by William Boyd
I walked up St Giles this evening all the way to the Martyrs’ Memorial and back – as far as I’ve walked anywhere since Geneva. I stopped in a pub on the return journey and had half a pint of cider. People looked at me oddly – my pallor and my stick signalling the ‘price’ I’ve paid, I suppose. I keep forgetting I’m an officer in uniform (Munro has arranged for me to be resupplied). Lt. Lysander Rief, East Sussex Light Infantry, recovering from wounds. It was a warm late summer evening and St Giles with its ancient, soot-black college to one side and the Ashmolean Museum on the other looked timeless and alluring – motor cars and tradesmen’s lorries excepting, of course – and I rather envied people who had had the chance to study and live here. Too late for me now, alas.
I was sitting on a bench in the front quad this afternoon, around the corner from the porter’s lodge, reading a newspaper in the sun, when one of the nurses appeared. ‘Ah, there you are, Mr Rief. You’ve just had a visitor in your room. We didn’t know where you were.’ And stepping diffidently into view came Massinger, in civilian clothes.
He sat beside me on the bench, very tense and awkward, and seemingly unwilling to look me in the eye.
‘I never thanked you properly,’ I said, wanting to ease the mood. ‘Whisking me off to Rouen. Private ambulance and all that. The best of care, really.’
‘I owe you an apology, Rief,’ he said, looking down at his hands in his lap, fingers laced as if he were at prayer. ‘I can’t tell you how glad I was to see you alive in Evian. How glad I am today.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. Then, curious, asked, ‘Why so? Particularly.’
‘Because I think – I have this horrible feeling that I ordered you killed. Terrible error, I admit. I got it all wrong.’
He explained. There had been a rapid exchange of telegrams between him and Madame Duchesne on the Monday morning after Glockner’s death had been discovered and reported. Madame Duchesne had been very suspicious, convinced that it had something to do with me and my meeting with him. They had even spoken by telephone about an hour before my steamer was due to depart. Massinger had received my telegram by then and knew from the steamer timetable when I would be leaving. At this point he had ordered Madame Duchesne to accompany me on the boat, interrogate me and, if she had any reason to believe I was a traitor, she was to take the necessary steps to bring me to justice.
I listened to this in some shock.
‘Then when I saw her at Evian she told me she’d shot you,’ Massinger said. ‘You can imagine how I felt.’
‘Saw her?’
‘We met on the quayside. She said you had lied about the cipher-key – the source text. She said you were hiding something. She was convinced that you had murdered Glockner. She was incredibly suspicious of you. I think your disguise was enough proof for her.’
‘Yes, how did you know that I’d disguise myself?’
Massinger looked a little taken aback at this, confused.
‘Munro told me. Or was it Fyfe-Miller? About what happened in Vienna when I saw them there.’
‘You were in Vienna?’
‘Off and on. Mainly last year before the war began – while I was setting up the network in Switzerland. Everybody spoke about your escape.’
‘I see . . .’ I was puzzled to learn about my notoriety. I put it to the back of my mind. ‘Anyway, I didn’t think I was obliged to tell Madame Duchesne everything. Why should I? I was about to meet you and report in full, for Christ’s sake – on French soil. And all the while you’d ordered me killed.’
Massinger looked a bit sick and grimaced.
‘Actually, I didn’t in so many words. Madame Duchesne was going on and on, raising her suspicions about you. So I said –’ he paused. ‘My French is a bit rusty, you see. I don’t know if I made myself totally clear to her. I tried to reassure her and I said words to the effect that we cannot assume he – you – is not a traitor. It’s unlikely, but, in the event it was confirmed, you would be treated without compunction.’
‘Pretty difficult to say that in French even if you were fluent,’ I said.
‘I was a bit out of my depth, you’re right. I got confused with “traître” and “traiter”, I think.’ He looked at me sorrowfully. ‘I have this ghastly feeling I said you were a “traître sans pitié” . . .’
‘That’s fairly unequivocal. A “merciless traitor”.’
