A Bitter Field

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Major Gibby Gibson was well aware he was dithering; should he send another signal to London or not? Effectively he had been relieved of his job by Noel McKevitt, so in essence he had no authority to do anything at all and in between the worries he had there was the requirement to make arrangements to disperse the men under his command.

With the chaps from neighbouring stations it was easy, they had travelled light — pack your kit and take a train to Warsaw and Bucharest. With him and his assistant they would be giving up rented apartments, paying off people like cleaners, saying goodbye to long-standing friends, settling bills for mundane things like gas and electricity, and in his much younger 2IC’s case disentangling himself from a rather torrid love affair.

‘I think you should see this, sir,’ said Tommy the cipher clerk, bursting into Gibson’s office. ‘It’s a flash from London.’

Gibson was out of his chair before he had finished reading it, calling out for the Royal Marines he had stationed in Prague as legation guards to find Noel McKevitt and if necessary restrain him, only to receive the news that the man had taken a Humber Snipe from the pool and had left half an hour before.

‘Did he indent for a weapon?’ he asked the senior marine, a sergeant who was in charge of such things.

The reply was crisply military and given as if such a thing was an everyday occurrence.

‘Webley revolver, sir, and twenty-four rounds of ammo. Nice to see the gentleman was familiar with the weapon, sir, handled it like an old pro, he did.’

London had to be informed and he needed to know what to do — a message which took time to encode and send. It was only by sheer luck it caught Peter Lanchester, who was leaving the building to hail a cab to Victoria for the boat train. He was hauled back smartish to face a seething Sir Hugh Sinclair.

‘Change of orders, Peter,’ he said, thrusting Gibson’s signal in his hand. ‘McKevitt is to be stopped by whatever means are necessary. Right now Miss Beard is typing a letter relieving him of all duties forthwith pending an enquiry into his conduct.’

‘Can’t we get the Czechs to stop him?’

‘He’s armed and travelling on a UK diplomatic passport — what would you say if you were a local and asked to intercept an armed British official roaring around in a legation car with dip plates?’

‘I would wonder what is going on.’

‘And you would ask for clearance to act?’

Peter nodded; he knew what that meant with someone carrying a gun: permission to shoot, which would entail at the very least the Czech Foreign Ministry asking the ambassador, who in turn might well cable London for clarification.

‘Exactly, and this would all be taking place in a country where, by official diktat, we are supposed to be playing it soft. Get to Eger, Peter, and tell Jardine to abort whatever he’s involved in and get out of the country.’

‘Regardless of what stage he is at?’

‘Regardless,’ Sir Hugh replied, very forcibly, as the required letter was placed in front of him for signature; rather suddenly his eyes misted over and this took on the appearance of a letter of resignation. ‘Termination, Peter, nothing else will do.’

Peter just had time to send a telegram to the Meran Hotel for Vince to get out and he employed the same tactics of colloquial English, there being no time to code it. It read: Gaff Blown, Scarper.

Upstairs Sir Hugh Sinclair was composing another signal telling Major Gibson to stand down and do nothing; the last thing he needed was a bunch of SIS men running around Czecho trying to apprehend one of their own. Keeping that quiet might prove impossible.

Driving out of Prague, Noel McKevitt was excited; given the mundane nature of what he had been doing for many years — the life of an SIS man on station was not one of much adventure and being desk bound was even worse — he was shedding nearly two decades, going back to the days when he and men like Barney Foxton, young then and ruthless, had fought the IRA to keep Ireland under the aegis of the British Crown.

That was the last time he had carried a gun in anger, the same as that which lay beside him on the car bench seat. There was too, at the back of his mind, the knowledge that, while he could rise further in the service, to a man of his background — grammar school and front-line service in a common or garden regiment — positions like that held by Sir Hugh Sinclair were outside his natural reach; he did not come from the right part of the establishment.

Long-held instincts now crystallised into a powerful spur to what he was doing, for it thus followed, and always would even if he had been reluctant to acknowledge it in the past, that elevation to the kind of position he craved would only come from some bold stroke which would elevate his prospects.

