I knew that he was dead right, yet I shouted: “You’re wrong! Utterly and horribly wrong. Churchill has said that we must win this fight with clean hands, and it’s against everything that we’ve ever believed in to blackmail a woman into doing our dirty work for us.”
He simply shrugged. “Your fiancée is a valuable weapon and I intend to use her.”
“In that case I’ll go straight to Essex Pasha,” I threatened. “I’m certain he’ll support me and force you to change your tune.”
“You can’t. He’s with a mission in Turkey. Besides, the girl is in Athens now, and by the time you could get my decision overruled by a higher authority she’ll either have been caught out or on her way home.”
“All right! The moment I get out of this building I’m going to wire her that I’ve decided to face my trial and that she’s to stop any work that she’s engaged upon at once. I’d rather do that a thousand times than have her imperil her life.”
“Oh no, you won’t! I’ve already informed the postal authorities that no telegrams or letters addressed to the Diamopholuses are to be despatched without having been censored by myself.”
He paused for a moment, then went on: “It only remains for you to say if you prefer to remain in prison or to be released on parole, having first given me your word that you will not endeavour to get in touch with Mademoiselle Diamopholus. I bluffed you about not being able to keep you inside without making a formal charge in order to get a little time to deal with her while you were out of the way. I have ample powers to detain you without trial for as long as I like. Now take your choice.”
Chapter XVIII
The Great Decision
“If you have powers to keep me in prison without trial for as long as you like, why are you offering to let me out now on parole?” I asked suspiciously.
“Because I promised Mademoiselle Diamopholus that I would if you proved sensible,” he replied calmly. “And it so happens that whenever I make promises I endeavour to keep them.”
My brain was racing furiously. I didn’t believe that Cozelli was the sort of man who would trust anybody on parole in a case like this unless he had to. He might have promised Daphnis that he would give me my freedom on these terms as soon as she reached Athens; but if he had the chances were that it was because he was lying about his powers to keep me in prison indefinitely without trial. If I could have been certain of that I should have told him that he could send me back to my cell—but I was not certain. Instead of being kept there for a day or two longer and then regaining my complete freedom, it was just on the cards that this clever devil could use some clause in the Emergency Laws to keep me confined for several weeks more without formulating definite charges against me.
And time was precious. As long as I remained in prison I could not make any attempt at all to get in touch with Daphnis and beg her to abandon instantly the dangerous business upon which she was employed; and even a day might make the difference between life and death to her.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll give you my parole.”
“Good,” he nodded. “Your C.O. believes that you were sent away from Alex at a moment’s notice on special work. You will report back to him tomorrow morning and resume your normal duties. It is understood between us that you will neither leave Alexandria without my permission nor seek in any way to communicate with Mademoiselle Diamopholus. I have your word as to that?”
“Yes,” I replied abruptly.
“Very well, then.” He pressed the buzzer on his desk, signed a form authorising my release, and when the orderly appeared said that I was to be let out of the side door of the Police Headquarters.
As I walked back to my cell I was still seething with anger. I could cheerfully have killed Cozelli. My adorable Daphnis was now in Athens, where she had been set the impossible task of trapping some of the cleverest criminals in the world. As well send a bird of Paradise into an iron cage and expect it to get the better of two vultures. I had not the faintest intention of keeping my parole. Cozelli had deliberately placed my future wife in a situation where at any moment of the day or night she might be caught, and once caught would probably die a violent, horrible and painful death. Daphnis meant more to me even than my word of honour, and Cozelli’s wildly optimistic idea that she might secure some important piece of information which would help Britain win the war seemed to me so fantastic that I did not allow it to weigh with me for a second.
By the time I was outside the prison I had already considered and dismissed most of the means of getting in touch with her. Those not barred by Cozelli’s special censorship were subject to either insupportable delays or grave danger of total miscarriage owing to war conditions. There was only one thing to do. By hook or by crook I must join her as speedily as possible in Athens.
I had no sooner reached this decision than I turned my steps towards the docks with the idea of finding out what ships would be leaving for Greece in the next few days and arranging for myself an unauthorised passage in one of them. The commandant at the prisoners-of-war camp had now been deprived of my services, through no fault of mine, for just on three weeks, so he could remain deprived of them for a bit longer.
As a British officer it might have been exceedingly difficult to get a passage, but I was still wearing the civilian clothes in which I had been arrested; and the lack of a passport did not particularly bother me. The world pays its merchant seamen scandalously badly, so it has little right to grumble if the less scrupulous among them do not resist the temptation to accommodate stowaways as a regular means of making a bit of extra cash. Money, thank goodness, was my strong suit, and ever since the outbreak of war I had carried a considerable sum on me, so I felt as confident of being able to buy an unofficial passage to Greece as I was that I meant to order myself a gin fizz at the nearest decent-looking bar as soon as I had found out what ships in the harbour were sailing for Athens.
