A Bitter Field rtw-3

by Jack Ludlow

  Like all great churches St Vitus’s imposed a degree of silence on all those who entered; no one spoke above a whisper as they examined the plaques in the walls as well as the statuary, most of which were in the high arched nave.

  As Cal made his way to the rear of the high altar Vince had already dropped back, seeking to look inconspicuous, but both suspected that Moravec, if he was going to all this trouble, would have some of his people watching and that in itself provided what security was required to cover the meeting. Cal stopped when the voice spoke from behind a stone pillar.

  ‘Mr Moncrief.’

  Addressed by the name he had been using previously to buy those Spanish weapons, Cal responded in the affirmative.

  ‘Or should I say Mr Jardine?’

  ‘Either will do, General,’ Cal replied.

  But he did not add the name he was using on the passport he had acquired from Snuffly Bower, just as he had not vouchsafed it to Janek, on the very good grounds that he had no idea what this meeting would produce.

  He had taken to Moravec on that first meeting earlier in the year but the man was the head of Czech Foreign Intelligence and he had fish to fry that Cal knew nothing about. Just as Moravec would not vouchsafe to him things he did not need to know, neither would Cal be entirely open in return.

  ‘I never expect you to meet again.’

  Moravec had chosen to speak in English, when they would have both been more comfortable in German; Cal felt he had no choice but to do likewise.

  ‘Nor I.’

  ‘Our contact me tells, you are this time not in Prague on behalf of Spanish Republicans.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If as he me tells, you are British Government representing, why not through the embassy work?’

  ‘I only said that to get to you. I am not representing the British Government and have nothing to do with the embassy. I doubt the need to explain that to someone in your position, and besides, I am here for a quite different purpose to anything they might be acting on.’

  ‘Only thing they acting on is seeking number of Jews to process, many out of the country trying to get. You would think they would London advise best way to deal with exodus is to tell to keep within own borders the Germans.’

  ‘On pain of another war.’

  ‘Exact!’ Moravec responded, so loudly it produced a slight echo, showing a natural frustration at the lack of open support from the democracies. ‘Instead in the London newspapers we read is we who in not give Hitler what he wants are unreasonable being.’

  Justified as it was, Cal did not want to listen to condemnation of his own government or the stories Downing Street was feeding to the press to soften up opinion. ‘The last time we spoke, you made mention of doubts in certain German minds regarding Hitler’s intentions.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I wondered if you had any more intelligence on that.’

  ‘Is that why you here?’

  ‘The only way certain parties can see to aid Czechoslovakia is to bring to the attention of the British Government just how strong that opposition is, perhaps with enough power to alter the course of German ambitions.’

  ‘Depose Hitler the only way that to do.’

  ‘If it could be established that by standing up to him such an outcome could be achieved it might alter the nature of those press reports you have just mentioned. It might stiffen the resolve of those in power to oppose him.’

  ‘Who you represent real, Mr Moncrief?’ Again Cal found the use of that name slightly jarring, but he was left with no time to consider it. ‘You have made plain it not truly the British Government by your own words.’

  ‘Are there people in Prague, General Moravec, who think it would be best to let Hitler have the Sudetenland for the sake of peace?’

  ‘Few only, but yes.’

  ‘Then accept there are those in London who disagree with the way things are being carried out by our government and want to do something to stop it.’

  ‘Names.’

  ‘Some you will know, General, for they have the capacity to be open, and those you don’t I will not divulge because they do not.’

  Moravec did not reply and Cal supposed he needed time to think on what had just been said. He was leaning against one of the long stone pillars that supported the high arched roof, and even if he was not a churchgoer, he had often wondered at the effort and artistry that had gone into such constructions as these great cathedrals, many of which he had stood in with something approaching awe: Notre Dame, Canterbury, Chartres, Bourges.

  Masons had chipped away at stone for decades to produce these smooth blocks that lay on each other and seemed to be bereft of mortar, had carved the gargoyles and decor, exactly reproducing the same design again and again, and then had come along men with lead, glass and vision to create the great stained glass window which now dimly lit the place where he stood.

  It was not too fanciful to see that shattered, to see the great pillars break and tumble. In Spain, Cal had seen the effect of aerial bombardment. If the Luftwaffe was let loose over this jewel of a city then they would do to Prague what the Condor Legion had done to Guernica and tried to do to Madrid — destroy it — and that thought was in the mind of everyone who lived in the city.

  ‘You suggesting,’ Moravec said, eventually, ‘we can something get with my help?’

  Amazing though this wonderful building was, Cal had to again ask himself: why here? Why all the subterfuge? And then he recalled what Janek had said that morning. ‘Why are we meeting in such secrecy, General?’

  The sigh was audible and seemed to fit the surroundings in which they had met. ‘Even in my own city, safe from the eyes of my enemies I am not.’

  ‘German agents?’

  ‘Those, yes, and traitors, like those you ask about.’

  That induced an unpleasant thought: if there were forty thousand Jews in Prague there had to be, in what until twenty years ago had been part of a German-speaking empire, at least that number of Germans who had made their homes here during the rule of Vienna.