Luck played a major part in advancement, that and birth, for, from what he had observed, ability was not a prerequisite if you went to the right schools and saw service in the Royal Navy or the Brigade of Guards. How many senior positions had he seen filled by eejits who had nothing but one of those as their only qualification?

At the first checkpoint he was waved through without trouble; the boys manning it had been educated to recognise the plates of diplomatic vehicles, with which they were neither allowed to interfere or search, and it would be the same at the ones he had yet to face. McKevitt could look forward to being in Cheb in under four hours, the kind of time that had only been possible before Czech mobilisation.

He had reckoned without the car, which on the open road and being pushed a bit hard — normally it was used in town and on short journeys — revealed a radiator prone to overheating, evidenced by the pall of steam that began to issue from the bonnet at the second checkpoint, forcing him to pull over.

Once the steam had dispersed, one of the soldiers keen to assist him identified the problem as a split hose and a very junior conscript was sent off to find a garage where a replacement might be located. So frustrated was McKevitt that he wanted to retrieve the Webley from under the seat where he had hidden it and shoot someone.

Up ahead Vince Castellano was having a miserable time; every checkpoint was taking over an hour to get through, the traffic backed up for at least a mile and everyone’s papers being checked. Being foreign, he was pulled over for a more serious questioning every time which further delayed his progress and the nearer he got to his destination the jumpier seemed the soldiers.

It was well into the afternoon that he was obliged to pull over to the side to let past a stream of army lorries, some pulling artillery, and he wondered if the balloon had gone up, the only thing that reassured him the lack of a stream of refugees coming the other way. Then, on what this map told him was the border with the province called Karlovy Vary, he was halted altogether, the only consolation being that everyone else was too.

Peter Lanchester was back on the train at Calais wondering whether his stomach would ever settle down after a most appalling crossing in which he had been tossed around like a cork; would he be able to eat the food he had ordered?

The waves in the English Channel were notorious, made more disturbing by the narrowness of the sea and the way the gap between each rise and fall was so small. The whole thing had been accompanied by the sound of breaking glass and crashing crockery as the things normally used to feed and water people — no one was eating or drinking — were chucked off the shelves supposed to contain them by the peculiar corkscrew motion of the ferry.

Worse, the crossing had taken longer than normal, not aided by the difficulty of getting into Calais harbour, and he was in some danger of missing his connection to the Paris-to-Prague Express. The steward in the first-class dining room had assured him that the driver would seek to make up time, so he would just have to hope — and it seemed a forlorn one — that he could get to Cheb before McKevitt.

‘And so, Fraulein Littleton, I hope you have everything you have come for,’ said Henlein, once more taking her hand to kiss it while Cal translated. ‘You will, of course, let me see what you intend to submit.’

‘Before you leave,’ added the Ice Maiden.

‘Plenty of time,’ Cal responded, his remark no longer met with warmth.

‘Wessely told me he had invited you to our local rally tonight,’ Henlein said. ‘I too will be attending. It is good that we come together to hear the German Fuhrer speak, for I am certain he will refer to us and our difficulties and what aid he intends to give us.’

That was said with such confidence that Cal wondered if Henlein knew what Hitler was going to say — not the words, for he was very much an instinctive orator, but the gist. It was not a thought he held long, for the time had come for him and Corrie to depart, and as soon as they were out of the door she could not resist a jibe.

‘How does it feel to be frozen in ice like a woolly mammoth?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he replied, but he did.

‘How long have we got before we are taken to the bullring?’

‘A couple of hours.’

‘We could…’ she said kittenishly, taking his arm.

‘Haven’t you got typing to do?’

If it sounded like resistance it was only a formality.

Her nails dug into his arm. ‘I’ve got nimble fingers.’

‘My place or yours?’

Jimmy Garvin was bored stiff; he had actually called the Bayerischer Hof to inform Bartlett there was nothing happening, only to be told there was bugger all happening anywhere, certainly not in Prague, and what about him, surrounded by fanatical Nazis who kept trying to knock his eye out with their damn salute? It seemed churlish for Jimmy to point out that he was in much the same boat.

