Andrew Williams - The Poison Tide

Crack. The log splintered into four with one blow, leaving him gasping and the stable spinning. Christensen in the cemetery; his forefinger trailing down a marble bust. ‘I copied it from his diary,’ he’d boasted with a sly grin. ‘You’d be surprised what there is in there.’ And now Special Branch was leaking it to the jackals on Fleet Street. Wolff picked up a log and hurled it at the wall. How was the News of the World reporting it? Nobody who sees the diary will ever mention Casement’s name again without loathing and contempt. Peddling poisonous stories of liaisons with Indian boys to blacken his character. Is this what we’re fighting for? he wondered. Putting the axe down, he sat in the straw to smoke a cigarette. I didn’t bring him to this, he reflected in its haze, but I did betray him . He’d lied to a lot of people, betrayed some and been betrayed, all in the name of duty. He’d betrayed Roger, then used him to betray others — Laura. Christ, the irony of it. Two people with a vision of how the world could be better, so the sacrifice wasn’t a waste. For that, they were intent on casting Roger Casement down, from saint of the Empire to sinner and degenerate, falling to at least a rope’s length. Sickening. And Commander Wolff wrings his hands and feels guilty.

He was still brooding when his mother called to him an hour later — and when he went to bed that evening and rose the following morning. ‘Something’s troubling you,’ she observed at breakfast. ‘No. Still a little tired,’ he lied, because how could he explain?

In the days that followed, he read of appeals for clemency from Ireland and America but also more calculated poison, more calumnies. This is what Laura will believe I am, he thought. Why should it matter? But it preyed upon him continually. He walked his old routes still but not with the same unconscious pleasure. If I’m well enough, I might run, he reflected, fast and hard, outpacing his shadow like a middle-aged Peter Pan. Drop it like a hat and stick at the cloakroom of a London club or in an armchair in one of its smoke-filled rooms. But no, his part was always with him; he’d brought its sadness home to the fen, to his family’s sky-filled fields, out to the salt marshes and into the secret lanes where he’d run easy as a boy.

‘There’s a telegram for you, Sebastian,’ his mother said when he returned one afternoon. ‘Behind the clock.’

It was a summons to the Admiralty signed by C.

‘We should start harvesting next week,’ she said, gazing at him over her spectacles. ‘We’ll be short if you go.’

‘I’ll come back.’

‘I’ve got five women and Griggs who’s too old to fight, Atkin the butcher’s boy from Long Sutton, and our neighbours will help when they can.’ She closed her eyes, the care lines obvious in the lamplight. ‘I expect I’ll manage.’

‘I’ll come back — I said so.’

His instructions were to report to Naval Intelligence at precisely four o’clock the following day. He arrived in his old country suit, patched at the elbow, flannel waistcoat, green tweed tie.

‘You’ve caught the sun. You look healthier but like a bumpkin,’ C observed as they walked slowly up the stairs to Admiral Hall’s office. ‘Disrespectful, Wolff.’

The Director of Naval Intelligence was on the first floor of the new building, with large south-facing windows overlooking Horse Guards Parade. The white stone heart of our Empire, he’d once observed to Wolff, with its view of 10 Downing Street, the Admiralty, Parliament and the Foreign Office and, craning east, the top floor and roof of the War Office.

Hall greeted him with a reproachful frown. ‘Undercover, are we?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Well, sorry to drag you from your fields then. Thought you might help us win the war. Sit down.’ He retreated behind his desk but remained standing, hands resting on the back of his chair. ‘Last night there was an explosion at an ammunition depot in America — the largest.’ He paused, blinking furiously. ‘Are you smiling, man?’

‘Was it the Black Tom yard?’

‘You think it’s sabotage?’

‘Ask von Rintelen. You still have him, don’t you?’

‘Captain Gaunt thinks so too. Two million pounds of ammunition and explosive — broke windows twenty-five miles away and damaged the Statue of Liberty. Like the Somme, Gaunt says — how the hell he knows, I can’t imagine,’ Hall observed dryly. ‘But that isn’t why you’re here.’ He reached down to a file and slid a piece of paper from it across his desk. ‘Take your time.’

It was an enciphered signal in number groups of five, bearing the legend at the top: BRITISH EMBASSY, PARIS. Rendered in English beneath:

French advise arrest of German agent. Sugar and glass phials in possession contain Bacillus anthracis . His orders to infect animals in holding pens close to Allied front line. Received anthrax and instruction in use at laboratory in Berlin from man he called DELMAR.

Wolff lowered the telegram to the edge of the desk.

‘Seems your Dr Dilger is set on turning this into an industry,’ Hall remarked grimly. ‘Who knows what else his laboratory is cooking up. I suppose it was naïve to hope the fuss in America would end it all.’

C leant forward to place his large hand on the telegram. ‘One of our people needs to question the German agent,’ he said. ‘I don’t expect we’ll get any more but…’ He was deliberately avoiding Wolff’s eye.

For a time no one spoke. Admiral Hall stepped out from his desk, dragging his fingers across its bright surface. ‘Can you imagine the panic out there if the public thought it was under attack from some disease?’ A battalion of soldiers was stamping rhythmically beneath his window. Turning, it began to advance on Downing Street in close order. ‘The War Office is setting up a new experimental station so some of our scientists can run tests on anthrax and a few other diseases…’ he paused, leaning closer to the window, ‘…just to see how we might fight an attack — understand what we’re up against.’

Wolff was conscious of C fidgeting uncomfortably beside him.

Hall turned to face them again, a short broad silhouette against the window. ‘The scientists aren’t going to tell us what Delmar is planning and where. The Army is circulating a confidential memorandum to intelligence officers urging them to be vigilant — the Home Office is doing the same with the police.’ He paused again, then said, as if to himself, ‘Just a damn shame we didn’t dispose of Dilger when we had the chance.’

‘For God’s sake, have you ever stabbed a man?’ Wolff asked with a cold fury that surprised him too. ‘So close you can smell him, feel his beard against the back of your hand, wriggling, biting — then that last little gasp. Christ.’ He was shaking his head. ‘The Germans — Nadolny — would have found someone to take his place — wouldn’t you?’

The incredulous silence was broken only by the distant beat of marching feet. Then Hall exploded: ‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to, Commander?’

‘Was it you?’ Again, Wolff was surprised to hear his voice trembling with passion. ‘Did you instruct the police — instruct Special Branch to give the newspapers that poison?’

‘Sir,’ C prompted him quietly. ‘Did you give the newspapers Casement’s diary, sir?’

‘I’m here to tell you how contemptible—’

‘You’re here, Wolff, because I ordered you to come,’ C said, struggling to his feet to stand above him. ‘I thought you might be of use but I see—’

‘As you ask, yes,’ Hall cut in belligerently. ‘Yes, I asked Special Branch to circulate extracts — to politicians, bishops, the King — they have a right to know. I have a copy here, if you’d like to look — if you have the stomach for it. Perfectly genuine,’ he sucked his teeth; ‘the man is a disgrace. But you knew that, didn’t you?’