Bitter Field

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Just as long as you remember not to try and come and get me.’

  Leaving his backup man in Prague was essential to maintaining that vital link with London, and the temptation to move him closer to the place where Cal would be operating had to be put to one side. There was still a deep nervousness about leaks or even active disruption from the offices of MI6 and nothing Peter Lanchester had sent so far indicated such a threat had been either positively identified or neutralised.

  There would have been more alarm had it been known that a man from the Prague station, one of those brought in from Bucharest, was trawling the hotels with a Czech interpreter for a list of guests from the United Kingdom, with an emphasis on those newly arrived; an attempt to save time by checking the flight manifests of the Czech airline, the quickest way in, had been rudely rebuffed.

  Having been at it for two days and starting with the luxury places, it was Saturday before he got to the Meran, and he and his man entered just as Cal and Vince exited carrying the canvas bag.

  The Czech made for the desk, the MI6 man standing back, where he went through the routine of being jolly with the man at reception, agreeing that times were bad for everybody except those with rooms to let, before asking if there were any people staying who might need his services as an English interpreter.

  That was not an absurd thing to ask; Czech was a Slavic language that only the locals spoke and even then it broke down into several dialects and that was before you got to Slovak, Ruthenian and Hungarian.

  It had no international presence, so that any visitor from any country, especially Britain and those with Latin-derived tongues, struggled to get the bus or tram, never mind do business; even fellow Slavs from neighbouring countries would have to strive hard to be understood.

  The reply he got, that of the only two British guests staying, one, a Mr Barrowman, certainly spoke fluent German, was responded to with initial disappointment, though he did ask about the other, only to be told the receptionist had never exchanged a word with him, but he could if he had to – thankfully he spoke a bit of English and French.

  ‘Been here long, have they, ’cause they might have picked up a bit of Czech?’

  ‘A week … or was it Tuesday they checked in? Not sure.’

  ‘Been here before?’

  ‘No, they made the reservation from London, though by telegram, so they must know Prague well.’

  ‘Still, friend,’ the interpreter said, pacing out his questions so that it did not seem like an interrogation. ‘Even German might not be enough if they are here to do business, eh? Are they businessmen? Would you give them my card if I left one?’

  The receptionist shrugged and accepted the proffered card; there was no harm in it and his interpreter visitor bade him a hearty farewell, then walked out onto the street followed by his MI6 employer, who listened to what the Czech had been told.

  He reckoned this pair fitted the bill more than any of the other names he had turned up, not that he knew, apart from finding British passport holders with no known reasons for being here, precisely what the bill was. Still, it was not his job to decide that – such a task fell to the station chief – and he had many more places to check.

  ‘OK, Miklos, on with the motley, what!’

  Miklos had studied hard and reckoned himself a good English speaker, but as he watched his employer head off he wondered what the hell he had just said.

  There was one thing Cal had forgotten to cover and that was because he was not in the same profession as Corrie Littleton. A good journalist never goes anywhere, and especially to somewhere dangerous, without telling the person who employs them, in her case her editor in New York, and nor would she go off without leaving a forwarding address.

  That was a telegram she composed on her account at the hotel because the first thing a journalist learns is never to spend their own money and never be entirely truthful about your expense account either, because spare cash is not only handy, it can be essential for both work and pleasure; you cannot, for instance, submit a chit for sexual gratification in some foreign whorehouse.

  Some of those males she drank with sparingly in the bar of the Ambassador were given to visiting such places and were not deterred by a female presence from mentioning it. They were also, to a man, experienced reporters, who knew that a good way to keep ahead of your competition was to know what they were up to.

  Thus, on arrival at their hotel in the location of a story, and even before they made friends with the bar staff, they would approach the concierge and slip him a decent sum to keep them informed and their competitors in the dark about what they themselves were up to.

  Where Corrie, in her lack of practical experience, fell down was in not doing first that; then what she should have done when she gave him the telegram was to slip him something to stay quiet because of the name and destination that would leap out even if he struggled with English.

  It was doubly unfortunate that a very experienced English correspondent called Vernon Bartlett spotted her on the way out of the hotel after Cal had called for her to come down.

  ‘Where are you off to, young lady, and by the side entrance?’ he asked, coming in from a late-morning constitutional walk.

  ‘Nothing doing in Prague, is there, Vernon, so I thought I’d go down to the border and see how many Jews the Rumanians are letting in.’

  ‘As many as have the means to bribe the border guards, I should think.’

  ‘Still …’

  ‘Well, good hunting,’ Vernon replied, moving to go in for a cup of coffee and one of those big cream cakes so loved by the Czechs. ‘We shall miss your gracious company in the bar.’

  ‘“Gracious” is not the word I would use, Vernon, “debauched” is more appropriate. Did you stay on last night?’

  Nearly everyone was leaving to go to Nuremberg for Hitler’s big speech, an event enough to give an excuse for a leaving bash.

  ‘No, I could see it was turning into a real session so I baled out not long after you.’

  ‘There’ll have been some fine heads this morning.’

