A Bitter Field rtw-3

by Jack Ludlow

  Without an audience to witness and laugh at her jibes, Corrie became less sharp, and since she did not rile him, Cal did not respond, while added to that they had shared experience. He was also aware and wondering why he had not noticed before that she was much more feminine than she had been either on first acquaintance or on their subsequent travels — hardly surprising; it’s not what you look for in the midst of a conflict.

  It was not just the way she now dressed but also in her manner; she had always struck him a bit juvenile and added to that there was her endemic bumptiousness and strident views which she was not shy in expressing. He asked about her mother, an archaeologist he had met in Africa whom he thought crazed, and her father whom he knew she was fond of, but he was never going to get away without the classic query about his own state of matrimony.

  ‘I once asked Vince if you were married.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘You’d think I’d asked for the number of your safe deposit box.’

  ‘We boys stick together.’

  ‘Look, Cal, if we are going into what you say we are that is the kind of question to which I need an answer. We are supposed to have only just met but hit it off, and if I don’t know too much about that kind of deal I do know your marital condition is the kind of information people who are attracted to each other share. I need some background.’

  ‘Get your passport ready, we’re next.’

  The man who leant through the window was no boy, he was a grizzled fully grown man with stubble and not much given to smiling as he demanded their papers in a gruff unfriendly way. There was the usual charade of looking several times at the passport photographs and then glaring at the faces, as if that could not be done in one go.

  ‘This one’s full of charm,’ Corrie said.

  Was it the nationalities that had him grunt that they should pull over or Corrie’s plainly displeased attitude to the delay? Flippancy requires no translation. Cal suspected a bit of both, aware that the best way to make a passport checker’s day — and this had nothing to do with the country in which they operated — was to give him an excuse to hold you up and make you sweat. It was even better if you lost your temper.

  Cal swung the car out of the line to pull up beside a hut that had about it the temporary look of the many they had seen and eased past without trouble. Their checker had followed them and with another grunt he made a sign that they should get out of the car, to which there was no option but to comply. Being an American, Corrie thought differently.

  ‘What the hell…?’

  ‘Quiet,’ Cal snapped, albeit he kept his voice low. ‘Just get out and whatever you do smile sweetly.’

  ‘What d’ya mean?’

  ‘How does step out of character sound?’ Seeing her swell up for a response he was quick to cut her off. ‘Look, these fellows hold all the cards and they can keep us here as long as they want. Now let us do as he says.’

  Forcing a smile Cal got out and went round to help Corrie do the same. Their soldier-checker gave them an unfriendly look, then walked off with an abrupt order to follow and they were led into the hut, where at a desk sat a man who was clearly, by his shoulder boards, an officer.

  Their passports and Corrie’s accreditation papers were handed over to him and Grim-face left. As he did so his superior fired off an incomprehensible question.

  ‘ Nejesme c eske, ’ Cal replied, using an expression that had become familiar in the last few days. ‘ Mluvite anglicky? ’

  The officer shook his head and even Cal was thinking he was just playing a stupid game. With the passports he had in his hand he must have reckoned it would be unlikely they would understand him — so few foreigners did.

  ‘Would a couple of dollar bills help out here?’ Corrie asked; at least her voice was serious.

  Cal was quick to squash that. ‘If you really want to upset a Czech try to bribe him. They think it’s what other people do, not them.’ Then he turned to the man still ostentatiously examining the booklets, flicking through the pages as if enlightenment would fly out from the leaves. ‘ Sprechen Sie Deutsch? ’

  He did not want to say yes — it was a matter of pride — but there was no alternative as Cal, seeing the answer in his eyes, explained who they were and why they were going north: for this fine American journalist to have a look and tell the world the problems the Czechs were having with the German minority.

  Even if she did not understand, Corrie guessed he was laying on the charm with a trowel; it was in his face and it was with a slight feeling of shock that she realised she was thinking Callum Jardine was a handsome bastard, more so when he was being nice rather than being sarcastic.

  Whatever he had said, the Czech officer answered with a stream of less amiable complaints that went on for some time before handing the passports back and calling for Grim-face, who was outside the door, giving instructions, she supposed, to let them through the barrier.

  ‘So what was all that about?’

  ‘Just a general warning not to trust the Germans to tell you the truth.’

  ‘He took a long time saying it.’

  ‘There was more, and none of it flattering.’ Cal waved to the men lifting the barrier and gunned the Maybach through to admiring glances from those who dreamt of owning such a car, pointing up ahead as he did so to the gathering dark clouds. ‘Looks like we are heading for some bad weather.’

  ‘Yep.’

  Noel McKevitt was perusing the list his men had got from the Prague hotels in the days before his arrival, marking those he thought most likely. Instinct, even if he acknowledged that he could be wrong, told him the man he was looking for would not be in any of the luxury hotels; if he were operating as he thought his target would, he would find somewhere more discreet.

  He had sent for an interpreter called Miklos, who his station chief thought would fit the bill for what he wanted, being tall, well built and with a lived-in face. He was still staring at his ticks when the man arrived.

