The Windsor Protocol

by Peter MacAlan

  “Well,” Patterson drew deeply on his cigarette, “get me a cup of tea, Mickey, and I’ll see what I can do with this.” He gestured at the envelope.

  The lad departed and Patterson drew the envelope towards him, opened it and scanned the operator’s broadcast transcription. Absently he drew across the code book for Lisbon agents and began to check the message. As he began to get engrossed in the work, his gaze became fixed, his mind fully concentrated on the task. He did not even notice when the boy returned with his cup of tea.

  It was half-an-hour later when he completed the decoding of the text and sat staring at it with an incredulous expression. A moment later he had bundled the papers into the envelope and hastened down the corridor to an office door marked “Director”.

  Without preamble, Patterson burst into the room. The elderly, white-haired, military looking man glanced up in annoyance. Before he had time to express his irritation, Patterson thrust the envelope at him.

  “Read this, sir.”

  The director drew out the papers and read through Patterson’s decoded form.

  Then he whistled softly. The gesture seemed at odds with his personality and a measure of the impact of the information he was examining.

  “All right, Patterson. I’ll attend to this now.”

  Reluctantly, Jack Patterson withdrew.

  The director pressed an intercom.

  “I want a motorcycle messenger to go to Caxton House at once. Top priority,” he snapped.

  Then he took out a stronger envelope marked “Top Secret; Eyes Only”. He scribbled a set of initials underneath and then thrust the papers Patterson had brought him into the envelope and sealed it. He placed it into a special leather briefcase with a lock.

  Within ten minutes a uniformed military motorcyclist was racing through the growing twilight of the streets of central London towards Caxton House, headquarters of MI5, British military intelligence.

  At ten o’clock that evening a military staff car drew up outside No 10 Downing Street. Two officers, a colonel and a lieutenant, were admitted without question. A short while later they both sat nervously and upright on two chairs in the ante-room to the Prime Minister’s study. Beyond the closed door they could hear the indistinct murmur of voices, though now and again the voices were drowned by the sound of the rattle of a Bofors gun from Admiralty Arch to remind them that there was still an air-raid taking place.

  Prime Minister Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill, sat back in a worn leather armchair, a glass of whisky and water in one hand, a large Havana cigar protruding from his mouth. He was clad in his favourite dark blue siren-suit with the zipper front. His usually pink, cherubic face was pale. Deep frown lines creased his brow. His lips were compressed. There were two other men in the room seated opposite him on the far side of the large oak desk. The atmosphere of nervous tension was evident by the way the two men were perched forward on the edge of their chairs.

  “I suppose we can be sure that these communications are genuine?” asked the elder of the two seated before the Prime Minster. He was a broad-shouldered man. Doctor Hugh Dalton was the newly appointed Minister for Economic Warfare. His title disguised the fact that he was in charge of most foreign intelligence operations.

  Churchill removed his cigar and grunted.

  “We can rest assured that the source is impeccable.”

  Dalton leant forward and picked up the transcriptions which were the subject of their animated conversation.

  “Who is this Silva?” he asked.

  It was his seated companion who answered, a tall, languid man looking like a stereotype aristocrat from the pages of a Wodehouse novel. Lord Skenfrith, in his mid-forties, tended to outwardly exhibit the mannerisms of a bon vivant. Yet his carriage, the hardened muscles beneath his well-cut Saville Row suit, and the sharpness of his blue eyes, which he usually kept hooded, betrayed the fact that he was physically and mentally alert. Until recently he had been an officer in one of the Guards battalions. Unkind colleagues whispered that he was trying to model himself on film actor Leslie Howard’s portrayal of Baroness Orczy’s foppish hero, Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Skenfrith was, in fact, head of security coordination for prominent personalities of state, including the Royal family.

  “Ricardo Espirito Silva is a Portuguese banker. He is a known Nazi sympathizer and, unfortunately, has become a friend of the His Royal Highness. It was Silva who acted as host to the Duke and his wife while they were in Lisbon.”

