by H. B. Lyle
“Vernon! Are you quite all right?” Constance stood at the door, back from Molinari’s, breaking his train of thought. She wafted her hand across her nose. “It’s like Euston Station in here,” she went on as she moved to the big sash window and pulled it open with a great yank.
“I beg your pardon?”
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong, you ask? I tell you what’s wrong. After securing the intelligence coup of the century last year, my department is now the laughingstock of Whitehall. I anticipate that in the next few days we will be wound up, subsumed under the guardianship of that popinjay Quinn if we are to survive at all. Soapy doesn’t speak up for me, Quinn and Special Branch are rampant, and I will be out of a job in a matter of days. Churchill’s goodwill is about to run out, so I can’t even do his sneaking for him, especially when he finds out about Wiggins. I will have failed, totally and utterly failed, and I am not yet forty years old. Soapy himself said I’m done. That’s what wrong. My backside’s to the fire and I’m burning.” He drew breath at last.
It was the first time he’d managed more than a sentence to Constance in months. He looked up at her again, at the point between her eyes, the soft dark crinkle that had been there ever since the birth of their first child. He wanted to say something more, something with a heart that would last, but he was gripped by indecision, and said nothing.
Constance hesitated, shifted weight onto her heels, but did not step toward him. Instead, she said, “Where is Mr. Wiggins?”
Kell looked away, suddenly embarrassed. “Gone. For weeks.”
“Gone where?”
“Why are you asking?” he said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered and began pulling at her hat.
She’d made a mistake, asking about Wiggins. But before she had to face it, the doorbell rang. Kell waited a second longer, until the bell rang again. This time he went into the hallway and returned holding a piece of paper.
“A telegram,” he said. “It’s about Wiggins.”
9
His dying mother, wrists blood-streaked. Run, H, run. The game’s up, Bill shouted, blood pumping from a hole in his cheek, the game’s up. She was right, she was right. Poppy leaping off the slab, the ferry’s got me, the ferry.
The fever had broken. Wiggins woke up in small sick bay. A porthole sealed shut, a medicine cabinet, and three posters warning of the dangers of VD in three different languages.
A cabin boy poked his head around the door, left a pan of water, and nodded. He then used a series of elaborate hand signals to indicate, at least in Wiggins’s mind, where he might find first the head and then the deck.
Half an hour later, Wiggins stood at the rail. His mind felt as clear as the broad, black ocean. The ship still pitched and yawed, but less so than the last couple of days. He didn’t know much about the sea, other than his passage to South Africa and back for the Boer War—with a sun-drenched stopover on the Rock of Gibraltar—but this looked like a standard cargo steamer to him. Or rather, a standard steamer adapted with new technology. It had a huge funnel streaming out smoke like a pit fire, a small crane was fastened to the deck, set between great webbed caskets. A refrigerated cargo hold squatted in the center of the deck. He’d walked past it on his way up from the cabin—a giant metal case, fitted into the hold. Now, with the breeze stiffening his hair, he could spot crewmen here and there, but no one paid him a second glance.
The cabin boy must have alerted the captain, for not much later the boy came scuttling along the rail and indicated mutely once more for Wiggins to follow. The boy took him to a cabin door and turned to go. Wiggins caught his wrist. “How long have I been out?” he said.
The boy held up three fingers.
“Three days?”
The boy nodded and ran off.
Wiggins knocked and went in.
“I am captain. Bobrowski.” He looked up at Wiggins. “Why you stow away?” he barked.
“I didn’t,” Wiggins said. He stood in the doorway of a small and tidy cabin while the bearded Bobrowski made an elaborate play of lighting his pipe.
“I’d hardly lock myself in a fridge, would I?” The captain looked a question. Wiggins went on. “The refrigerator. I wouldn’t kill myself.”
The captain nodded thoughtfully. “We have stowaways. Desperate.”
“How many stow away from London?” Wiggins asked.
Bobrowski stared ahead for a moment, then gave a brisk nod. Who would fly the world’s biggest magnet? Who would fly the honey pot?
“You work?” He struck a match and put it to the bowl of his pipe.
“You pay?” Wiggins said.
“Passage. Cape Town.”
