Gavin Lyall - Spy’s Honour

The journalist put down a pad of coarse writing paper on the cafe table, tilted and shook the chair to make sure there were no bits of broken glass on it, then sat down. A waiter put a cup of thick sweet coffee and a glass of water in front of him and the journalist nodded, but neither of them spoke.

He sipped the coffee, took out a pencil and wrote: Salonika, November 9. Then, feeling pessimistic about when the despatch would reach London, completed the date: 1912 . After that, he stared blankly out at the cold morning, past the big Greek flag that hung in limp folds over the door. He knew just how it felt. He sighed and began to write quickly.

Today, after 470 years of Turkish domination, the Greek Army once more trod the streets of Salonika. It has been a great day for the Hellenes, their goal is reached, their dreams realised. And no ancient army returning victorious to its native Athens ever received a more tumultuous welcome than …

He realised someone was standing beside him and looked up, not moving his head too fast. He wasn’t surprised to see a uniformed officer – the city had more of them than beggars at the moment – but hadn’t expected the uniform to be of a Major in the Coldstream Guards.

“You are English, aren’t you?” the Major said. “Do you know where I can get hold of a horse?”

By the mane, the journalist thought, if there aren’t any reins. But he said: “Not so easy, in a country at war. But if you’ve got money, anything’s possible.”

“Just for a couple of hours or so.”

“There’s a stables in the street behind this place, but don’t blame me if it turns out the Turks have pinched them all to escape on. But if you want to get out to the Greek HQ down the road,” he nodded to the east, “you could get a lift on a supply cart.”

The Major was wearing highly polished riding boots and an expression that said he hadn’t put them on to go jaunting in oxcarts. He looked around the cafe as if hoping there was a saddled horse half-hidden in some corner, but only saw an old man sweeping fiercely at the chips of glass and crockery welded to the floor by sticky patches of wine.

“It looks as if you had a bit of a party last night.”

“It happens every four hundred and seventy years, I believe.”

Unsmiling, the Major went on: “I suppose you didn’t happen to run across a chap, a British officer in the Greek gunners?”

The journalist perked up. “No, but I’d like to. What’s his name?”

But the Major just nodded and said: “Well, thanks awfully. I think I’ll try that stables.”

Left to himself again, the journalist finished his coffee, beckoned for more, and wrote:

I spent the evening observing exultant human nature from a point of vantage in the principal cafe, where a huge Greek flag had replaced the Turkish red and white. The appearance of officers in uniform was the signal for the crowd to rise and give vent to more cries of ‘Long live’ .

Then he crossed out from ‘ cries ’ and wrote simply: ‘ more Zetos’ . If any reader of The Times didn’t understand Greek, he wouldn’t dare to show it by complaining.

The road across the coastal plain must have followed the same line between the sea and the distant snow-dusted hills for thousands of years. Alexander the Great would have ridden it often, and Mark Antony on his way to Philippi to avenge Caesar’s murder. But like so many historical sites the Major had seen, it was frankly just another scruffy place. The road itself was no better than a farm track, soggy and stony at the same time, jolting the wagon at every step the oxen took.

A couple of miles out of Salonika they passed a small crossroads that had been shelled in the last hours of the battle. The road was pitted with small shallow craters that were already filling with rain, and the wreckage of a wagon had been piled at one side. A Greek working party was clearing the scatter of cooking pots, bundles of clothing and prayer mats, and lifting stiff corpses into another cart; one of the dead was clearly a woman. In the field beyond, another group was half-heartedly burying the remains of a horse; obviously the army cooks had had first pick at it.

The Major had never been on a fresh battlefield before and found it difficult to believe that Alexander’s or Antony’s battles had left so mundane a litter.

He got down near the tents of the Greek headquarters and after a flurry of saluting and schoolboy Greek, found an officer willing to look at the documents he had brought. General Kleomanes, the officer apologised, would much regret not greeting him but, alas, their supposed allies the Bulgarians were sending an army to dispute just who owned Salonika …

So the squabbling over the loot had begun already, the Major noted for his report. And perhaps Serbia, the third ally, also had its eyes on such a well-established port; what would the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Serbia’s northern neighbour, say to that? And the Czar of Russia say to any interference with Serbia? And the Kaiser say to Russian interference? The dominoes of Europe were all ready to topple, and the Major unconsciously stiffened his shoulders as he stood with Antony and Alexander.

Of course, a European war would be a terrible thing, quite dreadful, however short it must be. But it was for the politicians and diplomatists to avoid it. A soldier’s job was to take what came, and if that included action and promotion, so be it. The Major had missed both the Sudan campaign and the South African war.

Good God – suppose the politicians kept Britain out of it!

The Greek officer led him through the neat lines of artillery and machine guns – drawn up not for battle, but to impress the citizens and journalists of Salonika – to a clutch of small buildings beside a railway line. These too had been bombarded, and he thought they were still smouldering until he realised the smoke came from cooking fires and looted stoves.

He paused to look at the shell damage with professional interest. It seemed curiously arbitrary: a patch of wall had been blown apart, some of its stones reduced to a muddy paste, yet a few feet away there was unscratched woodwork and unbroken panes of glass.

A group of officers huddled round a stove glanced at the Major’s papers, glared at him, and gestured out through a doorless back door towards a smaller whitewashed stone building. His escorting officer stayed by the stove.

“Colonel Ranklin?”

The man asleep on a folded tent in one corner had a round, childlike face that aged into strained lines the moment he woke. Then he worked his dry mouth and scratched in his limp fair hair, making grunting noises.

“I’m sorry to be the one to demote you, as it were,” the Major said, “but it’s ‘Captain’ Ranklin again now. I’m here to reclaim you.”

The man levered himself up into a sitting position and scratched vigorously at his thighs. He was short and, despite the last few weeks, slightly tubby. He wore a long goatskin waistcoat over his Greek uniform and hadn’t shaved for some days, but the stubble was so fair that it only showed where it was stained with grime.

“Who the devil are you?” he croaked.

That wasn’t the way you spoke to a Major in the Coldstream. “I represent, at some moves, His Britannic Majesty.”

“Good for you,” Ranklin said, peering at the Major’s uniform in the dim light. “How did you get here?”

The Major decided not to mention the ox-cart. “On the good ship HMS Good Hope , now anchored in Salonika harbour and waiting, among other things, for you.”

Ranklin got stiffly to his feet. “But I’m number two in this brigade.”