by Ashton, Hugh
“I seem to have acquired two of the finest potential agents I have come across in a number of years.”
“You seem to have strangely multiplied, Finch-Malloy,” remarked C, the head of the British Secret Service, blinking over the top of his wire-rimmed spectacles at Brian. “There seem to be two of you, when I requested one. Sit down, for God’s sake, man, and don’t stand at attention like that. We’re not in the bloody army now. Do you know why I asked for you?”
“No, sir,” replied Brian. The enigmatically-named C was unlike anyone Brian had ever met before. A full head and a half shorter than Brian, and with a mere fringe of hair round his otherwise completely bald head, he would have seemed like yet another senior officer with no obvious talent other than boot-licking, except that he seemed to know exactly what was going on all around him and to react to it smoothly and efficiently. In the ten minutes since Brian had entered the office, waiting for his interview to begin, C must have read through thirty pages of reports, signed several other documents, and read through the Times leading articles and agony column, making notes on the latter, almost absent-mindedly, while doing all this other work. Brian decided this was not a man to be underestimated.
“Well, I’ll tell you why you’re here, Finch-Malloy. It’s because your commanding officers complained about you to their superiors.”
“I’m sorry if I caused trouble, sir.”
C chuckled. “Quite the reverse, Finch-Malloy. You were marked down as a trouble-maker because you thought for yourself and refused to obey the instructions of your superiors.” Brian started to protest, but C held up a hand. “Hear me out. I have standing orders that reports on people like you should arrive on my desk. Of course, most of them turn out to be nothing but the kind of idiot who can’t follow orders. But a few, like you,” C smiled, “turn out to be people who can think for themselves.” The smile left his face. “But, Finch-Malloy, tell me how on earth you have this,” glancing at a piece of paper, “Sergeant Harry Braithwaite in tow with you? I’ve never heard of the man, don’t know him from Adam, and want to know just what the hell you think you’re up to dragging him here and wasting my time. I want a good answer from you before I send him – and you – back to where you came from.”
“Well, sir, we had a bit of a problem. When you sent those orders for me, there was no officer left to replace me as leader of the platoon, and Colonel Wilkins wasn’t that keen on giving Sergeant Braithwaite his commission. So, thinking that two heads could be better than one in your line of work, sir, I took the liberty of persuading Colonel Wilkins to let the Sergeant travel with me.” C said nothing, but cocked his head on one side, and looked at Brian curiously. “The Sergeant and I have been through a lot together and we work as a team.”
“You’d describe your relationship with him as friendly, then?”
“Most certainly, sir. We’ve trusted each other with our lives on many different occasions and I have great respect for his intelligence and personality. Quite frankly, sir, if Sergeant Braithwaite had been to a better school, he would be commanding me, rather than the other way round.”
“You’re a Harrow and Brasenose man, I see. And Sergeant Braithwaite?”
“Well, he’s certainly not a University man. And I believe he went to Nantwich Grammar School. He taught himself a lot about mechanical engineering and cars, and even went to Germany for a year or so after he’d left school to learn more there. After that, he became a chauffeur and mechanic. His German is pretty fluent, by the way.”
"Well, I can't really see that background recommending itself to Wilkins," C commented. "I've had to meet Wilkins on a number of occasions and been slightly underwhelmed each time." Brian smiled at C’s remark. "And you can keep that opinion of mine to yourself. If you join our little outfit, you're going to have to get used to keeping secrets. But the Sergeant’s mechanical skills and his German could well be useful in this line of work, especially with what I have in mind for you. You’re right there."
"Sir?" Brian kept his tone of voice neutral.
"So, young Finch-Malloy, apart from a set of enviable skills in underhand brawling, what do you bring to us?" He picked up a sheet of paper and perused it. "School fencing champion. Hah. Half-blue for fencing at Oxford in your first year there. Not a team player, it would seem. Hunting man, are you?”
“Afraid not, sir. Horses and I seem to disagree with each other. Never really seen the point of dressing up in a red coat and chasing foxes, either.”
