“Gentleman?”
“Well, sir, a man. Foreign-looking. But he spoke good English.” The inspector began to look embarrassed. “You don’t reckon it was same gentleman, man, who shot you, do you, sir?” He was hopeful.
“I have no idea,” Berkeley said.
Because if it was then Caterina had been part of a conspiracy to have her husband murdered, so that she could return to Serbia. But he just couldn’t believe that she could have acted her part so convincingly, appearing to be reconciled to him, and her display of grief when he had been hit had surely been genuine. If it had not, he did not suppose he could ever trust a woman again.
“You see, sir,” Watt was saying, “it’s a little difficult. What the ticket clerk had to say does not give the impression that Mrs Townsend was being coerced in any way. In other words, she was travelling with this gen— ah, man, of her own free will. So, really, unless we have some crime to follow up, we do not have any reason for apprehending them, even supposing we can find them. Especially as they are not even British citizens.”
“In my opinion, Inspector, you have every reason for apprehending them,” Berkeley said. “The young lady is travelling on a British passport. She is not yet twenty-one. In fact she is not yet twenty. And she happens to be my wife. I am entitled to have her back.”
Inspector Watt departed, unhappily, and Berkeley returned to his hopeless reflections. He even attempted to get out of bed and get dressed, but was apprehended by several nurses, and put back. Dr Cheam came in, very angry. “Are you trying to commit suicide?” he demanded.
“Listen,” Berkeley said. “My wife has run off.”
“That’s damned bad luck. But there is nothing you personally can do about it until this wound is healed. And you’re doing your damnedest to put this back by several weeks. Now, are you going to behave yourself, or am I going to have to sedate you and put you in a straitjacket?”
Berkeley knew he had to submit. It was the first time in his life that he had been in such a position. When he had been wounded at Omdurman, he had had the comforting knowledge that the battle was won, that Khartoum would fall, that Gordon’s murder would be avenged. Heady stuff. And if the wound had taken far longer to heal than he had expected, and he had early been warned that his career as a field officer was finished, he had also been assured that he would remain on the staff. No one had told him then that it would be as a travelling spy, because of his abilities as an observer and a draughtsman; he had just been happy that he could remain a soldier.
Since then, and up until that fateful act of gallantry in Seinheit that summer, life had followed a fairly even course. He did not enjoy being a spy – military observer the War Office called it – but it had been an easy enough occupation. Wealthy English gentlemen were fairly common on the continent; that his habits were somewhat more absurd than the norm had only amused, not concerned the various Austrian, German, Russian, Turkish and even French officials with whom he had come into contact. But all the while the frustration had been growing, without him even being aware of it, to explode in the defence of Anna Slovitza and throw him into a vortex from which there was no certainty he would ever emerge.
Then emerge now, he thought, his brain only half active under the drugs Cheam pumped into him. He had met, wooed, and married the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Now she was gone. She might even have been responsible for the attempt on his life. Was this not the moment to say, good riddance? She had been called back to the catastrophe that was Balkan politics. He had no part in that. She had cost him dear, for the few precious moments he had held her in his arms, and loved her.
But he had loved her. He did love her, there was a problem. And she was his wife. He was still enough of an English officer and a gentleman to feel that was vitally important, that his rights as her husband were vitally important, to his manhood, to his very personality.
And he could do nothing about it, save lie in this bed and feel pain, in his mind as much as his body.
“We’ve a visitor for you,” the ward sister said brightly.
As at least one of his parents, not to mention Lockwood, came to see him every day without such an announcement, he feared the worst. But it was no one from the War Office. Julia Gracey hovered anxiously in the doorway.
“May I come in?” she asked.
“Please do.”
He was sufficiently healed now to be propped up in bed.
She advanced, stood beside the bed. “You look awful.”
“I don’t feel all that good,” he agreed. “But it’s mainly weakness. They’re letting me out next week. Then it’ll be a matter of regaining my strength.”
She sat in the straight chair beside the bed. She wore a little hat with flowers on the brim, tilted forward over her eyes. “I’m very sorry,” she said.
“About what, exactly?”
“Well, your wife leaving you . . .”
“Wives do these things, from time to time.”
There was a brief silence.
“Are you going to divorce her?”
“I haven’t thought of it. It wouldn’t be very easy to do, anyway, as I believe she’s left the country.”
Another brief silence.
“I’m to marry,” Julia said. “Harvey Braddock.”
“I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”
“He keeps asking me,” she said as if he hadn’t spoken. “And . . . well there was no longer any reason to put him off.”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s not official yet. I just thought you should know.”
“That was good of you.”
She was fishing, desperately. She wanted to marry him, not Harvey Braddock. The slightest hint that he might be planning to secure his freedom would have her in his arms, he was sure. Another temptation to turn his back on the Balkans.
But he couldn’t, not on the woman he loved, and not to a fate like her mother’s, which would surely happen if she rejoined the Black Hand.
“Well,” Julia said at the end of another brief silence, “I must be getting along. I do hope you’ll be well enough to come to our wedding.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Berkeley said.
