by Len Deighton
‘Nix,’ said the barman. He put two glasses on the counter and placed a bottle of whisky alongside. The military policemen stared once again at the three men at the far end of the bar, exchanged a look with each other and then came to the bar and poured themselves a drink. Douglas stole a glance at them and could now see that they were not Feldgendarmerie but ordinary soldiers appointed to police duties wearing the Kommandantur gorget.
The barman moved away from the soldiers, and stood behind the three men at the other end of the bar. ‘See that?’ said the barman as the magician and the girl came back to take another bow. ‘Same thing happened on Monday night, first house. She’s limping. See the blood on her foot. If she doesn’t get her knees right up to her neck, the saw catches her.’
Now the others could see it too. Her white ballet shoe was torn at the toe and there was a little blood there. ‘Goes to show,’ said the barman. ‘You can rehearse and rehearse, but there’s always the chance that it will go wrong.’
The three men sipped their drinks and didn’t answer him.
Chapter Thirty-six
The Tower of London. Douglas could taste the fog; its soot got into his nostrils and dried on his lips. Even at ten o’clock in the morning, visibility was down to a few yards. Here at London’s river the ambulance was reduced to a snail’s pace. At Tower Hill, the soldiers at the first checkpoint had marked their position with flares. Six flames tore a yellow tunnel through the green swirling clouds. Beyond them, the Tower was no more than a grey shape painted on the soft fog.
Only when the wind ruffled the river could they see the strings of yellow lights that marked the rigging of the light cruiser Emden, anchored on the far side of the bridge.
‘They picked a good day for it,’ said Harry Woods. ‘They must have seen the forecast last night, before Hesse came to meet us.’ He lowered the window as they approached the second perimeter of sentries.
An officer came quickly out of the guard hut, and stepped up on the running board. He held a handkerchief to his face and sneezed into it. ‘Damned filthy country,’ he said. ‘It’s not fit for human habitation.’
On his shoulder straps his Leutnant’s stars were accompanied by the serpents of the veterinary corps. ‘Drive straight on,’ he said. ‘Over the drawbridge and through the towers. I’ll talk to anyone who tries to stop us.’
He hung on to the mirror fitting, as Douglas manoeuvred the ambulance between the narrow spaces of the Outer Ward, round the buttress of the Wakefield Tower, past the Bloody Tower and up to the Inner Ward where, like a vast cliff of Caen stone, the White Tower was beheaded by the fog. He followed the line of streetlamps, their gas flames showing brightly. A couple of ravens, startled by their approach, lurched drunkenly across the path and flapped away noisily. The ambulance picked its way round the massive Keep and parked outside the chapel.
‘Wait,’ said the little German officer. He stepped off the running board and disappeared into the gloom, coughing and sneezing his way across Tower Green, and almost stumbling over the ‘Keep off the Grass’ sign.
The pea-souper had brought an unnatural quiet. The air activity, almost unceasing since the start of martial law, was suddenly no more, the spotter planes grounded by the fog. The grumble of a heavy lorry, going across the bridge in low gear, faded away and there was complete silence. ‘Gives you the creeps, doesn’t it?’ said Harry.
Douglas looked up at the painted notice. In German it said, ‘King’s House. Here Anne Boleyn spent the night before execution and Guy Fawkes was interrogated here before his confession and subsequent trial at Westminster Hall.’ Douglas nodded but didn’t answer.
From the White Tower there was the sudden noise of footsteps. Someone with a broad Silesian accent said it was cold, and another man chuckled as if appreciating a witticism.
‘Here they come,’ said Harry.
The white ambulance was almost invisible in the fog and the men nearly collided with it. There were five of them. Leading the way were two booted cavalry Leutnants. Behind them, flanked by two smiling acolytes, came a Deputy Gauleiter of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront, the Nazi trade union movement.
His tailor had tried to conceal the pot-belly and heavy hips under a magnificent overcoat, with coloured facings and gold badges, but he could do nothing for the unmilitary swagger, jovial curses and coarse laughter.
