David Oldman - Dusk at Dawn

As far as Paul remembered it had all been pretty unpleasant. He tried leaning toward the file but it was upside-down and he couldn’t make out the smudged type.

‘I don’t think so,’ he replied.

Browning walked around the desk and peered at the file.

‘Been in hospital, haven’t you?’ he asked.

‘Five months. Not that I remember much about the first two.’

‘There you are then,’ Browning said to Cumming.

‘I rather think I’d have remembered being at Arras in nineteen-fifteen, though,’ Paul said. ‘After all, I remember Passchendaele.’

‘Doesn’t mention Passchendaele,’ Browning said.

‘Been passed fit for service?’ Cumming asked, ignoring the confusion.

‘I’ve got my board next week,’ Paul told him, adding, in an attempt to convey the impression that he was as raring to get back into the fight as this Czech Legion was, that he supposed he would be going back to his unit.

Somehow, though, he didn’t manage to get much in the way of raring emphasis into the statement. It came out as little more than a wistful coda.

‘Can’t wait for a medical board,’ Cumming announced, glancing at the file again. ‘Leg wound. At Arras.’

‘Head at Passchendaele,’ Paul amended. ‘And other injuries,’ just in case Cumming didn’t think a head wound was sufficient.

‘Says leg here.’ Cumming squinted through his monocle. ‘Caught one in the head did you? Compos mentis?’

‘Certainly sir,’ Paul replied, a little offended at the imputation. Then the phrase a fool and his money tripped through his head and it occurred to him, given the content of the note he had received from Burkett, that Cumming must be aware of just how easily he had been parted from his own. It gave him cause to wonder if, after all, some residual effect of his injuries had not been kept from him.

‘Odd you don’t remember Arras and liaising with the Nazdar Company then, isn’t it?’ Cumming persisted.

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Paul said.

‘You do remember…’

‘No. What I mean is, I wouldn’t have forgotten. If I’d been there… at Arras, with this Nazdar Company, I mean…’

‘Good Lord,’ Browning muttered.

‘Just what do you mean, Pavel Sergeyevich?’

Paul wished he’d stop using his Russian name. Calling him by what he now thought of as almost another man’s name was making him uncomfortable. He looked from Cumming’s expectant face to Browning’s and opened his mouth to explain it again when, belatedly, it occurred to him — just as it had when Burkett had first given him the note and he had suspected that it had not been meant for him — that Cumming and Browning were making the same mistake.

‘The regiment in your file. For Captain Paul Ross,’ he said. ‘The East Surreys, correct?’

Cumming raised an eyebrow, the Chow Chow face becoming almost human for a moment. ‘East Surrey Regiment, correct,’ he agreed.

‘Battalion?’

Cumming referred to the file again. ‘The First.’

‘The regulars,’ Paul said. ‘ They were in France in nineteen-fifteen.’

‘There you are,’ Browning said.

‘But I’m in the Eighth Battalion. East Surreys, yes, but a service battalion. You’ve got the wrong Paul Ross.’

‘Kitchener’s Army?’ Browning said. ‘You’re saying you’re not a regular?’

‘I volunteered,’ Paul replied indignantly, as if not being a regular meant he was somehow deficient. ‘But that’s hardly the point. You see people keep confusing me with this other fellow, this other Paul Ross. We’re in the same regiment and even got our promotion at the same time.’ Adding, and not quite able to keep a trace of smugness out of his voice, ‘And if you take the trouble to check, I think you’ll find that it was the other Paul Ross who was your liaison officer with these Czechs.’

Cumming glared at Browning. ‘I thought you might have picked that up, Browning. This is supposed to be an intelligence organisation.’

‘Kell’s the one who should have picked it up,’ Browning complained. ‘I wouldn’t trust that blighter not to have done it on purpose. To make us look bad.’

‘You’re not Rostov, then?’ Cumming said to Paul, some of the wind having gone out of his bag.

For an instant Paul considered denying he was. Then Cumming turned a page in the file and Paul saw a photograph of himself pinned to the top of the sheet.

‘Looks like you,’ Cumming said.

‘It is me,’ Paul admitted, smugness deserting him. ‘I am Pavel Rostov.’

‘Well, there you are.’ Cumming declared, looking at Browning as if wondering what the problem was.

‘But I was never with Pétain. Never near Arras.’

‘It has to be Kell putting one over on us,’ Browning persisted.

‘Says here you were,’ said Cumming.

‘The other Paul Ross.’

Cumming frowned. ‘ Not Pavel Sergeyevich…’

‘Not me,’ Paul finished for him.

‘Then who the devil is this other fellow?’

Paul shrugged. ‘I never met him. But we’re the same age, apparently, belong to the same regiment and the same club. Our correspondence is always getting mixed up.’

Cumming turned to Browning. ‘Do we need this other one then, do you think?’

‘He’s dead,’ Paul said.

‘Well,’ Browning said, ‘it seems he’s the one who liaised with the Nazdar company but this chappie’s got the Russian connection. I suppose either one will do. Bird in the hand? What do you think?’

‘The other one’s dead,’ Paul repeated.

Cumming’s Chou snout was flexing as if trying to sniff out the best course. ‘So you’ve got the Rostov connection but this other chap liaised with the Nazdar company. He’d be the one who spoke Czech, I suppose. You don’t speak Czech by any chance, do you?’

‘Russian,’ Paul said without thinking.

‘That’ll be handy,’ Browning said.

Paul bit his tongue.

‘A toss up between the two, then,’ Cumming said. ‘Do we have time to take a look at this other fellow?’ he asked Browning.

‘He’s dead ,’ Paul said for the third time.

‘Dead?’

‘That queers the pitch,’ Browning remarked.

‘Italy or somewhere. In the spring, I think.’

‘How do you know?’ Cumming asked.

‘The War Office sent my mother a telegram offering their condolence,’ Paul explained. ‘She’d only visited me in hospital that morning. Gave her rather a nasty turn. And they stopped my pay.’

‘Awkward,’ said Browning.

‘Well no, actually,’ Paul told him. ‘My mother was able to sort it out, thankfully.’

‘I wasn’t referring to your damn pay, man,’ Browning snapped. ‘I meant the other Rostov being dead.’

‘ He wasn’t Rostov. I am.’

For a moment no one spoke. Cumming shuffled papers while Browning stared out of the window. Paul followed his gaze wondering if the Germans were as easily confused. Over Cumming’s head he saw the afternoon sun beating down on the city. It looked inviting. He straightened up.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘sorry about the mix up. I’ll be on my way then.’

‘Not so fast Rostov,’ Cumming ordered. ‘You may only be half the man we thought you were but half a loaf…?’ He squared the papers in the file. ‘And being able to speak Russian is better than your having Czech, as it happens.’ He nodded to Browning. ‘It’s an ill wind… So, let’s get this straight. Mikhail Rostov is your cousin, not this other Ross fellow’s.’

‘Mikhail Ivanovich?’

Cumming’s eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t start complicating matters.’

‘Yes,’ Paul admitted, wondering what Cumming was getting at now. ‘Mikhail Ivanovich Rostov is my cousin. But I haven’t seen or heard from him in thirteen years. Not since I was ten, as a matter of fact.’