PERSONNEL EXTRACT Lantern

Entered service 1966. Coastal watch, small-boat work, signals. Languages: two. Assessments describe an exact, patient officer; one reviewer notes, not kindly, “keeps his own ledger of other people’s promises.”

June–September 1974: operation GREENGLASS, a beach rendezvous on the far shore. The rendezvous was blown; the shore party walked into prepared fire. Two officers lost. RAKE listed missing believed killed, 13 September 1974. Body not recovered.

Death was certified in the field ten days later, on the authority of the operation’s commanding officer. Signature block on the certificate: D. Halstead, Maj., OC GREENGLASS. Estate settled 1975. File closed.

Appended to the file out of sequence:

Letter from Mrs. E. Rake, September 1976, asking whether the Directorate is responsible for a wreath of thirteen white flowers delivered to her door on the anniversary of her husband’s death — the second year running. No card. No florist’s mark. Registry’s reply, in full: “It is not.”

Her letter is stamped NO ACTION and initialled twice. The first initials belong to Registry. The second, in a different ink, higher on the page: D.H.

Working note (E.M.): The wreaths have arrived every September since 1975. Twelve Septembers. Thirteen flowers. Somebody counts.