A Bitter Field (21 page)

‘You must be tired after your journey, Herr Barrowman, and I have to tell you it is too late in the day to meet with Herr Henlein, there would not be enough time before he goes home to dine with his family.’

‘How admirable that a man with so much to do, a man indeed of destiny, has time to keep his family obligations.’

‘That is something he does every evening, Herr Barrowman, unless there is a crisis. The hotel houses his offices but he rarely sleeps here.’

‘Well that suits me, Fräulein, I need to work up some notes.’

Cal noted the tone of Corrie’s voice, which was not friendly, but it perfectly matched the utterly insincere smile with which the Ice Maiden responded; it was cold enough to freeze a volcano.

There was something in the air and Cal knew what it was: the Ice Maiden was smiling at him but not at her, which reminded him of the atmosphere Lizzie created when she saw a rival, something she was inclined to spot often and at a hundred paces. His wife could not bear it that anyone around her should be able to compete for male attention.

The Ice Maiden, even if he did not know her, was doing the same, but why was Corrie Littleton reacting in the way she did?

‘I am sure you know already, Fräulein Littleton, what it is you want to ask our leader. A typewriter and paper will be sent to your
room, Fräulein Littleton, along with ample paper so you may write up your article.’

‘I was just going to make notes and do the composition when I get back to Prague.’

‘But our leader would be very interested to see what you write.’

‘And no doubt make some suggestions for alterations.’

‘He must be careful not to be misrepresented.’

‘I am used to my own machine.’

‘If you struggle with what we send you, I am sure we can find someone to type for you.’

‘Your kindness overwhelms me,’ Corrie said, with very sweetly delivered irony.

‘Might I suggest,’ Fräulein Metzer said to Cal, her face going from frosty to smiling, ‘that you dine in the hotel and we will set a time for tomorrow.’

‘Sunday?’

‘With the amount of things happening in our poor land everyone must work, even on a supposed Holy Day.’

‘Time to freshen up,’ Corrie said, finishing her drink and glaring at the German woman. ‘I’m feeling a little soiled.’

‘I take it a promenade after dinner would not be forbidden?’ Cal asked, his tone pleasant to cover for Corrie’s acidity.

The Ice Maiden’s big blue eyes got bigger. ‘What a strange expression, Herr Barrowman; how can such a thing as going for a walk be forbidden in a free country?’

Jimmy Garvin was sitting at the café attached to the station, wondering if he could avoid buying another beer and wishing he had the kind of expenses that went to the Vernon Bartletts of this
world; the money they all spent in the bar of the Ambassador was staggering.

Not that he had been shocked by their excess, given it was exactly the same in and around Bouverie Street where the paper had its offices, a culture of drinking that often saw stories filed from the floor of a pub rather than a reporter’s desk.

He did not know how lucky he was; the station café was Czech-owned and thus silent, while inside the hotel, those he was waiting for were sitting, trying not to look bored at the interminable speech being delivered from Nuremberg by Joseph Goebbels.

His voice was rather nasal and even if Corrie could not understand what he was saying she could recognise the tone of mockery in it, his jokes, which Cal knew to be heavy and unfunny, roared at by his audience as well as laughed at by many sharing the dining room.

No one talked; it was either considered impolite when the Minister of Propaganda was making a speech, or their fellow diners were afraid to look as though they did not believe every lie he was telling. The exception to the sarcasm was any mention of the Führer, which came with great ‘
Heils!
’, and then he went into that standard Nazi trick of the ever rising crescendo of threats, which would be shattered against the iron wall of National Socialism.

The worldwide Jewish conspiracy would not halt the forward march of the German
Volk
; beware Bolshevism and the Slavic hordes, for the righteous anger of the Aryan master race was moving forward to face and defeat their machinations. During all this Cal had to struggle not to shout at the big radio relaying this, his only compensation the best part of a bottle of very good wine; Corrie only had one glass.

‘Make out you’re not feeling well,’ Cal insisted as he drained the
last of that and leant toward her looking concerned.

‘What?’ Corrie whispered.

‘Mop the brow, clutch the stomach, unless you want to listen to all this drivel. He will go on for at least another hour.’

She gave a sterling performance of a woman in some distress, doing as he bid, clutching his hand and, with her auburn near-red hair and pale skin, able to look ill without really trying. Cal stood and helped her to her feet and with a backward glance of deep apology to the fascists still listening to Goebbels they left the room.