*
“Mrs Townsend and her companion took the ferry to Calais, as you suspected, Captain Townsend,” Inspector Watt said. “In Calais, they boarded the train for Paris, but they had secured through tickets to Marseilles. After that, the trail is cold. The French police are being cooperative, but I’m afraid, well, there are quite a few of what we might describe as foreign-looking gentlemen in Marseilles, as well as good-looking young women. The odds on them being found, at least soon enough for any action to be taken, before they leave Marseilles, are remote. And as you know, sir . . .”
“You have nothing legally to have them arrested for,” Berkeley said. “Thank you very much, Inspector. I think you can call off the hunt, now. I know where my wife can be found.”
“Yes, sir,” Watt said unhappily.
“I don’t suppose you’ve had any success with the fellow who took a pot-shot at me?”
“Sadly, no, sir. I would say he also has escaped to the continent.”
Berkeley nodded.
*
“You can, of course, make representations to the British Consul in Belgrade,” John Townsend suggested.
“Do you really think that would have any effect?”
“Well, she is your wife, Berkeley.”
“Far more important than that, Caterina is a member of an organisation which is virtually a law unto itself, in Serbia.”
“Organisation?” John Townsend said uneasily.
“I shouldn’t have said that. You’d best forget it.”
“So you mean to go after her yourself.”
“As soon as I can. Cheam says I can leave hospital next week.”
“Yes, he did. But he also says you need at least another month’s recuperation. Surely you can spend Christmas at home.”
Berkeley nod
ded. He owed them that, at any rate.
The day before Berkeley was due to leave hospital, the ward sister was in a state of high excitement.
“A general,” she squealed. “A real live general. I never knew you were so important, Captain Townsend.”
“You learn something every day,” Berkeley said. “You’d better show him in.”
General Gorman was in civilian clothes and wore a bowler hat, a rather futile exercise in discretion Berkeley supposed, if he had announced himself as a general; he looked even more like a bloodhound on the scent than usual as he peered around the room. He was accompanied by Major Smailes, also in mufti.
“Shut the door,” he growled.
Smailes obeyed, and remained standing by it, as if on guard.
Gorman stood by the bed while Berkeley endeavoured to lie to attention.
“They tell me you’re almost fit again,” the general remarked.
“I’ll be out of this bed soon, thank God,” Berkeley said. “But there’s talk of a month’s recuperation before I’ll be fit for active service.”
“Time, unfortunately, waits for no man,” Gorman pointed out, and sat in the straight chair by the bed. “What are your plans regarding your wife?”
Berkeley could not stop himself from raising his eyebrows; he could not imagine the general being remotely interested in his domestic affairs.
“I would hope to get her back, sir.”
“Commendably loyal,” the general remarked, disparagingly. “I understand she has returned to Serbia.”
“I believe she has, sir.”
“For what purpose? Has she relatives there?”
“I don’t think so. But her home is there, and all her friends.”
“She came away with you happily enough. Didn’t she?”
“Ah . . . yes, indeed, sir.”
“So, she has gone back because of the crisis. And I can tell you, Townsend, that the crisis is deepening every day.”
“I understood the Kaiser has retracted the remarks he made to the Daily Telegraph.”
“Yes, he has, and it is not that I am talking about. Everyone knows Kaiser Willy is as mad as a March hare, which does not mean he isn’t dangerous. We’re pretty sure he’s encouraging Austria; and it is that crisis that concerns us. The Austrians have mobilised an army on the Serb frontier. The Serbs have also mobilised. That no shots have actually been fired yet is because no one knows what Russia’s attitude will be. If she backs the Serbs, as the Serbs are begging her to do, we could have a full-scale Balkan war. If she doesn’t back them, well . . . it will still leave the area in a very unsettled state. The French and ourselves have put forward a peace package, which consists of persuading the Serbs to accept the fait accompli in Bosnia-Herzegovina in return for guarantees of their frontiers, and a comprehensive trading agreement with the Austro-Hungarian Empire which will greatly enhance their financial position. Unfortunately, the acceptance of these proposals also waits on the Russians, and they are in a mess. It appears that their foreign secretary agreed to the Austrian takeover of Bosnia-Herzegovina in exchange for Russian rights to build a railway through the Balkans, without reference to either the Tsar or the rest of the Russian government. So there is some argument going on in Moscow, against which has to be set the fact that the Austrians are in possession, and it is going to take a very large army to get them back out, especially if they are supported by Germany.”
“As you say, sir,” Berkeley commented. “A right royal mess. May I ask what the Turks think of it all? The provinces were technically theirs.”
“Still are, legally,” Gorman said. “But the Turks are in no condition to fight anyone at the moment. The point I am making is that the whole business, peace or war in the Balkans, is hovering on a knife-edge of diplomacy and hopefully goodwill. The slightest incident could spark off shooting. I am talking of the behaviour of your wife’s friends, the Black Hand. They have been keeping a low profile since Anna Slovitza’s death. Presumably they are again looking for a new leader in the field, having thought they had found him, but managed to lose him. Am I right?”