“Don’t worry about it, Finch-Malloy. I tend to associate the hunting crowd with fools like Wilkins.” He continued reading. “School chess champion. Interesting."
"I was taught as a boy by a Russian, sir. A friend of my mother's."
"That would be Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, I take it? At the time he was living in London, using the Reading Room of the British Museum?"
"Yes, sir. At least, I suppose so. He was living in London, anyway. At my age I’d never even heard of the Reading Room. I used to go to the Museum to frighten myself with the Egyptian mummies." Brian didn't bother to hide his surprise that C knew of Ulyanov.
"I take it that you've somewhat lost touch with Vladimir Ilyich over the past few years, then?"
"I haven't seen or heard anything of him for over ten years now, I suppose. Since I was about ten or eleven."
"Well, you may be interested to know that he is now the leader of a rather noisy group of exiled Russian socialists who call themselves 'Bolsheviks'."
"The majority party, sir? Are they that important?"
"By no means. It's just a title they gave themselves after defeating another faction in a debate. And that other faction would be..?" C paused, testing Brian's reaction.
"Mensheviks, sir?"
"Excellent. Did Ulyanov teach you your Russian, as well as teaching you chess?"
"A little, sir. But I've taught myself a bit."
"Good with languages are you? French? German? As well as Russian?"
"Pretty much fluent in all of those, sir." Brian was almost apologetic. "I do seem to have a bit of a gift that way. My Dutch can pass for native as well."
"Any others?"
"My Serbian is a bit rusty, but it will pass, and my Czech's good enough for me to be taken for a Czech-speaking Austrian. Spanish and Portuguese are a bit weaker than they should be."
C put his hands over his ears in mock horror. "That's enough. And you've certainly distinguished yourself in battle. That VC of yours—"
Brian interrupted him. "Please, sir. I'd rather not discuss that. I didn't deserve the decoration, as I pointed out at the time. The credit belongs to Sergeant Braithwaite."
"Then I suppose that's whom I'm going to have to talk to next. Do you want to be in the room while I ask him just what the hell he thinks he's doing, following you around like this? Or is he big enough to wipe his own nose?"
Brian grinned. "He's a big boy, sir. He can take care of himself."
C grinned back. "Then you wait outside while I talk to him. I'll call you in when I want you."
-oOo-
Brian found himself a seat in the anteroom as a very nervous Harry Braithwaite was shown into C’s office.
"It's all right, Harry, he's on our side," he had whispered, with a confidence he didn't completely feel. He had settled down with a Portuguese dictionary and a copy of The Lusiads, trying to make sense of the seventeenth-century epic to improve his Portuguese. It wasn't easy going, and he was wondering if this was really the best way to improve his language skills, when C's office door opened, and C himself appeared in the doorway.
"Enter," he invited, smiling. As Brian resumed the seat that he had occupied previously, he exchanged glances with Harry, who gave him a surreptitious wink, unnoticed by C.
Seating himself behind the desk, C continued smiling. "Excellent," he told Brian. "I seem to have acquired two of the finest potential agents I have come across in a number of years. Sergeant Braithwaite has acquainted me with some of the details of the past
six months that you omitted to tell me, young Finch-Malloy, and I can fill in some of the remaining gaps regarding the Sergeant for myself. So I am happy to tell you both that if you agree, and I assume you do, or you wouldn't be here, you will from now on be reporting here, rather than to your regiment. For the record, you will remain on the roster of the Guards, but you will not be required to wear uniform. Indeed, for many of the duties you will be performing, a uniform would be a positive disadvantage. However, it is only fair to warn you that if you are captured by the enemy while you are out of uniform, you will almost certainly be shot or hanged as spies. Hmm." He sat back and sucked his pen, regarding the other two for their reaction. There was none. "In due course, I will require your signatures on various pieces of paper, but for now, I just require your word that what I am about to tell you will be going no further. I have your words on this?" Both men nodded. "Good. Then I will be introducing you to Colonel Petrov." He pressed a button on his desk, and a secretary entered. "Harris, please send a message to Colonel Alex Petrov and ask him to come over here as soon as possible – say two this afternoon." He turned back to the other two. "Colonel Alexei Dimitrovich Petrov is, as you have probably guessed, a Russian. He is currently here as a liaison officer to co-operate with the Service. He has some English, but it may be easier for you to speak Russian or German with him if communication starts to break down. I must say, Sergeant, that your knowledge of German and technical matters you picked up when you lived and worked in Germany makes you an ideal candidate for this mission that we will be discussing later."
"Can you tell us more now, sir?" asked Harry.
"In very brief and sketchy terms, I am afraid, Sergeant. I don't know if you are aware, but I come from a naval rather than an army background, and my technical knowledge of dry land is limited. Let me start by asking you a question, Sergeant. What is the biggest obstacle facing you chaps in the trenches? Other than the obvious answer of the Boche, that is."
"That's an easy one, sir. It's the blooming mud. Those artillery bombardments may soften up the enemy, but they don't do a bloody thing about the wire – begging your pardon for the language, sir, and they churn up the mud like you wouldn't believe. Up to your knees or worse after the rain's come down overnight."
"That confirms my understanding of the situation. Now, suppose there was a way to get the artillery right up to the German trenches and blast away at the machine-gun nests point-blank, so that the infantry could follow?"
Harry shook his head. "Couldn't be done, sir. One, the Jerries would just blow the guns and limbers to bits as they crossed No Man's Land. Two, that is if they could cross at all. What with the mud and the wire and all, there's no bloody way a gun team could make it, even if no-one was shooting at them." In his animation, Harry seemed to have forgotten that he was addressing a high-ranking officer.
"Not afraid to speak your mind, are you, Sergeant? No, don't apologise, I like it. Shows you've got brains and spirit. Unlike some I could mention. Well, I think that Colonel Petrov may have something to tell you that will make you think again."
Chapter 4: Zurich, Switzerland
“I’d hate to be the man who crossed you,” said Zinoviev.
“Then you’d better make sure that you’re not,” replied Kolinski, grinning his terrifying smile.
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov yawned and stretched, contorting his strangely Asiatic face, as he reached for his pen.
"If only those fools would turn their guns in the right direction," he grumbled to the notepad where he was writing the draft of an article on the revolution. "The Russian people should be struggling together with the German proletariat to throw off the capitalist yoke and seize power.”
“It will only happen with us at the helm, Vladimir Ilyich,” pointed out his companion, Grigory Zinoviev, reaching for his tea. “There is a lack of political consciousness there that will never be fully remedied unless we go over there ourselves and seize the initiative to lead the masses.” He sipped, wincing. “When will these damned Swiss learn to make decent tea? I want to be in Russia again.”
Ulyanov turned his deep-set eyes on his colleague. “Comrade Zinoviev, you seem to be forgetting that while we work tirelessly for the advancement of the Revolution here in Switzerland where, although there may not be decent tea or vodka, there is at least a modicum of peace, and a minimum of capitalist interference. Between us and Petrograd lie several thousand kilometres of hellish war between two enemies, either of which would gladly turn their guns away from the other to point at us, and would make common cause to seize any opportunity to imprison and silence us. We must continue our work here, Comrade. We must continue to work from afar for the comrades still in Russia. But when the time comes—” his eyes glittered. “When the time comes,” he repeated, “we will strike. Strike mercilessly and smash them in the teeth. Never fear, Comrade, that time will come. In the meantime we must make ready.” He bent again to his writing.
“Comrade,” interrupted Zinoviev, before the pen had written even a couple of words more. “I had news today from one of our comrades in Russia. I truly believe that it would be in our best interests if at least one of us could make his way there soon. If the report I received today is true, then we have the Revolution as good as won as soon as we reach Russia.” Ulyanov cocked his head. “This is the monstrous war machine I mentioned earlier that can annihilate all that stands in its path. One or two of these on our side, and the Tsar could send his whole army against us and fail. Or, should the Tsar have one or two of these machines, all the spirit of the Revolution would break against it like waves on a rocky shore, and with as little effect. Vladimir Ilyich, it is essential that we secure control of this machine, or at the very least, ensure that the Tsar never gets control of it.”
