World War Two Will Not Take Place (27 page)

‘We're into cliché territory here,' Baillie replied. ‘Perhaps that thoroughness is not so much special to Germans as to ex-army officers, who have had the detailed running of operations during the war, regardless of nationality. That becomes ingrained. This would clearly apply to Major Valk, and it is also true of our own chief.'

‘Whose name must not be mentioned, on pain of a flogging around the fleet,' Fallows said.

‘He had those wartime burdens, too,' Baillie said. ‘He retains that same thoroughness, although British. In fact, the thoroughness sometimes reaches a pitch with him when it becomes a mental state we were talking of earlier – obsessive compulsive neurosis. It's probable that he, too, has identified this building as potentially a prime hazard. He was, after all, an ace sniper, before being commissioned in the field. I see it as very possible that on the day of the procession he would be obliged by some inner urge to come here and vigilantly patrol these upper floors himself. That is the kind of extreme, unrelenting commitment we speak of. As Major Valk has said, door locks of this calibre would not be a great obstacle to trained people. Our boss might feel absolutely obligated to ensure no danger originated from these rooms.'

‘Do you mean he would be free to move about here as he wished?' Valk replied.

‘Not “as he wished”,' Baillie said. ‘Rather, as he felt required to, as he felt forced to, because of the onus on him.'

‘Because of his overriding duty,' Fallows said. ‘The making of history will be in his care.'

‘As it will be in yours, Major,' Baillie said.

Valk still felt unsure of the tone of this conversation. Did they mean simply, factually, to describe Bilson's personality? Nicholas Baillie had an interest in psychology, didn't he? Or were they still teasing him, scaring him, with the thought of a neurotic Section chief in one of the rooms carrying a rifle, and brilliantly skilful in using it? Was this why Bilson wouldn't meet him – because he felt ashamed of the duplicitous role he would play? It was not like the honest enmities of the battlefield, but furtive, ignoble. ‘Couldn't this building be closed down completely on the day?' Valk said. ‘Perhaps the staff will be given a holiday, for the occasion.'

‘Difficult,' the manager said. ‘They will probably want to come in because the procession passes here. And they'll be getting paid to be spectators!'

TWELVE

B
ack at the embassy in Carlton House Terrace, after the alarming book depository visit and the rest of his Daimler trip, Valk wrote full notes on what he had seen. He would put these in front of Knecht immediately on return to Berlin. But then he realized that Knecht might not be in his current post any longer when this operation ended. The offensive British intelligence officer, Fallows, could be right, and Knecht would get displaced because of his sexual indiscretions, and his wife's response to them. It had been a habit of mind in Valk to regard all his work as ultimately monitored by Knecht. It disturbed Valk to realize that this might not any longer be so. Perhaps someone else would be running the Department now. Perhaps, as Fallows had suggested, he, Valk, might be put in charge. Should he rid himself of this instinctive sense of subordination to Knecht? That unsettled him a little, but also thrilled him. Possibly, he would at last escape this middling rank and its fetch-and-carry obligations.

He completed his notes all the same. Even if he won his step up, he would still have responsibilities for the Führer's life. And that life could be regarded as yet more precious to him, if it were the Führer's personal order that Knecht should be chucked out and Major Andreas Valk substituted.

He was reading over the notes when he had a message asking him to see Claus Weigel in so-called Passport Control. Valk went at once. There might be further news about Knecht and matters to do with the Department. It had irritated him to hear Baillie talk of Bilson earning his commission in the field, as if that were better than entering the army already an officer cadet, as Valk had. And, although Baillie had not mentioned it, Bilson had come out with a higher rank than Valk's. Well, perhaps he would himself get promoted in the field now: the peacetime, diplomatic field.

Weigel very looked bad. ‘Something?' Valk said.

‘Andreas, I stress this is unconfirmed so far,' Weigel said.

‘Understood.' Valk was not going to become grandiose and haughty because a rumour said he had been pushed up to Colonel following Knecht's disgrace.

