Winston's Spy

by Robert Webber

  Alex’s mother asked, ‘So soon? It seems but five minutes since you arrived! Sashenka, you must come home again and soon; I miss you so very much, moy dorogoy mal’chik [my darling boy].’

  ‘I shall, Mama; I promise you I shall.’

  As Alex and Charles gathered their coats from the maid and approached the front door, Uncle Walter said to Charles, ‘Look after Alex, will you? He is very dear to his mother and I… and please extend my good wishes to your father.’

  ‘Konechno [Naturally], Vladimir Mikhailovich,’ responded Charles in perfect Russian, which surprised Alex, his mother and Uncle Walter!

  With that, Charles and Alex took their leave, left the house and proceeded to Charles’s car.

  As Charles was starting the Lagonda, Alex commented, ‘I did not know you spoke Russian!’

  ‘You did not ask,’ responded Charles, ‘and that is a lesson learned; you presumed that I did not speak your language, and presumptions are dangerous; in this case, it gave me an advantage, and put you at a disadvantage. In our game, survival often depends on who holds the advantage! Never presume anything!’

  Alex reflected on Charles’s words as they drove to the War Office in Whitehall, and he concluded there was much to learn about his friend Charles – no, he was not quite yet a friend, but was still a minder – and he wondered whether he would ever fully understand the man.

  VIII

  Charles parked the car in Scotland Place, which runs between Great Scotland Yard and Whitehall Place, just off Whitehall, so that they could enter the War Office through a side door. They left the car, and Charles led the way into the building. Having climbed four flights of stairs in various parts of the building, Alex did not know where he was, but, eventually, Charles stopped outside a large oak door and knocked.

  A female voice within called, ‘Come.’

  They entered. Alex found himself in a large room where four typists were beavering away.

  The elder of the lady typists, who was apparently in charge, said, ‘Ah, Lieutenant Phipps and you must be Sub-Lieutenant Carlton.’ This was the first time that a stranger had addressed Alex using his rank, and he found it quite disconcerting. She continued, ‘The commander is running late, although he did ask me to make you comfortable until his meeting concludes. Would you care for a cup of tea?’

  ‘Thank you, but not for me, Miss Willoughby; what about you, Alex?’ questioned Charles.

  Alex shook his head slightly. ‘Nor I, thank you.’

  Miss Willoughby showed Alex and Charles to an anteroom with several padded, straight-backed chairs, and it was clear that they were expected to wait there. After about twenty minutes, the door opposite to the one by which they had entered opened, and a Royal Navy commander poked his head out.

  He stated, ‘Charles! Sorry to keep you waiting; come aboard. And you must be Alexander. Welcome, I’m Commander Jeffers,’ and stepped back into the room.

  Charles and Alex joined him.

  Jeffers was one of those characters who are hard to read. His smooth complexion gave him the appearance of being in his early forties or even younger, but the prematurely grey hair aged him considerably. He stood a full six feet tall, and his uniform displayed medal ribbons that indicated much active service, which belied his youthful appearance. He spoke with a cultured, but authoritative voice, and it was clear to Alex that this was a man who possessed a natural presence and did not need to shout to make his authority heard.

  ‘We are just waiting for one other, and then we shall begin. Tell me, Alex, did they look after you at the Grange?’ Not waiting for a response, Jeffers continued, ‘Old Captain Bell is a bit of a dinosaur, but he’s very thorough and extremely good at his job. He speaks highly of you, Alex, and believes that you are well suited to what we have planned.’ Jeffers then changed tack completely, saying, ‘I believe you called in to see your mother earlier today? How is she? I met her a couple of years ago at a function that she attended with your uncle, and I remember her as a thoroughly nice lady. I do hope she is keeping well.’

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ responded Alex, wondering when the small talk would finish so that they could get down to the crux of the matter.

  A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts, and Miss Willoughby opened the door, put her head around it and announced, ‘Simon is on his way; I’ll send him straight in when he gets here.’ She closed the door abruptly behind her.

