Agent Lavender: The Flight of Harold Wilson

by Tom Black

  Then, there was nothing more than barked orders, searches and waiting in antechambers. First, they had arrived too early. Then they had arrived too late. The Under-Secretary for Hydroelectricity had to be seen before anyone else. Then the Ambassador from the Mongolian People’s Republic needed to be given priority. Before too long, Wilson was convinced that he was going to have to come back tomorrow – or in 1951 – but he was finally shown into a drawing room – a rather grand one actually – overlooking Saint Basil’s cathedral.

  For the first quarter of an hour, Wilson was fine to look out onto the candy-coloured bulbs at the end of Red Square. Soon after though, the nerves had returned to him – his brain turning over the minutiae of the last few minutes. He became painfully aware that he was alone. The business occupying his fellow emissaries should not have kept them busy this long. Had those two guards just closed the door, or had they locked it? How long was it going to be before they came back, keen to re-enact what they did to the Romanovs?

  Within the space of thirty seconds, Harold Wilson was ready to die. He turned to the window yet again, seeing the final fingers of redness fade behind Red Square. Then he heard a voice.

  “I like a nice view.”

  Wilson jumped, turned and felt his throat close. Joseph Stalin joined him at the window.

  “I am always thinking – just how glorious the revolution has made Moskva,” he said, looking out onto the city.

  “The Tsars wanted nothing to do with this place, you know?” he continued, seemingly oblivious to the British Minister of State for Overseas Trade, who was now struggling to stand.

  “Moskva is adaptable, Mr Wheelson,” the most important man in the world finished, “it always adjusts to those who treat her well.”

  Stalin turned his head – his eyes drawing even with those of the Member of Parliament for Ormskirk. Wilson decided that it was his time to speak.

  “I,” he paused, swallowed, and started again, “was not expecting you to meet me directly, Generalissimo.”

  “You were not?” Stalin’s eyes gave nothing away, “then, I am sorry.”

  He extended an arm to the table and chairs that were sat in the centre of the room. Wilson, still amazed, took the one that was offered to him.

  For a while, neither man spoke. Wilson out of a combination of fear and awe, Stalin out of inquiry. He sat, a half-head above the Junior Minister, whilst his eyes darted back and forth along the other man’s countenance. Wilson felt like he was being judged by Saint Peter. After two minutes, the leader of the Soviet Union broke the silence.

  “So,” he said, “I am understanding that you are the man who has somewhat more... in common with me than his government realises?”

  That had been the start of the most intense interview in Harold Wilson’s life. For five hours, he was probed, interrogated, sworn at, spat at and at one point threatened with execution. His every memory was dredged up – that time he had argued with Cripps about the war effort – that horrible business with the Cambridge Union – the time he thought he had failed his Eleven Plus. Even when Stalin did not seem to understand every word (as he admitted, he had made an effort to learn English since the war, but the academic was not his strong point) Harold found himself offering even more information in his own passable Russian, half-hoping that Stalin would turn his head, shake it, and announce that he had failed the unspoken test.

  As one o’clock approached, the barrage of words stopped, and Wilson was again left facing a wall of silence. For the first time that evening, he looked directly back at the man opposite.

  There was a pause. Then, improbably, against every possible convention, Stalin started laughing.

  “You really are going to do this, are you not?” he said, face red, “we really are going to have you leading the Great Capitalist Kingdom from within!”

  Stalin laughed again. It was a haunting, subdued laugh, but his eyes sparkled with genuine amusement. Wilson, having decided that the time was ripe for relaxation, drew a long-desired cigar from his pocket. As he fiddled with his matches, Stalin gave a snort of amusement.

  “You look like Churchill,” he said, “not really the… the picture we want.”

  Stalin produced a pipe – from nowhere, Wilson was sure, and began to make a show of packing it in such a way as to mesmerize Wilson, who found his eyes following it, like a cobra.

  “Now, Comrade Lavender,” Stalin said, “allow me to show you how to command the attention of anyone on this planet...”

