I had not been with them during the most desperate fighting, and to my distress I learned that my friend Jack Benham had been wounded. A shell-splinter had entered the fleshy part of his leg above the knee, but it was hoped that he would not suffer any permanent disability from the wound.
Reports said that ‘Long Willie’ had proved the sort of Colonel that every subaltern dreams about. Caked with filth and covered in blood, he had apparently gone without sleep for days at a stretch, while he tirelessly directed his men or actually fought with them at any point where the fleeing enemy turned to offer resistance. But when I found him he was as clean and immaculate as ever, the same tall, rather stooping mild-mannered man with a ready grin that had kept us at it, yet from grumbling without cause or openly quarrelling, when our tempers had been frayed to rags by the blistering heat during those ghastly months at Mersa Matruh.
When I asked him about leave, he said: “I know how anxious you must be to get back to your fiancée, Day, but I’m afraid it’s no longer my pigeon. Now that we’re consolidating here I could let any of my own boys off in a case like this, but you fall into a different category. There are still such shoals of these Wops to be dealt with, and as long as they have to be sorted out you’ve been lent to Division. I’ll raise no objection, of course, but I’m afraid you’ll have to get a chit from someone higher up before you stand much chance of leave to Alex.”
I tried to hide my disappointment as well as I could, and after leaving him it occurred to me to go into Benghazi and see the staff captain whose Intelligence work I admired so much.
Having driven into town, I ran him to earth in one of the hotels that had been taken over as a part of the Area Headquarters. When I had put my case to him he said, at once:
“You’re quite definitely needed here, but I do sympathise, and if I possibly can I’d like to do something for you. Your own work has been absolutely first-class, and I was speaking to the General about you only the other day. It’s over a year now since you received your commission and I suggested that he should put you up for your second pip.”
“That’s most awfully kind of you, sir,” I stammered. I certainly hadn’t expected any such bouquet as even in wartime it’s generally eighteen months or two years before an officer is promoted to full lieutenant unless he proves specially valuable.
The Captain sat smoking thoughtfully in silence for a moment, then he went on:
“As a matter of fact I’ve no doubt at all that your promotion will go through, but I’m equally certain that the General wouldn’t grant you leave at the moment. Still, I think I see a way round that. As you know, we’ve sent over a hundred thousand prisoners back to Egypt already. At least two-thirds of them have not been grilled as yet, so there’s still a mass of stuff to be picked up as a result of skilful questioning. How would it suit you if, instead of leave, I had you transferred to Alex to carry on the good work there?”
“But that would be absolutely magnificent!” I exclaimed. “I’d be able not only to get married and have a honeymoon, but take a flat and live in it with my wife for a month or two anyway. I’d be most terribly grateful if you could, sir.”
“All right,” he smiled. “I’ll see what I can do. It may take a few days, but if it comes off I shall expect a piece of the wedding-cake to put under my pillow!”
That splendid temporary chief of mine was as good as his word. Three days later orders came through for me to report to the senior commandant, Prisoners of War Camps, Alexandria. I was now more than double the distance from Alex than when I was stationed at Mersa Matruh, and as yet there was no organised transport for casual passengers, but I set off in my captured Fiat, and in spite of the military traffic on the road, and the endless trudging lines of prisoners, I was in Alexandria two afternoons later.
Tired and dusty as I was, I drove straight to the Diamopholi house. There had been no means of letting Daphnis know that I was coming, but I was absolutely bursting with the splendid news I had for her. If I had been granted even a fortnight’s leave it would have meant that either there would have been no time at all to prepare for the wedding or we should have had to cut our honeymoon down to a bare week, whereas now that I was to be stationed in Alex I should have no cause to grudge Daphnis a little time to issue fresh invitations and arrange the big reception that she wanted. Graziani’s army had been so thoroughly defeated that, so far as one could possibly see, all menace had been removed from Egypt, and it seemed that the glorious prospect of starting our married life in almost peace-time conditions lay before us.
It was about half past five when I arrived at the house. Daphnis and her mother were both at home and Alcis was with them. Daphnis’ eyes looked as big and as round as half-crowns when I was shown into the room. She dropped some work that she was doing, but her surprise gave way to a shout of delight. Rushing at me, she flung her arms round my neck and clung to me until I thought that she would never let me go.
My own joy and excitement were hardly short of hers as I gathered her to me, quite regardless of the two onlookers, and felt her lovely face once more pressed against mine.
It is said that all the world loves a lover, and our feelings for each other were so obvious that my mother-in-law-to-be could only smile indulgently. When we had recovered ourselves a little, she spoke to me very kindly, saying how exciting our romance had been, and how, since we loved so much, she felt quite certain that I would make her daughter happy. Then she kissed me on the forehead and said that henceforward she would regard me as her son. At such a happy moment I could feel no animosity towards Alcis and I called her ‘Cousin’ as she held out her hand for my formal kiss of greeting.
