The Quest

by Christopher Nicole

  It was in the middle of August that Berkeley received a summons to London.

  He had long completed his report on the Balkan situation, and submitted it; he did not suppose this had anything to do with that.

  Nor did it. “We would like you to take a long driving tour, Berkeley,” General Gorman said.

  Berkeley waited.

  “You know Central Europe?”

  “Some of it.”

  “You operated there quite successfully, before the War. Until that encounter with Madame Slovitza, eh? But look how that potential catastrophe turned out? A happy marriage, three splendid children, promotion . . .”

  One day, Berkeley thought, I am going to punch this old goat on the nose.

  “Now, who can tell what the future may bring you,” Gorman went on.

  “What exactly do you wish me to do, sir?”

  “As I said, take a long, slow drive through Germany. You speak fluent German, I believe.”

  “I do, sir. But . . . Germany?”

  “It is an interesting country. And still, potentially, a very powerful one. With the total collapse of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, into all these little states you so heartily dislike, Germany is the one buffer between us in the West and Soviet Russia. A nasty lot.”

  “Is not Germany absolutely shattered, sir? What possible good could she be if the Soviets did decide to move west?”

  “You mean further west than Poland, eh?”

  “Is Poland going to fall?”

  “I’m afraid it looks like it. The Russians are virtually at the Vistula. God knows what we are going to do about it. The French are sending one of their generals, Weygand, to see if the resistance cannot be stiffened, but one general is no substitute for overwhelming force. So, let us suppose the Russians overrun the Poles, there is only Germany left. We need to find out what is really happening there, Berkeley. In some parts of the country there is virtually civil war. There have been shootings in Berlin and Munich, and when I say shootings I am not talking about the odd murder; these are troops and police firing on mobs. We hear there is a huge Communist element. Obviously these would probably support a Russian invasion. On the other hand, there remains an even greater conservative element, quite a few of whom would support an attempt to restore the monarchy. We could be looking at a yawning chasm there.”

  “Just what would our reaction be if the Soviets did invade Germany, sir?”

  “God knows. I doubt we could persuade the country to go back to war. I doubt the country could afford it. The French and the Italians even more so. And the Yanks are making it very clear they want no more part of European affairs, only their money back. But we will have to do something. And before we can do that, we have to know on whom we can rely, who we can talk to. It seems odd that we should be considering allying ourselves with the Germans, but you need to remember that until Kaiser Wilhelm came to power England and Germany were very close indeed, in our attitude to politics. There must be some of those people left. So, you will travel as a correspondent of the Globe, gathering information for a series or articles you intend to write on the new, postwar Germany.”

  “Does the Globe know this?”

  “We have squared it with them. In fact, they would like to see the material you bring back, so that one of their own leader writers can use it. We have agreed to this, as a sort of quid pro quo. Of course, anything really sensitive we will withhold. The point is that they are co-operating with us in arranging interviews and that sort of thing.”

  “But you say you want me to drive. Wouldn’t it be simpler to use the train?”

  “Don’t you drive?”

  “I’m afraid not. Lockwood does.”

  “And of course he’ll be going with you. We want you to drive, Berkeley, because in addition to the leaders, we want you to get a sense of what the common people are feeling. If you are driving, you will stop in little villages and that sort of thing. Talk to the people, sympathise with their problems . . . you know the drill.”

  “Yes, sir. How long is this ‘holiday’ supposed to take?”

  “I would like you back here by Christmas,” Gorman said.

  “Four months?” Alicia was horrified when she heard the news. “You are going away for four months?”

  “Something like that,” Berkeley said. “I am sorry.”

  “But at least you’ll be in no danger?” his father asked, anxiously.

  “I shouldn’t think so,” Berkeley said.

  The children were sad.

  “Just think,” Berkeley told Anna, “by the time I come back you’ll be well settled at Corby Abbey.”

  “Yes,” she said thoughtfully.

  “I’ll expect to hear a good report.”

  “Yes,” she said, more thoughtfully yet.

  “And as you and I will both be away from home for most of that period, you won’t even know I’ve gone.”

  “I would like you to come back, Papa.”

  “Don’t I always?” he asked.

  *

  “Here we go again,” Lockwood remarked, as he and Berkeley took the train to London and thence Dover.

  “This is strictly a fact-finding mission,” Berkeley told him. “There is to be no trouble.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lockwood agreed, no doubt recalling that when they had last departed England, in the summer of 1908, on a fact-finding mission, his employer’s innate romanticism had embarked them on a series of adventures that were not over yet – in the presence of their various children. “These people we are supposed to meet, are they really of any importance?”

  “Difficult to say,” Berkeley commented. “Depends on the situation when we get to Berlin.”

  “And supposing, when we get to Berlin, the Bolsheviks are already there?”

  “I think that will be our indication to get out of there as rapidly as possible.”