Weigel said: ‘The fully clothed bodies of two males in the twenty–thirty age group have been recovered from the sea at Milford Haven – the Cleddau estuary – in South West Wales.'

Valk was standing near Weigel's desk and felt some of his balance go for a few moments. ‘Yes?' he said. ‘Is this in any way to do with us?'

‘They were carrying German passports in the names of V Mair and BL Schiff. There was also an overturned small boat. In two capacities I get to hear of this – Passport Control and the other.'

Valk had very little voice to play with for a moment. ‘But not confirmed, you say,' he muttered.

‘It will be.'

God, those two, with their cheek and insolence and determination to supply their own orders! He had been right to regard them as dangerous fools. Would their mad actions besmirch him, as their commander? Might this prevent his step up? ‘Milford Haven?' he said. ‘What, who, is at Milford Haven?'

‘Their corpses were,' Weigel said. ‘The information, as I have it, is they seem to have been attempting a landing at one of the Victorian stone forts on islands in the Haven. Apparently, there have been rumours around among the local population for a while that secret rearming of these installations is in hand to repel possible invasion. It's rubbish, but the suggestion is, Schiff and Mair had been sent to spy on such preparations and report. Being unfamiliar with boats and currents and so on, they had an accident.'

‘Victorian forts? On a western coast? It's absurd.'

‘That's the yarn.'

‘I gave no such order,' Valk said. ‘How could I give such an order? They were supposed to be amassing a case against Lionel Paterin so Goebbels can throw shit at him if things turn unpleasant. Drowned in Milford Haven?'

‘I didn't say drowned in Milford Haven. The bodies and the boat were
found
in Milford Haven. Quite different.'

Now, Valk's breath went for a moment. He sat down. ‘What is it you mean?' he said. ‘Drowned elsewhere? Not an accident? Drowned by others? Deliberately killed?'

‘It's a possibility, as I'm told. And perhaps you'll have difficulty arguing they couldn't have been there to carry out that operation because you mustn't say, must you, what they were really at?'

‘I've said they were handling other aspects of the visit.'

‘Were you believed?'

‘How can anyone tell whether they're believed when talking to those insulting people from Bilson's Section?'

‘And I'm told Mair and Schiff didn't come back to their embassy quarters overnight.'

Valk wondered now whether he could define what had baffled him before – the tone of Baillie's and Fallow's conversation not long ago. Had they already known, somehow, about the deaths of Mair and Schiff? Yes, somehow. God,
somehow
. Baillie, Fallows – both in the past involved with unexplained deaths, according to the dossiers. They had seemed sceptical when he spoke of what Mair and Schiff were doing, and where. Beyond the sceptical? He'd suspected again that they were teasing him. Or perhaps it had been more than teasing. This time he had more evidence. Ridiculing him? The British enjoyed games. They'd deliberately alarmed him with the prospect of Bilson at the book depository on the day of the procession, because they'd known there would never be any procession. Otherwise, would they have alerted Valk to the likelihood of their chief standing – obsessively compulsively – at the perfect high window to annihilate Hitler? By talking about it they'd have jeopardized the plot. No. Baillie and Fallows had known there could be no state visit after the Milford Haven discoveries. The publicity was sure to shatter that plan. Germany would look disgustingly scheming, hostile, two-faced, deceitful.

‘I'd assumed Mair and Schiff had gone to a pleasure house for the night,' Valk said.

‘Others assume differently,' Weigel said.

And the next morning Valk saw early what others assumed. Discovery of the bodies was headlined in every national newspaper and most likely in the regionals, also:

Revealed: a dirty spy operation behind the smiles
.

Munich accord destroyed by spy deaths
.

German spies drown seeking secret fortress facts
.

Jerry spies dead in coastal defences drama
.