I was not half-way there when a sudden shout roused me from my black day-dreams and brought my vacant gaze back into focus upon the people along the pavement. Bearing straight down on me, his face wreathed in smiles, was Toby Spiers.
“Julian!” he cried the moment our eyes met. “I felt certain it must be you. But what the devil are you doing out of uniform?”
“It’s a long story,” I smiled, coming to a halt. “But what are you doing here in Alex? Managed to wangle some leave, I suppose!”
“Good lord, no! It’s been almost as good, though.” He looked anxiously round at the passing crowd and lowered his voice. “The Battalion’s been down here for the best part of a fortnight, refitting for a big show. But come on, let’s find a place where we can have one.”
The Morocco Bar was just across the street, so we disappeared into its cool depths and were soon seated on two high stools with frothing gin fizzes before us.
The place was almost empty, and as the barman moved away Toby said: “Come on now, spill the beans! What’re you up to in that blue lounge suit, and where the devil have you been all this time? Directly I got here, after having visited Jack in hospital—–”
“How is the old boy?” I interrupted.
“Going splendidly. It was a nasty flesh wound on the inside of the thigh, but not high enough up to be dangerous. It’s cleaning up now, and he’ll be out in about a week, but of course he won’t be fit enough to come with us on this new party. As I was saying, directly I’d seen him I went along to the prisoners-of-war camp to dig you out, but they told me that you’d been seconded for some special duty.”
“Hush!” I whispered with a meaning wink.
He whistled and his boyish face took on a half-incredulous, half-serious look as he murmured: “My hat! Secret Service, eh! How frightfully thrilling!”
“What’s all this about the Battalion re-equipping and going on a new show?” I asked, before he could say anything further.
“D’you mean to say that in your job you don’t know?” he asked incredulously.
I shook my he
ad. “I’ve been too darn’ busy for the last few weeks to think of anything except my own work.”
Toby lowered his voice again. “It’s so secret that I only know because I’ve been taken on to do Assistant Adjutant while we’re down here. For God’s sake don’t even whisper it to anyone whom you wouldn’t trust with your life; but we’re going to Greece!”
With a great effort I suppressed a start of surprise and managed to mutter, “When are you off?”
“Word hasn’t come through yet, but the re-equipping was completed two days ago and permission to leave camp is not being granted to officers or men for more than three hours at a stretch and never after sundown; so we may embark any night. Isn’t it thrilling? We’ll be able to get a crack at those blasted Nazis at last, and that’ll be much more fun than chivvying these spineless macaroni-eaters.”
“Rather!” I agreed, with a heartiness that I did not feel, and I went on earnestly, “Listen, Toby, I’d give my eyes to go with you and the rest of the crowd in this new show, and I think I can fix it.”
“Splendid!” he beamed. “But how?”
“As an interpreter, of course.”
“Arabic won’t be any good there, or Italian, unless we pick up some Italian prisoners.”
“Perhaps not; but I speak German and quite enough Greek to arrange about billets and that sort of thing. The point is—have you yet had a Greek interpreter attached to you?”
“No. You’ve got a clear field there and it would be absolutely grand if you could come. But what about your other work? This hush-hush stuff you’re on?”
“I’ll have to see what can be done,” I replied cautiously; “and there’s one way in which you can help me. Directly you hear definitely that the Battalion’s got its marching orders, ring me up at the Cecil so that I can make a last eleventh-hour effort to get permission, should I have failed in the meantime. Naturally you’ll have to be careful what you say over the telephone. You’d better ask me out to dinner, and if you know the hour at which the embarkation is due to start you can give it to me by saying that you’ve got two or four or ten other people coming to the party.”
“Right, I’ll do that,” he agreed at once. “Let’s have another drink to the success of your efforts.”
We talked on, mainly about other things, for the best part of half an hour, and before we parted I impressed upon Toby that, for reasons which at the moment I could not disclose, it would be very much better if he did not tell ‘Long Willie’ or any of the others that he had seen me or that I had any intention of trying to come to Greece with them.
There was no point now in going down to the docks, so after leaving Toby I went straight to the Cecil, where I saw the manager, who by this time was an old friend of mine, and explained my sudden disappearance. I told him that on the night of February the 19th, without receiving any warning at all, I had been despatched on a special mission which had taken me right through Palestine into Syria; hence, as I had just returned from a neutral country, the fact that I was wearing civilian clothes. He had had my things packed up after I had been absent for two days, and now he had them sent up to another room, upon which I went upstairs and got back into uniform.
