Mr Campion's War

by Mike Ripley

  ‘Why, yes it would,’ said Ringer smoothly. ‘It was at Cambridge when we were students together at St Ignatius.’

  Luke allowed himself a lengthy but discreet exhale.

  ‘He almost killed me there,’ Ringer continued cheerfully, ‘so it was only fair that I tried to kill him when we met again during the war.’ He turned to face Perdita and smiled. ‘Of course, I wasn’t trying very hard.’

  Perdita, a ‘useful and versatile actress with a future’ (Hampstead and Highgate Express), assumed an air of polite curiosity, as if she were an honoured guest at a flower show trying to elicit the secret of forcing early rhubarb from a reluctant Yorkshire allotment holder.

  ‘Are you teasing me, Herr Ringer, or Commander Luke, or both of us?’

  ‘Don’t you stand for any nonsense from Robert, Perdita,’ said Mr Campion over his daughter-in-law’s shoulder. ‘He’s dying to tell you how I gave him that scar.’

  Now Perdita’s staunch performance dissolved into an expression equidistant between shock and fascination, only a decent upbringing preventing her jaw from dropping open like a trapdoor. It was not so much what Campion had said in a stage whisper into her left ear, more the embarrassment of being caught out – as she was sure she had been – staring at the scar which wormed its way down the left side of the German’s face.

  ‘Oh, goodness, was I gawping?’

  ‘I’m not sure what “gawping” means,’ said Ringer politely with a toothy grin, ‘but if you were doing it, it did not give offence. I am used to people noticing my little disfigurement. They see it and they hear my accent and immediately assume I am of the Prussian officer class and this must be a duelling scar. They are wrong on both counts.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Robert,’ said Mr Campion, wielding a butter knife in an ostentatious attack on a crusty petit pain, ‘we were having a sort of a duel.’

  Now Perdita’s jaw did slacken, and her mouth formed a perfect, and perfectly pretty, ‘O’. It prompted Ringer to reach out and gently pat the back of her hand.

  ‘It was not a duel, it was a match – a fencing match – and we were using foils, not sabres. We were both trying out for the university fencing club, at Cambridge, when we were students there. Of course, Albert was older than I—’

  ‘Thank you for that, Robert,’ said Campion. ‘I had quite forgotten how old I was. If only there was just one day in a year when one could be given a timely reminder … perhaps someone might send one a card or two …’

  ‘Albert was quite good,’ Ringer continued unabashed, ‘and I thought he would go for his Blue, but after the accident he lost interest, I think. You see, he lunged, I parried, and the tip of his foil shot up under my guard helmet. It was a freak accident, and something I would think impossible to do intentionally. Fortunately for me, Albert was aiming for my nose and not my eye.’

  ‘That sounds awfully violent,’ said Perdita, who now found herself patting Ringer’s hand in a reassuring manner.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Campion, performing a swashbuckling parry-and-thrust with his butter knife. ‘Real fencers – the ones you get at the Olympics – prefer the sabre or the épée; they dismiss a fight with foils as “aggressive knitting”. It was a freak accident and I always blamed Robert for choosing a mask which didn’t fit properly.’

  ‘Don’t be horrid! How did you ever forgive him, Herr Ringer? I’m assuming you have, of course.’

  ‘But of course I have, my dear girl, and, to be fair, the fact that many of my countrymen assumed it was a Mensur scar probably helped my career in some small way.’

  ‘What on earth is a Mensur scar, and how can it possibly improve your career prospects?’ As she asked the question, Perdita felt Campion gently lean in to her shoulder, no doubt with ears pricked and a foolish grin on his face. Beyond Ringer, Charles Luke also leaned forward, making no secret of the fact that he was eavesdropping.

  ‘The Mensur was a tradition in German universities, which taught students coolness and courage, although it often took more courage to avoid the tradition than to participate in it. Basically, two young men stand facing each other and hack away with large, very sharp swords, aiming for the left side of the opponent’s head. Never the right side. That would be unsporting.’

  ‘You call this a sport?’ Perdita gasped.

  ‘No. Fencing is a sport; the Mensur is a brutal ritual designed to satisfy a public opinion that was two hundred years behind the times, as a distinguished Englishman once said.’

