Letters for a Spy (2 page)

I stared at him.

“Sardinia!”

“Sardinia,” he repeated. Patiently.

“But, sir, that’s right in the middle of the Med—slap bang in the middle of the Med! God in heaven! Sardinia’s about a hundred miles from Italy!”

I hadn’t intended that expletive. Mannheim must have realized. There followed no correction.

Well, anyway, not for that.

“You mean—I hope—more like a hundred and fifty. But even so. We believe that such a ploy could certainly be possible.”

He paused; ran a hand over his thinning blond hair.

“And that’s going to be your responsibility, Anders. To discover whether it’s not only possible—or even probable—but in fact a serious plan, which they are now more or less resolved to implement.”

He set about explaining.

2

At some point between the 24
^th
and 26
^th
of April, nine to eleven days ago, an aeroplane belonging to the Allies had crashed into the sea somewhere off Spain. Only a single body had so far been recovered: that of a major in the Royal Marines, whose Naval ID proclaimed him to be one William Martin—thirty-six and born in Cardiff. The card had been issued last February. At that time Major Martin had been working at HQ Combined Operations in Whitehall.

None of which made him very interesting. However, there was something else that did—
extremely
interesting: a black briefcase still clasped between his decomposing fingers. And the briefcase had contained a letter. If this letter had been written by Pope Julius II and been on its way to Michelangelo it could scarcely have occasioned more surprise. In fact, it had been written by Sir Archibald Nye, and was on its way to General Alexander. Sir Archibald Nye was Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff; and the letter had been bound for Tunis.

It had been dated April 23
^rd
.

“My dear Alex, I am taking advantage of sending you a personal letter by hand of one of Mountbatten’s officers…”

But how, you may ask, had it fallen into
our
hands?

Apparently, on April 30
^th
, maybe as many as six days after leaving England, Major Martin had been sighted by a fisherman trawling out of Huelva. The corpse had been delivered into the custody of the British vice-consul and on the next day, May 1
^st
, had been buried in the local cemetery.

And buried with full military honours. Graveside attenders included both the Spanish services and the civilian authorities—and doubtless even a member or two of that spy ring which had now acquired a nickname: more mocking than affectionate.

Yet certainly on this occasion our ‘Hispanic Branch Office’ had performed with a competence wholly in line with the parent company. At least one of its agents had got wind of the major’s waterlogged arrival sufficiently soon; and thanks to immediate and very effective interception had managed to relieve him of his briefcase … that briefcase which had never in consequence been seen by the vice-consul.

Excellent reproductions had been made of all the papers it contained.

In addition, an inventory of the contents of Major Martin’s pockets had been provided—accompanied by photographs. And these, too, had been dispatched to Madrid as speedily as possible.

From Madrid the whole thing had been transmitted to Berlin, with reports detailing the authenticity of the find and the manner in which it had come about.

Berlin had been staggered. Had instantly initiated further enquiries and had considered all the answers supplied by Madrid as being unbelievably sound. Even quasi-miraculous. God
was
on the side of the Axis. (He was, at least, to those who were still happy to acknowledge his existence.)

Sir Archibald’s letter, formerly en route to the headquarters of the 18
^th
Army Group, mightn’t have been seen, conclusively, as one of those tablets fierily inscribed upon Mount Sinai—but it carried a message practically as life-altering.

Though, granted, a little more informal. Almost gossipy. Containing comments avowedly off-the-record.

Its real point was this: that after mention of an
eastern
Mediterranean operation involving a landing in Greece (which obviously came as a surprise to no one) there followed a similarly casual reference to a hope that the ‘Boche’ would automatically assume the
western
Mediterranean operation would be in Sicily.

“Indeed, we stand a very good chance of making him think we will go for Sicily—it is an obvious objective and one about which he must be nervous.”

There was no allusion at all to Sardinia but what we had instead—in a shorter, accompanying letter—was a joky allusion to sardines, somewhat contrived. (“And the English,” scoffed Mannheim, “have the temerity to call
our
sense of humour heavy-handed!”) This accompanying letter was addressed to Sir Andrew Cunningham, at the Allied Forces HQ, Algiers.

