by John Lawton
‘I’ve a platoon of railway clerks from Victoria station,’ Clive went on. ‘The odd porter, and a stoker, but mostly clerks. Just finished a morning’s drilling. Absolutely bloody hopeless, but there you are. If the Hun ever make it to Victoria the worst they could do is sell ‘em the wrong ticket. Send them to Penzance when they want to go to Preston.’
He broke into song.
‘Oh, Mr Porter, what shall I do? Me Panzers are in Birmingham and me Fuhrer’s stuck in Crewe. Time for a cuppa, Reggie?’
Why not? thought Reggie. Humour the old bugger. After all, room by room the general-captain’s house was identical to his own. All he had to do was sit with his cuppa, pretend to listen to the old boy’s theories of how to win the war, mentally strip away the mounted heads of wildebeeste and gazelle, ignore the tigerskin rugs and the elephant’s-foot umbrella stand, and paint onto those same rooms the colours of his dream.
An hour or so later, he had peeled off all his wife’s excrescent wallpaper, redecorated in plain pastels and heard Clive’s latest theory.
‘Y’see,’ Clive said, tipping the sugar bowl onto the tablecloth in order to draw an outline map of Europe with the thin end of his teaspoon, breaking up the last ginger biscuit on the plate and using its pieces to represent the capital cities. Rome, Paris, Berlin and Moscow dotted about on the sugar. There wasn’t enough for London. Clive rummaged around in the biscuit barrel, prised out a gooey macaroon stuck to the bottom and plonked it down on England.
‘First we take Italy from the Med, come up through the flabby gut of the Continent, knock her right out of the war.’
A silver teaspoon shot up Italy from the toe with all the savagery of a steel bayonet. Reggie ate Rome.
‘We delay any invasion of France until the Russians are on board and winning.’
Reggie ate Moscow. He’d always wanted to do that.
‘Then we land a vast seaborne invasion just where Jerry doesn’t expect it – somewhere like… I dunno… Normandy…’
A row of determined cake forks hit the sugar near Caen. Reggie ate Paris.
‘Then we catch the buggers in a pincer movement between the British and the Russian advances…’
The salt and pepper pots advanced across Europe like great silver tanks. Reggie ate Berlin.
‘And that’s exactly what would have happened in the last war if the Bolsheviks hadn’t surrendered-could be we end up racing for Berlin. Of course, the Americans would be jolly useful if…’
Clive waved a hand in the air demonstrating an all too obvious conclusion. Reggie eyed London, the last biscuit on the map. That tantalising crispness, that elusive hint of almonds. Clive ended his gesture with his hand flat on top of it. He wolfed the macaroon before Reggie could make his move.
‘Well? Whaddya think?’
Reggie made a mental note never to mention any of this to anyone in case they thought him as cracked as he thought old Clive to be.
‘Wizard,’ he said, and brought a smile to the old man’s lips. Pity about the macaroon, he thought.
Reggie waved bye-bye to Clive and drifted all afternoon. If he ever had to account for his movements that day he could probably have done no better than ‘here and there’. He picked his way through the splendour and devastation of London and found himself oddly unmoved by either. When, he thought, you’ve seen your own house knocked off the face of the planet, you tend to take a bit of bombing in your stride. By six o’clock he was sorely in need of a wee drain and discovered that by pure chance his feet had led him to Pall Mall and to the steps of Pogue’s-a gentleman’s club of which, again by pure chance, he happened to be a member.
As he went up the steps he bumped into his brother-in-law, Archie Duncan Ross, the elder brother of the first Mrs Ruthven-Greene, coming down.
‘Archie, I was just going in for a snifter.’
Ross was shaking his head sadly.
‘Complete washout, old boy-the Hun put one right through the roof, through five ceilings and into the wine cellar last night.’
‘The swine! My God, the 1912 Margaux!’
‘Broken glass and red puddles, I’m afraid. But there is good news.’
Reggie felt there could never be good news again. The 1912 Margaux-good God, the Nazis were ruthless. First his house, now the finest drop of claret in the city.