Wiggins shook his head. “That ain’t gonna fly.”
“What?”
“You got to drop me off at a cablehead. I’ve got to get back to London.”
Bobrowski frowned. “Cape Town,” he said, closing a logbook in front of him.
Wiggins paused and scratched his new beard. “I believe you when you say yous had nothing to do with me being in there. I truly do. But I ain’t so sure you’re allowed to be running guns. Not once you’ve docked in London.”
Captain Bobrowski stood up, astonished. “No guns.” He shook his head.
“Not now. But there have been. And there will be again, less I’m more doolally than I think.”
The captain jutted his chin and picked up his pipe again. “Many men disappear overboard. The sea is bad.”
“Not that bad,” Wiggins said. He dipped his head slightly and waited. The captain, for his part, relit his pipe. For a moment, Wiggins questioned his own judgment—perhaps this man, this leathery, gimlet-eyed sea captain, was a killer after all. Perhaps he’d taken the cash to stow and dump Wiggins’s body in the sea anyway—perhaps he’d misread his mark?
“Canaries,” said the skipper at last. “Report to second mate for deck duties.” He waved his hand in dismissal.
Wiggins tapped his forehead. “Aye aye,” he said and turned to the door. When he reached it, he twisted back for one last word. “Why was it on?”
“Hmm?”
“The refrigeration unit was empty. So why was it on?”
Bobrowski nodded an acknowledgment. “I don’t know. Accident maybe. One of the crew with fat fingers.”
“Fat chance,” Wiggins grunted as he left.
He’d taken a risk putting it to Bobrowski like that—let me off, or I’ll blab. But for all that he ran guns, Bobrowski wasn’t a killer. Wiggins had deduced the fact that he was a gunrunner from three key pieces of information. The metal flaked residue on the fridge floor, some of which had stayed on his fingers, came from small shells; the fridge floor, which he’d crawled over in his desperation, also had concealed panels. This was confirmed when he compared the size of the fridge unit externally with its internal size. There was a secret compartment underneath.
For all this, Wiggins had guessed that Bobrowski didn’t wish him any real harm, otherwise he’d already be dead. And he wasn’t asking for the world, he was asking for a lift.
The boy had taken him down to the crew’s quarters, where he’d been given a free berth with five other men—all of whom stank of sweat, fish, and cheap rum. He took a quick nip from a likely-looking lad, and then went up in front of the second mate.
First he cleaned the head, then hauled up cargo, swept the hold, and tore his hands to shreds. The physical work, though, showed Wiggins that he was seriously out of a good condition. He’d spent too long lolling about the industrial towns of England looking for spies who didn’t exist, drinking Kell’s money, and getting fat. But Peter wasn’t getting bored and fat; he was making bombs, oiling Mausers, and eyeing up another score. Tommy wasn’t getting fat neither, and nor were his girls, those poor girls.
Most of the crew didn’t speak English, but they welcomed him well enough. Tots of rum and vodka, an appreciative grunt here and there, Wiggins knew the drill. What he didn’t know w
as who on the crew switched him on—who, in fact, had colluded in putting him on the ship in the first place. It was too neat, too hard to dump a man on someone else’s boat: whoever’d picked him up and drugged him outside the Ax, had taken him to this ship—the SS Patna—and someone knew.
The second night out of the sick bay, the man introduced himself. Or rather, Wiggins woke up with a blade at his neck and heavy breathing in his ear.
Wiggins kept his eyes closed. The blade quivered. The breathing quickened, but Wiggins did not move. Neither did the knife.
He drew his hand up slowly, as if in his sleep. The blade quivered. The blow did not fall.
Wiggins opened his eyes and grasped his attacker by the wrist. A crewman named Armand crouched over him, holding the knife. He tried to pull himself clear but Wiggins held on. Wiggins shot out his other hand from the bunk and grabbed Armand by the balls.
Armand struggled, in silence, but Wiggins slowly turned the knife outward. Their muscles shook with the effort but, bit by bit, Wiggins moved the point toward Armand.
