Spy’s Honour

3

As with the drawing room, the dining room furnishings must have been provided by the Admiralty, giving the impersonal harmony of a stage set: “Act II, a room where visiting Royalty and lesser species may sit around a large dignified table on hard dignified chairs and, when the conversation lags, stare at pictures of sailing ships where at least the rigging is accurate. A few conventional souvenirs such as a Zulu shield and Chinese vases are permitted, to show that the Admiral has actually been abroad.”

But for all that, it was still a warriors’ dining room, full of familiar rituals, Ranklin’s own world more than any he had known. Only it wasn’t, not any longer. His ease with the routines, the conversation, even the jokes, was real – but still a sham, because he didn’t really belong. He himself, not his behaviour, was the pretence.

“You’re Worcestershire, aren’t you?” David asked quietly from his place at Ranklin’s elbow.

Instantly wary, Ranklin said: “Yes, originally.”

“I knew your brother John, not very well, but – I was dreadfully sorry to hear of his death. A shooting accident, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Realising Ranklin didn’t want to talk about it, David hadn’t got the knack of changing the conversation completely. “Well – at least you didn’t have to resign the Army to take his place.”

“No.” What place? he thought sourly, then accepted that he had to find a new topic for himself. “D’you know what time the Maggie Gray will be getting in?”

He probably should have said “moor” or “berth” but that wasn’t what caused the flurry of Naval glances. The Secretary coughed and said: “I don’t think we’re expecting her until, ah, sometime tomorrow morning, are we?” He looked to the Commander for help, and got it.

“With a southerly wind the channel’s tricky enough even by day, and it only needs to back a couple of points and she’d have to anchor in the roads. And I’ve known times when the big liners have just passed us by – eastbound, that is – too rough for the tenders to go out, and with a boat train to meet at Southampton …”

“You haven’t had a signal from her, then?” Ranklin asked timidly.

The chuckle around the table was unforced, if cynical. “From a Merchant wireless operator?” the Commander said. “Most of them aren’t qualified to put in a new light bulb. It’s absurd that we have to transport our stores, ammunition and … er, everything, in chartered merchantmen. The South African war cost us … well, I don’t know, but quite ridiculous. What we need, and it’s for the Army’s sake as much as anything, is a cargo fleet manned by our own people …

So, with the SS Maggie Gray apparently still out of sight and mind, the conversation sailed on through the savoury, the passing of the port and the loyal toast. Then the butler, clearly an ex-sailor from the days of wooden ships, passed the silver box of cigars. Ranklin chose the smallest, perhaps subconsciously hoping that when it was finished they could finally get down to business – although how, with this crowd around, he didn’t know.

But the Secretary calmly chose a cigar like a truncheon and, when he had finally got steam up on it, started a mock-pompous tirade against the junior Lieutenant for smoking a cigarette.

“You admit it’s a filthy habit and that’s just the point: it’s a habit when it should be a pleasure …”

Shut up, go away, and leave us to get on with it! Ranklin screamed silently. And, as if he had read Ranklin’s mind, the Commander pulled out a large watch and went through a ritual of consulting it, saying: “Well, the Navy may be going to the dogs, but I’m going to my night’s repose.”

There is always something artificial about such leave-taking, with juniors following their seniors’ lead, but this seemed more planned than most. Nor were there any farewells between those leaving, no “I’ll see you at …” or “Will you be going to …?” They just left, in a bunch, having made clear to Ranklin that he should stay.

Well, perhaps the Secretary had, after all, given them orders – though the whole dinner had been unnecessary, in Ranklin’s view.

“Bring your glass through,” the Secretary commanded. “Give them a chance to clear the table.”

In the drawing room he half opened the long curtains across the French windows that led onto the house-length balcony and ornate stone steps into the garden. From there, in anything but fog, the Admiral could stare out over the whole bay, now a long low constellation of riding lights and lit portholes, threaded by slow comets that were the sparking funnels of tugs and tenders still at work.

“I wonder,” he mused, “if we’ll dare be showing all these lights this time twelvemonth? Or even six months?” He sighed and let the curtain drop. “Now, Captain, will you please tell me what your orders are?”

From being too polite, the conversation had suddenly become a great deal too blunt. But, Ranklin reflected, he was the junior and very much on Naval territory. And it wasn’t as if he were going to tell the whole truth anyway.

“I believe you’ve had a signal about the rumour that the Fenians are going to make an attempt on the Maggie Gray and her cargo?”

The Secretary nodded. “We have full precautions in hand.”

“I have been detailed, with your co-operation, to take charge of one man who is thought to be involved in the attempt. If your people catch him. Even if they kill him.”