The sight of Corrie Littleton and her companion, under the canopy of light outside the hotel, emerging into the cool evening, had him draining the dregs he had been hanging on to, only to realise that when the time came to move, what he had consumed, several steins, needed to be got rid of. The hesitation, whether to use the toilet or not, allowed him to see that as soon as the pair walked on, a couple of Brownshirts appeared from the shadows to fall in behind them.

‘That was not the finest meal I have ever consumed,’ Cal said, ‘but the wine was OK.’

‘Take it for what it was, free.’

That brought a happy smile. ‘It’s nice to eat on someone else’s expenses.’

‘I hope my boss in New York knows about fine Moselles.’

‘If you like I’ll write him some recommendations, the Germans make some very superior wines.’

‘He drinks beer.’

‘Then he should have come instead of you, Bohemia is the home of beer.’

Cal, as he said that, made to cross the road, which naturally
allowed him to look behind him. The two fellows in uniform and jackboots made no attempt to avoid his eye, indeed the way they were looking at him and Corrie, it was as if they were lining them up for the firing squad.

‘We are being followed.’

‘Big deal, we’re not going anywhere.’ Corrie looked back and waved, which made the pair look even more grim than before. ‘Nice guys, cheerful.’

‘The trouble with Fascism is that it allows the real shits to have a bit of power. Give an idiot a uniform and he will do anything you want him to do to keep it.’

For all his flippancy, it was worrying that they were being tailed, even if it was obvious. At some point Cal had to make contact with Veseli and there were no arrangements in place, which left it all to the other man.

‘They’re gonna demand to see what I write before we leave, aren’t they?’

‘Probably more than that, Corrie; once they’ve approved it don’t be surprised if they want to cable it to New York for you.’

‘Damn,’ she spat, taking his arm.

‘So I have to get you back to Prague in time to correct what they receive. Best make two sets of notes, let them see one, the flattering stuff, and keep the real copy on you at all times.’

That had Cal’s arm squeezed tightly, which he enjoyed. ‘Are you training me to be a spy, Cal?’

‘Much more devious that that, my dear Corrie,’ he grinned, ‘I’m helping you to be a journalist.’

‘“My dear?”’ she said softly, and questioningly.

Their promenade had brought them to the crowded central
square, clearly the old central marketplace, where loudspeakers were playing Goebbels’ speech to a large mixed assembly, many of them in uniform, some holding flaring torches, all listening intently one minute, then crying out in passion the next, and that made them stop.

‘He’s still going strong.’

‘Public radio,’ Corrie said. ‘On the streets, just like Times Square.’

‘You should visit Germany, they have this in every main street, square and in the railway stations – loudspeakers on the buildings and lamp posts to tell the population what to think.’

Cal had got it wrong about the length of Goebbels’ speech, for the little mountebank was coming to the end of his peroration, his voice hoarse, his demands for the nation to be faithful to the Führer and his iron will like some gospel preacher, the crowd now screaming at his every word so that it melded into one indistinguishable howl, with the same from the far end of the square.

Now the radio started billowing out martial music as, no doubt, Goebbels was played off the podium to march down an avenue of thousands of cheering supporters, hundreds of banners, and illuminated with swaying searchlights. Both Cal and Corrie had seen the newsreels and whatever you thought about the Nazis it had to be admitted they knew how to stage such an event.

Not to be outdone the local Nazis in their brown uniforms were forming up, the civilians moving out to form an avenue down which they could pass; clearly they had decided to march through the town with their flaring torches and their own massive swastika banners.

Having assembled at the bottom of the square in ranks, a shouted order filled the air and they were moving. Cal and Corrie stood to one side as they came closer, the boots cracking on the cobblestones
loudly enough to be heard even over the sound of their raucous singing.

The men were dressed like their escorts, who were now standing with their arms outstretched in their fascist salute: dun-brown uniform shirts buttoned to the neck, gleaming jackboots and riding breeches, a Sam Brown-style belt and shoulder strap and a swastika armband.

‘That, if you don’t know the tune, is the “Horst Wessel Song”, Corrie. He was one of those idiots I told you about who was stupid enough to get himself killed in a street brawl with the Communists. Now he’s a Nazi martyr.’

It was the soft, kepi-type forage cap that had stopped Cal from really looking at the man leading the parade, two flag-carrying acolytes a pace behind, goose-stepping with his arm up, a tall very Aryan figure, and it was only when he got really close and he could see the face that he realised that he was looking at the man he had been introduced to as Captain Karol Veseli.