‘Whereas I was trying to say –’
‘I can see where the confusion arose.’
‘I’ve lain awake for nights going through what I might actually have said to her. We were all rather thrown by Glockner’s death. Panic stations, you know.’
‘That’s all very well. The woman shot me three times. Point-blank range. All because of your schoolboy French.’
‘How did Glockner die?’ he asked, clearly very keen to change the subject.
‘A heart attack – so Madame Duchesne told me.’
‘And he was fine when you left him.’
‘Yes. Counting his money.’
Why do I keep on lying? Something tells me that the less I tell everyone, the better. We chatted on a bit more and he informed me that Munro was coming to see me about the decryption of the letters. Finally he stood and shook my hand.
‘My sincere apologies, Rief.’
‘There’s not much I can say, in the circumstances. What happened to Madame Duchesne?’
‘She took a train back to Geneva. She’s back there now, working away as Agent Bonfire. Worth her weight in gold.’
‘Does she know I survived?’
‘I’m pretty sure she thinks you’re dead, actually. I thought it best not to raise the matter – I didn’t want to upset her unnecessarily, you see. She thought she was acting on my orders, after all. She couldn’t really be blamed.’
‘That’s very considerate of you.’
My mother had brought my mail from Claverleigh, including the letter I’d sent myself from Geneva containing the Glockner decrypts. I made fresh copies of all six and gave them to Munro when he came to see me yesterday.
We sat in what used to be the Junior Common Room. There was a foursome playing bridge but otherwise it was quiet. A rainy, fresh day, the first inklings of autumn in the air.
I spread the transcripts on the table in front of us. Munro looked serious.
‘What’s disturbing me is that this man seems to know everything,’ he said. ‘Look – construction of two gun spurs on the Hazebrouk–Ypres railway line . . .’ He pointed to another letter. ‘Here – the number of ambulance trains in France, where the ammunition-only railheads are . . .’
‘Something to do with the railway organization?’
‘You’d think so – but look at all this stuff about forage.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I don’t get that.’
‘There’s one horse for every three men in France,’ Munro said. ‘Hundreds of thousands – and they all have to be fed.’
‘Ah. So, follow the forage trail and you’ll find the troop build-up.’
Munro mused on. ‘Yes, where is he? Ministry of Munitions? Directorate of Railway Transport? Quartermaster-General’s Secretariat? General Headquarters? War Office? But look at this.’ He picked up letter number five and quoted, ‘“Two thou refrig vans ordered from Canada.” Refrigerated vans. How can he know that?’
‘Yes. What are they for?’
‘You want your meat fresh in the front line, don’t you, soldier?’
Munro smoothed his neat moustache with the palp of his forefinger, thinking hard. Then he turned and looked at me with his clear enquiring gaze.
‘What do you want to do, Rief?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you want to return to your battalion? They’re still in Swansea – but you can’t keep your rank. Or you can have an honourable discharge. You’ve more than done your duty – we recognize that and we’re very grateful.’
It didn’t take much thought. ‘I’ll take the honourable discharge, thank you,’ I said,
knowing I couldn’t go back to the 2/5th E.S.L.I. ‘I should be out of here in a couple of weeks,’ I added.
Then he stiffened, as though he’d just thought of something.
‘Or you could do one more job for us, here in London. What do you say?’
‘I really think I’ve more than –’
‘I’m phrasing it as a question, Rief, to allow you to reply in the affirmative.’ He smiled, but it was not a warm smile. ‘You’ll stay a lieutenant, same pay.’
‘Well, when you put it like that – yes. As long as I don’t get shot again.’
Just at that moment some catering staff came in and began to lay the long table for lunch, with much clattering of plates and ringing of silverware.
‘Do you fancy a spot of lunch?’ I asked Munro.
‘I don’t fancy hospital gruel,’ he said. ‘Can we go to a pub?’
We walked through the college and out of the rear entrance on to Walton Street.
