But could he afford to? As he worked his way back up Independencia, he tried to put himself in von Schön’s shoes. Even if the American authorities would let him, there was no point in publishing the pictures in Veracruz, because the town was effectively cut off from the rest of Mexico. The capital was where they would do the most damage, but how could he get them there? He wouldn’t risk the mail, not with the Americans in charge at the post office. Someone would have to take them, and McColl couldn’t imagine von Schön trusting anyone else with the job.
The only way there was by train. One had left early on Thursday morning, steamed the six miles to the rail break, and returned with three hundred foreigners from Mexico City. It had been scheduled to collect another batch that morning, and he had no reason for thinking it hadn’t. But were the trains from the capital waiting for passengers traveling back? Who would be? Not foreigners, and he doubted that the Americans were allowing any locals to leave.
The two journalists still propping up the Diligencias bar agreed that this was unlikely, which eased his mind a little. The news that the last two trains had left long before daybreak had the opposite effect, and he’d more or less resolved to head for the station when a breathless Hugo rushed in from the plaza. “Señor Tubach has gone to the train, and I think it is leaving in a few minutes.”
As McColl ran the four blocks, slowing only once in a vain attempt to placate the stitch in his side, he cursed himself for not searching the station earlier. He’d passed it twice on his way to and from the Hotel Terminal, but nothing he’d seen or heard had suggested that anyone was inside, let alone preparing a train for departure.
The reason, as he now found out, was depressingly simple. The train—a locomotive and several coaches—was standing out beyond the platforms, another few hundred yards away. He forced himself into motion once more, stumbling across loose stones until he reached the flattened ground between the tracks. As if eager to thwart him, the loco released a huge plume of steam, which hung in the moonlit air until further, more purposeful blasts scattered it.
The train was beginning to move, and it was several despairing seconds before McColl realized, with a surge of hope, just how slowly it was actually traveling. He was still gaining, and as long as his legs held out, he could catch it.
It was a close thing. He must have run another quarter mile before his reaching fingers grasped the rail of the rear vestibule steps. After hauling himself aboard, he just stood there for a couple of minutes, gasping for breath as the tracks receded beneath him.
He told himself there was no hurry—at this speed the train would take the best part of an hour to travel six miles.
Once he had his breath back, he pulled out his pistol and opened the door to the rear carriage. There were no seats inside, just a couple of crates, on which two British sailors were sitting. The British, McColl remembered someone saying, had taken charge of at least one of the trains to the rail break.
The sailors were shocked to see him—or his pistol at least—and looked more than relieved when he put it away. “I work for a special department of the Admiralty,” he told them, more or less truthfully. “Who’s in charge of the train?”
“That’s a bone of contention,” one of them said. “The Yanks agreed to us having it tonight, but then they found out their ambassador is on the one we’re meeting, so then they wanted it back. Couldn’t bear the thought of him being met by the wrong flag.”
“So who’s in charge?” McColl asked again, with as much patience as he could muster.
“Captain Hogg-Smythe is our man, and theirs is a major, I think. We’re flying both flags, if they’re still stuck on. We had a devil of a job fixing them to the front of the engine.”
“Okay,” McColl said. “Could one of you go and fetch the captain for me? I need to talk to him, without any of the passengers seeing me.”
“There’s only one. The German bird-watcher, and he looks harmless enough.”
“Just do it,” McColl suggested.
“Okay, okay. Keep your hair on.”
The sailor was back in a couple of minutes with a tall, fair-haired young Englishman in a shining white uniform. He smiled at McColl, shook his hand, and asked him what the blazes he wanted.
McColl shepherded him down to the end of the car and explained the situation as briefly as he could. Rather to his surprise, Hogg-Smythe got it straightaway—he was clearly not as dumb as he looked. “So let’s go and get them,” he proposed.
“What about your American counterpart?”