  “So,” Dalton scanned the paper. “No sooner does the Duke land in Bermuda, en route for the Bahamas, than he telegraphs to this Nazi sympathizer asking him to contact him as soon as it becomes necessary for the Duke to act…whatever that may mean. Act in what manner? And what would make such action necessary?”

  “It can only mean one thing when you read the second telegram sent by the German ambassador in Lisbon to his masters in Berlin,” replied Churchill.

  Dalton took up the paper again and cleared his throat: “Hoynigen-Huene’s message to von Ribbentrop reads: ‘The confidant has just received a telegram from the Duke in Bermuda asking him to report as soon as it may become necessary for him to act. Should anything be sent in reply?’”

  Skenfrith prompted, though he already knew the answer: “And von Ribbentrop’s reply?”

  Once again Dalton read the message.

  “It is directly from von Ribbentrop to the German ambassador in Lisbon. It reads: ‘Tell him to stand ready to return. A friend will make arrangements.’ That’s all.”

  There was a brief silence.

  Churchill placed his glass on the desk top, making a sound like the growl of an angry bear.

  “All? It’s enough and, sadly, all too clear. I have known His Royal Highness since he was a boy. Been proud to count myself as his friend. I was shouted down in the Commons when I pleaded for the House to allow His Majesty, as he then was, more time to reflect upon the situation and more time before Baldwin pressured him into an abdication. I cast about for every lawful means, even the most forlorn, to keep him on the throne of his fathers. So, believe me, I do not speak lightly. It grieves me to see His Royal Highness manipulated by the enemies of this country — his country.”

  “The Duke has never made any secret of his views with regard to this war,” Dalton pointed out. “We know that he has been in favour of a negotiated settlement between ourselves and the Germans. And it is hardly a state secret that he is even known to admire the German Fuhrer.”

  Churchill gave a snort of derision but made no comment.

  It was Skenfrith who shook his head slowly. His long, elegant features were mournful.

  “There are many members of the Prime Minister’s own party who argue in favour of negotiations with Germany as a means to avoid an all out catastrophe of the kind which has befallen France and, indeed, most of the countries of Europe. Indeed, there are many people in prominent positions in this country who have been more than sympathetic to the creed of Fascism. So far, we have not made it a crime to argue for a negotiated peace. That is one thing, however, but the inference here is that His Royal Highness is actually negotiating with the enemy on his own account. That idea is preposterous.”

  Dalton looked disdainfully at Skenfrith.

  “Not so preposterous, my lord. The Duke has been reported to have been in communication with agents of the Third Reich for some time…even going back to his ill-advised visit to Germany just after his abdication. He is obviously still in communication. The question is — to what purpose? To what end?”

  “Well, gentlemen…?” Churchill looked from one to the other of them. “You have the facts as we know them. What are your recommendations?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  Churchill waited a while and then broke the silence with a sigh of exasperation.

  “I’m afraid you are of little help to me, gentlemen,” he said.

  Dalton raised his shoulders and let them fall in a curious gesture of indecisio
n.

  “Prime Minister, you are a friend of His Royal Highness, surely he would listen to you…?” his voice trailed off as Churchill frowned.

  “What do you suggest?” demanded Churchill, eyes narrowing on the man. “That I fly out to Bermuda and take His Royal Highness aside and smack his hands?”

  “You could make the Duke see some sense about this matter,” replied the Minister defensively.

  Churchill stuck out his lower lip in a belligerent gesture which conveyed his irritation.