‘I’ve never been in this college,’ Munro said. ‘Though I must have walked past it a hundred times.’
‘What college were you in?’ I asked him, not surprised to be not surprised that he’d been an Oxford undergraduate.
‘Magdalen,’ he said. ‘Other side of town.’
‘Then you joined the diplomatic service,’ I said.
‘That’s right, after my spell in the army.’ He glanced at me. ‘What was your college?’
‘I didn’t go to university,’ I said. ‘I started acting straight after my schooldays.’
‘Ah, the University of Life.’
The pub was called The Temeraire and its sign was a lurid misrepresentation of Turner’s masterpiece. It was small and wood-panelled with low tables and three-legged stools and prints of old ships-of-the-line on the walls. Munro fetched two pints and ordered himself a veal-and-ham pie with mashed potatoes and pickled onions. I said I wasn’t hungry.
‘There’s a big attack due,’ Munro said, sprinkling his pie and mash with salt and pepper. ‘In a matter of days, in fact. Supporting a French offensive. In the Loos sector.’
I spread my hands and looked at him with some incredulity. ‘For heaven’s sake,’ I said. ‘I suggested strongly that we stopped all operations. I urged that we stopped. They’ll be waiting for us – look at the last two Glockner letters. You can pinpoint the area yourself.’
‘If only it were that easy. The French are being very insistent.’ He smiled thinly, unhappily, obviously feeling the same way I was. ‘Let’s hope for the best.’
‘Oh, we can always do that. Costs nothing, hope.’
Munro made a rueful face, said nothing and tackled his pie. I lit a cigarette.
‘There’s one thing our correspondent missed,’ Munro said. ‘Curious. We’re going to use poison gas at Loos – though we refer to it as the “accessory”.’
‘Well, they did it to us at Ypres,’ I said, carefully. ‘All’s fair in love and war.’ I was wondering why he was telling me this. Was it some kind of test?
‘I wonder why he missed it,’ Munro went on. ‘Maybe it’ll help us locate him.’ He took a sip of his beer. ‘Have a week’s leave when you get out of hospital. Then I want you to meet someone in London. We need to plan our course of action.’
‘So I’m still to remain a lieutenant.’
‘Absolutely.’ Then he said, trying to make it sound throwaway. ‘You never told me what the cipher-text was.’
‘I told Massinger and Madame Duchesne.’
‘Oh yes, a German bible. But that obviously wasn’t the truth.’
It’s always dangerous to forget how clever Munro is, I now realize as I write this account up. He seems at times so boringly proper – the career soldier, the career diplomat, a neat and tidy man secure in his status and ever so slightly smug and superior, though he tries not to let it show. But not at all – that’s what he wants you to think. I don’t really know why – maybe because he had tried to test me with news about the ‘accessory’ – but I decided to test him, in turn.
‘I decided not to tell them,’ I said. ‘In fact it was the libretto of an obscure German opera.’
‘Oh yes? Called?’
I watched his face very carefully.
‘Andromeda und Perseus.’
He frowned. ‘Don’t think I know it,’ he said with a vague smile.
‘No reason why you should, I suppose. By Gottfried Toller. Premiered in Dresden in 1912.’
‘Ah, modern. That explains it. I was thinking of Lully’s Persée.’
I felt a chill creep through me and I decided there and then not to trust Munro any more, however much I was naturally inclined to like him. Anyone living in Vienna in 1913 would have known about Toller’s Andromeda. Anyone – certainly someone who was familiar with Lully’s Persée. Why was he lying? Why were we both smilingly lying to each other? We were on the same side.
‘Did Glockner give you his libretto?’
‘Yes. In return for the money.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘I lost it. In all the fuss over the shooting. It was left behind somewhere in the nursing home in Evian, I assume. I haven’t seen it since.’
Munro put down his knife and fork and pushed his plate aside.
‘Shame. Could you lay your hands on another copy – through your contacts in the theatrical world, perhaps?’
‘I could try.’
‘Let’s have another pint, shall we? Celebrate your speedy recovery.’
