Percy Crow

by Daniel Kemp

  “What can I do to make amends, Sophie?”

  “To start with you can offer that Yorkshire home of yours as our wedding venue, Lord Paterson.” I was a lord at last, but my celebration did not last long. There was a conspiratorial smile exchanged between Sophie and Serena that told it all. George dissolved into laughter as the two ladies mocked me.

  “You said exactly what I'd imagined you would, Harry. I know you too well,” he managed to blurt out between chuckles.

  “Well now, the soon-to-be Mrs Northcliffe, you and Seri are already well acquainted with subterfuge and trickery. Care to collaborate on any more hidden secrets?”

  “I think Miss Abenazo may have one or two, but that's not for me to say, Harry.” Instantly I had been demoted. Miss Abenazo for Serena, and a mere Harry for me. I liked Sophie; a lot.

  “I can justly say, George, that you have chosen superbly, old chap. You will make a wonderful couple. I'll leave the arrangements in Seri's hands, but I must warn the pair of you that not only has she taken over half of the Hall, she's now running it. Joseph is in for a shock when he and Mrs Franks return. How is Mrs Squires, by the way?”

  “She needs cheering up, Harry. She's worried about her future, even though we have both reassured her over that. I'll have her here forever, and so will Sophie. Perhaps you could weigh in on that score.”

  I'd chosen the Rolls to drive down in for its extra space but even though John had driven all the way from Harrogate, my knee was not in good shape. I'd been spared any discomfort of cramp by riding in the back, having it all to stretch out in as Serena had sat up front with him. As I wandered along the picture-hung corridor that led to Mrs Squires domain, I regretted leaving my walking cane in the car as I needed the wall to assist my balance. I started to count how many times I reached out and George's word of score came floating into my mind. I recalled an incident previously I'd almost forgotten. I had never asked Paulo why he used a stick himself at our penultimate Moscow meeting. I was not entirely sure either whether he knew that I had spent the two nights, that he had paid for, at the National Hotel in the enjoyable company of his daughter. He didn't mention it in Switzerland before his disappearance and I'm sure he would have if just to score points. Word association! If only everything was that easy to understand.

  If I was right about there being a catalogue of names, why was that not included in Paulo's game? Or had I missed it?

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: The British Columbia Regiment

  “But I don't like the woman, my Lord, and I can't see that opinion changing. She bosses George around as though he's a child without a mind of his own. She's a bully in the house as well. George is like a dormouse, never saying an evil word about anyone. He speaks highly of everyone he comes across. Lately he's become morose and withdrawn. Perhaps it's my imagination or the wedding planning, but I really do think it's time for me to go. June, that's Mrs Tomkins, has settled in nicely doing the housekeeper role that was in truth becoming too much for me. It's those flights of stairs that tire me out. Did you know that there's almost sixty from the basement to the top of the house?” I did, but I made no reply.

  “I would think, given the way she speaks about food being the devil's trappings of lust, that the future Mrs Northcliffe won't be buying or cooking much. Radish and lettuce, with the occasional treat of Waitrose coleslaw would be the dish of the day. It doesn't warrant a full time cook anymore. George keeps asking me to leave him a sandwich hidden at the back of the fridge, he's that hungry, my Lord. It's pitiful to see and frankly I don't want to be part of it. He's had the same footman since your father was murdered but up until her arrival he hardly asked him to do anything, but not now, oh no. She orders him around as though she's mistress already. I honestly believe that she's after the money he inherited, and no more in love than you or I.”

  Marriage and love, two words I did not understand, nevertheless silently I wished they could be put into an unbreakable code that would then disappear.

  “I'm so sorry, Mrs Squires, that it should end on a such a heavy bitter note after all you have done for the family. They both say that they want you to stay, you know.”

