Spy’s Honour

by Gavin Lyall

  Ranklin said conversationally: “Naturellement, vous avez préparé beaucoup de l’eau chaude?”

  The doctor turned ice-white in the yellow lamplight, waggled his beard, and rushed off to speak to one of the women. No hot water at a duel! Mon Dieu! Shame and dishonour!

  In fact, it was a serious matter: if the doctor hadn’t realised that somebody was about to get hurt, probably badly, it was time he did. The General poked his way back with his stick and asked what had happened.

  “He had forgotten to prepare hot water.”

  The General apologised. Ranklin stared at the starless sky as if asking God, that well-known Englishman, to forgive this foreign bumbling, and said curtly: “C’est de rien.”

  “My principal,” the General puffed, leaning on his stick, “regrets that he cannot change his apology. The matter of the code is not connected.”

  Ranklin shrugged. “So, the moment this affaire is settled, you will order your servants to assault us. I am not familiar with this custom, but I am your guest.” He gave that a moment to seep in, then: “Now, to the procedure for the encounter.”

  They agreed that the combatants would stand with bayonet tips touching – just like a sword fight – and begin on Sergeant Clement’s word. As to finishing …

  “First blood?” suggested the General.

  “Only if the one who bleeds wishes to stop.”

  “It is honourable …”

  “Our principals are not young ladies of a seminary.”

  They left it at that. The two principals were called to the centre and each took a rifle. Ranklin promptly grabbed O’Gilroy’s and began examining it as they walked back. He felt it wasn’t seemly for O’Gilroy to do so, and anyway, he didn’t want O’Gilroy showing off his familiarity with weapons.

  “Suspicious?” O’Gilroy asked as Ranklin tested the firmness of the bayonet fitting.

  “I’m learning. It may not be the same rifle.”

  “I fancy ye was giving the General some of yer English-officer talk. I saw the moths flying out of his ears.”

  Ranklin smiled sourly. “Just a few points of etiquette.”

  “How come ye know so much about duelling, Captain?”

  It comes with the dream, Ranklin wanted to say. And there was plenty of Army folklore about old duels, famous and infamous, but: “Most of it’s bluff. Just try to sound more honourable and fair than he is, take off your hat a lot, and you can get away with – with anything. One thing,” he added quickly, “is that generally duels end at the first blood, even just a scratch. Now, I’m not giving any advice …”

  But O’Gilroy’s face showed he had already taken it.

  The wind still huffed from the open side of the yard where the cars were parked on the edge of the night, and the closed lamps didn’t flicker but glowed and dimmed slightly, throwing multiple shadows on the glitter of the damp cobbles. Except for Sergeant Clement, standing alone and very soldierly in the middle of the yard, the staff clustered round the main door with the doctor in front trying to be invisible but visibly not a servant. Above, the house got darker with height until its turret roofs were just black peaks against the thick grey sky.

  Their boots echoed unevenly as they gathered round Sergeant Clement. Ranklin looked at Gunther but Gunther was watching O’Gilroy, his face expressionless, holding the long rifle lightly in his big hands.

  Ranklin raised his hat. “Your principal offers no apology?”

  The General raised his. “None.”

  Ranklin nodded, they replaced their hats and stepped well back. The General looked at Sergeant Clement, who said softly: “En garde, Messieurs.”

  O’Gilroy slid smoothly into position, not quite crouched, left foot forward. More precisely, Gunther mirrored his stance, the length of the rifles keeping them a good six feet apart, the bayonets pointing slightly up towards each other’s eyes. The points touched with a little click.

  “Commencez.”

  There was a quick clattering flurry of bayonets and an indrawn squeal from one of the women, but they had barely moved their feet and neither had committed himself to a real thrust. Only the professional watchers saw that Gunther had been trying to knock aside O’Gilroy’s bayonet to create an opening, and each time O’Gilroy had disengaged and parried instantly.

  Then Gunther took a quick step back out of range and they began a shuffling circle to the right. Their many shadows stretched and shortened, darkened and vanished, as they rotated through the pools of light.

