Web of Discord

by Norman Russell

  Stay quiet. Don’t contradict, don’t try to excuse yourself. Just listen.

  Colonel Kershaw gave vent to an exasperated laugh.

  ‘I knew you would! Disobey me, I mean. I knew you’d start endangering yourself, and our enterprise, by looking for adventure. You’ve been reading too many magazine stories – Marion Forster, the Girl Detective and so forth. That’s why I sent Sergeant Knollys up there to look after you, together with a whole platoon of soldiers. What do you say to that?’

  ‘Sir, if you’ll give me a second chance, I promise most solemnly to behave myself. I’ll open the gates at Coleman Street to let Mr Box in, sweep the paths, so that you don’t slip on the leaves—’

  ‘Enough! Very well, Miss Drake. I’ll give you a second chance. As a matter of fact, I’d no intention of letting you go. You’re far too valuable. In any case, missy, there’s unfinished work for you to do.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, sir! I swear I’ll do exactly as you say in future. But what unfinished work is there for me to do?’

  ‘Well,’ said Colonel Kershaw, treating her to an enigmatic smile, ‘there’s all that costly embroidery left unfinished at Stonewick Hall. I think, when the time comes, that you’d better go up there and finish the job.’

  12

  In the Prussian Wilderness

  Minster Priory, a fine old half-timbered house dating from the latter years of the seventeenth century, lay in a remote Wiltshire valley, several miles east of Corsham. Beside it stood an immense sandstone ruin, all that was left of the Benedictine priory that gave the house its name.

  Colonel Kershaw stood on the terrace at the rear of the house, talking to a very distinguished man in faultless evening dress, who was smoking a cigar. It was early evening, and the sky was darkening above the old oaks that surrounded Minster Priory.

  ‘One feels safe here,’ observed Colonel Kershaw to his companion, ‘at least for a while. Wiltshire’s never been too keen on railways – or roads, for that matter. It’s very kind of Archie Campbell to invite us here for these musical weekends.’

  ‘It was clever of him to lure Madame Alice Gomez down here from London,’ observed the distinguished man. ‘She really is a fine concert singer. Her renditions of those songs by Brahms were quite delightful. I suppose we must go back in, soon.’

  Kershaw, who had also been smoking, dropped the butt of his cigar, and ground it into the pavement with his heel. If he made no move soon, Count von und zu Thalberg would continue to tease him with trivialities for the rest of the evening. He was evidently determined to make Kershaw take the initiative.

  ‘Don’t the Talbots live in this part of the world?’ asked the Head of Prussian Military Intelligence innocently.

  ‘Yes, Count, they do, over at Lacock Abbey. Very well, I surrender! Your relentless small-talk has defeated my determination to say nothing until you began to talk sense. So please tell me what you think I should know about the rogue cable station on the Rundstedt Channel.’

  Von und zu Thalberg glanced down the terrace, as though to ensure that the two men were not being overheard. Then he lowered his voice.

  ‘This former cable relay station stands at the edge of the land at Rundstedt, which is quite a small place, little more than a dock and some repair sheds. The station was originally part of the Prussian State Telegraph Service, but it was closed when a new line was opened from Königsberg to Berlin in 1889. The relay was resited south of Königsberg, at a place called Halsdorf.’

  ‘And I suppose it’s assumed that this former relay station has been put to other uses?’ asked Kershaw.

  ‘I believe so. Once the station closed, that whole remote area was sold to the Brandenburg Consortium. That was in 1890. The consortium owns the private harbour of Rundstedt, where the Lermontov is currently moored. The consortium said that it wanted to develop the area as agricultural land. The relay station buildings were to be used for the storage of farming machinery. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway.’

  Count von und zu Thalberg glanced towards the lighted windows of Minster Priory, where the guests were assembling for the second half of the evening’s concert.

  ‘You’d better come in with me now, Kershaw,’ he said. ‘I know what a dreadful Philistine you are, but you must listen to Madame Alice Gomez singing Clara Schumann, if only for form’s sake. I’m very anxious to hear her, because I must be on my travels again early tomorrow. It’s time I visited my estate. So come, Colonel, bear me company while la diva sings. After that, well – Archie Campbell tells me there’s a very snug little gun-room just beyond the garden passage. You might find things more to your liking there.’

  They stepped into the house through the open French window. The parlour was a long, low Tudor gallery panelled in black oak, with many twinkling candle sconces on the walls. Madame Gomez, in an elegant white evening dress, stood beside the grand piano, talking in low tones to her pianist.

  Kershaw cast his eye over the other weekend guests, who had arranged themselves around the room on the tapestry-covered chairs and sofas. They were all old school and army friends of Archie’s, accompanied by their wives. If they wondered why two army officers, one English, the other German, were also guests, they were too well bred to enquire. Archie Campbell, the self-effacing connoisseur of music, landowner and former artilleryman, was one of Kershaw’s secret servants.

  The second half of the concert began. Kershaw sat down with Von und zu Thalberg on an upholstered window seat. Madame Gomez sang sweetly, and her accompanist was very obviously an expert partner in the musical enterprise. Kershaw listened, and for a while shared the evident rapture of the other guests.

  And then, from somewhere in his memory, another song began to clamour for remembrance. It was not as sweetly harmonious as Clara Schumann’s compositions, but it had its own validity. It represented another part of the threatened world of civilized peace that both Kershaw and Von und zu Thalberg were dedicated to preserve.

  Martha,

  What’ve you done to my Arthur?

  My Arthur was a good boy, till now!

  Bleibner…. He had been a different kettle of fish entirely from Baroness Felssen. It was an outrage that he had been allowed to escape from that house in Northumberland. Perhaps there had been collusion somewhere? One of his people had seen a man of his description boarding a ferry at Harwich, bound for the Hook of Holland.

  Kershaw had sent the kindly Mr Boniface to hear poor, penitent Miss Drake’s account of her stay at Stonewick Hall. She’d offered to write it all down, forgetting the golden rule of the organization: never write down anything…. Missy’s tale had allowed them to pick up one misfit, a wretched clerk called Cathcart, employed at the Post Office Relay in Newcastle. By the end of this business, they would have collected other small fry. That would be one of the lesser spoils of victory.

  Really, this lady was a superb singer. No wonder she was a favourite of the London concert halls. It was a pity that so many of the Schumanns’ subjects were pining away for love, or the lack of it. That was because they were given to setting sentimental poets like Heine to music. Everything ended up soaked in tears. That man Bleibner, according to Missy, had shed a tear while playing Beethoven, and had shown a similar kind of sentiment when he was about to take the hatpin to her.

  It was positively embarrassing to have the anonymous singer of the Duke of Sussex taking up residence like this in his mind. What would this genteel company think? It was all Box’s fault.

  He’s only seventeen, and a soldier of the Queen,

  Too young for walking out with girls like you.

  A burst of clapping brought Kershaw back to the present. Madame Gomez curtsied, the pianist bowed, and the whole company began to move towards the dining-room, where they had been promised a hot and cold buffet. Count von und zu Thalberg atttached himself to a quite young lady in green, ignoring his erstwhile companion. Colonel Kershaw left the company, and made his way towards the garden passage.

  He found the gun-room w
ithout difficulty, and knocked on the solid door. There was the sound of a key turning, and the door was opened, first cautiously, and then fully, to reveal a stocky man dressed in a long greatcoat. He had a wide, wooden countenance, adorned with an old-fashioned German moustache. He clicked his heels in salute, ushered Kershaw into the room, and closed the door.

  The room was warmed by an oil stove, and lit by a number of candles in china holders. The walls contained racks of sporting guns, and smelt strongly of oil and metal filings. The man with the moustache sat down at a table, upon which were a number of files, notebooks, and folding maps.

  ‘Lieutenant-Colonel Kershaw,’ said the man, ‘I am Oberfeldwebel Schmidt. His Excellency Count von und zu Thalberg has detailed me to guide you and your party as soon as you arrive on the territory of the Reich. I am also to give you an intelligence briefing, which I will do now.’