  ‘Jerome K. Jerome,’ Mr Campion interjected, ‘when he wrote about the Mensur in Three Men on the Bummel, and very scathing about it he was too.’

  Perdita turned her head towards her father-in-law. ‘The same chap who wrote Three Men in a Boat?’

  ‘That’s the feller. Bummel was the follow-up, though it is pretty much forgotten nowadays. Published in 1900, and I know that because an aunt with ridiculously high expectations and little experience of children bought me a copy for my first birthday. I seem to remember chewing on a corner at the time, but it was, I admit, some years before I got around to reading it.’

  As was often the case, Perdita took a moment to decide if Mr Campion was being serious and, once satisfied, she asked: ‘What’s a “Bummel”?’

  ‘I think it would translate as a slow journey or a wandering, or a stroll perhaps. Is that fair, Robert?’

  Perdita swivelled back to Ringer, who was nodding in agreement. ‘And what does “Mensur” mean?’ she asked him.

  ‘That I do not think can be translated. The Mensur is the event, the fight itself. Mensur comes from mensura, the Latin for measurement, referring to the distance the swordsmen had to stand apart during the ordeal.’

  ‘Why didn’t they run away? I would have.’

  ‘So would I, but fortunately I managed to avoid the student fraternities which supported the Mensur. The scar Albert gave me – completely by accident – did however make people back home in Germany assume I had gone through with the idiotic ritual. Of course, the practice has been discouraged for many years now, but my mother told me that in her youth, young girls were very attracted to young men with Mensur scars.’

  ‘Well, I think that’s just awful,’ Perdita said primly. ‘It sounds the same principle as those awful tattoos which Hell’s Angels have themselves covered with. I think they just make men ugly, though I know some girls … Oh, I’m so sorry, Herr Ringer, I didn’t mean that you were ugly, I just meant that it was stupid when men try to make themselves look tough with tattoos. Charles, help me out here.’

  Luke, who had been listening intently, but holding his peace until now, entered the fray.

  ‘I’ve found it pays to keep an open mind on such things. I’ve arrested some giant bikers who have skulls and daggers – and worse – inked on their forearms and they’ve come along quietly, whereas one of the most evil, cold-blooded killers I ever met was no more than five foot four and weighed less than eight stone wringing wet. He had a single tattoo on his chest, a heart with an arrow through it and the words “I Love You Mother”. You just can’t tell.’

  He locked eyes with Ringer, who showed no indication that he might flinch first.

  ‘I’m guessing, Herr Ringer, that you have seen Albert since your days at Cambridge.’

  The German smiled and took a moment to answer. ‘Was that a question, Commander Luke, and if so, was it an official one?’

  Luke returned the smile. Perdita, who was watching them closely, felt that some sort of bond had been formed; or, if not a bond, then at least territorial boundaries had been agreed, but the detail eluded her. She stole a glance at Mr Campion, who had turned to his wife and was, it seemed, giving her the recipe for the Consommé Mikado which would be their soup course.

  ‘A policeman’s curiosity, Herr Ringer; something I am sure you are familiar with as a policeman of sorts yourself.’

  ‘A retired policeman, of – as you say – sorts, and I quite understand. I know you are an old friend of Albert, and it must seem stran
ge that a German you have never heard of suddenly appears out of Mr Campion’s past. Your first thought will have been that it must be something to do with the war. Please, do not deny it out of politeness, for I am not offended. To answer your question, I did see Albert after Cambridge and, as you have probably guessed, it was during the war.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have been on the same side,’ interrupted Perdita, her hand flying to her mouth too late to stop the words escaping.

  Ringer, still facing Luke, winked a mischievous eye. ‘That was a problem,’ said Ringer slowly, ‘at least initially.’

  ‘Are you going to tell us what Albert did in the war?’ Perdita was almost breathless with excitement. ‘He’s never told us a single thing, has he, Charles?’

  Luke attempted to strike an official pose. ‘There may be very good reasons for that – reasons of state security, perhaps.’