“I would remind you, Comrade, that revolutions come through the spirit of the proletariat. Not through machines alone. Though machines may have their uses," he admitted. "Remind me again. How does this comrade know about this infernal engine?"
"He's a nephew of the inventor, who is developing the machine for the Tsar. He is devoted to our cause. Apparently he has been in contact with Dzhugashvili and his group."
"This development of the machine for the Tsarist reactionaries is being undertaken in exchange for money, I take it? That is the way that things are done in a capitalist society, after all.”
“Yes, the inventor, Lebedenko, seems to be driven chiefly by a lust for gold. Which, in this particular case, seems to be provided directly from the Tsar’s own pocket."
"So, Comrade Zinoviev, your suggestion on how we should proceed with this matter?"
"We send one of our – shall we say more muscular? – comrades to Moscow, armed with several thousand roubles. And a revolver."
"You would give the inventor a choice? Gold or lead?"
"Indeed I would. From what I understand, we may need the services of the inventor to perfect the machine, as it is not at a fully working stage at the moment, and it would be advisable to have at least the semblance of co-operation from him."
"Very well. And your suggestion for the choice of this muscular comrade?"
"I would strongly suggest Comrade Kolinski. He is dedicated to the cause, and he has remarkable powers of persuasion."
"And he lacks the intelligence or imagination to run away with the gold. His loyalty is not in question, I agree." Ulyanov chuckled. "Very good. How do you suggest that he makes his way to Russia, though? Even if he is not as well-known to the police forces of Europe and the Okhrana as you or I may be, is this a risk that we and the Party should be taking?”
“He speaks some German. If he travelled with a Swiss passport through Germany, crossing to Sweden and then entering Russia through Finland, I think there would be few problems there.”
“That sounds as though it will fit the bill well enough.” Ulyanov chuckled. Maybe the irony of the ferocious revolutionary posing as a defiantly neutral Swiss appealed to him. “Not that I believe in the power of any machine to wi
n the Revolution – these scientists and engineers are only too willing to ascribe magical powers to their inventions. But as you say, it would be as well not to be faced with such a potential disaster if the Tsarist reactionaries start to use it against our people. Kolinski is to try to obtain the use of the machine for us and the revolutionary cause, if this Lebedenko can be persuaded by any means possible. If that proves impossible, he is to steal the machine—"
Zinoviev interrupted. “Vladimir Ilyich, from what I understand, this may not be possible. We are talking about a massive machine that requires a large trained crew. We both know of Comrade Kolinski’s strength and prowess, but I think that even he would find it difficult to make off with this monster.”
Ulyanov frowned. “I hear what you say. Very good. In that case, if the inventor is unwilling to go ahead, he must be stopped from making any further developments or inventions, and his machine and plans must be destroyed along with him. I want you to type out the orders to that effect and give them to Kolinski together with the money for the journey and to make things happen at the other end.”
Zinoviev understood very well what Ulyanov was saying. If Kolinski were captured, no papers bearing Ulyanov's handwriting would be discovered, and the leader could disown all knowledge of the operation. "Very well. How much money, and which name shall I use?"
"Five thousand roubles should cover things, I think. Get a receipt from Kolinski when you hand them over and make sure he obtains and keeps receipts for all his expenses. He’s intelligent enough to manage that, I assume. And sign the letter with my usual revolutionary name. Lenin."
-oOo-
Kolinski grunted as Zinoviev explained his mission to him, sitting on the edge of the bed in Kolinski’s lodgings. Kolinski himself sat on a wooden chair, which, though of normal size, appeared like a piece of schoolroom furniture beneath Kolinski’s massive frame. Zinoviev wondered how long it could continue to bear Kolinski’s weight as he rocked back and forth, absorbing the details that Zinoviev explained to him.