“I can’t see he’ll have any objection. Quite the reverse. He’ll probably want to arrest the blighter. But let’s go and ask him—he’s two cars up. The bird-watcher fellow has a carriage to himself at the front.”
They walked forward and found the American major—his name was Matheson—dozing in his seat. He was also quick on the uptake and equally willing to confront von Schön. He’d been lucky with these two, McColl told himself as they walked on up to the front car. Through the windows the Mexican countryside looked flat and uninspiring, but as they crossed between cars, the moonlit mountains in the distance looked decidedly inviting.
Von Schön was sitting with his back to them and didn’t bother turning his head at the sound of approaching footsteps. The surprise in his eyes when McColl appeared in his line of sight quickly gave way to the wryest of smiles.
“Hello,” McColl said, sitting down in the opposite seat.
“Herr McColl. How unexpected.”
“Herr von Schön. If that’s your real name.”
“It is. We met on German soil, remember? No need for an alias there.”
“Of course. Well, we need to search your suitcase, I’m afraid. And to confiscate your camera.”
Von Schön nodded, as if expecting nothing less.
The camera was in the suitcase, the smallest camera McColl had ever seen. He put it in his pocket and went through the rest of the contents. There was one printed photograph, showing a small group of American soldiers, arms held triumphantly high, boots firmly planted on the backs of Mexican corpses.
“And your wallet,” McColl remembered in time.
The German handed it over.
There was nothing in it but Mexican money and the picture of von Schön’s wife and daughter that he’d produced in Tsingtau. The former could be used for bribes, but there seemed no point in confiscating the latter, so McColl returned it.
Von Schön glanced at the woman and child and handed the photograph back. “An actress and her niece,” he confessed. “I can’t even remember their names.”
The American major was growing impatient. “You’ll be coming back to Veracruz,” he told the German.
“You’re arresting me?” Von Schön asked. “For taking a few photographs?”
“Espionage is espionage,” Major Matheson insisted. “If my superiors think otherwise, you can catch tomorrow’s train.”
McColl turned to the American. “Could I have a private word?” he asked. “If the captain will look after our friend here.”
The two men went out onto the vestibule platform. “I think we should let him go,” McColl said without preamble. “Hear me out,” he added as the major began to protest. “You don’t want an open conflict with the Germans, not with the situation in Tampico the way that it is. And you don’t want to make a martyr of this particular German. If the Mexicans find out why he’s been arrested, you might as well publish the photographs—it’ll look like you’re punishing a German for siding with your victims.”
Matheson was not stupid. “I take your point,” he said after a few moments’ thought. “So what’ll we do with him?”
“Just let him go on to the capital. He can’t do much harm without the pictures.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“So do I. Let me go and talk to him.” McColl walked back in and asked Hogg-Smythe to join the major.
Von Schön was not exactly grateful for the offer. “And what if I prefer American
custody?” he asked.
“That’s no longer on the table,” McColl lied. “I managed to convince the major that arresting a German would be embarrassing after Tampico, so he’s given you to us. If you come back to Veracruz, you’ll be traveling home with me on a British warship.”
Von Schön gave him a look, uncertainty warring with disbelief.
“But I’d rather you didn’t,” McColl went on. “Not after you saved my life in San Francisco.”
“I’m beginning to regret that,” the German said, smiling as he did so. “But not really,” he added more seriously. “Dying for one’s country in war is one thing. Dying for one’s country in peace seems … I don’t know—disproportionate?”
“So you’ll take the train on?”
“I suppose I must. But I expect we’ll meet again.”
McColl offered his hand. “In happier times, perhaps.”
Von Schön took it and gave him a sad smile. “I doubt that.”
Ten minutes later McColl watched the German stride off past the hissing locomotive and up the empty track bed. It was a two-kilometer hike across the cactus-studded plain to where the rails resumed, but a beautiful night for a stroll. If McColl had known how to work the confiscated camera, he’d have taken a picture. As it was, he just raised a clenched fist to the starry heavens. He was, he had to admit, feeling pleased with himself.
