The General proved to be a small, dark, wiry man. Instead of the slacks usually worn by officers in London, or the ugly battle-dress which had been brought in only with the object of making officers less conspicuous in the field, he was turned out with the impeccable correctness of a staff-officer in the First World War. The sight of his beautifully cut riding breeches and highly polished field boots—in combination with the parachute badge on his arm—made Gregory’s heart warm towards him, and within a few minutes they were talking together like old friends.
When they got down to business, the General said, ‘Sir Pellinore tells me that you speak both German and French well enough to pass as a native of either country. As you must know, owing to centuries of Austrian domination the Magyars have an hereditary hatred for everything German; so I think you would stand a much better chance of winning their confidence if you clocked in as a Frenchman. Diplomatic relations between France and Hungary have never been severed. With a Vichy passport you should be able to go in and out freely whenever you wish.’
‘Excellent,’ Gregory nodded. ‘I like that idea. There must be plenty of Frenchmen carrying Vichy passports who are de Gaullists at heart; so nobody will think it particularly odd if, when sounding them out, I express views uncomplimentary to the Nazis.’
‘That is just what I thought; and we have an identity for you which should fill the bill. It is that of a Free French Officer who was an Interpreter with the Commandos and was killed in the St. Nazaire raid. Your story will be that you were fed up with serving under General de Gaulle, so during the confusion of the fighting you took the opportunity to desert; and that, as you had no time for Pétain either, instead of remaining in France you went to Switzerland. Why, after a few months, you should have decided to go to Hungary, I leave to you.’
‘It depends rather on this chap’s circumstances, doesn’t it?’
‘To some extent; but I don’t think they will help you very much. His name was Etienne Tavenier. He retired from the Army with the rank of Major a few years before the war. Presumably he did so because at about that time he inherited from his father a pleasant property in Périgord. That suggests that he was fairly well off, so could have afforded to travel, and might some time have been to Budapest on a holiday. But they will give you such particulars as we have of him downstairs. Your passport is ready for you there too, and various other papers. Among them is a draft on a Swiss bank in Berne for £500. They will give you the lot in cash or open a credit for you as Commandant Tavenier in Budapest, just as you wish.’
Gregory smiled. ‘That seems quite a generous allowance, as I am going there only to try to find out the form; and that should not take me more than a couple of weeks.’
‘The amount is in accordance with Sir Pellinore’s request,’ the General smiled back. ‘This being a private enterprise, he is footing the bill. If your report proves hopeful, no doubt you will be going out again to stir up some trouble. If not, and you have left some of the money in a Budapest bank, we can arrange for our Swiss friends to reclaim it. And now, I’m due at a conference; so I’ll wish you luck and pass you on to the section that has been arranging about your papers.’
The General’s beautiful secretary took Gregory to a room on a lower floor, and said to a girl seated behind a desk there, ‘Oh, Diana, here is your customer for Budapest.’ Then with a ravishing smile she left them.
Diana was another lovely—small, thin-faced, with the sort of golden hair that cannot be got out of a bottle, and a slightly arched nose. She looked only about twenty-two, so Gregory expected her to show him through to someone more senior; but she casually waved him to a chair, offered him a Lucky Strike, then took one herself and, after surveying him for a moment from beneath her long lashes, said with a smile:
‘It’s a good thing you are only taking Tavenier’s name and not attempting to pass as him. He was quite a lot older and going bald.’
‘Did you know him, then?’ Gregory enquired.
‘No. But I got a description of him from C.C.O., H.Q., so that if you do run into trouble you could anyhow say that they are confusing you with a cousin of the same name, and be able to describe him correctly,’
‘That was thoughtful of you.’
‘Oh, it’s just part of the Austin Reed Service.’ Producing a folder from a drawer she tipped its contents out on to the desk and passed them to him one by one, methodically checking them off on a list as she did so.
