C. Sansom: Winter in Madrid

His mind went back to Rookwood, as it often did these days. The old quadrangle on a summer’s day, masters in gowns and mortarboards walking under the great elms, boys strolling by in dark blue blazers or cricket whites. It was an escape to the other side of the looking glass, away from the madness. But sooner or later the heavy painful thought would always intrude: how the hell had it all changed from that to this?

SST ERMIN’S hotel had once been grand but the elegance was faded now; the chandelier in the entrance hall was dusty and there was a smell of cabbage and polish. Watercolours of stags and Highland lochs covered the oak-panelled walls. Somewhere a grandfather clock ticked somnolently.

There was nobody at the reception desk. Harry rang the bell and a bald, heavily built man in a commissionaire’s uniform appeared. ‘Good morning, sir,’ he said in the relaxed, unctuous voice of a lifetime in service. ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting.’

‘I’ve an appointment at two thirty with a Miss Maxse. Lieutenant Brett.’ Harry pronounced the woman’s name ‘Macksie’ as the caller from the Foreign Office had instructed.

The man nodded. ‘If you would follow me, sir.’ His footsteps soundless on the thick dusty carpet, he led Harry to a lounge full of easy chairs and coffee tables. It was empty apart from a man and woman sitting in a bay window.

‘Lieutenant Brett, madam.’ The receptionist bowed and left.

The two rose to their feet. The woman extended a hand. She was in her fifties, small and fine-boned, smartly dressed in a blue two-piece suit. She had tightly curled grey hair and a sharp, intelligent face. Keen grey eyes met Harry’s.

‘How do you do, so nice to meet you.’ Her confident contralto made Harry think of a girls’ school headmistress. ‘Marjorie Maxse. I’ve been hearing all about you.’

‘Nothing too bad, I hope.’

‘Oh, quite the contrary. Let me introduce Roger Jebb.’ The man took Harry’s hand in a hard grip. He was about Miss Maxse’s age, with a long tanned face and thinning black hair.

‘What about some tea?’ Miss Maxse asked.

‘Thank you.’

A silver teapot and china cups had been laid out on a table. There was a plate of scones too, pots of jam and what looked like real cream. Miss Maxse began pouring tea. ‘Any trouble getting here? I gather one or two came down round here last night.’

‘Victoria Street’s closed off.’

‘It is a nuisance. And it’s going to go on for some time.’ She spoke as though it were a spell of rain. She smiled. ‘We prefer to meet new people here, for the first interview. The manager’s an old friend of ours, so we won’t be disturbed. Sugar?’ she continued in the same conversational tone. ‘Do have a scone, they’re awfully good.’

‘Thanks.’ Harry scooped up jam and cream. He looked up to see Miss Maxse studying him closely; she gave him a sympathetic smile, unembarrassed.

‘How are you getting on now? You were invalided out, weren’t you? After Dunkirk?’

‘Yes. A bomb landed twenty feet away. Threw up a lot of sand. I was lucky; it shielded me from the worst of the blast.’ He saw Jebb studying him too, from flinty grey eyes.

‘You had a bit of shell shock, I believe,’ he said abruptly.

‘It was very minor,’ Harry said. ‘I’m all right now.’

‘Your face went blank there, just for a second,’ Jebb said.

‘It used to be a lot more than a second,’ he replied quietly. ‘And both hands used to tremble all the time. You might as well know.’

‘And your hearing suffered, too, I believe?’ Miss Maxse asked the question very quietly, but Harry caught it.

‘That’s almost back to normal as well. Just a little deafness in the left one.’

‘Lucky, that,’ Jebb observed. ‘Hearing loss from blast, that’s often permanent.’ He produced a paperclip from his pocket and began absent-mindedly bending it open as he continued looking at Harry.

‘The doctor said I was lucky.’

‘The hearing damage means the end of active service, of course,’ Miss Maxse went on. ‘Even if it is minor. That must be a blow. You joined up straight away last September, didn’t you?’ She leaned forward, teacup enfolded in her hands.

‘Yes. Yes, I did. Excuse me, Miss Maxse, but I’m a bit in the dark …’

She smiled again. ‘Of course. What did the Foreign Office tell you when they rang?’

‘Only that some people there thought there might be some work I could do.’

‘Well, we’re separate from the FO.’ Miss Maxse smiled brightly. ‘We’re Intelligence.’ She gave a tinkling laugh, as though overcome by the strangeness of it all.

‘Oh,’ Harry said.

Her voice became serious. ‘Our work is crucial now, quite crucial. With France gone, the whole Continent is either allied to the Nazis or dependent on them. There aren’t any normal diplomatic relationships any more.’

‘We’re the front line now,’ Jebb added. ‘Smoke?’

‘No, thanks. I don’t.’

‘Your uncle’s Colonel James Brett, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, sir, that’s right.’

‘Served with me in India. Back in 1910, believe it or not!’ Jebb gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘How is he?’

‘Retired now.’ But judging by that tan you stayed on, Harry thought. Indian police, perhaps.

Miss Maxse put down her cup and clasped her hands together. ‘How would you feel about working for us?’ she asked.

Harry felt the old shrinking weariness again; but something else too, a spark of interest.

‘I still want to help the war effort, of course.’

‘D’you think you’re fit to cope with demanding work?’ Jebb asked. ‘Honestly, now. If you’re not you should say. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ he added gruffly. Miss Maxse smiled encouragingly.

‘I think so,’ Harry said carefully. ‘I’m almost back to normal.’

‘We’re recruiting a lot of people, Harry,’ Miss Maxse said. ‘I may call you Harry, mayn’t I? Some because we think they’d be suited to the kind of work we do, others because they can offer us something particular. Now, you were a modern languages specialist before you joined up. Good degree at Cambridge, then a fellowship at King’s till the war came.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ They knew a lot about him.

‘How’s your Spanish? Fluent?’

It was a surprising question. ‘I’d say so.’

‘French literature’s your subject, isn’t it?’

Harry frowned. ‘Yes, but I keep my Spanish up. I’m a member of a Spanish Circle in Cambridge.’

Jebb nodded. ‘Academics mainly, is it? Spanish plays and so on.’

‘Yes.’

‘Any exiles from the Civil War?’

‘One or two.’ He met Jebb’s gaze. ‘But the Circle’s not political. We have a sort of unspoken agreement to avoid politics.’

Jebb laid the paperclip, tortured now into fantastic curls, on the table, and opened his briefcase. He pulled out a cardboard file with a diagonal red cross on the front.

‘I’d like to take you back to 1931,’ he said. ‘Your second year at Cambridge. You went to Spain that summer, didn’t you? With a friend from your school, Rookwood.’

Harry frowned again. How could they know all this? ‘Yes.’

Jebb opened the file. ‘One Bernard Piper, later of the British Communist Party. Went on to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Reported missing believed killed at the Battle of the Jarama, 1937.’ He took out a photograph and laid it on the table. A row of men in untidy military uniforms stood on a bare hillside. Bernie stood in the middle, taller than the others, his blond hair cut short, smiling boyishly into the camera.

Harry looked up at Jebb. ‘Was that taken in Spain?’

‘Yes.’ The hard little eyes narrowed. ‘And you went out to try and find him.’