A Bitter Field

CHAPTER TWO

‘ Must have been a bit hairy in Czechoslovakia, Cal, buying and shipping out your cargo with the nation mobilised for a possible war with the Hun.’

Peter had emptied the coffee pot and chewed steadily on his bread and jam to the point of swallowing half the loaf, a time during which Cal Jardine had kept off the subject and stuck to conversational generalities to allow himself time to think; now he was being dragged back to the present and what might become a dilemma. For a moment he wondered whether to answer, but given what Peter already knew it seemed harmless to oblige.

‘The order I made was placed and the paperwork sorted before the crisis blew up, but the Czechs honoured the deal, which was pretty straight of them considering they had Adolf breathing fire. Not that they were surprised; they knew Hitler was bound to come after them once he’d swallowed up Austria. How did you know about the false End User Certificate, by the way?’

‘Our military attache in Prague got wind of it and sent a standard report to London. That was where the Irish connection first raised questions, given how sensitive we are in Blighty about possible shipments to the IRA.’

Cal was thinking that such an explanation did not clarify why Peter was here.

‘We had to be sure, Cal, they were going to where the certificate said. I also have to admit it was a damn clever ploy, given our chaps are busy licensing the same weaponry for use by the British army and, of course, the Irish would follow suit, piggybacking on our research and approval. I hope it was worth whatever you forked out to get the Czechs to fall for it.’

If it was clever, the real reason that he had been successful in his purchase was more to do with the Czech factory having no desire to question him too closely about his bona fides: his papers were in order as far as they could see and the people he claimed to represent appeared sound.

In reality they were not looking too closely; they badly wanted his money, or to be more precise, the Spanish republican gold with which he was prepared to pay, as did a government under threat from a powerful neighbour, keen to amass foreign exchange, so extracting a false certificate from the relevant Czech ministry had been something of a formality in which no one had even demanded an illegal payment.

It was a good deal; the weapons he had bought were perfect for guerrilla warfare, a new pattern of easily portable light machine guns deadly in that kind of close combat. It was a ground and vehicle weapon, and added to that, so low was the recoil, they could be fired from the hip while on the move, all of which Peter listened to with polite interest; if he knew Cal was stalling, which he was, he gave no indication of it.

‘You can tell the staff wallahs from me they’ve bought a good infantry weapon.’

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Cal, but I doubt your estimation would carry much weight with the military brass and even less if I passed it on from MI6, given the army think we are all overeducated dolts. Anyway, to cut to the chase, we’re not interested in guns; what the firm is after is your opinion of the Czechs as a nation.’

‘Do you mean the Czech Czechs, the Slovaks, the Ruthenians, the Poles, the Hungarians or the Sudetenland Germans?’

Peter sighed. ‘Do you have to complicate things?’

Cal felt he needed to make the point even if the world was less ignorant now than it had been a few months before, because Czechoslovakia was very much in the news, with German newspapers ranting daily about the ‘plight’ of their racial brethren in the border regions called the Sudetenland.

Yet, even on the front pages of the world, few appreciated how much the nation was a construct nation of peoples hacked out of the dismembered Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a dozen languages and rivalries going back centuries. Like most of his fellow countrymen, and most unfortunately the people in power in London, Peter did not appreciate the problems that produced.

If the Sudeten German minority were the most vocal in the search for concessions to their racial background they were just one of half a dozen similar problems facing the Prague Government, given every ethnic group had, to varying degrees, jumped on the federalist bandwagon. Tempted to explain, Cal decided not to bother; the nub of the question was not about that.

‘Despite the bleating of their minorities, the Czechs are an honest bunch who run a democratic government that others of a similar ilk should support. How does that sound?’

That got an idly raised eyebrow. ‘Like a Daily Herald headline and easier said than done, old boy.’

‘But not impossible,’ Cal responded, his voice becoming more animated. ‘They have a reasonable military, good equipment and a fortified mountainous border with Germany that would take a serious commitment of manpower to get through, one perfect to aid an assault from the west by a combined French and British army.’

‘I’m not sure that’s actually answering the question I asked.’

