Beneath Gray Skies

by Hugh Ashton

  “Thank you, Travers.” Dowling’s good mood, which had been destroyed by his failure to achieve perfection in his bow tie, was now almost completely restored, but Travers still seemed apprehensive.

  “Sir, some bad news, I’m afraid.” For the first time, Dowling noticed a folded sheet of paper sticking out of Travers’s coat pocket.

  “Will it keep?”

  “No, sir. I think you should know about it straight away. Mr. Gatt just told me, and asked me to pass it on to you immediately. His words, sir. Brian Finch-Malloy has been taken.”

  “You mean captured? Arrested?”

  “One of Mr. Gatt’s agents in the CBI headquarters in Richmond said that three of their agents dragged him out of bed and delivered him to the Army camp. Doesn’t sound like a formal arrest to me, I’m afraid, sir.”

  “Bloody hell! No, it doesn’t. Poor bugger’s probably been shot by now, I suppose, given the Confederate notion of military justice. For God’s sake, don’t tell Christopher on this day of all days.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it, sir.”

  “Any idea who’s got him now?”

  “A Colonel Anthony J. Vickers. Number two in Army Intelligence, and seconded to the airship base, presumably to help with security.”

  “Your guess or Gatt’s about Vickers?”

  “Mr. Gatt’s, sir.”

  Dowling grunted. “How did they get wind of him, anyway? If they dragged him out of bed they didn’t catch him on the job. Bloody Brian was always pretty smart, and we thought he had perfect cover.”

  “Well, sir, that’s something else that Mr. Gatt told me.” Travers moved to the door, opened it slightly, peeked outside, and closed the door again pointedly. “According to Mr. Gatt, sir, there’s reported to be an informant in the American side passing on information to the Confederates. So he told me to tell you, sir, and no-one else. He’s not going to tell any of the other Americans.”

  “Hell and damnation, Travers!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He shouldn’t even have told you. Are you enjoying yourself here in Washington, Travers?” It was a rhetorical question. Travers had been making a name for himself among the daughters of Georgetown society and was constantly being chaffed about his amorous exploits by the other members of the team.

  “Yes, sir. Very much, sir.”

  “Good. Because if you want to keep enjoying yourself, you keep your damned mouth shut about this. When I get hold of the rat who betrayed Finch-Malloy, I’ll be screwing his head off his neck against the thread.” Travers smiled. “What’s so bloody funny, Travers?”

  “I think you’ll have to wait until Mr. Gatt’s finished with him. Except he said he’d, er, start from the other end, if you see what I mean, sir.”

  “Very well, Travers. Well, this is a happy occasion, I suppose. Stiff upper lip and all that, though I don’t know how I’m going to be able to look Christopher in the eye. Ever been to an American wedding before, Travers? I’ve no idea how to be a best man at one of these events. The work’s been keeping me away from all the rehearsals.”

  “No, sir, I can’t honestly say that I have.”

  “Nor me. Maybe we’d better just look confused and British, and then no-one will say anything.”

  -o-

  The wedding went well. The Wassersteins weren’t religious, and Dowling discovered the ceremony was to be a secular one. He missed the hymns that he’d spent his life singing, but Mendelssohn’s Wedding March provided a familiar musical anchor.

  Virginia looked ravishing in her white gown, but Christopher proved to be the magnet for all eyes—novelty value, thought Dowling cynically, looking at the assembled Wasserstein friends and relations, most of whom, he guessed, had never been in the same room as a black man before, and had certainly never envisaged themselves as being related to one by marriage.

  At the reception following, Dowling made a brief speech, his British accent causing further social consternation among the guests, and made the usual toasts.

  After the meal, as the guests circulated around the room, lubricated by champagne (and not a mint julep in sight, Dowling reflected ruefully), Vernon Gatt, who was attending as a friend of both the bride and groom, rescued him from an elderly aunt of Virginia’s who seemed intent on giving him a detailed description of every one of her stomach operations over the past twenty years.

  “Thank you, Vernon,” said Henry, gratefully accepting the champagne glass that was pushed into his hand. “I really couldn’t take it any more, and I hate being rude, especially to old ladies, but my fuse was getting shorter and shorter.”

  “Young Travers told you?” replied Gatt, obviously not wanting to waste time on small-talk.

  “Yes, just before we came here. Devilish bad luck.”

  Gatt swung round to glare at him. “Luck had nothing to do with it, Henry. This was a traitor to the United States and all that we stand for!”

  “Keep your voice down, Vernon,” Henry warned him. “People are listening. No, of course I didn’t mean it was luck. It’s horrible when this kind of thing happens. During the war we found a fellow in one of our departments who was selling secrets to the Germans for money. He’d been betting on the horses and losing.”

  “What did you do with him?”

  “Tried by court-martial and shot,” replied Henry calmly, finishing off his champagne and reaching over to a waiter’s tray for another two glasses, one of which he passed to Gatt.

  “Is that all?” asked Gatt. “I reckon I’d have been a tad more violent in my feelings.”

