Robert Harris - An Officer and a Spy

I say to Lauth, ‘It’s obviously important. So if he didn’t send this, what did he send?’

‘Another card?’ suggests Lauth. ‘A letter?’

‘Have you checked the rest of the material?’

‘Not yet. I concentrated on the bleu .’

‘Very well. Go through it now and see if there’s another draft of something else.’

‘And what shall we do about the pneumatic telegram?’

‘Leave it with me. Don’t mention it to anyone else. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Colonel.’ Lauth salutes.

As he leaves, I call after him, ‘Good work, by the way.’

After Lauth has gone I stand at my window and look across the garden to the minister’s residence. I can see the light burning in his office. It would be an easy matter to walk over and alert him to what we have discovered. Or at least I could go and see General Gonse, who is supposed to be my immediate superior. But I know that if I do that I will have lost control of the investigation before it has even started: I shall not be able to make a move without clearing it with them first. And then there is the risk of a leak. Our suspect may be a humble major with an unfashionable regiment in a garrison town, but Esterhazy is a grand name in central Europe: perhaps someone on the General Staff might feel it his duty to alert the family. I decide that for now it would be wiser to play this one close to my chest.

I replace the petit bleu in its folder and lock it in my safe.

The next day, Lauth comes to see me again. He has worked late into the night and pieced together another draft letter. Unfortunately, as often happens, Auguste has not managed to retrieve every scrap of paper: words, maybe even half-sentences, are missing. Lauth watches me as I read.

To be delivered by the concierge

Sir,

I regret not speaking personally. . about a matter which. . My father has just the. . funds necessary to continue. . in the conditions which were stipulated. . I will explain to you his reasons, but I must begin by telling you straight away. . your conditions too harsh for me and. . the results that. . of the trip. He proposes to me. . tour concerning which we might. . the relations I have. . for him up until now out of proportion. . I have spent on the trips. The point is. . to speak to you as soon as possible.

I am returning to you with this the sketches you gave me the other day; they are not the last.

C

I reread the document several times. Even with its gaps, the sense is clear. Esterhazy has been handing over information to the Germans, including sketches, for which he has been paid by Schwartzkoppen; now the German attaché’s ‘father’, presumably a euphemism for some general in Berlin, is objecting that the price is too high for the value of the intelligence they are getting.

Lauth says, ‘It could be a trap, of course.’

‘Yes.’ I have already thought of this. ‘If Schwartzkoppen has discovered we’re reading his rubbish, he might well decide to use that knowledge against us. He could easily plant material in his own waste basket to send us off on a false trail.’

I close my eyes and try to put myself in his shoes. It seems unlikely somehow that a man so reckless in his love affairs, so slapdash in his handling of documents, would suddenly become that devious.

‘Does it really make sense for him to go to those lengths,’ I muse aloud, ‘if one recalls how violently the Germans reacted when we exposed them employing Dreyfus? Why would Schwartzkoppen want to risk another embarrassing espionage scandal?’

‘Of course, none of this is evidence, Colonel,’ says Lauth. ‘We could never use this document or the petit bleu as a pretext to arrest Esterhazy, because neither was ever sent to him.’

‘That’s true.’ I open the safe and take out the manila folder. I put the draft letter inside, along with the petit bleu . On the file I write ‘Esterhazy’. Here, I reflect, is the paradox of the spy’s world. These are significant documents only if one knows where they come from. And as the very fact of where they come from can never be revealed, because that would blow our agent’s cover, legally they are worthless. I am reluctant to show them even to the Minister of War or the Chief of the General Staff in case one of their junior officers should see them and start gossiping: they are so obviously reconstructed rubbish. ‘Is there any way,’ I ask Lauth, taking out the petit bleu again, ‘that you could photograph this and somehow cover up the tear marks so that it looks as if we just intercepted it in the mail, as you did with the Dreyfus document?’

‘Perhaps,’ he says doubtfully. ‘But that was only in six pieces, whereas this is in about forty. And even if I could, the side with the address, which is the most vital part of the evidence, isn’t franked, so anyone examining it for half a minute would know it had never been delivered.’

‘Maybe we could get it franked?’ I suggest.

‘I don’t know about that.’ Lauth looks even more dubious.

I decide not to press it. ‘All right,’ I say. ‘Let’s just keep these documents between ourselves for the present. In the meantime, we should investigate Esterhazy and try to discover what other evidence there may be against him.’

I can tell that Lauth is still unhappy about something. He frowns; he chews his lip; he seems on the point of making a remark but then changes his mind. He sighs. ‘I wish Major Henry were here, and not on leave.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I reassure him. ‘Henry will be back soon enough. Until then, you and I can deal with this.’

I send a telegram to my old comrade from Tonkin, Albert Curé, major with the 74th Infantry Regiment in Rouen, telling him I’ll be in the area the next day, and asking if I can drop by and see him. I receive a one-word reply: ‘Delighted.’

The following morning I eat an early lunch in the buffet of the gare Saint-Lazare and catch the Normandy train. Despite the gravity of my mission, as we leave the suburbs and head into open country I feel a surge of exhilaration. I am away from my desk for the first time in weeks. It is a spring day. I am on the move. My briefcase sits unopened beside me while the rural scenes slide past my window in a pastoral diorama — the brown and white cows like shiny lead toys in their lush green meadows, the squat grey Norman churches and red-roofed villages, the brightly coloured barges on the placid canal, the sandy lanes and the high hedges just coming into leaf. It is the France for which I fight — if only by piecing together the garbage of a priapic Prussian colonel.

Just under two hours later we are pulling into Rouen, chugging at walking pace alongside the Seine towards the great cathedral. Seagulls swoop and cry over the wide river; I always forget how close the Norman capital is to the English Channel. I set off on foot from the station towards the Pélissier barracks, through a typical garrison district with its dreary chandleries and bootmakers and that certain kind of grim-looking bar, invariably owned by an ex-soldier, in which local civilians are not encouraged to drink. The Seven-Four occupies three large triple-storeyed buildings of alternating stripes of red brick and grey stone peeping over the top of a high wall. It could be a factory or a lunatic asylum or a prison for all one can tell from the outside. At the gate I show my credentials and an orderly leads me between the two dormitory blocks, across the parade ground with its flagpole and tricolour, its plane trees and water troughs, towards the administration building on the far side.

I climb the nail-studded stairs to the second floor. Curé is away from his office. His sergeant tells me he has just started a kit inspection. He invites me to wait. The room is bare apart from a desk and a couple of chairs. The high, small-paned window is slightly ajar, letting in the spring breeze and the sounds of the garrison. I hear the ring of horses’ hooves on the cobbles of the stable block, the rhythmic tramp of a company marching in from the road, and further in the distance a band rehearsing. I might be at Saint-Cyr again, or back as a captain at divisional HQ in Toulouse. Even the smells are the same — horse dung, leather, canteen food and male sweat. My sophisticated friends in Paris express amazement that I can stand it year after year. I never try to explain the truth: that it’s rather the unchanging sameness that attracts me.