‘Bloody hell – an ambulance! Do I sit with the driver, or stretch out in the back?’ The Deputy Gauleiter laughed loudly, coughed and then spat. ‘Bloody fog gets in your throat, eh?’
The two DAF officials stopped laughing at his joke for long enough to join in his complaint about the fog. ‘Your car is over here, sir,’ said the cavalry Leutnant coldly.
‘You know your history, Leutnant,’ said the Deputy Gauleiter, turning to the second of the army officers conducting the party. ‘All those stories about Sir Walter Raleigh and Lady Jane Grey…Goddamn it, you bring it all to life for me.’ He tapped the officer on the chest. ‘And Sir Thomas More was always a hero of mine…’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the officer.
Douglas and Harry Woods watched the DAF men driven away in the sort of Rolls-Royce that was used for important visitors. Unaware that they were overheard, one of the army officers hissed his contempt through clenched teeth. ‘Agriculture Ministry officials, Health Service Commissioner, Deputy Chief of the Women’s League, Chief of Staff to the Reich Sport League…and now these pigs from the DAF. This is supposed to be a maximum security prison for the King of England not a Zirkus.’
The second officer spoke more quietly and was difficult to hear. ‘Patience, Klaus, there is a method to all this, believe me.’
‘A method?…What motive could there possibly be?’
‘I have a bottle of schnapps in my quarters, Klaus. What do you say to breaking the habit of a lifetime, and taking a drink before lunch?’
‘What did that Nazi pig mean…Sir Thomas More was always a hero of his? Thomas More was a scholar, a man who defied tyranny.’
‘Calm down, Klaus. Our orders were to be back in our quarters by ten-thirty A.M. and we’ve only a few minutes to go.’
‘Why back in our quarters?’
‘Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do or die. Into the valley of Death, Rode the six hundred,’ misquoted the officer in an uncertain English accent.
‘You know your history, Leutnant,’ said his friend, imitating the ponderous Silesian accent of the Deputy Gauleiter. ‘Goddamn it, you bring it all to life for me.’
It was ten-forty before the veterinary Leutnant returned to Douglas and Harry Woods. He was wheeling an invalid’s wooden chair. In it there sat a still and silent figure, hunched slightly as he looked at his tightly clenched gloved hands. He was dressed in a cheap tartan-patterned dressing gown, under which could be seen a brown, polo-neck sweater, grey flannel trousers and scuffed shoes. On his head there was a khaki-coloured knitted helmet of the sort that had become popular with the British soldiers during that first winter of the phoney war.
Harry Woods opened the two doors at the rear of the ambulance. Douglas stood ready to assist the King up the folding step. ‘You’ll have to help him,’ said the veterinary officer.
When the King looked up at the two men, his head scarcely moved, it was no more than a flicker of the eyes. He said nothing.
‘We’ll help you, sir,’ Douglas told the King.
Then Harry Woods leaned over and lifted the King bodily, as a mother might lift a tiny baby. Holding him in his arms, Harry stepped into the ambulance and laid him full-length upon the stretcher that was locked into position there.
‘Strap him in,’ said the veterinary Leutnant. ‘He’s completely exhausted. One of you should stay in the back with him.’
‘I’ll stay here,’ said Harry.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ Douglas asked nervously. He wondered if he should say ‘Your Majesty’.
The King gave an almost imperceptible nod and moved his lips, as if he was about to speak. Doug
las waited, but when no words came he nodded to Harry and closed the rear doors.
‘I’ll ride with you through the outer perimeter,’ said the Leutnant. ‘After that he’s your responsibility.’
‘Yes,’ said Douglas.
The Leutnant blew his nose noisily.
‘Is he drugged?’ said Douglas.
‘He’s sick,’ said the Leutnant. ‘Damned sick!’ He wiped his nose again. As the ambulance was going along Lower Thames Street he stepped off the running board with no more than a grunt of farewell.
They were in Lombard Street, heading towards Cheapside, when the first sign of trouble came. The communication flap behind Douglas’s head snapped open, and he heard Harry say, ‘You want me to drive, Doug?’