  And now, Ranklin thought contentedly, Gunther knows. For probably the first time in what must have been a very complicated career, he is up against a man who very simply wants to kill him and can do so within a few seconds. No careful plot, no disguise or false identity can help one gramme against a common soldier’s skill.

  Gunther took another step back, then charged. He met O’Gilroy’s parry with a savage sideways swipe, but O’Gilroy was already jerking his rifle down, so the impetus of the swipe took Gunther’s point way off as he rushed in. Unable to pull back for a thrust, O’Gilroy pivoted the rifle and whacked the flat of the butt into Gunther’s stomach – the butt-stroke he had used on the butler at Queenstown.

  Gunther sprawled past and came down with a thump and clatter at the General’s feet. Trying to step back, the General went down as well, while Clement and Ranklin shouted and O’Gilroy checked his instinctive downward stab into Gunther’s back. On the battlefield, Gunther was dead.

  Between them Ranklin and Sergeant Clement got the quivering General up and propped on his stick. The doctor waved an eye-watering little bottle under the General’s nose, Gaston the butler put a glass into the old boy’s hand and guided it to his mouth. Then Clement levered Gunther up and brushed him down, and O’Gilroy stood alone, dangling the Lebel easily but unmilitarily across his thighs.

  When he had recovered enough to speak, the General spluttered: “That was not a noble coup.”

  “It was bayonet-fighting,” Ranklin said.

  Sergeant Clement looked at O’Gilroy, then Ranklin, and said coldly: “Never a soldier, hein?” and went back to reassembling Humpty Dumpty.

  “I thought your cigar-peddler did pretty well, too,” Ranklin said to the General, but loud enough for Gunther and Clement. “Must be his training as a salesman. Much the same thing as bayonet-fighting, don’t you think – sticking people with something they don’t want?”

  The General turned away, unamused, and Ranklin took out his watch. It was now over two hours since Mrs Finn had driven off for Rouen, which wasn’t much more than twenty miles away, by his guess.

  He walked back to O’Gilroy, who had slipped his jacket back over his shoulders and was doing a shuffling dance step to keep warm.

  “Are we going on, Captain?”

  “I think so. How’s Gunther doing?”

  “He knows the game. Some officers have to.” As a Gunner, supposed to despise rifles and rifle drills (it was odd how much time the military spent despising other parts of itself) it hadn’t occurred to Ranklin that bayonet training couldn’t just be left to sergeant instructors. If a soldier got punctured, there would have to be some officer who knew enough about it all to confuse a court of inquiry at least.

  Clement was calling them back to the centre of the courtyard again. “When he goes down this time,” O’Gilroy said, “ye grab hold of his rifle and we’ll both go for the Sergeant. That pistol in his pocket’s enough key for any door at all.”

  Gunther was already in position, his shirt smudged with mud and now a dogged hatred shining through his spectacles.

  “Commencez.”

  This time, Gunther let O’Gilroy make the moves, and after a moment of fencing, O’Gilroy backed off and began circling left, as if looking for an opening on Gunther’s right. It is easy to swing a rifle to your left, across your body, but far harder to swing right because the butt jams on your right hip. Gunther had to keep turning.

  Then O’Gilroy thrust to draw a parry, disengaged and thrust fo
r real, his bayonet skidding down the stock of Gunther’s rifle – and then he stopped, tried to recover, and Gunther’s bayonet slashed across his forearm.

  “Dégagéz!” ordered Sergeant Clement.

  “First blood,” the General grunted happily.

  Ranklin rushed up to O’Gilroy, who was swearing down at his left arm as if it were some cheap, faulty piece of machinery. The cut was neither long nor deep but was bleeding showily.

  “Tie the damn thing up.”

  The doctor arrived with his bag and started fussing. “Monsieur est blessé.”

  “If he means I’m lucky, tell him …”

  “He means you’re blessé, wounded.”

  “Jayzus, I know that. Tell him to tie it up.”

  “Why did you check?”

  “Because I’d have cut his hand and given him first blood and calling it all off.” He stared angrily at the little group around Gunther. “We’re going on, Captain. Tell them that.”