“Yes, sir.” Berkeley said.
“They may also be waiting on the result of these various negotiations. However, in view of their past record, we must assume not only that they will find a new field commander soon enough, but that they will also grow tired of waiting. So,” Gorman said, “we have decided it would be a good idea for you to go after your wife and find her . . . I assume you know where to look?”
“She will have gone back to Sabac.”
“Excellent. So you will go there, make it up with her and settle down to a life of domestic bliss until further notice.”
“Sir?”
“Officially, we are retiring you, Townsend. This will be entirely honourable, and will be on account of your wounds which render you unfit for active service, or indeed any service. Officially. Being retired, you will, as I have indicated, join your wife and settle down. You will be funded, unofficially, through our people in Belgrade, and you will of course, remain a British officer. You are being assigned to a very special duty, and that is to keep the Black Hand out of trouble, or from causing trouble.”
“I’m afraid that will be difficult, sir. If not impossible.”
“I think not. You told me that you were offered command of the field part of this society.”
“Which I declined, sir.”
“Now you must accept it. You are fired by the Austrian action.”
“Supposing, just supposing, they do accept me back, sir, and it is doubtful, it will be because I convince them I am, as you put it, fired by the Austrian action. In which case, they will expect me to do something about it.”
“You will have to procrastinate.”
Berkeley gazed at the general. “I don’t think you quite understand the situation in the Balkans, General. Those people hold life very cheaply. If they suspected for a moment I was not doing my best for them they would cut my throat.”
“You’re a soldier, Berkeley. Soldiers take risks.”
Berkeley gulped; the general had never addressed him as Berkeley before.
“It shouldn’t be for very long,” Gorman went on, as winningly as a battered bloodhound could. “Once we get the Serbs to sign up to a treaty with Austria, we can then bring pressure to bear upon them to get rid of the Black Hand people.”
“Of whom I shall be one,” Berkeley observed. “Their commander in the field, if all goes according to plan.”
“You will have sufficient warning to get out,” Gorman promised him. “With your wife.”
Berkeley sighed. He reckoned he was once again being sent on a suicide mission. But oddly enough, it was what he wanted to do; just to be with Caterina again, to see that marvellous smile, to hold all of that beauty in his arms. Even if it brought him a knife in the ribs.
“You will, of course,” Gorman went on, “also use your advantageous position to keep an eye on the entire Serbian situation. You will be our man on the ground. Or perhaps I should say, in the ground.” He gave one of his wintry smiles. “In this regard, we would like you to report any events or developments which may be of importance to His Majesty’s Government. You will have to use your discretion in making a judgement on these matters. However, whatever you have to report must be top secret.” He snapped his fingers and Smailes came to the bedside, carrying a small book he had taken from his briefcase. “This is a personal code book. There are only half a dozen of them in existence. I have one, of course. Now you do too. Guard it with your life. You will use this for any message you wish to communicate with me personally. You will not communicate with anyone else, and no one else must know what you are sending. In normal circumstances you will use the mails. However, if the matter is urgent and you need to telegraph, you will use our Embassy in Athens.”
Berkeley opened his mouth, and then closed it again. Gorman seemed to assume that Athens was a mere day’s journey away from Serbia, much less Sabac.
&
nbsp; “So, your passage to Greece is booked for next Friday,” Gorman said.
“I am supposed to convalesce for a month.”
“There is no better way to convalesce than a sea voyage,” Gorman assured him.
“My people were hoping I’d spend Christmas with them.”
“I am sure they’ll understand,” Gorman said, and stood up. “Oh, by the way, as of today you hold the rank of major. This will be gazetted, as it is normal procedure when an officer is retired. Any questions?”
“Am I allowed to take Lockwood?”
“Of course.”
“I will have to tell him what we’re about.”
Gorman frowned.
“He is absolutely trustworthy,” Berkeley said. “He has proved this time and again. And I cannot ask him to undertake what may be a very dangerous mission in the dark, as it were.”
Gorman cleared his throat. “I take your point, Major. Very well On your head be it.” He held out his hand. “This is a business of great importance. It could mean the difference between war and peace.”
Berkeley clasped hands. “I shall do my best, sir.”
*
“You don’t have to come, Harry,” he told Lockwood. “My wife’s people may take one look at me and shoot. And anyone standing alongside me.”
“But you don’t expect them to do that, sir.”
“I’m an optimist. And I can’t believe that Caterina really means me ill.”
Lockwood looked doubtful. “She did threaten to kill you on board that ship.”
“We sorted that one out.”
“Yes sir. Well, I shall of course accompany you.”
His tone suggested that he felt Berkeley needed a keeper.
*
“But . . .” John Townsend was horrified. “You said you’d be home for Christmas.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. I have to go.”
“Because you’ve been sacked? We’ll find you a job here.”
“It’s not quite as simple as that. I must go to Caterina.”
“After she walked out on you?”
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