After lunch I called upon my prospective mother-in-law, who appeared anxious to see me, although she was obviously worried and anxious about the turn events had taken and the second postponement of her daughter’s marriage.
The interview was a difficult one, as I had no means of knowing how much she knew as to the true state of affairs, and I did not wish to alarm her unduly. She quite obviously connected my sudden disappearance with the visit of the police to question Daphnis on the night that I had roused them out of bed, but had accepted the explanation given her that I had been sent away from Alex without warning.
I soon found that she believed that Daphnis and I had had a quarrel, which was not sufficiently serious for us to decide on breaking off our engagement but quite enough for us to agree on my sudden enforced absence being an adequate excuse to postpone our wedding indefinitely. Daphnis had suddenly declared her intention of going to Greece as a nurse, and made everybody’s life a misery until her stepfather had agreed to take her with him to Athens. Nobody appeared to have suggested that my own absence from Alexandria would be indefinite, whereas, once Daphnis was launched upon nursing the Greek wounded, it might be months, or even years, before she returned to Egypt, so the deduction that we had had a serious difference was quite a reasonable one.
I tacitly implied that her assumption was correct but that I was still desperately in love with Daphnis, which God knows was the truth, and that I hoped to induce her to return to Egypt so that we could get married in the not-far-distant future. I then obtained the address of the Diamopholi shipping offices in Athens, and after a little polite conversation took my leave.
There was nothing further that I could do until I heard from Toby, so I decided that I’d better sit tight at the Cecil. After listening to the news that night, March the 11th, which was mainly about an attempt to assassinate our Minister to Bulgaria, of an emergency meeting of the Yugoslav Crown Council, which had been called by the Regent, Prince Paul, and of British attacks on the Eritrean stronghold of Keren, I went up to my room. I was almost sick with worry about Daphnis, but I knew that it must be many days before I could get news of her, and that if I was not to become a nervous wreck I must occupy my mind somehow; so I got out my war maps.
I had said nothing to Toby that morning when he had thrown his bombshell about the decision to send Imperial troops into Greece. I’m no defeatist, and the last thing that I would willingly do is to damp the ardour of a keen young subaltern like Toby. But my training for the Diplomatic had necessitated my taking a high degree in history at Oxford, and it is impossible to have absorbed all the main facts about past wars without learning something of the art of strategy.
As long as the French had been with us it had looked as though the Allies would, in time, be able to put into the field approximately the same number of ’planes, tanks and men as the Germans.
But once France had been put out of the game and Italy had come into it, the future presented a very different picture. Any really considerable increase in our Indian Army would create a special problem, and failing that the British Empire simply has not got the numbers ever to be able to put into the field an army of the same size as the combined armies of the Germans and Italians. Their united populations total a hundred and twenty-five millions. The white population of the Empire is seventy millions, including the Irish, and it is doubtful if the fact that they are not fighting with us can be balanced, as far as numbers are concerned, by the oddments of Poles, French, Czechs and other Free Forces who are.
In consequence the major strategy of the war must be governed by this simple arithmetic. Nobody but a lunatic would suggest pitting the armies of a 70-million population against the armies of a 125-million population, as long as the larger is united under its leaders, has eight years’ start in the armaments race, and air superiority.
Nevertheless, while it is stupid to underrate the Germans’ strength, initiative and drive, it is equally stupid to allow oneself to be scared into thinking that they can do the impossible.
One thing which is fundamentally impossible is to transport, supply and munition a major army by air. A division or so of air-borne troops may certainly be used with success to establish a first foothold; but their final defeat is absolutely inevitable unless they can be reinforced within a very limited period with heavy equipment, approximately equal in weight to that of the army that they are opposing.
The only way to do this is obviously by sea, and as long as the British Navy remains paramount in the Mediterranean it must continue to be a most hazardous undertaking for the Axis to endeavour to supply any main army across the water.
From this very simple reasoning it is perfectly clear that we might meet a German Army in favourable, or at worst equal, terms, and have a good hope of defeating it in North Africa, or t
he Middle East; solely because there are definite limits to the numbers of men and the weight of material that the Germans could bring over. On the other hand, no such handicap applies to the Axis Forces anywhere upon the mainland of the European Continent.
The Italians are good enough and numerous enough to be used as garrison troops to hold down the defeated and disarmed peoples of the conquered countries, so this leaves the Nazis free to launch the whole weight of their own vast war machine in any direction that they choose. Clearly, therefore, it would only be asking for the most grievous trouble to attempt to stop Hitler if he decided to march eastward until he got to the Dardanelles, or southward until he got the Straits of Gibraltar.
It was going to be difficult enough in all conscience to stop him then; but if the Turks stood firm there seemed a really good chance that we might check any attempt by Hitler to break out to the east.
The Sword of Fate Page 26