‘I am, Peter, given it’s the only one that matters. They would have made a perfect partner before Hitler marched into Vienna, but sadly the border with Austria is a flat plain and difficult to defend. By being supine over the Anschlu? we have fatally weakened and are going to lose a useful potential ally unless we do something to stop it.’

‘That does assume Adolf wishes to go the whole hog, old boy, and swallow the country up.’

‘Something tells me you have not got round to reading Mein Kampf yet. I seem to recall telling you to do that with some force two years ago.’

‘Picked it up, of course, but it’s terribly turgid stuff, a perfect cure for insomnia, in fact. I have never got very far when I try. Nod off every time.’

‘Then let me precis it for you, once more. Adolf Hitler wants back all the bits of German-speaking Central Europe they and the Austrians were forced to give away at Versailles and if he can’t get them by threats he will go to war to recover them. He’s already remilitarised the Rhineland and swallowed Austria in a coup, two things he listed in his ever-so-turgid book, both of which should have been stopped. Not many politicians keep their written promises, but he is one who will.’

Peter sighed and lit another cigarette. ‘While our lot seem to have promised there will never be another pan-European war.’

‘They don’t have the power of decision, Peter. Hitler does! Has anyone in London looked at a map and seen what possession of Czechoslovakia does to the defence of Poland?’

‘He’s after them too, I suppose?’

‘He wants to wipe out the Polish Corridor and take back Danzig, and the Poles won’t give them up without a fight.’

‘So, tell me how you managed to get them out with all that flap going on.’

‘The guns?’

‘What else?’

‘Would I not bore you?’

‘Cal, old boy, you often make me wonder what drives you to get into so many scrapes, but bore me, never!’

‘While I am wondering if you have just come to La Rochelle or were waiting for me to arrive.’ Peter Lanchester grinned and flicked off a bit of ash. ‘You were waiting for me, weren’t you? Not that you have tried very hard to hide the fact that you have this apartment for one day and possibly more.’

‘Was I?’

Cal pointed to the jar of French jam. ‘That was not opened this morning, was it, and if you only just booked into this place it would need to be.’

Peter pulled a face, the one an errant child might employ when caught in a fib, but Cal suspected he was only playing out a game. ‘It might have been left by the previous occupant.’

‘In a rented apartment it would have been pilfered by the owner, the agent or whoever cleans the place, a fact of which you too would have been aware. So that tells me you want me to know, because, Peter, if some of the people you are again working for are as thick as two short planks, you are not.’

‘I will take that as a backhanded compliment.’

‘So?’

‘Being the servant of two masters, though not at the same time I hasten to add, has certain advantages, but it turned out that prior to my recall to the Secret Intelligence Service, certain elements in the firm became aware you were active and where.’

‘How?’

‘Various whispers, some of which I picked up.’

‘You were listening?’

‘On behalf of those for whom I worked, Cal. I have to admit a particular interest in what you are up to, given what you choose to call my “previous employers” thought we might be required to ask for your services again after Ethiopia.’

‘I could have used more of their help in Spain.’

Peter had got him the use of a freighter to ship a load of weapons to Barcelona the previous year. Once on board he was soon disillusioned as to the depth of the favour, being presented with forged documents to sign that made him entirely responsible for what was in the holds, should the vessel be stopped and searched.

‘The interests I worked for might be anti-fascist, Cal, but they are not pro-republican, while I am damn sure they have no time for anarchists. And that does not even begin to explain how little they are enamoured by the level of Russian involvement. They are, after all, people with a visceral dislike of Bolsheviks.’

‘One of these days I look forward to you telling me who they are.’

‘While I would be fascinated to hear the tale of how you managed to buy a shipload of German weapons for the Spanish republicans and get them out through Hamburg, when the Nazis are committed to supporting Franco.’

‘That is a tale which will cost you a good dinner.’

‘Don’t you think it’s time you treated me, Cal, given you’re the one with the private income, while I am now what Karl Marx called a mere “wage slave”?’

‘So, the trade was pegged in Czechoslovakia, but where did you pick up that I was involved and, more importantly, headed for La Rochelle?’