  Harold had a sense that history was being made, though he could not fathom why.

  “Grab their attention,” Stalin said, patting down the tobacco, “you need to give them a show right from the start. You look like you actually do smoke a pipe, which is a great advantage for us and what we want.”

  “Then,” he said, lighting it and blowing a plume of smoke, “you point and motion with the people. You are the conductor of their dreams and of their hearts.”

  Harold Wilson watched. Harold Wilson learnt.

  Thinking fondly of that moment, the former Prime Minister shook himself back into action. He glanced at his wristwatch – which mercifully had survived the chaos of the past two weeks – and ran his fingers through his increasingly thick-set beard. Although it had not left him entirely disguised, it had done enough to stop people looking too closely at him.

  He rummaged around in his bag for the shaving kit that he had grabbed from Jacob’s bathroom. For the first time since he had left Winstanley Cottage he thought back to how he had simply left him to take his own life, far away from his wife. It really had been a damnable shame to have convinced him to take the pill. Harold pondered the decision as he collected some water into the battered tin bowl. Had it really been necessary? Surely Moscow would have had enough clout to spirit Jacob away – it was not as though he had done anything too serious after all.

  Wetting the brush and swirling it in the soap, Wilson turned his thoughts back to Mary for the fifth time since Monday. Would she want to come after all? For obvious reasons, he had never raised the point with her directly – but surely, if she loved him, she would endure the pleasures of Sochi rather than Scilly?

  Wilson shook his head and began to apply the lather to his beard. Such considerations could wait until he was somewhere near Dogger Bank, he thought to himself. The most important thing for the time being was making sure that he reached that boat.

  In the Cabinet Room, no one in President Ford’s inner circle was saying very much. For the first time in weeks, even Donald Rumsfeld was sitting in quiet astonishment, watching the tanks roll down towards Horse Guards Parade. This had not been the first time that the people sitting around the table had witnessed events such as this, Saigon being one, but – well, you expected it from the Vietnamese – but this was Englishmen!

  The President was the first to speak, nervously clearing his throat as he looked over to the Secretary of Defence.

  “Well James, are they a junta now?”, he said, pronouncing the ‘J’.

  Dr Schlesinger was either too shocked or too tired to be bothered to correct him.

  “I don’t think so, Mr President,” he said, trying to convince himself, “but I am having visions of things being exactly what we feared was going to happen in Portugal last spring.”

  Donald Rumsfeld was feeling secretly rather pleased with himself. He had been a lone voice last week, when it looked as though the Thatcher woman’s weakness was going to provide a useful excuse to triple the American presence in Western Europe, but nothing had come of it. At the end of the day, the British had demonstrated that the Churchillian tendency could continue and they had, well, if not exactly done the right thing, at least had the common sense to put someone vaguely important in change, even if Mountbatten had seemed a little bit pink according to the latest security reports.

  “So,” Ford said, “what do we do about the Summit now? If we cancel it now, we would annoy everybody.”

  “Let them come.”

&nb
sp; Six pairs of eyes swung around in Rumsfeld’s direction.

  “Can we be seen as wanting to prop up, however ambiguous it may be, a military dictatorship?” Nelson Rockefeller asked.

  “Yes we can, Mr Vice President,” Rumsfeld replied effortlessly, “and I will tell you why: we will look spooked if we don’t. The British are sending us a message and if we don’t at least acknowledge them – it is going to look as though we are sending them a blind eye. The alternatives do us no credit. If we ignore them, we look as if we don’t know what we are doing. If we send a diplomatic missive, we look weak. If we withdraw an Ambassador, we could split NATO and if we declare War, we are just doing the Soviets a favour.”

  “Who suggested declaring–” Schlesinger began to say.

  “I was making a rhetorical point, Secretary of Defence,” Rumsfeld concluded, “and it may be worthwhile getting in touch with Brezhnev to let him know to expect – whatshisface – Lord Home after all.”

