Sion Crossing

by Anthony Price

  “Me?” That could not be true. Since his presence in the Oxbridge was an accident he was only an improvisation. “You mean … Audley, not me.” He was not simply second-best—he was all Howard Morris could produce at such short notice, when Audley had failed to turn up.

  “Yes, that’s the goddam’ truth.” Morris didn’t attempt to dispute the indisputable. “I was going for David—I can’t deny that.”

  “Because he’s a friend of yours.” No question, that.

  “Dam’ right.” The American’s chin went up. “And I hardly know you, Mister Deputy-Director.”

  That was laying it on the line: that was admitting everything, but at the same time it was mixing its challenge with an offer—it was throwing obligation and advantage and self-interest on to the scales: as of now, Mister Deputy-Director, we both need each other, to do business!

  “Which makes what you’re doing now even more surprising.”

  The American smiled. “Hardly less surprising than what you’re doing.”

  “No.” Latimer shook his head. “A colleague representing a friendly power … a close ally … wants a favour. Naturally, I have listened to him. The favour consists in doing a favour for one of his political masters. And I’ll listen to him, by the same token. But I have promised nothing—equally naturally. That is not at all surprising, any of it.” He raised his glass to his lips, but only pretended to drink. Two glasses were enough for the time being.

  “No one writes blank cheques.” Morris nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “Yes. But the difference is … that you know what is to be written on the cheque—and, on the basis of your friendship with Audley, you must have believed he’d sign. Whereas in my case, as you have said yourself, there is no such basis.”

  “Uh-uh.” Latimer estimated the CIA man hadn’t intended to tell him anything, he had been concerned only to set up the meeting. Whatever he got from him in advance was therefore all the more valuable.

  “I don’t know what the Senator wants. At least, not in any detail.” Morris considered him for a moment. “And I wasn’t at all sure David would buy it—though he was the right man for it.” He paused. “Which is perhaps more than I can say for you, Latimer.”

  “You just had to take what there was. Hobson’s choice, it’s called over here.”

  “Yeah.” Morris frowned suddenly. “Who the hell was Hobson?”

  “I believe he was a Cambridge ostler who offered the next horse on the list or nothing.”

  “Maybe he only had one horse.”

  “Perhaps.” Latimer looked at his watch. “It looks as though you have only one horse, anyway.”

  “Or none. I could disappoint the Senator.”

  “If it was Audley he wanted, you already have.” They were only playing with each other, Latimer realized. “What does he want, exactly? Or … since you don’t know in any detail … what does he want in general?”

  The white teeth showed, but in a thin white line. “Brains.”

  “That is … rather general.” Then a thought struck Latimer. “British brains, obviously … since you ought to be able to supply some of the American sort, I would have thought.” With all his power, Senator Cookridge could have had any variety of American brain. So it must be a British one he wanted, whatever other attributes he required. “Audley’s sort, evidently. Rather than mine?”

  Morris gave him another considering look. “Would you say there’s any difference?”

  Under other circumstances Latimer would have said just that. Instead, he shrugged and sipped his wine.

  Morris looked at the wine. “Maybe you’re right, at that. Different vintage year, but much the same vineyard. And the same goddam’ wine merchant—that’s for sure.”

  “And yet you consider me less suitable than Audley?” In such a strong position Latimer felt inclined to push his luck in exchange for even indirect information.

  “You haven’t got his special knowledge.”

  “His … special knowledge?” Self-knowledge only just curbed Latimer’s instinctive reaction. In most areas he would back himself against Audley, but in all things American he had to admit that he lacked expertise. “And what sort of … special knowledge would that be?”

  The American laughed. “Don’t let it upset you—”

  “It doesn’t upset me.” He must have betrayed himself somehow. “I’m merely curious, that’s all.”

  “Of course. Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t mean … professional knowledge.” The brown hand waved away any temporary misunderstanding. “I meant … knowledge from way back, Latimer.”