‘She must have interviewed Henlein, Jimmy, if she is staying in the same bloody hotel. What about breaking into her room and seeing if there’s anything worth pinching?’

‘You’re not serious, Vernon?’

‘No, joking really, but you never know what a young and ambitious fellow will do to get on, what?’

‘Meaning if I’d said I would do it you would not have restrained me?’

‘Laddie, I’m a hundred or more miles away, how could I? Best thing to do is to make yourself known to Corrie-’

‘I’ve met her, remember.’

‘Don’t be obtuse, Jimmy, there’s a good chap. Let her know you’re in Cheb, chat her up and use that devastating charm of yours to wheedle something out of her.’

Jimmy was about to say ‘What devastating charm?’ when he realised Bartlett was being sarcastic. ‘She’ll probably tell me to bugger off.’

‘Not a word our American chums employ, dear boy, but nothing ventured. Now, I’ve got to dash, the car is waiting to take me and dump me amongst several thousand sweaty oiks in that damned Congress Hall so that I can listen to Hitler tell the world what a genius he is for the umpteenth time.’

‘Are you not worried about being overheard?’

‘Jimmy, I hope the Gestapo are listening in. The truth, for once, will do them a power of good.’

Lying soaking an hour later, Cal was not thinking about the second bout of lovemaking he had just been enjoying with Corrie Littleton, pleasant as that was, but about what might be asked of him when he met Veseli in an hour’s time — and he knew it was not just going to be beer, food and listening to Hitler; that box in the back of his car was there for a purpose and it did not take a genius to work it out.

He was going to be asked to blow Henlein’s safe, which was pushing things a bit; while he knew about explosives, there was a skill to being aware of the right quantity needed to blast open a lock of a hardened steel door without killing yourself in the process and this was no trial-and-error situation.

Also, it must have been planned from the outset; Moravec, he suspected, had suckered him into this, playing up his need for subterfuge in his own capital city, ramping up the nerves, dangling before him the enticing prospect of material that would answer his purpose without the risk of going into Germany.

How convenient it must have been, his turning up, a man with the skills needed, an expert in covert warfare, guns and explosives, abilities they had talked about months before. How long after he got Janek to initiate contact had Moravec seen that he might be the solution to a problem he was wrestling with?

Cal had to assume it had been from the outset and he had been manoeuvred, pulled and pushed like some puppet, with Corrie Littleton the icing on the Moravec cake, which, if nothing else, showed that the intelligence chief was not only very quick to see a possibility but capable of acting on it with equal speed.

The other fact, which was inescapable, lay in the certain knowledge that someone else had been set to undertake what he was going to be asked to do and stood down when he arrived as a better alternative.

The reason? He was a foreigner, the original person tasked to blow Henlein’s safe and steal those documents had to be Czech, so was that sanction from the president to do nothing real or just another bit of flummery to suck him in?

Odds-on it was Veseli, but by using Cal, Moravec might get what he wanted, avoid censure if there was to be any and leave his best agent in place, which might not have been possible if Veseli did the deed.

How, if it was Veseli doing the job, had the Czech agent planned to get away? That, as Cal examined it, did not make sense. Once his cover was blown he was stuck miles from safety with everyone who had once trusted him baying for his blood, and he was not an easy man to disguise; even amongst Aryans he stood head and shoulders above them.

Imagining some of his Brownshirt thugs catching up with him and thinking of the treatment they would mete out should not have induced feelings of gratification, but it did; it was only a flight of the imagination and if Moravec had finagled him into this, Veseli must have known and been complicit.

The church clock striking six had him rise from the water; it was time to get ready.

‘Jimmy,’ Corrie said, as she opened the door to find the young reporter looking abashed, in fact hopping from foot to foot; she was, after all, wrapped in a huge bath towel.

‘Sorry to catch you in… er… your… er…’ he mumbled away at the towel. ‘Thought it was time to come and say hello.’

‘I’ll say, but I would be more interested to know why you ran away yesterday.’

‘I’m not supposed to be here,’ he replied, in a flash of what seemed like inspiration until he realised he would have to run with the lie and he had no idea where to go.

