?”
ZigZag saw his chance when the god brought out his father Mercury's cap of invisibility, which the spy snatched quick and put on his own head. Now the spy was invisible, even to the god.
“Where are you, Rascal? You have stolen my father’s cap, and I must have it back at once.” He flailed with his arms vainly trying to make contact with Chapman, who easily evaded the god’s awkward attempts to reach him.
The agent taunted the god, “Perhaps I shall return it when you agree to do as my Prime Minister asks.”
Asclepius fumed. “This is extortion, Young Man! I am liable to terminate our discussion and take my daughter up the heavenly stairwell right now.”
With his new advantage, Agent ZigZag laughed out loud and continued his argument with Aesclepius while battling the Nazis who were approaching them on every side. His eloquence in speech was punctuated by his effortless shooting for effect while wheeling in a circle and firing his handgun to lay the advancing troops low as the enemy closed in. So the Germans fell dead to the shots of their invisible slayer. They fired wildly, not being able to find a target, and Agent ZigZag was true to his nickname darting from place to place in an unpredictable fashion like lightning.
Eddie Chapman was, in fact, so dexterous Aesclepius finally smiled in open admiration as all the Nazi attackers dropped like sacks of potatoes. And the medical god seemed to be wavering when he turned to witness his daughter tending to the only still-living but severely wounded German soldier. The goddess seemed to the secret agent to be an emblem of selfless service to mankind, and her father sympathized with her.
Aesclepius proudly said, “Behold my matchless daughter, Mr. Chapman. This, after all, is the service she was trained for. Isn’t she lovely tending to the wounds of this hostile German soldier?”
Chapman agreed. “She betters the best-ever image of the care giver. It matters not to her which side in a conflict the desperate fallen lie. She treats all wounds freely by her bounteous nature. Who would not love her? I surely do.”
Hygeia blushed at his confession of deep feelings for her as if she had never heard anyone speak of loving her before.
Understanding what was happening between the two, Asclepius got a dark look and said, “Mr. Chapman, I hope you are not scheming to elope with my daughter. Know you as a mere human could never please a goddess like her for long.”
“Nonsense, Father,” she said. “In fact, I like the look of this human. One day, he will help a woman bear beautiful children. Why shouldn’t I ask him to come to Heaven with me? We could spend the whole time of Jupiter’s sequestration dallying with my grandfather and my siblings and niblings.”
Chapman broke in by saying, “Fair Goddess, I would like nothing more than to live with you eternally, but I serve my Prime Minister who has a pressing need for your father’s services. Will you help me prevail in my cause?”
Hygeia said, “Beloved, I cannot see you on account of my grandfather’s cap of invisibility,” but she turned to her father with a beseeching look as a tear rolled down her red-and-white cheek. “Father, will you please do as the mortal emissary wishes?”
Aesclepius capitulated, “All right. Our circumstances have shown the wisdom and justice of his leader’s desires. Caring for the wounded and sick is not war but its antithesis.” He then turned from her to address the agent. “Now, not even I, a god, can see you, Mr. Eddie Chapman, while you wear the cap of invisibility. Since I cannot prevent you from doing anything you like while you are invisible, I therefore beseech you to make the best of your opportunity. Choose wisely what you do, for if you do not, you may make me and the other immortals your mortal enemies.”
A squad of descending Nazi paratroopers interrupted their discussions, but the invisible Agent ZigZag slew all six of them with the six rounds from his handgun before they landed on the ground. Then, in a move that startled and surprised the god, he slipped the god Mercury’s cap off his head and placed it over Hygeia's. She and her snake instantly vanished, but the spy was now vulnerable because he was visible again.
Chapman told Hygeia, “You have bound the soldier’s wound, so he will live. There is nothing more you can do here on Earth just now. So hold tight onto my belt and stick with me as we hasten.” Then agilely they both sprinted to the foot of the stairway to Heaven, and he continued running upward with the goddess in tow. The steep climb was arduous for ZigZag, but Hygeia had no trouble keeping up with him all the way to the summit.
As the goddess stepped into the pearly light at the top of the stairway, she took off her grandfather’s cap and flung it back to ZigZag the British agent. She bent back to kiss the infatuated mortal on the cheek.
Over the hissing of her snake, he heard her whisper, “Thank you, Mr. Eddie Chapman, for the best run of my existence!”
He was stunned by her radiant beauty, the sweetness of her breath and the warmth of her kiss. He opened his mouth to utter an endearment—and to tell her he had reconsidered his decision not to accompany her to Heaven, but she had vanished. He shook his head and, feeling energized by Hygeia’s kiss, put the cap on his head before leaping down from the high stairway into the parachute rigging of a descending Nazi commando.
Of course, he slew the commando and the man’s five parachuting companions with his handgun, and he used the lead commando's still-open chute as his means of returning to the meadow in view of Mount Helicon.
Aesclepius, now convinced of Agent ZigZag's worth on account of his brave, selfless actions, wanted to show his gratefulness to the man for saving his daughter from certain discomfort—and, incidentally, to retrieve his father's cap, so he granted the spy one wish before he departed.
Chapman knew they had not much longer before another Nazi special combat team arrived, so while he harvested German weapons from the fallen and placed them in a stack, he asked the wise medical god for words he could deliver to satisfy Churchill when he returned to England and a token he could give the viscount, who was a renowned champion of all medical causes.
Aesclepius spoke the words directly to ZigZag's heart just before the Nazis entered the meadow in force. They were coming in savage multitudes to wreak vengeance for their dead comrades.
For his acumen, wit and bravery perfecting the apotheosis of Hygeia, ZigZag bargained to keep the sacred cap of Mercury until he descended the sacred mountain. Aesclepius agreed, so Agent ZigZag wore the medical god’s father’s cap of invisibility as he skipped down the mountain side unseen and thus unheeded by the ascending masses of angry German soldiers.
Near the pleasant village of Dion on the plain leading to the mountain, the god Aesclepius met the agent in the Muses’ clearing to retrieve his father’s cap, and, in return for it, he gave ZigZag a caduceus for the viscount and, for the Prime Minister, a flask of sacred water from the health-bringing Hypocrene Spring with instructions for the water’s use.
When Aesclepius had gone, a figure with wings on his feet appeared in the Muses’ clearing. He did not have to introduce himself, for he had the telltale wings on his feet, a gleaming white cloth tied around his waist and in his right hand a small caduceus with two serpents.
The figure told Chapman, “I will take you where you want to go faster than you can imagine.
You did not see me, but I witnessed how you spoke truth to my family and helped my granddaughter reach Heaven unmolested. I owe you for the repayment of your many kindnesses. Besides, how would you transport those gifts you bear without special assistance?”
“Gracious and Good God Mercury, I accept your offer with open heart. You should know I dearly wanted to become your granddaughter’s husband, and I wished to accompany her into the heavenly golden cloud at the top of the stairway.”
Mercury smiled sadly. “I know that. And I forgive you. What mortal could resist Hygeia’s charms? But you should feel glad you did not get the opportunity to propose to her as she was inclined to accept your offer, and you would have perished the moment you entered the golden cloud of Heaven. The pain your death would have caused her was too much to leave to chance. So she vanished just in time to avoid unpleasantness. I must take credit for the timing.”
“Thank you for thinking of your granddaughter’s feelings as well as my welfare. By the same token, if we fly to London, will the snakes on my caduceus gift survive the journey?”
