by Jan Needle
‘Quantity was Edward’s only trouble,’ responded Erica. ‘Sometimes I think he’s never going to stop.’
Bill stared at Jane, and Jane was laughing. Jesus Christ, a madhouse! But now, he was beginning to enjoy. Jane winked at him. It had been worth the candle, after all.
Later, they got onto Rudolf Hess, and Carrington became more foxy, although Bill did not at first detect it.
‘The whole thing is a myth, you know,’ he said. ‘A modern one. Haushofer described Hess as a motorised Parsifal, and he wasn’t meaning it to be insulting. The truth of the whole affair hardly matters in a way, it’s not important.’
‘Except to Hess,’ Jane put in. ‘The poor old prisoner of Spandau. I doubt if being Parsifal means much to him these days, motorised or not.’
Edward chuckled.
‘Aha, but is it Hess?’ he asked. ‘What do you think, young man? Just exactly which part of the myth do you suppose I can illuminate?’
Jane could see through Bill, the profundity of his ignorance. Her eyes were dancing. He avoided them, took a sip of port.
‘I think that he’s confused,’ she said, gently. ‘Maybe agents are more literal these days, Edward. Enough of myths, forget them for the moment.’
‘All right,’ said Carrington. ‘I’ll un-confuse you, first. Hess flew on May the tenth, 1941, from Augsburg, all agreed? He parachuted in at Floors Farm, near Eaglesham, south of Glasgow five or six hours later, at just after eleven in the evening. A Saturday. A farmhand called Davie Maclean found him hobbling about, and took him into his kitchen. The Home Guard came. The police. The Army. They took the man away to Maryhill and kept him overnight. He said his name was Alfred Horn. He also said he’d “popped across” to see “his friend” the Duke of Hamilton, to make peace between Germany and Britain. Any voices of dissent?’
Bill, although he’d known almost none of this, shook his head. Aunt Erica was peeling grapes.
‘Next day the Duke of Hamilton, who was Wing Commander the Duke of Hamilton, RAF Turnhouse, near Edinburgh, went to see the man, who told him he was Hitler’s deputy, and said they’d met in Germany, some years before. Hamilton was prepared to agree, although he didn’t recognize him, and he flew a Hurricane down to Northolt airport, near London. Then he drove to Ditchley Park, in Oxfordshire, where Churchill was weekending with some friends. Hamilton was a friend of his as well, and also of the King, which was lucky for our Rudolf, wasn’t it, such good connections!
‘Not so. For Churchill said words to the effect that he didn’t care who had just dropped in from the sky – Hess or Parsifal or God himself – he was going to watch a Marx Brothers film. A strange reaction, possibly, but then this tale is full of little oddities, isn’t it? The film the Great Man watched, for instance, was called Go West. And Frau Hess, back in Germany, was reading a book by the very same Wing Commander Hamilton the night her husband flew! It’s no wonder people worry at it, I’m afraid. Whatever, next morning – Monday – Hamilton and a Foreign Office German expert were sent north again to interview our man. The Foreign Office type was called Ivone Kirkpatrick, I knew him well.’ He inclined his head at Bill. ‘He was MI6. Don’t let any historian tell you otherwise.’
A mouth noise came from Erica. She was trying to speak, wincing with the effort.
‘They’re very competitive, historians. Like little boys.’
Her husband smiled.
‘Liars, all of us,’ he said. ‘But some are worse than others. Anyway, on this there’s no dispute. Hamilton and IAK interviewed him exhaustively, and reported back. It was Hess, they said, no doubt of it at all. He did a few days in a Scottish military hospital at Drymen, to recover from a minor back injury and twisted ankle, then came to London on the night sleeper. Then five days in the Tower until his new quarters were ready – which meant wired up for sound, in direct contravention of the international rules of warfare. We listened to him for about a year at Mytchett Place, a gloomy hole by all accounts, a nasty, damp house near Aldershot. He didn’t say much, not much useful, that is – just generalized nonsense about how we and the Germans were natural friends, not enemies, and should join up to crush the Reds. He still wanted to see Hamilton and the King, which was ridiculous, and also high-ups in the government apart from Churchill, whom he didn’t trust. And he claimed we were trying to poison him or drive him mad, or both. He got to see a couple of high-ups in the end, Lord Simon, then Beaverbrook, to show the Cabinet took him seriously; but it was all a blind. After a year or so he was quietly shipped off to Maindiff Court, South Wales. An ex-mental hospital, another little irony. Officially, Hess was always sane.’
