by John Gardner
Caspar had eaten in Locarno before taking the steamer, but he said a beer would be nice.
‘Take your coat off, undo that tie. Relax, Mr – ’
‘Just call me Caspar, that’s enough.’
‘It certainly is. I’ll get your beer – the boy has an afternoon off. Caspar? That’s a name, all right.’ He laughed and Caspar realised that the power of his body, combined with the eyes and this exciting laugh, were the things that made the man attractive. It should not have been so – the stockiness and muscularity, together with his unattractive face, could have made Tiraque slightly repellent, yet somehow he was attractive. That is how Caspar saw him on the first afternoon.
For a long time they sat on the lawn – it was a warm autumn in Ticino that year – gossiping, looking at the view of the lake, which was like painted glass, with the awesome rising mountains on the far side. ‘The mountains across the lake are not huge, but they’re an odd mixture of savagery and sensuality: long outcrops of rock, combined with lush green rises like huge breasts.’
On the lake, the steamers trailed white water. As he remembered it, a string quartet played on one of them. Four old men bowing together, unaffected by the boat’s movement, scraping out Strauss waltzes for the passengers, or maybe simply for their own pleasure. Above all, Caspar remembered the cypresses.
‘For no reason, a poem came into my mind. It was something I’d read during the weeks before.’ Caspar did not look at any of the faces in the Northolt house. ‘I’ve only just recalled that, but it’s true – God knows who wrote it or when I’d read it, but it went through my mind like a chant:
Along the avenue of cypresses,
All in their scarlet cloaks and surplices
Of linen, go the choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers.’
‘Lawrence. D. H.,’ C murmured.
In their present situation, Caspar thought it odd – ‘Religious ritual in a poem thought of on first meeting Tiraque, and the culmination with Klaubert’s search for God, from that pit of horror which was his in Orléans. Yes?’
They sat together, Caspar Railton and Marcel Tiraque, two men getting to know one another, talking of nothing in particular – life in Switzerland, England, and in America. The war in Spain, the money markets, and the growing clouds of war.
At last, Tiraque asked if Caspar had found a hotel. ‘I’d better look for one – just a couple of nights if you can spare a few hours’ chat with me.’
‘You’ll stay here. Of course you’ll stay here, Caspar. Please. I’ve gotten kind of lonesome this last week. Say you’ll stay.’
So he stayed, and they talked more – far into the first night; then on the lawn, in sunshine, the following day. Tiraque wanted action. ‘I guess they’ll say I’m too old, but I can’t wait for this war. We all know it’s coming…’
‘Yes, but give our young men a little more time,’ Caspar said, his memories crushed inside him – of the howling shells, the scream of horses, and the sobbing of other young men at Le Cateau in 1914.
‘I’m sorry, but I’m a war man myself.’ Tiraque smiled. ‘I know, it’s barbaric, horrible: turning countries into abattoirs. But this guy Hitler must be stopped now. Once and for all. Doing that means there’ll be suffering, like the last time – the piled dead, the riddled corpses round Bapaume.’ He was quoting from a Siegfried Sassoon poem. ‘There’ll be weeping women, and crippled… Oh, God, I’m sorry.’
But Caspar shrugged it off, matching his Bapaume quote with another Sassoon poem:
‘Does it matter? – losing your legs?
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind,
When others come in after hunting
And gobble their muffins and eggs.’
‘Yes, they’ll say you’re too old. But, maybe, there are things you can do for us.’
‘Yeah?’
Caspar was pretty sure of his man, for they had checked – as far as anyone could check – on his background sympathies. ‘I should have spotted his weakness on that last night,’ Caspar said now, in the present.
On the final evening Tiraque wanted to go out – ‘To celebrate!’ He laughed that extraordinarily exhilarating laugh. They had arranged for him to come to London for training. ‘What tradecraft we had in those days; ciphers; check on his cover and languages. We thought he would only be required in Germany.’ Caspar laughed aloud, mocking himself. ‘My God, if it had been only Germany; if the Maginot Line had really been able to hold Hitler. What uninspired strategists we were then.’
They went along the coast to a restaurant with a small dance floor, covered by an awning entwined with flowers. They smelled wonderful. ‘Like some expensive scent. Lord know what they were at that time of the year. It’s possible that I smelled the women’s scent, and not flowers at all.’ For there were women.
They ate lavishly, then the women came – half-a-dozen of them – crowding around Tiraque, calling him Marcel, flattering and touching him. ‘It was the touching that should have put me onto him.’ Caspar looked around in the pink room. ‘You know that business of people touching kings, in the old days, because they imagined it would cure them of scrofula or something? Old Samuel Johnson was touched by Queen Anne for it.’
The women in this restaurant touched Tiraque like people touching a king to ward off, or cure, disease; and they did more than touch, they fondled. Later it was obvious that they knew the panting secret of his body.
Because Caspar was his companion – that was the only reason, Caspar said – two of them came and sat next to him, and started the same kind of thing. ‘They were blatant about offering me their bodies. I heard Tiraque whisper to one of them that I had a false arm and leg. That seemed to make them even more interested. I felt unclean. Well, you know, I’m not a prude but… Well, one hears about women who like doing it with dwarfs. I thought they felt like that about me – and Tiraque to some extent.’ In the end, Caspar found it so embarrassing that he made his excuses and left.
‘There were two women in the house the next morning. I wasn’t happy about it, but in London – while we trained him – he behaved himself. It was only much later that the trouble made itself wholly apparent. Tiraque undoubtedly had an incredible fascination for women. I saw it for myself later. If he set his mind to it, he could have taken anyone he wanted.’
The thunderstorm finally broke over Europe, and, by the late summer of 1940 Caspar was running Tiraque as Night Stock. His first assignment was to activate Tarot. Later he serviced other networks, and behaved with great courage. He helped get people in, and he certainly brought a lot out. ‘There’s no denying his courage. Tiraque is a born agent. But he’s a flawed one. Dangerous.’
Through the years, from 1940 to ’44, Caspar and Night Stock met regularly. Only twice in Switzerland – ‘Because that was damned difficult’ – but most of the time, like so many others, in Portugal.
By late 1943, Caspar was worried in case Night Stock compromised any of the networks. ‘We all know it now,’ he told them, in their Northolt magic circle. ‘One should be vigilant, look to one’s agent’s sexual predilections, and be guided by them as to how you use him – or her. We’ve all learned a great deal. We know there’s a use for homosexuals, but they can be bloody dangerous – as we’ve all seen with Ramillies. He gave up his secret life of years because of the secret of his life. I don’t know which is the more dangerous in wartime covert ops – a homosexual or a priapismic male. You see, with Night Stock, it wasn’t just licentiousness. He not only wanted every woman he saw, he liked to talk about it; boast; proclaim if she was good, bad, or indifferent; tell strangers of a woman’s tastes, sometimes even in her presence. He was quite disgusting, and he also had this unhealthy need to discuss the real, or imagined, sexual cavortings of others. He was an insatiable libertine, and at the same time a kind of voyeur.
‘The whole business we’re in is dangerous, and I blame myself for not picking up on
Tiraque sooner than I did. By ’44 we had learned lessons about sexual dangers. Wartime field agents are lonely. They snatch at sexual comfort, like a child grabs a favourite toy for security. Sometimes it cost lives – you all know what I mean: there was one incident when two agents were so engrossed in their love-making that they didn’t hear the Gestapo arrive. One ended up dead, the other was decorated. They weren’t the only ones.’
Night Stock still did the job with exceptional gallantry, but Caspar became increasingly concerned. The final straw came when they met in Lisbon soon after D-Day.
Caspar had gone to brief Tiraque on the Romarin instructions for Tarot. ‘Never once had I let him know the girls called Maxine and Dédé were relations of mine.’ Caspar’s face had set itself into a single angry pattern, as though he was trying to shut everyone else out of his spoken words. ‘To be fair, up until that night, Tarot was one of the few networks he had not boasted about.’
They met in a small café, had a couple of drinks, and then went back to Tiraque’s hotel room. ‘We observed the rules – went separately; watched for surveillance – because the Abwehr had people in Lisbon. We took complicated precautions to avoid them, though it was a hundred percent safe in Tiraque’s hotel. They weren’t sophisticated enough to have the rooms bugged or anything like that, though they did have waiters and hotel staff on their payrolls. One had to use great discretion.’