  “We were all violent in our feelings, Vernon, but we had to abide by the rule of law when it came to our actions.”

  Before the discussion could proceed any further, Virginia swept up to them. “Thank you, Henry, for your wonderful speech, and thank you, Vernon, for gracing this occasion.” Both men squirmed under the force of her praise. “Now, I’m going to take you to meet some of my folks,” she said, placing herself between the two men and taking an arm of each.

  “I’ve already met Aunt Miriam,” said Henry in alarm.

  “Then I don’t think you need to hear her medical history again. Sorry about her, but she does enjoy inflicting her woes on the whole world and it’s the job of the whole family to try and stop her from doing it.” She smiled, and introduced them to an uncle who worked on Wall Street, and who was vehemently against what he’d heard of Nazi Germany.

  “I’m afraid the rumors are mostly true,” said Dowling. “But you must remember that the vast majority of the German people don’t actually think like the Nazis in their inner hearts.”

  “I would like to think you’re right,” replied Uncle Solomon. “But I fear you’re wrong. This Hitler fellow has just tapped a wave of anti-Jewish sentiment that seems to exist everywhere. You may have been briefly in Germany a few months ago, but I was brought up there. Even the best of the Germans don’t see us as true Germans most of the time. And many of you English are not much better, you know.” He wagged a warning finger at Dowling and smiled. “But you must admit, both of you, that this was a surprising marriage, and a true American melting of races in the pot.” He jerked his head at Virginia and Christopher, who now stood together in the center of a crowd of laughing guests. “Delightful, of course, but surprising.”

  “Well, Mr. Wasserstein, I must agree with you that it is delightful, but I can’t really say in retrospect that I am surprised, remembering the first time that I saw them together.”

  “It really seemed that obvious to you?” interrupted Vernon Gatt. “I must admit that on the American side, we had always assumed that— No, I mustn’t say any more on such a happy occasion. Sir,” addressing himself to Solomon Wasserstein, “I would like your opinion on the future of trans-Pacific trade with Japan. Do you think that it will increase over the next five years, or do you think that continental Europe will become our next major trading partner after the damage from the war has been taken care of?”

  Dowling slipped away qu
ietly and made his way to the group including Virginia and Christopher. Christopher beamed when he saw him, and moved away to talk privately.

  “It’s all so wonderful,” smiled Christopher. “And I have you to thank for all of this.”

  “Nonsense, my dear fellow,” replied Dowling. “Thank the good Lord who made you what you are; a fine young man who is an asset to the society he moves in, wherever he goes. And thank the Lord that Miss Justin realized that, and helped you make the most of your natural talents and abilities. All I did was give you a few pointers in our strange British manners. The rest you did for yourself.”

  “It’s a shame Brian can’t be with us today,” remarked Christopher. “I owe a lot to him as well.”

  Despite himself, Dowling felt a lump rising in his throat. “Yes, indeed,” he said, more vaguely than he intended, and looked around the room. “And speaking of Miss Justin, I see she’s got trapped by that Aunt Miriam. Christopher, you’d better get used to being in this family, and it seems to be a family chore to rescue people from her, so you’d better get in practice.” Christopher moved away and Dowling watched his efforts with a little amusement.

  He was tapped on the shoulder, and turned to see a vaguely familiar face to which Dowling was unable to attach a name.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” said the older stranger in a low, confidential voice, shaking Dowling’s hand. “Vernon tells me you head up the British side of our little joint effort. I really hope you succeed. I’m not meant to take sides publicly, you know, but I think that the current German government is appalling, and anything you can do to set them back will be very much appreciated.”

  “Sorry,” stammered Dowling. “How do you come to know all this?”

  “Vernon sends me regular reports, and I do take the trouble to read them, you know.” The stranger smiled, and touched Dowling once more on the shoulder. “Good luck.”

  Dowling strode off in search of Gatt, not at all pleased that the inner secrets of his work were being passed so casually round Washington. He waited until Gatt had disengaged himself from Solomon Wasserstein, and taxed him with the accusation.

  “Who is that, anyway?” he asked Gatt, pointing out the stranger.

  In response Gatt laughed so much that his drink spilled over the side of his glass, and he had to put it down on a nearby table. “You really have no idea? You don’t recognize him?” he asked Dowling.

  Dowling shook his head in reply.

  “That’s Frank Kellogg. The Secretary of State.” Gatt was amused.

  “Well, I’ll be—”

  Gatt put a warning hand on Dowling’s sleeve. “Don’t even dream of saying it,” he warned. “There’s a posse of maiden aunts descending on us to your right, and I think they’d be shocked.”

  Chapter 32: Whitehall, London, United Kingdom

  “By the time they’ve finished with him, there won’t be a single thing that he knows that the Confederates don’t know.”

  C was in the middle of one of his infamous tirades, which had lasted since the time he entered the office and gone through his in-basket. His epicene assistant had left the office in the mid-morning, pleading a crippling migraine, and his other assistant, Parkes, was left to bear the brunt.

  “Those bloody people!” C swore, reading Dowling’s message for the fourth time. “Look at what we do for these damned Americans. We provide them with an agent in place. We give them our communications to work with. We do all the sodding analysis and hard work. And what do the buggers do? Stab us in the bloody back.”

  “Yes, sir.” There wasn’t a lot else to say at this point.

  “And they’re still not telling us who betrayed the operation. Doubt if they know anyway, inefficient lazy bunch of sods. I have a good mind to get our lords and masters to PNG half the US Embassy. Serve the buggers right.”

  “I don’t think they can just declare half of the embassy persona non grata, sir. There’s no precedent.”

  “Damn precedent. There’s no precedent for what they’ve just done, either.” He paced backwards and forwards across the room behind his desk. “You know, Parkes, there are times when I wish we’d won that bloody War of Independence and kept the whole bunch of them under our control, where we could keep our eyes on them. And there are other times when I’m heartily glad that we lost, and we’re well rid of the buggers.”

  “I see exactly what you mean, sir.”

  “So what would you do at this stage? Henry Dowling is ranting to me that he should just pack up and come home, and I’m inclined to agree with him.”

  “We’re very close to succeeding, sir.”

  “We were never very close, Parkes,” C retorted crisply. “Brian Finch-Malloy, no matter how much we may like him, and regard him, was not working for us. But Bloody Brian, bless his boots and damn his eyes, was one of our men once, and whether or not he was working for us at the time, it still hurts, Parkes, it bloody hurts.” C stopped for a moment, and Parkes detected something close to tears in the older man’s eyes. “If anyone was close,” continued C, “it was the Americans. Now neither we nor the Americans are anywhere at all near being able to do anything.”

  “All I meant, sir, was that we have a lot of useful information about this whole airship business which is up-to-date. I feel sure we should be able to use it somehow.”

  “Are you proposing to go over there yourself, Parkes?” C was bitterly amused. Parkes had never worked as a field agent in his life. “Or were you suggesting that we sent Worthington?” The effete Worthington, who had fled with his migraine earlier in the day, was even less of a candidate for a field operative than was Parkes.

  “No, sir, of course not. I was just thinking that since Finch-Malloy had made friends with some of the Confederate Army, we might be able to contact them and use them?”

  “I sometimes wish you’d grow up, Parkes,” C snorted. “We’re not in a war against gentlemen. Quite apart from the fact that we have no idea what this bloody Yankee traitor has told the Confederates in addition to exposing Finch-Malloy’s identity, remember that the Confederates are bastards, Parkes. Finch-Malloy is tough, I don’t need to be reminded of that, but believe me, by the time they’ve finished with him, there won’t be a single thing that he knows that the Confederates don’t know.”

  Parkes gulped as he realized the implications. “I see, sir.”

  “Our only hope is for Henry Dowling to get hold of someone in his office there in Washington, and run him into the Confederacy. And I think that’s a bloody long shot, given the people he’s got over there right now. They were never picked to work in the Confederacy. They’re all desk wallahs, the whole pack of them.”

  “There’s Henry Dowling himself,” suggested Parkes. “He’s been out in the field.”

  C exploded. “There is no way Henry Dowling is going out there. He’s one of the best people we have, though don’t tell anyone I said that. If there’s any justice in this misbegotten world of ours, he’ll be sitting in this office here as Chief in a few years. We are not going to put his life at risk for a half-brained feather-headed scheme to blow up a gasbag. I am not going to risk Henry Dowling falling into the hands of the Confederacy. These people are tricky bastards, Parkes, and never forget it.”

  Chapter 33: Cordele Airship Station, Georgia, Confederate States of America

  “Any man who shoots Hermann Goering is a friend of mine.”

  “You’re a tricky bastard, Colonel,” smiled Brian.

  “Glad you think so, Captain,” replied Vickers, smiling back.

  “A very smart move.” They were discussing, late at night, and hopefully out of earshot of any potential listeners, the way in which Vickers had dealt with the problem of what to do with Sergeant David Slater, who was, by any reasonable definition of the word, a security risk to the Confederacy, and was now an object of some considerable suspicion, given that his friend Lewis Levoisin had been exposed as the infamous English spy who had deserted from the Army of the Confederacy in Be
rlin.

  The CBI agents who’d arrested Brian had been busy spreading the word about David, Brian assumed, in revenge for the way that Vickers had treated them when they brought him in. Or maybe, he had mused, this was simply the age-old rivalry between services. Certainly there was no love lost between his Service in London and the Metropolitan Police’s Special Branch, which took responsibility for counter-intelligence and anti-subversive operations.

  However, he admired Vickers’s solution as to what should be done with David.

  “I decided to move him out of the airship-handling section and attach him to my office as a senior clerk. That way, no-one can accuse me of not keeping an eye on him,” he explained. “And if anyone complains that he should be placed under close arrest and shot, I simply say that I’m keeping a close eye on him so that he leads me to other traitors.”