In addition to the Vichy passport—which contained an up-to-date photograph of himself that he had had taken at Sir Pellinore’s suggestion before going up to Wales—and the draft on the Swiss bank, there were a partly used Vichy ration card, two faked bills and several letters to support his false identity. When she had done, she said:
‘As Tavenier lived over here from the time of his evacuation with other French troops from Dunkirk until the St. Nazaire raid last March, it would be quite in order for him to be wearing British underclothes; but you should remove any initials you may have on yours and, I suggest, buy yourself a French style suit and shoes when you get to Berne.’
Such advice to Gregory was very much ‘teaching one’s grandmother to suck eggs’; but he thanked her gravely, and she went on:
‘Now this is off the record. I have one contact for you. But you must memorise his name and address; not write it down. It is Leon Levianski, wholesale furrier, 158 Kertész Utcza, Pest.’
‘Thanks.’ He repeated what she had said three times, then asked, ‘How does this chap come into our picture?’
‘He doesn’t.’ She lit another cigarette and looked down at her desk, her long lashes veiling her eyes. ‘I happen to have an American boyfriend who is in O.S.S. Naturally we are terribly cagey with one another, but I told him the other night that we badly wanted a contact in Budapest and asked if he could help. He got me the name of this Jewish merchant. You see, it is still possible for the Hungarians to write to the U.S. via Scandinavia or Turkey, and ever since America came into the war this man has been writing a monthly letter to a cousin of his in New York. Instead of his letters just being waffles, they are factual reports of what goes on inside Hitler’s Europe—at least the old Austria-Hungarian part of it—as far as this man can assess it on all he hears by way of the Jewish grape-vine. After a while the cousin in New York thought they might interest the State Department; so now he sends them on regularly to Washington. Their writer might be able to help a bit. Anyhow, I think you would be quite safe in approaching him.’
Gregory repeated the name and address again, and nodded. ‘I’m very grateful to you.’ Then he read through the particulars of Etienne Tavenier. They were distinctly scanty. The Frenchman had entered the 14th Regiment of Tirailleurs in 1912, and served as a subaltern in the First World War. Afterwards he had spent several years in North Africa, then in 1926 married Mademoiselle Phoebe Constant (father’s occupation unknown), and transferred to the 110th Infantry. It was believed that there were no children of the marriage, and that the wife’s death (about the time of Munich) had been due to ptomaine poisoning. A year or so earlier Tavenier had come into his inheritance, a small château at Razac, not far from Périgueux. In 1939 he had been recalled to the colours, and in May, 1940, his battalion had been a part of General Blanchard’s army, which had made a gallant stand beside the British. After being taken off from Dunkirk he had opted to remain in Britain as a member of the Free French Forces.
Having digested this, Gregory looked up and remarked, ‘Not exactly a world-shaking career; but that is all to the good for my purpose. It is going to take quite a lot of thinking, though, to provide a plausible reason for a chap like that taking a holiday in Budapest in the middle of a war. If he was a sufferer from arthritis he might seek relief in a course of the famous mud baths; but it wouldn’t be easy to bluff the doctors that I was afflicted in that way. Of course, the Hungarians are a romantic lot, so I might put it across discreetly that I had formed an attachment there before the war and had come back in the hope of
being able to find the girl again.’
The goddess behind the desk shook her head. ‘I don’t like it. Middle-class Frenchmen are the most unromantic people in the world. But I have been thinking quite a lot about a story for you to tell. How about using foie gras?’
‘Foie gras?’ Gregory echoed in a puzzled voice.
‘Yes; it’s a national industry in Hungary. My mother and stepfather were there in 1938 and they brought back tins and tins of it.’
He nodded. ‘You’re quite right. One can’t look out of the train anywhere in Hungary without seeing a flock of geese. But what is your idea?’
‘Well, this foie gras was awfully good. The biggest tins had whole livers in them and they were that lovely shade of rich pink. There was only one thing lacking; there were no truffles to bring out the flavour.’
