The More Deceived

by David Roberts

  In the taxi, Edward wished he had telephoned to say he could not come to dinner after all. His mind was entirely on his trip to Spain and he doubted he would be able to concentrate on what Churchill had to say about the state of the world. However, in the event, it did not prove to be an altogether wasted evening. As Marcus Fern had said, it was an all-male gathering. Apart from himself and Fern, Churchill had invited Sir Vida Chandra, a scientist called Robert Watson-Watt and his adviser on scientific affairs, Professor Lindemann. The latter proved to be a most eccentric character – tall, balding and opinionated, he was a vegetarian, non-smoking teetotaller. He did not seem to mind that Churchill drank champagne throughout dinner after which he smoked a Havana cigar with a large brandy and soda.

  Edward had decided to keep his head down and say nothing, which he managed quite successfully until he was eating his Dover sole. Churchill was sounding off about Republican atrocities in Spain. His sympathies seemed to lie more with General Franco than with the Republic which he saw as a tool of the Soviet Union. Edward, who had been in Spain when Franco had plunged the country into civil war, agreed that the Communists, under orders from Moscow, were almost certainly taking over the direction of the war in the name of the legitimate Republican government but that Italy and Germany’s involvement on Franco’s side was much more worrying.

  ‘You see Germany using Spain as a rehearsal for the wider European war to come, do you?’ Churchill asked.

  ‘I do, sir. We did not stand up to Mussolini in Abyssinia or to Japan in Manchuria. Now we leave Hitler a free hand in the Iberian peninsula. Hitler must think we are sending him the clearest message – that we have neither the will nor the means to resist him.’

  ‘And you are going to Spain tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes. I hardly know why, to be honest with you. I feel some crisis is coming to a head there and wish to see how my friend, the journalist Verity Browne, is managing to report the war. I also wish to locate James Lyall. He is the son of Desmond Lyall, the Foreign Office man who was murdered.’

  ‘Lyall, yes indeed. That’s a bad business. It must be connected, don’t you think, with the death of that poor fellow Westmacott? I can confirm to you, now that it can do him no harm, what I think you already know. From time to time he supplied me with invaluable information about the lamentable state of our defences. He was a patriot and I trust his efforts on my behalf did not contribute to his murder. I don’t know about Lyall. He was Westmacott’s head of department, wasn’t he? Van told me there was a nasty smell in the department and you were going to find out its source.’ There was a pause but Edward chose to say nothing. ‘You must find out who did it, Corinth – both murders. It is essential that the lives of the people who help me are not put in danger. Do you think Westmacott was the victim of a Nazi killer?’

  ‘I cannot yet say who killed either man but I intend to find out.’

  Everyone round the table looked at him but he refused to expatiate.

  The only other time that Edward was drawn out of his silence was when, after coffee was served and they had moved into the drawing-room, Lindemann and Watson-Watt got to talking about Bawdsey Manor of which, apparently, Watson-Watt was Superintendent.

  ‘Before Bawdsey was taken over by the government,’ Churchill said meditatively, ‘it was owned by a charming fellow, Cuthbert Quilter – a brother or cousin of the composer. It was a delightful place. But that’s all in the past, I fear. It’s a place of war now. Bring us up to date with what you’re up to, Bob.’

  Either they had no concept of security or a touching faith in the probity of their fellow guests for they held nothing back. Edward glanced at Churchill but he appeared unconcerned, sucking at his cigar and gulping his brandy. He was remembering happier days. Edward decided he might as well take advantage of the situation and learn something about Bawdsey. Major Ferguson would never tell him anything. Lindemann was being very critical of the Tizard Committee, the government’s official advisory body on scientific matters. He had had an idea for aerial mines supported on parachutes and was angry that the government refused to set aside funds to develop and test the idea. It sounded a mad scheme to Edward but he told himself he was no expert.

  ‘That’s all very well, Bob,’ Lindemann said, when Watson-Watt echoed Edward’s doubts, ‘but you’ve come up with a host of ideas – some of which have proved unworkable while others have been invaluable. You can’t tell till you have done some basic research. I mean, who would have guessed that your “death ray” was not some wild fancy dreamed up by H.G. Wells?’