The head did not turn, not even the eyes flicked sideways as he stamped by, so Cal, unsure if he had been spotted, raised his hat so that his face was in full view, an act which shocked Corrie.

‘Jesus, what are you doing?’

‘Making friends locally, Corrie, which, if you want your story, you better get doing too.’

Jimmy Garvin, well back, had been able to keep tabs on Corrie Littleton by just watching those following her, without having the faintest idea of where it would lead; he certainly did not want to be seen or to talk to her, it was more in the nature of something to do.

‘Christ Almighty!’

He actually swore out loud when he saw that hat come off the
head of the man he had been told was Callum Jardine and the sight did not fit with what Vernon Bartlett had told him, which, while not a fully formed picture, had been underlined by one very salient fact: Jardine was a rabid anti-fascist.

What was a man with his background, albeit that it was mysterious, doing raising his hat to a bunch of Brownshirt thugs? Jimmy Garvin might be young but he was not stupid and even if he did not know it yet he was already imbued with something that could only be called a nose for a story.

Right now he was thinking this was all wrong and there were only two conclusions to draw from that. One that Vernon Bartlett was wrong about this Jardine, or that this man with a funny background was up to something here in the Sudetenland, and he was inclined to plump for the latter. The question was, should he contact Bartlett and ask for instructions?

That he decided against that was hardly a surprise; handed a possible scoop no journalist, however much he’s a tyro, is going to give it away to anyone else. The really hard question was, how was he going to pursue it?

At that same moment Cal was wondering about Veseli, even more certain that was not his real name in this neck of the woods. But he was less worried about how he was going to make contact; in that outfit he could walk right into the Victoria Hotel and just say hello.

B
ack in his room Cal checked to see if it had been searched while he was out, discovering that if the person who had done the looking had not been good enough, the job had been carried out very professionally indeed.

Not a sock or a shirt was out of place and his canvas bag was exactly where he had left it, as were the things he had used to wash and shave before dinner. The letters from Redfern International Chemicals, which he had left on the dressing table, would have been examined too.

Naturally, the bed had been turned down and the heavy coverlet folded back by the room maid, a standard act in any hotel, which had made it impossible to employ the normal precautions on the door. This would also cover for any small movements that occurred with his visible possessions should the searcher make a mistake.

The small slip of folded paper he had inserted into the base of
one of the drawers was just where he had left it, but missing was the single strand of his now very short red-gold hair that had been folded inside, one so small it would not have been visible unless the person doing the scrutiny was looking for it and impossible to spot under artificial light on a polished wood floor.

There was no shock attached to the discovery; he was an unknown quantity in a place where suspicion had to be rife for the sake of what they were trying to achieve. He assumed that Corrie’s room had likewise been done over while they were having their dinner and their promenade – at least one lucky person had avoided having to listen to Goebbels.

He was still not quite over the shock of seeing his supposed contact leading that parade but he had to assume that right now he was safe, just as he had to trust Veseli to make whatever moves he had in mind and they had to have been pre-planned. It was all very well being active, but sometimes passivity was the right strategy, as expounded by the creator of Sherlock Holmes.

A few things were necessary for a good night’s sleep: a heavy oak chair should be shoved under the door handle, which, if it would not stop anyone entering who really wanted to, would create enough noise and delay for him to react. His fountain pen, a Montblanc
Meisterstück
, he put on the bedside table; you could get a good grip of the body, and the nib made a dangerous weapon. Next he rolled really tight a local newspaper he had brought up from the lobby, which jabbed end on into someone’s face would stop them dead and used in the right place could even kill.

Having been given a room overlooking the front of the hotel, but to one side, so he had a good view under the front canopy, Cal, busy
doing his morning exercises to the sound of church bells, was drawn to the window by the sound of mild cheering and several vehicles entering the square below.

Really it was the small truck behind the big Mercedes that was making the noise on the cobblestones, open at the back and containing two files of rigid SA men in greatcoats, a dozen in number, all with rifles between their legs, while there was another car in front with what also looked like bodyguards.

The Mercedes in the middle stopped before the front door and another escort leapt out from the front to open the rear door. All Cal saw of the man who got out, to a raised arm salute, was the top of a soft trilby hat and a besuited arm responding with a lazy salute.

It had to be Konrad Henlein but the question uppermost in Cal’s mind was the size of the escort and its armament – if that was standard he would need half a company of trained infantry to ambush him, and Moravec and Veseli must know that.

