Three-quarters of an hour later they were sitting in C’s office, after the usual strange journey through that network of passages, drinking pink gin out of tumblers and facing the head of the most powerful intelligence service in the world.
On this April day, C made no attempt to force his hard, powerful features into a wintry smile. Even Dickie was awed by the look on C’s face and dropped his usual bantering tone. Instead he sipped his pink gin and listened in silence while C told them why he had summoned them to London so soon after their return to Hull from the Baltic.
‘You have done exceedingly well. Pilsudski, the Polish dictator, has expressed his thanks to me personally. He states there are going to be Polish decorations in it for you. I have already spoken to the King-Emperor about them. His Majesty is pleased to let you know you will be allowed to accept them, though you will never – on any account – wear them officially on your uniforms. Is that understood?’
‘Yessir,’ the two of them snapped in unison like two sixteen-year-old midshipmen being told off by some stern first lieutenant.
‘Good. Now to other business.’ C rose and slapped his wooden leg as he was wont to do when he was thinking hard, his eye piercing behind the gold-rimmed monocle. Suddenly he spoke in that hard, rasping quarter-deck voice of his. ‘The Balkans are again in a turmoil. There are things going on out there that are beyond belief. Mass murder, mass rape, mass pillage. Whole peoples are being exterminated. We’ve got to do something, Smith.’ He glared at the young officers as if they were responsible for the Balkan situation. ‘Now!’
He let the words sink in before sitting down in his chair once more, behind the desk which had been Nelson’s, his wooden leg joint creaking as he did so.
They waited. Smith’s brain had begun to race excitedly. They weren’t condemned to sit on the beach in England, with its strikes and the general bloody-mindedness of its working population. They were being given a new mission. He knew that instinctively – and he was glad.
‘Aronson’s behind most of it, I think,’ C announced suddenly, breaking the heavy, brooding silence.
‘Aronson, sir?’ Smith queried.
‘Yes, a Cheka man, very cunning, absolutely ruthless. He heads the Bolshevik Secret Service. We know nothing very much about him. With a name like that he could be a Hebrew.’ C could not quite restrain the anti-Semitic attitude of his class. ‘Some say he is small and dark and oily. Others maintain he is tall and blond, rather like a German – and we know that he has excellent connections to the Hun intelligence wallahs. But what we do know at this moment is that this mysterious Aronson chap has just arrived in Constantinople.’
‘Constantinople, sir?’ Dickie exclaimed, risking a word at last. ‘But I thought the Russkis and Johnny Turk were daggers drawn.’
‘They were, young man. But not now. Both Russia and Turkey are vitally interested in setting the Balkans aflame from Belgrade and Sofia right down to Athens. That Bolo Lenin in Moscow is determined to upset the new balance of power in the Balkans to further the spread of that dirty creed of his. The new man in Turkey, Kemal Attaturk, wants to do the same in order to establish a fresh hold on the areas. After all, under the Ottomans, the whole area was Turkish for five hundred years. So Aronson and the Turks work together.’ He paused slightly and tapped his wooden leg.
Dickie and Smith waited.
C shot them both a hard look through his monocle, seeing again how fresh and eager and determined they looked. The very best type of Englishmen, he told himself. He said, ‘You, Smith and you, Bird, are going to help stop this Aronson fellow. Now this is what you are to do…’
Common Smith VC was going to the wars again.
Next in The Common Smith VC Adventures:
In Turkish Waters
When an entire army retreats, Common Smith V.C. is the only man to turn the tide
Find out more
First published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by Severn House Publishers Ltd
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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United Kingdom
Copyright © Charles Whiting, 1993
The moral right of Charles Whiting to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781800320499
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Endnotes
1.
Wehrkreis – Military District. « Back
2.
German name for the Baltic. « Back
3.
Secret Police « Back
4.
Russian commander of the Red Army advancing in Warsaw. « Back
The Baltic Run Page 22