Winston's Spy

by Robert Webber

  Charles just clapped Alex heavily on the back, and said, ‘Well done, old boy, well done! You are finally one of us; well, one of them, at least!’

  Alex was bewildered by his rapid rise to gaining a commission; he knew nothing of being a commissioned officer, had only received basic training in military discipline and had no idea what it meant to be an officer, so he raised this uncertainty with Colonel Swann.

  ‘Not to worry, my boy,’ said the colonel, ‘we don’t much stand on ceremony in this department; too much of a military outlook on life can compromise the safety and security of our operatives. It’s far better that they appear not to be too military, and much better if they appear civilian. But if you want paying, then we have to create an identity for you, so you get a commission, and an officer’s salary and perks – which is so much more civilised.’

  *

  Early that Saturday afternoon, in the middle of August 1939, saw Alex and Charles preparing to leave the Grange on leave. Alex had half-expected to drive to either Lymington or Brockenhurst railway station in one of the drab Austin cars attached to the establishment. He was slightly astonished when, lugging his suitcase into which he had packed his new uniform carefully, he walked out of the main doors of the Grange and saw Charles heaving an equally large bag into the rear seat area of a Lagonda motorcar.

  ‘Yours?’ enquired Alex.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Charles, ‘rather natty, what?’

  Alex hoisted his suitcase into the back of the car.

  Charles commented, ‘Well, if we pick up any popsies along the way, it will be rather a squeeze!’

  Alex and Charles jumped into the passenger’s and driver’s seats, respectively.

  Charles fired up the engine, then announced, ‘Hang onto your hat!’ before letting out the clutch and spraying gravel as the car lurched towards the gate.

  The corporal who was on guard duty only just managed to get the gate barrier raised before Charles’s Lagonda hurtled through and turned left onto the Lymington road.

  ‘If we are not held up by traffic, we should be home in time for tea,’ estimated Charles. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but the captain suggested that you stay with me when we are in London, though I am so looking forward to meeting your family while we are in town.’

  VII

  Naturally, Alex was a little disappointed with his leave’s living arrangements. He had hoped to stay in Chelsea with his mother, but any fears he may have harboured about his accommodation soon dissolved when Charles pulled up in front of a large and imposing house in Ennismore Gardens, which was one of those quintessential London squares, just south of Hyde Park, in fashionable Knightsbridge.

  Again, Alex enquired, ‘Yours?’

  ‘Hardly,’ answered Charles, ‘it’s the family pied-à-terre for when we must be in town, but Mother and Father far prefer Scotland at this time of year.’ Charles noticed Alex’s questioning look. ‘For the grouse, dear boy, the Glorious Twelfth and all that, so I doubt we shall be disturbed; not unless Beattie has ducked the pleasures of murdering defenceless wildlife north of the border, and stayed in town.’

  ‘Beattie?’ enquired Alex.

  ‘Beatrice, my younger sister,’ explained Charles, ‘She works hard at trying to do as little as possible, but she is one of the most popular gels in the capital!’

  ‘She probably knows Toby Palmer then!’ suggested Alex.

  ‘Who?’ enquired Charles.

  ‘Toby Palmer, the chap at whose farewell bash I got sozzled before he joined the fly boys, and without whom I would probably not be sitting here right now!’ commented Alex thoughtfully.

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on that, old boy,’ remarked Charles enigmatically, ‘Your card was marked a long time ago!’

  Before they had extricated both themselves and their luggage from the Lagonda, the front door opened, and an elderly butler, flanked by two other servants, came down to greet them.

  ‘Mr Charles and your friend,’ the butler acknowledged Alex, ‘you have made good time, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Ross,’ stated Charles, ‘this is Mr Carlton, who will be staying for a while. Is anyone else at home?’

  ‘Only Miss Beatrice, milord, but she is out this evening.’

  The “milord” was an unexpected twist for Alex, and he realised how little he knew of Charles.

  The servants each took a bag into the house.