  What the devil did that mean? Audley had the edge on him in years too, but that was hardly an advantage now; indeed, it was more of a disadvantage—even the fact that Audley could boast war-experience, brief though it was and in his extreme youth, only served to associate him with a generation which had had its day and was pensionable. And Colonel Butler with him, by God!

  “I meant history,” said Morris.

  “History?” Latimer echoed him stupidly, but couldn’t help himself. “The war, you mean?”

  “Huh! The war—dam’ right!” Morris only half-smiled, almost winced. “I mean … David’s a historian. He studied history at Cambridge—he writes history books.”

  Latimer frowned at him. The conversation had been verging on the opaque, but now it had become incoherent. “Medieval history books.”

  “History.” The American triumphantly lumped medieval and modern history together, the Normans in England in 1066, and the English in Normandy in 1944. “But you studied … English, was it?”

  “I read English.” Latimer knew that Morris was only pretending to guess. He would know where and when as well as what. And, most particularly, he would know under whom—that above all. “And then economics.”

  “So you wouldn’t be an authority on American history, exactly?”

  That displayed a target which was irresistible. “Is there such a thing?”

  Morris winced. “But American literature? Say … Stephen Crane—William Faulkner?”

  Latimer frowned, Stephen Crane was a most obscure novelist, who had written one allegedly good book, about the American Civil War, in which he had not taken part but which was reputed to be accurate nevertheless; and Faulkner’s prose was decidedly eccentric—very possibly because he had been three sheets in the wind when his fingers hit the typewriter keys.

  “Faulkner? Crane?”

  The last time he had seen a Faulkner novel had been on Colonel Butler’s desk—the desk he had aspired to sit behind and control, which was now Butler’s desk by appointment and promotion. So maybe there was more in both Faulkner and Butler than he had imagined.

  Faulkner and Crane—they sounded like Solicitors and Commissioners for Oaths—what had they in common, apart from fiction?

  “You know what I’m talking about?”

  “I think I do, yes.” Faulkner had written quite a few books, but most of them had been set in the same territory. And Crane, whatever he had written, was remembered for just that one book: the ignorant farm boy caught up in a war he didn’t understand—someone had made a film of it, long ago, in black-and-white, in which the fictionally-heroic farm boy had been played by an actually-heroic farm boy from the recent war, Audley’s war—that had been the gimmick. “Audie Murphy?”

  The CIA man regarded him curiously, frowning slightly. “Audie—?” His face cleared suddenly. “Yes, that’s right. He played the youth in The Red Badge—you’re right.”

  “The Youth”—that was right too: the farm boy hero had had no name. And … “the war”—when Morris had said “The war—damn right” he had worn an odd, almost apologetic, expression. And he was wearing the same expression now.

  “That is to say … I believe I have identified your war, Morris.” In his turn, Latimer frowned as he recalled their starting point. “Or Senator Cookridge’s war. But I can’t say I’m making any sense of it. I know more about cowboys and Indians, anyway
.”

  “But you do know something about the War between the States?”

  The War between the States? It took Latimer a second to translate that presumably-alternative description of the Senator’s war, with more than half his brain busy wrestling with a much more taxing conundrum: what the devil did the chairman of the new Atlantic Defence Committee have to do with the American Civil War that needed a senior CIA trouble-shooter as middleman?

  “You do know about the war?” The American was staring at him, more doubtful than apologetic now, evidently misreading the emotions of surprise and incomprehension he was observing.

  Or rather, not misreading, thought Latimer with a swirl of fear. Because, in all this laughable conjunction of accident and misunderstanding, there was one near-certainty and one absolute certainty.

  The near-certainty was that Howard Morris would on balance prefer not to damage his credibility with the Senator by producing an ignorant Englishman, whose knowledge of the Senator’s war was limited to Audie Murphy and a teenage reading of Gone With the Wind thirty years before. Better at such unreasonably short notice, to produce no Englishman at all.