The Secretary was registering surprise and some distaste. “What an extraordinary business.”

“The man is not Irish,” Ranklin said quickly, “nor English, and couldn’t pass for either. He’s expected to be sailing for America in the next day or so, after … whatever happens. I spent the afternoon doing a round of the shipping offices …” It had been a dispiriting experience, jostling through crowds of Irishmen and – far fewer – women, all intent on leaving their homeland and the Empire he was sworn to defend for the hope-paved streets of America; “… but he’s used half a dozen aliases we know of and probably more we don’t so … Anyway, we – my superiors – just want to stop him sailing but keep him out of the hands of the police.”

“And lawyers and courts and newspapers, hey?” the Secretary said shrewdly. “Well I won’t say the Navy hasn’t done that before. But who are your superiors? Who are you, come to that?”

“Oh, I’m just a Gunner, pure and simple,” Ranklin said, wishing it were true. “This is just one of those odd tasks; I was spare, between appointments …”

“Hmmm. I expect you’ll be glad to get back to your pure and simple gunnery. If I may take advantage of my age and give some advice, don’t let them – whoever they are – get you too mixed up in these sorts of carry-ons. There’s altogether too much of it about these days, spying and so on. We may need it in India and Ireland, too, sometimes, but it’s got nothing to do with honest-to-God soldiering and sailoring. We’re in clean, honourable professions and it’s our duty to keep ’em that way. And if they want spies, let ’em comb the jails for such people.”

Like most landlocked sailors (and deskbound soldiers, to be fair) the Secretary talked a strong line in blood and thunder. But Ranklin mostly agreed with him. He nodded and said: “Oh, quite, absolutely,” with sincerity, then asked: “Can you tell me what the arrangements are for the Maggie Gray when she arrives?”

“She’ll unload at Haulbowline – that’s the berths on the dockyard island in the bay.”

“Is that normal routine?”

“Oh yes. Most Naval stores go ashore there, most of them are distributed to our ships by tender anyway. That’s how the ammunition will get to your forts: they’re the devil’s own job to reach by land; the roads here aren’t made for lorries, especially in winter.”

Ranklin could well believe that, but still found it odd that the Navy’s first thought when moving something was to do it by sea, even over a few hundred yards. But it left a delicate problem.

“This may sound absurd, sir, but unloading at the island and so on – it doesn’t give anybody much opportunity to interfere.”

The Secretary raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Do you want them to have a chance? Yes, I suppose you do, if you want to catch one of them. But the matter of safety has to come first, and since we’re talking of five hundred tons of ammunition – ”

“Almost impossible to turn into bombs. Though, of course, the Fenians might not be expert enough to realise that.”

“Quite possibly, but suppose their plan is just to set the ship on fire? D’you want a blazing ammunition ship along the quayside by the town down there? You can’t expect us to take any risk of that.”

Ranklin nodded glumly. He had realised from the start that he could fail, but knowing nothing of the routines here could not see in detail why he would fail, so he hadn’t felt too depressed. But now he saw precisely how.

Only that meant that the ambushers should fail for just the same reason, and they must have known the unloading routine here when they made their plan. And a mere explosion – however unmere it might be considered as an explosion – didn’t sound like the ambition of the man he was after.

He was in a tricky situation. “If,” he said cautiously, “an attempt is to be made, is it possible that the Fenians know something that, er – I don’t?”

“Quite impossible.” Then the Secretary realised he had said that too quickly, and added: “Of course, I can’t tell just how much you do know.”

“When you say ‘impossible’ do you mean there is something, but you think it’s impossible that they should have found it out?”

The Secretary gave him a cold and senior look. But Ranklin was thinking of the rest of the dinner party leaving in a bunch, perhaps with a purpose that wasn’t the Commander’s “night’s repose”. “Could it be,” Ranklin ploughed on, “that you expect the Maggie Gray a good deal earlier than I’ve been led to believe?”

“If so,” the Secretary said blandly, “it would be earlier than certain others have been led to believe as well.”

You bloody old fool, Ranklin thought; didn’t you realise that the very existence of a plan to ambush the ship means they’ve got a source of information inside your dockyard? And if you haven’t caught that source, you’ve no idea what information it’s passing on.

With careful calm, he said: “We – and I include my London superiors – are all on the same side.”

“But our aims are different, it seems. I want to save Queenstown from being blown off the face of the earth, you want to catch a particular man. You wouldn’t care to tell me just why capturing him is so important to you – and to whoever your real superiors are?” He smiled a superior smile and puffed on his cigar. “No, I rather thought not. I’m afraid, Captain, that matters will just have to rest there.”