Suddenly, the sailor’s fight went out of him. Wiggins could see the faint glimmer in his eyes, all round and white and full of fear. He squeezed harder and harder on Armand’s wrist, on his balls. The others in the room slept, the ship creaked, and Wiggins squeezed on.
“I’ll tell Big T you missed me,” he hissed.
The brute flinched at the name. “No English,” he whispered.
Armand released the knife. Wiggins kept hold of Armand’s balls. He tightened his grip. “You try anything like this again, I’ll kill you. Understand. Dead.” Armand’s eyes grew bigger in the meager light and Wiggins squeezed on. “Understand?” Armand tried to nod.
Eventually, Wiggins released him. The wretch scuttled off. Wiggins had gotten a name. Tommy. Big T, Tom, whatever he wanted to call himself. He should have guessed it—Tommy had never put his hand in his pocket for anyone. There’d been way too much on the pin; he shouldn’t have drunk it all. But then Tommy knew he would, knew he’d stumble out of the Ax drunker than a judge.
What Wiggins didn’t know was why he was in a ship halfway to Africa rather than lying dead in a Lambeth gutter.
The Patna pulled into Santa Cruz on Tenerife more than two weeks later, the delay caused by engine trouble. Wiggins went up to see Bobrowski one last time.
“Thank you,” he said after knocking his way into the cabin.
The captain shrugged. “I have no choice. We need to fix the engines. And at least now we have oranges.”
“I ain’t never met a Polish sailor before.”
“Poles make the best sailors in the world,” Bobrowski said with melancholy pride. “Because we can’t go home.”
Wiggins nodded. “Armand’s a wrong ’un, just so you know.”
Bobrowski cricked his neck. “Welcome to the sea,” he said. “Your pay.” He pushed a couple of coins across the table. Wiggins reached down, but Bobrowski put his hand over them for a moment. “You say nothing? No guns.”
Wiggins grinned. “All I saw was oranges.”
Wiggins reached the quay and took off his coat. Salt wind whipped his hair; his beard tasted briny. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, held his face to the sun for a glorious moment, and then went in search of the telegraph office and somewhere to change the coins Bobrowski had given him.
The post office stood just off the main road leading from the quay, and Wiggins was relieved to find it opening again for the afternoon. He telegraphed Kell with as few words as possible. The operator indicated that any reply might not reach him until tomorrow. After a deal of hand signals, Wiggins procured directions to a flophouse where he put down a penny for a bed. He then found a sleepy café where old square men drank brightly colored drinks from inch-high glasses. Wiggins ordered one for himself, showed the barman his change, and was astonished at the lowness of the price. The spirit bit his throat, all acid and fruit and fire. He sat down and ordered another.
“‘Tenerife. Home? W.’” Kell read it out, then handed it to Constance.
“What’s he doing in Tenerife?” she said. “The sly dog.”
“I must go back to the office at once.” Kell stepped into the hall.
“Why?”
He came back into the drawing room. “Don’t you understand? He’s my only hope. Without him . . .” Kell shrugged and turned to go.
“But Vernon,” Constance said, “I can help—”
He clattered down the hallway and out through the front door, oblivious. He didn’t hear her last line. She didn’t even mean to say it. But somewhere deep within herself, the offer echoed. She wanted to help him, despite their enmity, their distance, their political disagreements. Perhaps it was the shame that, while her husband had so uncharacteristically unburdened himself about his worries and his work, all she had wanted to know was the whereabouts of Wiggins, for her own ends.
She began extracting the pins from her hat. The thing was, her ends were just. If Vernon couldn’t see that, perhaps he didn’t deserve her help after all.
GO TO OFFICES OF MAWSON AND SWAIN. SAY MY NAME. K.
Wiggins read the telegram the next morning, through the kind of hangover that felt like home. Hard, heavy, and comforting. He walked through the streets until he found Mawson and Swain. FINE WINES, read the peeling paint above the door.
A dark-haired clerk looked Wiggins up and down like he was one of the street dogs that sloped and barked and snarled down the shady alleyways of Santa Cruz. But soon enough Mawson himself appeared, florid and already sweaty. He didn’t care to have the likes of Wiggins in his office either, but he obliged nevertheless.
