The Command

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘I agree,’ he said when he had finished. ‘The Nazi Party is behaving in a most barbaric way towards its dissidents. However, that is an internal matter. No doubt, hopefully soon, the German people will have the good sense to replace Mr Hitler, and his cohorts, with someone more civilized. But I have no responsibility for Germany. What I do have is responsibility for this country and empire, and the people who live in it. And in this regard, keeping the peace in Europe, so that not one drop of British blood has again to be shed to enforce that peace, has to be our principal, our only objective. And that objective can only be reached by attaining an agreement with Herr Hitler.’

  ‘And do you really believe that a man so sunk in moral turpitude as Hitler will honour any agreement, Neville?’ Churchill demanded.

  ‘I believe he will. He needs peace as much as we do. And let’s face it: some of his demands are entirely reasonable. We would be quite upset if several million Englishmen had been forced to live, say in France, and were being deprived of their civil rights by the French Government.’

  ‘And you don’t reckon all of this hoo-ha about the Anschluss and the Sudeten Germans is just a screen to get his hands on the Czech armaments works?’

  ‘No, I do not. I thank you, gentlemen, for bringing this document to my attention, and I shall remember it, but I repeat, it is not my intention to interfere in internal German affairs...’

  *

  ‘The man is blind,’ Churchill growled over lunch.

  ‘It might work,’ Murdoch said. ‘Surely Hitler knows he can’t take on England and France together?’

  ‘I think Mr Hitler doubts whether either England or France, under present management, is in a fit state to go to war with anybody,’ Churchill said.

  In the event, he was proved right. The British and the French made warlike noises, but at the end they acquiesced in the German occupation of both Austria and the Sudetenland. For all that, 1938 was a time of open preparation for war, with gas masks being issued and reservists told to stand by. Murdoch had some hopes of being given command of the Expeditionary Force, if it was necessary to send one to France. He was certainly the senior active general, and he had a battle record second to none. He had also been intimately involved with the formation of the armoured division, which he was sure was going to play a vital role in the coming conflict — because he had no doubt there was going to be a conflict now. Of course he was fifty-seven, but he still felt he could give points in fitness to most officers in the army.

  On the other hand, next year he would be fifty-eight, and sixty was looming. He felt almost disappointed when in November Chamberlain arrived back from the final Munich meeting to announce that he had secured ‘peace in our time’.

  He happened to be alone at the London flat at the time, Lee having gone off to stay with Helen down in Portsmouth; she was expecting her first child.

  He telephoned Lee there. ‘Looks as though my dream of commanding a British army in battle has gone for good,’ he said.

  ‘You poor darling,’ Lee sympathized. ‘But don’t you really feel you have fought enough battles for one lifetime?’

  ‘Have a drink,’ he suggested. ‘Because I’m going to have several.’

  She was right, of course, he thought as he poured himself a scotch and water; he had given his new man, Bartlett, the night off, and the other servants had left some time ago. He had fought enough battles. And of course to want to lead a British army into battle was cruelly selfish, when he thought of the casualties which would be involved; if Chamberlain had secured peace for the foreseeable future he would deserve all the praise going.

  But the thought of having such a command...that had to be the dream of every soldier.

  He finished his drink, poured himself another, and decided to go to bed, pleasantly tight. He went into the bedroom, took off his jacket and tie, and heard the doorbell ring.

  He went into the lounge and thence the lobby, unlocked the door, blinked at the young woman standing there. She was not very distinct, because the hall light was not very bright, and his immediate reaction was, oh, no, not another Reger daughter fleeing the Nazis.

  ‘General Sir Murdoch Mackinder?’ she asked. She certainly had a foreign accent.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘May I speak with you, please? It is very important.’ He hesitated, then held the door wide, and she stepped inside. Now he could see her more clearly, he realized that she was certainly not a Reger — she was far too dark. On the other hand, there was something familiar about her, and she was a remarkably beautiful girl — because he did not think she was much over eighteen.

  She wore a trench coat and a beret, and carried a handbag, in both hands. He closed the door, and she smiled at him. ‘You do not remember me, General Mackinder.’