  Edward caught a look on Sir Vida’s face which, though he immediately controlled himself, was recognizable as avid interest and intense excitement. He thought that, despite his junior position among these distinguished men, he must alert them to the danger of talking freely about secret scientific work.

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, Professor Lindemann, but ought you to discuss such experiments here? Might not one of us inadvertently drop some hint of what Mr Watson-Watt is working on when we are at some other dining table and thereby enlighten someone who ought not to be enlightened?’

  ‘You are right to remind us of our responsibilities,’ Churchill interjected, ‘but I can personally vouch for everyone round this table. We can speak freely here. Please go on, Bob.’

  Edward felt he had made his protest and could now listen to what Watson-Watt had to say with a clear conscience.

  ‘It’s nothing new. As long ago as 1922 Marconi proposed to detect ships by means of reflected radio waves. In 1931 the Signals Experimental Establishment at Woolwich invented a pulsed radio system on a wavelength of about 50 centimetres for detecting ships and the Normandie has a similar system for detecting icebergs.’

  ‘But your experiments have gone much further than that?’ Sir Vida urged.

  ‘Indeed. Early in 1935 I used radio waves from one of the transmitters at Daventry in the 49 metre band to target a Heyford bomber flying at 10,000 feet. It was successful and I was then able to develop what we now call radiolocation. At Croydon Aerodrome I was able to detect an Imperial Airways aircraft using infra-red rays. However, the Tizard Committee would not believe there was anything in the idea and, despite Lindemann’s encouragement, I wasn’t at that time able to prove that infra-red could be viable.’

  Watson-Watt broke off almost in mid-sentence as though suddenly recalling where he was – at a dinner table in a politician’s flat, not in his laboratory.

  ‘However, Lord Edward is right. It would be wrong of me to go into any great detail at this time. My experiments are proving most interesting and I hope to have something ready for the Tizard Committee by the end of the year. I can say no more.’

  ‘But why not?’ Lindemann demanded. ‘There are no spies here.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting there were but we all need to be careful. There was a so-called journalist named Dr Hans Thost, the correspondent of the Völkische Beobachter, in the lab a few months ago. I found him examining my experiments. Damn cheek! Don’t know how he got in.’

  ‘What happened?’ Edward asked.

  ‘I spun him a cock-and-bull story about what I was working on and, when he was gone, reported him to the authorities. I am glad to say he was deported by the Home Office a few days later. I have no doubt there are many other spies masquerading as journalists and whatnot who have not yet been deported, so we owe it to ourselves to be careful about what we say.’

  Edward was frustrated not to hear more from the scientist about his work but relieved that Watson-Watt had pulled himself up. He knew he might well be wronging Sir Vida but felt in his bones that the man was untrustworthy and even wondered if Churchill himself might not prove too talkative in his cups. He was certain Churchill would never knowingly betray any of the secrets with which he had been entrusted by men like Watson-Watt or Westmacott but both Major Ferguson and Vansittart had called him unpredictable and impetuous.

  Edward made his excuses soon after and left the others to talk into the nigh
t. He had an early start the next morning – or rather, he saw, looking at his watch, this morning – and he was far from certain it would prove an easy journey.

  When he got home Fenton was still up.

  ‘A good dinner-party, my lord?’ he inquired, as he relieved his master of his coat.

  ‘Instructive, Fenton, certainly instructive. Each time I meet Mr Churchill, I find him more fascinating. I am inclined to think, despite his age and his record, that he may still have work to do.’

  ‘That is most interesting, my lord.’

  ‘Have you booked my flight?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. You leave Croydon for Le Bourget at ten. Then you are booked on the Blue Train through to Marseilles. There you will have a plane waiting to take you over the border but I understand there is no guarantee of how near to Madrid you can get.’

  ‘Very good. As efficient as ever, Fenton.’

  ‘Will you want me to drive you to Croydon, my lord?’

