The Poison Tide

by Andrew Williams

  Wolff was conscious of C fidgeting uncomfortably beside him.

  Hall turned to face them again, a short broad silhouette against the window. ‘The scientists aren’t going to tell us what Delmar is planning and where. The Army is circulating a confidential memorandum to intelligence officers urging them to be vigilant – the Home Office is doing the same with the police.’ He paused again, then said, as if to himself, ‘Just a damn shame we didn’t dispose of Dilger when we had the chance.’

  ‘For God’s sake, have you ever stabbed a man?’ Wolff asked with a cold fury that surprised him too. ‘So close you can smell him, feel his beard against the back of your hand, wriggling, biting – then that last little gasp. Christ.’ He was shaking his head. ‘The Germans – Nadolny – would have found someone to take his place – wouldn’t you?’

  The incredulous silence was broken only by the distant beat of marching feet. Then Hall exploded: ‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, Commander?’

  ‘Was it you?’ Again, Wolff was surprised to hear his voice trembling with passion. ‘Did you instruct the police – instruct Special Branch to give the newspapers that poison?’

  ‘Sir,’ C prompted him quietly. ‘Did you give the newspapers Casement’s diary, sir?’

  ‘I’m here to tell you how contemptible—’

  ‘You’re here, Wolff, because I ordered you to come,’ C said, struggling to his feet to stand above him. ‘I thought you might be of use but I see—’

  ‘As you ask, yes,’ Hall cut in belligerently. ‘Yes, I asked Special Branch to circulate extracts – to politicians, bishops, the King – they have a right to know. I have a copy here, if you’d like to look – if you have the stomach for it. Perfectly genuine,’ he sucked his teeth; ‘the man is a disgrace. But you knew that, didn’t you?’

  ‘And libelling him in the newspapers is your idea of decency and duty?’

  ‘Don’t be a bloody fool. He was a traitor . . .’

  ‘Not to Ireland.’

  ‘There are Irishmen dying every day out there for their country and the Empire.’ Hall gestured angrily to the window. ‘Those few misguided souls calling for a reprieve – radicals, Americans – need to understand this man’s nature. He knew what he was doing when he introduced the Germans to his friends in America – he probably knew about Dilger and his diseases – he’s a traitor, he’s a sodomite – he’s a moral degenerate . . .’

  ‘Tawdry – it wasn’t enough . . .’

  ‘No. Shut up before I – you fool. Shut up and listen,’ Hall commanded icily. ‘This isn’t about Casement – it’s you – your guilt. If it wasn’t, I’d have you thrown in a brig – just pull yourself together. You did your duty – you did what was right. Now get the hell out of my office before I change my mind. Oh, and Wolff, for God’s sake see a doctor. You’re cracking up.’

  And Wolff did leave – meek like a lamb. He left because there was nothing he could say with integrity. Blinker was right, and bleating, wringing his hands, just made him a hypocrite. In the Admiral’s outer office, heads were bent over desks, sideways glances, silence. Wolff passed them in a daze, slowly, one foot in front of the other like a bandsman slow-marching to the Mall. He was fumbling with a bent cigarette and his lighter at the Admiralty entrance when C limped over to speak to him.

  ‘Would you like me to do that?’ he asked.

  ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Go home. You’re not ready.’

  ‘Ready?’ Wolff gave a shaky little laugh. ‘Ready?’

  ‘I think you should see a doctor. There’s someone . . .’

  ‘Is he good with a bad attack of conscience? No, thank you. I don’t need a doctor.’

  ‘You do need more time. My God, you almost died. Go home, Wolff – that’s an order.’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  C’s Rolls-Royce was parked at the kerb a few yards away. He took a step towards it, then checked. ‘I don’t know if I should say this, but I expect you’ll work it out for yourself in time. This is the best thing that can happen to Roger Casement. I don’t mean the attacks on his reputation – the diary.’ He sounded disapproving. ‘No, his execution – his death. If you’d been a little less confused about your own part in it all, you’d have . . . well . . . He wasn’t much of a rebel, was he? He’ll be a bloody good martyr. Dying is the best thing he can do for his country –’ he corrected himself at once – ‘his cause.’ He pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Actually, I think we’re making a mistake – can I still say “we”?’ He sighed heavily. ‘It won’t be the first we’ve made in this war, will it?’