  Lockwood digested this, apparently with some relief. He had followed Berkeley faithfully and well since he had been the young subaltern’s batman in the Sudan, twenty-two years before, but he was several years the elder, and no doubt felt that they were past the age for unremitting violence. Berkeley agreed with him. But however turbulent the country into which they were being sent, he did not see that they could become involved in more violence unless they wished to, and there was no chance of that.

  At Dover, a representative of the Globe waited for them with a list of possible interviewees.

  “They know you’re coming of course, and most of them are anxious to speak with you,” the young man said.

  “That’s nice to know.” Berkeley scanned the list. “There seem to be an awful number of fringe groups. Are they all Communist?”

  “Well, no. You’ll see there are several of these right-wing parties, mainly composed of ex-soldiers. Their platform appears to be opposing the Communists at every level. But the Communists are, frankly, the most important group. One of their leaders is a man called Thalmann. We’ve arranged for you to meet with him.”

  Berkeley studied the list of names. “What about members of the government itself? I take it some of them are here.”

  “The Weimar lot? Yes, indeed. But frankly, old man, we don’t rate them very highly. The country as a whole regards them as the people who negotiated that rather sorry business at Versailles.”

  “I thought the Jews were being blamed for all that,” Berkeley said.

  “Well, there is certainly a strong anti-semitic feeling in the country at the moment, but then there always has been. It comes and goes. Now, as to the trip itself. Our car will be waiting for you in Calais. We have arranged a driver . . .”

  “Mr Lockwood had intended to drive.”

  “Well, he and Frau Lipschuetz can take turns, if you wish.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Berkeley said. “Did you say Frau Lipschuetz?”

  “Yes, from our Berlin office. She will also act as your guide.”

  “I see. What does Herr Lipschuetz say to this arrangement?”

&n
bsp; “Herr Lipschuetz was killed in the War.”

  “Ah. Presumably by a British or French bullet or shell.”

  “I can’t say, old man.”

  “But his widow is perfectly willing to work for us.”

  “For the Globe, yes. She has to work for someone. I am assured by our people in Berlin that she is most co-operative, and as she comes from a good family, she has a personal acquaintance with many of the people you are going to meet. This will be very helpful.”

  “I’m sure,” Berkeley said, wondering just what he was getting into.

  “Now,” Stringer went on, “here are your papers, and for Mr Lockwood.”

  Berkeley scanned the passport and various other documents. “Oh, for God’s sake,” he said. “Mr Smith, and Mr Brown? Couldn’t you have been just a tiny bit more original? And incidentally, these are the names we used on a previous mission.”

  “Then your people weren’t so original, either.” Stringer grinned. “The point is that they are two very common names, and unlikely to be remarked upon.”

  “Unless they are so common as to be remarked upon, especially when in tandem. All right, Stringer, we’ll take our chances. And with your merry widow.”

  Nazis

  “What do you reckon?” Lockwood asked, as the ferry nosed its way alongside the Calais dock.

  Berkeley surveyed the surprisingly large number of people awaiting the ship’s arrival; at least half of them were women, mostly obscured beneath floppy hats and voluminous skirts.

  “I think we’ll let the lady find us,” he decided, hoping she might be the rather glamorous looking blonde standing back from the throng. And wondered why? A throwback to his amorous past? He had entirely foresworn women since Caterina’s death, had no desire ever to get too close to one again.

  They went down the gangplank, waited while their heavy luggage was unloaded.

  “Mr Smith?”

  Berkeley turned. There had been very little accent. And it was not the blonde, but a rather small, dark woman. He supposed trim would be the quickest way to describe her, both face and figure. She wore a black skirt and white blouse, with a red tie, and a small straw hat. She was quite attractive, but not in the least glamorous.

  He raised his own hat. “Frau Lipschuetz?”

  “I am she.”

  He squeezed her hand, gently; they were small hands, in keeping with the rest of her. “My pleasure. This is Mr Brown.”

  Frau Lipschuetz shook hands with Lockwood as well. “The car is over here.”

  Lockwood signalled the porter to follow them with his barrow, and they went through Customs and Passport Control and on to the street, while Frau Lipschuetz waited, untroubled by authority.

  “You can come and go as you like?” Berkeley asked.

  Frau Lipschuetz gave a little laugh, and showed him the piece of cardboard she had been brandishing. “Press. And when the press is the Globe of London, it carries weight.”

  “Some car.” Lockwood was admiring the open roadster.

  “It is a Mercedes-Benz,” Frau Lipschuetz explained. “And as you say, Mr Brown, it is some car.”

  “Your English is very good,” Berkeley observed.

  “I was educated in England before the War.”

  She busied herself supervising the strapping of the bags on the back, while Berkeley tried to estimate her age. About thirty. So what was she doing being educated in England? But he couldn’t overwhelm her with questions on this first meeting.

  “Now,” she said, when she was satisfied. “I have been given a list of people you wish to see, or should see, Mr Smith, so I have mapped out an itinerary which I would like you to look at and approve. I thought we would go first of all to Munich. It is, how do you say, a hotbed of revolutionary activity. You should find it very interesting.”

  “That’s fine by me,” Berkeley said. “How far is it?”