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I was only a child when last we met.’

  He stared at her, and knew who she was. Who she had to be. And who she resembled. He stepped back, and her smile became cold.

  ‘Ah,’ she said. Now you remember.’ Her hand came out of the bag, holding a small automatic pistol. In the same movement she levelled it and squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter Thirteen: Holland 1939-40

  With the instincts born of a lifetime under fire Murdoch was moving the moment he saw the gun, both to the left and forward. Even so he was all but knocked over by the impact of the bullet. But he still reached Yasmin in the one long bound, sweeping sideways with his right hand. He struck her on the shoulder with such force that she was hurled against the wall and dropped the gun, shouting something, either in Russian or Mahsud, as she did so.

  He found himself on his knees, reaching for her again, as she tried to regain her weapon. They closed and rolled across the floor, the front of the trench coat now stained with blood. His blood! Her fingers reached the pistol, and he rose to his knees and swung his left fist with all of his fading strength. It hit her on the jaw and she struck the floor in a crumpled heap.

  Murdoch picked up the pistol and put it in his pocket. He pulled off his shirt and held it against the wound in his side, but the pain was now intense and he knew he did not have very much consciousness left.

  He rolled the girl on her back, unbuckled her belt and dragged it from the trench coat, pulled her wrists behind her and used the belt to secure them. Then he did the same to her ankles with his own belt.

  She was stirring by now, moaning with pain from the blow on her jaw, eyes opening and then flopping shut again.

  Murdoch held her ankles and dragged her across the floor. Her skirt rode up and she woke up some more.

  ‘Bastard!’ she said in English. And then smiled. When she smiled, she looked more like Chand Bibi than ever. ‘You are bleeding to death.’

  ‘You could be right,’ Murdoch agreed. He got her to the dining table, left her there while he took the cord from one of the drapes. Then he propped her against a table leg, and passed the cord round her throat.

  She stopped smiling; her eyes were wide with horror. ‘Do you mean to strangle me as you did my mother?’

  ‘That’s up to you.’ Murdoch secured the cord to the table leg sufficiently tightly so that if she wanted to roll about and try to free her wrists she would indeed strangle herself. ‘But if you just sit there like a good little girl you should be all right when the police come.’ He grinned at her. ‘On the other hand, if I happen to die before they get here, they will most certainly hang you. Just like your mother.’

  She hissed at him, again in a language he didn’t understand. He sat in the armchair by the telephone. The room was going round and round. He picked up the phone.

  ‘Nine, nine, nine,’ he said to the operator. ‘There has been an attempted murder at this address.’ Then he fainted.

  *

  ‘Murdoch,’ Lee said. ‘Oh, Murdoch!’

  Murdoch gazed at her, and slowly the black spots cleared from his eyes. He realized he was in hospital, swathed in bandages round his ches
t.

  ‘You promised you weren’t going to get wounded again,’ Lee reminded him.

  He licked his lips; his throat was parched. She held a glass of water for him to drink.

  ‘This one took me rather by surprise,’ he confessed.

  She kissed him. ‘It’s this habit you have of picking up strange young women. But why would she want to kill you?’

  ‘Because she’s Chand Bibi’s daughter.’

  ‘That nine-year-old kid?’

  ‘Nine-year-old kids grow up. Where is she now?’

  ‘In prison, I suppose. Oh, Murdoch, she all but got you. Two broken ribs, several pints of blood lost..they weren’t at all sure you were going to pull through.’

  ‘Well, I did.’

  ‘I hope they hang her,’ Lee said fiercely. ‘Be sure you tell the policeman that. By the way, you’re a grandfather. His name is Murdoch.’

  *

  The policeman turned out to be a Scotland Yard inspector named Bloomfield, who looked unhappy. ‘If you feel strong enough to make a statement, Sir Murdoch...’

  ‘Yes,’ Murdoch said, and did so.

  Bloomfield studied what he had written. ‘You’ll understand that the young lady’s statement doesn’t tally.’

  ‘Oh, yes? What did she say?’

  ‘That you invited her to your apartment, and there tried to rape her. That she happened to have that pistol in her handbag and managed to get it out, and shot you in self-defence. Whereupon you beat her up, tied her up, and called the police with the story that she had tried to murder you.’

  ‘How very interesting,’ Murdoch agreed. ‘Do young ladies in this country normally carry loaded automatic pistols in their handbags?’

  ‘Of course not, sir. Mind you, she isn’t English.’

  ‘I have just told you that,’ Murdoch pointed out. ‘What passport is she using?’

  ‘Oh, Russian. She’s travelling under a student visa.’

  ‘Do the Soviets give their students a lot of visas to visit England?’

  ‘Well, sir, they don’t. Not on their own, certainly. It seems when her application came through the Home Office felt it might be a breakthrough. It’s important that we are friendly with the Russians, right now.’

  ‘Oh, quite,’ Murdoch agreed. He knew that the whole British defence plan was based on the assumption Hitler would at least have to watch his eastern border.

  ‘The point is, sir, can you positively prove that the young lady is the daughter of this...’ he glanced at the statement, ‘Chand Bibi. That would mean she was an Indian, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Half Pathan. And half Russian. Virtually the same racial background on both sides. No, Inspector, I don’t think I can prove the young lady is Chand Bibi’s daughter. What name is she travelling under?’

  ‘Ah...’ the inspector opened his notebook. ‘Yasmin Bogoljubova. The first name fits, of course.’

  ‘But not the second. Her real name is Wittvinov. I suppose, correctly, Wittvinova. So tell me, am I to be charged with rape?’

  ‘Oh, good Lord, no, sir. I mean...well, you hadn’t well, if you know what I mean...’

  ‘Oh, quite. You mean you had me examined while I was unconscious and discovered I hadn’t ejaculated recently. So the charge will be attempted rape.’

  ‘I do not propose to charge you with anything, Sir Murdoch. You? I’d lose my job. However, having consulted the Director of Public Prosecutions, I must tell you that it is our considered opinion that it would be best if the case did not come to court. Defence counsel could make a meal out of the facts. I mean, the girl’s clothes were disarranged...’

  ‘But also, I think, covered in blood,’ Murdoch pointed out. ‘Does that mean I went on trying to rape her after being shot?’

  ‘Well, no, sir. There obviously was a struggle while you were tying her up. The point is that there would be quite a hoo-ha, which would involve a very senior and well-known British officer, might cause trouble with the Russians...we have a watertight charge against her, that of carrying a weapon without a licence. The Home Office feels the best thing would be just to deport her.’

  ‘So she can have another crack at me when she feels like it.’

  ‘Good Lord, sir, she’ll never have that. We’ll make sure she’ll never be re-admitted to this country.’

  ‘How very reassuring,’ Murdoch said. ‘Remind me to give up travelling.’

  ‘I’m very glad you see it our way, Sir Murdoch,’ Bloomfield said, rising. ‘We’ll do our best to keep the facts out of the newspapers, of course. Oh...we will have to submit a full report of the incident, with your and her statements, of course, to the War Office.’

  *

  The War Office made no comment, at the moment, but Bloomfield was not entirely successful with the newspapers, whose comments ranged from the sedate ‘MYSTERIOUS SHOOTING AT FLAT OF WAR HERO’ in The Times to ‘WAR HERO CAUGHT WITH HIS PANTS DOWN BY GUN-WIELDING FEMALE’ in the News of the World.

  Lee was furious. ‘Of all the cheek. They’re virtually calling you a liar.’

  ‘They’re trying to sell newspapers,’ Murdoch pointed out.

  ‘And when you think they’ve just sent her back to Russia,’ Lee said. ‘She should have been horsewhipped at the least.’

  Harry Caspar wrote, ‘Shame you didn’t wring her neck.’

  Helen was annoyed, Harry didn’t comment from his Paris hideaway, Fergus was amused, Ian naturally more serious. ‘She would hardly have been working on her own,’ he pointed out. ‘She was probably sent by the Russians.’

  ‘Why should the Russians want to bump off a has-been soldier?’ Murdoch asked.

