Flight From Honour

9

The Guards battalions look it in turns to be billeted in the Tower of London, and only when a kilted soldier challenged the taxi did Ranklin know it was the turn of the Scots Guards to keep an eye on the Crown jewels and any fresh-caught traitors housed there. But thereafter, any sense of history had gone with the daytime sight-seers, leaving only black cutouts of battlements against the stars. At ground level there was just the mundane military domesticity of any barracks square. Lamps glowed through the plane trees, turning their leaves back to spring green, and half-lit the gossiping groups of soldiers and wives below. Children darted from group to group, and somebody still on fatigues staggered by stopping a filled bucket.

Ranklin paused at the foot of the officers’ mess steps, expecting to feel nostalgia for its comfortable comradeship, but instead felt quite alien. This really wasn’t his world any longer. However, his manner immediately convinced the mess corporal when he introduced himself and his mission. A minute or two later Dagner’s host, a Major Lawther, appeared.

“Were you asking for Major Dagner?”

“Yes, sir. Captain Ranklin, RA. I, er, work for Major Dagner.”

“Ah.” There was a knowingness about that ‘ah’. “With you chaps I imagine everything’s Most Urgent. I’m afraid he hasn’t got here, yet. Come in and have a spot.”

It was tempting but, again, no longer his world. “Very kind of you, sir, but I think it would be less disruptive if I got a quick word with him out here.”

“As you please . . . Did you know Dagner before . . . before he came home?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“We met in India, of course.” That surprised Ranklin; it was difficult enough to move a Guards battalion out of London, let alone Britain. Seeing his expression, Lawther smiled. “When I was attached to the Viceroy’s staff. And they brought him back from . . . whatever he was doing, when his wife fell ill. Sad business, that, he was very cut up when she went.”

“His wife died?”

“You didn’t know? – the usual typhoid, I believe.”

Ranklin nodded. “He hadn’t mentioned it. But we only met a few days ago.”

“Ah. This was, oh, must be seven years ago now. Ah, I think I hear a cab.”

It was really a motor-taxi, but Major Lawther belonged to a generation and class that would for ever hear them as cabs.

Dagner appeared in his Gurkha mess dress of rifle-green and glittering black wellingtons. “Good evening, Major. And Captain Ranklin – I suppose this as a little hiccup in our affairs?” means

“Evening, Dagner,” Major Lawther said hastily. “His Lordship ain’t here yet, so I’ll leave you to it. He went back inside.

“It’s O’Gilroy,” Ranklin said. “He ran into a couple of what he calls the ‘boyos’, the ones he knew in Ireland. I didn’t get the full story, but they tried to knife him and he fought them off, but didn’t kill them. So I’m afraid we have to assume the word, that O’Gilroy’s to be found in London, will get around. I thought you’d better know immediately. Oh – and I took it on myself to tip off Major Kell, since it touches on his field. He said he’d be along as soon as he could.” He paused, then added: “And when he comes, could we refer to O‘Gilroy as Gorman? – it’s his normal alias.”

“Quite. Thank you.” Dagner thought this over. “Then, also before he comes, d’you have any solution to suggest?”

“Only to send O’Gilroy and myself abroad. It’s where we belong. And Paris is a good half-day closer to most places.”

“Hm. But I don’t like letting you go until the training programme’s really under way.”

Ranklin had expected that. “Then I had one rather wild idea for O’Gilroy himself-” They had heard neither taxi nor cab, but there was Major Kell stomping up the cobbled slope, wearing plain evening clothes (as Ranklin was: he had changed, assuming that anything less would get him redirected to the Traitors’ Gate). Kell headed the counter-intelligence service and didn’t bother to call himself anything like “Chief”. That apart, he was a year or so older than Ranklin, with an oval face, smallish moustache, smoothed-down hair and a bland pop-eyed expression that suggested that he’d like to believe you, but . . .

They each knew other already and Ranklin’s by-hand-of-bearer-for-your-eyes-only message had given Kell the bones of the story, so Dagner opened by asking bluntly: “Do you regard these Irish thuggees as being in your province?”

“Not if I can bloody well help it,” Kell said quite as bluntly. “I try to leave them to Special Branch at the Yard – that’s what they were originally set up for – and keep my tiny band for dealing with real espionage. And, if I may say so, I never approved of your Chief mixing the two up. But-” he sighed dramatically; “-I suppose your Bureau’s requirements are different from mine. What’s the worst that can happen now?”

