by Len Deighton
Horse Under Water
( Harry Palmer - 2 )
Len Deighton
The dead hand of a long-defeated Nazi Third Reich reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech in Deighton's second novel, featuring the same anonymous narrator and milieu of The IPCRESS File, but finds Dawlish now head of the secret British Intelligence unit, WOOC(P).
The Ipcress File was a debut sensation. Here in the second Secret File, Horse under Water, skin-diving, drug trafficking and blackmail all feature in a curious story in which the dead hand of a long-defeated Hitler-Germany reaches out to Portugal, London and Marrakech, and to all the neo-Nazis of today's Europe.The detail is frightening but unfaultable; the story as up to date as ever it was. The un-named hero of The Ipcress File the same: insolent, fallible, capricious — in other words, human. But he must draw on all his abilities, good and bad, when plunged into a story of murder, betrayal and greed every bit as murky as the waters off the coast of Portugal, where the answers lie buried.
Len Deighton
Horse Under Water
Cover designer’s note
In creating cover designs for the new publication of Len Deighton’s quartet of spy novels, I came up with the metaphor of the chess game as it relates to the spy game. Three enamel U-boat sub-mariners’ cap badges became pawns on the chessboard.
A constant feature of Deighton’s nameless protagonist’s Charlotte Street WOOC(P) office was the ubiquitous pack of Gauloises cigarettes and the everpresent tin of Nescafé. (This very same street was used as the location for the HQ of the nest of spies in Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent.) The Swiss had invented instant coffee prior to World War II, but it only became available in the UK in the 1950s, so when freeze-dried soluble grains were introduced a while later they became the beverage of choice for the Swinging London set. My search for a UK Nescafé tin of that period ended when I located one in far-off Australia!
Finding a contemporary, key-opened Portuguese sardine tin became virtually impossible. Discovering the illustration of a sardine on a cigarette card and a crested souvenir spoon from Lisbon became much easier, thanks to eBay!
My wife, Isolde, who produces all of my art work, and is a dab-hand at Photoshop, reproduced the period British European Airways ticket, incorporating the exact flight number described in the book.
One obsession of Deighton’s nameless protagonist is solving crossword puzzles. Since I have kept copies of the illustrations I produced for the London Sunday Times during the 1960s, I was able to find among the pages of the newspaper a crossword puzzle of the period.
The 1943 German postage stamp on the spine of the book depicts a German U-boat. The group of cigarette cards on the back of the cover spells out in semaphore K.U.Z.I.G. and Y. The nautical interpretation of these letters is referred to in the book as “Permission granted to lay alongside”.
Some years ago, given the possibility of producing a feature film on the subject of the Nazi plan to flood the Allied economy with counterfeit money, I purchased a fake £20 note.
On meeting a survivor of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where, as an engraver, he was forced to produce the counterfeit bank notes, I showed him my note, which he held to the light and proudly proclaimed, “Yes, it’s one of ours!”
I photographed the jacket set-up using natural daylight, with my Canon OS 5D digital camera.
Arnold Schwartzman OBE RDI
Introduction
The Ipcress File, my first book, was written in two separate sessions. It was started when I was on vacation in the South of France. Porquerolles is an island off Toulon. In those days there was very little to do there other than sit and look at the Mediterranean, and eat and drink at regular intervals. So I whiled away the sunny days writing a story.
I have always enjoyed being in France. As a moderately successful illustrator, I decided to live there. I had an energetic and encouraging artist’s agent in London and she sent work to me. My overheads were small, for the isolated cottage I lived in was Spartan accommodation for hunters. It was high on a windy hillside in the Dordogne and the forest that provided game for the hunters started within inches of the door. It had no heating other than a wood stove and drinking water was drawn from an ancient well about three hundred yards away. Day began with getting the stove started and going for water. Until the wood was burning bright, there could be no hot tea.
Rural life was enchanting but it was too good to last. Art directors of advertising agencies and magazines all preferred to deal with artists they could shout at in person. As the flow of illustration jobs diminished, I had more time for writing. But money diminished too and I reluctantly gave up my idyll and returned to London. (Not so long ago I went back to find the little cottage. It was still exactly as I remembered it but no smoke rose from the chimney. It was unoccupied and the windows were unwashed. I shed a tear and stole away.) But in those weeks of waiting for work to arrive I had continued writing the uncompleted story I had begun in Porquerolles. By the time I left for London, the story had become a book and it was more or less complete. But being almost broke I had no time for anything other than work. The manuscript of The Ipcress File was put on a shelf and forgotten until I met a literary agent at a party in London’s Swiss Cottage.
It was when The Ipcress File was accepted by a publisher that I took seriously the idea of writing books for a living. They were even talking about making a film of it. By that time I had done enough drawings to be solvent again, and with enough money to be on vacation in a dramatically situated, but somewhat shabby, cliff top apartment in Portugal. It was there on a balcony overlooking the Atlantic that I started scribbling in longhand the story that became my second book, Horse Under Water. In those days Southern Portugal was a remote region. There was no airport nearer than Lisbon and the journey from there to the south coast was gruelling. But it was worth it. The Algarve, on the very edge of Europe, is a pictorial region and I always delight in being there.
