Traitors' Gate (3 page)

‘Not to start with! That’s promotion!’ The elderly Baronet’s bright blue eyes glinted merrily, and he gave a great guffaw of laughter. ‘At least it was in my day. Job given to steady chaps who could be trusted not to pinch the sherry or pour the soup down one’s neck. After one glance at that truculent jaw of yours, any Sergeant-Major who knows his business would put you on to cleaning out the latrines. That’s about what you can expect!’

‘But seriously, you must get me out of this.’

The under-butler had followed Sir Pellinore into the room with a tray of drinks. Turning, his master waved a hand towards them. ‘What’ll you have? I keep most of this muck for visitors who haven’t the sense to respect their guts. Stick to good wine topped off with a spot of old brandy and you’ll still be chasin’ the gels round the gooseberry bush when you’re as old as I am.’ As he spoke he poured himself out a tumbler full of Manzanilla, then drank half of it off in a couple of gulps.

Having annexed a slightly more modest ration, Gregory asked, ‘Now, what about it?’

Sir Pellinore carried his glass over to an arm-chair, sat down, stretched out his long legs and muttered: ‘Damned if I know. If you were a Colonel and wanted to be a Brigadier, I don’t doubt I could get you transferred to a job that carries that rank. If you wanted to shift a quarter of a million in gold from Arabia to Peru, I could fix it for you. If you had a yen for an O.B.E. I’d have your name pushed in well up in the next Honours List. But this is a very different kettle of fish. You have received a summons under an order decreed by Parliament,
and even Cabinet Ministers can’t monkey with the law.’

‘Oh come! Miners, factory workers, agricultural labourers, and all sorts of other people get exemption; but their bosses have to make the application for them, and you are mine.’

‘What would you have me put you down as? Olga Petrovsky, my beautiful spy? Be your age, boy! We couldn’t let the little office wallahs who handle these sort of things get even an inkling of the truth.’

‘You could say that I was your confidential secretary.’

‘No damn fear. Too many people are aware that you are not.’

‘Well; what’s to be done, then?’

‘The obvious thing is for me to get you put on the strength of one of the cloak and dagger outfits; then a chit would be sent from the War House putting you in the clear. Of course, these shows are under bureaucratic control just like all the rest, as far as their establishments are concerned; so you’d be graded, paid accordingly and expected to earn the money.’

‘Then I’d probably have to work in an office sifting other people’s reports for hours on end every day, or find myself bundled off abroad to some place that I have already made too hot to hold me. No, thank you.’

Sir Pellinore took another gulp of sherry. ‘Does that mean you’ve had your fill of spying? Be a thunderin’ pity—seeing you’re so good at it. Still, after all the
coups
you’ve pulled off no one could blame you if you decided to swallow your vest pocket camera—or whatever is a spy’s equivalent for a sailor’s anchor.’

‘No. It’s the most exciting game in the world; and any time that you want me to undertake another mission I’ll go back into Germany for you. But I’ve got
some
common sense, and I’d like still to be alive at the end of the war. If I let myself be made into a small time operator and make a regular job of sticking my neck in the noose, all the odds are that I shan’t be.’

‘That’s fair enough. Trouble is though that you’re now in an age group in which every man jack has to have a regular job of some kind. No evading that—unless you want to end up in a police court. It really would be best for you to go into one of the Services. I’d have no trouble about hoiking you out then, when required.’

‘Most convenient for you, dear master. Just drop me a
postcard whenever you next wish me to risk being castrated by Grauber and Co. In the meantime, I’ll be in the seventh heaven alternately swabbing dishes and lavatory seats.’

‘Insolent young devil,’ rumbled Sir Pellinore, brushing up his white moustache. ‘It won’t be as bad as all that, though. I’ll get you fixed up in some white-collar occupation. Pay Corps perhaps, or interviewing cooks for the Army Caterin’ Service.’

‘Either would drive me off my rocker within a month; and I’ve already told you that I flatly refuse to serve in the ranks.’

‘Very understandable in a man of your attainments. I’d feel the same myself. Glad I did my service while old Vickie was on the Throne. When I joined I took my own chargers, valet and groom, and they gave me a trumpeter to ride behind me. Now if the trumpeter has been in longer it’s you who have to ride behind him—even if he couldn’t get ten per cent marks in an average general knowledge paper. That’s democracy; but there’s another name for it—race suicide. Mark my words, Gregory; Hitler will never smash the British Empire, but our socialist-minded bureaucracy will.’