A leading article in the
Daily Telegraph
said: ‘
Even while preparations were well advanced for the state visit of the Führer, Herr Hitler, next year, his country was apparently conducting an operation to probe the defences of Great Britain. To what purpose? Only one seems possible: Germany expects to make war against us and attempt an invasion, and is systematically charting the locations and quality of possible resistance so that such resistance can be nullified as part of a concerted attack. The French carried out a farcical landing in this area of Wales during the Napoleonic wars, although it is the far coastline from the continent. The implication of these spies' activities is much graver, even if their doomed forts expedition was prompted by false rumour of rearmament there. Their behaviour and the behaviour of those who sent them is gross duplicity. This is flagrant cynicism, perhaps made the more abominable by occurring so near to Christmas
.

It is difficult now – in fact, impossible – to conceive how a state visit by Hitler to this country could take place. The people of London, indeed of Britain, would not want it; would find the notion intolerable. That reaction is certain, despite the king's apparent continuing wish to achieve a lasting friendship with the Führer. In this, the king is deeply at variance with the bulk of his people. They will now wish the government to do everything it can to put this country into a condition of readiness for possible war with a treacherous potential enemy. The Munich agreement may have looked solid, positive and hopeful at the time. That time has gone. Henceforth, only a war footing for Britain is feasible
.

THIRTEEN

K
ale-Walker finally opted for the sea, not an aircraft. He considered it safer, given tolerable weather. Mount had wondered about that. Did the North Sea ever give tolerable weather in winter? How well was the coastline patrolled? But north from the mouth of the Elbe on a cloudy early January night a submarine, HMS Masthead, surfaced just ahead of the motor inflatable carrying Mount, Toulmin, Kale-Walker and its three-man crew. Kale-Walker had reassured Mount: Masthead, he said, routinely carried out such undercover, underwater-salvage operations. Its officers and men were expert in very tricky navigation and manoeuvring. Kale-Walker and the rubber dinghy crew weren't bad at it, either. The embassy must contain all sorts of talents. The boat drew closer to the submarine.

The Masthead's conning tower opened, and a couple of seamen came swiftly down on to its deck. One of the dinghy's crew hurled a line. The dinghy's engine idled. A submariner caught the rope, and the two of them pulled on it and drew the smaller vessel alongside. Mount shook hands in farewell with Kale-Walker and the crew. Another man from the submarine brought leather harnesses fixed to safety-lines and threw the harnesses into the motor boat. Toulmin and Mount fixed these on over their life jackets. The weather was ‘tolerable', in Kale-Walker's opinion. He'd probably use the word as long as the dinghy was not swamped. But a worrying swell would make the transfer difficult. Kale-Walker said: ‘I and the rest of the embassy will probably follow to Britain soon, but in an orderly, protected, official withdrawal at the start of the war.'

‘Whatever your decision on the Steglitz apartment, I've left it clean and in proper order,' Mount replied.

‘The chair count is right again,' Toulmin said.

‘Well, yes, I know,' Kale-Walker said. ‘Didn't Equipment, London arrange for—?'

‘Oh, certainly, all present and correct,' Mount said.

‘The three of us saw to that,' Toulmin said.

‘Which three?' Kale-Walker said.

‘Olga, Inge and myself.'

‘Those names? Knecht apparently got something from a girl called Inge,' Kale-Walker replied. ‘Or it might be Olga.'

‘I've told Sam to give himself some careful scrutiny,' Mount said.

‘We'll try to bring any of your family out who want to get to Britain, Sam,' Kale-Walker said. ‘But it's hard to know how the German government will behave. Your family might not suffer, just as the Kordts haven't suffered, though they constantly criticize and try to undermine the regime.'

‘Well, everything seemed all right at my brother's wedding,' Toulmin said.

‘Yes, that might be a good omen,' Kale-Walker said.

The motor boat's engine picked up, and she moved closer still. When the swell was right, Mount leapt on to the Masthead's hull. A pair of her seamen heaved on the safety line and pulled him up on to the deck. Toulmin followed. An officer in the conning tower with a megaphone called: ‘Careful, now, we don't want another accident like that very nasty, almost unbelievable, tragedy at Milford Haven, do we? Yes, almost unbelievable. Which of you is which?'

‘This is Toulmin,' Mount said.