  ‘I’ll say, there was not a soul at breakfast, bar me.’

  ‘I took mine in my room.’

  ‘To avoid the groans of those who stayed up, I suppose. We should run a sweepstake on who misses the Munich train, someone’s bound to.’

  ‘Well,’ Corrie said, with as much veracity as she could muster. ‘Must be off, ’cause I’ve got a train to catch.’

  As she made for the door, Bartlett did not go into the dining room; instead, not entirely convinced by what he had been told, he waited a few seconds then followed her, ready to duck out of sight if she looked back. The revolving doors to the side entrance were panelled in glass and he saw the rather severe-looking man who took her small case and put it in the boot of the big dark-green Maybach, the sight making him curious.

  Vernon Bartlett had covered the Spanish Civil War in the early days and been in Madrid during the first nationalist siege of the capital in ’36, staying in the same haunt as many of his peers, some of the same hard-drinking lot that were now ensconced in the Ambassador.

  He was sure he had seen the same fellow now helping Corrie into the car in the saloon of the Florida Hotel drinking with two stalwart boozers, Ernie Hemingway and Tyler Alverson, and had been at one time introduced, which, with his press instincts, he remembered clearly.

  He had no real knowledge of what Callum Jardine did, only that he had taken an active part in fighting the nationalists on behalf of the republicans, added to the fact that he was a man of some mystery who had not, the last time he had seen him, been wearing glasses or sporting a rather Germanic haircut.

  What the hell was Little Miss Just-Started-in-the-Game doing with a character like that, and was she really going to catch a train? Next stop was the desk of the hotel concierge, and though it was just on the off chance, he had in his hand a twenty-koruna note which produced the information as to where Corrie Littleton was off to and what sh
e was about to get.

  ‘Well damn me,’ Bartlett swore, when it was relayed to him, a precis of the contents of the telegram that a hotel boy had taken to be sent on Thursday morning, as soon as the telegraph office opened its doors. ‘Cheb of all places – talk about the cunning little vixen!’

  Of course, it was necessary to pay out more money to ensure that he was the only one privy to this information and as he did so he reflected on two things: that the life of a luxury hotel concierge was certainly an enviable one given the amount of cash they garnered for their favours, the other being that he was blessed as a fellow who could decline to get sloshed at the drop of a hat.

  When he got to the dining room he observed that many of his peers had emerged from their rooms to drink copious amounts of coffee – Americans, French and British, nursing hangovers from the previous night’s debauch in the hotel bar, all of them receiving a hearty greeting in a loud voice, accompanied by a backslap, that was certain to cause their heads to ache.

  Over his coffee and cream cake Vernon Bartlett mused on what to do about that which he had uncovered; he was off to Nuremberg to cover the leader’s speech at the Nazi Party Rally on Monday himself, and even if it was likely to be an occasion of thundering and repetitive boredom he was reluctant to change his plans – his editor would not be pleased if he did, especially this year, when Czechoslovakia was bound to be one of Hitler’s topics.

  Thankfully, he had been sent out a young tyro to help cover what was the biggest story on the Continent and do the kind of legwork a man of Bartlett’s experience found too tedious: the daily briefings from the various Czech spokesmen and what that dry stick of a so-called mediator, Runciman, was up to, or what, more likely, he was avoiding, like coming up with any solution to the crisis.

  Jimmy’s travel accreditation had come through from the Interior Ministry days ago, but he wondered, as he played with the sugar in the bowl, what could the young fellow do? Certainly he could shadow Corrie Littleton and find out the exact nature of her assignment, which might be more than she had said.

  If Henlein was agreeing to an interview, and he already knew the Sudeten leader to be a master manipulator in his relations with the press, it might mean matters were coming to a head in the disputed regions and for his paper not to be there would be seen as a failure, quite possibly on his part, because regardless of right and wrong, it was never the editor who was the latter, always the man on the spot.

  ‘Ah! James,’ he cried, as his assistant came into the room, looking as ever like the keen young chap he was, more student than adult. ‘Just the fellow I’m looking for.’

  Expecting to be invited to sit down, Jimmy Garvin was surprised when his normally urbane boss leapt up, grabbed his arm and aimed him straight out through the dining room door, Bartlett’s voice a whisper as he explained to him what he wanted him to do.

  ‘I shall be holed up at the Bayerischer Hof in Bamberg and you can keep me posted by telegram, and if it’s really hot stuff, use the phone.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘Jesus Christ, Cal, you look like an executioner with those damn specs and that haircut.’

  His hair now stood up from his head in a spiky sort of way, not the first time he had worn it like that; when you are fighting in the trenches short hair is a must to help you keep the lice under control. It is the same for doing battle in hot climates or travelling through South American jungles.

  ‘Do I look suitably German?’

  ‘You sure do, but I preferred it when you looked human.’

  They had just pulled out into Wenceslas Square and into a stream of traffic and trams that made Corrie edgy; she was, after all, sitting in what, in her own country, would have been the driving seat and she was used to being in control of the car.