  “I do know that, yes, my Lord, but I wonder what for. At first when George discovered his mother, and she came here to live, it was awkward for me. I didn't know my position as well as I did with your father, grandfather and the great man of course. Then things were black and white and we all knew our roles. Gradually though Loti and I got along famously. We used to go shopping and sightseeing together. Went to tea dancing at the Waldorf more than once, had fun, we did. When she died, deep down inside I realised that my days here were coming to a close. It's a simple fact of life, my Lord. Tempus fugit and all that. See, I remember some of the Latin that you used to quote at me. Well, at least I hope I remembered that phrase correctly!”

  I smiled at the memory she invoked. Operam vel desinere in hocce conclave, my young sir. Which I took to mean; pay attention or leave this lecture, or it could have meant; pay attention or leave the bedroom, it depended on who was shouting it at me. I never was any good at languages with latin coming a long way down my list of interests while stuck in academia. But some phrases did stick.

  “Nothing is inevitable unless we let it be, Mrs Squires. Are you positive that Sophie and yourself would not become as close as you were with George's mother? She has, after all, only been in George's life for a few weeks.”

  “Without a shadow of a doubt I'm sure, my Lord. I didn't want to say this as you might think it's just sour grapes on my part, but that Sophie has even taken over my role regarding Lord Maudlin's photos, with the enquiries I was doing on your behalf. She more or less told me that I was too slow and no longer needed.” That came as a surprise, as did her recalcitrance. She had worked under difficult times before without a murmur of disapproval. Reluctantly I admitted defeat.

  “In that case I'll make arrangements for a house to be opened up back on the estate where Joseph and Mrs Franks have theirs. I'll furnish it to your requirements and settle a yearly honorarium to be paid monthly to reflect your honourable and worthy service to our name. If you want, and that's solely dependent on you, you can come to The Hall whenever you wish and keep your hand in as it were, but you will never want for anything in life again, Mrs Squires. Give it some thought before you decide.” I kissed her on the lips, something I think that shocked her.

  “Oh my days, my Lord, I never thought this day would come. Can I move in today?” It was the first time I'd seen her smile since I'd arrived.

  “It might take a day or two, my dear,” I laughed. “Nobody works as fast in Yorkshire as they do down here. Come up when you've settled everything you need to and we'll find room at The Hall while you select the furniture and stuff you think you'll need. Leave the notice thing to me. I'll inform George and Sophie, in a way they will understand and accept without taking umbrage.”

  “I can't thank you enough, Lord Paterson!” I wondered if George would think the same.

  * * *

  The then plain Anthony Fredrick Blunt, art historian and Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures made two trips to Germany, at the end of World War Two. One was to retrieve letters that the Duke of Windsor, the King who abdicated, wrote to Adolf Hitler and the second was to see his fellow collector of the work ascribed to Nicholas Poussin. Blunt was a third cousin of the late Queen Mother, the last Empress of India, but that affiliation did nothing to stop him working for this country's once ally but then its enemy; the Soviet Union. He passed on intercepted Nazi communications that were decoded at Bletchley Park to Soviet intelligence as early as 1941. The fact that he was said to be virtually running the Communist Party of Great Britain was known to MI5 who at first considered that to be a possible advantage to this country, but counter-espionage was in its infancy in those far-off days and it never happened as planned. By sheer chance Blunt met Percy Crow on the beaches of Dunkirk and the two recognised a kindred spirit in the reflection of their eyes. A brief, but long remembere
d, sexual relationship developed almost immediately they met.

  In the late fifties Blunt, along with a future Chief of MI6, Dicky Blythe-Smith, and Victor Rothschild would spend Christmas together. We can only speculate on what they discussed, but it must have been colourful to say the least. On the second of January 1952, Blunt paid his second visit to Germany, the one that is never mentioned, visiting the Canadian commander of the British Columbia Regiment at his regimental headquarters in the port of Hamburg, on the River Elbe. In the same building was housed the interrogation unit of the British Army Third Corps where Percy first made his reference to a special photograph on escaping from Russian hands. The conversation that Percy had at Third Corps was routinely recorded at the listening house occupied by Red Army technicians three hundred yards away, then relayed on to NKVD Moscow where a very young officer in the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs monitored it.