  The President had already grabbed the telephone.

  After ten minutes of clicks and whirs, Henry Kissinger glided into the room.

  “Hank,” the President said, cupping the receiver with his hand, “glad to see you, I cannot get through to Brezhnev at all.”

  The Secretary of State paused for effect before placing a small folder on the desk.

  “Yes, Mr President,” he responded, straightening back up, “and I think I know why.”

  “Jesus Christ,” muttered Paddy into his half before draining the remnants of an unsatisfying pint of bitter. The pictures on the flickering screen made grim viewing, even though they’d been essentially on a loop for hours now. Tanks on the streets? Paddy had a better grasp of what was actually going on than most, but he had to admit the pictures left little room for nuance.

  He fancied another half, but last orders had been half an hour ago. Around him, people still jostled to see the landlord’s television, which he had placed on the bar for all to see. A lot of pubs had started doing this, apparently – the fast-moving nature of recent events meant people felt safer near a screen. The fact that punters could enjoy a pint while watching the snooker had given the whole phenomenon a more commercial angle. Paddy would have bet his house on some kind of licensing legislation being introduced before too long.

  But, he thought as he hauled himself to his feet, the government had other legislation to attend to at the moment. After today, there would no doubt be another round of unrest. Something had to be done.

  Paddy stopped in his tracks as he realised he recognised the alleyway he was staring at. It was where he’d seen that tramp disappear earlier. That tramp who looked so oddly familiar…

  Within half a minute, Paddy was back in the pub. He collared the first man he recognised.

  “You’re outside with me. Now.”

  Fipps squirmed.

  “But—”

  “No buts,” Paddy grunted and hauled the hapless PC out into the night. Something had to be done, and as his heart rate accelerated, he became more convinced of the virtue of what he might – just might – be about to do.

  “What is this, sir?”

  “Don’t get too excited, Fipps,” said Ashdown as his brisk walk teetered on a run and his voice dropped into a hiss, “but we may be about to catch Harold Wilson.”

  Fipps said nothing but suddenly looked very scared. Paddy supposed his mind’s eye was full of the flattened head of Peter Wright. Standing against the wall next to the alleyway, he motioned for Fipps to join him. Paddy unholstered his Browning and stepped decisively into the alley.

  There was no-one there. This was disappointing. But what had Paddy expected? A cackling Wilson, Polaris firing codes in one hand and the heart of Edward du Cann in the other? With a sigh, Ashdown stepped forward and got on his hands and knees.

  “What’re you doing, sir?” asked Fipps, almost managing to avoid slurring his words.

  “Looking for clues,” said Paddy, somewhat aware of how daft he sounded, “get down here and help me. I think Wilson may have been here—”

  Paddy stopped himself as something caught his eye. He crawled forward, his eyes widening as they adjusted to the absence of street lighting. As he squinted, he could make out a tin bowl full of water and hair, along with a safety razor. As his mind raced to put two and two together, he heard a clattering behind him as Fipps scrabbled to pick something up from the ground. Paddy’s heart thumped in his chest as time seemed to slow down.

  “Sir,” said Fipps, “I think this might be—”

  Paddy did not compute anything more, but he did not need to. He knew what he would turn around and see. With the grace and poise of a condemned man ascending the scaffold, he turned to face the officer, who sure enough, was holding a still-smoking pipe.

  Taking a drag of his cigar and feeling the wind whip through his hair, Harold Wilson was starting to see why Ted Heath liked boats so much. The bracing air – tinged with the North Sea salt – was a tonic after days spent traipsing through the East Anglian countryside.

  No one had paid much attention to the little boat, which was little more than a dingy, really – quietly pottering out of the docks. A couple of fishermen had glanced over from harbourside, but the late-evening light and lack of resemblance to anything approaching a Red Navy submarine had done little to raise the alarm. Harold didn’t suppose anyone would miss it any time soon, either – though the gentleman who had left his outboard motor unsecured on the dock was likely to join the long list of people with a grudge against the KGB soon enough.