  ‘Tommy rot!’ said Mr Campion, making Perdita jump in her seat as he re-entered the conversation. ‘National security has nothing to do with it. I’ve kept Mum on the subject out of angelic modesty and monk-like humility, pure and simple. However, having reached a memorable age, I have decided to abandon modesty and spend my twilight years basking in your admiration. That is why I have seated you next to Robert, so he can tell you of my gallant wartime experiences in Vichy France, and I put Charlie there in the wings to satisfy his copper’s curiosity, otherwise he wouldn’t sleep at night. Ah, here comes the soup.’

  Campion sat back in his chair and made a dance-of-the-seven-veils flapping show of tucking his napkin into his shirt front as a half-platoon of waitresses arrived bearing dishes as carefully as if they held nitroglycerine.

  ‘Consommé Mikado was a long-time favourite on Atlantic liners going back yonks. Perhaps they even served it on the Titanic, though I’m not sure that’s a recommendation, but I do know they’ve introduced it on to the menu of the QE2. There will be a rather fine manzanilla amontillada arriving momentarily to go with it.’

  ‘Stop changing the subject!’ complained Perdita.

  ‘He’s very good at that,’ observed Luke drily.

  ‘I want to hear about your wartime adventures in France,’ said Perdita over a quivering lower lip.

  Robert von Ringer took pity on her. ‘Shall I be your biographer, Albert?’

  ‘Good heavens, no,’ said Mr Campion, ‘if the story must be told, it must be an autobiography, because no one is more qualified to blow my own trumpet than I am. So, as we’re sitting comfortably, I’ll begin, and I’ll start with Robert inviting me to the Riviera back in 1942 …’

  ‘When the war was on,’ Perdita said slowly.

  ‘Oh, yes, bombs and bullets flying everywhere, it was quite a show; made all the newspapers.’

  ‘And this gentleman here invited you to the south of France?’

  ‘He most certainly did. It was a very clever invitation too. Well, it had to be; there was a war on, you know. Fortunately Robert was very clever, which is why he was such a good spy.’

  ‘A spy? One of ours?’

  ‘Certainly not. He was one of theirs.’

  FOUR

  The Man from the Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company

  London. June 1942

  They say things are classified ‘Top Secret’, not so much to protect the secret itself, but the source of the secret, and so it was not unexpected when my invitation to visit the Riviera came in such a convoluted way, although nothing very much could surprise us by that stage of the war.

  We’d all seen it coming, of course – well, I had, ever since Neville Chamberlain had waved that ridiculous piece of paper at Heston airport in 1938, and now we were in the thick of it. The desert war was seesawing, as it always seemed to, Hitler was biting off more than he could chew in Russia, and dear old England was being invaded by Americans. At the start of ’42 the US air force had seven men and no aeroplanes in England but, by Christmas, they’d turned East Anglia into an aircraft carrier flying the Stars and Stripes; we were very glad to see them, though.

  In London, we’d taken an active dislike to good old Father Thames. Some even called the river London’s very own fifth column, because all the Luftwaffe had to do on a starry night was follow its curves right into the heart of the city to find a target for their bombs. But London could – and did – take it, and American journalists were in raptures about the slogans on the sides of buildings which said ‘Take Courage’, not realizing that it was an advertising campaign for the Courage brewery in Southwark.

  We were all frightfully tied up with our war work. In Amanda’s case that was producing Rupert, whereas Lugg was doing his bit in the Heavy Rescue Squad, working with the ARP people and the fire brigade whenever there was a raid. It was rumoured that Lugg also had a nice sideline in rearing the odd porker or two to supplement the meat ration.

  I myself, being naturally heroic, not to mention modest, had volunteered for frontline duty with the Light Brigade, even offering to supply my own horse, but for some reason no one took me seriously. They put a lot of obstacles in my way: I was too tall, I was too short, my eyesight wasn’t good enough and, worst of all, I was too old. Oh, and there was something about the fact that we weren’t doing cavalry charges any more. Anyway, the long and short of it was that the only enterprise willing to offer me gainful employment where I could do my bit was the Minimax Fire Extinguisher Company of St James’s.

  Now that may not sound terribly exciting, but the last thing we did was sell fire extinguishers – that was merely what the sign on the building, Number 54 Broadway said to fool the passers-by. We were in fact the offices of the very secret Secret Intelligence Services, although it wasn’t that secret an address. Throughout the thirties, the Nazis had a man from their embassy posing as a blind matchseller on the pavement opposite the front door, monitoring the comings and goings. The regulars there actually missed him when he was rounded up once the war started.