  ‘Thank you, Sergeant Major,’ said Kershaw. ‘I will look forward to meeting you again in Germany. For the moment, though, I am anxious to hear the latest intelligence on the Eidgenossenschaft.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Oberst. The Eidgenossenschaft, which owns the Brandenburg Consortium, has secretly re-established the relay station at Rundstedt. Over the past year, it has run subterranean cables to join the Prussian State Cable System at Halsdorf—’

  ‘One moment, Oberfeldwebel. How long has that fact been known?’

  ‘Sir, it has been known to Prussian Military Intelligence only for a week. The State Intelligence Office as yet knows nothing about it.’

  The German soldier smiled under his moustache. He added, ‘We are a superior service, sir. The Military Intelligence, you understand.’

  ‘Oh, of course. I share your sentiment, Sergeant Major. And so these people have joined up with the Prussian State Cable System? I wondered about that.’

  ‘They have, sir. And it is from that rogue station near the Rundstedt Channel that various dangerous and false messages have originated. I am permitted to tell you that cables ostensibly sent by three of the esteemed Sir Charles Napier’s agents, Abu Daria, Piotr Casimir, and Jacob Kroll, all originated from Rundstedt, and not from Petrovosk and Vilna.’

  ‘I’ve long believed something of the sort,’ said Kershaw. ‘Those agents of Sir Charles Napier’s – Daria, Casimir and Kroll – were first killed, and then impersonated over the cables, retailing stories that were not true. And they were killed not by the Russians, but by the Eidgenossenschaft.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Oberfeldwebel Schmidt suddenly treated Kershaw to an alarmingly wolfish smile. ‘Sir Charles Napier’s cables are supposed to be secret, but, you’ll appreciate that we have ways of reading them! A precaution, nothing else.’

  The sergeant major rummaged through the papers laid out on the table.

  ‘And so, our mission, Colonel Kershaw, is to seize and destroy these traitors. They have identified themselves with the State. They are mistaken. They will be punished. The area which they occupy is privately policed, and virtually derelict. To subdue them will be no schoolboy’s adventure. It would be foolish to approach them from the sea. We must creep up towards them from inland’ – he stabbed an area on one of the open maps – ‘here, across this wide and wild tract of land to the south of the Rundstedt Channel.’

  ‘I have been told that the area falls under the protection of the Germany Army?’

  ‘It does, Herr Oberst. It is part of the territory of Military Field District 7, the headquarters of which is at Lindstedt-Schwanefeld, twelve miles south-west of Königsberg. But His Excellency is not anxious to involve our regular forces. It could create a wrong impression among those whose business it is to watch for troop movements. I mean the foreign spies, you understand.’

  ‘So what will we do?’

  ‘There is a militia barracks at Gehrendorf, which is only three miles from the Rundstedt Channel. The officer commanding that barracks has been ordered to place himself at our disposal when the moment comes to strike. I have been attached to him on a temporary basis for the duration of this exercise. I know him well, sir, and he knows me. We’re both true Prussians!’

  The sergeant major smiled, looked up from his maps, and sat back in his chair.

  ‘The commanding officer – his name is Major Kerner – knows me well, as I say, but as a field strategist. He knows nothing of my secret work for Count von und zu Thalberg.’

  This man, thought Kershaw, is a pearl without price. It would be a privilege to work with him. This was the kind of man who would know how to exceed orders to some purpose.

  ‘And now, sir, for the date. The military assault on the cable station has been scheduled for Thursday, 20 April. This would entail you and your party setting foot in France on Monday, the seventeenth. Is that possible?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And can you tell me how many men will constitute your party, Herr Oberst? You will all be travelling as civilian visitors to Germany, of course. That, at least, is what the documents will say.’

  ‘That is so, and we shall come with all the correct papers, passports and visés. Once in Germany, we will place ourselves under the orders of the military authority. There will be five of us – myself, Captain Edgar Adams RN, Mr Boniface, who is a naval architect, a man called Robert Jones, who’s a specialist telegraphist, and Detective Inspector Box, of Scotland Yard.’