Ranklin said: “They try to kill him again.”

“That being the case,” Kell said, “is your chap ready to say who this pair was? Names, descriptions?”

“No,” Ranklin said quickly. “And I don’t think he can be persuaded.”

Kell said: “Assuming they didn’t come to London looking for your man, they came for some other purpose – such as planting a bomb that will kill a dozen people.”

“I doubt if they’ll be up to it; Gorman came back covered in blood that wasn’t his own. And if they think he’ll report them, they’ve probably left London already.”

Kell nodded without commitment. “Perhaps. But if there is what the press calls ‘a Fenian outrage’ we can hardly keep this from the Branch. And then they’d probably arrest your own man on some pretext and sweat the names out of him.”

Ranklin glanced at Dagner, but was left to answer himself, we try to select men who don’t babble just because a policeman gives them a nasty look. And having worked with Gorman in the field, I can say confidently that he doesn’t. All we could do is turn him into an enemy.”

They had instinctively begun to pace up and down in the pool of light by the steps, just as instinctively falling into step and about-turning when Dagner, the senior, did. The soldiers had given them one superior glance of those off duty for those still on, then ignored them.

Kell said: “All that may well be so, but let me put my position. None of us really cares about a dozen Londoners getting blown to bits; we’ve got bigger things to worry about. But in order to do my work, I need the complete confidence of Special Branch, in effect Scotland Yard itself. As much as anything, just to save my men from getting arrested. Like you, we don’t officially exist, so all our eavesdropping and opening mail and general Peeping-Tomism is strictly illegal.

“So if I denounce your man to the Branch it won’t be because I think he’ll tell them something. Frankly, I don’t care if he does or not. It’ll be because I just can’t risk having Sir Basil think I’m covering up for Irish brigands and withdraw his co-operation. My work would stop dead.”

The lamplight occasionally reflected off his glasses, alternating his intense pop-eyed stare with complete blankness. “I am prepared to wait,” he went on, “and see if there is a bomb or whatever – and pray that it isn’t the assassination of an important man. If it happens, then for my own protection I shall go straight to Sir Basil and tell him what you’ve told me. The best I can offer is to pretend you’ve only just told me.”

“Quite.” Dagner looked at Ranklin. But Ranklin couldn’t find anything to say.

Kell said: I’m sorry to be so blunt, Major, but you don’t depend on police co-operation. Of course, if they came looking for your . . . Gorman? – and he was, say, abroad and out of touch . . . well, that’s up to you.”

“Quite,” Dagner said again. “And thank you for delaying your dinner. May I try and arrange a taxi-cab for you?”

But Kell apparently had a friend waiting outside in a car. When he had gone, Dagner said: “I do see his point of view. But before he came, you were about to suggest something."

“It’s a bit fantastical, but at least it gets O’Gilroy out of London: send him to Brooklands to learn to fly.”

Ranklin had been braced for Dagner to react with astonishment, so was startled when he said: “Yes, that’s rather a good idea. Aeroplanes do seem to be the coming thing. It could help if the Bureau had some expertise there. Only – d’you think O’Gilroy’s up to it? And doesn’t it cost rather a lot?”

Still recovering from his surprise, Ranklin said: “He’s certainly very keen, and his strength’s on the practical, mechanical side. Anyway, I don’t think it can be all that difficult: I believe there’s even some women pilots by now. As to cost, I believe it takes seventy-five to a hundred pounds to get your certificate of competence.”

Assuming that Dagner never expressed anything except deliberately, he now deliberately winced. “That’s quite a serious sum.”

It was indeed. A hundred pounds was almost exactly half Ranklin’s yearly pay as a Gunner captain. “But I could contribute something towards it. Half, say.” Ranklin’s expression – guileless innocence – was also under control as he waited for Dagner to ask how a man so deeply in debt could raise such a sum – and counting on an officer and gentleman not to ask any such thing.

Probably Dagner wouldn’t have asked such a thing anyway, but right then a closed Rolls-Royce trundled gently up the slope towards them. Dagner finished off quickly but smoothly: “That’s most generous of you. And in that case, I feel bound to authorise the other half. Can you get this under way immediately? – tomorrow?”

“Certainly. I’ll start by getting O’Gilroy down to Brooklands first thing. Then find who the best people are to teach him. I have a connection with someone there.”

“So I understand.” So the Commander had told Dagner about Corinna.