David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

Paul wiped a hand across his brow.

‘Excuse me…’

He was sweating. The office was hot, sun streaming through the window. The air had become stuffy.

‘What?

‘I don’t want to sound—’

‘Sound what?’

‘Look, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s not that…’

‘You’re not sure you’re up to the job,’ Cumming suggested. ‘Is that it?’

That certainly was it. Wasn’t up to it and didn’t want it. There had been times in the last two years when he had doubted he’d been up to the job of a mere subaltern. He’d even suspected his promotion — first to full lieutenant then to captain — had been the result of some army foul-up and that, sooner or later, someone would realise their mistake. But now he was expected to return to a country he had last seen when he was a child, a country that had just gone through two revolutions, and become a Russian version of that chap in Arabia who had been all over the newspapers recently. At least Colonel Lawrence had known something about the Arabs. What was he supposed to know about Slavs?

Cumming’s Chou face had unexpectedly softened.

‘We don’t expect miracles, Rostov. No plan runs as smoothly as it looks on paper. This isn’t the kind of work that you’ve been trained for and we’re perfectly aware that you have your limitations. But you won’t be on your own. You’ll be there to make the introductions, so to speak. Hart’s the brains. This sort of thing is right up his street, eh Browning?’

‘I should say so,’ Browning agreed.

Hart will do the organising. All you’ll need to do is open the doors for us.’

‘But who’s Hart?’

‘You know Hart.’ Cumming shot an enquiring glance at Browning. ‘This is Hart’s show. We understood he’d made contact. You’re here, after all.’

‘I’m here because of the note,’ Paul said.

‘Yes, but Hart arranged that.’

‘Good man, Hart,’ Browning said again. ‘He’s the one who brought you to our attention.’

‘But I don’t know anyone named Hart.’

‘It was his idea by all accounts,’ Browning said. ‘He’s been keeping an eye on you.’

‘He has?’ Then he remembered the man in the cap who had been following him. ‘Stocky fellow, wears a cap and carries an umbrella? Looks like a bailiff?’

‘Does Hart look like a bailiff, Browning?’

‘I’ve not given it any thought, Cumming.’

‘Round face, moustache,’ Paul said. ‘He’s been following me all day.’

‘Always been one for a disguise has Hart,’ said Browning.

‘I saw him on the street before I came up.’

Browning wandered to the window and looked down as if he might catch sight of him. ‘Waiting for you, is he?’

‘I don’t know. I thought he was after money.’

The mention of money reminded Paul of why he had come there in the first place. He put a hand in his pocket for the note until he remembered the girl with the bun had taken it.

‘That letter of yours,’ he said to Cumming. ‘It sort of alluded to some difficulties I might be having at the moment?’

‘You’re broke,’ Cumming said flatly. ‘Owe money, or so Hart tells us. Isn’t that right, Browning?’

Browning merely nodded without passing comment for once.

Paul ignored the question as to how this fellow Hart knew about his financial position and went straight to the nub of the matter.

‘Then I’m assuming you’re offering to pay me to undertake this mission — beyond my army pay, that is?’

‘We’ll clear your debts and provide you with a generous sum on top,’ Cumming replied.

Paul found himself caught between a feeling of relief and a sense of being insulted. The money would be welcome, of course. A God-send in fact. But why hadn’t they assumed he would do the job out of patriotic duty? After all, he’d volunteered for the western front for no more than army pay. Was it because he was half-Russian? Because they didn’t entirely trust his patriotism?

‘And then there’s that other matter,’ said Cumming.

‘What other matter?’

‘We can have the accusations struck from your army record. There will be no court martial.’

‘ Court martial ? What do you mean?’

Cumming’s nose wrinkled again.

‘Remind him, will you Browning. Like much else it seems to have slipped his mind.’

Browning glared at Paul like a witness for the prosecution.

‘Cardsharping in the mess, wasn’t it, Rostov? Gypping fellow officers on their way to the front?’

Unsurprisingly, given all that had gone before, it was the other Ross who proved to be the cardsharp. What did surprise Paul, despite all that had gone before, was that he still didn’t find it easy to accept.

Through all the confusion, the mix-ups and the aggravation, it had never crossed Paul’s mind that the other Ross had been anything but an officer and a gentleman. The fact that out of their mutual muddles Paul was always the one who had come out worst had been, he always assumed, no more than a matter of chance. If the other Ross had got the girl, acquired the theatre tickets, signed for the meal at the club that Paul had eventually paid for, well that was the way the tossed coin had come down. He always supposed it would even itself out in the long run. Now he was beginning to suspect that it never would have. First Valentine and now the other Ross — or, to be more exact, the other way around. He supposed he was going to have to spend some time combing through his bank statements and club bills to see just how much this cardsharp had cost him.

Cumming, to his credit, seemed sincere in his apologies once the error was recognised. Browning less so. It was as if he, too, would have preferred to examine the accounts before committing himself.

‘We were misinformed,’ Cumming acknowledged. ‘Assumed you were a rascal which is why we thought we could use you.’

‘You can’t then?’ Paul asked, brightening as he sensed the possibility of a reprieve.

‘But you’re the one with the Russian connections, which suits the matter at hand.’

‘At least Kell got that right,’ added Browning.

‘But no Czech, unfortunately, and no knowledge of these Nazdar companies,’ Paul reminded him. ‘I have to admit your offer is very generous, and timely, although to be frank I can’t see that I could accomplish much that this fellow Hart of yours can’t. After all, he obviously knows the ropes. As Colonel Browning says, all you really need is a go-between, someone to contact my cousin and Admiral Kolchak. I understand why the other Ross would have been a good man for the job, knowing Czech and all that sort of thing, but he’s dead. Won’t anyone else do? A trained man obviously , but what does it matter who approaches my cousin or contacts the Legion? As far as I can see I don’t have any of the qualifications you want. Why doesn’t this Hart do it himself? If it’ll help I can always write him a letter of introduction to my cousin…’

Browning sighed volubly. ‘He still doesn’t get it, Cumming. You can take a horse to water…’

Paul looked from one to the other. ‘Excuse my obtuseness, but why not?’

‘A perfectly reasonable question, Rostov,’ Cumming responded with surprising reasonableness. His Chou face had softened, as if the mis-accusation of cardsharping had pricked his conscience. ‘You’re a straightforward fellow, I’m sure,’ he said. ‘You take things as you find them, and no doubt assume anything you’re told by a gentleman is on the up and up. Well done you.’ He smiled tautly. ‘Unfortunately that isn’t the world we operate in. In our world, nothing is as it seems. And a man’s word isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.’