  Although only sixteen years of age, Tovarisch Sergeyovitch Korovin listened intently to all that was broadcast as it was his duty to pinpoint previous escape routes, but this tale was different and Korovin had ambitions far above the station he occupied. No name was given by Percy, but Korovin squirrelled Percy's name and the information he'd given into his memory bank to be opened at some future date if needed. Four years later that same officer, now a translator in the recently formed KGB, was visiting London as part of President Khrushchev's state visit, with his wife Tanya, George's future mother alongside. Tanya was renamed Loti by Maudlin on her defection and not long after the all-important mother file was opened. Paulo, with Percy's name firmly entrenched in his mind, waited for the right time to use it.

  Blunt had been sent on specific orders from Meredith Paine to substantiate Percy's claim that Louis, Eugène Ferguson-Blythe had introduced a member of the Royal Family to Grange Manor, whilst on a Royal visit to Ireland. Blunt did that to everyone's satisfaction. Malcolm, of chicken soup fame, would have been pleased.

  * * *

  “Sophie, I need a huge favour from you to fit around the wedding plans if you could. I think I know where that imposing house in Maudlin's last photograph is. Could you go to Canada House and ask if it's in Vancouver?”

  “Can I go too? Sophie and I could make a day of it while you and George go get fitted out in morning dress. This could be the start of the new you that I intend to supervise, Harry.” I thought she wouldn't hear, as she and mysterious, but loud Franco, were droning on about fashion wear at the other end of the room, but not so. She had been a telephone all day speaking about her fashion wear to the whole world, or so it seemed.

  After speaking to George of Mrs Squires's wishes, and consoling him in his wretched disappointment, I telephoned Jimmy Mercer and made arrangements to visit Katherine. Both George and he were startled by the news I gave to them, but I told neither that I had deciphered the coded message that Joseph had found in the cemetery at the bridge of the ford and thought I knew more of Paulo's scheme, but for the life of me I did not understand the why to it all.

  Chapter Thirty: Escape

  Percy had satisfied all at Hamburg in the account of his escape from Soviet Russia, and why not, as every word was the truth, as smelly as it was.

  World War Two had six weeks to last by late March 1945, being almost over for the Nazis, barring a signature to say so. However, as an accepted truth amongst the Western allies, the Russians would prefer it to go on until every single German, man, woman or child, was dead, and even then they might not stop. As all the Atlantic fleet of German submarines and support vessels had been withdrawn to home waters, the naval garrison around Liepāja, Latvia had been replaced by native Latvians forced to defend the city in front of a small number of Nazi SS officers willing to die for their cause, and knowing that they would do so. Hitler had painted the Russians as a primeval, barbarous race of depraved savages incapable of thought or reason with subhuman officers in command. He was wrong, as he had been in so many things, but by March of that year any mercy they may have shown had been abandoned and left to rot in the wake of the thousands of bloody hand battles fought from Moscow to the fringes of Berlin. From outside Liepāja the unerringly accurate long-range Soviet artillery, aided by bombing strikes from Ilyushin Il-6 aircraft, did nothing for the morale of the remaining troops, nor the civilian inhabitants as it rained down exclusively on them. The submarine repair yards and pens, with their reinforced sea walls of steel and concrete were not targeted by the Red Army command, they wanted to capture them intact. The Nazis knew that, and made arrangements to counter those plans .

  On his arrival from Waggum, in Central Germany, Percy was immediately assigned to the specialist group of Wehrmacht engineers tasked with laying explosive charges deep inside the four foot thick outer sea gates, opening onto the Baltic that were indestructible by aerial bombing or torpedo attack. Nothing of any use was to be left in Soviet hands. He, and they, did the job well, and Percy's pride in his trade never stopped there. He suggested booby-traps and concealed explosives be placed in strategic areas around the site so as to cause the most amount of damage and casualties as possible. Are you a Russian hater like us? the Nazis asked. To which Percy smiled and said — Ich hasse alle Barbaren. Heil Hitler!

