William Boyd - Waiting for Sunrise

He found him at the cricket nets where, for sixpence, you were granted the chance to bowl at two of Sussex County Cricket Club’s leading batsmen — Vallance Jupp and Joseph Vine.

Hamo was looking on in some amazement.

“Some of these kids are astonishing,” he said. “That nipper there just bowled out Jupp twice in one over. Very embarrassing for him — the ball span two feet.”

“Any news of Femi?” Lysander asked. He knew that Femi had gone back to West Africa, homesick and unhappy in Winchelsea.

“He’s arrived in Lagos. But I don’t suspect I shall hear much more. He’s got money and he speaks good English now — he’ll be fine…” Hamo looked south, towards the Channel, towards Africa, symbolically. “It was last winter that finished him — that and being stared at all the time. It’s amazing how rude the English can be when they see something unfamiliar. As soon as this war’s over I’ll go out and join him. Set up a business together, bit of trading.” Hamo turned his burning pale blue eyes on Lysander. “I do love him dearly, you know. Miss him every second of the day. A completely honest, sweet person. Straight and true.”

“You’re very lucky,” Lysander said and changed the subject. “I hear Crickmay’s not well at all.”

“He can hardly breathe. Some sort of terrible congestion of the lungs. Walks ten paces — has to rest for five minutes. Just as well your mother’s got this great charity thing going. Otherwise she’d just be sitting around waiting for him to die.”

They wandered through the fête. There was a big crowd gathered round an artillery piece — a howitzer — and a small, sturdy aeroplane with a blunt nose, all doped canvas and stretched wires. Lysander saw that the East Sussex Light Infantry had a recruiting tent erected and a sizeable queue of young men had formed in front of it. Swansea was waiting for them.

“I haven’t had the most exciting war, I realize,” Lysander said as they passed the queue.

“I wouldn’t complain,” Hamo said. “It’s a filthy awful business.”

“However, I’ve a feeling it’s all going to change.”

He told Hamo about Munro’s visit to Swansea and his new instructions.

“Sounds very rum to me,” Hamo said. “Civilian clothes? Don’t agree to do anything rash.”

“I don’t think I’ve much choice,” Lysander said. “It was made very clear that these were orders to be obeyed.”

“Any fool can ‘obey’ an order,” Hamo said, darkly. “The clever thing is to interpret it.”

“I’ll remember that.”

Hamo stopped and touched his arm.

“If you need my help, my boy, don’t hesitate. I’ve a few friends in the military, still. And remember I’ve been in a scrape or two, myself. I’ve killed dozens of men, you know. I’m not proud of it — not in the least. It’s just a fact.”

“I don’t think it’ll come to that, but thanks all the same.”

They left the crowded park, shouts and cheers rising in the air as someone breasted the tape in the sack race, and walked up the drive to the Hall where luncheon was waiting for them.

The number and the street turned out to be a four-storey terraced house in Islington with a basement below a finialled iron railing, a stuccoed first floor with a bay window, and the top two of soot-blackened brick. Completely normal and undistinguished, Lysander thought, as he rang the bell. A uniformed naval rating let him in and showed him into the front room. It was virtually empty — there was a chair in the middle of the floor facing a gate-legged table with three other chairs set around it. Lysander took off his raincoat and hat and sat down to wait. He was wearing a three-piece suit of lightly checked grey flannel, a stiff-collared shirt and his regimental tie. The E.S.L.I would be proud of him.

Munro came in, also suited, and shook his hand. He was followed by an older man in a cutaway frock coat — very old fashioned — who was introduced as Colonel Massinger. Massinger had a sallow, seamed face and a rasping voice as if he were recovering from laryngitis. His thinning dark hair was flattened against his skull with copious, gleaming oil and his teeth were noticeably brown as if stained from chewing tobacco. Then Fyfe-Miller appeared, jovial and energetic, and Lysander’s mind began to work faster. Tea was offered and politely declined. In fact he realized he was suddenly feeling a little nauseous — this encounter seemed more like a tribunal — he doubted if he’d be able to drink a cup of tea without heaving.

After a few pleasantries (“Enjoy your leave?”) he was handed a piece of paper by Massinger. Written on it were columns of numbers. He studied it — it made no sense.

3 14 11 2

11 21 2 3

24 15 7 10

3 2 2 7

And so on.

“What do you make of that?” Munro asked.

“Some sort of code?”

“Precisely. We have an agent working for us in Geneva who, over the last few months, has intercepted six letters containing sheets of paper like this.”

An ‘agent’, Lysander thought? ‘Intercepted’? What is this, he wondered, some War Office intelligence briefing?

“This type of code is classic,” Munro said. “It’s called a one-on-one cipher because it can’t be cracked — impossible — as its key is known only to the person sending it and the person receiving it.”

“Right.”

“What we need you to do, Rief,” Massinger butted in, as if he was in a hurry and had to go off to another appointment somewhere, “is to go to Geneva, meet our agent there who will then lead you to the man who is receiving these messages.”

“May I ask who this man is?”

“A German consular official.”

Lysander felt a near-uncontrollable urge to begin laughing. He wondered if refusing a cup of tea had been a mistake. He would have liked something to sip.

“And what would I do then?”

“Persuade this consular official to give us the key that will allow us to decrypt this cipher.”

Lysander said nothing. He nodded his head a few times as if this were the most reasonable task in the world.

“How do you imagine I might ‘persuade’ him?”

“Use your ingenuity,” Fyfe-Miller interrupted.

“A large bribe would probably be the most effective method,” Munro said.

“Why me?”

“Because you’re completely unknown,” Colonel Massinger said. “Geneva is like a cesspit of spies and informants, agents, couriers. Buzz, buzz, buzz. Any Englishman arriving in the city, whatever his cover story, is noted within minutes. Logged, investigated and, sooner or later, exposed.”

Lysander was fairly sure that his features remained impassive.

“I’m English,” he said, reasonably. “So surely the same thing will inevitably happen to me.”

“No,” Massinger said, showing his stained teeth in a faint smile. “Because you will have ceased to exist.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea after all.”

Fyfe-Miller went to the door and tea was ordered, duly appeared, and they all helped themselves to a cup from the pot.

“Maybe I put that last statement a little over-dramatically,” Massinger said, stirring his tea endlessly. Clink-clink-clink. “You would be reported ‘Missing in Action’. And during that time you would journey to Geneva under a different identity. Clandestinely.”

“Your new identity will be that of a Swiss railway engineer,” Munro continued. “Your arrival in Switzerland, your ‘return home’, as it were, will cause no notice. You will contact our agent and receive further instructions.”

“Am I allowed to know what this is all about?”

Munro looked at Massinger. Massinger stopped stirring his tea.