  A few moments later, the door opened once more, and Simon Potts, of all people, entered the room dressed in a similar uniform to that which hung in Alex’s wardrobe at Charles’s house. ‘Hello Alex,’ he announced himself.

  ‘Pottsie! Simon! Good God, what on earth are you doing here?’ Alex declared.

  Commander Jeffers responded, ‘Sub-Lieutenant Potts, here, is the main reason why you were chosen to assist us. He came up with your name when he knew the profile of the person we needed for this role. Please don’t think harshly of him; I think he acted in the best interests of all.’

  ‘Of course, I don’t think badly of him! He is about my oldest friend, and we shared much while we were at Lassiter’s together. It is excellent to see you again, old friend,’ Alex addressed his former school friend; that piece of the jigsaw had fallen neatly into place.

  Simon smiled. ‘Thank God for that; I was half-dreading this meeting when you realised how much I was involved.’

  Alex smiled warmly at him.

  ‘Sorry to break up the reunion, but we have matters that need our attention,’ interrupted Commander Jeffers, ‘We are preparing for war in a matter of weeks, if not days!’

  That gained Alex’s attention.

  The commander went on, ‘So we are accelerating your project since it is important for us to know where we stand in the Baltic region. Diplomacy is rife! Chamberlain and Lord Halifax are still talking publicly about peace with Germany, but, privately, even they must recognise that war is inevitable. The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Vyacheslav Molotov, has been doing much the same and negotiating with von Ribbentrop, and it looks like some sort of concord could exist between the Soviets and Germany. Either way, our guarantee to protect the sovereignty of Poland cannot be repudiated, and judging by the worthless nature of Hitler’s earlier promises we believe that he will invade that country by the end of August – consequently, war will be inevitable.’

  Alex fully understood the situation.

  ‘Such being the case, we need to get you in place quickly, and that presents us with a problem,’ Jeffers explained, ‘Normally, we would send you by ship to Sweden, and from there you could easily enter Finland, but there are few ships and many passengers eager to leave Britain! Therefore, other options include dropping you by parachute into Denmark and allowing you to cross the Øresund into Sweden, or taking you by submarine and handing you over to friendly Swedes, but these are logistical problems that we must consider. You need to prepare for any eventuality, so I think we will send you up to Cheshire initially, where you can learn to jump out of aeroplanes with a parachute, and then we’ll take it from there.’

  Jumping from aeroplanes with parachutes did not rate highly on Alex’s list of preferred options, and he asked, ‘When, sir?’

  ‘As soon as possible, really,’ Jeffers responded, ‘We actually don’t know how much time we have. You’re stopping with Charles at the moment I believe?’

  Charles nodded.

  ‘Simon, here, will get things organised, and we will send all the necessary to Charles’s house, most probably by this time tomorrow. Is there anything else?’ Jeffers asked.

  The others did not comment, so the commander stated, ‘Good luck, then, and as soon as we know anything more, we will let you know.’

  The meeting was evidently ending, so Charles and Alex left. As they were putting on their coats, Simon Potts joined them and suggested going for a drink that evening. Charles, ever watchful, agreed
and suggested the Rag (the informal name for the Army and Navy Club in Pall Mall), although he did insist that it could only be a very swift drink as they may have to be up early in the morning to travel north.

  *

  Arriving slightly late for their gathering, Alex and Charles saw Simon Potts scampering along the pavement towards them.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, chaps; I was delayed by another meeting,’ Simon apologised.

  Charles bounded up the stairs, and he signed in both Alex and Simon as his guests. ‘Denham,’ he addressed the concierge, ‘this is Mr Carlton and Mr Potts, and I would be grateful if you would look after them while I nip in and speak with Sir George.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ Denham replied, as Charles disappeared into the bowels of the club. Addressing Alex, and Simon, Denham suggested, ‘If you would come this way, gentlemen, we’ll put you in the morning room, until Mr Phipps has finished. May I get you anything?’

  Alex enquired, ‘Why is this place known as the Rag? It hardly seems particularly ragged?’

