‘Indicated to whom?’ Although Lord God Almighty Halton was my employer, almost a patron you might say, I wasn’t surprised he’d discussed my future with strangers: in his world there was him, and everybody else – the everybody else were pawns to be moved around in his chess game.
‘One of the ministers, I expect. He moves in exalted circles, doesn’t he? What’s he like?’
‘Almost as small as me and twice as nasty. He coughs kerosene.’
‘He has a reputation for looking after his people; rather old-fashioned.’
‘You’re probably right.’ It was a grudging admission I had to make. ‘I just wish he’d tell us about it first . . . Did he know in advance about this job you’re offering me?’
‘No. You come recommended.’
‘By whom?’
‘A rather highly placed officer in RAF Intelligence. They were among the departments we canvassed when the need arose: she advised us to get you if we could . . . Apparently you ran an intercept station at Cheltenham before it went all Cold War on us, and became GCHQ. Correct?’
I paused for a few seconds before I answered: ran a few bars of music in my head – an aria from Norma.
‘Yes. I was there for four or five months; but you must have checked up on that already.’ She in RAF Intelligence was not Ayesha. She was Dolly. The first time I had met her she had been Section Officer Dolly Wayne, a War Office driver. That’s what I thought anyway. We’d knocked around with one another every now and again – in personal relationships she was as rootless as me. She’d even missed her own wedding because she was too hung-over to get to the altar: that takes a lot of beating.
‘Of course we’ve checked; I just didn’t want you thinking we’d pulled your name out of a hat.’
‘I don’t want your damned job – I’m finished with that sort of bullshit.’ But then my nose got the better of me; I think they rely on that. I asked, ‘Tell me how long it would have been for, anyway.’
‘Four or five months I expect. Then your airline will be back in business.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Can’t tell you. Walls still have ears.’
‘You’re mad; the whole damned lot of you. Anyway, if I had agreed what would have been in it for me?’
‘Civil Service pay at an undeservedly elevated level, and we’ll look after those boys of yours if anything goes wrong this time.’
These drip-dry-shirted bastards have had me over all my life. Halfway through a conversation you think you have under control, you feel the fish hook go through your lip, and they’ve got you. I decided I wasn’t in the mood for opera, and looked at him with Bob Scobey’s Frisco Jazz Band playing between my ears, SOS, SOS, Captain we are lost . . .
‘What do you mean by look after?’
‘Westminster, we thought – a nice sort of lad goes to Westminster these days – then Cambridge.’
‘Public school and university?’ I couldn’t see Dieter agreeing to that.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m a paid-up Socialist.’
‘Yes, old chap, but are they?’ He had me there.
‘I’ve never asked them.’ The implication was there, of course, so I asked him, ‘What sort of thing could go wrong?’
‘You could get hurt.’ They never say, You might get killed: looking death in the face is terribly bad form in the place where his accent came from. ‘I’ve already told you that you would be based in Cyprus for some of the time.’
‘Cyprus was very peaceful the last time I passed through – beach parties, tombola, seafood and women with large black moustaches.’
He looked at me very levelly and said, ‘Cyprus is not going to be very peaceful for much longer, Mr Bassett – in fact, British soldiers are already getting killed there. Practically a rebellion.’
‘That sounds almost like Egypt in 1953. You can’t deal with a few hotheads without my help again: is that it?’
He didn’t do irony, so he smiled that smile again.
‘If you put it like that.’
‘If the locals don’t want us there why don’t we just leave?’
‘Because we can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘If we left, we’d lose the Med. We could not control it.’
‘It was never ours to control in the first place.’
He smiled again, and there might have been something genuine in there.
‘Try explaining that to the Prime Minister, Mr Bassett . . . or his Cabinet or the heads of departments. Your argument has merit with me, but not with them. Apparently Britannia still rules the waves.’
‘What will happen if I say no? You can’t call me up again, can you? I’m no longer a reservist.’
He spread his hand on the buff-coloured file again, and said, ‘No; I can’t insist . . . but what I can do is cancel your passport, I’m afraid. Ground you.’
‘And would you?’
‘Definitely.’ Then he smiled the smile I didn’t like again. ‘Why don’t you toddle off and see Halton, and then come back here to see me tomorrow with your decision. I’m sure we can work something out.’
His name was Browne. It had said that in my letter. C. H. Browne. Charlie, like me? Then Harry? Henry?
‘What does the C. H. stand for, Mr Browne . . . as in C. H. Browne?’
His face was back in my file again; an amused smile played around his lips. He answered almost absently.
‘Carlton Browne.’
‘And the H?’
He suddenly looked up at me. His eyes were as hard as playground marbles.
‘Hannibal. Good at getting elephants over Alps.’ And a camel through the eye of a needle perhaps. Bollocks.
My boss, Old Man Halton, owned Halton Air. I minded it for him. He had been gassed at Loos in the Great War, and consequently could cough for England; apart from that he’d weathered well.
Whenever I liked him I called him ‘guv’nor’ to his face. He enjoyed that: it made him feel like one of the boys. If I was out of love with him I