‘SIS landed me with the job on my re-engagement, given I know you from our army days. The trade was flagged in Brno, from a contact in the arms factory paid to tell us when stuff was going out the door, regardless of to where.’

‘I should have thought of that,’ Cal said.

‘At first, given he’s pretty low level, he did not know who was buying, and naturally, given the reasons already stated, the firm was deeply curious and finally alarmed when they checked with our lot in Dublin and a false EUC emerged.’

‘That does not finger me.’

‘But then you contracted in a certain name for a ship to pick up an unspecified cargo here and that belonged to one of my previous contacts, who passed the info on to me, really to check the risk factor that it might be breaking the embargo. And lo and behold I find the vessel has been hired by a Mr Moncrief.’

Peter was looking pretty smug, but really what had caught Cal out was a chain of coincidence: British sensitivity about Irish terrorism in the six counties of Ulster, the contacts Peter had, plus the fact that he had supplied the false Moncrief identity to help him smuggle those weapons into Barcelona two years before. Then he had gone back to work for the Government and failed to keep that fact to himself.

‘And naturally you had to let your new masters know that Moncrief was me and, very likely, the cargo was not destined for Dublin?’

‘No need to take that tone, old chum, chap needs a feather or two in his cap from time to time and they were impressed. Having brought home a bit of early bacon, and knowing in part our relationship, I was given the task of looking for you.’

‘Which involved?’

‘Checking the trains that had left Brno, the goods they were carrying and their destinations, as well as who might be shifting them and to where. Dublin-based company, agricultural equipment, staggered journey with some odd stops and switches that took over a month — two and two, really.’

‘So having made four?’

‘I’m not here to interfere, Cal, but to enquire if you are planning any more little adventures.’

‘I might be.’

‘In Czechoslovakia?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘In that case, as I have already mentioned, we want your services in what is now a very interesting part of the world.’

‘You must have people there already.’

‘Shall I just say there is an official policy and one that runs somewhat counter to that, which makes it an arena where we have to tread somewhat carefully.’

‘To avoid alerting the Foreign Office and I presume some people in MI6 itself?’

Peter Lanchester thought for several seconds before nodding, initially unwilling to acknowledge that he worked in an organisation which, quite apart from the time-servers was staffed by some very rabid right-wingers indeed, agents whose loyalties might be split.

‘And if the answer is no?’

‘I go back to London with my tail between my legs and admit to those who sent me that I failed in my first field operation, which will not do much to raise my standing.’

Cal leant forward and looked Peter right in the eye. ‘Assuming the answer is no, let me tell you what I would do if I were in your shoes.’

To avoid his eye, Peter deliberately looked at his toecap. ‘Do we share a shoe size, old boy?’

‘I would make the proposition and if I was turned down I would slip along to the hotel de ville and seek out whoever it is who is in a position to alert the Deuxieme Bureau, given there’s bound to be someone in place for that purpose.’

Peter was now looking distinctly uncomfortable, a condition that was not eased by the bitter tone in which Cal continued.

‘Then I would say to them that there is a cargo of light machine guns plus enough ammo for an extended campaign coming into town to be loaded on to a British cargo vessel, bound for Spain, and I would even provide names.’

‘That would be awfully devious, Cal.’

‘Yet I suspect I have just described your instructions from on high. I have been tracked halfway across Europe and if I am being tailed in La Rochelle it is not by the French, it is by MI6, all for the purpose of blackmailing me into working for them. Those two following me were just to give you leverage, were they not?’

There was no reaction to that, the eyes stayed on the shoe.

‘Just as they were also not the idiots I took them to be, they were supposed to be spotted so you could give that little performance on the quayside.’

‘At least you must acknowledge it was convincing.’

‘Who are they?’

The reply was not immediate but slow in coming; no one in the intelligence business likes to give anything away unless they have to. ‘Couple of chaps from the Paris embassy, who were only too keen for a bit of cloak and dagger to relieve the boredom.’

It was not hard to anticipate the next question, given the way Cal was staring at him. ‘Who, if they don’t hear from me, will return there forthwith.’

‘Do they know about my real name or my shipment?’