  ‘If you don’t mind. I have no idea how or when I will return. I would like to be back in London in ten days but I will wire you when I know exactly what my plans are.’

  10

  In the morning Edward was still in an odd mood but his feverish anxiety had given way to a brand of fatalism which left him listless and unable to concentrate. It was a good thing Fenton was driving or he might never have reached Croydon Aerodrome. A few moments before they left the telephone had rung and Edward had almost not answered it, fearing it might be an order from Vansittart or Ferguson to delay his trip. It was fortunate that he had, however. It was Atkins from the New Gazette’s foreign desk.

  ‘I am so relieved to have reached you before you left for Spain, Lord Edward. I feared I might be too late.’

  ‘Well, you are not too late,’ Edward said ungratefully, ‘but I’ll miss the plane if I don’t go this minute so, if you have anything to tell me, get on with it.’

  ‘Sorry, my lord,’ Atkins said in confusion. ‘I only wished to report that we had a wire from Miss Browne late last night. It appears she is now in Bilbao following up on some story. It was a very brief message. She said she was staying at a hotel called Torrontegui.’ He spelt it out for him. ‘No further details, I’m afraid, but no doubt you will find it if you decide to go there. But I should warn you, my lord, that our information is that Bilbao is under constant bombardment and that the port is mined so no ships can enter or leave. In other words, the city is besieged.’

  ‘Thank you for your concern but I can look after myself.’ He recognized he was being ungracious – after all, if Atkins had not bothered to telephone, he might have embarked on a long and dangerous wild-goose chase. ‘I’m most grateful,’ he managed, before putting down the receiver and joining Fenton in the Lagonda.

  Each passenger was called by name and walked out of the terminal and across the grass to the waiting aircraft. The other fifteen passengers included a famous actress and a millionaire motorcar manufacturer. Wrapped in his own dark imaginings, Edward saw neither. There were no tarmac runways at the aerodrome and, as the plane bounced over the uneven turf, he wondered momentarily if he would reach France, let alone Spain. At least Bilbao was much nearer the French border than Madrid but how he was to get into the city, if it really was besieged, he had no idea. He closed his eyes. The main thing was that he was off. He was obeying this extraordinary compulsion to get to Verity and defend her against some unnamed, unknowable threat. It was mad. He knew it was something he could never explain, not even to Verity, but he also knew he would find no peace until he held her in his arms and – like doubting Thomas – felt for himself that she was safe. She lived in danger. Given her job, that was inevitable and he had long ago reconciled himself to it. So why could he not rid himself of the fear that she was in some special danger? It was an almost anamnestic experience – as though he had lived it all before. He grinned to himself, his eyes still closed, and the motorcar millionaire wondered idly of what girl this hawkish-looking Englishman was dreaming.

  At Le Bourget he scrambled into a taxi and was taken to the British Embassy in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. The ambassador was away but a competent attaché went over his papers and added two more letters designed to ease his passage over the French border into Spain. The young man from the embassy insisted on his eating and, since there was nothing to do until the Blue Train – the famous overnight train to the Spanish border – departed in four hours, they had a long, late luncheon at the Colisée on the Champs Elysées.

  The Gare d’Orsay was all confusion and Edward was most grateful to have the attaché at his side to summon a blue-smocked porter and see him to the sleeping-car. To cries of ‘En voiture s’il vous plaît’, they shook hands warmly and Edward sank back in his seat, thankful at last to be on his own. He glanced at his newspaper, Paris Soir, but tossed it aside almost at once and stared out of the window at the last-minute hubbub of parents parting from children, husbands from wives, and lovers weeping in each other’s arms. Finally, just when it seemed to him that his journey would never begin, with a whistle and a hiss of steam the great train pulled out of the station.