  “The facts are simple, gentlemen. The situation remains exactly as it was before His Royal Highness left Lisbon. The man is besotted and is being wrongly advised. I will concede that he has always wanted the best for his country but he is now blind to what our best interests are. His judgment has become impaired since he abdicated and left these shores. In the knowledge of these facts, he was appointed Governor of the Bahamas to get him out of harm’s way — to get him out of Europe. You, gentlemen, are aware of the necessity behind the Duke’s appointment to the Bahamas. He caused us great anxiety in delaying his departure for the Bahamas and staying in Spain and Portugal where we know that he had dealings with Nazi agents. We resolved then that His Royal Highness must not be allowed, willingly or unwillingly, to fall into German hands. Both you gentlemen will know the orders that were issued then to our operatives in Lisbon?”

  Both Dalton and Skenfrith stirred uncomfortably and made gestures of assent.

  “Very well,” continued the Prime Minister. “Then I do not see that anything has changed except a matter of geographical location. This country is being faced by its greatest test of endurance — Europe has fallen to the scourge of Nazidom — Hitler is now poised with a great armada to invade this island. The Nazis stand just twenty-two miles from our coast. They are preparing the mightiest invasion this island has ever seen — not the Romans, the Normans, the Spanish of Philip nor Napoleon’s French ever gathered in such numbers to encompass their designs. Already the Luftwaffe are throwing everything they have at us in an attempt to gain supremacy of the air.

  “We stand here prepared to go down fighting in the ruins of Whitehall if need be. His Majesty, as you know, Skenfrith, has made a shooting range in the garden of Buckingham Palace at which he and other members of his family and equerries practice assiduously with pistols and tommy-guns. We are prepared for the greatest test our country has ever had to face. And we will fight to the last.”

  Churchill paused and, reaching forward, seized the documents and waved them before their faces.

  “Now we have…this! Not only are we to be attacked from without but subverted from within. This must not be allowed to go further. Rather than contemplate the catastrophe which must surely follow if His Royal Highness was made a tool of the Nazis, he must be eliminated.”

  Skenfrith blinked and sat bolt upright.

  “Prime Minister,” he said slowly, “it is surely one thing to ensure that His Royal Highness did not fall into German hands in Europe, but another thing to assassinate him while he is in the safety of the Bahamas. To assassinate a former King of England while he is acting in the capacity of Governor of a Crown Colony would be too heinous a crime to contemplate. I presume that is what you are suggesting? Why the repercussions…”

  “I am trying to make myself absolutely clear, gentlemen,” interrupted the Prime Minister gruffly. “So long as His Royal Highness stays in the Bahamas and carries out his duties as Governor, then he shall be protected. But if there is any attempt to remove him, with or without his consent, and transport him to German territory, then that attempt must be thwarted at all costs. At all costs!” He brought his fist down on the table with a crash which made both men jump. “That means, as I have just said, if there is no other choice, His Royal Highness must be eliminated.”

  Lord Skenfrith bit his lip. He was obviously far from happy.

  “With due respect. Prime Minister, I think this is a matter which can only go forward with the permission of His Majesty.”

  There was another long silence.

  Churchill fixed his bright eyes on Skenfrith. For a few moments their gaze held, as if locked in a silent contest. Then Churchill reached for a phone with a grim expression.

  “Get me Buckingham Palace,” he snapped in the mouthpiece. “Request an immediate audience with His Majesty for myself. Lord Skenfrith and Dr Dalton. Say that it is an urgent matter of state.”

  He replaced the receiver and stuck his cigar aggressively in the corner of his mouth.

  “Does that satisfy you, my lord?”

  “It does, Prime Minister.”

  Dalton cleared his throat.

  “Should His Majesty support the general course of action, Prime Minister, what of the specifics?”

  Churchill swung round to the Minister for Economic Warfare.

  “This is your baby, Hugh. You can organise your cloak and dagger boys to send someone to the Bahamas to take care of things. One thing is certain. Ribbentrop’s reply means that the Nazis already have, a plan to remove his Royal Highness from the islands. The man you send must get to the islands within the next few days. That means priority travel, not waiting for the next shipping convoy or some neutral ship.”