  ‘Why the hell do these folk drive on the wrong side of the road, are they crazy?’

  ‘Time to tell you who I am supposed to be and we have to concoct a story as to how I got involved in this as well.’

  She reached down to her feet and pulled up her copious handbag to extract a pad and pencil.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea to write anything down.’

  ‘It makes it easy for me to remember, and what do you think the chances are of finding anyone who understands shorthand English in this neck of the woods?’

  Cal smiled. ‘In my game you don’t take risks.’

  ‘In my game you must take notes, so shoot.’

  He started talking and her pencil flew, which he let go. It had the advantage of keeping her from looking out of the windscreen and ducking in terror every time a car came too near or he swung out to pass another.

  Mostly it was background: the name Barrowman, his background in chemicals, not as an expert but as a buyer and seller, the need to keep that vague since it was not the kind of thing two people meeting in a strange country would go into too deeply.

  ‘We met in the bar of the Ambassador and I introduced myself.’ He took one of the Monty Redfern-supplied business cards from his top pocket and handed it to her so she could spell his name. ‘Hang on to that and keep it in your purse.’

  ‘What was the approach?’

  ‘You’re a woman, single and we formed a mutual attraction.’

  ‘Let’s hope nobody looks me in the eye when I spin that one.’

  ‘I invited you to dine with me, you did and we had a great evening, which ended in the bar. Use the name of the restaurant where we did eat in case anyone asks what you ordered.’

  ‘Hell, I can’t pronounce it, or half of what I ate.’

  ‘Even better, because the trick is to tell as few lies as possible – for instance, that you have not yet filed a story back to the States because you are looking for an angle that no one else has thought of.’

  ‘And that stuff about us being lovers?’

  ‘For emergencies only.’

  ‘Buster, the roof will have to fall in big time before that gets an airing.’

  They were out in the suburbs now, which looked to be peaceful, but that did not last long because they came to their first checkpoint, Corrie making an unfunny pun about it being Czech.

  The examination of papers was done with great courtesy; these young soldiers in their grey-green uniforms were conscripts, polite and, once they had perused her passport and seen the eagle, somewhat excited to meet a real American, which held them up longer than it should.

  ‘Those kids were sweet. I ain’t never been pointed at and called a film star before.’

  ‘They didn’t mean it, they’d say that to anyone from the USA.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Play on being American when we get to Cheb. Most people there will never have met anyone from outside their own area, often their own village, and everyone is enthralled by anything American. Being exotic—’

  ‘That’s a nice word.’

  ‘In your case, inappropriate.’

  At the main railway station Jimmy Garvin was buying his ticket, rather excited to be going on a chase for a story without Vernon Bartlett breathing down his neck, imagining a big splash in the News Chronicle with a byline saying ‘from our special correspondent in the Sudetenland’; it might not use his name, but he would make sure no one was in doubt who wrote it.

  But he had to remind himself to have a care, so he took up a position on the concourse from which he could watch the comings and goings; neither he or his mentor had any idea if Corrie Littleton was on the train, she might have been lying about that too, and given they had shared the same hotel she knew his face too well for him to be spotted.

  While he was there the Paris-Prague Express arrived and disgorged its passengers. As they filed through the exit gate – their travel documents would have been examined on the train – he wondered at the purpose of those coming to Prague: businessmen, diplomats and maybe even the odd news hound too. Even his young imagination did not stretch to a desk chief from SIS.

  Noel McKevitt had felt liberated ever since he left Londo
n; stuck in Broadway for five years now, he had forgotten the excitement of being out in the field. In London crowds you paid no attention to anyone unless they were striking; from the point where he had stepped aboard the train at Calais he had felt his old instincts begin to sharpen. By the time he made the Czech capital they were back and fully engaged.

  It was not those who stood out in the mass you needed to spot when active, it was the exact opposite: those who blended in with the background had to be looked out for, the face that appeared too often and never looked at you directly, identified by the smallest of features, the tilt of a head, the cut of a chin, a certain gait when they moved.

  In five years of sedentary work he had filled out from the slim field man he had been in Berlin, but Prague had to be awash with German agents and some of those might be the people he had sparred with previously in the German capital, and someone would have been given the task of watching the incoming express – and that was before you put devious old Quex into the mix.

  Suitcase in hand, he joined the queue for taxis and shuffled forward until nearly at the front. Four places from his turn he suddenly picked up his bag and left the queue, his concentration on those lined up behind, cutting back into the station, stopping and retracing his steps, then making for the front of the station and the car he expected to be waiting for him. If it was probably unnecessary it was fun to employ the old tricks.

  His lift was there: Dawson, one of the men he had sent to this station from Warsaw, standing by the rear passenger door so that it could be opened and closed quickly, his suitcase thrown on the floor. It was moving before he managed to shift to a comfortable position, weaving out into the traffic.

  ‘Have you got anything to cheer me up?’

  ‘In what way, sir?’

  ‘A name would be a start.’

  ‘We’ve got more than a hundred and we’re still trawling. It would help if we had some idea of what we’re looking for.’