“Dear Admiral of the Fleet,

“I promised VCIGS that Major Martin would arrange with you for the onward transmission of a letter he has with him for General Alexander. It is very urgent and very ‘hot’ and as there are some remarks in it that could not be seen by others in the War Office, it could not go by signal. I feel sure that you will see that it goes on safely and without delay.

“I think you will find Martin the man you want. He is quiet and shy at first, but he really knows his stuff. He was more accurate than some of us about the probable run of events at Dieppe and he has been well in on the experiments with the latest barges and equipment which took place up in Scotland.

“Let me have him back, please, as soon as the assault is over. He might bring some sardines with him—they are ‘on points’ here!

“Yours sincerely,

“Louis Mountbatten.”

Although I had been shown this letter before and had been given several minutes in which to digest it, Mannheim now—in heavily accented English—reread to me the sentence referring to the dead man’s prophecy. He hadn’t needed to. The fact that Lord Louis Mountbatten himself, Chief of Combined Operations, should be tacitly admitting the raid on Dieppe had been nothing short of a fiasco was something which must strongly appeal to anyone here who saw it. And, indeed, by this time word of the admission must surely have filtered through to everybody in Intelligence. Morale-boosting! How the Führer himself must have gone into transports when he heard of it!

“So Anders,” said Mannheim finally, “there you have it. In a nutshell!”

Mannheim wasn’t known for his levity—well, certainly not at work; certainly not in wartime. But now he added:

“Or should I say, perhaps … in a tin of sardines?”

3

But no. There I didn’t have it at all, neither in a nutshell
nor
in a tin of sardines.

“Sir? Going back to the post-mortem for a moment … How reliable would that have been?”

Mannheim shrugged. “The findings were the expected ones … and presumably correct. The man had drowned. He’d been in the sea for anything between four and six days.”

The man
. For some reason I didn’t like the way he said
the man
.

“Do we know if there was any evidence of the impact made on him—made on Major Martin—when his plane came down?”

“None mentioned.”

“Isn’t that a little strange?” I felt like a detective. (As a boy of thirteen, when I’d first seen
The Maltese Falcon
, I’d decided that in time I should move to Los Angeles and become a private eye. It was ironic: was I now—when I’d nearly forgotten all about this—soon to achieve a small surviving part of that ambition?) “There may not have been any broken bones, but surely there must have been some cuts … grazes…?”

“Must there?” he asked; in truth not sounding very interested.

“And would he have been thrown out of the aircraft—or sucked out—or what? Was he conscious when he hit the water? Can’t they gauge such things as concussion in a circumstance like that?”

“Oh well, Anders, you know these Spanish. They quite pride themselves on being slap-happy. But in any case, what difference would it make?”

Yes. I paused. He was right. What difference
would
it make?

And while I had naturally hoped my questions might lead on to others more productive, I suspected I had also been firing them off simply for the sake of showing that I could.

Yet, all the same, I felt surprised. Mannheim was generally meticulous.

He must have sensed my reaction.

“Of course, Anders, it’s good that you should question. But let’s face it: this post-mortem could hardly have seemed
that
important to anyone. And we have to remember that the body was wanted for burial at noon the following day. Besides, we must be fair. The doctor would have had a very clear notion of what he was about to find. The man died when his plane was lost at sea. That’s obvious. It’s not under debate. Cuts, grazes—concussion—all totally beside the point. Yes?”

“Yes, sir. But why was his the only body? And why no bits of wreckage?”

“The only body
so far
. The others could well have been caught by different currents; may not be found for months, if found at all. The same for any floating debris. I repeat: it’s good to be conscientious—incontestably it is—but at present I think you’re refining too much on something that doesn’t require it. Do you feel in any doubt there was a plane crash? Do you feel in any doubt we have a dead body which was drifting in the sea?”

