Twenty Five Million Ghosts

by Steve Aitchsmith

  I rolled into London at the height of the morning rush hour. That’s a misnomer, long lines of vehicles spewing poison and moving at less than walking speed, that’s hardly rushing. The traffic started to build while I was still on the motorway. Unless there’s an accident or spillage or something, the long lines of vehicles tend to keep moving. Not smoothly, any number of inexplicable sudden little jams build up and then release into fast traffic again, all for no apparent reason.

  London itself is a different proposition. The entire world seems to be heading for the centre. Stop, start, stop, start, stop, stop, stop, start, stall. Great stuff, constant gear changing, clutching and braking. I hadn’t experienced this for years. It always made me wish I had a vehicle with automatic transmission. For some reason I always bought manual transmissions the same as nearly everyone else. Being fairly big and needing plenty of space, I usually keep big cars. The ten year old Defender that I currently own coped well but was not exactly a luxurious ride. I swung the big green four by four through the rear gates to St. Joseph’s, the lone security bod just waved me in. I made my way to the reception area.

  The middle aged matronly looking lady at the desk checked a list. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. “Please go up to the ward. Somebody will meet you there.”

  The children’s complex leaked the sounds of morning as I passed it. Tired voices chattered and crockery clinked and chinked. This morning I did not feel the usual stab of anger and powerlessness. The switch was on, I was emotionally armoured today. At the door to the geriatric ward there waited the same young nurse who had told me off last time.

  She had the most engaging smile and presence. Slim, well shaped, about five seven and just lovely. Get a grip, you embarrassment, I said to myself. She must have been in her mid-twenties, I guess.

  “Please come with me,” she said and led on. We walked about twenty metres further down the corridor, me trying not to stare at her backside wiggling through her white dress, then she opened and held a door so I could enter. I twisted a bit to get past her without any physical contact. This girl was stunning and probably used to the glances of guys who are too old but refuse to admit it. I thanked her, smiled, silently apologised for my objectification of her and she left. I hope that her good looks aren’t a disadvantage in her career. She seemed confident enough to cope.

  My dad and Dave were in the room. Dad was seated on one of several red plastic chairs lining the walls. Dave stood just to the side of him.

  “She’s nice, isn’t she?” said my dad. Oh yeah, I thought, I’m sure she dreams about an aggressive nonagenarian like you sweeping her off her feet with his walking stick and whisking her away with his bus pass. Dave came over and warmly shook my hand. He led me to a chair, where I sat.

  Nobody, as far as I’m aware, really knows Dave’s life history. I suspect military and possible special forces of some kind, I’ve met enough of them to recognise the type. He stood in front of us as if he was about to deliver a debriefing. In a way he was, the debriefing at the end of my mum’s life. My dad’s rheumy old eyes were full. Occasionally a tear slid and zig zagged its way down his age lined face. I patted his arm.

  “Ed,” he said. My dad seemed to sit up straight at the mention of his name. “Ed, you did the right thing in arranging funeral services before the end. That ball is rolling and Jay will deal with everything.” Jay, it transpired, was the undertaker, funeral director as he preferred, that held the contract for services my dad had paid for in advance. They were always ready for the worst, my mum and dad. It was probably the war experience that made them both stoical and practical about these things. I inherited it from them but, in me, it’s a learned response, they lived it and were nurtured into it by life. As Dave said, our influence goes on forever.

  “Funny,” said my dad, “I’m thinking about Albert and Findlay, not Marge.” Findlay was another of my dad’s brothers. He had six in total and four sisters. My grandad and grandma on that side seemed to churn them out endlessly. Dave, being Catholic, was probably used to big families but it’s unusual in Anglicans. It gave my dad’s early life a lot of personal and economic security, there were ten or more good incomes going into his house just off Cable Street. Most of his brothers got involved in the famous riot and one of Findlay’s boasts was that he ‘smacked’ a Blackshirt. My dad was too young and his dad wouldn’t let him go. Then, after grandad hypocritically went to join in, dad’s mum made him stay in the house.

  Dad had sometimes mentioned Findlay before. He was responsible for the Polish cousins I’ve never met and wouldn’t even know if I did. He was quite a lad, Findlay. He died in the Korean war after doing the usual family thing of joining in when he didn’t need to. Too many wars. One too many for Findlay.

  ***

  Findlay’s Wars

  In 1907 Findlay William Aitchsmith was delivered into this world at the hands of a severe, rude, self opinionated Irish nun who also happened to be a qualified midwife and whose abrasive character hid an intense love for humanity.

  St Joseph’s hospital, maternity section, stood separate from the hospice building where many people spent their final opiate soaked days. The nuns prayed earnestly for their souls. Those who were not Roman Catholic and declined the offer of conversion were bluntly told they would go to the hellfire such intransigence invites. The nuns prayed for them anyway.