‘I hear,’ said Ross, ‘That there is Krug ‘20 to be had at the Dorchester.’
§ 13
Champagne always gave Reggie insomnia. Hence he had lived much of his adult life with insomnia. If it had ever crossed his mind that there was cause and effect operating between the two, then he might well have regarded it as a poor choice. Between booze and no booze, no booze was on a hiding to nothing. He had long ago learnt to while away the hours with a good book or, failing the availability of a good book, any book, preferably taken with a light snack and a cup of cocoa. His chosen snack was one of his favourites-cheddar cheese with Kep sauce. His chosen book was The Flying Visit by this chap Peter Fleming. He had been given the book by the author’s brother, Ian Fleming-a colleague in the spook trade (Navy, mind, arrogant shits the lot of’em, senior service as they always managed to remind you), and he had to admit, it was a bit of a hoot. You see, Hitler gets it into his head to fly over to Britain and bale out…
Reggie slept. Reggie dreamt.
He was in the middle of a large field. He was sitting behind the wood and glass partition of a railway-station booking office gazing out upon a railway designed very much after the fashion of Heath Robinson, involving a lot of gear wheels of varying size, a few hydrogen-filled balloons, several sets of bellows and an awful lot of much-knotted string-indeed, string seemed to be far and away the most common material in this technology. The single-line tracks stretched away to meet at infinity. A line of washing hung between the signals, a lazy Jersey cow munched grass between the tracks, a painted brown and white sign read ‘God’s Wonderful Railway’ and was everywhere abbreviated GWR-it was even woven as a crest into his uniform, stamped in gold leaf on his pencil, wrought in iron into the legs of the platform benches, passengers for the use of. And high above it all a lone figure, gesticulating wildly, descended on a parachute. He landed with a bump on the wooden platform, his chute wrapped around the down signal, his backside flat on the planks and his legs splayed in front of him. He looked around him-the cow approached and proceeded to eat his hat. Then he noticed Reggie. Reggie couldn’t help the feeling that they’d met somewhere before. Little moustache, bit like Charlie Chaplin, piggy little eyes and a great cowlick of hair across the forehead.
‘Eigentlich wollte ich nach Birmingham, aber Sie haben mich nach Crewe geschickt.’
Reggie struggled with this. His dream-German was so rusty.
‘Sorry old chap. Could you say that again a bit slower? Y’know, langsamer.’
The little man sloughed off the parachute, came across the platform and banged on the glass. For a foreigner he certainly knew a thing or two about complaining.
‘Dumkopf!’
Well, that needed no translation.
‘Eigentlich wollte ich nach Birmingham, aber Sie haben mich nach Crewe geschickt!’ he said painfully slowly, and just as painfully and slowly Reggie worked it out.
‘I wanted to go to Birmingham and they sent me on to Crewe.’ Crewe? Where did the fool think he was?
‘GWR, old chap. Exeter and all stations west. You know, Cornish Riviera Express. Torbay, Plymouth, the Saltash bridge-all the way to Penzance. Can’t get to Crewe from here. You want the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway to Evercreech Junction or Shepton Mallet. You’d have to change at-‘
A fist crashed down on the counter.
‘Trottel!’-which Reggie vaguely thought might mean ‘idiot’.
Then the gun came out and the irate visitor banged off shots in all directions. Reggie ducked. The wall behind him splintered. The little man plugged a fat bloke capering across a beach on a railway poster bearing the cheery slogan ‘Skegness Can Be So Bracing’
. Reggie silently wished he was in Skegness right now, bracing or not. He felt no pain but wondered if he’d been hit when a ringing started in his ears. A persistent ringing that just would not stop.
Reggie woke. A creamy white telephone on the bedside table jumped about as though it had swallowed a Mexican bean. Regg’e picked it up, ready to slam it down if it was Hitler calling.
‘Reggie?’
This bloke certainly didn’t sound German.
‘Yes,’ said Reggie.
‘It’s me. Charlie.’