  The reason for this, Wilson had soon noticed, was the line of ships that had their lights twinkling, each around fifteen nautical miles from one another. The former Prime Minister had thought it was somewhat excessive, as even in the Victorian period, twenty miles would have been sufficient. Not for the first time, he felt rather proud of how much chaos he had caused.

  Still, even for the man who had evaded the Security Services on a tractor, sneaking through the naval net had seemed like a challenge. He had known where he was heading – a sandbank around four miles off the coast, where his craft now found itself gently bobbing on calm seas – but with HMS Fife now floating between him and salvation, it had seemed more difficult than it turned out to be. In the interests of stealth, he had eased the motor down slightly, recovered the oars from the side, and begun to paddle.

  It had taken Wilson well over two hours to paddle his way to Scroby Sands. Lack of light made pathfinding difficult and he once found himself steering an emergency course ninety degrees to the west, before he realised that what he had assumed was Polaris was actually a high-flying helicopter.

  Progress was slow – not aided by the total lack of light (turning on his waterproof torch – another item left helpfully unattended by a citizen of Great Yarmouth – had seemed like too great a risk) but suddenly, Wilson had found himself being buffeted from both sides as the waves changed. He checked the compass again, he seemed to be in vaguely the right area.

  He checked his watch. It was coming up to midnight. There was nothing more he could do now – well, almost nothing. Hiding the beam of the waterproof torch in his coat, he attached it to a rope and flung it over the side. The beam was diffused into the pitch black of the North Sea, but it seemed to hold together. Whoever was looking for a beacon down there ought to see it if they were nearby.

  As the exhilaration of having reached the rendezvous point wore off, Harold again began to panic. Stonehouse had been clear Great Yarmouth had been the correct location, but was he now in the right place? It had been at least six months since he had last discussed the possibility of having to be pulled out (a rushed, crackled telephone call in a small office at the Canadian High Commission) but what if the plan no longer accounted for a collection at sea? Tulip and Lily, a lifetime ago, had met him on land. His thoughts turned even darker as he stared at the moon. What if no-one was coming? What if everything had just been a deliberate attempt at -

  There was a splashing noise behind him.
Turning around with a fright, he saw the head and shoulders of a man in full diving gear rise gracefully above the surface of the water. Harold remained still as the diver reached up and removed his mask. After shaking his hair like a wet dog, he looked Harold up and down.

  “Mr Wilson, I presume?”

  Harold Wilson grinned.

  Chapter eighteen

  Sunday 16th November 1975 – Midnight

  “Permission to come aboard, comrade?” asked the frogman, whom Wilson could now see was a man in at least his fifties.

  “Granted,” Harold said, offering his hand and helping the stranger make an ungainly entry to the boat.

  “Thank you kindly,” the diver said, sitting down opposite Harold.

  “You speak very good English,” Harold remarked.

  “I should hope so, too – I’m from Streatham.”

  Harold froze.

  “Streatham?”

  “Yes, it’s near Lambeth,” the frogman replied, observing Harold’s discomfort, “don’t worry, I’m a friend.”

  “How do I know that?”

  “Because I’ve just swum here from a Red Navy submarine, you paranoid old beggar!” the frogman laughed, “Buster Crabb, at your service.”

  Hesitantly, Harold clasped Crabb’s rubber-clad palm. His brain kicked into gear and his eyes filled with recognition.

  “I know who you are!” he cried. Crabb bowed his head in faux-sheepishness.

  “Plenty of people know who I was, comrade,” he replied.

  “What do you mean?” Harold asked, pulling his coat tighter around himself as a chill wind whipped over their heads. Crabb grinned.

  “I was,” he began, affecting a grand establishment accent, “Lieutenant Commander Lionel Kenneth Crabb, GM, proud member of His or Her Majesty’s Royal Navy and the Secret Intelligence Service of the Realm.”

  Harold nodded.