“No, sir. Of course not.” I shook my head, yet at the same time couldn’t help but purse my lips a little: a persistent trait my mother used to tease me about when I’d been small and getting ready to be difficult. My English mother, who had died in 1927—December 1927—three days in advance of my tenth birthday.

And I was aware that I was beginning to irritate him.

But if so, I reflected, then I might as well make a thorough job of it. Having once begun.

“But if I’m really to be given carte blanche, sir…?”

‘Carte blanche’ had been Mannheim’s phrase. He had already spoken about my setting off for England later that same night and about my being allowed a full week for my enquiries, “if a full week should turn out to be absolutely necessary!” Now he nodded. I thought I must have somewhat overrated my tendency to irritate, for his nod seemed almost avuncular.

“Then where I’d truly like to start, sir—if it’s at all feasible, that is—would be with the exhumation of Major Martin’s body.”

Suddenly no aspect of him seemed even remotely avuncular. (Unless in the manner of Uncle Silas; or of Uncle Ebenezer.)

“Well, you can’t!” he snapped. “It isn’t feasible; not in the slightest!”

But after a moment he again relaxed. “And what’s more—you know it isn’t! In Spain we don’t possess so much as one
shred
of authority.” He smiled. “Well, anyway, not officially,” he said.

I accepted such defeat. I had merely wanted to be laying the foundations for my defence—in case the worst should happen, and my eventual findings should prove to be misjudged.

For I couldn’t forget that earlier phrase he had employed. It had begun to sound intimidating.

Your
responsibility.

He might not have stressed the adjective as now, inside my head, I was hearing it stressed. But I knew the stress had been implicit.

“And even if—officially speaking—we did possess such authority,” he went on, “again I ask you, how would it serve, to demand an exhumation? Anders, you need to concentrate on the essentials. You really do!”

I felt that—by this time—he had truly made his point.

“And the essentials are plain. That letter from Nye to Alexander … is it genuine? That letter from Mountbatten to Cunningham? Although if the one is, then undoubtedly the other will be, too. Genuine not simply as regards their having been written by these men, but as regards their having been written by them in complete good faith. That’s the first thing. And the second? Well, if all goes according to plan, they will shortly get those letters back—returned to Whitehall by the Naval Attaché in Madrid.
He
’ll have received them from the Spanish Chief of Naval Staff. So, Anders, what
you’ve
got to find out is whether the British will realize the documents have been tampered with. Or was the resealing of the envelopes done so skilfully that they’ll imagine themselves quite safe?”

This secretly amused me. I had a picture of myself strolling into the War Office and debonairly twirling a brolly or a baton. “Oh, good morning, gentlemen! May I put to you a rather silly question?”

The question which I now put to Mannheim, though, wasn’t so much silly, I thought, as superfluous. (“Well—
again
!” he might have said.)

“I take it their casualty lists have all been checked?”

“Yes, obviously they have. And he was there all right. In those of last Friday.”

And he was there all right
. Well, then—in its externals, anyway—the matter seemed watertight.

And in fact I wasn’t too surprised about this. Despite my initial astonishment regarding Sardinia.

Which may sound strange … especially on the part of a person expressly chosen to be sceptical. But right from the start I had actually thought those papers likely to be genuine, and for a reason possibly as piffling as Mannheim’s concern over a preposition: ironically, a reason also occasioned by an apparent misuse of language. In other words, by that opening sentence of Sir Archibald Nye’s—which had
not
been written in good English.

“I am taking advantage of sending you a personal letter by hand of one of Mountbatten’s officers…”

Not been written in good English? You could go further. You could say it was written in execrable English. It impressed you as having been dashed off without so much as a second’s thought. It gave no sign of being a fair copy. No sign of having been
considered
in a way that surely even the tiniest detail would need to be considered if it were going to form any part of some thoroughly complex stratagem.

So, to paraphrase Mannheim a little, “Often it’s exactly this kind of clumsiness that can lead to somebody’s belief.”