Mercury laughed and took Agent ZigZag in his arms as he sprang into the air. Carried by the fastest of the Classical gods and goddesses, the British spy gained insights impossible for men who had never traveled as high or as far as he. His mind was like Eliot’s “patient etherized upon a table” as in a single night, they passed over Europe, the god teaching him many things, like the advent of mass-produced penicillin and streptomycin. They were targeted when they flew high over Germany, and anti-air guns were fired into the air, but no weapon was capable of striking them. Agent ZigZag saw troop movements on the Continent, the running lights of ships and fishing boats in the English Channel and in the United Kingdom the velvety void of the blackout.
So after enduring many adventures on their long transit through enemy-controlled territory back to England, Mercury deposited Agent ZigZag at the gatehouse of Blenheim. The god flitted away before anyone could notice him. Outside the gate, Eddie Chapman stood alone with his gifts where, after he explained why he had come there, he was escorted by a military escort to visit Churchill and Lindemann, who happened to be conferring all night at the Palace.
There in the study, Chapman stood at attention to deliver his after-action report and, verbatim, the final message of Aesclepius:
Your messenger Eddie Chapman has saved my mission to preserve my daughter Hygeia from indignity or worse, and for his insuperable bravery, I shall remain on Earth to help cure the English sick and wounded and to rebuild the human spirit everywhere. In earnest of this, I send with him a flask of healing water from the Hypocrene Spring and a caduceus with healthful serpents. – Aesclepius Deus
The PM and the viscount said they were delighted at the successful outcome of their mission. Agent ZigZag presented the flask containing the Hypocrene water to Churchill and the caduceus with its live green snakes to the viscount. He then told them the salient details of his mission, not omitting his brief affair with Hygeia and his flight home with Mercury.
Of course, his audience of two was skeptical of the truth of his tale, but in different ways. Lindemann was ecstatic to consider what might have been if life were pure fantasy, and gruff old Churchill looked somewhat doubtful in the main, but then he had other plans for Agent ZigZag.
The Prime Minister therefore immediately awarded Agent Eddie Chapman a patent for bespoke blueberry pies, signed by His Majesty the King. Chapman seemed pleased, so Churchill and Lindemann spelled out the agent's new mission: to salvage the relics of the Inca gods remaining at Lake Titicaca where a Nazi mission to do the same was about to commence. The agent was to depart immediately on a flight that would stand waiting for him as soon as he reached the airport.
Lindemann explained, “Your SOE trainers will meet you for the flight with your necessary weapons, ammunition, supplies and maps. They will accompany you and brief you during your journey over the Atlantic. They will also have the opportunity to debrief you about your mission to Mount Helicon so they can construct a report of lessons learned for future such missions.” ZigZag rolled his eyes and yawned. He felt the unwelcome weight of officialdom descending onto his shoulders.
Lindemann saw the spy’s reaction, so he changed the subject. “What did Mercury tell you while he was ferrying you home? No wait! You can fill me in as we ride to the airport. And I can remind you of your obligation to keep your secrets safe. In the official record, you never went to Greece, we never met, and any talk of Classical deities is poppycock.”
Before he and Lindemann were driven away to meet his aircraft in Churchill’s private vehicle, Agent ZigZag drank a glass of Aesclepius's healing water with his Prime Minister and Viscount Cherwell, and they all smoked Cuban cigars to celebrate his acceptance of his new mission. It was a poignant reminder of the mundane but highly civilized activities that awaited Agent ZigZag if he should again come back alive. Better than any liquor, the draft from the flask did make the spy feel immortal as if the god Aesclepius somehow dwelled within him, invisible but active, through the next phase of the war.
Lindemann was a crafty old fox about secret operations. On account of the risks of inadvertent disclosure, he put his misinformation specialists to work creating narratives to engage the British popular imagination without revealing vital intelligence “sources and methods.” Fleet Street was eager to oblige the PM and his people in a time of almost universal censorship.
So by the next morning after Agent ZigZag’s departure for America, the yellow tabloid press published a story about a superhero who consorted with ancient gods and goddesses to devise sure ways to defeat the Third Reich. Dressed in green pajamas with giant green wings on his shoulders, a character named Captain Victory flew all over the globe combatting Hitler’s diabolical plans.