  ‘Sit down, Miklos.’

  That was responded to nervously; whatever the Czech had been told, and it should have been little, he had no doubt been informed that this was the big chief from London he had been brought to see.

  ‘I need you to do a bit of play-acting, Miklos. Do you think you could pass for a policeman?’ Sensing the hesitation, Noel McKevitt was quick to add the ultimate bribe and it was not money. ‘I have made it plain in London that we cannot leave behind anyone who has worked for us if the Germans come. If they found out, that person would not live long, I suspect.’

  ‘No,’ Miklos replied, his seat shifting in the chair as he struggled with what he was being offered.

  ‘Naturally we control the passport office here and, sure, I can tell you, SIS look after their own.’

  ‘What is it you want me to do?’

  The supposed warrant card, a forgery, would have been unlikely to fool anyone who spoke Czech and demanded to examine it closely, but the way it was flashed under anyone’s nose meant even the locals could be counted on to accept it as genuine, because the question they were asked was so innocuous.

  Two men, one of whom did not speak, merely wanted to know the room number of the various British guests in various hotels and when that was supplied, once it was certain the person was in his room, the two men would call on them to check their passports, a natural thing to do at a time of national emergency.

  That the fellow asking had talked to some of them before, in the pretence of being an interpreter, the desk clerks who recognised him took as a fitting subterfuge, particularly as the fellow was excessively polite — as befitted a policeman in a democracy and wanted nothing more from them than information the authorities were entitled to.

  Miklos was relishing the task, not least because of what it was going to gain him if he could satisfy this big London chief. There was not a person in the country who did not harbour fears for what might be coming — not one, Miklos suspected, who had not at some time thought
how good it would be to get out of Czechoslovakia to somewhere safe.

  Mr Barrowman and his fellow guest Mr Nolan were not first on the list that McKevitt had ticked, so by the time Miklos and his companion got to Vince Castellano the act was well honed. The knock at the room door was gentle and when it opened there was Miklos smiling, with another bland-faced individual standing a couple of paces away with a clipboard and a pen.

  ‘Forgive me, Mr Nolan,’ he said, speaking slowly so as to be unthreatening, flashing his forged warrant card so quickly it was a blur. ‘I am from the Czech police. Please do not be alarmed, as we are doing a routine check.’

  Vince knew how to soften the Old Bill: be nice to them. ‘Do you want to come in?’

  ‘That will not be necessary, but I wonder if I could have a look at your passport?’ Seeing Vince’s eyebrows go up a fraction — everyone else had the same reaction — he was quick to add, ‘I am sure you are aware of the number of refugees trying to flee the country, many of them employing false papers.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘Yes, and to ensure that they do not use those of guests visiting our country we wish to have a list of the numbers, which we can hold to compare against forgeries.’

  Vince, again as had others, stood for a moment in consideration of whether to comply, but the man before him was smiling and his eyes looked pleading rather than threatening, so he turned and went to fetch the required document from his coat pocket.

  This was taken, examined, then passed to the silent oppo who dutifully wrote down the number against the name, and then it was passed back. ‘I believe your companion, Mr Barrowman, is not in the hotel and left with a bag.’

  There was no option but to reply honestly, otherwise they might attract unwelcome attention. ‘He’s gone out of town on business.’

  ‘Do you have any idea when he will return?’

  ‘A couple of days, I think. It depends on how successful he is.’

  ‘Really, it is good to find you and your countrymen still doing trade with us. Might I ask what business you are in?’

  ‘Chemicals,’ Vince replied, noticing the other fellow with the clipboard was looking impatient.

  ‘You too are in chemicals?’

  ‘No, sports equipment, boxing rings.’

  ‘Then I hope you have success. Enjoy your stay in Prague, Mr Nolan, and please, I see you carry your passport with you — look after it well for it would not be helpful to anyone if it was stolen.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jimmy Garvin got to Cheb long before the car carrying Callum Jardine and Corrie Littleton, though he was unaware of the fact. All he knew was that by jumping off the train as soon as it entered the station and running for the ticket barrier he had a chance to get into a position to see if she followed, unsure what to do when he saw there was no sign of her.

  He knew, having looked at his watch as the train drew in, that it was bang on time, which led him to reflect on that often-quoted saw mouthed by those idiots who admired Benito Mussolini, that ‘he had made the trains run on time’. Why was such an accolade never applied to an efficient democracy like Czechoslovakia?

  Bartlett had told him about the car she had got into, so he assumed she must be coming by road, so his first task was to find himself somewhere to stay that was not the Victoria Hotel. Being a bit of a spa town, a sort of minor Carlsbad, there were quite a number of places dedicated to those taking the waters and he elected to walk to find one.

  The difference outside the station — managed and run by Czechs — was palpable, the buildings flying flags showing more of the black-red-black ensign of the Sudetenland than the far fewer Czech tricolours. Added to that there was a grimness about those people he passed, their looks not aided by the wet weather, albeit, given the puddles in the road, the worst of the downpour had passed and was now just a light drizzle.