Gregory nodded, refilled his glass from the decanter, and muttered, ‘Let’s stick to my personal problem. You know that I wouldn’t ask for a commission unless I felt justified in doing so. Damn it, I held one for two years in the last war and a score of times led men into battle. Surely there is some way you can fix it for me.’

‘I know of none. Anyhow, as far as the Army is concerned. Still, I’m dining with the Castletowns tonight. Old Maudie told me that Pug Ismay will be there, if he can get away. Hope he is. Great fun listening to Pug at a mixed party. Everyone hangs on his words while he talks about the high direction of the war and gives away the most deadly secrets. At least, that’s the impression he conveys. He’s a genius at it. But later, of course, if one takes the trouble to analyse it all, one realises that he hasn’t said a damn thing that anyone couldn’t have read in the previous morning’s paper. If he turns up I’ll have a word with him about you.’

‘Thanks. What is the latest low-down on the war?’

‘The St. Nazaire raid proved a winner.’

‘Good; that’s fine.’

‘Full details only just been issued. Complete surprise achieved. Navy broke the boom, then ran in an old U.S.
destroyer packed full of T.N.T. and blew the dock gates with her. Meanwhile the Commandos got ashore and gave the wurst-eaters bloody hell.’

‘That’s spendid news. The very thing the Navy needed to set its stock up again after that shocking business last month.’

‘You mean
Scharnhorst, Gneisenau
and
Prinz Eugen
breaking out of Brest and cocking a snook at Dover as they sailed up Channel?’

‘Yes. I wonder Nelson didn’t rise from his grave at the very idea of an enemy squadron being allowed to pass the Straits without a battle.’

Sir Pellinore shrugged. ‘The Boche were both patient and lucky. Waited for the worst possible weather, and it happened to coincide with a breakdown in our air-reconnaissance. They weren’t spotted till they were off the Kent coast, and Dover is too vulnerable these days for us to keep any war-craft there. The real blunder was our attempt to retrieve the situation by attacking with aircraft so late on a February afternoon. The planes had to go in low down and practically blind. The hits they scored were at the price of suicide.’

‘Surely there was still time to despatch some units of the Home Fleet, from farther north, to intercept the Germans before they reached their ports?’

‘They were covered by successive wings of Luftwaffe the whole way up the coast. After the loss of
Prince of Wales
and
Repulse
last December we dared not expose any more of our capital ships to possible annihilation.’

Gregory nodded glumly. ‘The news from the Far East continues to be pretty shattering, doesn’t it?’

‘Lord, yes! Hong Kong, Malaya, Java, Sumatra, Borneo—all gone in little more than three months. And we haven’t seen the end of it by a long chalk. The Yanks have made a great stand in the Philippines, but they’re now at the end of their tether. Same applies to our chaps in Burma. It’s going to be a toss up if we can even save India.’

‘If things are as bad as that it’s a comfort to know that its defence now rests with General Sir Harold Alexander.’

‘True! It couldn’t be in better hands. Trouble is, it’s barely a fortnight since they sent him out there; and there can’t have been much for him to take over—only a tangle of broken units composed of poor devils half dead from having fought their way back right up the peninsula. Still, there’s a sporting
chance that those little yellow apes may be sufficiently extended for Alex to hold them by the time they get to the Chin river.’

‘And how about Australia?’ Gregory enquired. ‘That should be our worst worry at the moment.’

‘It would be, if the U.S. were not prepared to take Australia under her wing. There’s some reason, too, to believe that the Jap effort down in that direction is petering out. The United States Navy made them pay a very heavy price for their landings in New Guinea; and Australia is too big a mouthful for them to try to swallow. That is, unless they’re prepared to go over to the defensive on all their other fronts.’

‘The Australians don’t seem to see things that way.’