  “I’ll talk to the General.” He saw that the doctor knew more or less what he was up to, and walked across the courtyard.

  “It is completed honourably,” the General said.

  “Really?” Ranklin exaggerated his surprise. “We agreed, you recall, that the one who was wounded would decide that.” Gunther looked sharply at the General. Ranklin pressed on: “Of course, I can understand that your principal would prefer to escape without either harm or honour, but may I express my sympathy, mon Général, that your King should be represented by so timid a champion?”

  If you, Herr Gunther, can play on the old warrior’s muddle-headedness, then so can I.

  The General’s face cleared and his shoulders tried to square themselves. “Your principal desires to continue?”

  “He feels that his honour demands it.” And if I live through tonight, he thought, I shall never be able to use the word “honour” again without thinking what I really mean by it.

  But then there was the clatter of a motor-car engine and a moving glow behind the east wing. The police, Ranklin thought, and thank God for that. It’s all going to need some explaining, but now nobody’s going to get killed.

  The lights flared in his eyes and, squinting, it seemed to him to be a small yellow Renault just like the one Mrs Finn had …

  She was out before the engine had died, her glare searching the throng and fixing on Ranklin. “You! Yes, you. What the hell do you mean by giving me your stupid code book? D’you think I’m a God-damned messenger for your God-damned British Empire? That got settled more’n a hundred years ago …” Then her gaze expanded to take in the whole scene. “What in jumping Jesus is going on here?”

  “Why didn’t you just tell the gendarmes as my note said?” Ranklin groaned.

  The General shuffled towards them, raising his silk hat. “Madame, I must apologise, but this is no spectacle for a lady.” His mind hadn’t taken in her outburst about the code, but Gunther and Clement had: they were glancing tensely from her to Ranklin to the Renault and back.

  She walked forward into the centre of the courtyard, surrounded on three sides by wavering lamplight, seeing the little group of spectators by the main door, the rifles, the white shirts of Gunther and O’Gilroy – and the stain on O’Gilroy’s bandage.

  “Have you two been fighting? Have you been shot? What’s going on?”

  O’Gilroy said: “It’s nothing, ma’am, jest a bit of a cut. I’ve been learning about affairs of honour.”

  “Duelling?” She whipped round on the General, who had shuffled after her. “Have you all lost your little tinpot minds?”

  The General stiffened to rather stooped uprightness. “Madame, I must beg of you not to concern yourself with this matter. Which is, I am happy to say, completed.”

  “The devil it is,” O’Gilroy said. “Ye said it ended with first blood only if the fella’s bleeding wants it to. Ye try to stop me carving that fat bastard into dog meat and I’ll serve ye up for afters.”

  I rather doubt, Ranklin thought, that he spoke to many generals like that in his Army days.

  Corinna, far from being startled, took O’Gilroy’s hardly honourable ambition as more natural than the whole duel. “Not until I’ve had a look at that arm, you won’t.” She brushed the doctor aside, asking: “What’ve you got in that black bag?” and, when she had looked: “Lordie, was your last patient a dodo? I’ve got some stuff in the automobile. Unwrap that … déroulez ce bandage.”

  Ranklin watched her go back to the Renault; now it had no luggage strapped on behind and, obviously, no maid. So she had driven to Rouen, then turned around when she found the code and note. Only why didn’t women ever do as they were told?

  The General was back with Gunther. O’Gilroy glanced at the doctor, remembered he didn’t understand English and whispered fiercely: “Ye gave her one of the codes? – and wasn’t telling me?”

  “I slipped it into her muff – with a note telling her to go to the police. That was the important thing.”

  “’Cept she didn’t and came back to banjax things more’n ever. D’ye think Gunther reckons he’s got to kill her, too?”

  That was something Ranklin preferred not to think about. “Well, it gives him a problem.”

  Which was true enough. It was one thing for the two of them to vanish or be found in a fatal “accident”, but something else for a daughter of Reynard Sherring. And meanwhile O’Gilroy was giving him a look of pure contempt.

