MI6s Enhanced Unit have managed to recover La Résistance operative code named Duplix from the clutches of the Germans and get him onto the submarine HMS Utmost. The team consists of Mademoiselle Mimi Dubois, La Résistance fighter and mistress of skills; Miss Madeline Forsyth, SOE operative and a living shadow; Sven Hyse, Norwegian Resistance soldier and shapeshifter; and Doctor Jackal, timid physician with his less than timid friend Mister Hades.

HMS Utmost, The English Channel, September 1942

Feeling trapped in the confines of the small officers mess, Mr Hades continues to drink heavily and grumble loudly. As he is pacing up and down like a wild animal enclosed in a cage to small for him, Madeline hides the drugged bottle of gin in one of the unsearched cupboards and then proceeds to pour herself a glass of rum from the bottle that Mr Hades had set aside as his next conquest. Whilst pouring her glass she ‘accidentally’ drops the bottle and it smashes across the floor. She looks up innocently with an exclamation of apology. Mr Hades seems less than pleased and shouts;

YOU BLOODY CLUTZ! CLEAN IT UP YOU STUPID WOMEN!

Madeline, showing far more bravery than I, looks him straight in the eye and says;

There is no need to be ill mannered.

She then starts to clean up the mess with a sly smile across her face.

Mr Hades takes a last swig out of his bottle of whiskey, draining it dry, and then drops it on the floor. He gives Madeline the evil eye for dropping the bottle of rum and then starts to tear through the other cupboards looking for more alcohol. It isn’t long before he finds the bottle of gin stashed away by Madeline, he removes the lid and begins to glugg it down. About an hour into our journey Mr Hades finishes off the bottle of gin and decides that it will be a good idea to climb onto the table. He fails and ends up on his back on the floor. I guess that means that he is definitely affected by alcohol. He manages to pull himself upright using shelves and cupboard doors and then his eyes lock onto the door out of the room.

He staggers towards the door and tries to open it, this ends up leaving him on his backside once more. But he persists and finally manages to open the door and spots the two guards posted outside. Mr Hades stumbles out between them and attempts to attack them both simultaneously, momentarily surprised, they both step back and draw coshes. Despite being blind drunk, Mr Hades manages to hit one of the guards and knock him backwards, but this leaves him vulnerable to the attack of the other guard. The second guard lands a firm and heavy strike to the back of Mr Hades’ head, but Mr Hades seemed completely unaffected by the blow. And in fact all it did was draw his attention to the second guard.

Mr Hades throws himself at the second guard and lands a flurry of blows on him. This is a step to far for Sven who decides to get involved and grabs Mr Hades from behind and attempts to grapple him to the floor, the first guard lends his assistance and between them they manage to pin Mr Hades to the floor. In spite of his struggles, Mr Hades cannot free himself and his situation gets worse when a third marine arrives bearing manacles. Mr Hades is clapped in irons and dragged back into the officers mess where he is left under our supervision. Finally, after one last effort to break free, the massive sedative in the bottle of gin takes affect and Mr Hades falls asleep.

Not much later there is a knock on the door and the Captain of HMS Utmost pays us a visit. He is somewhat perturbed by the recent goings on and informs us that whilst he was informed to make certain allowances for us, this situation has gone beyond what he can stand and that he will be making a report. Madeline apologises profusely for the situation and tells the Captain that the fall into the sea has clearly had an adverse effect on our colleague. The Captain nods and leaves us.

At oh six thirty hours the First Officer informs us that we are closing in on Harwich and that we will be docking within the hour. We feel the submarine pitch upwards and break the surface and thirty minutes later we are escorted, with both Duplix and Hades being carried, up the conning tower and onto the dockside. We are met by Captain Ledman who seems somewhat surprised to see that we have been joined by Mr Hades, he asks us guardedly if everything is well and Madeline quickly explains in brief what happened.

Captain Ledman looks concerned and asks if anyone saw the change of Doctor Jackal into Mr Hades, Madeline tells him that it happened underwater and that there was a lot of confusion so it is very likely that it went unnoticed. She then tells Ledman that the Captain of the Utmost is likely to make a report on the onboard incident, Ledman says that he will have a quiet word while his driver tries to get us a truck to transport Mr Hades back to base.

Captain Ledman’s driver returns with a Bedford truck and driver, I get the driver to explain the technicalities of the truck’s gearshift, and while he is indulging me I touch his hand and ‘borrow’ his ability. We then load Mr Hades into the back of the truck where Sven stands guard, dismiss the driver and I jump into the driver's seat. Madeline gets into the car with Captain Ledman and we drive out of Harwich. We arrive back at Hanslope Park during the late morning, we remove the manacles from Mr Hades and place him in Doctor Jackal’s bed. We then get ourselves washed up and I start to prepare us a good lunch.

Just after midday, as Madeline, Sven and I are finishing our lunch Doctor Jackal walks out of his room and joins us. He looks terrible. Like he has the mother of all hangovers. I make him some strong coffee and we make sure that he eats some food. We also take turns in telling him everything that we can remember about Mr Hades, he is horrified by the actions of his ‘friend’ and agrees to work on producing a strong and fast acting sedative for future use. He also suggests that we might want to carry chloroform in future.

That afternoon we are debriefed by Captain Ledman, we allow Doctor Jackal to deliver most of the details and the rest of us fill in some of the details that he was unaware of. Ledman is very interested in the use of our powers and any detail that we had on the German enhanced. It is during this briefing session that Madeline lets on that she silenced all of the Germans in the basement of the chateau, the news shocks Ledman and Doctor Jackal, but myself and Sven are less concerned with the killing of an occupying German force.

At the end of the briefing Captain Ledman lets us know that they have been considering the information that we had managed to get out of Duplix, the initial idea is that it must be something to do with a large industrial complex to the north of Nordhausen. The complex was bombed by the RAF several months earlier and MI6 is working on pulling together some more information on the site. When they have that information Captain Ledman suggests that we may want to go in and investigate further. Travel to the centre of Germany, interesting idea.

Hanslope Park, October 1942

Over the next two weeks we rest and recuperate, I resume the training that I started on Malta to improve my strength and the others visit London. Doctor Jackal goes to see the doctors who are now caring for Duplix so that he can give them the benefit of his expertise, and Madeline takes Sven to London zoo. I don’t know if it was a date, but Sven was very pleased when he returned.

At the end of the second week we are called to a mission briefing with Captain Ledman and Major Hoffman. Displayed around the briefing room are a series of maps and aerial photographs of Nordhausen and a village to it’s north called Niedersachswerfen. There are also pictures of a huge hill called Kohnstein. We are informed that the industrial complex is hidden under the hill. It has three entrances, but the RAF believe that they may have destroyed one of two of them in their bombing raid. Major Hoffman suggests that we consider how we will travel into Germany, they then leave us to our planning.