  ‘Ah, well, you see, sir, that is an interesting story,’ explained Denham. ‘How we became known as “the Rag” goes back to the mid-1800s and a gentleman member, a Captain Duff, who was a bit of a rake and well-known for his raffish eccentricities. He complained of the humble nature of the food that was offered and denounced the club loudly as a “Rag and Famish affair”; the “Rag and Famish” was a somewhat disreputable gambling house at the time, where gentlemen who had lost their fortune could still indulge in penny wagers.

  ‘Captain Duff intended his comment as an insult, but such was the nature of the gentleman members at the time that they adopted it as a term of endearment and formed a “Rag and Famish Dining Club” in Captain Duff’s honour. Over the years, this nickname became shortened to the familiar diminutive of “the Rag”.’

  On completion of the tale, Charles re-emerged and suggested that they retire to the smoking room, where they could talk freely. They agreed to this suggestion and adjourned to the smoking room.

  Time flew. Alex and Simon reminisced about their days at school while generously allowing Charles to chip in with his experiences at Sherborne. After what seemed only a few moments, but was a good two hours, Charles consulted his pocket watch and suggested that it was time to leave. Parting as good friends do, with firm handshakes and brief embraces, Charles offered to drop Simon at his digs, but Simon insisted that, after so much Scotch whisky, the walk would do him good.

  After leaving the club, Charles and Alex leapt aboard the Lagonda, neither being wholly in a fit state to drive, and Charles effected a neat U-turn in St James’s Square before turning onto Pall Mall and heading for home.

  *

  Alex arrived downstairs for breakfast with his head still pounding from the previous night’s celebration, and he was unsurprised to see Charles already sitting at the table and devouring a plateful enthusiastically. Neither Alex’s stomach nor his head recommended a similar assault on the abundant provision, so he resolved to confine himself to a slice of toast with a small amount of scrambled egg, and a cup of tea.

  Without looking up from The Times newspaper that he was reading, Charles commented nonchalantly, ‘Our orders have arrived. We are off to Manchester by train this afternoon. By the by, it seems as though my sister, Beatrice, has been asking after you, according to Ross; I did not know that you were acquainted with her?’

  ‘I did not think that I was!’ countered Alex.

  ‘She was looking for you last evening, so Ross tells me. I suppose we ought to ask her what she wanted you for, but there is a slim chance of her being awake much before midday.’

  Charles, however, was wrong as Beatrice chose that moment to appear.

  ‘Good heavens above! This must be the earliest that you have risen for… oh… since at least you were at school,’ he teased.

  ‘Pig!’ said the attractive young lady who had just entered the dining room; it seemed wholly inappropriate to Alex that such a beautiful girl could have uttered the insult.

  ‘Harlot!’ her brother answered before they briefly embraced each other.

  The Hon Beatrice Amelia Clementine Phipps was strikingly beautiful, and she knew it. Blonde, blue-eyed and with a delicately shaped face, hers was a classic beauty that would likely break many men’s hearts before she ever settled down. Beatrice was one of those incredibly fortunate young ladies who, even if they clothed themselves in sackcloth, would still turn heads. This morning, however, she was wearing an expensive cream cashmere jumper and a pair of mid-brown jodhpurs.

  ‘I thought I would take Bacchus for his morning constitutional,’ she announced, and then, acknowledging Alex’s presence with a warm smile and a twinkle in her eye, she presented herself, ‘As my brother is sufficiently rude not to introduce us, my name is Beatrice, and you must be Alex Carlton?’

  ‘Indeed,’ responded Alex, ‘I rather think that I am! I am extremely pleased to meet you.’

  Charles intervened, ‘A word of caution, dear boy; my sister has a voracious appetite for young men such as you, and the best advice that I can give – should you be inclined to take it, and I have to acknowledge that not many do – is that you should sprint for the hills as fast as you are able!’

  ‘Pig, again!’ retorted Beatrice.