Gregory sat forward and thumped the desk. ‘By jove! And I am supposed to own a place in Périgord, where the truffles come from. Of course, my object in going to Budapest is to get in touch with the foie gras makers and see if I can’t fix up to supply them with truffles after the war.’
With the unselfconsciousness which is so often a by-product of beauty, the girl scratched her head with the blunt end of her pencil as she said, ‘That’s it. And my parents tell me that Budapest is an enchanting city. I do hope you’ll have a pleasant stay there and a safe return.’
Ten minutes later Gregory left her office. He had never subscribed to the theory that blondes were necessarily dumb, and he knew from experience that beauty or the lack of it had no relation whatever to women’s brains; but he did marvel somewhat that beings so young and glamorous as those in that secret headquarters should now be conducting affairs as efficiently as well-travelled men. He decided that he would bring Diana back the biggest foie gras he could find in Hungary as a reward for her excellent idea.
He could not know that before the month ended he would be counting himself lucky if he could get out of Budapest without bag or baggage, but alive to tell the tale.
5
The Scene is Set
Gregory arrived in Budapest on Thursday, August 13th. On the previous Friday, after flying at a great height over France, the weekly diplomatic plane had landed him safely at Berne. Next morning he had presented his special letter of introduction at the bank and been shown into a private office. There he had made his arrangements about money and handed over both his British and French passports—the former for safe keeping until he reclaimed it, the latter so that the bank could get him a visa for Hungary, which they promised to have done for him by Monday, or Tuesday morning at the latest. He had then bought his tickets for the journey, a second-hand suitcase with several French labels on it, and some clothes of decidedly French cut.
On the Tuesday he had left Berne as Mr. Sallust and arrived in Lausanne as Commandant Tavenier. From there he had caught the Simplon-Orient Express down to Zagreb, where he changed trains and did the last lap north to the Hungarian capital.
He could have gone by air, but dismissed the idea because he knew that passengers who arrived in planes from foreign countries during wartime were much more closely scrutinised than the far greater numbers who crossed frontiers in trains; and he naturally wished to keep himself as inconspicuous as possible. Again he could have taken the quicker, direct route via Innsbruck and Vienna, but those cities now lay within Hitler’s Greater Germany. The odds against his coming face to face during the short space of half a day’s train journey with a Gestapo man who might recognise him were extremely long, but they were infinitely longer against his doing so on the stretch of railway which ran through Italy and Yugoslavia; and it was because he never took the smallest unnecessary risk that he had survived so many dangerous missions.
The same caution had decided his choice of an hotel. The Donau Palota was the most frequented by rich and influential Hungarians; so to stay at it would have given him his best chance of scraping acquaintance with the sort of people whose views on the future of Hungary he wished to find out. But it was there that in 1936 he had occupied a suite while having his affaire with the beautiful Sabine, and hotel servants have long memories. In consequence, on his arrival in Berne he had sent a telegram to the Vadászkürt, hoping that with five days’ notice they would have a room for him. In that he was lucky, as when he was booking-in the clerk told him that, like those in most other capitals during wartime, the hotels in Budapest were now packed to capacity in season and out.
Having surrendered his passport for registration by the police he was shown up to a room on the third floor. Instead of opening into a passageway it was entered from a broad balcony that overlooked a huge oblong courtyard formed by the interior walls of the four sides of the hotel. Large trees were growing in the courtyard and beneath their leafy branches were several score of tables, as during the summer months it was used as the hotel’s restaurant.
That night Gregory dined down there, and one glance at the menu showed him that Budapest was very far from being reduced to the scant choice of indifferent food which was all that could be offered by restaurants in London. Hungary, as he knew, had few industries, and from her vast farmlands had for centuries fed a great part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire; but he had expected to find at least fairly strict rationing owing to the voracious demands of a Germany that had now been at war for nearly three years. This first evidence that the Hungarians were by no means altogether under the thumb of their mighty ally was encouraging. He cheerfully ordered trout with melted butter, roast goose and green peas; then lingered over a fresh peach and a bottle of Tokay while listening to one of those gypsy orchestras for which Hungary is famous.
