Gavin Lyall - The Secret Servant

"You are absolutely certain they couldn't have taken enough food?" Sir Anthony Sladen asked. They were seated around one end of a vast dining table, George and Sladen on opposite sides, Maxim and Agnes at the top, in the witness box.

Maxim shook his head. "There were three men marching for something like eleven days and a fourth who lasted five or six – de Carette wasn't precise about the dates. But that's nearly forty days' rations. George – you've been in the Army. You know what a day's rations looks like, what it weighs."

"It's a long time since my Army days."

"It's a long time," Agnes said, "since you helped Annette carry in the groceries from the car."

George scowled at her. Sladen gave a cool smirk.

"They must have grabbed up some food from the last jeep," Maxim said, "but nothing like enough."

"Oh Lord." George shook the heavy silver teapot and got a sludgy sound. "Does anybody want any more tea?"

Nobody did.

"Tell me, Major, " Sladen leant his forearms precisely on the table; "why nobody, in all these years, has spotted what must be something of a, ah, discrepancy in Tyler's own book?"

"He's vaguer about the time factor than de Carette. He makes the whole march through the sand a poetic affair, trudging on under the moon, days and nights blending into one-"

"The St.-Exupery touch. I'm sorry."

"He even hints they may have got to Nefta a few days early and rested before contacting 1st Army. The shorter he can make the march, the smaller the food problem. But the big worry that he writes about is whether he'd get a court of enquiry: he'd lost all his vehicles and weapons and nine British soldiers, never mind one Frenchman."

"It could have been a real worry," George reflected. "A court of enquiry wouldn't settle for the poetic approach."

"What actually happened to this town – Ghadames, was it?" Sladen asked. "I'm sure you know, Major."

"A Free French unit under Colonel Delange came up from the south-east and took it at the end of the month. I don't think there was any shooting, the officers really had deserted."

"Thank you." Sladen and George looked at each other across the table. The afternoon dimmed in the Ropewalk outside, as quietly as in a country churchyard. It was a jolt to remember that the Piccadilly traffic was only a hundred yards away.

"So we have one desert town liberated," George said ruminatively. "At least two German vehicles destroyed, plus one Stuka, half a dozen or more soldiers dead – all for the cost of one patrol. About the same as a heavy bomber getting shot down. Not too bad an exchange, for those days. But also one French soldier, cannabilised. And a third of a century later, in comes the bill for that"

Sladen nodded in sombre agreement.

"Thank you, Harry," George said, but his voice was still heavy. "You've done just what you were appointed for: saved us a nasty scandal. I'll have to advise the Headmaster to drop Tyler."

"I wouldn't have thought he can do that off his own bat," Sladen said quickly. "But I'll be recommending the same thing to the committee."

Maxim stared from one to the other, disbelieving. "But all this happened around the time I was born."

"It doesn't matter if it happened as part of the banquet before Waterloo."

"But if you really want an agreement with the French, and Tyler's the only one who can get it…"

"Major, " Sladen said, "if there is even a hint that our chief negotiator had, ah, eaten a part of one of their countrymen…" He had a lot of difficulty in saying that.

"Suppose he promised to sick him up again?" Maxim said coldly.

"Bon appйtit" Agnes murmured.

Sladen sat up straight as if somebody had pinched his bottom. George looked from Maxim to Agnes, honestly appalled. "Where do people like you two come from? I have never heard any two remarks in my life…"

"You're getting your colour back, duckie," Agnes said.

George sat throbbing and steaming a little.

"Wars are messy things," Maxim said.

"Thank you, Major." Sladen gazed at him as he would at a broken sewer. "If we put out a press release saying that wars are messy things, that should avert any slight agitation our cross-Channel friends might feel. I trust you'll let us quote you?" He stood up. "George, I'd better get back to the pit-head. We'll liaise very soon on this. Give my love to Annette. I can find my own way…" his voice faded into the glum twilight as he stalked through to the next room.

"No Cabinet Office Christmas card for you, this year," Agnes told Maxim.

George got up slowly, turned on three lights in big simple shades, and pulled the long drapes closed. In the golden light, the room looked a little younger, but not much.

"He's a pompous old fart," George said, "but in this instance…" He looked at his watch; it wasn't yet five o'clock. "Does anyone feel like a real drink?" he asked wistfully.

They shook their heads. George hesitated, then went across to a break-front chiffonier in the corner by the fireplace and took out a bottle of The Famous Grouse, a tumbler and a bottle of Malvern water.

"I don't know much about this," Maxim said, "but I don't see who would publish the letter. It can't be proveable unless de Carette admits it, and he's already lied to us about it. So wouldn't they just set a new record for libel damages?"

"Try sueing Pravda in Moscow," Agnes suggested.

"Try sueing Der Spiegel in Hamburg, for that matter." George ambled back with his drink and a little coaster to protect the table. "No – but there are underground magazines all over Europe who'd use it, and you can't sue them because they just fade away like smoke and start up again as something else. But that isn't the real question. If Moscow can persuade the French that this might be published about the Brit they're negotiating with, then they wouldn't touch Tyler with a ten-foot gaffe. They've got voters to think of, as well."

"There is one other little danger." Agnes said quietly. "Publishing this letter would be firing off all your ammunition in one broadside, and Moscow doesn't work like that, not usually. If I were them, I'd use it to put the screws on Tyler. I'd whisper to him, first. So if the letter just might exist and Moscow just might have it, how do we know Tyler isn't already their joe?"

The idea hung over them, like a thunderstorm reluctant to break.

George slumped down, clenching his glass with both hands. "That does it. Luxembourg is off. It has to be."

Maxim waited for Agnes, but she was staring blindly at a picture over the fireplace, a very detailed view of a dead hare and several flowers. He said pleasantly: "You're surrendering rather quickly, aren't you?"

"Harry, in politics, it is better never to have loved at all than to have loved and lost."

"Then Moscow wins without firing a shot. Probably without even knowing they've won, since they most likely haven't got the letter, and won't understand why you've pulled out of the Luxembourg talks."

"You're in deep waters, Harry," Agnes said, without looking at him.

"I'll try and remember to hold my breath." Maxim went on watching George, his face expressionless and his eyes cold. "You're making sure the French would believe anything – anything – Moscow says about Tyler, whether they've got the letter or just dreamed something up on the spot. They could say he was gay and Paris would have to believe it, because we've dropped him from the first team."

Agnes opened her mouth, then shut it again. George grunted, staring at the backs of his hands and finding no encouragement there in the wrinkles and blotches. Some things were irreversible. Life was irreversible. He wished he were Maxim's age.

"Harry – I don't take these decisions-"

"You're giving the advice."

"It's for the Headmaster to decide."