Jack Ludlow: A Bitter Field

Peter would not be in the named hotel, but watching from a place where Cal could spot him, and he had chosen well — a small, quiet square, hard to enter without being seen, with him loitering in a far corner well away from the hotel entrance. The panama hat, so distinctive, was rolled in his hand, the striped tie was in his pocket, and standing as he was in deep shade, his cream suit was visible without screaming out his presence.

Sure he had been spotted, Peter headed away, cane silent, with Cal following in his footsteps, crossing several busy thoroughfares into side streets, and then on to a long road lined with shops. Peter then slipped into a baker’s, allowing Cal to walk on by and stop to look into the window of a newly opened tool shop, thus accomplishing a standard check to flush out or make life awkward for anyone following.

Exiting, baguette under his arm, Peter passed him and finally, having slipped through another alleyway, stopped at the entrance to a seedy block of apartments. He waited till Cal was close before proceeding to enter and did not speak as he was followed up the narrow stone stairs, through a door and into a rather dingy and poorly furnished living room smelling of stale smoke.

In fact he said not a word until he had, having placed his baguette, hat and cane on a table, crossed the linoleum-covered floor to the shuttered windows and opened one to examine the street below, talking quietly over his shoulder.

‘We lost them, old boy?’

‘Lost who, Peter?’

‘The chaps following you.’

Cal threw his paper on the table. ‘You’re sure I was being followed?’

Peter turned and even in the gloom of the half-shuttered room Cal could see his enigmatic smile. ‘My dear fellow, if HMG suspects what you’re up to, then you can be damn sure the Frogs do too.’

‘What am I up to, Peter?’

‘Don’t jest with me, Cal.’ Peter jerked a thumb in the general direction of the sea. ‘Somewhere out yonder is a ship waiting for your cargo.’

‘There are lots of ships out there, Peter, it’s a bloody port.’

‘British-registered, foreign-crewed, coastal type, with the kind of shallow draught that will let you land your weapons on a beach or in some sheltered Galician cove.’

A lazy hand was waved to a chair and Cal sat down, Peter following suit and crossing his long legs to expose one highly polished brown shoe, posing the question as he took out his cigarette case and extracted what he always referred to as a ‘gasper’.

‘How am I doing, old boy?’

‘It always amazes me, Peter, that you seem to know more about what I am up to than I do myself. It’s like Hamburg all over again, especially you turning up like the proverbial bad penny to warn me of impending trouble, and the question this time is the same: how much of what you’re asking stems from knowledge and how much is deduction?’

‘Did I not save your bacon in Hamburg, Cal? If I had not turned up when I did the Gestapo would have stripped off your skin with hot pincers.’

‘I think I have already repaid that favour, but the question stands.’

‘Bit of both, given La Rochelle, while a charming spot to visit, is not your sort of town — too provincial and very short on the louche entertainments to which you are partial. But it does happen to share the Bay of Biscay with the northern coast of Spain where the Civil War still rages, though only God knows how, given they should have utterly exhausted each other by now.’

Peter paused to tap the end of his cigarette several times on the table, but it remained unlit. ‘There are guerrillas operating in the mountains of Cantabria and they need weapons and ammo to keep up the fight, while you, who make your way in the world by the supply of same, have, thanks to your previous exploits, good contacts with both the folk who will provide them and those with the money to pay for the purchase.’

‘Anything else?’

The reply had to wait till his cigarette was alight and the first welcome drag was exhaled, to form a cloud of smoke around Peter’s head.

‘Yes, old chap, when you forge an End User Certificate saying the light machine guns you are buying from Czechoslovakia are for the Irish Republic it tickles the old hackles.’

‘Your hackles?’

‘Not only mine, but it does not make life any easier when it transpires they are in fact for Spain.’

‘You’re sure that’s their destination?’

‘If you are involved, yes.’

‘I thought you would have been pleased given what we have done in the past, though I am curious at your earlier mention of His Majesty’s Government.’

Peter was handsome in a sharp-faced way, with his black hair slicked back to leave a widow’s peak, but it ceased to be as attractive when he frowned, as he was doing now, making him look like a peevish schoolmaster.

‘I have to tell you, Cal, I am back with the old firm and the powers that be in the Government insist on Blighty being neutral. They want nothing to do with Spain and their national bloodletting.’

‘A fact that has been made perfectly plain these last two years,’ Cal snapped; the indifference of Britain to the plight of the Spanish republicans tended to get under his skin. ‘As neutrality it’s a farce, given the arms embargo is being, and has been since the outbreak, routinely broken by the Germans and Italians.’

‘You forgot to mention the Russians.’

‘Most of whose ships have been sunk by Italian submarines, whilst the Royal Navy just stands by and looks on. HMG should be blushing to the roots, not worrying about what I am up to.’

‘I don’t make policy, Cal.’

‘It’s not so long ago you seemed as committed as I am to fighting the likes of Franco, or was the buying and shipping of weapons to Ethiopia two years back just a lark? I seem to recall a lot of talk about stopping Mussolini, and while I am aware you are not much of one for ideology, I would be disappointed to find you have done a complete volte-face and signed up with the denizens of the Right Club.’

Peter, to avoid answering what was clearly a question, stood up and went to a rather faded curtain, which, when twitched back, revealed a tiny kitchen, into which he disappeared as he responded.

‘Would you like some coffee, old boy? I can make some if I can work out this infernal pot the Frogs use.’

‘So, you’re back with MI6?’

‘I am.’

‘Comfortable?’

The reply came through the curtain with some venom. ‘Salaried, old chap, which for some of us is a most compelling requirement.’

‘And your previous…’ Cal paused. ‘I hate to say “employers”?’

Having been a victim of budgetary cutbacks at the start of the decade, Peter had been recruited by a group of moneyed or politically connected individuals who were worried about the inexorable rise of the European dictators, allied to the fact that His Majesty’s Government were doing nothing to put the kibosh on them. To such people a trained and competent intelligence operative, British to the core, was just the ticket.

The assumption that he had done their bidding for a decent stipend Cal had taken as read. On the grounds of proper appreciation he never worked for nothing and he doubted Peter would either, but he did have a private income, which he knew Peter lacked, given it rarely went unmentioned when they met.

Recruited from Hamburg, where he had been involved in getting Jews out to safety with some hope of prosperity, he had been engaged to work for those same interests, tasked to buy guns and get them into Ethiopia, then being threatened with an Italian invasion.

A few surprising names apart, Cal had never been vouchsafed the identity of the well-placed members of this secret group and he was damn sure he was not about to be enlightened now. He did know they had money, political contacts or both, and the ability to employ them in places in which they could be of use.