  Corinna came back with a small travelling bag and began smearing something medical on O’Gilroy’s arm. He squeaked.

  “Try to be brave,” she said reassuringly. “But if you will go playing rough games with the other boys … Now tell me what the hell this is all about?”

  “We were taking that code-book to Paris,” Ranklin said.

  “Then how did you wind up here?”

  “I’d rather explain why. The General’s a royalist.”

  “I know that.”

  “And there’s quite a ring of royalists in the Army, government posts and so on.”

  “I know about that, too. Probably more than you do.”

  Really? Ranklin filed that for future thought. “I’m guessing now, but suppose somebody came one day with a message, proper writing paper and signature, introducing himself as a messenger from the Duc d’Orléans, d’you think the General could be fooled?”

  She paused to consider. “I guess … He lives in a dream world. Yes, it would be Christmas all over again. And?”

  “And suppose that somebody was really an international spy wanting to tap into the secret information the royalists were sharing among themselves. Such as a code being brought to Paris.”

  “And you think Cort’s an international spy?”

  It took a moment for Ranklin to remember Cort was Gunther. “I do.”

  She nodded slowly. “Cort’s smart. He doesn’t try to hide that. And smart businessmen don’t hang around broken-down châteaux unless there’s a good business reason – or they’re a smart something else. But it makes me wonder how you boys earn your daily bread, too.”

  “I am an Army officer,” Ranklin said coldly. “Naturally, a mission like this couldn’t be entrusted to a civilian …”

  “Okay, okay.” She gestured to the doctor to re-bandage O’Gilroy’s arm. “So how did you get him involved in a duel, for God’s sake?”

  “Well – it started off as a delaying tactic – while you got the police here. Gunther – Cort – knows we know about him. It gets a bit complicated, but Gu – Cort – insulted O’Gilroy.”

  “Called me Secret Service,” O’Gilroy said with some relish.

  Ranklin said: “Which, as O’Gilroy pointed out, is like something out of the sewers.”

  “It sounds like you should know. And what now? You really want to go on with it?”

  Before O’Gilroy could have an opinion, Ranklin said: “If you could say O’Gilroy needs to be got to a hospital and offer to drive him there, I’ll be all right.”

  “W
hat’s to stop you just walking out anyway? The General doesn’t want the duel to go on.”

  “The General’s not in charge, however much he thinks he is. And it’s gone beyond the business of the code. If we get away, we’ll denounce Cort, he’ll be jailed and lose everything. So once we’re out of the General’s sight, he’ll kill us.”

  She thought about that. Then she said carefully and unemotionally: “And now you’ve told me, which Cort has to assume you’ve been doing, he has to kill me, too. Spying isn’t exactly a gentlemanly business, is it?”

  Staring at the cobbles, Ranklin said in a quiet voice: “No, not exactly.”

  “Then there isn’t much point in me asking Please can I go home now, is there?”

  “Don’t you want to get out of this?”

  “You’re damned right I do. But – I don’t know why, I feel safer with you two.”

  “Meself,” O’Gilroy said, “I still like the first idea best: I kill the fat bastard.”

  Ranklin said: “That would narrow it down to the Sergeant.”

  “Clement?” Corinna was surprised. “Is he …?”

  “He’s the one we’re sure is on Gunther’s side.” Be damned to remembering that Gunther was Cort, or vice versa. “And he’s wearing a pocketful of pistol.”

  She stared across the lamplit courtyard. The General was stumping towards them; behind him, Clement was fiddling with the bayonet fixings of both rifles. When he moved, his right-hand pocket quivered with the weight inside it.

  “Not exactly a pocket pistol, either,” she murmured as the General arrived and raised his hat to her.

  “My dear lady, I understand you have a small book which rightly belongs in the hands of His Majesty. If you will permit, I will see it is properly delivered.”

  “Captain Ranklin passed me that book, General. I figure he decides where it goes.”

  “My dear, I beg of you not to concern your pretty head with matters which we men …”

  Ranklin barely knew Corinna, but even he could have told the General he’d made a tactical mistake. However, the General found out soon enough.