  Wolff nodded slowly.

  ‘I hear he’s being received into the Roman Church – that will help, of course.’ He swung the end of his stick at a cigarette packet, neatly driving it into the gutter. ‘This place used to be spotless – they’ve let the Army into St James’s Park, you know. Anyway, I have—’

  ‘One more thing,’ said Wolff abruptly. ‘Turkey – did you . . .’ he was struggling for the words, with his feelings. ‘I wanted to ask, were you going to . . .’

  C’s small grey eyes were fixed intently on Wolff’s face, the monocle dangling on its string for once. ‘If you’re trying to ask whether anyone betrayed or abandoned you – no, Wolff.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘We think the worst of everyone, don’t we? No. No one betrayed you. Now go home.’

  ‘Nine months – you could have . . .’

  ‘Go home,’ he repeated firmly.

  Wolff heaved a lungful of smoke. ‘All right. Yes. I will. Soon.’

  At nine o’clock the hangman released the trapdoor in the execution shed and the prison bell tolled once for the benefit of the crowd. There was some cheering, mocking, then silence. Roger Casement was pronounced dead at nine minutes after nine o’clock on the morning of 3 August 1916. He would have been hurt by the cheering, Wolff thought as he stood waiting for the notice to be posted at the gate. He wouldn’t have understood why anyone would wish to cheer the death of another.

  Women and a few men with the sickly yellow faces of munitions workers, chatting, joking, flirting; city clerks in bowlers and ready-to-wear suits; mothers and young children, some with breakfasts or mugs of tea from local shops that had opened early to offer ‘a service’. The sort of gathering a prince several degrees from the throne might expect at the opening of a library. Just to say they were there, Wolff thought. And me?

  At the back wall of the prison, thirty Irish men and women were bent discreetly in prayer. At the front, a prison warder was pasting whatever proclamation there was still to be made on the gate and the crowd was pressing round him for a part in this final scene. Judgement of death was this day executed on Roger David Casement in His Majesty’s Prison of Pentonville in our presence.

  There was no one for Wolff to say sorry to, no one to comfort; he didn’t believe, so he couldn’t say a prayer. But he was there to keep watch, as he knew she would be doing through the early hours in America. For Laura then, for Roger and his sister, for Reggie Curtis and the little man in the derby hat whose name he’d never known, and for others – the men who even at that hour were advancing across no-man’s-land on the Somme.

  At the station he bought an evening newspaper and read the report of Casement’s last hours. He’d mounted the gallows’ steps firmly and commended his spirit to God. Then they had buried him in an unmarked grave, like many who were dying at the Front.

  ‘So this time you have come back.’ She smiled and stepped aside to let him through the door. ‘We started on the barley yesterday.’

  ‘I’ll take the wagon over at six tomorrow.’

  ‘They won’t be there before half past seven.’

  ‘Half past seven then.’

  And in September he would burn the stubble, for miles the fields aflame, flickering in the night sky as far as the eye could see, plumes of choking brown smoke – like the torment reserved for the unjust on the last day, his mother said – until it settled at dawn on the fen, so dense
it was easy to stumble and fall, but only for the hours it took the sun to rise and a fresh breeze from the sea to blow.

  1918

  EPILOGUE

  The Director, MI 1[c]

  Whitehall Court

  Westminster

  24 October 1918

  My Dear Admiral Hall,

  I have this minute spoken to Commander Wolff about his mission to Madrid and taken possession of his report of the same. Regrettably, Wolff was unable to gather any intelligence of value. I know the scientists at the Porton Down Experimental Station were anxious to speak to Dilger in person, but in the few minutes Wolff was able to have with him he was adamant he would not co-operate, even if he were well enough to do so. Perhaps the consolation to be found from this sorry state of affairs is that the Germans are aware the game is finally up, they are beaten, and are determined to prevent us laying hands on those who know the full extent of their biological weapons research and campaign.