  Most of the building was kept busy supporting the forthcoming raid on Dieppe, which was supposed to be a dress rehearsal for the invasion of Europe, though it didn’t turn out all that well. All the hard work was left to the professionals like L. C. Corkran and the secretarial staff, who really were brilliant. They were a fantastic bunch of young women, incredibly hard-working and very intelligent, most of them recruited from Oxford colleges. Oddly enough, the Service didn’t seem too keen on recruiting from Cambridge. Can’t think why.

  So there I was, in a back office – only the top bods got offices with a view over St James’s – with nothing very important on my plate, going through paperwork and stirring my tea to try and make the sugar go further, when a call came in from our colleagues in the SOE, the special operations people, over in Baker Street.

  It was a major with rather a plummy voice, rather like a northern rep actor trying to do Shakespeare at short notice, which is a bit unfair as he became an actor after the war – quite a good one, as a matter of fact. I was quite surprised, not to say a little flattered, that he had requested to speak to me by name, but he just asked gruffly if there were ‘any other Campions working at Broadway?’ I had forgotten for a moment that there was little love lost between the competing secret services and let my guard down.

  It turns out that this SOE chappie had heard that a Frenchman had just arrived in London and, while going through the usual vetting process, had insisted that the one man in England he was prepared to bare his soul to was little old me, much to the annoyance of our friends and allies the Free French, who tended to be rather protective in such matters.

  Naturally, I was flattered to be in such demand, though not a little curious as to how my name came to be in the frame, so to speak. When I was told that the reticent Frenchman newly arrived in London was in fact Monsieur Étienne Fleurey, manager of the Beauregard in Mentone, I was at first delighted and then immediately in a state of panic, as my first thought was that he was after an unpaid hotel bill. But surely I would have remembered doing a moonlight flit on any bill big enough to r
isk chasing me across hostile territory to collect.

  In those days, all refugees from France were dumped at Olympia so they could be sorted and vetted. We had to be careful in case the Germans tried to infiltrate their agents into the country posing as volunteers trying to join General de Gaulle, and anyone remotely suspicious was singled out pretty early on and interrogated by our chaps at the Royal Victoria Patriotic School, a Gothic pile down in Wandsworth, which was built as an asylum for young girls orphaned during the Crimean War. We called it, rather grandly, the London Reception Centre, and the hard-core interrogations were done by MI5’s finest. Our customers, most of whom were genuine refugees, were detained nearby – the women in a school on Nightingale Lane and the men in various places on Trinity Road, which was very convenient because, if any of them turned out to be spies, they were marched over the road to Wandsworth Prison where they were hung.

  I can’t say I enjoyed visiting the Reception Centre, as it was a pretty depressing place, full, for the most part, of decent Frenchmen and women, who had gone through hell to get to England, only to find they were being quizzed and questioned by a Gestapo they thought they’d escaped from. But that was our job; we had to disbelieve everything we heard, question everything, trust nothing.

  Étienne Fleurey had been held at London Reception for more than a week, bleating my name and pleading for an audience, before I got to hear about him. He’d already had a rough time of it, crossing from Vichy into the Occupied Zone and then making his way on forged papers to Brittany, where he made contact with the Resistance who’d smuggled him on to a fishing boat which was doing a moonlight run to Cornwall. An amazing number of little ships did that unofficially during the war, avoiding German patrols and minefields, and then our Coastal Command fly-boys and our submarines, but then the Bretons and the Cornish speak virtually the same language, and have never given a hoot about what Paris or London told them.

  The old boy’s face truly lit up when he saw my grinning mug. I think the Reception Centre interrogators had given him a bad time and, thinking about it, I could see why. I mean, Étienne wasn’t exactly their usual sort of customer. He was too old for one thing, long past the age of the normal young bloods who wanted to join de Gaulle and fight the Boche, plus the fact that he’d come from the south of France, which hadn’t been occupied by the Germans and was run from Vichy. Even if that was a puppet regime, standard wisdom was that life there wasn’t as bad for the locals as it was in the OZ, as we called it – the occupied northern zone. And there was the fact that Étienne was a middle-aged hotelier and our war effort wasn’t really desperate for his skills.