Then he spun round to give Cal the kind of look that made sure he knew what he had just said was serious. ‘The word from on high — not, I might add, on any piece of paper anyone has ever clapped eyes on — is that Britain will not even contemplate going to war over the Sudetenland, and if we don’t budge the French won’t either.’
‘They have a treaty with the Czechs.’
‘They won’t honour it without the backing of Perfidious Albion and that’s not likely to be on offer.’
‘Not even if it could be proved to be a mistake.’
‘Of course it’s a bloody mistake and I don’t need you to tell me that!’
‘Sorry, but that does not answer either part of my question.’
‘Needless to say there are folk in SIS who do not see my return in a wholly benign light, given what I got up to just prior to being called back in.’
He was not talking about Ethiopia but London. A couple of serving SIS operatives, either for money or conviction, one a pilot, the other a navigator, had helped to purchase a plane and had then flown a semi-exiled General Franco from the Azores to Morocco so he could take part in the senior officers’ revolt.
It was a moot point if the rebellion would have been as successful without that intervention, given he was the man who could guarantee the participation of the hardbitten colonial troops he had at one time commanded in a country where the metropolitan army was useless.
Peter, on behalf of his previous employers, had been shadowing the pair prior to their departure in an attempt to discover their intentions in the hope of putting a block on what they intended, albeit he had no idea of the plan. In that he had utterly failed, but it said a great deal about the outfit of which he was once again part. It was obvious the pair could not have acted as they did without at least a nod from some of their more senior colleagues.
‘How many of your colleagues are actually pro-Nazi?’
‘Pro-Nazi might be calling it too high, but they are definitely anti the Soviets and anyone who travels with them, which includes any government called a “Popular Front” and loaded with socialists and trade unionists.’
Peter was alluding not just to Spain but to the coalition which had run France for two years, to introduce such wonders as the forty-hour working week and paid annual holidays, the underlying point being that, for all his protestations about his colleagues not being actual fascists, one or two must be flying pretty close.
‘Whatever their views, the number is less significant than their mere presence, which makes it near impossible to meaningfully formulate a strategy on the dictator states so we can properly advise the Government.’ Peter sighed and flicked his fag over the side. ‘And before you ask, I am sure there are quite a few crypto- communists in the outfit as well, equally, if not more, discreet.’
‘Surely you work in compartments?’
‘We do and I must say this, there is no leak of military secrets to Jerry or anyone else we can trace, it’s the political we’re adrift on. Let’s leave it at this — there are chaps in SIS who can see no further than the lead editorials in the Daily Mail, a fair few who would not even object to Oswald Mosley as prime minister.’
‘Come on, Peter, the man’s a bombastic farce.’
‘I seem to recall some folk saying that about the fellow we used to jokingly refer to as “Herr Schicklgruber”. Calling Hitler that in Germany now can get you a very swift bullet in the brain. Anyway, that’s by the by; with the rivalries in the department, getting untainted advice to the top so they might make the right choices is proving difficult. The way things are we have no method of properly altering their stupid policy.’
‘So you need outside sources?’
‘More than one and people not at all connected with the establishment, yet they also have to be folk who have personal relations where they are needed.’
‘How many people did you set out to tell you were coming to La Rochelle?’
Peter was slightly thrown by that question, even if he had known that eventually it must arise; Cal was never going to leave the uncertainty over betrayal dormant, but he did no more than hold up two fingers in reply. ‘Just don’t go asking me who.’
‘I wouldn’t expect an answer if I did, but I would like to know how important they are.’
‘Top floor.’
‘This is all a bit nebulous, Peter.’
‘Goes with the job, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m curious as to what’s in it for me?’
That produced a wry smile. ‘Fighting the good fight, which always tickles your fancy-’
‘Hardly enough,’ Cal interrupted.
‘How about the freedom to operate unhindered in your chosen field?’
‘Which I am doing now.’
‘You won’t be, Cal, take my word for it. Things leak out and certain folk are spitting blood at the rumour that you got those embargoed weapons to the Spanish republicans.’
‘It’s still just a rumour I take it?’
Peter understood the question, not that he enjoyed it being posed. ‘If you are asking me if I let on about helping you, or any precise knowledge of what you did, the answer is no. I did nothing to expose you and I must add that I find the question itself offensive.’
‘Sorry,’ Cal responded, unabashed, ‘I had to ask.’
‘If we could get enough good info to put some backbone into HMG, maybe they will stand up to Hitler, or at least make some noises in that direction. That is what we need and we have no means of getting to such a position through an intelligence service that is not countered by those who think we should just let the Nazis do as they wish in Central Europe, many from a genuine desire to avoid another bloodbath like the last show. You have certain contacts in the Czech Government-’
‘Do I?’ Cal interrupted, suddenly guarded.
‘Come along, old chap. You spent months setting up the purchase of those weapons and no doubt greased a few palms in the process, but to get away with what you did, that fake End User Certificate, there had to be at least one person in a high official position who went out of their way to assist you, and probably more than one.’
All he got for that statement was a bland look and a request that he sit down, given the sun was at his back, becoming low and blinding. That break was extended when the captain’s steward, who looked to be Malay, appeared to give them a refill and advise them that dinner would be in half an hour, for if they were in a rather low-class freighter, the captain was ex-navy and a man who adhered to certain standards in both dress and comportment.
‘Look,’ Peter said, once the man had gone, leaning forward from the edge of his lounger. ‘I can very well appreciate that you would want to keep to yourself the names of who you dealt with in Prague or Brno and I do not for one moment want you to disclose them. But to deny the existence of at least one high-placed contact is to insult my intelligence.’
He paused again, allowing Cal’s silence to acknowledge that had to be the case. ‘What we require is that you get back in touch with him or them and find out how far the Czech Government is prepared to go to defy Hitler-’
Cal’s interruption was brutal. ‘Which they cannot do alone.’
‘… and what they need from HMG to make that possible.’
‘Now you’re insulting my intelligence, Peter. What they need is general mobilisation in the UK and France as soon as Hitler acts up and, much as it pains me to say so, the backing of the USSR.’
‘We thought maybe Poland?’
‘The Poles won’t lift a finger to aid the Czechs. You have heard of a place called Teschen, I take it?’
‘Vaguely,’ Peter replied with a bored look that preceded a deep swallow.
‘My regiment was posted there after the armistice in 1919 to stop the Poles and Czechs killing each other for possession of the coalfields, and bloody hard going it was, a full-scale armed conflict, just when we thought all that was over.’
‘A few thousand on each side, Cal, and the odd armoured car! It wasn’t much of a war.’
‘It was enough of one for me. The Poles, who, I would remind you, have a military government, think they were hard done by in the plebiscite that followed and established the border, cheated in fact by the slimy Czechs. They have been smarting ever since.’
