Shadows of War

by Michael Ridpath

  He heard the two vehicles accelerate off.

  He looked up, couldn’t see any Germans in the wood, and so, at a crouching run, scurried to the edge of the trees to take a look.

  One of the cars was speeding to the shattered Dutch barrier. The other car halted next to Klop’s body lying in the road. Two men slung him into the back. Payne Best and Stevens were being frogmarched towards the border with Germans holding machine pistols at their backs. Schämmel accelerated past them in his own vehicle. The big black dog stood in the road barking.

  Shouting came from the Dutch customs house, but no sign of armed soldiers yet. Within a few seconds, all the Germans and their captives were under the black-and-white German barrier, which swished downwards.

  The often-uttered words of Colonel Rydal ran through Conrad’s head. What a shambles.

  11

  Whitehall, London, 10 November

  Conrad sipped the cup of coffee thoughtfully provided by Mrs Dougherty as he sat and waited outside Sir Robert Vansittart’s office. He was tired and hungry.

  ‘You don’t happen to have a biscuit, by any chance, Mrs Dougherty?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Mr de Lancey,’ said the Chief Diplomatic Adviser’s secretary, with a look that suggested horror at his temerity and determination to take decisive action if he tried to question the Foreign Office’s policy on biscuits. Didn’t he know there was a war on?

  It was sixteen hours since the Germans had snatched Payne Best and Stevens, sixteen disorienting hours. After being interviewed by Dutch military intelligence, Conrad had been bundled on to an RAF Lysander at The Hague and flown to Hendon Aerodrome, from where he had been driven straight to Whitehall and the doors of the Foreign Office.

  The telephone on Mrs Dougherty’s desk buzzed and she picked it up. ‘Sir Robert will see you now.’

  Van looked harassed. Sitting in one of the two chairs in front of his desk was a large man with a florid face and hair brushed back over a wide, shining forehead. His eyes were small and bright blue.

  ‘Lieutenant de Lancey, this is Major McCaigue of the Secret Intelligence Service. Major McCaigue is responsible for counter-espionage. As you can imagine, he is very interested in this affair.’

  Conrad saluted the major and took the seat offered by Van.

  ‘Who is responsible for this fiasco, de Lancey?’ Van asked.

  ‘I don’t know, Sir Robert. It was a mistake to meet Schämmel so close to the border when we were not sure he was genuine.’

  ‘That would be Stevens’s mistake?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say,’ said Conrad.

  ‘And you never met Schämmel?’

  ‘No,’ said Conrad. ‘Venlo would have been my first meeting.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Van tapped his desk with his pen. ‘Do you believe Schämmel was an impostor?’

  ‘Once again, I don’t know. That seems the most likely explanation to me.’

  ‘Is there a chance he might have been genuine?’ asked Major McCaigue. He had a deep rich voice with a trace of Ulster. ‘Perhaps von Hertenberg warned his superiors that there was a plot against Hitler, and they arrested Schämmel and our men as a result?’

  ‘I really don’t think so,’ said Conrad. ‘It’s not just a question of Theo being my friend. We know that Theo was prepared to risk his life last year to get rid of Hitler. Why betray a conspiracy that he is most likely at the heart of?’

  ‘I take your point,’ said McCaigue. ‘But our two countries are now at war.’

  ‘This is the most almighty disaster,’ Van said. ‘Stevens knows a lot – too much. He visited most of the Passport Control Offices in Europe before he took up his post in The Hague. After the Gestapo have got hold of him, we can assume that our European intelligence operations are blown.’

  ‘I did get a message from Theo just as Payne Best was about to pick me up to take me to Venlo,’ Conrad said. ‘He wanted to meet me in Leiden. I have no idea what he was going to tell me. Perhaps he was warning me.’

  ‘Go back to Holland and talk to him,’ Van said. ‘We need to know how much Stevens and Payne Best have told the Germans. We need to know whether Schämmel was genuine. We need to know whether the coup is going ahead. Did you hear about the Munich beer hall bomb?’

  Conrad looked blank. ‘Haven’t had a chance to read the paper in the last day or so.’

  ‘Hitler was speaking at a Party rally in a beer hall in Munich. Ten minutes after he left, a bomb went off. It would have killed him if he had stayed as planned.’

  ‘Who planted it?’

  ‘That is another question for Hertenberg. The Germans are saying it was us. They seem to be pinning the blame on “British secret agents”, meaning Payne Best and Stevens, presumably.’

  ‘Was it us?’ Conrad asked.

  ‘No,’ said McCaigue. ‘But was it the German generals? That’s the question.’

  ‘I’ll ask Theo,’ said Conrad. ‘I saw him in Leiden the day I arrived in Holland. He didn’t know anything about Schämmel at that point, but he did tell me the date of the planned coup. And the offensive.’

  ‘Really?’ said Van, leaning forward.

  ‘The fifteenth of November. Theo said that’s when the Germans will attack through Holland and Belgium, and that’s when the generals will strike against Hitler. Halder, the Chief of Staff, is going to arrest him.’

  ‘That’s less than a week away!’ said Van.

  ‘Is he certain about the coup?’ asked McCaigue.

  ‘Not entirely,’ Conrad admitted. ‘I mean he was sure that those are the current plans. But he’s not confident that the generals will see them through.’

  ‘And he said Holland as well as Belgium?’ McCaigue asked.

  Conrad realized that was an important point. In the last war, only Belgium had been invaded and Holland had managed to stay neutral throughout. But not this time, it seemed.

  ‘He did,’ Conrad confirmed. ‘I’m certain of that.’

  ‘Did he give any other details?’ McCaigue asked.

  ‘No,’ Conrad shook his head. ‘Just that it would be like 1914, only worse.’

  ‘He’s right about that,’ said Van. ‘Thank you, de Lancey. You have done a good job. Contact me or Major McCaigue from Holland directly if you need to, but bear in mind that anything you say might be overheard. Mrs Dougherty will give you the details. Otherwise report to me when you get back.’

  ‘And you had better stay clear of our people in The Hague,’ said McCaigue. ‘If they were not compromised before, they certainly are now.’

  ‘Stevens or Payne Best may have told the Gestapo all about me,’ Conrad said.

  ‘They may have,’ said McCaigue. ‘So I would be careful, if I were you.’

  ‘Can you get back in touch with Hertenberg?’ Van asked.

  ‘I think so,’ said Conrad.

  ‘Good,’ said Van. ‘Speak to Mrs Dougherty about getting back over there as soon as possible. And in the mean time, Major McCaigue will debrief you more thoroughly.’

  12

  Westminster, London

  Sir Henry Alston, baronet, Member of Parliament and merchant banker, strode through St James’s Park, with Freddie Copthorne struggling to keep up. Alston liked to walk through London; he frequently covered the distance from his flat in Kensington to Westminster or even the City on foot, and with taxis so hard to find in these days of petrol rationing, he was getting plenty of exercise.

  St James’s Park, once the prettiest of London parks, had changed over the previous few months. Part of it was the season: the flowers had been slain by autumnal frosts, and wind and rain had stripped the trees of their leaves. But the war had taken its toll too: the lake had been half drained, the railings had been removed from the pathways for the munitions factories, and green spaces were scarred with waterlogged zigzagged trenches, into which people were supposed to dive if there was an air-raid warning. No one did: the ditches were wet and filthy, and besides, not a single German bomb had yet fallen on the
city.

  It was a grey day, but the park was quite full. At least half the walkers were in uniform. Whereas two months before almost everyone would have been carrying gas masks, now no one was. Alston’s eye was caught by a tall dark-haired Wren, elegant in her naval uniform, walking with a shorter, plainer friend. He watched as she chatted animatedly, her teeth flashing as she smiled. They were almost upon her when she looked up, saw him, and for the briefest moment an expression of horror touched her face before she turned away.

  As they passed, Alston heard an indistinct whisper from the friend. He felt a familiar surge of anger. You would have thought that by now he would have got used to the effect his face had on people. One side, his left, was almost perfect: high cheekbone, a smooth jaw with the hint of a dimple at the chin, a straight nose, fair hair falling to a mop at his brow. In his youth it was said he looked like Rupert Brooke. But the other side was a twisted mess of white and pink scar tissue, through which, miraculously, a living blue eye stared. The humiliation of the girl’s flinch was made worse by that all-too-brief period of his adulthood before his disfigurement when he had become accustomed to surreptitious admiring looks from girls more beautiful than the Wren. Silly woman.

  ‘Have you heard how Chamberlain is going to reply to the King of the Belgians?’ Freddie asked, referring to the peace proposal of a couple of days before.

  ‘A big fat raspberry, from what I can tell,’ said Alston. ‘If he ever gets out of bed.’ The Prime Minister had been laid low with gout for a couple of days. ‘The Dutch and the Belgians are clever enough to realize that if this war carries on, their countries will be squashed. Why can’t we?’

  ‘You don’t think we will be squashed, do you?’

  ‘We might be. But that’s not the point. The point is that we can divide the world between us. Germany takes the continent of Europe and Britain keeps our empire and the high seas. We leave each other alone.’

  ‘But would Hitler really leave us alone?’ Freddie asked.

  ‘Of course he would,’ Alston said. ‘He as good as told me himself when I saw him with Rib last year.’ Alston had met Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin when he had travelled to Germany on bank business in the early 1930s, and kept in touch with him when Ribbentrop became German Ambassador to London in 1936 and then Foreign Minister back in Berlin. Ribbentrop had introduced Alston to Hitler the previous spring in an attempt to give the German Chancellor a better idea of the opinion of the British ruling classes beyond the government. Alston had been surprised by the positive attitude Hitler had to the British people, if not to their Prime Minister.

  ‘Chamberlain’s a lost cause,’ said Freddie. ‘Unless the rumours are correct and the German generals do get rid of Hitler. Then he might negotiate something.’

  ‘That will never happen,’ said Alston. ‘I know Germany. It’s inconceivable that a German general would break his oath and overthrow his commander-in-chief in wartime. Somehow we are going to have to make sure we have a government in this country that talks sense.’

  ‘The Jews won’t wear it,’ said Freddie. ‘You know, the financiers. The Rothschilds. The Sieffs. Hore-Belisha. They won’t want to stop the war. They need to protect their German cousins.’

  Alston smiled at his friend. Tall, thin, with wisps of hair plastered over a bald dome, the second Baron Copthorne looked and sounded like a dim aristocrat. He wasn’t entirely dim, but he was inclined to fall for some of the more simplistic notions of his friends. Still, he was loyal, and he was well connected: everyone liked Freddie.

  ‘Don’t worry too much about the Jews,’ Alston said. ‘This idea of a conspiracy of Jewish financiers is overblown. It’s true that some of the Jews I know in the City are concerned about what’s going on in Germany. But I don’t believe they want an unnecessary war and, more to the point, I don’t think they have the influence to insist on one.’

  ‘You should know,’ said Freddie. But he looked chastened.

  ‘So who is this girl we are going to meet, Freddie?’

  ‘Her name is Constance Scott-Dunton. She’s a friend of Marjorie’s.’ Marjorie was Freddie’s 22-year-old niece.

  ‘And are you sure we can’t get Marjorie to help us?’ Alston had met Marjorie several times and liked her.

  ‘Yes, quite sure. I did ask her, but she said no. The truth is, she was scared. She’s a sensible girl most of the time, but she can be a bit of a panicker.’

  ‘And this Constance girl isn’t?’

  ‘Not according to Marjorie. She’s game for anything, apparently. Marjorie is quite taken with her.’

  ‘Marjorie didn’t tell her what we wanted her to do?’

  ‘Oh, no. I thought we would leave that to you, once you’ve decided you like her.’

  ‘And what is this Russian Tea Rooms place?’

  ‘It’s in Harrington Road, opposite South Ken tube station. It’s owned by a Russian admiral. Admiral Wolkoff.’

  ‘I think I’ve passed it. A White Russian, I take it?

  ‘Oh, very much so. He was naval attaché for the Tsar in the last war, and stayed on in London after the revolution rather than return to Russia to be shot. Marjorie spends quite a lot of time there. She says it’s the kind of place a girl can go to unaccompanied quite happily. That’s where she met Constance.’

  Freddie was flagging as they reached Harrington Road and the Russian Tea Rooms. It was busy. Alston spotted Freddie’s niece talking to a girl with black hair whose back was to the door.