Charlie? Charlie Leigh-Hunt-Reggie’s right-hand man and a captain in the Irish Guards.
‘Reggie? Are you all right?’
‘Of course. I… I was just… sleeping.’
‘Look. There’s a flap on. I’m in the foyer downstairs. I’m coming up right away.’
‘A flap?’
Reggie looked around. The room regained its old familiarity. There were his trousers hanging off the back of a chair by his braces. He knew where he was again. Imagine the disturbing effect if you woke up and spotted another bloke’s braces. Didn’t bear thinking about.
‘A flap? Coming up? What’s the matter? Hitler not landed in person, has he?’
‘Oh God, you’ve already heard.’ Charlie hung up. Reggie sat clutching the phone no longer quite able to say what was dream and what reality.
Reggie flung on his dressing gown and paced the floor. The minutes could not pass quickly enough before Charlie knocked upon his door. He flung the door wide, the question bursting from his lips.
‘Hitler’s here? Where?’
Charlie kicked the door to.
‘Not so loud. Do you want everyone to hear?’
‘For God’s sake, Charlie-just tell me!’
‘It isn’t Hitler, it’s Hess.’
‘Hess?’
‘Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess. He took off from Germany late on Saturday in a Messerschmitt and baled out over Scotland around midnight. He was picked up at once and-you won’t believe this-he asked for the Duke of Hamilton.’
‘Hamilton? Hess? Picked up? By whom?’
‘The Home Guard.’
Reggie was only seconds away from forswearing champagne for ever. He’d certainly think twice before finishing the day with a cheese sandwich again.
‘The Home Guard? The Home bloody Guard?! What did they do?’
‘Well… they sent for Hamilton actually.’
‘I don’t believe it. I do not bloody believe it!’
‘You’d better. It’s completely pukkah. And you’d better get dressed too. It’s past nine and McKendrick wants to see us in thirty minutes. He sent me over to get you. He doesn’t trust the phone at all where this is concerned.’
McKendrick was Gordon McKendrick, an Argyll and Sutherland Brigadier in a plain-clothes world where rank was all but invisible next to power-Reggie and Charlie answered to McKendrick, McKendrick answered to Churchill.
It was a fifteen-minute walk to McKendrick’s office in Broadway-all the same they took a cab, across Trafalgar Square, along the bottom end of St James’ Park and up Birdcage Walk into that corner of London that was inescapably Royal, military and, occasionally, secret. Palaces, barracks and spooks. Reggie sat in the back still fiddling with his collar studs and cufflinks, and still muttering, ‘I don’t bloody believe it’, more to himself than to Charlie.
McKendrick looked as though he had lost a night’s sleep-while Reggie had slept and snored and dreamed, Gordon had worked-his eyes watery, his little white moustache looking droopy, every vein in his large hands standing out as he locked them together on his desk. He spoke quietly in his soft Highland accent, as though he were trying not to wake someone in the next room. But that was Gordon’s manner-he had long seemed to Reggie to subscribe to Teddy Roosevelt’s dictum ‘speak softly and carry a big stick.’
‘It turns out that Hamilton had met Hess at some do or other in Germany. He’s positive the man is Rudolf Hess, not some impostor or doppelganger. And he is, to put it mildly, somewhat annoyed that Hess should think he’d have any pro-Nazi sympathies whatsoever. He got through to the Foreign Office yesterday afternoon. So happens the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary Jock Colville was there at the time. The FO put Hamilton onto Jock, and Jock relayed the message straight to the PM down in Dytchley. I gather the PM was rather cool about the whole matter. Told Jock to get Hamilton flown down as soon as possible and he’d see him there. In the meantime he’d got a new Marx Brothers film he wanted to watch, and he wasn’t going to let any Hess, real or fake, make him miss it.’
‘Oh really,’ said Reggie. ‘They’re awfully good. Is there a new one?’
McKendrick unlocked his hands, pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and ignored the question.
