Jack Ludlow: A Bitter Field

‘Do you mean the Czech Czechs, the Slovaks, the Ruthenians, the Poles, the Hungarians or the Sudetenland Germans?’

Peter sighed. ‘Do you have to complicate things?’

Cal felt he needed to make the point even if the world was less ignorant now than it had been a few months before, because Czechoslovakia was very much in the news, with German newspapers ranting daily about the ‘plight’ of their racial brethren in the border regions called the Sudetenland.

Yet, even on the front pages of the world, few appreciated how much the nation was a construct nation of peoples hacked out of the dismembered Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a dozen languages and rivalries going back centuries. Like most of his fellow countrymen, and most unfortunately the people in power in London, Peter did not appreciate the problems that produced.

If the Sudeten German minority were the most vocal in the search for concessions to their racial background they were just one of half a dozen similar problems facing the Prague Government, given every ethnic group had, to varying degrees, jumped on the federalist bandwagon. Tempted to explain, Cal decided not to bother; the nub of the question was not about that.

‘Despite the bleating of their minorities, the Czechs are an honest bunch who run a democratic government that others of a similar ilk should support. How does that sound?’

That got an idly raised eyebrow. ‘Like a Daily Herald headline and easier said than done, old boy.’

‘But not impossible,’ Cal responded, his voice becoming more animated. ‘They have a reasonable military, good equipment and a fortified mountainous border with Germany that would take a serious commitment of manpower to get through, one perfect to aid an assault from the west by a combined French and British army.’

‘I’m not sure that’s actually answering the question I asked.’

‘I am, Peter, given it’s the only one that matters. They would have made a perfect partner before Hitler marched into Vienna, but sadly the border with Austria is a flat plain and difficult to defend. By being supine over the Anschlu? we have fatally weakened and are going to lose a useful potential ally unless we do something to stop it.’

‘That does assume Adolf wishes to go the whole hog, old boy, and swallow the country up.’

‘Something tells me you have not got round to reading Mein Kampf yet. I seem to recall telling you to do that with some force two years ago.’

‘Picked it up, of course, but it’s terribly turgid stuff, a perfect cure for insomnia, in fact. I have never got very far when I try. Nod off every time.’

‘Then let me precis it for you, once more. Adolf Hitler wants back all the bits of German-speaking Central Europe they and the Austrians were forced to give away at Versailles and if he can’t get them by threats he will go to war to recover them. He’s already remilitarised the Rhineland and swallowed Austria in a coup, two things he listed in his ever-so-turgid book, both of which should have been stopped. Not many politicians keep their written promises, but he is one who will.’

Peter sighed and lit another cigarette. ‘While our lot seem to have promised there will never be another pan-European war.’

‘They don’t have the power of decision, Peter. Hitler does! Has anyone in London looked at a map and seen what possession of Czechoslovakia does to the defence of Poland?’

‘He’s after them too, I suppose?’

‘He wants to wipe out the Polish Corridor and take back Danzig, and the Poles won’t give them up without a fight.’

‘So, tell me how you managed to get them out with all that flap going on.’

‘The guns?’

‘What else?’

‘Would I not bore you?’

‘Cal, old boy, you often make me wonder what drives you to get into so many scrapes, but bore me, never!’

‘While I am wondering if you have just come to La Rochelle or were waiting for me to arrive.’ Peter Lanchester grinned and flicked off a bit of ash. ‘You were waiting for me, weren’t you? Not that you have tried very hard to hide the fact that you have this apartment for one day and possibly more.’

‘Was I?’

Cal pointed to the jar of French jam. ‘That was not opened this morning, was it, and if you only just booked into this place it would need to be.’

Peter pulled a face, the one an errant child might employ when caught in a fib, but Cal suspected he was only playing out a game. ‘It might have been left by the previous occupant.’

‘In a rented apartment it would have been pilfered by the owner, the agent or whoever cleans the place, a fact of which you too would have been aware. So that tells me you want me to know, because, Peter, if some of the people you are again working for are as thick as two short planks, you are not.’

‘I will take that as a backhanded compliment.’

‘So?’

‘Being the servant of two masters, though not at the same time I hasten to add, has certain advantages, but it turned out that prior to my recall to the Secret Intelligence Service, certain elements in the firm became aware you were active and where.’

‘How?’

‘Various whispers, some of which I picked up.’

‘You were listening?’

‘On behalf of those for whom I worked, Cal. I have to admit a particular interest in what you are up to, given what you choose to call my “previous employers” thought we might be required to ask for your services again after Ethiopia.’

‘I could have used more of their help in Spain.’

Peter had got him the use of a freighter to ship a load of weapons to Barcelona the previous year. Once on board he was soon disillusioned as to the depth of the favour, being presented with forged documents to sign that made him entirely responsible for what was in the holds, should the vessel be stopped and searched.

‘The interests I worked for might be anti-fascist, Cal, but they are not pro-republican, while I am damn sure they have no time for anarchists. And that does not even begin to explain how little they are enamoured by the level of Russian involvement. They are, after all, people with a visceral dislike of Bolsheviks.’

‘One of these days I look forward to you telling me who they are.’

‘While I would be fascinated to hear the tale of how you managed to buy a shipload of German weapons for the Spanish republicans and get them out through Hamburg, when the Nazis are committed to supporting Franco.’

‘That is a tale which will cost you a good dinner.’

‘Don’t you think it’s time you treated me, Cal, given you’re the one with the private income, while I am now what Karl Marx called a mere “wage slave”?’

‘So, the trade was pegged in Czechoslovakia, but where did you pick up that I was involved and, more importantly, headed for La Rochelle?’

‘SIS landed me with the job on my re-engagement, given I know you from our army days. The trade was flagged in Brno, from a contact in the arms factory paid to tell us when stuff was going out the door, regardless of to where.’

‘I should have thought of that,’ Cal said.

‘At first, given he’s pretty low level, he did not know who was buying, and naturally, given the reasons already stated, the firm was deeply curious and finally alarmed when they checked with our lot in Dublin and a false EUC emerged.’

‘That does not finger me.’

‘But then you contracted in a certain name for a ship to pick up an unspecified cargo here and that belonged to one of my previous contacts, who passed the info on to me, really to check the risk factor that it might be breaking the embargo. And lo and behold I find the vessel has been hired by a Mr Moncrief.’

Peter was looking pretty smug, but really what had caught Cal out was a chain of coincidence: British sensitivity about Irish terrorism in the six counties of Ulster, the contacts Peter had, plus the fact that he had supplied the false Moncrief identity to help him smuggle those weapons into Barcelona two years before. Then he had gone back to work for the Government and failed to keep that fact to himself.