Many of the ideas in the book dated from earlier times. In the nineteen thirties, when I was a small child, my father had taken me to many museums but I particularly enjoyed the War Museum. To me the tanks, artillery pieces and aircraft were like gigantic toys and I have never lost my fascination with large examples of machinery.
So when I moved into the Elephant and Castle neighbourhood of London — where I lived for many years — the War Museum in Lambeth was within easy walking distance and it became a haunt of mine. It was a time when the Army, Navy and RAF, and many civilian agencies, began passing over to the War Museum books, films and documents that had become history rather than operational reference. A proportion of these items were technical ones seized from various German archives at the end of the war. I found it fascinating but the Museum found them an almost overwhelming burden.
In the final year of the war, there had been tremendous scientific advances in undersea warfare and I pursued these reports — British, American and German — with particular zeal. The War Museum’s librarian asked me to help by categorizing the material I examined, so that I became an unofficial member of the Museum staff. At the time, I had no idea that the notes I made would be used for anything other than my interest in history. It was during my stay in Portugal, when I was asking local people about German activity there during the war, that I recalled all that underwater warfare material. The book’s plot fell into place and I started writing.
Like The Ipcress File, this second book was started with a fountain pen and locally purchased school exercise book. I had not named the hero of The Ipcress File. A Canadian book-reviewer said it was symbolic and pretentious but in fact it was indecision. Now, writing a second book, I found it an advantage to have an anonymous hero. He might be th
e same man; or maybe not. I was able to make minor changes to him and his background. The changes had to be minor ones for the WOOC(P) office was still in Charlotte Street and Dawlish was still the hero’s ‘chief’. There were very few modifications but I realized that (although Deighton is a Yorkshire name, and I had lived briefly in the city of York) identifying him as a northerner would make demands on my knowledge that I could not sustain. It would be more sensible to give him a background closer to my own.
The indomitable Harry Saltzman, who had co-produced the James Bond films and was making The Ipcress File, solved everything with the sort of unhesitating practical move for which he was renowned. Michael Caine was cast to play the hero of that film and Michael was a Londoner, as I was. He was named Harry Palmer. It was the right decision. Michael and the man of whom I’d written fused perfectly. I am indebted to Michael for the dimensions his skill and talent provided to my character.
Having no underwater skills, knowledge or experience, I went to the Royal Navy and asked for help. Everyone at the Admiralty was one hundred per cent helpful. They sent me to the Royal Navy’s diving school and this experience is described here more or less as it happened. It was only when I was half-way through the course, and up to my neck in water on the ladder of the diving tank, that I confessed that I could not swim. They were shocked and apprehensive on my behalf but as I said: ‘What is the point of wearing all this scuba gear if you can manage without it?’ The chief instructor gave a grim smile and nodded me down into the water. Those were the days when you didn’t have to wonder why health and safety allowed the war to be won!
Len Deighton, 2009
Solution
1. Parley
2. Nostrum
3. Air
4. Me
5. Pistol
6. Gib
7. Brief
8. Road
9. Gun
10. U
11. Aid
12. Frog
13. Read
14. Sim
15. Um
16. Bills
17. Lore
18. Fado
19. Die
20. Foe
21. Sin
22. Sex
23. Boat
24. Yarn
25. Yes
26. Ball
27. All
28. Tip
29. Pray
30. Entreaty
31. Aid
32. Old
33. Nods
34. Rude
35. Guard
36. Black
37. Reread
38. Gas
39. D.D.
40. A.I.T.C.
41. Film
42. Reason
43. Sex
44. UNO
45. Deep
46. Life
47. Forgo
48. Sings
49. Echo
50. File
51. Shoes
52. Set
53. Baix
54. Yo
55. Jam
56. Beep
57. Ail
58. Tack
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as ’twas told to me.
SCOTT
Perhaps the worst plight of a vessel is to be caught in a gale on a lee shore. In this connection the following … rules should be observed:
1. Never allow your vessel to be found in such a predicament …
CALLINGHAM, Seamanship: Jottings for the Young Sailor
1 Sweet talk
Marrakech: Tuesday
Marrakech is just what the guide-books say it is. Marrakech is an ancient walled city surrounded with olive groves and palm trees. Behind it rise the mountains of the high Atlas and in the city the market place at Djemaa-el-Fna is alive with jugglers, dancers, magicians, story-tellers, snake-charmers and music. Marrakech is a fairy-tale city, but on this trip I didn’t get to see much more of it than a fly-blown hotel room and the immobile faces of three Portuguese politicians.
My hotel was in the old city; the Medina. The rooms were finished in brown and cream paint and the wall decorations were notices telling me not to do various things in French. From the next room came the sound of water dripping into the stained bath tub and the call of an indefatigable cricket, while through the broken fly-screens in the window came the musical sound of an Arab city selling its wares.