He took the train again the next day and this time walked the gap himself. The Mexicans on the other side had refused to allow any Americans up the line, so the British had volunteered an officer named Tweedie to retrieve those foreigners still trapped in the capital, and McColl was along for the ride. The trip was punctuated by arguments with Mexican officers, but Tweedie, in true imperial style, had persuaded the first of these to lend him a train and all the others to let it through. Mexico City proved remarkably fraught, the locals far from friendly, but while Tweedie saw to business, gathering a horde of would-be refugees for the return trip, McColl warned the embassy to keep a watch on von Schön. On impulse he also dropped in at the central post office. Expecting a cold shoulder at best, and demands for his arrest at worst, he was pleasantly surprised to be handed a letter from Caitlin. He read it in a nearby park, surrounded by birdsong and pantomime whispers of “Gringo.”
She had written the letter not long after he left, but he was still astonished to receive it—civil wars were clearly less obstructive than he’d thought. Her new job was going well, but she missed him. She was glad he was in the capital and warned him against venturing anywhere near the Gulf Coast—“I fear my government is about to do something stupid in that neck of the woods.” She asked him to write back.
He did so, bookending a glibly concocted false history of the last few weeks with honest protestations of his feelings for her. It felt wrong, but what else could he do? He took the finished article back to the post office and was almost comforted by the look on the clerk’s face, which suggested that it would never reach her anyway.
The return journey proved equally eventful, with several hundred semihysterical refugees adding to the excitement. White people weren’t used to being hungry, scared, and in fear of their lives, McColl realized, particularly in a brown people’s country. It didn’t bring out the best in them.
But they all reached the safety of occupied Veracruz, where boats were waiting to carry them forward to mother- or fatherland. There was certainly no room for them in the occupied city, which seemed fuller than ever now that the US Navy had decanted another few thousand marines. The final snipers had been mopped up, but off-duty troops brimming with tequila were posing a new threat to life, limb, and a woman’s right to say no.
Three days after his return from Mexico City, a young Royal Naval officer arrived at McColl’s hotel-room door with fresh instructions from Cumming. He was to stay in Veracruz for the time being, keep an eye on the local Germans, and, if the Americans insisted on shooting themselves in the foot, try to limit the damage. Another visit to Tampico might be in order, but Cumming left that to McColl’s own discretion.
As far as he could tell from the bits and pieces of news that reached him, the battle for Tampico was coming to a climax, and before he ventured north, he thought he would wait until one side or the other was in undisputed control. Over the next couple of weeks, he did as Cumming had asked, but as far as he could tell, all the Germans still in Veracruz were genuine businessmen of one sort or another. More to the point, perhaps, the wider situation was growing less congenial for anyone intent on stirring up trouble. President Wilson was certainly responsible for the initial blunder of occupying Veracruz, but so far he had avoided making matters worse by sanctioning the march his generals wanted on the Mexican capital. Chile, Argentina, and Brazil had also soothed the relationship between the two nations by offering to mediate, and talks were under way at Niagara Falls between the Americans and Mexicans from both sides of the civil war. The war itself was clearly going against Huerta, so any German hope of using him against Washington seemed to be fading.
All in all, McColl felt his job was done, and there were only so many ways of filling an idle hour in an increasingly steamy Veracruz.
Toward the end of May, boredom got the better of him and he begged a ride up the coast on an American refugee ship. Tampico had fallen to the anti-Huerta forces almost a fortnight earlier, and the town, though sadly scarred by the fighting, was already settling back into its habitual torpor. McColl found no trace of German plots—in fact, over the past few weeks the German sailors and diplomats had worked closely with their British counterparts on behalf of all the white foreigners, and the hotel bars were full of Fritzes and Cecils toasting each other’s countries and wives. The oil was still flowing, albeit in slightly reduced volume, but even that didn’t matter any longer. According to a British oilman McColl met, their government had just asserted its control over several privately owned fields in the Persian Gulf. Mexico, it seemed, could safely be left to the Mexicans.
