Gavin Lyall - Flight From Honour

“We can eat downstairs,” he said gruffly, “or have something sent up. We’d better not be far from the office. The Commander might telephone or cable just to see if anybody’s minding the shop.”

O’Gilroy, who knew perfectly well the true reason, shrugged. “Things go on like this, whyn’t we buy a cooking book?” But that was a joke: the idea of men knowing how to cook (except badly, over a camp-fire) was as alien to Irish back streets as it was to English drawing-rooms. “All right, have ’em send it up – but ye don’t read newspapers over yer food. Ye can tell me something about Italian affairs instead.”

This surprised Ranklin as much as it pleased him. O’Gilroy’s usual question about a new country – after asking about the food and drink – was whether it was friendly or (potentially) enemy, disregarding subtler shadings. Ranklin had tried to develop his interest in Europe by pinning up a large map – which also hid several square feet of wallpaper – and chattering about foreign news over breakfast. But he hadn’t thought it had taken hold.

“I can try, anyway,” Ranklin agreed. “First let’s order dinner.”

The deceased tenant had left behind a mahogany Victorian dining table so large that if it fell through the floor (which seemed quite possible) it wouldn’t stop before the basement. The size had amused O’Gilroy so much that at first he had insisted they ate at opposite ends and called for each other to walk along and pass the salt. Luckily that had palled and they now sat sensibly around one corner, and O’Gilroy got his amusement from Ranklin putting on a velvet smoking jacket so the waiter wouldn’t think they had gone completely native.

“I don’t know any detail about current Italian politics,” Ranklin began, “but I can give you the general position. The first thing is that although Italy looks very much like one country-” he nodded at the map; “-with all that coastline and the Alps sealing off the top, it’s only actually been united as one for fifty years.

“And I’d guess that’s the key to Italian policy. It’s trying a bit of everything because it just isn’t used to being one country with a single policy yet. One faction pushed the government into grabbing some bits of Africa off the Turks, and others want Nice and Corsica back from the French, and Trent and Trieste from the Austrians. And your Senator Falcone feels he can go swanning round Europe buying aeroplanes for the Italian Army on his own initiative. Everybody’s pushing their own policies and the Government isn’t used to resisting the pressures yet. It’s unstable and that could be dangerous.”

He paused to disentangle a fishbone from the back of his tongue. No matter how carefully he, or the waiter, filtered a Dover sole or any other fish, Ranklin always got at least one bone. But who was he to question God’s ways?

O’Gilroy watched admiringly. “Ye do that real polite, Matt. Jest what does being a senator mean? Is it like a lord?”

Ranklin trawled his memory. “I think it means a lord-for-life. The King appoints successful public men, industrialists and so on, to the Senate. That sounds like your man, doesn’t it?”

O’Gilroy nodded. “So whose side’s Italy on?”

Ranklin sighed. Why did everyone assume a country had to be on one “side” or another? It was like a form-room feud among eleven-year-olds. Or, he concluded gloomily, like modern Europe. “Theoretically, she’s allied with Germany and Austro-Hungary, but I doubt Italy’s worked out where her self-interest really lies, and meanwhile Austria’s her traditional enemy.”

He got up and tracked his finger down the long Adriatic, in places less than a hundred miles wide, that separated Italy from the Dalmatian coast and the witches’ cauldron of the Balkans behind it. “You can see why Italy has to worry about who owns that coastline. And Austria owns both Pola and Trieste – which is mostly Italian inhabitants, I think – right opposite Venice and only four hours’ steaming time away.”

“An hour by aeroplane.”

“If that matters.” Ranklin was getting fed up with aeroplanes creeping into every conversation. He sat down again.

O’Gilroy went on gazing at the map. “And ye said Italy was into Africa?”

“A couple of years ago they invaded Libya, which was sort-of-Turkish. The Turks pulled out, but the local Arabs went on fighting back. Still are, I believe.”

“Now-” O’Gilroy waved his fork to halt Ranklin whilst he finished a mouthful of his steak-and-kidney pie; “-now was that where they used aeroplanes in war the first time?”

Ranklin was about to declare a total ban on aeronautics, then recalled reading something about that. “Ye-es, I think so. I don’t think they contributed much . . . But,” he admitted, “the desert would be a good place for aerial scouting.”

“Falcone was telling about it. Him and other fellers with money got together with some aviators and made up a squadron – called it a ‘flotilla’ – to send to Africa.”

“Very patriotic of him,” Ranklin said, thinking it the sort of romantic but useless gesture Italians did so well.

“They was shooting from the aeroplanes as well as scouting.”

“A great help that must have been,” Ranklin said, imagining aiming a rifle from a moving aeroplane.

“Ye’d be needing a machine-gun to be much use, sure, but-”

“What about the weight? The Maxim gun runs to around a hundred pounds – and one thing I do know about aeroplanes is that they can’t carry much weight.”

“They’ll get better,” O’Gilroy said defensively. “And machine-guns’re getting lighter. There was talk in Brussels about one invented by an American. Lewis, his name was. Weighs jest twenty-five pounds with a magazine, not a belt, so it should fit an aeroplane jest right.”

“Really?” Ranklin was affronted, since he prided himself on keeping up with weaponry gossip; it was his bedrock of knowledge in the shifting sands of Intelligence.

O’Gilroy’s voice took on an infuriating tinge of superiority. “Been around some time, I’m thinking. Anyways, they’re making it in Belgium, same as Browning pistols, but it’s not going so well, I heard, so BSA here’s making ’em, too.”

“Birmingham Small Arms?” Now Ranklin really was annoyed: it had got as far as Birmingham without him noticing.

“That’s right,” O’Gilroy smiled. “I was talking about it on the boat, and Falcone made out he’d never heard of it, but he was carrying a catalogue of ’em in his baggage.”

Ranklin frowned, but no longer in annoyance. “So the Senator’s looking for aeroplanes and hiding the fact that he’s heard of a lightweight machine-gun. D’you think he wants Italy to have a secret armada of armed aeroplanes?”

O’Gilroy shrugged but was obviously taken by the idea. “And other fellers’ secrets being our business . . .

“Quite. Mind,” Ranklin remembered, “Major Dagner’s seeing the Senator for himself, so he may come back with the whole story. Still, it’s something to watch out for if you’re still taking the Senator to Brooklands this weekend.”

O’Gilroy got up to find his cigarettes and an ashtray, asking over his shoulder: “What d’ye make of the Major?” The hand-crafted casualness of his tone suggested that Ranklin would have no qualms about discussing a senior with a junior.

“I fancy he knows the game inside out; he’s been at it far longer than either of us.”

“In India.”

“Espionage is adjusting successfully to circumstances. And in India the consequence of failure to adjust can be more prolonged and painful than in most parts of Europe.”

“Ye know some lovely long words, Matt.” O’Gilroy sighed. “I’ll give ye some short ones: he don’t trust me.”