  Marjorie stood up, waved and kissed her uncle. ‘Hello, Uncle Freddie. Hello, Sir Henry.’

  She held out her gloved hand to be shaken.

  ‘This is my friend Constance. My uncle, Lord Copthorne, and Sir Henry Alston.’

  Constance was striking: pale, with a strong chin and large lively black eyes. They looked straight at Alston as they shook hands, and she smiled. Not a flicker of revulsion.

  Alston smiled back.

  ‘Have some tea,’ Marjorie said. ‘They serve it in samovars. It’s really rather exciting. You’re not supposed to drink milk with it.’

  So they sat down and ordered tea, which came in glasses contained in metal holders with handles.

  ‘Constance is a fan of yours,’ said Marjorie. ‘She has been dying to meet you.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware that I had any fans,’ said Alston, bemused.

  ‘I’ve read all your speeches,’ said Constance. ‘And Marjorie says you are frightfully clever.’

  Alston glanced at his friend’s niece, who blushed. ‘Shh, Constance, you weren’t meant to say that. Constance is very keen on politics,’ she explained.

  ‘Oh. What sort of politics?’ Alston asked.

  ‘Common-sense politics,’ Constance said. ‘The war is stupid. The Jews started it. If we leave Hitler alone, he’ll leave us alone. We have the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and we should be left to enjoy it.’

  ‘That sounds like common sense to me.’ Alston glanced at Freddie, and then back at Constance. ‘Are you a member of any political party?’

  ‘No, not really. I was a member of the Nordic League, but they’ve disbanded that now.’ The Nordic League was a hysterical anti-Semitic organization that had blossomed a couple of years before and then wilted with the onset of war. ‘That’s where I met my husband Patrick. He’s away at sea in the navy.’

  Alston felt a tinge of regret on hearing that this intriguing girl was married, followed by relief that her husband was probably three thousand miles away in a large metal boat.

  ‘You are not a member of the BUF, then?’ The BUF was the British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley. Alston didn’t like the British Union of Fascists. Neither, it transpired, did Constance.

  ‘Gosh, no. All that strutting around wearing silly shirts. It’s childish, don’t you think? And Tom Mosley is a weasel.’

  ‘A weasel?’ Sir Oswald Mosley, known to his friends and conquests as ‘Tom’, was notorious for his ways with women. Usually other people’s wives.


  ‘Yes. He mistreated a friend of mine – a friend of ours,’ she nodded to Marjorie.

  ‘A weasel,’ Marjorie confirmed. ‘Look, shall we leave you two to talk? I know you have a scheme you want Constance to join in. Come on, Uncle Freddie. Drink up.’

  Freddie did as he was told and left Alston and Constance alone over their tea.

  ‘So what’s this scheme, Sir Henry?’

  Alston hesitated. He was enjoying the girl’s directness. ‘It’s a little delicate,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Her eyes widened. ‘So you want to veto me first?’

  ‘Vet, I think is the word,’ Alston said. ‘And yes, I do need to find out a little bit more about you.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ said Constance. ‘But first I’d like to ask you a question. How did you get those terrible scars? Was it doing something frightfully brave in the war?’

  ‘Sadly, not,’ said Alston. He smiled.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’

  ‘Because people are usually too timid to ask me.’

  ‘Are you angry with me?’

  ‘No,’ said Alston. ‘Not at all. Quite the contrary.’

  ‘Good. Because you haven’t told me how it happened.’

  ‘It was a lion,’ said Alston.

  ‘No! Really! Where?’

  So Alston told Constance all about the business trip to South Africa when he was a young banker, how he had travelled up to Northern Rhodesia with a colleague whose uncle had some mining interests there, and how he and his colleague had gone big-game hunting, wounded a lion and then come face-to-face with it. The colleague had run, Alston had fired and missed, and the lion had knocked him to the ground with a blow to his face, standing over him rather than mauling him further. One of the native trackers had killed the lion with a spear. Apparently Alston had been lucky that it was a lion and not a lioness that had caught him. A lioness would have finished him off right away.

  ‘That’s an amazing story!’ said Constance, who did look amazed. Then she frowned. ‘Was your friend Jewish?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alston. ‘How did you know?’