Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Christensen waited until Wolff rose to stand at his side again. ‘I do have something.’ He looked pleased with himself. ‘It’s worth a lot.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that. Well?’

But he wouldn’t be drawn for less than forty marks and a promise of forty more. ‘You understand the risk…’ he said. ‘It’s a fair price. Roger told me why he thinks you’re useful…’

‘Not here,’ interrupted Wolff. ‘We’ve been here too long.’ They ambled along the path into an unfashionable corner of the cemetery some distance from the gate.

‘This will do,’ Wolff nodded to an ugly granite temple dedicated to an architect and his family. It was gloomy and damp inside and someone had used it as a lavatory. ‘Is this necessary?’ Christensen gave a little shudder.

‘Are you afraid of ghosts?’

‘No, but…’

‘Here,’ Wolff offered him the marks. ‘Tell me what you know and we can leave.’

‘It was the Count,’ the Norwegian muttered, slipping the money into his pocketbook. ‘What I mean is, the Count told him you were in South Africa. That you’d served with an Irishman…’

‘MacBride.’

‘Yeah, MacBride. That’s why he wanted to speak to you.’

‘That’s it?’ He stared at Christensen for a few seconds, then reached for the lapel of his coat, pinching its edge as if testing the weight of the cloth. ‘Is that all?’

‘Sir Roger was excited.’

‘I know,’ he snapped.

‘No. You don’t understand. I mean, yes, he likes this man MacBride, but it’s the brigade. Like the one you served in…’ he frowned. ‘If you did. He’s trying to, well, form his own Irish Brigade.’

Wolff let go of his lapel. ‘Here?’

‘Yes. Irishmen in the British Army, prisoners — the Germans have captured some — thousands.’

Wolff looked at him sceptically.

‘Hundreds.’

He didn’t know how many.

‘To fight in Ireland?’

‘I suppose.’ He shrugged his square shoulders. ‘Why else?’

‘You’re sure about this?’

Christensen said he was certain. He had listened to Sir Roger explaining his plans to a man who’d arrived from Switzerland. An Irishman, someone important, he said. No, he didn’t catch his name nor did he hear mention of a date for a rising.

‘All right.’ Wolff patted his arm. ‘Good. See if you can find out.’

Christensen smiled. ‘I told you. You can leave it to me. You will leave it to me, won’t you?’

‘What does it matter, if I pay you?’ he replied.

It was impossible to avoid Casement even if he had wished to. They met for breakfast and walked through the Tiergarten again, then on the following day for dinner. He insisted on taking Wolff to the theatre and arranged for an invitation to a soirée in Count Blücher’s rooms at the Esplanade. Would you fight again? he asked. What might you risk to bring England low? He hated injustice, he hated the prejudice of his own class, he hated intemperate sacrifice, the machine grinding relentlessly on the Western Front. He hated all those things, and yet he spoke to Wolff of ‘England’ without reason, raging at her ‘perfidy’ and the ‘moral debauchery’ of her public servants, rejoicing in the thought that she would be made to ‘pay’ in time.

Did Wolff like him? Ordinarily it was a question he didn’t ask himself. As they walked the same circuits, round and round, he listened and recognised a man twisted to distraction by doubts: charming, funny and fragile. ‘Spies follow me everywhere too,’ Casement observed at dinner. Was he imagining it? There was always a policeman trailing Wolff so it was impossible to say. ‘I’m worse than a refugee — an outcast,’ Casement continued. ‘My friends despise me, the Germans don’t trust me, and the rest of the world wants to hang me.’

‘You’re respected as a man of principle,’ Wolff assured him, but it wasn’t true.

He noted it first at the Blüchers’ soirée. The Count and his wife were old friends from Casement’s London days. ‘People of our mind,’ he remarked breezily, but a few minutes later he was urging de Witt to accompany him into the ‘lion’s den’.

The Esplanade was a new hotel in the French style, brash, opulent, a favourite of the Kaiser’s before the war and, since, a refuge for the rich returning from abroad.

‘Do you think I look well?’ Casement asked as they presented their hats and coats to a footman.

‘Of course.’

He smiled appreciatively. ‘I’m sure it will be a pleasant evening,’ but he didn’t sound sure.

The Count’s suite was one of the finest in the hotel, with French windows opening on to an elegant courtyard garden of trimmed box borders and pine. Some of his hardier guests were smoking on the terrace but most were sipping champagne in his drawing room: gentlemen of middle years and their ladies in expensive, sombre dresses, black and grey the new fashion, with only a little discreet jewellery. The Countess glided towards them like a ship in full sail.

‘Sir Roger says you’re American and Dutch.’ She offered Wolff a cold hand. Her English was as finely cut as the room’s Venetian chandelier. ‘Americans are always something else as well, aren’t they?’ She turned her head a little to gaze at Casement, a small frown on her brow. ‘But in this ghastly war all our loyalties are being tested.’

‘I pray something worthwhile will come from it,’ ventured Casement.

‘I can’t imagine what you think will be worth the sacrifice, Sir Roger,’ she replied stiffly. ‘Mr de Witt…’ she caught Wolff’s eye. Her dark looks and no-nonsense manner reminded him of his mother. ‘There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to, another of your countrymen.’

Weber was a middle-aged Californian, a gruff soldier with a shaggy blond moustache like General Custer’s. He talked incessantly about the war in a deep and somnolent voice, pausing only to sip his champagne. Wolff let his plans for a ‘knockout’ blow in the West wash over him, his eyes on Casement as he drifted from circle to circle. Weber must have followed his gaze. ‘That’s Sir Roger Casement,’ he said, a hand to his face, as if sheltering a secret from the room. His breath smelt of alcohol and strong tobacco. ‘You’ve seen his name in the papers, I reckon?’ Wolff admitted that he had. ‘People say he’s raisin’ a brigade to fight against the British. You heard that? The thing is…’ and he edged closer still. ‘It leaves a bad taste, don’t it?’ Wolff raised his eyebrows quizzically. ‘Course I want Germany to win this shootin’ match, but a fella who’s betrayed one country won’t fuss about betrayin’ another.’

Drawing-room whispers, sideways glances, and Wolff saw the backs of one small circle turned like a wall. In his crude way, Weber spoke for them all. Sir Roger wasn’t Sir Roger any more. The Count had invited his old friend for what he’d been, not what he’d become. His wife put it more bluntly.

‘He says you’re his friend,’ she remarked to Wolff as she led him away from Weber into the chill air. ‘Persuade him to go back to America.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Wolff said, genuinely perplexed.

‘Sir Roger’s making a fool of himself; you do see that, don’t you?’

‘Why?’ he asked coolly.

‘He’s humiliating himself. My husband says no one here is sure they can trust him — traitors, spies, who can be certain of the difference? You’ve heard of his Irish Brigade?’

‘No.’

‘Madness. He’s being used and I’m sorry.’ Her regret sounded genuine. ‘You know I am, well, I was very fond of him.’

‘Whether he’s being used or not, I can’t say,’ replied Wolff. ‘I confess, I barely know him, but I do believe him to be courageous and, yes, a good man. A good man fighting, as he always has — for liberty and justice, but this time for his own people — for Ireland.’