  There might well be Czech traitors, but it also meant that spies, particularly those of an Austrian background, bilingual in Czech from having lived in the city all their lives, and prepared to back the Nazis, could operate in the city almost with impunity.

  ‘Few, you said.’

  ‘Too many if who are they we not know. Most nationals German do not Hitler want, not even all in the borderlands. They from their contacts over border know what he brings, but some are seeing for themselves a good chance to rise.’

  ‘Do you have agents inside Germany?’ Moravec just laughed softly; the answer was too obvious to require a reply. ‘And perhaps contacts with those who oppose Hitler?’

  ‘You want I should you tell, I think.’

  ‘Yes.’

  That brought a laugh that was loud enough to create another slight echo. ‘Not safe for them, not safe for me.’

  There was a definite truth in that; if the head of counter-intelligence felt he had to be cautious in his own bailiwick, how much more must he show that quality in dealing with his contacts inside the Reich, where the slightest suspicion of disloyalty was paid out with a bullet to the skull — and that was if you were lucky. To this man he was an unknown quantity in what he was up to at present and hardly worth immediate trust.

  The problem for Cal was, without the help of someone like Moravec he was pissing into the wind. The more he had thought about it, the more he had seen the answer lying outside Czechoslovakia but he could not just go stumbling about Germany looking for contacts. If he did it was he who would get the bullet, but to just allow himself to be fobbed off having gone to the trouble to get this far was not an option either.

  ‘Look, General, this is not about whether the people of whom we speak will act, it is about the notion that my government thinks they will do so if they are given encouragement. You are right that I do not represent either Downing Street or the Foreign Office but I do act on be
half of some very powerful people indeed.’

  He paused to let that sink in, wondering what else he could offer.

  ‘I also have access to funds, if needed, to both help and encourage those who might rise up, and something tells me, with the beginning of the Nuremberg Rally and what might emerge from that, we do not have long to make a case for the democracies of the West to act.’

  ‘The first day of October, a month from now, Mr Moncrief, the day the Germans will invade.’

  ‘You know this?’

  ‘Told I have been, by those who have the orders read.’

  Clever, Cal thought, though he was not surprised. He had rated, even on a very short meeting, that Moravec was as sharp as a tack and now he had just shown it. Without the use of a name or a title, he had just told him how high were his contacts in Germany. Orders like that had to be of the highest secrecy level, shown only to very few people, and they had to be trusted to keep their mouths shut. But someone had not.

  ‘Have you told your allies?’ He meant the French and the Soviets.

  ‘Of course, and we also Major Gibson told, your SIS man at British embassy.’

  Who would have surely passed that back to London and it would have been given to those at the very top of the Government, which made Cal wonder why he was here. That did not last long; it was like those envoys Vansittart had talked of — it had either been discounted or not even rated as true.

  ‘Force levels?’

  ‘Foolish to attack without men enough.’

  Was Moravec being cagey or did he have those facts too? Alone, that should have been enough to show the likes of Chamberlain that Hitler was talking rubbish when he claimed he wanted a peaceful solution. Yet Vansittart had described the PM as vain and convinced of his own political genius and leading a cabinet that would not challenge him. He needed more.

  ‘I have lived in Germany, General Moravec, and I know, as do you, that to overturn the Nazi state will not be easy — too many ruthless people have a stake in its continuance. Likewise, those who might act will not do so unless they know it will have an effect. The ordinary Germans do not want war any more than the ordinary Czech or Briton, they suffered too much in the last show.’

  Cal waited for a response, but none came.

  ‘You do not have the ability to get them to act, otherwise you would be doing so. I mean no insult when I say that to those people your country is of no consequence. Only the threat of an attack in the West will give Hitler pause…’

  Moravec finally responded with another laugh. ‘You understand not, Mr Moncrief. An attack in West Hitler expects.’

  ‘He doesn’t have the manpower.’

  ‘But,’ Moravec replied, finally changing to German. ‘Hitler is a madman. He believes all he needs is the will and success is guaranteed. Is that not how he rose to power in the first place? Go back to the hotel and wait. I need to think.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Peter Lanchester had been somewhat disingenuous with Cal Jardine about the fellow he suspected might have dished them in La Rochelle, because, despite what Quex had told him, he had been doing a spot of gentle digging around to add some meat to what were, from his boss, suppositions.

  It was absolutely certain, given the desk he ran, that the information about the shipment of light machine guns from Brno, as it should, had come to Noel McKevitt first; whom he had shared that knowledge with, apart from his own department, Quex and the top floor, was an unknown.

  But it transpired he had been poking about asking questions since shortly after Peter had gone to Czechoslovakia, enquiries that had continued all the time he had been absent and had not abated on his return, no doubt prompted by the fact that he had not himself been asked to pursue a matter that fell under his area of responsibility.