  And the certainty—the absolute certainty—was that his own knowledge was in fact limited to … Audie Murphy and … and, at this remove in time, more to a youthful fixation on Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara than to any detailed memory of the course of the “War between the States”.

  But … by God, there was also one more certainty—

  “My dear Morris—” If there was one more certainty, it was that this was an entirely absorbing conundrum in itself; which, the more so—most of all so—he wasn’t going to pass up, because he had stolen it from Audley, right under the man’s nose, too! Because … to get in with the Americans would be damned useful. And whatever Audley could do, Oliver St John Latimer could do—and do better, by God! “My dear Morris—I’m actually something of an expert on it … in a small way, you know. It’s an interesting war.”

  All wars were interesting if that sort of thing turned you on, so that was a safe thing to say. And, although he mustn’t look at his watch to check the time, he had maybe a quarter of an hour to make himself an expert on it. And that was by no means beyond the bounds of possibility.

  “You are?” Morris sounded wisely uncertain about an accidental occurrence which was too good to be true and not in the Latimer file.

  “Yes.” The man mustn’t ask him a question to establish that claim, because the odds were hugely that he wouldn’t be able to answer it. It had occurred in the mid-19th century, but he couldn’t even date it accurately. So he needed to head off that possibility—

  Time was on his side: he could reasonably look at his watch—there was hardly time for questions now—

  Fourteen minutes. And time wasn’t really on his side—

  He looked around, vaguely. Time was running out.

  Books everywhere. Dry-smelling, dust-smelling … mostly books on sport and travel, rather than the American Civil War.

  Dry-smelling, dust-smelling—the dry dust-motes swimming in the still air of that faded room in the sunshine, viewed from the canyon between the high-backed chair and the bookshelves, all those years ago—

  Colonel Marmaduke St John’s Diary of the War in America, with its spine sun-bleached from blue to an indeterminate off-white, and the mottled-brown page-edges uncut, every other one—

  “Yes.” The memory of his Uncle’s library, in which he had spent so many childhood hours, came back to Latimer with crystal clarity now. “As a matter of fact, one of my St John ancestors fought in your civil war, Morris—Colonel Marmaduke St John. He even wrote a book about his adventures.”

  The American stared at him in surprise. “He wrote a book?”

  “Diary of the War in America.” Latimer nodded, but as he did so his confidence weakened. For the crystal memory of the library did not actually include that particular volume, he remembered: one glance at it had been enough, in fact.

  “I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Morris.

  Latimer nodded again. “Fascinating book.” It had certainly not been fascinating: with a mighty effort he conjured up the faded picture of Marmaduke himself from the frontispiece … the muttonchop whiskers, bald head and fixed blank stare into the Victorian camera. “He was a fine soldier, was Colonel St John.”

  Had he been? Another effort produced old Mutton-Chop’s framed commission, on the library wall to the right of the door—

  The Supreme Government of India

  To Marmaduke Henry Arthur St. John, Greeting.

  We, reposing especial Trust and Confidence in your Loyalty, Courage and Good Conduct, Do by these Presents constitute you to be and appoint you, Marmaduke Henry Arthur St John Esquire, to be a Lieutenant of Artillery in the Service of the East India Company in the Bengal Establishment—

  “Indian Army,” Latimer grasped the recollection like a drowning man. “A gunner … He fought on the Delhi Ridge during the Mutiny.” That was right: Aunt Muriel had included that fact in her own memories of India’s dreadful climate.

  “Which side did he fight on?” inquired Morris.

  Latimer frowned at him. “Ours, of course. He wasn’t an Indian Mutineer, Morris.”

  Morris waved an Indian-brown hand. “I mean, in our war? Was he for the Johnny Rebs … or for the Yankees?”