  That previously unused, but inborn linguistic skill of Percy's was to serve him well in both the not-so-far-off future and one further afield.

  On the morning of the twenty-seventh, elements of the Red Army's Eighth Brigade broke effortlessly through the outer defences of Liepāja, advancing quickly behind tanks and armoured troop carriers onwards to the shipyard. There they faced the more resilient opposition of a task force of real killers; Finnish Waffen-SS soldiers wearing the death-head insignia under the command of SS-Oberfüher Reinard Scholz. A formidable first defence line. But not formidable enough.

  The first volley of fire from the defending forces was from the Finns, but not in the easterly direction of advancing Russian columns. They turned on the Oberfüher and shot him dead along with several of the other officers, then ran towards the oncoming enemy unarmed and hands held high in surrender. All the Russians saw was the death-head insignia. Three Russian armoured machine-gun carriers scythed the first two ranks down and the following infantry took care of the rest. Percy saw the ferocity of the Russian attack, cringing in fear behind the bunker that housed the detonating switch wired to the explosives in the sea walls. Whether he was brave, foolhardy or simply stupid is not known, nor was it spoken of, but suddenly he ran forward, shouting something he had practised saying a thousand times…Я по-английски и может помочь вам, which roughly translated means; 'I am English and can help you.' He bent to pickup a gun to turn and fire on the detonating squad of German troops, but never got that far.

  Amongst the noise of the battle he never heard the bullet that smashed into his thigh just above the knee, but had it not been for the divisional commander of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's intervention, then senior rifleman Voroshilov's aim would not have been knocked away from Percy's skull. Percy could not save all from the demolition which resonated through everyone's ears, but he did save many other lives by pointing out all the hidden destructive charges. Those saved lives were all Russian and it saved his own. After a token visit to a field hospital that separated him from the few prisoners taken by the Soviets, he was transferred to a hospital at Penza, a small town a hundred or so kilometres south of Moscow, with a letter of commendation pinned to his clothing.

  After five months of recuperation from the broken femur bone, then surviving the interrogation and assessment, Percy passed all the examinations thrust upon him and was sent to the laboratories at Obninsk, not far from Penza. Here he worked directly alongside scientists experimenting in the concept of producing electricity from nuclear energy and how that form of power could be transferred into the propulsion of submarines. He was as insignificant in the grand scheme of things as was the policewoman that Charlie's fate had crossed, however, it was within those laboratories that the secrets
of nuclear propulsion lay and Percy could see how significant that could be.

  By 1951 he was completely at ease with the Russian language, both written and spoken. He could imitate and distinguish the various dialects used in the laboratories. He played the game as though he was a local; content in his surroundings. The Russians in turn accepted him. It wasn't long before he learned of endurance figures for the new mechanism, missile capacity and of its potential of first strike capability if only the weakness of discoverability could be completely overcome. And perhaps more important than anything else he overheard was how each nuclear submarine would have its own foot-print dependent on size, displacement and design. That was the imperfection that was baffling all the research scientists, the frustration that no matter what was done to disguise the thermal image, it could not be totally hidden.

  There was a conventional Soviet submarine base in Salmi, on the eastern edge of Lake Ladoga in north-western Russia that he heard spoken of as being the proposed experimental site for the first build of this innovative discovery. He volunteered to go there, and as he put it… Пришли меня туда, товарищи. Я хочу построить новую Родину — Send me there, comrades. I want to build the new homeland. His bravery at Liepāja and his dedication to his work had opened many doors that stayed firmly closed to other foreign workers. His loyalty to the communist cause was well known in Laboratory V and within the training camp for the future breed of submariners on the River Protva flowing through Obninsk and on towards the Caspian Sea. They agreed to his request and off he went with a plan fixed inside his sneaky brain.