‘Of course.’ Erica’s face was working. Indignation. ‘If he’d been mad, we would have had to send him back. Geneva Convention. Bah!’
Edward made a gesture with his glass.
‘Erica thinks such things important. We didn’t bother then, except for rhetoric. Enemies break the rules, one’s own side never. Lord Simon actually shouted at Hess for daring to suggest his quarters might be bugged, although he knew they were. He called it a Nazi slur on British honour. That’s the way it went.’
‘Bah!’
Carrington got up and went to stand beside his wife. She began to rise, with him helping her.
‘Come on, old girl. Let’s go and have some coffee in the sitting room. Bill, Jane?’
Aunt Erica, settled, soon regained composure. She had paled slightly, was visibly tired. The clock on the wall, a handsome, round-faced clock, showed 9.20. The alcohol was warm in Bill, and Edward poured more port. They took deep armchairs, stretched out their legs. The silent men brought coffee, which Jane elected to dispense so that they might leave.
‘So there you have it,’ Edward said. ‘The facts, the basic myth. Our Parsifal, a weird, misguided man, a hypochondriac, a believer in astrology and destiny, takes it into his head to fly to England one early summer day and sue for peace. Unfortunately, the story goes, he omits to clear this with his Führer, who really is insane, and seems to think that Churchill, our great hero, is not the man to talk to on the subject because he’s in reality a warmonger! Instead of getting to see the King, though, he gets to see the inside of the Tower, is adjudged a wittering idiot, and drops out of sight. We’re so confused by the whole affair that we don’t even announce he’s come, until the Germans say on their radio that the Deputy Führer’s had some sort of mental breakdown and disappeared by plane, they know not where. We make some ham-fisted, and belated, propaganda points which leave Goebbels gasping with delight at our ineptitude, and get our heads down. Ever after, the tale goes on, the man’s a war criminal, useless but quite sane, whom we are keeping in safe custody until he can come to trial. When he’s incarcerated at Spandau we make noises of compassion from time to time, along with France and America, but the Russians insist that Number Seven remains a prisoner for life, even after his six companion criminals have either died or been let out. Miserable swine these Russkis, don’t you know? Inhuman.’
He stopped. He removed his spectacles and touched his eyes with a white handkerchief. Bill cleared his throat.
‘And is that tale the true one, do you think? I mean… Well, it’s nothing, is it? Sad, but meaningless. You call it myth. But is it true, in fact?’
The spectacles remained in Edward’s hand. The eyes turned inwards on themselves. In the pause there was the ticking of the handsome clock, a sucking noise from Aunt Erica’s crippled mouth.
‘What a question to ask an historian,’ he said, at last. ‘Of course it’s true, as far as it goes. But how far does it go? Yes, Hess flew on Saturday, tenth of May. It was the night of the heaviest German air raid of the war. Coincidence? And after it, the raids virtually ceased, there was not another massive one, not ever. Coincidence? Hamilton and Hess did not know each other, we’re told, but they shared certain odd interests and achievements, not least the fact that Hamilton was the first man to fly over Everest, and Hess the winner of mountain air races in Germany. Coincidence? Also, Hess f
lew to Scotland in an unarmed aeroplane, its cannons packed with factory grease. Scotland, as you can imagine, was swarming with fighter planes, but none of them was scrambled to pursue him, although that was later denied and the records changed. By whom? Hamilton. Why Hamilton? Because he was in command of fighter cover for Scotland that night. The very man that Hess set out to see. Coincidence? Good God, I should say so!’
He put his glasses back on with a rapid movement, grinning like a schoolboy. He still had all his hair, although it was severely short and almost silver. His face was alive, attractive, amused.