‘Of course not!’ Peter replied, eyebrows shooting up, leaving Cal to wonder if the shock was real or as feigned as his quayside rudeness. He was far from convinced he was being told the truth.

‘The question is, Peter, will you carry out your instructions to the letter or will you, for old times’ sake, if I decline your offer, manufacture a fudge that lets me get clear?’

Peter Lanchester looked Cal straight in the eye, tapping his fingers on the oilskin cloth covering the table. ‘I hope you are not expecting me to be embarrassed. It is often the case that in the intelligence game one is put in an invidious position, Cal, you know that.’

‘I accept that, but I don’t know what you are going to do, given the position you are in — indulge an old companion, or obey your new bosses and hang me out to dry. When it comes to shipping weapons to Spain the French are worse than us and quite brutal in their methods of extracting information. I don’t fancy ending up having to answer any questions they might pose about who helped me get this far.’

‘Then give me an answer.’

‘I will, on one condition.’

‘Which is?’

‘I’ll say yes or no when my cargo is loaded and on the way to Spain.’

‘You’re not going with it?’

‘No, my involvement ends once it’s on board.’

That brought another long silence as Peter contemplated the offer, and it was clear from his expression that what occurred to him first were the manifest drawbacks.

‘Such a course puts all the aces in your hands. What if you renege once it is loaded?’

‘I give you my word I will not and my answer will be based on a realistic appreciation of what I can usefully do.’

‘Not something my chiefs would accept.’

‘They don’t know me, you do. I am not giving them my word, Peter, this is personal between you and I.’

That led to another long silence and a stare between them that was locked and unfriendly, until Peter finally gave way. ‘Oh all right, but you’d better bloody well keep it, for if you break it I will get the blame for that and I give you my word that those I represent will help me to ensure you will suffer more.’

‘Meaning I’ll have to shut up shop in the arms trade?’

‘Meaning, old boy, you will never dare set foot on home soil again, for the moment you do you will be arrested and thrown into choky for a very long time.’

‘I assume I would get a trial.’

‘While I am certain you would earn a conviction. You’re a British subject breaking an official arms embargo.’

Cal looked at his watch. ‘It is about time for me to move, Peter. I have a schedule to keep.’

‘Which involves?’ Now it was Cal’s turn to be guarded, to husband information best kept secret, which clearly annoyed Peter. ‘I have to know and I have, after all, been fairly open with you.’

‘I radioed the ship from the Marconi office this morning, which is, I assume, where your embassy chaps picked me up?’

‘Another bit of brilliant Lanchester deduction. I guessed you’d have to radio the vessel to say the cargo was ready to load.’

‘It will anchor in the outer roads late this afternoon and I have to get the goods into the commercial port and alongside before certain customs people go off duty.’

‘Folk whom you’ve bribed?’ Cal nodded, as Peter hauled himself to his feet. ‘You’ll have to wait till I get changed.’

‘Why?’

‘I doubt my present attire is proper wear for what is proposed.’

‘You intend to come along?’

‘Cal, if you think I am going to let you out of my sight, you have another think coming. I am going to stick to you, in that vulgar expression the squaddies we led used to employ, like shit to a blanket. Now do me a favour and start to clean the place up so there is no trace of either of us ever being here.’

‘Is that necessary?’

‘Compulsory, old boy, standing orders now that one is back in harness.’

‘Did you not rent it?’

‘Got one of the embassy chaps to do that and it is paid for till the end of the week.’

Surprised as he was, Cal complied and that took time, wiping every surface and handle, shutters included after they had been shut and locked. Then there was the coffee pot, the knife Peter had used, gas knob, kitchen surfaces as well as the tabletop and the backs of the chairs.

Peter Lanchester came out of the tiny bedroom backwards, using his handkerchief to do the doorknob and edge, nodding appreciatively when he saw that Cal had used a bag he had found to take with them the remaining food and any rubbish.

He was dressed in dark-grey flannels and a blazer, everything else in a valise he was carrying. Last of all, after the front door had been wiped, was the key, cleaned and flicked under the door. Once at the entrance to the apartments Peter allowed Cal twenty paces before following him to where he had parked his car, a small, two-door, green Simca, in a road off the quayside.