  “That may be difficult, Prime Minister,” sighed Dalton. “But I’ll brief Colonel Grand. The matter would come under the aegis of Section D or one of its sub-sections.”

  Churchill waved his cigar dismissively.

  “It is your baby,” he repeated with emphasis. “But whoever Grand chooses to carry out the task, he must have particular qualities. He must have no qualms about the possibility of eliminating His Royal Highness and Grand must be able to ensure his man can keep his mouth shut afterwards. There must be no loose ends about this. The consequences for the monarchy would be too dreadful to contemplate.”

  The telephone shrilled on his desk. He picked it up, listened a moment, grunted and replaced it.

  “Right, gentlemen, let us get over to the Palace and see whether we have approval for this action.”

  CHAPTER IV

  Friday, August 16, 1940

  A distant clock was chiming the hour of eight when Jimmy Conroy turned off the broad thoroughfare of Baker Street, into a small side turning, and drew his green, open top Aston Martin 2 Litre Speed Model, to a halt. The four cylinder, 15 h.p., two-seater, capable of a top speed of 100 m.p.h., still drew covetous glances from onlookers even though the car was now three years old. It had cost Conroy £775 then and he still did not begrudge the annual £11 5s. he had to pay in tax for its possession. The car was more than a means of moving from one point to another. It was his toy, a badge of his individuality.

  The morning rush-hour was already beginning and the city was awakening to wearily assess the damage and casualties of the raids of the evening before. A grey-black pall of smoke still hung over the southern outskirts of the city, its acrid taste, wafted on the wind, drying the throats of the people as they scurried to work. It was easy to spot those who lived near the outlying military airfields, Northolt, Hendon, Hornchurch, Gravesend, West Mailing, Biggin Hill, Kenley and Croydon. They were red-eyed and their faces wore the results of the strain of being forced to live under a new set of circumstances. It was no easy thing to get used to the rain of incendiaries and high explosives, the ceaseless cannonade of the ack-ack guns and the nightmarish glare of hundreds of fires which engulfed the ring of outlying suburbs of the capital in the wake of the Luftwaffe’s passing. So far, the Luftwaffe were striking only at the airfields around London. German propaganda had laid great stress on informing everyone that the Fuhrer himself had issued specific orders that London was not to be bombed as Warsaw had been. Only military airfields were to be targeted.

  The news on the wireless this morning reported that the RAF were claiming 90 German aircraft had been shot down or damaged for only 43 of their own. But the best news of all was that morning had brought rain clouds with it, which covered most of the country. Rain clouds meant protection, a respite f
rom the heavy raids of previous days.

  Conroy climbed out of his Aston Martin and locked it. He was a tall, sandy-haired man with blue eyes and open, boyish features. A casual observer might have assessed his age in the mid-twenties until they looked more closely. In fact, Conroy was thirty-five years old. Under his unobtrusive civilian suit, he carried himself with the grace of an athlete; with the tanned, erect figure of a man more at home in the outdoors, yet more wiry than muscular.

  He strolled casually back into Baker Street and paused a moment to light a cigarette. Baker Street. He grinned to himself in cynical amusement. Rather a curious place to locate the headquarters of a division of British intelligence. Any literate German spy ought to be able to work out that it was an obvious place for cloak and dagger mysteries. Such a spy could easily observe the strange comings and goings from No 64, for example. But then it might take the ghost of Baker Street’s most famous literary resident to make the right deductions. Conroy could almost see the shades of Sherlock Holmes and his biographer, Dr John Watson, halting their Hansom cab so that Holmes’ unerring eye could examine the building.

  He turned along the road and passed Norgeby House, with its black plaque outside, engraved with gold letters: “Inter-Services Research Bureau”. Already men and women in various uniforms, denoting numerous countries, were entering and leaving the building. Conroy sniffed disapprovingly. The German agent, literate or not, who could overlook such activity was an idiot and his own experiences showed that the Abwehr, German military intelligence, at least, were no idiots.