‘They would if it wasn’t for that Socialist feller Curtin that they’ve saddled themselves with as Prime Minister. He’s usin’ the crisis as a political weapon—telling them all that Churchill and his Tory pals would rather not risk the skin off a little finger than raise a hand to save Australia from the Japs. It’s a thunderin’ lie, of course. All their troops have been released from the Middle East; and when Churchill was in Washington he secured a positive assurance from the President that, if need be, American troops should be sent to Australia instead of to Europe, and would defend the country to the last ditch. The lies that are being put out are Australian Labour’s cover-up for their party’s criminal negligence in having refused to introduce National Service, although it was clear that the Japs might enter the war against us at any time.’

Gregory nodded. ‘It’s good to think that our folk down under are in no real danger. Now; what’s the latest low-down about Russia?’

‘Oh, they never stop yellin’ that they’ll have to chuck their hand in unless we can take the pressure off them by openin’ a Second Front.’

‘Our new commitments against the Japs must have ruled that out for the time being.’

‘Lord, yes. Having to make good the gaps left in the Middle East by the withdrawal of the Australian divisions, and putting some teeth into the defence of India, forced us to scrape the bottom of the bucket.’

‘Still, the Russians must know that American troops have been arriving in Northern Ireland for the past two months; so it’s very understandable that they should be calling for an
Anglo-American landing on the Continent. And I suppose the build-up might become big enough to justify that some time this summer?’

‘Not a hope. It takes more than a lot of bodies to launch a great amphibious operation. You ought to know that. They’ve got to be specially trained. Then there’s the Q side. Think of all the millions of tons of ammunition and stores required.’

‘Now the huge industrial plants in the United States are fully geared for war, surely they can take care of all material requirements?’

‘Ah, that’s what the public think. Fact is we’ve more headaches about equipment and supplies than we had last year. Before the Yanks came in they were giving us everything they’d got. Now they are having to think of themselves as well, and the war they’re fightin’ in the Pacific. It’s meant that we’ll not have anything like the numbers of aircraft and tanks we had hoped to have by the summer. Then there’s the question of all these new-fangled landin’-craft. Hundreds would be required, and as yet we’ve got ’em only in dozens. That and shipping are the worst snags. Even if the Yanks could let us have the goods it’s doubtful now if we could get them over.’

‘Is the shipping situation really all that desperate?’

‘Desperate’s the word—or will be if sinkings continue at their present rate.’

‘I thought the convoy system had taken the worst sting out of the U-boats.’

‘So it has, in British controlled waters. But we haven’t yet persuaded our friends on the other side of the wisdom of adopting it. Doenitz is cashin’ in on that. Since Christmas his U-boat packs have been operating almost within sight of New York harbour. In January he was getting three ships a day; now it’s up to nine. This month he’s made a record killing. Eight hundred thousand tons sunk already. If he can keep that up God knows if we’ll ever be able to launch an assault against Hitler’s Europe. Anyhow, you can count it out for 1942.’

Getting to his feet, Sir Pellinore added in a more cheerful tone, ‘Only comforting thought is that the British people are running true to form. We always have won the last battle in every war. That’s what really matters. Can’t stop gossiping here all night with you, though. Got to have a bath and freshen myself up. Sorry I’ve got to go out; but if you like to dine
here I’ll tell Crawshay to get up a bottle of the Roederer ‘28 for you to drink with your dinner.’

‘Thanks; that’s a temptation to stay in,’ Gregory grinned. ‘But after our chat I feel I need a little cheering up; so I’ll see if I can find a few blissfully ignorant and optimistic types at my club. It would be nice, though, if we could split that bottle in the morning.’

‘Good idea. Eleven o’clock, eh? I often take a pint at that hour. Learnt the habit from my Colonel when I was a youngster. He used to call it “a little eleven o’clock’’, and always asked one of his subalterns to join him. Stuff cost only six bob a bottle in those days. Well, don’t break your neck in the blackout. Poor sort of endin’ for a feller like you.’

On the following morning, knowing that his host liked to have a clear hour in which to deal with his most urgent affairs, Gregory tactfully refrained from going to the library until eleven o’clock. On his entering it Sir Pellinore told his secretary to go and get on with the letters, then pointed to the bottle which already reposed in an ice-bucket on the drinks table. Gregory opened it, and for a few minutes, while enjoying the first fragrance of the wine, they exchanged pleasant platitudes; then, no longer able to restrain his impatience, he asked: