Jack Ludlow - The Burning Sky

‘Mr Jardine, you have a visitor downstairs.’

‘I do?’ he replied, looking at his watch: ten o’clock was a late hour for anyone to call. ‘I’ll come down; ask them to wait.’

In a life of much risk, and even being in London, Callum Jardine never allowed himself to take a chance. If it was a habit that others might sneer at — a sort of showing off — it was one he stood by because you only got the chance to be wrong once. So when he went down to meet this visitor he did so by using the service stairs to the basement, past piles of fresh and dirty laundry and all the paraphernalia that hotel guests never see in the mass. There was a fire exit and he hit the bar, emerging into the street at the hotel rear.

Coming round to the main entrance his first look was at the cars parked nearby, to see if any of them had passengers or some sign, like a trail of smoke coming from a cigarette, to show someone waiting. Sure they were all unoccupied, he made his way to the well-lit doorway, eyes cast right and left to pick up anyone immobile in the shadows, then he had a long look through the glass of the revolving door before he pushed his way into the lobby.

He spotted who had come to see him immediately. If the clothes were different, a dark-blue suit instead of grey, she was as well dressed and groomed as she had been the last time he had seen her clearly; the back of a car and dressed like a stevedore did not count.

‘Fraulein Ephraim?’ he said, softly.

She had been facing the lift and staircase, sat on the edge of a couch, and his surreptitious approach startled her so much she spun around in alarm, making him wonder if, in her mind, she was suddenly back in her own country worrying about a visit from the Gestapo. That faded quickly as she composed her features and stood up.

‘Please Elsa call me,’ she replied, in accented English.

‘I didn’t know you spoke our language.’

‘I do not well, Herr Jardine.’ The grin with which he responded was only partly to dismiss such a comment; the other part was a genuine feeling that he was with a very attractive girl. ‘I ask Herr Lanchester to telephone me when you arrive in London, if you arrive in London, zhat is.’

‘I’m sure he could not wait to place the call.’

She smiled herself then and that softened features he had thought to be somewhat stiff, the normal look a girl of her age would employ in the presence of anyone older. ‘He is very push, your Herr Lanchester.’

‘So he did not advance to Peter?’

That got a real smile. ‘No.’

Seeing the night porter hovering he asked, ‘Will you join me in a drink?’

‘I came to thank you only.’

The way she said that struck a false note. ‘Which does not debar you from accepting a glass of champagne, surely.’ Seeing the hint of reserve, the tightening of the cheeks, he added quickly, ‘To celebrate your deliverance and mine, of course.’

‘That would be most kind, but-’

‘Your father and mother are well?’ Jardine interrupted, a ploy both to stop her refusal and to let her know that he understood that there were constraints on how she could behave. ‘Not to mention your brothers.’

The toss of the head, which threw her long black hair to one side, was enchanting. The well-defined black eyebrows, plucked to a perfect arch, went up as well, to dismiss as pests her three male siblings. ‘My brothers, phut!’

He took her elbow and led her deeper into the hotel lounge, to a pair of couches on either side of a low coffee table, guiding her to one side while he sat on the other, the night porter having followed at his signal. Jardine knew they had a Sekt on the wine list, but he suspected a German sparkling wine might not be welcome: better to stick to France and safety.

‘Veuve Clicquot, please,’ looking at her to ensure it was an acceptable choice. ‘Now Fraulein, while I am delighted you have come to call upon me, I suspect that gratitude, which could have been expressed in a note, is not your sole reason for coming here.’

She knew how to sit, her back ramrod-straight, her knees slightly turned to one side, but she did not know how to dissimulate, so her response was blurted out, showing a loss of composure.

‘I want to help.’ A questioning look made her continue. ‘I can not here sit in London while my fellow Jews are hunted animals in Germany.’

The waiter arrived, on his tray two glasses and the bottle sticking out of an ice bucket. Jardine told him to leave it then waited till he had gone. ‘Does your father know you are here?’

‘ Nein .’

Jardine grinned, the lapse into her native tongue was telling. Was what she said the truth or just an excuse? He had seen the way she looked at him in Hamburg and, not being without a certain degree of vanity, there was the possibility that Elsa saw him as some kind of knight in shining armour, while he also had the distinct impression she was a wilful creature. Smiling in a way that made her uncomfortable, he lifted up the champagne and exposed the cork. Cloth in hand he then opened it expertly, holding tight the cork and turning the base of the bottle so that it opened with a soft plop. He picked and tipped each glass in turn so there was no overspill when he poured, before handing her one glass, raising his own.

‘ Prost! ’

As they both sipped he wondered if she really knew what she was proposing to take part in. It was not some game, it was deadly, but against that her fellow Jews needed all the help they could get because Jardine had a very strong feeling things were going to get worse. Elsa Ephraim was very young, but she was also stunningly beautiful and that was always an asset in anything clandestine. Yet the truth was, such a decision did not lie with him.

‘When you finish your drink, I will call for a cab to take you home.’ Seeing her face fall, and wondering at the real reason, he added gently, ‘But I will arrange for you to meet someone, and it is for him to decide if you can be of use.’

‘Researching Abyssinia is not easy, young Jardine,’ Geoffrey Amherst said, waving his pipe to emphasise the point, and also coughing, a regular feature of his conversation, given he had been gassed in the Great War. ‘Little has been written about the place in a military sense, don’t you know.’

‘I found that out for myself, sir. There are books by intrepid travellers which tell us about the people and the culture, but the only operations which provided any enlightenment on tactics, Magdala and Adowa, went back to the last century.’

‘Don’t discount those, laddie, because they do provide a degree of illumination.’

Magdala had been the name given to a British punitive expedition undertaken in 1868 by Lieutenant General Robert Napier and units from the Indian army to rescue a number of hostages — missionaries and the two diplomats sent to arrange their release. That resulted not only in a comprehensive victory but also in the death of the then emperor, who took his own life rather than surrender.

The Italian campaign of the 1890s, which ended with total defeat at Adowa, had been a fiasco brought about by a distant, posturing politician, crowing about Italy’s right to colonies, insisting on a battle the local commander did not want to fight. Out of twenty thousand Italians engaged, nearly two-thirds had become casualties, a humiliation which brought down the home government and for decades cured the nation of the idea of foreign adventures. It had also raised the Emperor Menelik, whose men had won the battle, to mythical status. It was that debacle Mussolini was looking to avenge.

‘Napier bribed his way to victory,’ Amherst said, as he rolled out a map on his table, ‘and, of course, he made it obvious he had no desire for conquest, just for rescue, so he was able to split the tribes rather than unite them. Very tribal is Ethiopia, which needs to be borne in mind.’