  The choice of one flying the national flag was deliberate; Jimmy knew the object of Corrie Littleton’s visit and he guessed she would park herself as close to Konrad Henlein as she could.

  In a place with few visitors now — no one was coming for the waters in a potential war zone — he soon realised that in the hotel he chose he was the only guest; no wonder he had been greeted and fussed over like a saviour.

  In the Maybach the hood was now firmly closed, the heavy rain beating a tattoo on the windscreen with which the small wipers were struggling to cope, creating a cocoon which closed them in and seemed to make more intimate their conversation, with Corrie now talking about her upbringing.

  Cal knew she came from Boston but was now treated to the fact that she had gone to Bryn Mawr, which was apparently a prestigious and famous woman-only college in Pennsylvania, right up there with Harvard and Yale.

  ‘But no boys?’

  Corrie laughed. ‘We were told we did not need them.’

  ‘End of the human race.’

  ‘To prosper, not procreate, but we could do that too if we went looking.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Once or twice.’

  The tone of that response was not a joyful one, which made Cal wonder if she had been let down in her past. He couldn’t ask; he was not well enough acquainted for that and it did not fall in the need-to-know category regarding what they might face in Cheb.

  ‘Is that a petrol pump by the roadside?’ Cal said, peering through the rain, which was as good a way as any of avoiding that subject.

  ‘What, again?’

  They had stopped and filled the car in each sizeable town through which they passed — an eight-litre V12 engine used a lot of fuel — but that was not the reason; Cal liked as full a tank as possible on the very good grounds that you never knew when you were going to need it.

  Corrie had broken him down earlier by refusing to be diverted, and in truth he could see that she needed the background she claimed, and he had to admit being married and the circumstances of his attachment. Oddly, like his last days in London, he found his wife a subject he could now discuss without the onset of gloom.

  ‘I was young and going off to war, Lizzie was beautiful and…’ Cal paused. ‘You have to be facing that kind of thing to know what drives men and women to rush into matrimony.’

  ‘You mean apart from stupidity.’

  ‘Was it Doctor Johnson who said “the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully”? The Western Front was a bit like that. No one told you but the average survival time of a subaltern when there was a big battle on was about two weeks. I was lucky — I survived.’

  ‘But you were in love, right?’

  ‘Very much so, but the time we had was too tight to allow for much investigation of what made us tick. My wife craves excitement.’

  ‘And you don’t?’ Corrie said with disbelief.

  ‘Maybe that was the mutual attraction, but my adventures tend to be outdoors.’

  That confused her until the message struck home, which produced, ‘Sorry I asked.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  ‘It’s a bitch she won’t give you a divorce. I suppose you’ve been a good boy yourself?’

  He was not going there; one, he had not been and two, if you’re a gentleman you don’t boast about your conquests. Besides there was an affair he wanted to avoid mentioning because that would still be painful.

  ‘I hope you are not preparing a profile for your magazine.’

  ‘Make a good one, especially if you have had lots of love affairs. International adventurer with the soft heart of a romantic poet.’

  Cal was suddenly very serious. ‘Don’t ever go thinking I have a soft heart, Corrie, because I haven’t. If you run my name through your records I suspect it will come up even in the USA.’

  ‘Why not save me the time?’

  ‘It doesn’t make for contentment.’

  ‘Sounds like you did something real bad.’

  ‘It was,’ Cal replied, not seeking to keep the bitterness out of his voice. ‘Another checkpoint ahead, so go to work on y
our smile.’

  ‘Physician heal thyself.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Cal replied; memory of the blood-spattered wall of his marital bedroom had made him glare.

  ‘Right,’ McKevitt snapped, looking at the first replies that had come back from Miklos. ‘Get those numbers off by telegram to the passport office in London. I want the names on them checked for anything that isn’t right and I want a rocket up their arse so they don’t just bury it.’

  ‘You still have not told us what it is you are after, Noel.’

  McKevitt looked up at Major ‘Gibby’ Gibson, the Prague station chief, and gave him the coldest stare he could, which was coming it a bit high with a man of his age and experience, some twenty years in the service and an unblemished record.

  ‘There are things you don’t need to know, Gibby, but when you do you will be informed.’

  Gibson wanted to reply that this was his patch, even if the fellow he was talking to was the man who ran the London Desk and, though junior in years, his superior. Though a hierarchy like any other government body, the SIS ran on slightly different lines and it was simply not done to override a station chief, and even worse to do so in such a public manner as to undermine his local authority. McKevitt in briefing everyone had done just that.

  With the extra staff he had been given, plus his own skills and contacts, Gibson had done a good job of keeping London up to speed on everything happening in both the capital city and beyond, yet he had been obliged to drag men off what he saw as valuable work to meet the needs of Noel McKevitt, which might just have been acceptable with an explanation.

  If it had displeased him to issue the orders, they had been received just as badly by those tasked to execute them, all professionals who felt they were being sidelined from proper intelligence work to do the kind of thing usually allotted at home to lowly beat coppers, and such a feeling had permeated most of the building.