‘Hamilton and the PM are on their way up to London now. Later today the Foreign Office are sending Ivone Kirkpatrick up to Scotland to interrogate Hess. Kirkpatrick also met him in Berlin, so he can further identify Hess or not as the case may be. Hamilton’ll go with him. This is where you two come in. You’re to follow Kirkpatrick and watch. Do not tread on the FO’s toes, just listen to everything that’s said and be ready to step in when they get nowhere. Personally I think Hess will run circles round them, and the PM is of like mind. However protocol is being observed. We will give them their chance. But be ready-think of yourselves as… the watchers. Better still, the guardians. We’ll use “guardians” as your codename if necessary. Hess is “Mr Briggs” from now on. Be ready by seven o’clock, a car will pick you up at your hotel and drive you out to Hendon aerodrome for the flight to Scotland. Now-any questions?’
Reggie always had questions.
‘Wouldn’t Five normally handle something like this?’
‘Don’t ask me about lines of demarcation. I couldn’t honestly care less. The PM wants us to do it. Although I hesitate to tell you this, he asked specifically for you.’
Reggie hoped he wasn’t blushing with pride.
‘Where are we going exactly?’
‘Buchanan Castle on Loch Lomond.’
‘I see,’ said Reggie. ‘You tak the high road and I’ll tak the low road.’
McKendrick pinched the bridge of his nose again and seemed infinitely weary.
‘No jokes, Reggie. Please.’
‘Are we listening out for anything in particular?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well-could you sort of give us a hint?’
‘The Prime Minister has asked for confirmation of material gained from certain sources.’
This might as well have been gobbledegook as far as Reggie was concerned.
‘Confirmation of what, sir?’
‘Can’t tell you that.’
‘Well-what sources are we to confirm?’
‘Can’t tell you that either. Reggie, stop asking me damn fool questions and keep your ears pinned back. Report everything to me. If Hess confirms we’ll have no difficulty spotting it. Now. Clear your desks, the both of you. Tie up any loose ends and be at the Savoy at seven.’
‘On the matter of loose ends-what about my American?’
‘What American?’
‘Cormack-the chap General Gelbroaster put us on to. You know, the chap who worked Wolfgang Stahl?’
‘What about him?’
‘Well-we’re supposed to be looking for Stahl right now.’
‘Do we even know Stahl is in London?’
‘No, but…’
‘No buts, Reggie. This is the big one. Forget Stahl. Just concentrate on the job in hand.’
Out in the corridor Charlie said, ‘Bit of a coincidence Jock Colville being at the FO just as Hamilton calls in with the news of Hess, don’t you think?’
‘No,’ Reggie replied. ‘I don’t think. In fact, my fifteen years in the job has taught me that it pays to believe six impossible things before breakfast. Try it for half an hour a day. Begin with one impossible thing, Jock at the FO will do for starters, then work up to six.’
§ 14
> On the same Monday morning Cal reported to the Embassy, a short walk from his hotel, just around the corner on the eastern side of Grosvenor Square. It had changed much since he was last there. It was changing as he watched. Teams of carpenters moved in and out with pre-fabricated partitions, carving larger rooms into smaller ones, desks were wheeled in and out on trolleys, metal chairs carried in in stacks. A face he knew met him-Captain Henry Berg. They’d been through West Point together, risen rank for rank together, and never found enough common ground to like one another. Berg was a born desk man. Cal nurtured secret dreams that, bifocal eyeglasses notwithstanding, he might be a man of action as well as a man of analysis. Even as Berg spoke the carpenters were erecting a new office around him.
‘You gonna be here long?’
‘I really don’t know, Henry.’
‘The colonel’s asked for you to have a desk in here. Take the one by the wall. It’s a pity we have to share, but as you can see, things are really hotting up. The staff has doubled since Christmas.’
Cal could see that. He didn’t recognise half the faces that had passed in front of him. And he couldn’t escape the sound of pique in Henry’s voice as he used the word ‘share’.
‘I’ve got you an In-tray and an Out-tray. I’ve issued a request for a Pending, but really nothing should be pending long enough for you to need it.’