  A moment later an attentive steward knocked on the door of the compartment to ask whether he would be dining in the dining-car or preferred to eat something where he was. The steward fussed around him showing him how to work the lights and checking he had everything he needed. In another mood – with Verity beside him, perhaps – the palaver would have amused him. He enjoyed being pampered, but now he became irritated and the steward hastily retreated. Fenton had put a book in his bag – Our Mutual Friend – but after a few pages he gave up Dickens in favour of watching the little stations flash by with their advertisements for Michelin, Dubonnet, Gitanes and Gauloises. The inspector, smart in his blue uniform and peaked cap, demanded ‘Votre billet s’il vous plaît’ and was impressed by the English milord with his perfect French, smoking Turkish cigarettes and seemingly deep in thought.

  Edward remained in a dream until they reached the Spanish border. At dinner, he failed to notice that the self-proclaimed Russian princess, dispossessed by the Bolsheviks, so she said, was propositioning him. Dismayed that her allure had failed to fascinate this aristocratic Englishman, she comforted herself with the thought that he was probably un voluptueux and, like most of his class, a follower of le vice anglais. Even when, in desperation, she spilt wine on him, he had merely favoured her with a slight bow and returned to his compartment. He slept well enough but awoke before the steward called him and was ready to disembark as soon as the train whistled itself to a halt at Hendaye.

  It was then that his problems began. The border was closed and, despite waving his passport in front of several senior officials, he was told there was no possibility of his crossing. He was recommended to pass the time on the beautiful beaches and wait, but for what no one could tell him. The delay maddened him and made him ready for any effort, however desperate.

  He went into town, found a disreputable-looking garage, and bribed the owner to show him another way to cross into Spain. Some miles inland, there was, apparently, a frontier post called Dancharia. Little more than a village, the local farmers were permitted to use it to take their produce into Spain. He bought a motorcycle from the garage owner and, with the aid of an inadequate map, found his way to Dancharia. He had a beer in a small café close to the border crossing and watched the world go by. It was a peaceful sight – local peasant farmers dressed, he imagined, much as their grandfathers and great-grandfathers before them, in smocks with pattens on their feet, drove their animals through the centre of town towards the frontier. Everyone knew everyone and the farmers were waved through with the minimum of documentation. There was a no-man’s land of a few yards and then the Spanish frontier. Again, there seemed to be very little delay in passing the barrier – a brief look at papers and then the single beam which barred the road was raised by a bored offical.

  Edward contemplated just walking over the frontier. After all, he had his passport an
d his documentation was in order. However, his instinct told him that, whereas a local farmer bringing much-needed food would not be turned away, an Englishman with no obvious reason for being in Spain might well be hauled in for questioning or even arrested as a spy. He could not risk it. With his heart in his mouth, he walked back to his motorbike, rode it to within a hundred yards of the frontier, waited until the barriers were up on both sides of the frontier to let through a farm wagon, revved up the engine and sped through, ignoring the shouts of protest from the guards.

  As he accelerated hard up empty roads into the Pyrenees, he threw back his head and let out a scream of pleasure at being relieved from intolerable frustration. Several miles further on he halted, suddenly aware of the danger he was in. He had a sketchy map of the area and enough petrol to take him between fifty and a hundred miles, depending on the speed he chose to go. He was far from certain which of the warring parties controlled the area but he reckoned that, if he were stopped by either side, he might be sent back over the frontier or, more likely, shot as a spy regardless of the papers he carried. His only hope was to reach Bilbao by nightfall and claim the protection of the British Consul who could regularize his position in the country.

  He suddenly felt inordinately hungry and thirsty. He cursed himself for being in so much of a dream that he had not thought to bring with him some of the food which had been thrust on him on the train and so contemptuously spurned. And those elegant blue bottles of water in his compartment – how idiotic not to have put two or three in his bag. He laid his bike on the grass and walked up to the top of a knoll and looked about him. He saw first a creek and, beyond that, a rough stone hovel which he presumed must be some sort of peasant farm. Crouching low over the broken ground to avoid being seen, he reached the creek and slaked his thirst. It was then that he heard the dogs. He stood up and looked down toward the hovel. What he saw had him staring about him wild-eyed.There were at least six of the brutes, as big as Alsatians but of indeterminate breed. Their tongues lolled out of their mouths and, as they loped towards him, Edward realized there was only one thing to do and that was run.