The later details of that evening are only vague in my memory. I remember old Nicholas Diamopholus coming home from his office and being kindness itself to me. I remember lots of Diamopholi relatives and friends who had been called up on the telephone coming in for an informal party. Champagne flowed the whole evening; innumerable toasts were drunk and I put away buckets of it; but fortunately there are two states in which it is impossible for any man to get tight. He cannot do so if he is utterly and completely miserable through the loss or betrayal of a woman, and he cannot do so if he is deliriously happy and in the company of one whom he loves wildly, and by whom he knows himself to be beloved. It was very late when I reached the Cecil, where somebody had telephoned during the evening to reserve a room for me. But when I went to bed in the small hours of the morning I sighed with utter contentment, feeling myself to be the luckiest fellow in the whole world.
Next morning I was at the Diamopholi’s by ten o’clock to discuss the hundred and one things that needed settling before the wedding. Since Daphnis wanted a large wedding I had not the least objection, providing that fixing it up was not going to take too long, but there seemed no fear of this, as the more lengthy matters, such as her wedding-dress, the bridesmaids, one of whom was to be Barbara Wishart, and their frocks, had all been agreed upon in the previous November.
Madame Diamopholus told me that I was now to consider myself free of the house, come there whenever I wanted to and stay as long as I liked, but I was still very much in the Army, and I knew that most of my days would be occupied with duties. That afternoon I took Daphnis out to see the Wisharts, who had played so large a part in our romance, and the following morning I reported to the Senior Commandant at the vast prisoners-of-war camp.
In addition to the preparations for the wedding there was now the question of a flat to live in afterwards. We decided, as the war made the length of time we should be allowed to occupy it uncertain, it would be better to take a furnished apartment, and the day after I reported at the camp I got the afternoon off so that I could spend it with Daphnis and her mother looking round likely places.
Those few hectic days had passed like a dream between odd moments snatched whenever possible for love-making, a round of parties for me to be presented to the Diamopholi’s innumerable friends, and my new duties. I could hardly keep track
of the days of the week, but it was on Wednesday, February the 19th, that having been to see suites of furnished apartments we had chosen a very nice one for our future home; and it was on that night that I parted from Daphnis after our usual lingering farewell, little knowing in what horribly perturbing circumstances I should see her again.
Chapter XIV
Red-Hot Conspiracy
During the Libyan campaign we had had little time or opportunity to follow the progress of the war on other fronts. Days later we learned of the complicated diplomatic moves by which Hitler was systematically strengthening his hand for a great spring offensive. Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria were all played off against each other with consummate skill. Marshall Pétain sacked the arch-traitor Laval, but Admiral Darlan’s growing power increased the Nazi grip on France.
The German Army remained sinisterly inactive while Britain and Greece slogged Mussolini until he was punch-drunk. Milan, Genoa, Brindisi, Turin and Naples were all heavily raided by the R.A.F., and there was even a hope that Italy might be forced out of the war, until the Germans began to take over in the peninsula, and by mid-January they had transferred an entire air fleet to the Sicilian bases of Catania and Comiso.
The R.A.F. also consistently hammered the invasion ports and submarine bases at Brest and Lorient, but the Luftwaffe hit back at many English towns and on December the 29th London had a frightful pasting, in which the Guildhall and eight Wren churches were destroyed.
Lord Lothian’s sudden death earlier in the month was a sad blow, and it was followed by the loss of General Metaxas and another great servant of the British Crown, Lord Lloyd.
At the end of January a new campaign was launched in Abyssinia. Kassala, on the Sudan frontier, was recaptured, and by a swift advance into Eritrea we took Agordat and Barentu in the first days of February. But these bits of news only trickled through to us.
With the fall of Benghazi, however, we had been able to get more regular news. On the day that I reached the Cyrenaic capital it had come through that the United States Senate had passed the Lease and Lend Bill, and everyone had been immensely cheered by the thought that the Americans were now really as good as in with us; but Hitler was getting very active in the Balkans.
On February the 13th he summoned the Yugoslav Prime Minister to Berchtesgaden. He was pumping German troops into Rumania as hard as he could go and hundreds of German ‘tourists’ were already infiltrating into Bulgaria. Turkey was still standing firm, but now that her western frontier was directly threatened through Bulgaria it looked doubtful if she would go to Greece’s aid if the Nazis decided to pull the Italians out of the mess they had got themselves into in Albania.
It was on the night of the 16th-17th that London suffered one of the worst raids of the war. On the 18th we were all depressed by rumours that a great part of the city had been entirely burnt out, but it happened that on the 19th I had been so busy that I had missed every one of the B.B.C. bulletins. In consequence, on getting back to the Cecil a little after eleven o’clock, instead of going straight up to my room I went into the lounge to see if there was any further news of the damage done to the dear old city.
A man and woman were sitting at a small table near the door. I got a vague impression that he was tall and dark and that she was a peroxided, smart-looking woman, possibly French; but I paid no special attention to them as I passed, and paused at a large table in the centre of the room where a number of newspapers and periodicals were always left for the use of the guests.
There were very few other people in the lounge so it was quiet there, and although I now had my back turned to the couple near the door I heard the man speak quite distinctly. There was nothing in what he said to attract my attention, but I stiffened where I stood. The voice was unmistakable. It was that of the man who had been with Daphnis in the garden.