  In the moment before he and Charles followed, Alex took the opportunity to enquire, ‘My lord?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Charles, ‘it’s a minor title bestowed on the eldest son of an earl. It’s a bit of a bugger, really, and I seldom use it – the damn thing creates expectations that I sometimes find difficult to live up to, but Ross does rather like his little formalities!’

  Charles and Alex entered the marbled hallway of Charles’s London home to find Ross awaiting their arrival.

  ‘I thought Mr Carlton would appreciate the Persian bedroom, sir, it being on the second floor and away from Miss Beatrice’s room, so that she would not disturb him should she come home in the wee small hours,’ explained Ross.

  ‘Very thoughtful,’ agreed Charles, ‘Will you tell Mrs Dawkins that we are both parched after our drive up, and we would be pleased to take tea in half an hour; we shall not be eating in tonight.’

  ‘Very good, milord,’ Ross acknowledged.

  ‘Oh, and Ross, may we cut the formalities while Mr Carlton is here?’

  ‘Very good, milord,’ replied Ross.

  Charles smiled at Alex and shrugged his shoulders in hopeless resignation.

  Charles showed Alex to the Persian bedroom, and he was rendered speechless by the sheer beauty and tastefulness of the furnishings, all inspired by the splendour of Persia.

  ‘I’m four doors down, on the left in the corner,’ Charles said, ‘but it’s only the guest rooms that are well furnished and named; the family rooms are actually quite squalid!’

  ‘How many guest rooms do you have?’ questioned Alex.

  ‘Four,’ replied Charles, ‘There’s the Persian, which is the largest; the Japanese, which is next door but one; the Scottish; and the Indian, which are both down towards the back of the house. In point of fact, the Indian was going to be the Russian, but it was last decorated after 1917 when it was considered inappropriate, given the fate of the tsar.’

  ‘I am not complaining. My room is delightful!’ said Alex, ‘And I shall just go and have a wash to spruce myself up before tea.’

  *

  About twenty minutes later, after returning downstairs, Ross was waiting for Alex. The butler announced that he would have tea served in the family drawing room, before turning and making his way there, clearly expecting Alex to follow.

  Charles was waiting when Alex entered, and merely enquired, ‘Indian or China, old chap?’

  ‘Weak Indian, please, and a slice of lemon if I may?’ Alex responded.

  ‘I never could get accustomed to the taste of tea with lemon,’ commented Charles, with a look of distaste on his face.

  ‘Then I doubt you would ever understand my mother, who enjoys her chai with a spoonful or two of cherry conserve!’ responded Alex.

  ‘Talking of your mother,’ Charles stated, changing the subject, ‘tomorrow might be a good day to visit and to catch up with your family. If I can get out of what promises to be a couple of utterly dreary appointments, I hope you will allow me to join you, as your family seem entirely enchanting?’

  Realising that Charles’s intention was not to leave him alone at any time, although his subtlety was commendable, Alex reflected privately that if Charles were to survive the troublesome years ahead, he was assured a career in the corps diplomatique.

  Not to be outdone, Alex responded graciously, ‘Absolutely, I would not have it any other way.’ Then he added mischievously, ‘I am sure that my mother and uncle cannot w
ait to meet the person about whom they have heard so much from my letters!’

  The tea nearly spilt into the saucer as Charles’s head snapped up at the apparent breach of security.

  Aha! thought Alex, You didn’t expect that!

  But normality resumed as Charles’s brain eventually caught up with the fact that the censor at the Grange had not picked up anything untoward in Alex’s letters home.

  *

  Alex slept well that night and, in the morning, awoke refreshed and eager to breakfast before visiting his mother. He debated whether to wear his new military uniform or dress in civilian clothes, and resolved to take his lead from Charles. Accordingly, Alex dressed casually for breakfast and descended to the dining room, where Charles was already seated and attacking a sizeable plateful with alacrity.

  ‘Good morning,’ greeted Alex.

  ‘Morning,’ responded Charles, ‘please help yourself to breakfast, which is mostly to be found over there.’ He indicated with his knife a sideboard laden with polished silver dishes. ‘I think you’ll find just about everything you could want, but if there is anything specific you would like, just ring for Ross, and I’m sure he will rustle it up for you. I see that he has already provided lemon for your tea, but there is coffee if you would prefer.’

