Jack Ludlow - The Burning Sky

‘Captain is a naval rank and vastly superior to its army equivalent.’

‘Ah, your English habits, so strange to we foreigners, regardless of how much time we spend in your country.’

God he’s aged, Jardine thought: the moustache was dropping, the goatee beard straggly and the skin falling from his cheeks, but that was not a comment one would make to anyone, and certainly not to a person of his eminence.

‘You will forgive me not standing to greet you, my legs are not what they once were.’ An arm was waved to invite him to sit, to which Jardine agreed; he was offered an iced cocktail, which he accepted, and then engaged in twenty minutes of polite conversation, which he enjoyed. ‘But you have not come to see me for the chit-chat, I venture.’

‘No. I have been engaged to see if I can get some modern weaponry into Abyssinia.’

It was hard for such a wracked face to fall but his did. ‘Oh dear, Jardine, that is not, I think, very wise.’

‘When was what you and I do wise?’

‘You hoist me, as you say, on the petard.’ That was nonsense, of course, Zaharoff being one of the wisest men he had ever encountered: he might be an arms dealer, but he was knowledgeable and no hypocrite. ‘You know I am no longer active, I have retired to this prison for the rich.’

‘But I suspect you know who is.’

‘I hear things, that is true, for I have kept many of my contacts; but I will say this, it will be hard to purchase modern weaponry for such a cause, and I suspect not easy to get it to where it is needed if you can.’ He began to tick off the sources. ‘Belgium and Czechoslovakia are the least scrupulous as of this moment, but you would require very deep pockets, especially without political clearance from your own government.’

‘My government must know nothing of what I am doing.’

‘Something I suspected must be the case, Jardine, or why come to see an old fellow like me, eh? Discreet purchase raises the cost — and substantially, my friend — quite apart from the fact the rascal Hitler is now being open about his rearmament programme instead of doing it in secret, as he and the General Staff have been doing for a decade and a half now. The two countries I mentioned will need to look to their own armouries in the face of his actions — they border Germany, after all.’

‘I won’t mention a figure, but I suspect money might be constrained.’

What Lanchester had mentioned did not go far in Zaharoff’s world, but typically he did not ask him the source of any money, it being none of his concern.

‘The Italians are pouring much treasure into the Abyssinian venture, more, in truth, than they can afford.’

‘They are overextended?’ The emphatic nod was good news: it meant that the tactics outlined by Amherst had an even better chance of success — nothing drains money like an open-ended conflict.

‘I point out to you, Jardine, a number of things pertinent,’ Zaharoff said, ticking them off on his fingers. ‘A lack of money means a dearth of supply, while even if you were able to buy the most modern weaponry, your Abyssinians would not be able to use it without instructors. Even with such men to teach them you do not have time on your side. My information is that the Italian build-up of forces is near to complete. The only thing stopping them from moving is the lack of an aggressive commander, and Mussolini can alter that tomorrow.’

‘I don’t know this General De Bono.’

‘Nearly seventy years of age, which is well past the time a man might be at his peak.’

That got a smile. ‘I cannot recall if it is polite to remind a man of his age and when he was at his most active.’

‘You were always a flatterer, Jardine.’ Seeing his guest then frown, he added, as he rang a bell on his desk, ‘But never a sycophant.’ A sober-suited fellow answered the bell. ‘Drouhin, bring me the files on Abyssinia and Rumania.’

Zaharoff was smiling at him now, but Jardine did not react, albeit the idea of a file on Rumania was intriguing: what purpose could that possibly have? Reaching into his pocket he pulled out the Italian order of battle and gave it to his host. ‘Perhaps your man Drouhin would like to copy out this document.’

Zaharoff put a pince-nez on his stark, bony nose and looked at the document, nodding. He had always been a magpie when it came to intelligence; one of the reasons he had been so successful was his ability to outguess his opponents as well as governments through a network of well-placed informers.

‘Interesting. Thank you.’ Drouhin was back, carefully placing the files on the desk. The old man handed over the order of battle to Drouhin, who apparently needed no telling what to do, then opened the top folder and extracted a paper as the secretary left, handing that to Jardine.

‘Here is an appreciation of Emilio De Bono. He’s a long-serving soldier, successful as a young man, and now a member of the Fascist Grand Council. On the face of it he is a strong supporter of Mussolini, though my reports have him as a man who clings to the monarchy, and the King of Italy does not always see eye to eye with Il Duce. De Bono is a sentimental fellow, he cries readily and often, which argues he is no great warrior or a man who will see the blood of his troops spilt without conscience. I have also here his original plan for the invasion of Ethiopia, which involved nothing like the number of troops on this paper you have given me.’

That was a separate folder and, given to Jardine, one he examined with professional interest, because its nature indicated a cautious commander who had set out limited objectives to be captured over time with the emphasis on security at each stage of his advance. How the hell Zaharoff had come by it was a mystery and it made Jardine wonder if the order of battle he had handed over was quite as interesting as the old fellow had said — he probably had it already. Clearly he still spent a lot of money — and he had masses to disburse — on his own spies.

‘Do you have the new plan?’

‘Unfortunately no, Jardine, and you, of course, have not seen that which you have just looked at.’

Possibly untrue, but not something to question; the other file was. ‘Rumania?’

‘The Germans, as well as rearming, are also selling — they need the currency, after all — and one of their clients is Rumania. They are re-equipping their forces, and in that file is a list of what we suspect the Germans are supplying. Not tanks or field artillery, of course, for they have only just begun to manufacture those in quantity, but they had a surplus of small arms, given they have been secretly making them since the foundation of the Weimar Republic.’

Jardine took the list and examined it: Mauser rifles in the shortened K98 version, MG38 machine guns and 50 mm mortars.

‘What that means, of course, is that the Rumanians have a lot of old equipment to dispose of. Austrian Mannlicher rifles and old-pattern Maxim machine guns, which I sold them myself.’

‘Meaning?’

‘If the Ethiopians have anything, it will be weapons of that vintage. They will be much more likely to use them wisely than anything they require to be instructed to use, but that is not the real point. Such items will also be cheap.’

Train journeys are good for thinking and the return trip allowed Jardine plenty of time to ponder on what Basil Zaharoff had said, the primary conclusion being that it made sense, mostly in money terms. The old man had promised to check on matters for him and let him know what was going to be available and who to contact in the Rumanian War Ministry to facilitate matters. He had sent a preliminary telegram to Lanchester, telling him that Bucharest was the place to do business and arrangements should be made to bank funds there, and some early moves taken on transportation, with Zaharoff adding another bit of advice.