Taking cues from Lindemann’s highly redacted tale of Eddie Chapman’s return from Greece to England after his mission, inventive low-tier newshounds and popular science fiction writers, like Arthur C. Clarke, wrote speculative and paranormal pieces about Captain Victory and his band of merry outsiders wreaking havoc on the enemy with abandon.
By the time Chapman’s four trainers returned to Great Britain, the popular myth of Captain Victory was so deeply entrenched in the British popular imagination, a radio rendition of his exploits was running weekly. The SOE operators understood the necessity for misinformation and disinformation in war. They also knew their enemy was masterful in creating the same. To keep their comparative advantage, they monitored the enemy versions of Captain Victory so they could counter every nuance.
The exhaustive report written by Agent ZigZag’s SOE handlers was full of details the spy had not divulged to the PM and the viscount. Three such details were the ambrosial scent worn by Hygeia, the medical breakthroughs foreseen by the god Mercury and the lamentable vulnerabilities of the German paratroopers.
These were doled out, naturally scrubbed of their source and context, to factors in the country. As the agent had mused on receiving a patent for the exclusive manufacture and sale of the perfume of Hygeia, Lindemann suggested to the PM that such a patent might be a suitable reward for Agent ZigZag’s performance on his current mission. Lindemann shared the medical breakthrough ideas with his friends in the medical and pharmaceutical industries. The Germans’ paratrooper vulnerabilities became the subject of special training exercises by SOE and the home defense cadres.
The PM had a broader, grand strategic view, which he shared with Lindemann over cigars in odd moments.
“I would like to bring the Archbishop into the picture since he first announced the crisis of Aesclepius’ departure. That clarion call caused our catalyzing the successful series of missions by Eddie Chapman. We will have to discuss how to broach the subject without disclosing our modus operandi.”
“There’s the rub, Prime Minister. Any suggestion that we successfully made contact with the Classical deities would be incendiary, to say the least, for many reasons. It would incentivize the Germans to imitate our success. It would stress our own religious institution, the Church of England. And it would place the archbishop in the awkward position of justifying his role in the whole business. Let me recommend taking a redacted version of the idea to Fleet Street for incorporation in the Captain Victory stories.”
“I’ve been wanting to discuss those stories with you. My wife Clementine has recently talked about obtaining the scent Hygeia was wearing when she kissed Captain Victory on the stairway just outside Heaven. I’m willing to wager she is not the only woman in the Commonwealth to have that notion.”
“That’s precisely why the patent for Hygeia’s fragrance will make a prize for our secret agent.”
“I wonder whether there is a way to do some experimentation with fragrances so Clemmy can have something special, in some way connected to the story.”
“Why not announce a national competition for scents to be named for each of Hygeia’s siblings, Iaso, Panacea, Aceso and Aglaea? Our women will fantasize; our men will have something new to buy for Christmas gifts. And we will keep the Hygeia fragrance reserved for our hero.”
“Frederick, you have such good ideas!”
“It’s the inspiration of your excellent Cuban cigars, Mister Prime Minister. Please allow me to remind you who asks the big questions for me to answer in practical terms.”
“Yes, well . . . When is our boy due to come home again?”
“That’s hard to say. His SOE minders have an anchor pool with dates ranging from a week to four months. Everything depends on how he travels after his mission is accomplished. A few of my people are looking at Inca deities with wings.”
“Well put me down for five Bob for the closest date in the pool. I am excited to hear Chapman’s latest adventures from the horse! I must admit I misjudged the man because he is so mercurial.”
“He does seem to bear out your initial judgment in that regard.”
“But he is lucky, damn it! And Agent ZigZag’s brand of luck is precisely what this country needs right now.”
E. W. Farnsworth is widely published online and in print with over 1000 published works. He writes in many genres and cross-genres.
For further information, please see www.ewfarnsworth.com.