  Findlay’s parents were neither Catholic nor stupid. They gratefully accepted the medical skill, especially since it was free, and simply ignored the evangelism. They did not attend any church and considered themselves Church of England only so that they could complete the relevant line on forms and official documents.

  Findlay was seven years old when his dad went away to war. He returned five years later with a couple of new scars and damaged lungs. He had inhaled a small amount of mustard gas during the Battle of the Somme and now suffered from reduced stamina. He hadn’t been a front-line fighter, his role had been as artillery spotter; he would lay up in some forward hole and identify shell landings. From that he would do the math and use a field telephone, when it worked, to advise new elevations for the big guns.

  He was quick with mental math and good with advanced calculations. He fought his war with a slide rule and log tables, his math killed more Germans than any gun. He had two infantry soldiers attached to him. They could protect him from snipers, spotters were a prime target, and also act as runners or wire fixers when the telephones broke.

  He returned fit enough to work and continue to father children, he considered himself fortunate. It was clear to the now twelve-year-old Findlay that his dad was different. He’d become quieter, less playful and often wanted to be alone. Findlay didn’t mind too much, his dad still hugged him, sometimes his dad wept a little as he hugged him and that frightened Findlay a bit.

  When his father died in 1942 Findlay and his adult brothers were unable to attend due to military deployments. His sisters, his mother and young Ed provided a family presence as the man was hurriedly buried in the basement of a bombed out building. Later, Findlay was unable to confirm whether his dad had been properly reinterred in a more appropriate location. He may remain beneath whatever building finally ended up on the site or he may be in the City of London cemetery mass war grave.

  Findlay was the brainy one. He was most unusual for the area in his likes and interests. He was an East End boy and could fight as well as any of them. He preferred not to, his special pleasure was poetry, writing and history but was good at every other subject as well. He believed that practical skills were as essential as academic success and taught himself joinery from books. His skill with window frames was in great demand from his relatives and neighbours.

  He won himself a place at the grammar school where he comfortably achieved a school certificate at such a high grade he was accepted by Edinburgh University.

  His dad was pleased he would study in Scotland, he
felt it was appropriate given the family history included Scottish origins. Even better, the university fees would be paid through a bursary fund set up by a unified Scots/English Quaker educational trust. Its noble objective was to provide working class boys with an education commensurate with their ability.

  Findlay did once suggest that it would be even more noble if it considered including girls as well. Findlay was slightly belligerent that way, not that it prevented him from taking the charity. He graduated with a first in History and Philosophy. To fill his spare time, he learned German, French and Russian. He planned to learn Japanese if he ever found the time.

  After university he found work with the civil service. If he had any career plans they were not transparent, not even to him. He liked the idea of advancement but intended to learn his job first and worry about that later.

  In the early thirties he was taken from his role assisting Government ministers and moved to the war office. There he was instructed to meet with a person he should only ever refer to as ‘Leader’.

  “Without knowing your name I’m not comfortable and I don’t really like referring to you as Leader, it feels like I’m in some way surrendering my thinking to your whim.” Findlay spoke from a luxurious leather armchair in the Athenaeum club. Opposite him in a similar chair sat Leader. They both held brandy glasses although Findlay drank none of his.

  “Good,” said Leader. He was no longer young, maybe in his mid-sixties or perhaps just a good living late fifties, it was hard to tell. Overweight and with a clear lack of anything resembling exercise, he’d be lucky to last another ten years.

  “Good?”

  “Not your discomfort, that is not the intention,” Leader sipped his brandy. “It is good that you are not intimidated and speak your mind. I believe our choice is correct.”

  “I intend no disrespect, sir,” said Findlay. “I am here because I was ordered to be here. I do not know what you want nor why you want it. I will not cooperate fully without full information, I am prepared to listen but I am confused and not a little concerned. I am content that there is some level of legitimacy behind whatever this is but I will not blindly agree or consent to anything without sufficient information. If this means I fail some kind of interview then I’m sorry, thank you for the brandy and with your permission I’ll return to my duties.”

  “Excellent,” responded Leader. “Failed? No, not failed. Passed with flying colours perhaps. I should not give you my name and you don’t need it. I am the managing director of what we call the secret service, special operations, spook group, intelligence service, clever buggers club. We are the Secret Service Bureaux.”

  “I don’t know,” responded Findlay immediately. “I thought it was something like this and I’m not sure. I think that since I’m not sure my answer must be a polite no. I’m not really interested in intelligence work and I have no real interest in politics other than in how it impacts on my life.”

  Leader looked thoughtful for few seconds. “I understand,” he said. “You know, you remind me of a young man I met many years ago. He was of humble origins and as sharp and bright as a pin. Like you, he was his own man with a strength of character that dared challenge the limitations of his birth. I didn’t care for him but that was for personal reasons. As a man he was like you; a gem, brave, resourceful and intelligent. You’d be perfect for the work, it’s not what you think it is, there’s very little danger and even less fun. We apply intelligence and analysis to information. You’d be perfect.”