  There is nothing I can add to Commander Wolff’s rather colourful report, other than to say I thanked him for his assistance and assured him that, God willing, the end of the war was only weeks away and I did not anticipate there would be a need to call upon his services in future. When I enquired whether he would be returning to his crops and animals he did not reply, but asked if Wiseman was still in charge of our operations in America. I said he was still Head of Section but that I was sure he would be of the opinion it was too soon for Wolff to go back there. He acknowledged this advice with his usual insolence: he understood the risks perfectly well, he said, but de Witt was dead and he would be travelling as himself.

  You and I both know a change of name will not save him from his Irish enemies there but it would have been a waste of my breath to say so.

  Yours sincerely,

  (signed) Cumming

  MI 1[c] Report 376 Cdr S. F. Wolff

  Date: 23 October 1918

  Subject: The Fate of Enemy Agent Dr Anton Dilger

  After a leave of absence of two years, the Director of MI 1[c] contacted me by telegram October 10, instructing me to report to the SS Bureau office the following day. Captain Cumming informed me the Service had received intelligence from the British naval attaché in Madrid that a man calling himself Alberto Donde had been seen in the city. Admiralty sources and the American Embassy in London suggested Donde was the German agent, Dr Anton Dilger (code name Delmar), responsible for culturing the anthrax used in attacks upon British soldiers and livestock in the autumn of 1915 and spring of 1916.

  Testimony from the interrogation of German spies indicates Dr Dilger spent the intervening years at a laboratory in Berlin investigating the more effective delivery of anthrax and the culturing of other diseases that might be used against the Allies.

  Captain Cumming informed me signals intercepts raised the possibility that Donde-Dilger had travelled to Madrid without the knowledge of his masters in German Military Intelligence. With an end to the war in sight, the doctor was deemed to be a source of some embarrassment to the German General Staff. Captain Cumming asked me to undertake the operation because he knew I was one of the few people capable of confirming that Donde and Dilger were one and the same man. It was important for the long-term security of the Empire that the Service reach him before our American and French Allies, he said.

  My orders were to:

  Establish beyond doubt the identity of Donde-Dilger.

  Discover the purpose of his visit to Spain.

  Offer him British protection in return for information about German biological weapons research.

  I took passage at once and arrived in Santander on October 13. Unfortunately the Spanish flu has taken such a toll on the country’s railway service that it was another forty-eight hours before I was able to catch a train to the capital. Madrid was in the grip of the disease; its trams have stopped running, its buildings are draped in black, the church bells toll from dawn to dusk and the people walk its streets in fear. A hundred thousand Spaniards have died already, and one of the many thousands more infected was Senor Alberto Donde. Our naval attaché, de Saumarez, had learnt from his contact in the Guardia Civil that Donde had admitted himself to the city’s German Sanatorium.

  I arrived at the hospital with fruit and a book at approximately five o’clock in the afternoon and was told Senor Donde was very ill and unable to receive visitors. Fortunately the German nursing staff were too hard pressed to be vigilant and with the help of a Spanish orderly I was able to locate Donde. The sanatorium was full of very sick people but Donde had been allocated a private room.

  Although much changed, I recognised the face of the man in the bed at once. Dr Dilger was asleep, struggling to breathe, his fevered skin tinged with blue and there was blood on his pillow. It took no particular knowledge of the disease to see that he was dangerously ill. After a few minutes he opened his eyes and saw me there. I didn’t expect him to recognise me because I was wearing a mask but he gave a short laugh and said: ‘De Witt.’ I said that I was sorry to see him in such a state, a remark he found amusing. Throughout our short conversation his eyes never left my face. They were larger than I remembered because his cheeks were thinner and drawn tightly from the cheekbones. He said very little because every word was an effort, his speech punctuated by a cough that racked his body and left him clutching at his abdominal muscles. It was impossible not to feel sorry for the man.