  “Ah … I see!” It was a question he could hardly fluff, as an expert … for no doubt there was a copy of Mutton-Chop’s book in the British Museum which Morris could easily check on, so he had to pick the right answer. “Which side … ?”

  Morris grinned. “Which side would an Englishman fight for?”

  Latimer looked at his watch. “What time did you say the Senator was coming here?”

  “I didn’t exactly.” Morris looked at his own watch for a moment, then at Latimer. “Yeah … okay, Latimer … I’ll give him his call, then.” He stood up, but then looked down at Latimer again. “Which side did he fight for?”

  Whose side would an English gentleman have fought for? wondered Latimer desperately—Scarlett O’Hara’s or Abraham Lincoln’s?

  Inspiration came like a flash of light—“Colonel Morris!” He mocked the CIA man with false outrage. “Which side would you expect an English gentleman to support? It is not a question which requires an answer!”

  Chapter Two

  Latimer in London: Temptation (continued)

  FAR AWAY IN the porter’s lodge at Oxford the phone was ringing.

  Latimer drew a piece of club notepaper from one of the Secretary’s pigeon-holes and began to rough out his letter.

  Dear Butler,

  Further to my acceptance of your offer—

  That, at least, would put Butler’s mind at rest, that he wasn’t going to renege on his decision. Poor old Butler hadn’t wanted the top job, for which he knew he was ill-suited. But duty was everything to him, and his own wishes and convenience and private life came nowhere in the reckoning.

  The phone answered him, and it was an under-porter on it.

  “Is Mr Bates there?”

  Butler was really rather admirable. However much they disliked each other, Latimer had to concede that. To have turned him down—as he had half-expected Latimer to do, since he always expected the worst—would have been rather like kicking the old dog that brought one’s slippers and newspaper all tattered and covered with revolting saliva, but nonetheless faithfully.

  —I think I’d like to take a few days’ leave, from the months owed to me, which I shall never get round to taking—

  “Bates? Oliver Latimer here. Is Dr Burge in college this evening?”

  It was a long shot. It was about as likely that Philip would be in Oxford in August, rather than in some more congenial foreign watering-hole, than that their common St John ancestors in the Indian Civil Service had remained in the sweltering plains during the hot season in preference for Simla. But there was just an outside chance that he might be putting the finishing touches to his book on Ang
lo-American relations in the twentieth century.

  “Dr Burge, sir?” Bates thought for a moment. “I’m afraid he’s not in college today.”

  “Or in Oxford?” Loyalty would animate anything Bates said, but he might allow for the blood-relationship.

  “I don’t believe he is up at the moment, sir,” admitted Bates cautiously.

  “No—of course.” The long shot lengthened towards infinity. “Is anyone else dining this evening? Dr. Franklin? Mr … er … Mr Smith? Or Dr Horam?”

  Silence descended as Bates consulted his records.

  —which I shall never get round to taking. Butler would not object to him taking a few days at this juncture; he had plainly thought the better of Latimer for taking the No. 2 job—the job which they both knew was dust and ashes in his mouth—without protest; he might even have assumed that Latimer also was bowing to the dictates of duty, as blind as the cruel pronouncements of justice. But he would expect an explanation, nevertheless. I need to take stock of the job—

  “No, sir.” Bates knew exactly who was dining on High Table, but he had allowed time for an unnecessary study of the absentees.

  Latimer crossed out I need to take stock of the job. It was a lie which belittled them both, and he might as well start with the truth.

  “There’s no one dining in tonight, sir.” Some ancient memory of the young Mr Oliver St John Latimer impelled Bates to honesty. No historians remained in the sweltering plains of Oxford in the hot season. And no chemists, or physicists, or biologists, or classicists, or anyone else. It was August, and Oxford was empty.

  “Thank you, Bates.” Perhaps it was surprising that Bates himself was there. But they probably didn’t pay him enough to be anywhere else—and there probably wasn’t anywhere else that he wanted to be, with the access he had to the cellars. Some things didn’t change.