I knew now why I had felt such instinctive hatred and dread on hearing that voice before. Then, strive as I would I could not recall who its owner might be, but now one glimpse of that dark, sleek head had been enough to give me a cue.
Very cautiously I turned and looked over my shoulder. I could see the man three-quarter face now: his high forehead, his aristocratic Roman nose, and his full-lipped cruel mouth. I was right. It was the Portuguese, Count Emilo de Mondragora, one of the seven devils who had brought about poor Carruthers’ suicide and wrecked my own career.
All the seething anger that I had felt at the time of the tragedy, all the bitterness of my wasted years, surged up in me. Those seven men who were responsible for my friend’s death and my own downfall had amassed so much money that without ever lifting a finger again they could have lived in affluence for the rest of their lives. It was through sheer greed and a perverted pleasure in sin that they continued to operate their vast criminal organisation which, by espionage, dope-running, white-slaving and blackmail, battened upon the follies and miseries of mankind. They were utterly pitiless, and without pity I had sworn to hunt them down.
In the early months of 1939 I had got on their track again and dealt with two of them. O’Kieff, when I had last seen him, had been on foot without transport, water, or supplies, and in the midst of a violent sandstorm somewhere south-east of the oasis of Siwa. I had left him to his fate in the desert a hundred miles or more from the nearest well, and it was outside the bounds of all probability that he had been able to remain alive for more than a matter of hours. Zakri Bey I had no doubts about at all, as I had strangled him with my own hands; but I had never succeeded in getting on the track of the other five, and six months after my first kill I had been absorbed into the war.
Now I had happened upon another of that unholy crew, but the grim satisfaction which I should normally have felt was tinged with fear. This man knew Daphnis. It was he of all people who had been with her that first night in the garden before my arrival.
Those horrible little whispering doubts which I had striven with such resolution to put away from me, yet which for all that had refused to be smothered ever since my interview with Major Cozelli, became in one moment certainties.
In time of war first place in the activities of these aristocrats of crime would unquestionably go to big-scale espionage. The Portuguese was a neutral, so he could move freely still in any country. Had I come across him in German-occupied territory I should have considered it a possibility that he was spying for us, Britain having proved the highest bidder, but in Alexandria there were no secrets which he could learn other than those which would be useful to the Axis. Then, too, there were Daphnis’ Italian sympathies and the fact that at that time she had been engaged to Paolo. Everything was terrifyingly clear now in my shocked and agonised mind; since it was Count Emilo de Mondragora who had been with Daphnis there was but one explanation: he had come there to collect her report. She had been—perhaps was still—spying for Italy.
During the seconds that the full implications of this shattering revelation raced through my brain I made a great effort to control my physical reactions. I felt that, although my back was turned to him, even an abrupt or awkward movement might attract the attention of that saturnine devil, and if he once recognised me any advantage which I might have over him would be gone.
Actually the only time that we had ever come face to face had been at that dinner-party when poor Carruthers and I had met the Big Seven in Brussels. It was quite on the cards that, even if he saw me, he would not know me again, but first-class brains usually have long memories, and I could not be too careful.
Having held the paper in front of my face for the space of about a minute without having absorbed one word that was printed on it, I folded it neatly, laid it down carefully on the top of the others, and walked out of a glass-panelled door at the far end of the lounge.
It wasn’t until I was outside that I even dared to breathe freely, and to my surprise I found that I was sweating. Small beads of perspiration had broken out all over my forehead.
As I mopped them up with my handkerchief I real
ised that I had ample cause for the acute anxiety that I was feeling. A cruel fate had ordained that my adorable Daphnis should be mixed up with this monster whose outward elegance of appearance I knew to conceal the mentality of a rattlesnake combined with that of a carrion crow.
I lit a cigarette and drew heavily upon it as I wondered agitatedly if Daphnis had given up spying for Italy when she became engaged to me, or if she was still playing that dangerous, and now treacherous, game. Since she had worked for Mondragora, and I now considered that to be as good as an established fact, I feared it was extremely unlikely that she had been able to break away from him, even if she had tried to. Men like the Portuguese are adepts at ‘framing’ their helpers so that they can hold the threat of blackmail over them should they at any time wish to give up the work.
If he had got something on her it might prove the devil of a job to get her out.
For a moment I thought of going straight back to the house and charging her with being Mondragora’s associate, or at least demanding to know what she had been up to that night with him in the garden, and when she had last seen him; but I was quick to realise that any idea of a showdown must wait for the time being.
If I left the hotel I might lose touch with the Portuguese, and one thing stood out a mile—whatever part Daphnis might be playing in this affair, the fact remained that I was his sworn enemy. I had no intention of hanging for his murder if I could possibly avoid it, but, given the chance, I was determined to kill him with as little scruple as I would have crushed a poisonous scorpion under the heel of my boot.
I felt confident, too, that whatever Daphnis might have done in the past, once she became engaged to me she would never willingly have done anything that might harm my country; but if Mondragora had some threat which he could hold over her he might now be compelling her to carry on against her will and she must be suffering the most frightful mental torture from the dread that I might find her out. If that was so I had a double motive for eliminating Mondragora.
The Sword of Fate Page 19