  Alex helped himself modestly from the vast offering.

  This prompted Charles to observe, ‘Come, come, old chap; in this household, we live by the adage, “Mangez le petit déjeuner comme un roi… [Eat breakfast like a king…]” We eat a hearty breakfast, else we risk upsetting les domestiques, and that would never do! Tuck in, dear boy, tuck in!’

  Never having been a great breakfaster, Alex revisited the sideboard and topped up his plate with supplements that he had avoided previously, before asking, ‘Did you get out of your meetings?’

  ‘The first one, yes; the second, however, is unavoidable, but that is not until this afternoon, so we can visit your family in the morning before nipping along to Whitehall for the meeting.’

  ‘I’m invited?’ asked Alex, ‘I thought it was your meeting.’

  ‘It would also appear that the commander desires your presence, so it might be better to change before leaving, to save time.’

  ‘Of course,’ responded Alex, ‘I was going to dress after breakfast.’ The white lie fell from his lips easily. ‘Although I do not know how my mother will take to her son in uniform, especially after the fate of my father.’

  ‘Oh, God, no,’ uttered Charles, ‘not that formal. I’m planning on civvies; after all, in our business, we are supposed to be discreet!’

  After breakfast, Alex returned to his bedroom, and found a suitably formal suit that he had last worn at Inkerman’s, a shirt and a conservative tie, all neatly pressed and hanging on a dumb valet. His black Church’s Oxford shoes had received such a polishing that they shone like a mirror, and they had been placed carefully on the stand under his suit. This level of attention to detail was one to which he was wholly unaccustomed.

  Alex got changed and then went back downstairs, where Charles was waiting for him. Damn that man, Alex thought, Why must he be first at everything?

  Ross opened and held the front door for Alex and Charles. The Lagonda was standing at the curb with a footman guarding its security faithfully. As the door to the house was opened, so the footman stepped forwards to open the passenger door of the car for Alex to get in. Once Alex had done so, the footman scurried around the car to open the door for Charles, who, miraculously, arrived precisely at the moment the footman opened his door.

  ‘Thank you, Bennett,’ Charles said.

  ‘Where to?’ queried Charles.

  Alex gave Charles the Onslow Gardens address in Chelsea. The car lurched forwards into the London traffic, and, for the first time in weeks, Alex was returning home.

  On the journey, Alex noticed that Charles had not asked for directions once, and he wondered whether Charles had known all along where he was going or whether he had the same encyclopaedic knowledge of London streets as one of the capital’s cabbies!

  Alex’s nervousness, as Charles pulled up outside Alex’s house in Onslow Gardens, was bewildering. On the one hand, he was eager – very eager – to see his mother, and yet, on the other, he did not know how his mother would react to his absence or, indeed, the fact that he was now a commissioned officer in His Majesty’s navy.

  The cover story had already expanded for Alex, who – believing that Joseph Stalin would ally Russia with Germany – had taken the initiative to explore how he could fight against the Bolsheviks, who had so comprehensively destroyed his family’s comfortable existence in Russia. Alex’s enquiries had brought him to the attention of a specialist naval department that was concerned with the translation of intercepted communications, and they had an immediate vacancy for a Russian speaker. Consequently, Alex had received basic military training and had accepted a commission into the Royal Navy, without the usual formalities.

  Whereas the precise details of his role were excluded from the cover story, like all respectable lies, it was sufficiently close to the truth to be memorable and believable. Nonetheless, Alex knew that his mother would be worried for his safety during the time that they were destined to be apart; she had already lost her husband to war, and the prospect of also losing her son would be devastating. Charles had suggested that Alex should tell his mother that he would be working in some remote backwater of Britain; the department would arrange for regular letters and postcards to be sent to underpin the story, which might be enough to alleviate his mother’s worries.

  By the time Alex had opened the door of the Lagonda and placed one foot on the pavement outside the house, the front door had opened, and his mother rushed to greet him, flinging her arms around him and holding him tightly to her.