2. A Turner Two-Seater with a Collapsible Hood
Lysander was discharged from Somerville College a week later and decided to take his leave in Sussex as Hamo’s guest in the cottage at Winchelsea. Hamo had acquired a motor car – a Turner two-seater with a collapsible hood – and together they went for drives over the Downs and into Kent to Dungeness and Bexhill, to Sandgate and Beachy Head and one epic journey to Canterbury where they stayed the night before motoring home. Lysander punctuated the motor tours with walks of increasing length as he began to feel stronger and his injured left leg showed signs of bearing up. The scar on his thigh was still unsightly, buckled and lurid – a lot of muscle had been cut away in search of the evasive coins – and after his walks, steadily progressing through half a mile, a mile, two miles, he felt the leg stiff and sore. Still, it was the best thing for it, he reckoned, as he felt his love of walking renewing and, as soon as his confidence had grown sufficiently, he threw his stick away with relief.
On his final Saturday before his return to London they motored into Rye for lunch and then went for a walk on Camber Sands. They made their way down a path through the barbed wire and the crude anti-invasion defences on to the beach. The tide was out and the huge expanse of sand seemed like the vestige of an ancient, perfect desert washed up here on the south coast of England, unbelievably flat and smooth. A mile away someone was flying a kite but otherwise they had the great beach to themselves. Lysander stopped – he thought he could hear the rumble of distant explosions.
‘That’s not from France, is it?’ he said, knowing the offensive was due any day now.
‘No,’ Hamo said. ‘There’s a range up the coast – training gunners. How’s the leg?’
‘Getting better. No pain, but I’m still aware of it, if you know what I mean.’
They strode on in silence. There was a coolness lurking in the afternoon air.
‘Do you know who I mean by Bonham Johnson?’ Hamo asked.
‘The novelist?’
‘Yes. He lives not far away. Over by Romney. Turns out he’s a great admirer of my African book. He’s asked me to his sixtieth birthday party.’
‘You can drive over.’
‘He wants me to bring a guest. In fact he rather specified you – the actor-nephew – I think he’s seen you on stage. You up for it? Week tomorrow.’
Lysander thought – it was the last thing he wanted to do but he rather felt Hamo’s invitation was more entreating than its casual delivery inferred.
‘Assuming I have w
eekends off – yes. Might be interesting.’
Hamo was clearly very pleased. ‘Literary types – ghastly. Feel I need moral support.’
‘You’re the one who’s written a book, Hamo.’
‘Ah – but you’re the famous actor. They won’t notice me.’
Lysander went up to London on Sunday evening. The Chandos Place flat was still sublet so he booked himself into a small lodging house in Pimlico – with the grandiose name of The White Palace Hotel – not far from the river. He could walk to Parliament Square in thirty minutes or less. Munro had asked him to meet at a place called Whitehall Court on the Monday morning but had been vague as to who else would be there and what would be discussed.
As it turned out, on the Monday morning, Lysander realized that Whitehall Court was one of those London buildings he’d seen from a distance countless times but had never bothered to identify properly. It looked like a vast nineteenth-century château – thousands of rooms with turrets and mansard roofs, containing a gentleman’s club, a hotel and many floors of serviced apartments and offices. It was set back from the river behind its own gardens between Waterloo Bridge and the railway bridge that serviced Charing Cross station.
A uniformed porter checked his name on a clipboard and told him to go up to the top floor, turn left at the top of the stairs, through the door, down a passageway and someone would be waiting. Lysander saw him pick up the telephone on his desk as he made for the foot of the stairway.
That someone turned out to be Munro – in civilian clothes – who showed him into a simple and severely furnished office with a view of the Thames through the windows. Massinger was there waiting, uniformed, and greeted Lysander stiffly, as if he were still guilty for his near-fatal error with his imperfect French. There was a large, leather-topped, walnut desk set back against a wall facing the windows with the chair behind it empty. Someone of greater eminence had yet to arrive.