Tiraque slumped into a chair. There was a bottle of Scotch, glasses, and a soda siphon on the table. Caspar recalled the room as large, but plain, with a damned great bed, big enough for six couples, and a very bad print of something on the wall – he thought it was a Van Gogh. ‘There was also a crucifix, I remember. It was above the bed.’
‘So where does my milk run take me this time?’ Tiraque had become arrogantly confident.
‘Don’t talk of them as milk runs, Marcel. You’ve been damned lucky…’
‘Luck doesn’t enter into it.’ He poured himself a very large Scotch, which went down quickly. He was drinking a lot by then. ‘It’s not luck, Caspar. It’s pure skill and professionalism.’
‘Make sure it is, because the one I’ve got for you now is very important.’
‘Oh yes? Where do I go?’
‘You pass on information to Felix – Tarot – Orléans.’
‘Ha! One of my favourite whorehouses. Good, I’ve a favour to ask about Tarot.’
Caspar worked on keeping his anger down. He thought of Caroline and Jo-Jo, and was not at all happy about Tiraque’s reference to whorehouses. ‘Favours will have to wait. Now get these facts into your head.’ He went through the details to be conveyed to Felix. (‘And we know that Felix was briefed correctly, so he took it all in,’ Caspar said, in the present.)
Time passed, and they went through the information five or six times, until Caspar was wholly satisfied. Only then did the trouble really begin.
‘Tarot’s going to explode before long,’ Tiraque said, leaning back in his chair, a replenished drink in his right hand.
‘Why?’
‘Because their time has almost run out. I should know, I’ve had pillow talk with every eligible female in that réseau.’
‘Really?’ Caspar’s coldness signified nothing to Tiraque.
‘Yes, really, Caspar.’ Tiraque seemed to mock him. ‘Tarot, at St Benoît, is one of my favourite places. I’ve never told you, but whenever I’m in that area I pay them a visit.’
Caspar’s patience began to wear thin. ‘That’s bloody unprofessional, as well as being insecure. Why haven’t you told me before?’
‘Because, Caspar, my dear man, you would have scolded me. I didn’t want to be scolded, I wanted to have pleasure, and by heaven at least three of the girls around Tarot know how to give a man pleasure.’
In retrospect Caspar admitted he should have closed things up there and then. But he did not. Instead he pressed Tiraque with more questions – ‘Which girls?’
The American put finger and thumb to his lips and blew a kiss into the air. ‘Oh, Caspar, you really must try them yourself. That is the favour I have to ask.’ He waited, but Caspar said nothing, so Tiraque continued. ‘While there’s still time, I’d like to get two of them out.’
‘You’ll do no such thing. They’re there to get the job finished. It’ll be over soon enough now.’
‘You’re wrong.’ Tiraque raised his voice. ‘What if things don’t work out? What if the push through France gets bogged down? You’re going to have dead girls on your hands. I want to get Catherine and Anne out now. The Routon sisters.’
It was Caspar’s turn to shout. ‘You refer to them by their work names, Tiraque! Maxine and Dédé. Understand?’
‘Oh, jawohl, mein Kommandant. Caspar, you’re getting damned pompous…’
‘No, Tiraque – you’re getting sloppy.’
‘Ask Catherine and Anne if I’m sloppy…’
Caspar, in the present, swallowed and told them what Tiraque had then said about Caroline and Jo-Jo – every intimacy and sexual twist the mind could conceive. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Dick.’ He looked at Dick Farthing with ashamed eyes. ‘To make them understand, I have to tell everything.’
Dick inclined his head, and, looking at Naldo and Arnie, gave a brief sad smile. ‘I know it all. Sara does not, and I’d be grateful if she never does – whatever the outcome.’
In the hotel room, Tiraque had gone on, painting pictures of what both girls liked to do and have done to them. He made personal references that proved he was telling some of the truth, for he described a mole on the lower part of Caroline’s stomach which only those who had known her in childhood would recognise. He had said, ‘It’s heart-shaped. She says she has two hearts, one inside and the other on the road to her – ’
‘Shut up!’ Caspar yelled at him. ‘Stop it this moment.’