“Here’s some local currency. And we have you a berth in steerage on the SS Friendship, which will take you to Tilbury in the next few days. K expressly ordered that you have a shave, by the way, hence the currency.”
“He did, did he?” Wiggins said, pulling at his chin.
“Now, I believe that’s everything.”
Wiggins nodded. On his way out, he caught sight of his reflection in a fine, ornate mirror. He looked like an apeman.
He took a turn around the port and was delighted to discover that the old square men of the night before still stood or sat at bars, drinking the same brightly colored spirits from the same inch-high glasses, even though it wasn’t yet ten. Better than rashers and a doorstep any day.
Wiggins ambled along the quayside, aping the lope of a gentleman of leisure, dreaming the far-off dream of money. Not the crinkle of pesetas in his pocket, but real money, the kind that meant you didn’t have to worry about where you slept or what you ate or who you had to be nice to; you didn’t have to worry about turning your ankle, you didn’t have to worry about getting ill; the kind of money that meant your friends—Jax—didn’t lose people to a life on their back.
“Hey, you there,” someone shouted at him from above.
Wiggins looked up. A man, bearded like himself, leaned over the gunnels of a scuffed sailing ship and waved at him.
“I say, are you English?” the man asked.
“London,” Wiggins said.
“Army?”
“Gunners.”
“Fought the Boer?”
“Until the biltong bled.”
“Good show. Earn a shilling? Gangplank’s there, we don’t stand on ceremony.”
Wiggins clambered up the gangplank and onto the deck. The man, a great hulking chap with sunburn and a broad grin, introduced himself: “Oates.” He thrust out his hand.
“Titus!” Wiggins couldn’t help himself. The memory flashed into his head of a newspaper report in the Boer War: Titus Oates, a hero of the veldt.
“I say, you’re a sharp one. I would say call me Captain, but not on this ship. I’m likely to splice the hawse, cut the mainsplice, and send us all into a hurricane,” Oates joked.
He set Wiggins to work rearranging the ship’s stores and loading more supplies from the quay. Despite the hot weather, the ship was packed with cold-weather clothes, lanterns, s
cientific equipment, and mountains of tinned food. He found himself enjoying it. The hard labor on the Patna had gotten him into some sort of shape. He could feel his muscles working again like they used to. The snap was coming back.
At lunchtime, Oates brought him a hunk of bread and cheese and a jerrican of brackish water. “You’re a handy chap and no mistake,” he said. “Thought this lot would take you the day.”
“I ain’t no stranger to work, sir. If there’s a drink at the end of the day, leastways.”
Oates laughed. “Yes, indeed. Good job the skipper’s not aboard. I tell you what, if you bring up the rest of the kit from the quay, there’s another shilling in it for you.”
“And another drink?”
Oates came back for him later that day, clapping, “Well done, very well done. Here you go.” He handed him the two shillings. “Don’t have any of the local stuff, I’m afraid.”
“This’ll do,” Wiggins said.
“Don’t fancy coming along with us, do you?” Oates said, only half joking. “We could always do with good men.”
“Where you going?”
“To tell you the truth, we’re going to the South Pole.”
“You’ve got to be up the pole.”
Oates laughed again. “Ha! Perhaps you’re right. Well, goodbye. And enjoy that drink.”
Wiggins raised a hand in acknowledgment and strode down the gangplank. As he walked away, he idly glanced at the name painted on the ship’s hull: Terra Nova.
Kell strode to the Underground station at Hampstead. His heart was lighter now that Wiggins was on his way back to London. He shuddered to think what had taken him to the Canaries in the first place, but over a telegraph wire was hardly the place to find out. At least he could put Wiggins back on to the leak, and they might finally make some progress before his job went up in smoke. As he entered Flask Walk, he realized he’d forgotten his briefcase. He turned back.
The only progress he had made was his recruitment of a source in the Foreign Office. He had done so without consulting Wiggins, or anyone else, but the source had been able to furnish him with some useful titbits. He reasoned that if the Germans were trying to recruit from inside the diplomatic service, then so should he. The idea of creating a network of information and informants over one’s own people was not something that had been discussed by anyone Kell knew, but he realized that if he was going to adequately protect his position in the future, the more he knew about everyone, the better.