‘It’s the ignition,’ said Douglas. ‘The power fades when I press the accelerator.’
The ambulance moved slowly past the Bank of England, its armed sentries just visible through the gloomy fog. The traffic lights had failed and a policeman was directing traffic, his dark shape visible only because of the flare that burned beside him. He beckoned them on, and they got down as far as St Paul’s Cathedral before the engine stalled again. It started after a couple of tries.
‘We’ve only got to get as far as Barnet,’ said Harry hopefully. ‘There will be another vehicle there for him.’
‘Do you know anything about car engines, Harry?’
‘Perhaps we’ll see a garage,’ said Harry.
In St Paul’s Church Yard there were four cars and a lorry abandoned in the fog. A uniformed policeman walked over to the ambulance. ‘You can’t leave it here, sir,’ said the policeman. He had that sort of blunt manner that sometimes afflicts young policemen. ‘This is a Schnellstrasse; no parking or waiting permitted under any circumstances.’ He looked at the licence disc, sniffed and then stared at Douglas.
‘There’s something wrong with the ignition,’ said Douglas. ‘Can you direct me to a garage that will do repairs?’ Behind him he heard the King cough.
‘You’ll get nothing like that done today,’ said the Constable. ‘Can’t you understand that the fog has brought everything to a standstill?’ He looked at the ambulance and wiped a gloved fingertip in the condensation on the windscreen. ‘Get on to your people to send a mechanic.’
‘Can I leave it while I phone?’
‘Don’t play silly buggers with me,’ said the policeman. By now he’d decided that ambulance drivers did not merit a deferential approach. ‘I’ve told you once, and if I have to tell you again I’ll run you in. Do you understand? Now sling your hook!’ Douglas swallowed the rage he felt. He nodded and drove on.
‘Nasty little sod, wasn’t he?’ Harry said quietly as they pulled away.
‘I never did like coppers,’ said Douglas.
‘How’s…?’
Before Douglas could think of an appropriate form of address, Harry said, ‘Still the same. He hasn’t said a word. He might have dozed off.’
‘Could you get him into a taxi?’
‘Cab drivers stay at home in this kind of weather,’ said Harry. ‘It would take half a day to earn one fare.’
Douglas nodded. Harry was right, of course. He’d not seen a taxi anywhere. ‘I’ll phone Barbara,’ said Douglas.
They found a phone box in Fleet Street. Barbara was out. The window cleaner answered the phone and offered to leave a message but Douglas said he’d phone again later.
Douglas phoned the office of the Commissioner General for Administration and Justice, what once had been the Home Office. Sir Robert Benson was at a meeting but his personal assistant seemed ready, even anxious, to help when Douglas identified himself.
Sir Robert wouldn’t be back until after lunch, according to his P.A.
Douglas told him it was very urgent, and after some hesitation the man divulged that Sir Robert was lunching at the Reform Club.
‘We’ll go there,’ Douglas told Harry when he got back to the ambulance. ‘I think I can get this thing as far as Pall Mall.’
‘The fog’s getting thicker,’ said Harry. ‘It could hang on for days.’
‘Are you quite sure you haven’t got the name of the people at Barnet?’
‘I’m sure,’ said Harry.
Douglas got in the ambulance and looked at the King. He was sitting up in the stretcher, a thin grey blanket pulled round his shoulders, his face blank. ‘Are you all right, Your Majesty?’ said Douglas.
The King looked at him but did not answer.
‘It must have been that bomb that hit the palace just before the end,’ said Harry in a whisper. ‘There were rumours that the King had been badly injured, do you remember?’
‘You think he’s been like this all that time?’
‘I’ve seen plenty such cases,’ said Harry. ‘It’s the concussion – the blast effect can kill without leaving a mark on the corpse. Or it can just numb the mind and shake a man’s brain loose.’ Douglas looked round anxiously but the King had not heard.
‘Do you think he’ll recover?’
‘God knows, Douglas. But can you imagine what effect he’d have in his present state, if he was in Washington?’
‘I’ve been thinking of little else,’ said Douglas sadly.