The very next day, a cable arrived from Cumming, summoning him back to London. A homebound warship would be stopping to collect him in a couple of days at the mouth of the Pánuco. If he could arrange his own trip downriver, it would be most appreciated.
Oakley Street
After Tampico and almost three weeks of ocean horizons, London seemed to whir with activity. Automobiles had been few and far between in Mexico, but as he stood on the pavement outside Embankment Station, it seemed clear to McColl that they were well on their way to inheriting the earth. The horse-drawn hansoms still jostling for space already looked out of place.
During his nine-month absence, the pace of innovation had shown no signs of slowing. On the train up from Portsmouth, a buffet attendant had told him that tea was now sold in small porous bags, for dipping in individual cups, and only a few minutes earlier he had been brought up from the new Hampstead Railway platforms on a moving metal staircase.
He walked under the South Eastern & Chatham Railway bridge and turned away from the sparkling river. The Service’s HQ had moved into 2 Whitehall Court in 1911, gaining more space and easier access to the nearby Admiralty. The building’s entrance was on the corner with Horse Guards Parade, the actual offices in Flat 54, up under the roof. McColl took the lift, reported in, and was shown straight through to Cumming’s spacious office, where nothing seemed to have changed. The large desk was covered in papers, the various shelves and side tables crammed with maps and charts; models of airplanes, submarines, and automobiles filled all the space that was left. The painting on the wall—of a Prussian firing squad executing French villagers in the War of 1870—had survived the move from the old HQ on Vauxhall Bridge Road.
Cumming seemed his usual self—friendly but brusque, or was it the other way round? His gray hair showed no sign of thinning, gray eyes no sign of dimming, and if he’d put on weight, no one could tell.
His first questions were also typical. How had the Maia behaved in tropical climes? Was a new model under development? What did
McColl think of the new De Dion–Bouton, with its electric ignition and water-cooled engine?
McColl answered the first question but regretfully pleaded ignorance regarding the other two. He had been away a long time, he reminded Cumming, and obviously had a lot of catching up to do.
The Service chief did his best to help, and McColl tried to look more interested than he actually felt. The two of them had met at a motor rally, and McColl suspected that his knowledge of automobiles ranked above linguistic skills in Cumming’s estimation of his talents.
They eventually got around to Mexico and the job McColl had done there. No actual praise was forthcoming, but his boss seemed satisfied. He had news of “that character von Schön,” who had last been sighted heading back across the Pacific. “I doubt we’ll see him for a while,” he announced, with the air of someone watching a foe limp off into the distance. “But I didn’t call you back to hand out plaudits,” he went on. “Kell’s people can’t seem to find your Irishman.”
McColl tried not to show how little he liked that news. “Tiernan?” he asked. “Didn’t he come back to Dublin?”
“They think so, but they’ve only got hearsay to go on. Either the picture they have is poor or he’s changed his appearance somehow, but no one has actually recognized the man. So Kell would like to borrow you for a few weeks.”
“In Dublin?”
“In Dublin’s fair city, as the song has it.”
“How long do they think Tiernan’s been back? What happened in New York after I left?”
“Not a great deal, I’m afraid. As far as we know, Tiernan and Rieber had no further contact before Tiernan took ship at the end of April. Rieber’s still in New York, so if Tiernan’s still plotting with the Germans, he must have a new contact.”
“What about Aidan Brady? And Colm Hanley?”
“Brady left New York with a ticket to Chicago, but he wasn’t on the train when it got there. We’ve no idea why, or where he went, but as Kensley said, at least he was headed in the right direction—away from us. Colm Hanley, on the other hand, left New York two weeks after Tiernan, jumped ship at Queenstown, and promptly disappeared. He’s presumably with Tiernan.”
Jack of Spies Page 28