  ‘Do you know this Lanchester fellow?’ ‘Any idea about his areas of speciality?’ ‘Bit weak on the dictators I hear.’ There had even been a blatant one. ‘Anyone got a notion of where he is? I want him to do a job for me.’

  Such enquiries might appear innocent to those he was asking, but the answers — fragments in fact from a culture of in-house and after-hours barroom gossip — put together, could form a picture that would make for uncomfortable reading for both parties. It was a fair guess he had found out about the Brno mission in the process; now, with Quex’s clearance, Peter was finally making that visit to talk to him.

  Physically, Peter thought, the man looked like the perfect undercover operator and he had once been that, having held the intelligence job at two important embassies, Paris and then Berlin, just before Hitler became chancellor. McKevitt’s face was pinkish and bland, the forehead unlined, his receding hair fair and wispy, while his green eyes seemed, regardless of what was being discussed, devoid of expression.

  It was said by some Peter had asked that he was a man you could insult with impunity, he would never show any reaction, only for those same people to find out in time that he was a fellow who never forgot an affront, being the type to lock it away and wait for an opportunity to pay back the slur in spades, quite often at the point where a rival needed to be removed or diminished.

  Working for the Secret Intelligence Service abroad was not a task that could be glorified with the designation of ‘spy’, despite what the Gestapo claimed for Captain Kendrick; MI6 officers in foreign embassies usually held the lowly post of passport control officer, a job that could safely be left to minions while he got on with the real task of sniffing out bits of information the forces of the country they were stationed in would rather keep to themselves.

  In a world where you could never trust anyone’s stated opinion — the truth might be the polar opposite of what they said in public — McKevitt was one fellow who made no effort to avoid being pigeonholed. He was open in his admiration for firm government and never hid his hatred of trade unions under a bushel, particularly ‘bloody miners and their Bolshevik chums’.

  He was wont to tell anyone who wanted to listen or not, always in a particularly grating Northern Irish accent, that the best way to deal with recalcitrant workers was to shoot them. That he always followed such a view with a braying laugh did little to diminish the chilling effect.

  The man was efficient, of that there was no doubt; he had run his embassy operations faultlessly and brought in good intelligence about the intentions of the political masters of the countries in which he operated, all of which was filtered and passed to the Foreign Office so that the diplomats could formulate Government policy.

  In time, he had been brought into MI6 HQ in Broadway to command a regional desk for Central Europe — at the time of appointment not the hot potato it had become since the crisis had blown up in Czechoslovakia. Yet it was still not one of the senior positions in the firm, not the German or French Desk, and it was well known that was what he craved — the other obvious thing about McKevitt was his ambition.

  ‘Quex heard you have been asking about me,’ Peter lied, given his boss had said nothing of the sort, reverting quickly to the truth. ‘He thought I should come in and let you know what happened in the operation I was tasked with, not that it is at all clear. Better you hear it from the horse’s mouth, what?’

  ‘He sent you to Brno, did he not?’

  ‘He did, which I think he has the right to do, but I’m curious how you know about it since it was supposed to be top-floor only.’

  Any hope of embarrassing him was futile. ‘If I choose to make contact with the man we have there, that is my affair. What concerns me more, Lanchester, and you know it, is the job should have properly been left to me to initiate.’

  The use of the surname was irritating; it was normal to get on to first-name terms with your SIS colleagues quite quickly, even if, as in this case, they were not well known to each other. McKevitt was being condescending and he was equally determined to show his pique at being sidelined.

  ‘It was no doubt felt that, with what is going on already in Czechoslovakia, you had quite a lot on your plate.’<
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  There was no reaction to what both men knew to be a lie and it was at that point Peter Lanchester realised how very rarely the other man even blinked.

  ‘Not that there is much I can tell you,’ Peter added, ‘that you don’t already know.’

  ‘Not really my concern now,’ McKevitt replied, and given his control of his features, there was no indication if that was the truth either.

  In the life of an intelligence operative, working in several different countries, the name of the game was contacts. Few people go in for outright betrayal of their national cause — the odd one yes, for principle or money and they are gold dust, but mostly an SIS man will work on collective small indiscretions, the little things let slip by numerous folk he talks to that add up to something worthwhile in the whole.

  Given McKevitt’s way of openly stating his political leanings, it was a fair guess that many of those contacts he had made abroad would subscribe to his views; that was how you got talking to someone with inside knowledge, you shared in decrying the things that upset them, you created a fellow feeling that allowed for things that should be left unsaid to slip out.

  Peter Lanchester knew that, just as he knew that if the man he was talking to had made connections with the right-wing zealots in France, like the Jeunesses Patriotes, the last thing he would do was be open about such an association.

  ‘Just the same, Quex felt it best you are made aware of what I did and when.’

  ‘Of things like that little dust-up in La Rochelle.’

  It was hard not to tense at that; Peter had not expected any mention of it. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘One of the fellows you took there from the Paris embassy is an old friend of mine.’

  You have been putting it about in asking questions, Peter thought, but why do so in Paris unless…? And when was the question posed, because there had been some delay in lining up that pair and the actual departure?