Next morning he did not go at once to seek out Leon Levianski or any of Sir Pellinore’s old friends. He wanted first to get the feel of the capital; so he set off on what, for him, was a long walk.
Budapest is only one eighth the size of London and its centre is proportionately smaller; so during a stroll of two hours or so a sightseer may pass along most of its principal streets. It is, however, divided into two sharply contrasting parts. Buda, which is the older of the twin cities, is almost entirely residential, and consists of tier upon tier of ancient buildings, churches and palaces rising steeply to crown a ridge of hills on the west bank of the Danube. Pest, much larger and the centre of all commercial activities, is entirely flat. From just east of the river, where the smart shopping district is situated, it stretches away divided by the magnificent two-mile-long Andràssy Avenue, until its new factories and suburbs merge into the distant plain.
The Vadászkürt and other principal hotels are all in Pest, and only a stone’s throw from the Vorasmarty Tér, out of which runs Vaczi Utcza, the equivalent of Bond Street; so Gregory turned in that direction. When he reached the square he saw that the windows of Gerbaud’s, the famous patisserie, were, as of old, filled with rich cream cakes, crystallised fruits and sweets; and, on entering the Utcza, found that most of the other shops showed equally little sign of depleted stocks.
Strolling southwards he reached the great Market and spent a quarter of an hour there. Its stalls held an abundance of meat, game, fish and groceries, and the people in it were mainly well-clad. He found that less surprising when he suddenly recalled that Hungary had not become seriously involved in the war until Hitler had attacked Russia in the preceding summer; so, apart from a shortage of some manufactured goods, she would hardly have yet been reduced to such stringencies as clothes rationing.
There were quite a few soldiers about in drab wartime uniform, and a number of much smarter girls dressed as nurses and army drivers. In half an hour he had seen only two German officers, and confirmed his earlier impression that, after those of Vienna, the girls of Budapest were the prettiest of any city he had ever visited.
On emerging from the Market he had his first view of the Danube. It was a broad, turgid, fast-flowing stream, and far from blue; but it sparkled prettily in the August sunshine. To his right lay a broad mile-long embankment which was termed the ‘Corso
’ for, in front of its many cafés, lay Budapest’s most fashionable promenade. Turning along it he now had a fine view of Buda. Across the river it rose upon its hills, a miracle of beauty, its turrets and spires seeming to pierce the almost cloudless blue sky.
By Erzsébet Bridge he crossed the river. Slowly he made his way up past the Royal Palace, which was now the residence of the Regent, Admiral Horthy, and so into Buda’s twisting cobbled streets where for a thousand years there had lived men and women who had played a part in Europe’s history. Six years before, from a first-floor window in one of the ancient houses there, he had witnessed the annual celebration which embodied Hungary’s great traditions, and it was a sight that he had never forgotten.
At some time in the Dark Ages the tomb of Stephen, the first King of Hungary who had accepted Christianity, had been opened, and it had been found that, although his body had fallen into dust, his right hand lay there unwithered. It had henceforth become the custom for this miraculous hand to be exposed to the veneration of the multitude by being carried through the streets of the city on the fifteenth of each September.
Gregory had seen many processions, but nothing to equal this in medieval pageantry. There had been the Palace Guards wearing silver pointed Saxon helmets, eighteen inches high, and carrying flashing halberds serrated like the prow of a Venetian gondola. The gold and crystal casket containing the sacred relic was surrounded by chanting priests. Behind it walked the Prince Archbishop, the Metropolitan of the Greek Church and the Papal Legate, resplendent in robes of purple, white and crimson, their trains held up by small boys in lace-bordered surplices. Then had come the Corps Diplomatique, brave in its orders and gold embroidered uniforms. The black clad Deputies of the Hungarian Parliament had next struck an incongruous note, but after them had come the handsome Regent Horthy in Admiral’s uniform and, following him, the body of men who made the ceremony unique.
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