  ‘Moy syn, gde ty byl? [My son, where have you been?]’ she demanded.

  ‘Mama, prokhodite v dom, i ya vse rasskazhu tebe [come indoors, and I shall tell you everything],’ Alex replied, and he put his arm protectively around his mother’s shoulders as he led her into the house.

  Charles, feeling somewhat left out of this family reunion, followed discreetly.

  ‘Mama, this is a good friend of mine, Charles Phipps, who kindly gave me a lift this morning; Charles, my mother,’ Alex explained, realising that Phipps was possibly not Charles’s real name, especially after the revelation that Charles was titled.

  Alex’s mother extended her hand to Charles, who – on noting the slight angle of the wrist – took it, and kissed it formally but gently.

  ‘I am pleased to meet you, Mr Phipps,’ she declared.

  ‘And I you, ma’am,’ replied Charles courteously.

  ‘Come, let us repair to the drawing room, and Alex can tell us both all the exciting things that he has been up to, although I suspect, Mr Phipps, that you are more significant in his current life than I am.’

  ‘Please call me Charles, and I assure you that there is none so cherished to Alex as his mother, ma’am.’

  ‘If you say so, Mr Phipps, then I accept the assurance.’

  Both Alex and Charles noted the continued formality that Alex’s mother kept, which was a sure sign that she did not wholly trust Charles and that she was not ready for familiarity.

  Turning to her son, she asked, ‘Sashenka, so tell me, where have you been? What have you been doing? Where have you been living?’

  Alex held up his hands. ‘Not so fast, Mama; come and sit, and I will tell you all.’

  She did as she was bidden.

  When sitting beside her on the sofa and holding her hand gently for comfort, Alex began to tell a sanitised version of the events and experiences he had faced over the past weeks, starting with Toby’s party and bringing her right up to the current day, but not including areas that might be of concern to her.

  A whole hour elapsed while he recounted his experien
ces, during which time his mother would often interrupt with a question, sometimes using English and other times using Russian. By the time he had retold his story and explained his intentions, he felt drained, almost as if a skilled interrogator had cross-examined him.

  ‘So, Charles,’ Alex’s mother said, turning to their guest (Alex was pleased to note that she was now prepared for informality), ‘where do you fit into this story?’

  ‘In a minor capacity, ma’am,’ explained Charles, ‘Alex and I ran across each other during his training, while I was visiting my younger brother, and we just rather took to each other. We both went to similar schools and share a love of cricket.’

  The ringing of the front doorbell spared Charles further questioning. The maid answered it and came into the drawing room to announce that Uncle Walter had arrived. Not that he needed announcing as, by the time the maid had only completed half of what she had been trained to say, Uncle Walter was in the room and striding towards Alex, with his arm outstretched.

  ‘My dear Alex,’ boomed Vladimir Mikhailovich, ‘how the devil are you? And what the deuce have you been doing? Worrying your poor mother by going off, and hardly writing! You must tell us all about it.’

  ‘Uncle Walter,’ began Alex, ‘this is my friend Charles Phipps; Charles, my uncle, Walter Compton.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’ Charles extended his hand, which Uncle Walter took and shook.

  ‘I know you!’ announced Uncle Walter, ‘Are you not Malmesbury’s eldest boy?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I am the eldest of his two sons, but I also have three sisters,’ replied Charles.

  ‘Of course, so that makes you, what…?’ Uncle Walter searched his memory, ‘Viscount Axminster?’

  ‘Yes, that is correct, but I seldom use the title.’

  Alex and his mother followed this exchange with differing levels of incredulity; it came as less of a shock to Alex, who had already accepted Charles’s place in society.

  Charles looked at his watch. ‘We need to be thinking of leaving, Alex, if we are not to be late for our appointment.’ Looking to bring the visit to an end, Charles stood, extended his hand to Alex’s mother, and said, ‘It was so very nice to meet you, ma’am.’ He turned to Uncle Walter and reached out his hand once more. ‘And you, sir.’