Responding to the telephone he picked it up to find it was Corrie asking him if he was ready to go down to breakfast. ‘Why, do you need an escort?’

‘I just want somebody to talk to and no one speaks English.’

‘Maybe Fräulein Metzer will join you.’

‘That will not be a good start to the day, the stuck-up bitch.’

‘Maybe she’s shy,’ Cal replied, just to tease her.

‘Are you kidding me? She makes Garbo look like Mae West.’

‘Must be the hair.’

‘You know the question Mae asks? Well the gun’s in Metzer’s pocket.’

‘I’m just finishing my morning routine.’

‘No details please.’

‘And I think our man has just arrived. Ten minutes and I’ll knock at your door.’

Over breakfast Cal was given a written list of questions that Corrie thought he should ask, with Cal pulling out his fountain pen to make some alterations that changed the tone.

‘You got to sucker him, remember, be soft.’

‘After what we saw in that square last night that’s going to be difficult.’

‘It was never going to be easy.’

Next stop was a meeting with the Ice Maiden, who informed them that the leader had much on his plate – constant communications were coming in from Prague, other Sudeten towns and around the world – and he could only spare one hour at a time, but would do one in the morning and another in the afternoon.

‘It may take longer than that.’

‘Then more time will be found tomorrow.’

‘How’s your French?’ asked Quex as Peter Lanchester entered his office.

‘Not brilliant, sir.’

‘I have received this morning a communication from my opposite number in Paris, Colonel Gauché, the transcript of a conversation that was overheard between an external telephone and the chateau of a certain chap called Pierre Taittinger, dated August twenty-ninth, and it’s not about champagne.’

The paper was passed over and Peter looked at it, thinking it was much harder to read a foreign language than speak it, this as Sir Hugh continued.

‘Now it would be very easy for me to have this translated, as
you know, but I think that might set running hares that would go in all directions, so as of now, I want this to be strictly between you and I.’

Having got well past the
bonjours
and
bien sûrs
, as well as a long screed, which he suspected was general conversation about the state of the world, one word hit him very hard.

‘La Rochelle,’ Peter said, ‘hardly requires translation, sir.’

‘No,’ Quex said in a dry tone.

Peter was looking at other obvious words, such as
je pense par camion
, but the one that was most striking was his own name and what he assumed was a description, as well as the fact that he,
avec deux autres hommes anglais,
would
arrivent par train le trente août.
Given those two facts, a watch on the railway station – La Rochelle did not have a mass of long-distance trains coming in – was all that was required to identify him.

‘The trouble is,’ Quex continued, ‘that though this tells us the communication came from outside of France, it does not say from where and it definitely does not identify the caller, who did not at any time use his name, and nor did Monsieur Taittinger.’

Peter went right to the top of the page, reading out the opening words, ‘
Bonjour, Pierre, c’est moi.
Which means the voice was known to him, well known.’

‘Precisely, and does it not also imply that it is one which is quite distinctive, given the interference on such lines?’

‘What do you think would happen if we shoved this under McKevitt’s nose?’

‘He would deny all knowledge of it, quite apart from the fact that as of this moment he’s in Prague.’ Seeing the surprise, Quex added, ‘To shut the station down.’

‘That puts him awfully close to Jardine.’

‘Who has, according to your latest communication, gone up to Eger to meet with Henlein.’

‘It’s called Cheb now, sir.’

‘Don’t be a pedant, Peter.’

Sir Hugh went into a deep study, with a face that implied it would be unwise to interrupt his thoughts, and judging by his expression they were not happy ones.

‘You sure this could not have come from something Jardine did, some mistake he made?’

‘I cannot see it, sir. When I met him he was very confident he had kept things tight; he is very experienced in that game and I can tell you he is a hard character to follow and impossible to tail over weeks without him spotting something.’

‘Say you are correct, what could be McKevitt’s motive?’

‘Guns for republicans in Spain, sir, he is visceral about that.’

‘Peter, he does not know they were for Spain, nor does he know that Jardine was involved, because if he did, I would know about it, for the very simple reason he would have been letting things slip to his political friends.’

‘I did not know he had any.’

‘I did, and if I’d had any doubt, I certainly found out only the other day.’

Peter Lanchester had a look of curiosity on his face, to which Sir Hugh was not going to respond; the fewer people who knew he had been given a wigging by the PM the better.

