Gavin Lyall - Flight From Honour

“You can now forget these.

“Forget the idea that you’ll just be following orders. In this game orders can’t cover every eventuality and you’ll be beyond reach of any extra help. Forget the comradeship of battle: from now on, you will be acting alone. Forget the duty you had to save your men and friends from danger: on this battlefield, you have no men, and your friends will have their own battles elsewhere. I cannot stress too strongly what Sir Caspar said about being alone. And alone not even with your conscience, because you have no conscience save that of your country. You will be acting outside the law, even the laws of war.

“Yet, just as we learn not to be brutalised by battle, we must practise deceit, dishonesty and dishonourable behaviour without ourselves taking on these qualities. Because to be of any value to our country we must remain loyal, trustworthy and honest. No easy task, gentlemen.” He smiled thinly. “Yet, I believe that if we can learn to cope with battle we are already halfway there.

“And one more thing to forget: any hope of reward. But in that, I believe, lies our true strength. Because unlike self-seeking generals and bickering politicians, unlike civil servants chasing vapid honours and businessmen piling up money, we are working only for what we believe in. The simple knowledge that our country will not reward us makes us free to act for it without any thought of self. It is a great freedom. Cherish it.”

It was a good, an appropriate, speech, Ranklin had to agree. So what was wrong with him that his own reaction was to think Yes , but . . . and be glad O’Gilroy wasn’t here?

The new recruits were gone, out to lunch or back up to the office, but the three of them still sat there because Alerion didn’t seem to want to move. He was staring vaguely at the disarranged and empty chairs at the far end of the long table. The room was as bright as it ever got with daylight, but it was indirect, that cool interior light that the Dutch painters understood so well.

“Can I get you some fresh coffee, Sir Caspar?” Ranklin offered.

“No, you can get me a damned great whisky and soda.” He roused himself and lit a small cigar while Ranklin went to the sideboard. “So those are tomorrow’s unsung heroes, off to secret battle armed with my ramblings and your clarion call of King and Country-”

“I don’t think you’re being quite fair,” Dagner protested mildly. “If I’d become overtly patriotic, they’d have fidgeted and looked at their bootlaces. But an agent does have to have a clear idea of who he’s working for, far clearer than a soldier. History’s full of mercenaries who fought, and fought well, just for love of battle and a shilling a day. But espionage has to have a purpose that you can believe in when you’re out there on your own, facing far worse than battle. And we, sitting safe here on our backsides, have to know that they believe, or how can we trust them?”

Alerion let out a mouthful of smoke with a long humming noise. “I want to see this Bureau of yours survive – and prosper. It’s come nearly a hundred years late, we threw away everything we learned in the eighteenth century and the French wars . . .”

He saw the glass Ranklin had quietly placed by him, nodded his thanks and then addressed him for the first time. “You haven’t been in this game very long, have you, Captain?”

Ranklin, who had isolated himself in his ‘Yes, but . . .’ mood, was disconcerted by the prospect of being asked his opinion. But then Dagner said: “Captain R is one of our most senior agents.”

That may have headed Alerion off. But while he was looking at his glass, and taking occasional sips, he didn’t seem to be addressing Dagner. Indeed, he might even have been talking to himself, in short disjointed phrases: “I mentioned the fantasies you run into in this business . . . It takes another form, too . . . When you’ve uncovered so many secrets that you think that now you know . . . Like an actor who’s played the king too long comes to think he can change the world . . . Dare say we all want our dreams to come true, but mostly there’s someone looking over our shoulder, messing it up, making it just another day’s work . . . Probably just as well, really . . . Soldiering does destroy soldiers. How can we expect spying not to destroy spies? . . . Only how can you tell if you can’t see any blood . . . ?” He shook his head impatiently. “I’m starting to ramble.”

By now Ranklin was feeling thoroughly uneasy, and it was a relief when Dagner brought the conversation smoothly down to matters of fact. “I believe you know Italy well, Sir Caspar.”

“Knew it, knew it . . . Always been a good place for the English to go to seed. I suppose I shouldn’t ask if you’ve got a ploy going on there?”

“Do you feel we should have anything going on there?” Dagner turned the question deftly.

“Hm. You won’t find much competition from our embassy, not under Rennell Rodd.” He chuckled, then frowned. “But looking for secrets of Italian policy is looking for a haystack under a needle. In my day there was a policy on every cafe table and a couple of secrets underneath it and I doubt much has changed. Bismarck said it all, thirty years ago: ‘Italy has a large appetite and very poor teeth’.”

“Something I learned only last night,” Dagner said casually, “and that rather surprised me. It probably shouldn’t have done, but most of my soldiering’s been done a thousand miles from the sea . . . That the Navy’s pretty well pulled out of the Mediterranean.”

This surprised Ranklin, too, but Sir Caspar just nodded. “Ah yes, that. You’re thinking of the route to Suez.”

“And India beyond.”

“Of course. And you aren’t the only one who’s concerned about us passing that responsibility to the French.”

Still befogged, Ranklin remembered that the only stupid question is the one you’re ashamed to ask. “Was this something official, sir? – and when?”

“Not officially announced, good Lord no. But it happened about a year ago. One fine day the Royal Navy virtually vanished from the Med, and the French fleet vanished from the Channel and the Atlantic. The Kaiser didn’t need any informers to tell him a deal had been struck on who guarded what for the other.”

Ranklin nodded. A year ago, he hadn’t been in this business, and his own problems were blotting out any interest in naval doings anyway.

Alerion went on: “The thinking goes that now Russia’s our ally, she’s no threat to India so there’ll be no need for quick reinforcement out there. Meanwhile, von Tirpitz is certainly building a damn great fleet on our own doorstep and that has to be the Navy’s greatest concern.”

Dagner said thoughtfully: “But it does seem to mean that the Italian and Austrian navies, if they combined, would control the eastern end of the Med. And the route to Suez.”

“Technically, Italy’s already allied with both Austria and Germany in the Triple Alliance, but I doubt that means much. Italy’s bound to join in a major war, out of sheer pride at becoming a new European Power – but who’s going to pay the bill? That’s Giolitti’s problem; he’s been their Prime Minister, on and off, for twenty years and it looks as if he’ll get back at the November elections. And he’s a rogue but no fool, and knows his best policy is to wait and see who’ll pay Italy the biggest bribe to take sides. And his worst fear is his own fanatics pushing him into a war with France or Austria – or even us – out of nationalist pride and without bribes.”

“But meanwhile,” Dagner reminded him, “the route to India . . .”

“I think we’re realising that we can’t be powerful everywhere. We have to leave some things to diplomacy – and your Bureau, of course,” Alerion added politely.