“Luckily the French commander was just as much of a blithering idiot and he returned the invitation so the British ended up taking the first shot. That would have come too late for me if Lord Charles had been my commander, because I’d have been over the hills and far away instanter. But that attitude that it’s unfair to take advantage of an opponent, even to the point of scouting out his strength and positions, has taken longer to die than the tens of thousands of men it got killed. We still have our Lord Charles’s.”
He gave a little grunt of pain and moved with fragile stiffness in his chair, then sighed and relaxed slightly. “Your business, gentlemen, is not secrets but the men who know the secrets. Every nation has a class entrusted with secrets and the power to create them. Such men are usually obvious, and often their weaknesses are, too – a love of drink, women, money, little boys – but let me point out another: their ideals.
“In the past century there’s been a great rise in nationalism – call it patriotism, if you like – replacing the Continental outlook of the old aristocracy, family and class loyalties that didn’t bother with frontiers. Lord Charles wasn’t thinking of his men’s lives or winning the battle for England, just upholding the honour of his own – and the French commanders – kind.
“You may find this patriotism quite splendi-” it was clear that he had reservations; “-but, like all things, it comes with a price. The more loyalty a man gives his country, the more he expects it to be worthy of his loyalty, and the more he can hate the way it’s being governed. The monarchist in a republic, the republican in a monarchy – extreme examples of men who consider themselves the only true patriots. And by upholding their ideals, are already halfway down the road to treason. It may be your task to drag them the rest of the way. Patriots, gentlemen, are your prey.”
This was strong stuff, and expecting a surge of distaste to cross the new boys’ faces, Ranklin was surprised to see them looking either amused or curious. He quickly adjusted his own face.
“Since you’re going to spend much of your working life lying to people,” Alerion said pleasantly, “it’s perhaps only fair that you’ll also spend it listening to lies. Some told in all innocence because someone believes, yearns, for them to be true. This is dangerous. But far, far more dangerous if you also yearn for them to be true, because you will have joined him in his cosy, warm fantasy.”
He smiled suddenly. “For instance, that story about Lord Charles Hay at Fontenoy is almost certainly untrue. We believe it because it makes us feel superior to Lord Charles – and because it comes from Voltaire, who’s known to be a great writer. But he became one by shaping stories to fit his own ends. Truth is a lonely business, gentlemen.”
Two more cups of coffee later – both improved from the hip flask – Alerion slumped back in his chair, exhausted. It wasn’t the sort of occasion for clapping, but after a silent moment, an appreciative mumble came from the dazed and surfeited audience.
Dagner said gravely: “Thank you very much, Sir Caspar.” Then he leant forward, hands clasped on the table-top, face hard and even more inscrutable than usual. “Gentlemen: Sir Caspar has given you some down-to-earth advice. I want you to think about it, and the change it marks in your lives. Some of us have been in battle. We know it’s not like The Boy’s Oum Paper, that it’s nasty, messy, muddled and brutal. I’m sure it was always so, that Caesar’s wars were no different: De Bello Gallico was a political tract. His soldiers would have written a very different book. War is brutal – yet all of us here have found ways to avoid becoming brutalised by it.
“You can now forget these.
“Forget the idea that you’ll just be following orders. In this game orders can’t cover every eventuality and you’ll be beyond reach of any extra help. Forget the comradeship of battle: from now on, you will be acting alone. Forget the duty you had to save your men and friends from danger: on this battlefield, you have no men, and your friends will have their own battles elsewhere. I cannot stress too strongly what Sir Caspar said about being alone. And alone not even with your conscience, because you have no conscience save that of your country. You will be acting outside the law, even the laws of war.
“Yet, just as we learn not to be brutalised by battle, we must practise deceit, dishonesty and dishonourable behaviour without ourselves taking on these qualities. Because to be of any value to our country we must remain loyal, trustworthy and honest. No easy task, gentlemen.” He smiled thinly. “Yet, I believe that if we can learn to cope with battle we are already halfway there.
“And one more thing to forget: any hope of reward. But in that, I believe, lies our true strength. Because unlike self-seeking generals and bickering politicians, unlike civil servants chasing vapid honours and businessmen piling up money, we are working only for what we believe in. The simple knowledge that our country will not reward us makes us free to act for it without any thought of self. It is a great freedom. Cherish it.”
It was a good, an appropriate, speech, Ranklin had to agree. So what was wrong with him that his own reaction was to think Yes, but . . . and be glad O’Gilroy wasn’t here?
The new recruits were gone, out to lunch or back up to the office, but the three of them still sat there because Alerion didn’t seem to want to move. He was staring vaguely at the disarranged and empty chairs at the far end of the long table. The room was as bright as it ever got with daylight, but it was indirect, that cool interior light that the Dutch painters understood so well.
“Can I get you some fresh coffee, Sir Caspar?” Ranklin offered.
“No, you can get me a damned great whisky and soda.” He roused himself and lit a small cigar while Ranklin went to the sideboard. “So those are tomorrow’s unsung heroes, off to secret battle armed with my ramblings and your clarion call of King and Country-”
“I don’t think you’re being quite fair,” Dagner protested mildly. “If I’d become overtly patriotic, they’d have fidgeted and looked at their bootlaces. But an agent does have to have a clear idea of who he’s working for, far clearer than a soldier. History’s full of mercenaries who fought, and fought well, just for love of battle and a shilling a day. But espionage has to have a purpose that you can believe in when you’re out there on your own, facing far worse than battle. And we, sitting safe here on our backsides, have to know that they believe, or how can we trust them?”
Alerion let out a mouthful of smoke with a long humming noise. “I want to see this Bureau of yours survive – and prosper. It’s come nearly a hundred years late, we threw away everything we learned in the eighteenth century and the French wars . . .”
He saw the glass Ranklin had quietly placed by him, nodded his thanks and then addressed him for the first time. “You haven’t been in this game very long, have you, Captain?”
Ranklin, who had isolated himself in his ‘Yes, but . . .’ mood, was disconcerted by the prospect of being asked his opinion. But then Dagner said: “Captain R is one of our most senior agents.”
That may have headed Alerion off. But while he was looking at his glass, and taking occasional sips, he didn’t seem to be addressing Dagner. Indeed, he might even have been talking to himself, in short disjointed phrases: “I mentioned the fantasies you run into in this business . . . It takes another form, too . . . When you’ve uncovered so many secrets that you think that now you know . . . Like an actor who’s played the king too long comes to think he can change the world . . . Dare say we all want our dreams to come true, but mostly there’s someone looking over our shoulder, messing it up, making it just another day’s work . . . Probably just as well, really . . . Soldiering does destroy soldiers. How can we expect spying not to destroy spies? . . . Only how can you tell if you can’t see any blood . . . ?” He shook his head impatiently. “I’m starting to ramble.”