‘D’you know,’ he said, ‘the thing I love most about history is that it’s all baloney. Lies, myths, romance. The arrogance of the human being, to think we can reconstruct what’s gone before! Henry Ford said history is bunk. Or was it actually junk, or bunkum, or the bunkum or the bunk? You read letters in the Guardian from time to time arguing it out, with everybody claiming that their version is right. They miss the point, the only point. Henry Ford made a pronouncement about history, and even that has gone astray. The arguments themselves are actually the history, the actual thing is lost, the point is nobody can ever know for sure again. There had to be a counter-myth around poor Hess. It was inevitable.’
Jane, now that she knew how little Bill knew, helped him out. ‘But some elements in the counter-myth are pretty powerful, aren’t they, Edward? The fact that Hess was Hitler’s deputy – but the man who landed in Scotland knew nothing about German policy? The fact that Hess was a non-smoker and the man who landed had a cigarette? The fact that Hess was more or less teetotal and the man who landed slurped whisky whenever he was given half a chance? Which’ – she smiled at Bill – ‘was far more often than you would have expected for a prisoner of war. The fact he ate his food like a peasant, and was a boor, and a fool and an oaf, according to his captors? I know what you’ll say, you’ll say circumstantial evidence. But what about the bullet wounds?’ She turned back to Wiley. ‘Rudolf Hess was shot through the lung in 1917. He was an infantryman. He was in hospital for nearly four months, at a time when if you could stand you were fit to fight, you had to be. He never fought again, in fact. He got fit enough, finally, to train to fly a plane, but the war ended before he saw action. The man in Spandau has no bullet wounds. No scars, in or out. That’s a fact.’
Edward snickered.
‘Not according to the government it isn’t. The best and highest in the land say the scars are there. Not that anybody’s ever been allowed to look. We must believe our government.’
‘And who briefs the government? Who tells the ministers what to say?’
‘Ask Bill,’ said Edward. ‘You know the answer to that one, don’t you, Bill? The secret services. The old firm. Your firm.’ To Jane, down his nose: ‘You’re not suggesting they’d tell lies! Good gracious!’
‘Hang about,’ said Bill. He was conscious that his level of urbanity had slipped, so tried again. ‘I mean, sorry Edward, but what are you suggesting? That it’s not a myth? I mean – you think it really isn’t Hess in there? It’s a ringer? A double?’
‘Not at all,’ said Edward. ‘If it was a double, he would indeed be mad. He’s been in prison since 1941, one way and another. That’s forty-six years. If it wasn’t Rudolf Hess, don’t you think he might have mentioned it by now? Or do you imagine a life of contemplation was what Alfred Horn was seeking when he flew across the sea to Scotland? It’s completely ludicrous. Doctors make mistakes. Medical records get falsified, or confused. Maybe young Infantryman Hess was just a coward, bribed the medicos or something. Good lord, if there was a cover-up, it would be a monumental blot on Churchill’s name for a start-off, but even Irving says it’s Hess, no doubt in the world, have you seen his new book, Jane? Very, very fine. And David Irving’s the most anti-Churchill of us all. He refuses to recognize the sainthood of the Blessed Winston! Whippersnapper!’
The eyes were gleaming, he was delighted with himself. A peculiar snorting emanated from Aunt Erica. Her hand was raised, she was struggling to speak.
‘Churchill. Churchill. Churchill.’ Her jaw worked, she had to catch a run of spittle in her handkerchief. Her eyes, blazing in her crumpled face, sought Bill’s. ‘He knows,’ she said. ‘Don’t let him fool you, Bill, he knows. There are three people left alive who know the truth, possibly, and he’s one of them. Don’t let him fool you.’
Jane moved quickly to the old woman’s side. Her hands were trembling violently, her coffee cup had slewed sideways in its saucer. Jane put an arm about the thin shoulders, held her gently. Bill turned away, embarrassed. Edward was watching him.
‘She doesn’t like Winston,’ he said, conversationally. ‘She never did. She was an Attlee man, Red Erica we used to call her. Attlee, with a bit of time for Uncle Joe. To be fair, that was before we knew the facts, exactly. She went off Stalin, in the end.’
‘And do you know? The true story?’
Edward tapped his nose.