‘Let us speculate that where we had a suspicion we now have confirmation that your problems in La Rochelle stemmed from our own organisation, but that does not, even if it points us towards one
person, nail it down and it has to be that before I can even think of acting upon it.’

‘How in the name of all that’s holy did he find out I was going to La Rochelle when the communication I sent was to you and for your eyes only?’ It was necessary to add quickly the only other person who should have seen it. ‘It’s certainly not your secretary.’

‘No, if Miss Beard was to be leaking secrets the whole nation would collapse. It has to be coded and decoded, does it not? It might be an idea to find out how long the cipher clerk in Paris has been in his job. For instance, was he there a decade ago when McKevitt was station chief?’

‘It could be this end, sir, he does tend to put himself about, I’ve found.’

‘Which means one of six people could have tipped McKevitt off.’

‘Only two are on duty at any one time.’

‘So we need the duty roster and a copy of your signal.’

‘Which as soon as we request it will alert whoever is the culprit, if indeed anyone is.’

‘I fear you are in for a tedious time, Peter, for to avoid that we must look through many days of transcripts to avert suspicion.’

‘I’ll need your written permission, sir. A lot of what I will be reading is bound to be outside my clearance level.’

‘As a way to seek to pass the buck, Peter, that was very neat, but not neat enough. I am far too old and far too busy to undertake such a task. Be so good as to fetch in my secretary and I will happily upgrade you.’

To get to the leader it was necessary to pass through the lobby, coming down the staircase that led to their rooms and taking the
other up to the suite of offices where the leader worked, his the room overlooking the other side of the canopy.

Konrad Henlein was not as either Corrie Littleton or Callum Jardine expected, a strutting bully and obvious fascist. Every time Cal had seen a photograph of him he had been dressed in some kind of uniform and at some quasi-military occasion or a party rally. In his office he was dressed in a tweed jacket, twill trousers and was wearing a cravat in an open-necked shirt; he looked more like an English country gent than the leader of a rabid bunch of thugs.

That extended to his personality, which was mild-mannered and pleasant, his voice soft, with more than a tinge of Austrian in the accent. He smiled easily, and with his spectacles on, a rather bland face exuded a sort of schoolmasterly air. Thinking back to the report he had read, penned by Sir Robert Vansittart, it became clear why he had seemed to represent no threat.

Corrie, on being introduced, got an old-fashioned kiss on the back of the hand, Cal a manly handshake before they were invited to sit down in comfortable chairs in front of a set of large windows that looked out over the square.

What followed was a general set of enquiries as to the comfort or otherwise of travel by sea, air and car, as well as questions about America, Corrie’s replies translated by the Ice Maiden, which lasted until coffee was served.

The snapping banners and scudding clouds outside took a lot of Cal’s attention – there was quite a strong wind blowing – and he tried very hard not to look at the large safe which dominated the corner of the room, inside which he assumed was what Henlein had brought back from his talk with Hitler.

The place was simply furnished: dark wooden desk, the safe,
another table with a big wireless sitting on it, several upright chairs, maps on the wall and lots of photographs of Henlein with various famous people, a lot of them politicians.

‘Sir,’ Cal said in German, ‘I think it would be best if you speak in short sentences that I can translate for Miss Littleton, given the way the two languages differ.’

‘As you wish, Herr Barrowman. We do want to get things correct.’

Cal was wondering if Hitler was like this in private, for there was a very good chance this man had modelled himself on the Führer. Having only ever seen the Austrian Corporal ranting on newsreels it was hard to imagine, but it might just be the case. It made little difference; he still wanted to put a bullet in his forehead.

That had to be put aside and Cal, using Corrie’s notes, asked the first question, which was about the problems that existed for ethnic Germans in a state run by another nationality, the big blue eyes of the Ice Maiden fixed on him when Henlein began to reply, her lips pursed as she made sure he translated correctly, interrupting once or twice on some minor point. When she was not looking at him, her eyes were fixed then on Corrie’s flying pencil, as if it was spouting Czech propaganda.

In truth what they were getting was the same line that had been trotted out for a decade, albeit without any of the venom normally used by the kind of speakers who were all taking their turn at Nuremberg. The ethnic Germans were pure of heart and purpose, good citizens but denied what was their due by spiteful Czechs who were repaying them for hundreds of years of Austrian domination.

All they asked was to live in peace in their own lands and control their own destiny and any notion of wishing to be united with the German Reich in another
Anchluß
was a Czech lie to which,
unfortunately, many misguided people in the democracies subscribed.