  Putting down the newspaper, Charles asked, ‘Did Ross mention something about you looking for Alex last evening?’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ replied Beatrice, ‘a little bird mentioned that she knew Alex, and when I realised he was a house guest, this little bird asked to be remembered to him and even ventured – rather forwardly, I thought – that Alex might care to have tea with her or perhaps lunch.’

  ‘And did this little bird have a name?’ asked Charles.

  Alex felt called upon to rejoin the conversation. ‘Yes, does she?’ he asked.

  ‘You boys should have better manners than to gang up on a poor defenceless girl,’ she teased, ‘Of course she has a name.’

  ‘Well?’ insisted Alex.

  ‘Didn’t I say?’ tormented Beatrice, ‘Teddy Palmer. It seems as though Alex knows her brother or something.’

  ‘Teddy – do you mean Theodora?’ Alex’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Good Lord!’ Alex was somewhat surprised but still excited.

  ‘She did give me her telephone number…’ responded Beatrice nonchalantly, ‘Would you like it?’

  Alex noted the faint trace of another tease. ‘Thank you, yes,’ replied Alex, trying not to seem too eager.

  So Beatrice reached into her pocket and found a visiting card on the back of which there was a handwritten telephone number: ‘Kensington 3625’.

  ‘May I?’ enquired Alex of Charles.

  ‘Absolutely, be my guest!’ Alex rose, nodded briefly to Beatrice and left the room in search of a telephone, which he found on the occasional table in the hallway. Alex picked up the receiver and asked the operator to connect him, and, after only the briefest of pauses, the call was answered.

  ‘Kensington 3625,’ announced the person on the receiver.

  ‘Teddy? This is Alex Carlton,’ he explained.

  ‘Alex,’ said the speaker, ‘thank you so much for calling. How are you?’

  ‘I’m awfully well,’ responded Alex, ‘And you? Toby?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ announced Teddy, ‘but I wanted to talk to you about Toby. Alex, Toby’s dead!’

  ‘What?’ asked Alex, hoping that he had misheard but acknowledging secretly that he had not. ‘When? How? Why?’ All of these vacuous questions tripped from his lips, and he realised how trite he must have sounded, but he was incredulous.

  ‘Apparently, about six weeks ago,’ explained Teddy, ‘but I don’t want to talk about it on the telephone; can we meet?’

  Alex covered the mouthpiece of the telephone and asked Charles, who had wandered out of the dining room, ‘Do I have time to meet an old
friend before we have to catch our train?’

  Charles made a great pretence of looking at his pocket watch, then at the grandfather clock and then at his sister before responding, ‘I suppose so, but it will have to be lunch, and we cannot spend too long.’

  *

  Alex had arranged to meet Teddy at the Lyons’ Corner House on the corner of Coventry Street and Rupert Street at 12.30pm, and although they were late by a good ten minutes, Alex had no difficulty in recognising the attractive young lady he had last seen at Toby’s celebratory party. She was seated close to a colossal aspidistra plant in the sumptuously wood-panelled, art nouveau dining room. Alex and Charles joined her, and, after introductions, Charles gave their order to the attendant Nippy.

  Alex reached across, took Teddy’s hand in a gesture of companionship, and asked, ‘How have you been coping?’

  ‘It has been difficult since Toby’s accident,’ confided Teddy, ‘Mummy is distraught but refusing to allow it to show; Father is characteristically maintaining a stiff upper lip, and often gets upset when Mummy shows her grief; Timothy and Tristram are both in the regiment and off training somewhere; and nobody seems to notice that I am so missing Toby!’

  Alex could not help noticing that all the Palmer children had received names that began with “T” and that all were boys except Theodora. He couldn’t help but wonder whether, as the youngest, her parents had fully expected another male child whom they had intended to christen Theodore, but, in the confusion of having delivered a female into the family, had perhaps taken the most straightforward option of merely changing the last letter in her Christian name to accommodate the girl’s gender. Alex felt for Teddy in having parents who were so conventional that they had saddled their only daughter with a derivation of a boy’s name, maybe even resenting the fact she was a girl. However, Alex resolved quickly that he, for one, was immensely glad that Teddy was female, and he determined to get to know her better.