‘You’re doing it again, Bill. “The true story.” Do you know the Goering quote, you must do, everybody does. Goering is supposed to have said “When I hear the word culture I reach for my revolver” – and this from a man who loved fine art and artefacts, who cared for them so much that he looted them shamelessly in fact, from everywhere he could. What he actually said – I believe! – was “When I hear the word culture I reach for my Browning.” A sly reference to Robert, possibly? Which makes it, characteristically, a complex and rather brilliant joke, a paradox. It doesn’t suit the British view of him, however, does it? So it was changed. Yes, maybe I do know what happened to Rudolf Hess, as well as anybody left alive. But am I right, and if I told you, would I tell the truth? I might have axes to grind, reputations to destroy, my own myths to foster or engender. Why should you believe me? The official myth is right, it’s good enough for me, it’s stood the test of time. Hess flew in 1941 and he’ll die in Spandau, soon. How old is he? Ninety-three? It can’t be very long now, can it?’
Bill said: ‘If it is the real Hess, can you think of any reason why anyone should want to murder him?’
‘What?’
Erica and Jane turned to him, too. Erica’s jaw was in one thin hand.
‘That’s what I’ve heard,’ he said. ‘In fact, they wanted me to go along.’
It was Bill’s last throw. It had occurred to him that for all his apparent frankness, Carrington had told him very little. Jane had warned him that he might learn nothing that he did not already know, but his ignorance had blinded him into imagining he’d heard great revelations. Jane could have told him all these things, he realized, but there was more, much more. Unfortunately, Edward did not seem shaken.
‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘How very interesting. How fascinating.’
‘Uncle!’ Jane was shocked. ‘It’s appalling. Bill? It’s not true, is it?’
He smiled a slightly crooked smile at her.
‘I knew I never should have told the truth. We have to do some very nasty things.’
‘All for your country,’ said Aunt Erica. She made the funny noise, the laugh.
‘But I refused,’ said Bill. At least, he thought, I was revolted. I didn’t say I would. That’s the closest to the truth available. ‘I wanted to find out why it was dreamed up, if possible. It seemed weird to me. Demented.’
Edward was nodding to himself, his glasses in his hand. ‘Extraordinary,’ he said. ‘Most extraordinary. So many, many mysteries.’
But he would not talk of them. Not any more. History, he repeated infuriatingly, was merely junk. The truth was otherwhere.
Twelve
Veronica Burnett tracked Bill down at last well after three o’clock next morning. He was in bed, but not asleep. The news she gave to him was frightening, and her voice was hoarse with tiredness, and fighting with her husband, and persuading a most reluctant Colin Smart to give the number. Within fifteen minutes, Bill was in the BMW, heading out of Oxford, heading for Whitehaven on the coast of Cumbria. He had be
en in bed with Jane.
The dinner party at Edward’s rooms had broken up not long after Bill had said his piece, not precisely in confusion but less smoothly than everybody might have wished. Aunt Erica had become quite animated, and had spoken volubly despite her clicking, painful jaw. She had apparently been taunting Edward, challenging him to tell them things, and Bill had heard a word he took to be ‘honours’ or ‘honoured’ several times. Her husband had snapped at her, genuinely peeved, and flapped his hands and told her she should go to bed. Jane had calmed things down, warned Bill off further speech, and manoeuvred them into the lobby. Then kisses all round, and handshakes, and they had gone into the warm night, down ancient creaking stairs and across a quiet quadrangle lit mainly by the spill from students’ windows. They had walked for some moments in silence.
‘So,’ said Jane. ‘You’re a murderer. An assassin. I feel a bit like Lady Macbeth.’
Bill felt obscurely hurt, although he had expected something. He had half expected Jane to refuse to walk with him.
‘I have killed men,’ he said. ‘But I’ve never killed anyone I wasn’t convinced deserved it.’ He heard her sharp intake of breath. ‘Men who blow up little kids,’ he said. ‘And women and old people and each other and anyone who might walk by. I’m not ashamed of that, Jane, whether they’re monsters or misguided. Someone has to kill the cowards, or they make cowards of us all.’
She walked for many steps without replying. Oxford was quiet, although it was not very late. Their way was through peaceful roads.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘I can handle that. Even the way Shakespeare’s muscled in. I was going to ask if you believed they had a cause, a justification, but it doesn’t really matter, here and now. I suppose no one has a right to blow up little children. Not even by mistake.’
Bill Wiley had killed people by mistake, although he did not think little children. The State, he now believed, claimed the right to kill anybody. He said neither of these things.