I removed my tie and put it over the back of my chair. My shirt hung suddenly cold against the small of my back and I felt a dribble of sweat run gently down the side of my nose, hesitate and drop on to ‘Sheet 128: Transfer of sterling assets of Government of Portugal held in United Kingdom, Mandates or Dependencies to successor Government’.
We sipped oversweet mint tea, munched almond, hoheysticky cakes, and I took comfort in the idea of being back in London inside twenty-four hours. This may be a millionaire’s playground, but no self-respecting millionaire would be seen dead here in the summer. It was ten past four in the afternoon. The whole town was buzzing with flies and conversation; cafés, restaurants and brothels had standing room only; the pickpockets were working to rota.
‘Very well,’ I said, ‘availability of thirty per cent of your sterling assets as soon as the British Ambassador in Lisbon is satisfied that you have a working control within the capital.’ They agreed to that. They weren’t delirious with joy but they agreed to that. They were hard bargainers, these revolutionaries.
2 Old solution
London: Thursday
The W.O.O.C.(P) owned a small piece of grimy real estate on the unwashed side of Charlotte Street. My office had an outlook like a Cruikshank illustration to David Copperfield, and subsidence provided an isosceles triangle under the door that made internal telephones unnecessary.
Dawlish was my chief. When I gave him the report on my negotiations in Marrakech he laid it on his desk like the foundation stone of the National Theatre and said, ‘Foreign Office are going to introduce a couple of new ideas for tackling the talks with the Portuguese revolutionary party.’
‘For us to tackle them,’ I corrected.
‘Top marks, my boy,’ said Dawlish, ‘you cottoned on to that aspect of their little scheme.’
‘I’m covered in the scar tissue of O’Brien’s good ideas.’
‘Well, this one is better than most,’ said Dawlish.
Dawlish was a tall, grey-haired civil servant with eyes like the far end of a long tunnel. Dawlish always tended to placate other departments when they asked us to do something difficult or stupid. I saw each job in terms of the pepple who would have to do the dirty work. That’s the way I saw this job, but Dawlish was my master.
On the small, antique writing-desk that Dawlish had brought with him when he took over the department — W.O.O.C.(P) — was a bundle of papers tied with the pink ribbon of officialdom. He riffled quickly through them. ‘This Portuguese revolutionary movement …’ Dawlish began; he paused.
‘Vós não vedes,’ I supplied.
‘Yes, V.N.V. — that’s “they do not see”, isn’t it?’
‘“Vós” is the same as “vous” in French,’ I said; ‘it’s “you do not see”.’
‘Quite so,’ said Dawlish, ‘well this V.N.V. want the F.O. to put up quite a lump sum of money in advance.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that’s the trouble with easy payment plans.’
Dawlish said, ‘Suppose we could do it for nothing.’ I didn’t answer. He went on, ‘Off the coast of Portugal there is a boat full of money. It’s money that the Nazis counterfeited during the war. English and American paper money.’
I said, ‘Then the idea is that the V.N.V. boys get the money from the sunken boat and use it to finance their revolution?’
‘Not quite,’ said Dawlish. He probed the hot pipe-embers with a match. ‘The idea is that we get the money from the sunken boat for them.’
‘Oh no!’ I said. ‘You surely haven’t agreed to that. What do F.O. Intelligence Unit[1] get paid for?’
‘I sometimes wonder,’ agreed Dawlish, ‘but I suppose the F.O. have their troubles too.’
‘Don’t tell me about them,’ I said, ‘it might break me up emotionally.’
Dawlish nodded, removed his spectacles and dabbed at his dark eye-sockets with a crisp handkerchief. Behind him on the window ledge the sun was rolling dusty documents into brandy snaps.
In the street below a man with a twin horn was dissatisfied with the existing disposition of traffic.
‘V.N.V. say that off the Portuguese coast there is a wrecked ship.’
Dawlish could never tell you anything without drawing a diagram. He drew a small formalized ship on the notepad with a gold pencil. ‘It was a German naval vessel en route to South America in March 1945. Inside it there is a considerable amount of excellent counterfeit currency, sterling five-pound notes, fifty-dollar bills and some genuine Swedish stuff. It was for high-ranking Nazis seeking exile, of course.’ I said nothing. Dawlish dabbed his eyes and I heard the traffic outside begin to move again.
‘The V.N.V. want us to help them retrieve these items. For “help them retrieve” you can read “present them with”. F.O. see this as a way of supporting what they think is an inevitable change of power, without implicating us too deeply, or costing any money. Comment?’
I said, ‘You mean the Portuguese revolutionaries are to use the counterfeit U.S. money and the genuine Swedish stuff to buy guns and generally finance a political Paul Jones, but the English money they can’t use because the design of the fiver has been changed.’
‘Quite so,’ said Dawlish.
I said, ‘I’m cynical. Do you have the name of the ship, charted position of the wreck and German bills of lading from Admiralty Historical Department?’
‘Not yet,’ said Dawlish, ‘but I have confirmed that there have been a fair number of counterfeit fivers in that region. They may have come from a wreck. Also V.N.V. have a local fisherman who is confident about locating it.’