‘Can you really get this damned thing as far as Pall Mall?’
‘I’ll try,’ said Douglas, and as if in encouragement the engine fired at the first attempt, and laboriously they trundled on up the Strand. For a few minutes the engine ran smoothly, but before either of the two men voiced the hope that they’d get as far as their original destination in Barnet the engine died once again. They were outside the Adelphi Theatre when the ambulance finally stammered to a stop. Now it did not answer to the starter. In the toolbox on the running board there was only a greasy cloth and a starting handle. Harry took it and turned the engine by hand, not once but many times. There was no response to his exertions and, red-faced and breathless, he threw the starting handle back into the toolbox. He cursed as he wiped his hands on a rag.
‘What are we going to do?’ said Harry, holding a hand to his chest and breathing deeply.
‘There’s a folding wheelchair in the back,’ said Douglas. ‘I’d prefer to take him along with us.’
‘Christ!’
‘No one will recognize him in the street. London is teeming with the sick and crippled.’
Harry had no alternative to offer, or breath to argue. They got the King into the wheelchair with some difficulty. Some passing pedestrians looked at the three men with interest but then they noticed the stage door of the nearby theatre and gave no more thought to it.
They wheeled him through the fog, cutting through Trafalgar Square and to the huge forbidding edifice of the Reform Club. ‘Wait here with him,’ Douglas told Harry. The fog was getting into the King’s lungs, and now he gave a body-racking cough.
Douglas had been in the Club before. He asked the porter for Sir Robert and then caught sight of him, standing in the middle of the strange indoor courtyard that is a feature of this odd building.
The porter walked over to Sir Robert and announced the visitor. He turned away from his companion. ‘Archer. How nice.’ His voice was soft and low, somewhere between a growl and a whisper.
It was typical of Sir Robert; a greeting from which it was impossible to detect pleasure or lack of it, surprise or polite acceptance of a punctual arrival, intimate friendship or distant acquaintance.
‘I’m sorry to trouble you, Sir Robert.’
‘Not at all. You know Webster. He’s to be the new Under-Secretary.’
‘Congratulations,’ said Douglas. Webster was a frail-looking man with tired eyes and a wispy smile. Hard to believe that he had the sort of determination that a man must have to cross that hurdle. Under-Secretary was for a civil servant what his first star billing is to an actor.
‘You were at New College, Archer?’ said Sir Robert.
‘Christ Church,’ said Douglas.
‘Webster was at New,’ said Sir Robert.
> They smiled. There was a widely held belief that all the top civil service jobs went to men from New College, Oxford.
‘Can I offer you a glass of sherry?’ said Webster.
Douglas was burning with impatience – he was anxious about Harry standing outside on the pavement with the King – but with Webster celebrating his promotion, Douglas could see no way of declining. A club servant was ready to take the order. ‘Three dry sherries,’ said Webster.
‘This is rather urgent, Sir Robert.’
‘There is always enough time for a glass of sherry,’ said Sir Robert. He turned to Webster. ‘Archer has helped me with PQs from time to time.’ Douglas had only once been asked to draft some material for the answer to a Parliamentary question but it was enough to explain his unexpected arrival.
Politely Webster offered them a chance to talk privately. ‘Then let me have a brief word with the Club Secretary while you talk. It would save me time after lunch.’
Sir Robert smiled and seemed indifferent to Douglas’s impatience. The sherries arrived and the congratulations were delivered. When Webster had gone, Sir Robert led Douglas to one of the leather-covered benches by the wall.
Douglas looked round carefully to be sure they were not overheard. ‘It’s the King, Sir Robert,’ he whispered.
Sir Robert said nothing; he sipped his sherry. This calmness did nothing to reassure Douglas, rather it gave him a feeling that he was behaving badly, that he was intruding. ‘We are taking him from the Tower…as arranged,’ whispered Douglas apologetically. ‘But there’s engine trouble. We need another vehicle for him.’
‘And now?’ said Sir Robert calmly.
‘He’s here.’
‘In the Club?’ His hoarse voice rose a fraction above the customary whisper.