  “Nonetheless, intelligence work is really not my cup of tea. I like analysis but prefer it to yield concrete results in the real world. I really dislike the idea of just collecting and collating information in order to try to second guess world leaders and events.” Findlay thought this might end the matter.

  “Your pay will double and you will still earn the civil service pension. You will be free to give it up at any time without penalty, except we’d expect your future silence of course,” said Leader. “The work will exploit your language skills and knowledge of history and its implications. It will be varied and you will have a high degree of autonomy, we’ve found that’s best.”

  “May I think about it?” Findlay asked.

  “Take my card. It’ll give you my name, the first time I’ve ever given it to anybody, but remember that this conversation never took place.”

  Jonathon Metcalfe, Lord Sedgwick, MBE. So Findlay knew the name. That meant nothing, of course, but to him it indicated that he might be able to work with these people. Two weeks later he phoned the number on the card and said he’d take the post, if it was still on offer. That’s how Findlay came to work for the intelligence services.

  Findlay took to the work. His brief was foreign regimes, he was not required to consider home grown problems such as Mosley and his ilk. He studied the rise of Franco, Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler. It was fascinating to him. For the next few years he built huge dossiers on these people and was a frequent visitor to Germany, Italy and Russia. Not Spain, though. Franco had declared that he would kill any spies he found in Spain and that meant only the special operations people sent anybody there, Findlay was always transparent and obvious in his visits. He was an analyst, his role was to interpret and extrapolate into imagined potential future actions, not to sneak or fight. His work was best done with open discourse between him and his targets and access to less open information obtained by somebody else.

  Findlay did not settle down in life. He had a few girlfriends but showed no indication of marrying.

  “Do you know this?” He once asked one of them, a teaching fellow from one of the Oxford colleges, “Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and Stalin all basically believe the same thing. They are all worker focussed, accept wholly or in part the arguments of Marx and see the dictatorial rule of the working classes as a natural progression, as long as they lead it. The only thing they differ on is that Stalin believes it is an international thing and the others believe it is nationalist only and threatened by the internationalists. They even all use Jews as scapegoats, although Hitler seems to actually believe it. For the others it’s a useful explanatory shorthand, it saves their supporters from having to think things out.”

  The inevitability of war became clear to the intelligence services before anybody else, except that interfering though surprisingly prescient old bugger, Churchill. It came to Findlay’s notice that the troublesome, though somewhat admirable, Churchill was receiving information from somebody in the civil service. It was the only way the man could know some of the things he talked about. This was not Findlay’s area and he simply passed his suspicions on to the relevant section by way of memo.

  The creation of the Soviet/German non-aggression pact preceded and enabled the German invasion of Poland. The Russians took the opportunity to steal some Polish land from the other border. A matter of weeks later Britain declared war on Germany.

  This coincided with the death of Lord Sedgwick. Sedgwick died in the bath from a heart attack after too many brandies and a rich meal. Findlay was part of the team that was sent to search his property to remove anything that might be relevant to the service, either benefiting or embarrassing it.

  Findlay did find some medical papers that indicated the late Peer was early stage syphilitic. He destroyed them, he saw no reason to impugn the man’s memory. He was admonished by his section head for the act. There was no other action taken because it was felt he erred out of loyalty to the individual rather than malice. He was informed the section already knew the medical condition of Lord Sedgwick since he had advised them.

  Findlay and the section settled down to collect and analyse information from the war. Bletchley Park had been activated and Findlay thought about applying to be posted there. After some thought he decided his language and other skills would better serve the London office, Bletchley was really a mathematician’s game.

  The war started with
a period of quiet inaction by both sides. Many people hoped that it would fade away, nobody wanted a return to trench stalemate. Findlay and his section knew better, their analysis was that Germany would do something unexpected to avoid entrenchment. They didn’t know what because German sources were disappearing fast and the Nazis knew how to play their cards close to their chest.

  When things did start to happen they happened fast. The stunning blitzkrieg smashed into Western Europe. France and Britain reeled and gave way to the swift, modern, ruthless armoured military brilliance that was thrown against them. Lovely, brave, beautiful, passionate France fell quickly. It was not for want of determination or courage, nobody could stand against the spectacularly proficient new German war machine which was without precedence or apparent weakness.

  For their part the British fell back to Dunkirk to undertake the undignified and panicky scramble to reach home.

  “If they keep pushing and come after us immediately then it’s all over, we can’t stop them.” This was Findlay’s depressing statement to the review group, nobody contradicted him.

  Afraid of entrenchment, the Germans hesitated at the British fortified position in the channel port. Their uncharacteristic lack of resolve permitted Britain to rescue its forces and regroup in England.