  ‘Box? Ah, yes. I have heard of him. Finally, as regards languages, sir—’

  ‘Adams and I both speak German well. Adams is fluent in Russian. Mr Boniface is a true polyglot. I should think that the others speak only English.’

  ‘A true polyglot?’

  ‘I mean that he’s one of those men who seem able to speak any language you care to mention.’

  Sergeant Major Schmidt muttered a word that sounded like ‘vielsprachig’, scribbled a note, and then closed the book.

  ‘I will leave you now, Colonel Kershaw,’ he said. ‘When next we meet, it will be in Germany. And there, we will capture the illegal telegraph station, take its operators captive, and use your men to signal the truth of the whole matter to the Chancelleries of Europe.’

  Sergeant Major Schmidt rose from his chair, and stood stiffly for a moment in salute. When Kershaw left him, he had returned to his work, poring over his maps and plans in the candle-lit gun-room.

  *

  The long railway carriage juddered over a set of points, and Arnold Box woke up. At first, he wondered where he was, and then memories flooded back. England seemed a lifetime away. It was Wednesday today, 19 April. The five men constituting Kershaw’s party had crossed the Channel on Monday afternoon. It had taken them twelve hours to cross France, their train passing through beautiful countryside, skirting vast towns and stopping once or twice at what seemed to be country halts before reaching the German border towards three o’clock on Tuesday morning.

  Various uniformed officials had boarded the train, and Colonel Kershaw had dealt with them all, speaking rapidly in German. There had been a certain amount of heel-clicking, and the officials had departed. Then, in pitch blackness, they had clanked and hissed across a vast railway bridge, and found themselves in Germany.

  To Box’s relief, they had soon left the train at a village called Klagenfurt, where they had been met by a pugnacious-looking man with close-cropped hair and a moustache, who had greeted Colonel Kershaw apparently as an old friend. He was introduced to the Englishmen as Sergeant Major Schmidt, and there had been another outbreak of heel-clicking.

  They had stayed the night in a kind of hostel belonging to a monastery, and next morning had travelled in what looked suspiciously like a police van to a section of railway track a mile or so from Klagenfurt, where a train, made up of two long grey coaches pulled by a massive steam-locomotive, was waiting to receive them. Sergeant Major Schmidt told them that they were now transferring to the Prussian Military Railway.

  That had been on Wednesday morning. They were still on the military train, travelling at a relentless fifty miles an hour into the easternmost re
cesses of the land of Prussia. The scenery became wilder as the day advanced, and the landscape began to take on the appearance of a wilderness.

  As dusk fell on Wednesday afternoon, they had crossed another vast iron bridge, and Box had seen a solitary railway guard standing on the footway, holding up a white wooden disc on a stick, evidently some kind of signal to the engine driver. The train had stopped briefly, the great engine still hissing, and Box had seen Captain Adams climb down on to the narrow footway, accompanied by another man, who was carrying Adams’s valise. The railway guard had lowered the disc, and the military train had continued on its way.

  Box sat up in his seat, and looked about him. It was after eight o’clock in the evening, and the little oil-lamps set into the ceilings of the two coaches had been kindled. It was warm and soporific, and quite pleasantly gloomy. The temptation to fall asleep all the time was strong.

  He looked down the swaying carriage. Colonel Kershaw sat opposite him, reading a book. He was clad in a warm greatcoat, and wore a close-fitting cap with cheek guards, which buttoned under the chin. From time to time he exchanged a few words in German with a smart Prussian officer sitting to his left across the wide gangway.

  Between Kershaw and the Prussian officer lay the door to the next carriage. As the train twisted and turned along the sinuous line, the door would slide open and shut of its own volition. Box could see through to the other carriage, which was filled with German officers in field grey. Isolated from them in a seat near the communicating door sat Sergeant Major Schmidt, poring over endless maps and papers.

  Sitting beside Box across the gangway was Bob Jones, a quiet, level-headed man in his forties, an experienced telegraphist from Porthcurno, and a friend of poor young William Pascoe. Behind Bob Jones sat the cheerful Mr Boniface, whom Box had encountered in the East Lodge at the Crystal Palace.