  ‘Probably some sinister red plot. Or she could be in the pay of the Nazis?’ He looked across the bed at Annaliese; Murdoch was recuperating at Broad Acres, and Annaliese had virtually appointed herself as his nurse. He suspected she was going to be something of a problem, because although he was sure she had recovered from her traumatic experience, she showed no sign of attempting to resume her life, seemed perfectly happy being general dogsbody at Broad Acres. And patently worshipped him.

  ‘Ian could be right, Uncle Murdoch,’ she said.

  ‘In that case, they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel,’ Murdoch told them.

  He was in a hurry to get well, because Europe was getting more and more tense. It was March of 1939 before he was sufficiently recovered to return to work, and in that very month Hitler swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia, in complete defiance of what had been agreed at Munich. By then even Neville Chamberlain recognized that he had been hoodwinked by a man to whom treaties meant nothing, and now he issued unconditional guarantees of support to both Poland and Romania, the countries which most seemed to be threatened by German ambitions. Britain prepared for war.

  ‘Glad to have you back, Murdoch.’ Ironside shook hands.

  ‘Glad to be back, Bill. And congratulations.’ Ironside had just been appointed CIGS. ‘Whatever is Gort doing?’

  ‘Ah...he’s to command the BEF, if and when it has to go to France. As most of us agree, it’s a when rather than an if, and the when could be at any moment, it’s a matter of getting everything together.’

  Murdoch gazed at him. ‘Gort is getting the BEF?’

  ‘Well...’ Ironside looked embarrassed. ‘There is a precedent, of course. Sir John French was CIGS up to 1914, and was then given the Expeditionary Force.’

  ‘Yes,’ Murdoch said, and sighed. ‘Well, I’m quite willing to serve under Gort.’

  Ironside played with the pen in front of him.

  ‘You mean I’ve been sidestepped, totally.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Murdoch, you are fifty-eight years old.’

  ‘I beg your pardon. I won’t be fifty-eight for another two months. And how old are you?’

  ‘Fifty-nine.’

  ‘So?’

  Ironside sighed in turn. ‘I’m CIGS. All right, maybe it should have been you. But you weren’t around, were you? And frankly, that business wit
h the Russian girl...well, some eyebrows were raised.’

  ‘Indeed? She was Chand Bibi’s daughter, out to avenge her ma.’

  ‘Oh, quite. But suppose we had set out to prove that? Then the whole business of your summary execution of her “ma” would have come up. We could hardly have you as CIGS after that.’

  ‘So give me a field command.’

  ‘It is simply not on, at your age, Murdoch. You know the rules. Forty is the usual top line for combat in subordinate positions.’

  ‘So what command am I to have? Chelsea Hospital?’

  ‘We have a very important posting in mind for you, Murdoch. And I’d be deeply grateful if you’d accept it. We’d like you to head a military mission to Holland.’

  ‘Holland?’

  ‘We’re trying to get all our potential allies to realize the seriousness of the situation. There’s even a military mission going to Russia.’ He grinned. ‘I hope you’ll agree that in all the circumstances we could hardly send you there.’

  ‘Holland is a neutral. Was a neutral last time. And will certainly be a neutral this time.’

  ‘If left to themselves, maybe. But we have it much in mind that the original Schlieffen Plan for the defeat of France in 1914 was to wheel through both Holland and Belgium. This was watered down to a wheel through Belgium alone, but there can be no doubt that the German General Staff are in possession of Schlieffen’s plans, and that if they do decide to invade France they may very well come through both the Low Countries.’

  ‘Damn difficult, with all those canals and polders.’

  ‘Nevertheless, it could happen. The Dutch happen to feel, like you, that it’d be too difficult to try. We believe Hitler will try anything and everything, when he decides to move. We want you to convince the Dutch of this. You speak Dutch, don’t you?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. I had a few words of Afrikaans once, but I’ve forgotten them.’

  ‘Well...most of them speak English. Will you take the assignment, Murdoch?’

  Murdoch considered. But it seemed evident that he was not going to be. offered anything better. ‘Oh, very well.’

  ‘That’s splendid. You have a staff, of course. Any choice as ADC? One of your lads?