  She sat behind the wheel and took a map from the glove compartment, unfolded it. Berkeley sat beside her.

  “You see.” She placed her finger on the map. “From Calais to Munich is five hundred miles, as the crow flies. Unfortunately this car is not a crow. So, following the roads, it will be more than six hundred. We will get there tomorrow. I have booked an hotel for us in Nancy, which we will reach tonight.”

  “You are very efficient.”

  “I am paid to be efficient, Mr Smith.”

  She started the engine and pulled into the traffic.

  “As it seems to me that we are going to be seeing rather a lot of each other over the next couple of months,” Berkeley said. “I think we should attempt to be less formal. My name is Berkeley, and Brown’s name is Harry.”

  “Berkeley and Harry,” Frau Lipschuetz said, obviously committing them to memory. “I am Frederika.”

  “Frederika,” Berkeley said, and reflected that Frederika Lipschuetz was a bit of a mouthful for anyone to live with.

  Then they were out of the town and into the country. This was where the War had been mostly fought, and the evidences of that conflict, the deserted trenches, the shattered towns, the dead trees, the areas of once fertile countryside reduced to muddied ruin, were all around them.

  “Do you meet with any hostility when you are in France?” Berkeley asked.

  She drove with as much expertise as she seemed to do everything else. “There is some,” she agreed.

  They stopped for lunch at a village estaminet and afterwards Lockwood drove, Frederika removing herself to the back seat.

  “Just follow the signs for Nancy,” she said. “I will take the wheel again when we are close.”

  She then appeared to go to sleep.

  Lockwood and Berkeley exchanged glances. Lockwood was obviously dying to discuss this strangely laid-back young woman, but that would have to wait.

  Berkeley found her no less fascinating, and not only because she was attractive. He had not actually been required to fight against the Germans during the War, and in fact, they were one of the few peoples in Europe with whom he had never yet come into violent contact – although it had been a near-run thing when he thought of the last mission on which Gorman had sent him – but he would not have been human had some of the propaganda regarded as necessary by the Allied Powers to make their people fight and suffer not rubbed off, even at a distance.

  Thus the German was the Boche, who had raped Belgium and brought untold misery on the rest of Europe. And who was now personified by this small, neat young woman? Oddly, he realised, there had been almost no propaganda directed at German women. They had merely been required to suffer.

  They gained Nancy without difficulty. Frederika apparently knew both the town and the hotel, and was warmly greeted by the proprietor.

  “Do you do this trip often?” Berkeley asked, as they sipped an aperitif, Lockwood having discreetly taken himself off for a walk around the town.

  “Regularly enough. There are people to be met, and driven . . . wherever they wish to go.”

  “You mean other Globe correspondents?”

  “Sometimes,” she said. “So, what are you, Berkeley?”

  “Eh?”

  “You are certainly not a Globe correspondent. I know most of them. And, how shall I put it, I know their demeanour.”

  “Who do you think I am?”

  She considered while she finished her drink. “A diplomat, wishing to travel incognito?”

  “Wouldn’t these people you are taking me to meet know that?”

  “Yes, they probably would. Some of them, anyway.” She waited.

  “Actually, I am collecting material for a book. On the shape of post-war Germany.”

  “I see.”

  He didn’t think she believed him. He reckoned she was far too observant, and intelligent, for her own good. And his.

  “Your newspaper agreed to co-operate, and they will serialise the book in their paper.”

  “The Globe does not serialise books,” she pointed out.

  “The Sunday Globe does.”
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  “Ah,” she said thoughtfully.

  “I have a notion you don’t believe a word I am saying.”

  “Who am I to believe or not believe? I am simply a driver.”

  “So they said. Tell me, how are things in Germany.”

  “Very bad.”

  “In what way? Civil unrest?”

  “Oh, yes. You could say that Germany is in a state of incipient civil war. You must remember that it is, and always has been, a federal state. Strong men, like Bismarck and even the Kaiser, managed to impose their will on the country as a whole, and the various kings of ten years ago were always happy to go along with a central policy because they understood how precarious were their thrones. But they have all been swept away by the revolution. Each state is now in the hands of an adventurer, eager to carve out his own little empire. Weimar issues laws and pronunciamentos, and no one pays the slightest notice. Only a couple of days ago the Federal Government had to send in troops to quell a Communist revolt in Hanover.”

  “And in Munich?”

  “There was an attempted Communist coup in Munich, only a few months ago. It was put down with great severity. At the moment, Munich is very right-wing. Very anti-Communist.”

  “And where do you fit into this?”

  “Me? I am a . . .”

  “Driver for the Globe newspaper. But you are allowed views of your own, presumably. Are you a Communist?”

  She looked at him for several seconds. “Do you realise that to ask someone a question like that in Germany today can be very dangerous?”

  “Ah,” he said. “But we are not in Germany yet. And when you say dangerous, are you saying you have a gun in that handbag of yours?”

  Once again she gave him an appraising gaze. “You are a very provocative man.”