‘I guess you’re trying to find a story that will get you out from under Vernon,’ Corrie replied, unwittingly throwing him a lifeline. ‘As you can see, Jimmy, I was just getting dressed.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Look, I am meeting someone in the bar in fifteen minutes.’

‘Callum Jardine,’ Jimmy replied, immediately realising that was a mistake.

The hand that grabbed him and pulled him inside the door was not gentle, nor was the way it was slammed behind him.

‘How the hell do you know his name?’

Tempted to lie, there was not one he could think of and that left only the truth. ‘Vernon knows him from Madrid and he saw you get into his car.’

‘You little schmuck, you’ve been sent to tail me.’

‘Instructed, Corrie,’ Jimmy pleaded. ‘I am only doing what Vernon told me to do.’

‘Sit in that chair and say not another word.’ Corrie went to the phone and asked for Cal’s room number, hissing when he picked up his end, ‘Doc, my room now! No, it’s not that, it’s serious. Quick as you can.’

She turned to see Jimmy standing over the typewriter and what she had written was lying beside it. ‘Get away from that and sit down.’

‘How the hell did you know we were coming to Cheb?’ she demanded when he complied.

‘Vernon knew.’

Pacing back and forth, she began to curse, because it could only have come from the hotel. ‘That low-life snake! To think he acts like he’s an English gent, when he is full of shit.’

‘I say,’ Jimmy protested; he was no stranger to foul language, only not in the mouths of the fairer sex.

‘Don’t you “I say” me.’

The gentle knock at the door heralded Cal and he was inside quickly, to be given a gabbling explanation of who Jimmy was and what he knew. When the ‘how?’ came it was Corrie’s turn for contrition.

‘It’s standard behaviour, Cal, you gotta tell your editor when you go somewhere.’

‘The telephone would have been better.’

‘What, a transatlantic call for that? He would have had my ass.’

Turning to face Jimmy, Callum Jardine wondered why the youngster shrank away. Then he realised he was wearing his rimless specs, and with his en brosse hairdo, allied to the expression on his face, he must have looked to him like he was Gestapo.

‘Relax.’

‘Easier said than done.’

‘I’m not going to hurt you, am I?’

‘I don’t know, are you?’

Cal had to shut this lad up, but how? One thing was for sure: threats would be counterproductive unless he was not prepared to let him out of his sight, indeed out of this room.

‘Jimmy — it is Jimmy, yes?’ That produced a still-fearful nod, even though Cal had smiled. ‘I am going to need your help and so is the British Government.’

‘You’re working for the Government?’

‘I am.’

‘Doing what?’

‘I can’t answer that, and I am afraid, Jimmy, even if you were told you would not be able to write about it. If you submitted it to your paper… by the way, who do you write for?’

‘ News Chronicle.’

‘Good newspaper,’ Cal said, ‘got the right ideas about Hitler. The story would be subject to a D-notice, in fact, I suspect it will be buried in the files of SIS for a hundred years or more, it’s so sensitive.’

‘So you might as well tell me what it is.’

‘Corrie, get dressed, we are meeting Veseli in the lounge shortly.’

‘Sure, I’ll use the bathroom, but don’t let that little bastard near my notes.’

When she had gone, Cal addressed a young man pained by the way she had described him. ‘You must know about the Official Secrets Act, Jimmy.’

‘I do, but I don’t see what difference that makes if the story is not going to come out anyway.’

‘It means I can’t tell you anything, because if I do, I will suffer the consequences.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘What don’t you believe?’

‘All of it, the Government, you working for them, D-notices.’

The sigh was audible. Cal had a choice: stepping closer, he could take this little bugger by his carotid artery and either kill him or render him unconscious and do so in utter silence. What then? He would either have a body to deal with or he would have to truss him up and for how long? And he could still scream blue murder as soon as he was released.

Suddenly he was back in that moonlit Jewish cemetery in Prague, with General Moravec, and it was something he had said which provided a possible solution to shutting this lad up at least as long as they were in Cheb.

‘OK, Jimmy, how would you like a twenty-four-carat gold-plated scoop?’

‘Politicians the newspapers fear,’ Moravec had insisted.