But Tiraque was a little drunk, and he went on, ‘Then, of course, there’s the lovely little Sabatier girl, the school-mistress – I’m sorry, Caspar, I must call her Florence, mustn’t I? Well, she enjoys it in the most unusual way. Mistress is right for her, isn’t it? I mean, Tarot’s survived only because she’s been sleeping with that SS bastard, Klaubert – just like Maxine, Caspar. Those two girls have saved Tarot being turned over and turned off because they’ve turned regular tricks for the SS – or didn’t you know that?’
It was then, with a roar of scalded anguish, that Caspar launched himself at Tiraque, his fists – real and metal – flailing at the American’s face.
‘Of course I was no match for him.’ Caspar stared around, spreading his hands in a gesture of apology.
‘No match at all.’ He sounded as defeated as he had been in the Lisbon hotel room. Taking a deep breath, he continued. ‘I must have hurt him, but not as much as he hurt me. He broke a rib or two, left a couple of teeth damaged. A few minor cuts and a split lip. What can a one-armed, one-legged idiot do against a very tough and fit fighter? The last thing I heard was him shouting at me. “I’m going to get Catherine and Anne out. Soon I’ll bring them out, Caspar, and nobody’s going to stop me. Nobody.” He meant it at the time. I know he meant it.’
There was silence in the Northolt room. Then –
‘Don’t you think we should have been given this information from the start?’ Naldo, who had a right to be angry, was patient and very reasonable.
Dick opened his mouth, but it was C who spoke first. ‘We genuinely thought it was irrelevant. Now it appears very relevant. I was anxious to avoid the slur on Dick’s family, as well as Caspar – even though it was a Service matter.’
Dick leaned forward. He was also calm and seemingly unruffled. ‘We had virtually cleared Tiraque.’
‘So he didn’t go missing in the chaos and carnage.’ Of all those in the room, Arnold looked the most angry. There were bright red patches on his cheeks.
‘For a while, yes, he did go missing.’ Caspar quietly lit a cigarette. ‘When I finally got back from Lisbon I reported the whole thing – directly to C. It was
too late to recall Night Stock, and Romarin was practically under way. We started looking for him immediately after Tarot went dead.’
C gave a shrug. ‘I sent out posse after posse. Even the military were alerted.’
‘Description circulated. Bring in unharmed. He was officially posted as being AWOL. That seemed the best way, though Caspar thought he might be dead.’ Dick Railton Farthing had apparently spent most of this time helping to coordinate OSS, SOE, and Resistance groups from London. ‘I spent a lot of the time with James,’ he added.
‘And you obviously caught up with Tiraque in the end?’ Naldo looked as though he was set for a long, probing interrogation.
‘November, wasn’t it, Cas?’ Dick asked.
‘He sent a telegram in November, yes.’ Caspar could even remember the exact wording: ‘Sorry for delay. Held up behind German lines. Cut off for long periods. Have just returned. Await instructions. Night Stock. Cool as the proverbial cucumber.’
‘The telegram came from – ’ Naldo began.
‘Ascona. We sent him instructions.’ Caspar gave a grim little nod. ‘And they weren’t “Come home, all is forgiven.”’
‘We requested his immediate presence in London.’ C was in no joking mood. ‘I ordered Caspar to remain clear of the whole business.’
‘Caspar, and myself,’ Dick added.
C grunted. Then – ‘I had Caspar give all the relevant details to a team of good interrogators. Tiraque arrived in London within a week and he was taken straight down to Warminster. They had him there for a month. He was clean as far as the interrogators were concerned. I read their reports and spoke with them. Night Stock could account for almost every day since he had passed on the Romarin instructions to Felix. I had Dick and Caspar in, and we agreed that it would be safer if our American friend left the Service.’
‘So you fired him?’ – Naldo, frowning.
C hesitated. ‘Not in so many words. You know how those things work, Naldo. We thanked him; said he was up for a decoration, and told him that if we wanted his valuable services again we’d be in touch. He knew what was meant.’