  I wasted no time in explaining to him the purpose of my visit. The war was almost over and his country’s Secret Service was searching for him with the intention of bringing him to trial for treason. He interrupted me to point out painfully but forcefully that he was not an American citizen, but a subject of His Imperial Majesty the Kaiser. That was as maybe, I said, but Germany would not be able to protect him, that in peacetime he would be an embarrassment, a much easier one to eradicate than the stench he had left in the cellar of his house in Chevy Chase. Something sad in his expression suggested he was quite aware of his situation.

  As instructed, I offered him immunity from prosecution in exchange for information about his activities and the biological campaign. This offer provoked a fit of coughing and a nosebleed and it was a while before he was well enough to speak. Britain and America were ‘dishonourably starving the German people into submission’, he said, but its armies were undefeated and a time would come when they would fight again and ‘secure the final victory’. Nothing would induce him to serve the enemies of the Fatherland, nothing, he declared with great feeling. I reminded him that his brother and sisters were in America and might be tried for treason, but if he agreed to my terms they would be offered protection too. Before he could answer, a German nurse entered and tried to drive me from the room. As far as Dilger was concerned, our conversation was over and he had rejected my proposition out of hand, but I asked him to consider his precarious position and that of his family and left him an address where he could send a message. I said that come what may I would visit him again in the morning and wished him a peaceful night.

  Although I was with him for only fifteen minutes I was left with the impression that he enjoyed an abiding hatred of Great Britain and would ever be her implacable enemy; for the country of his birth he felt nothing but contempt. He cut rather a sad figure, consumed not only by the disease but by his anger. It was half past five in the afternoon when I left the sanatorium. Walking out to the street in search of a taxicab I noticed a German diplomatic motor car parked at its gates. Only later was I able to identify the man at its wheel as the naval attaché, Commander Krohn.

  I spent the evening at our embassy in the company of de Saumarez, who arranged for a car to take me back to the sanatorium first thing the following morning. But at six o’clock I was woken by the lieutenant hammering on my bedroom door. His police contact had informed him by telephone that Senor Donde had died of the Spanish influenza a few hours before. His death was sudden but it did not strike me as strange. I made my way to the sanatorium without delay, in the rather forlorn ho
pe of retrieving some intelligence from his personal effects. I explained to the duty doctor and a hospital matron that I was an old comrade and friend who knew the late Senor Donde’s family well. The German naval attaché, Krohn, was with Senor Donde to the end, they said; he was making all the necessary arrangements, and they refused point-blank to let me see the body. I was in no doubt they had been schooled and were repeating their lines, and that they were very afraid. After a few minutes of fruitless wrangling they instructed a watchman to escort me from the sanatorium. A short time later, I climbed through a window at the side of the building and found my own way to Dilger’s room. But it was not his any longer: his body had gone and his bed had been allocated to another victim of influenza. Stopping a nurse in the corridor, I said I was Commander Krohn’s assistant at the embassy and would she please take me to Senor Donde’s body.

  It was lying beneath a stained sheet in a makeshift mortuary with twenty others, the case containing his few belongings on the floor beneath the table. Pulling back the sheet, I confirmed it was the body of Anton Dilger. There were red fingermarks and signs of bruising about his neck consistent with strangulation. I cannot be certain but am of the view that Dilger’s last visitor was there to ease his passage, a simple task with one so weak. Commander Krohn was surely acting upon orders from Berlin, but the doctor may have hastened his end by mentioning my offer of protection for information. His case had been searched already, its contents thrown thoughtlessly back inside. I checked the seams of his clothes, his shaving kit, pulled the spines from his books; there was a photograph of the opera singer, Frieda Hempel; another of his father; and one of Dilger and a companion with horses – the inscription on the back: ‘With your nephew Peter on the farm’. The only other item of note was a decoration: the Iron Cross Second Class. A label on the case suggested it was to be sent to a Frau Elizabeth Lamey at an address in Berlin.