“Anyway,” Dagner resumed, “what he’s offering is to prompt a strike in the shipyard at Trieste that’s building most of the Austrian dreadnoughts.”
“Oh.” Ranklin couldn’t think how to react. “Er . . . just like that?”
“I didn’t ask how.” Dagner gave him a reproving look. “And I doubt I’d understand anyway: I know almost nothing about industry. But I think we must accept that he does; that’s how he made his money. And he claims strong family connections with Trieste – where most of the shipyard workers are also Italian. Building warships for Austria that could be used against Italy – one can see an inflammatory argument there. He also mentioned Oberdan – have you heard of him?”
Ranklin just shook his head, since the waiter was delivering their main course. He couldn’t remember what he’d ordered but it turned out to be the rump steak with oyster sauce. He felt he had to justify it by pointing out: “With one thing and another, I didn’t get any real dinner last night.”
Dagner nodded and consulted his cuff again. “I’ve verified Oberdan, at least. He was an Italian nationalist but citizen of Austria who got hanged by the authorities in Trieste back in 1882, at about this time of year. Apparently he’s become a martyr, a useful name to shout at riots. And that’s what the Senator hopes for: not just a strike but a riot with the workers destroying the shipyard machinery in an outburst of Luddism.”
“Sabotage,” Ranklin muttered, but not really listening to himself because he felt this was either an opium dream or very deep water.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry. Sabotage. New slang from the French railway strike last year, when they tore up the sleepers, that the French call ‘sabots’. Wooden shoes.”
“Sabotage.” Dagner savoured the word. “Thank you. So, such things can happen.” He ate quietly for a while. Then: “I find that rather terrifying – even that such a word has appeared in our language. We talked of Secret Weapons the other day, but this could trump the lot.”
Ranklin had long believed that any talk of bloody-minded, bone-idle, money-grubbing civilian workers should be a banned in Army messes, so wasn’t going to get involved. Instead: “You said the Senator was offering a deaclass="underline" what does he want from us?”
“Help with armaments. He’s not just interested in naval affairs, but in improving the Italian Army as well.”
“Money?”
“Oh no, no.”
“That’s usually all it takes. I don’t believe there are any restrictions on the export of arms.” He had wondered if Dagner, fresh from the Khyber Pass where selling even a rifle to a tribesman was probably a hanging offence, realised how easy the rest of the world found it to buy British battleships, French aeroplanes, German cannon, no matter who you were. All you needed was hard cash.
But Dagner seemed to appreciate this already. “He’s just one man, rich but still not the Italian Government, and he thinks we could help in cutting red tape, speeding things up. And one thing he’s looking for is an aeroplane – to replace the one he thought he was going to buy in Brussels.”
Ranklin pushed back his plate, feeling that this was more his size. No longer heady talk of secret treaties and shipyard riots, just buying an aeroplane. “We need O’Gilroy. He was going to take the Senator to Brooklands this weekend.”
“I know. But since he’s there already, I wonder if you felt like escorting the Senator down there tomorrow?”
Ranklin thought for a moment, then asked: “Who am I?”
Dagner smiled. “Somebody from the War Office who’s just been posted to the Flying Corps staff and is trying to get his eye in – so you don’t have to know anything, just seem eager to learn.”
But even that, Ranklin reckoned, showed a remarkable trust in his acting skills. And it hadn’t been how he’d planned this Saturday, but -“Actually, Mrs Finn has a brother who’s involved in aeronautics there.
“By all means make it a day out. Other people are always the best disguise. And do light a cigarette, I’m not having any pudding.”
Dagner himself didn’t seem to have any habits: he didn’t smoke, didn’t fiddle with his knife and fork . . . Probably he saw such things as elements of disguise; Ranklin had no doubt he could appear a confirmed smoker or cutlery-fiddler at will, but kept his real self stripped of any compulsions. The Complete Professional. What was he like at home? – but then Ranklin remembered that with his wife dead, there was no home . . .
“Happy to go,” he mumbled, feeling guilty about even knowing that about Dagner. He lit his cigarette. “Then are we going ahead on this . . . this ‘deal’?”
“We can’t change the Admiralty’s – and presumably the Cabinet’s – mind about withdrawing protection from the India route. But that matters less if Austria’s new dreadnoughts are delayed.”
“Or if,” Ranklin said thoughtfully, “a shipyard riot gets out of hand, Austrian troops open fire on Italian workers . . .”
“And there’s bad blood between Italy and Austria. Yes, I’d rest easy with that – particularly since our own part is so much in the background that it won’t be suspected.”
“You don’t feel it comes a bit close to policy-making?”
Dagner began to look stern, then decided not to and spoke gently, almost as if explaining to a child. “But doesn’t the policy already exist? It was to set up our Bureau to further Britain’s interests by secret means. Sooner or later – clearly later, in Britain’s case – every government realises it needs such a service to do things it cannot be caught doing itself. Politicians want to be able to say truthfully ‘We didn’t know, we didn’t order this’ while being glad it’s been done. Whether that makes their business cleaner than ours, I won’t presume to judge. It certainly makes ours dirty, and we have to face up to that. But we have been given a mission, Captain, a mission, not a sinecure.”
Back upstairs, Ranklin tried to raise Corinna by telephone, first at her flat, then at Sherring’s City office. He caught her there, sounding brisk and business-like.
“About tomorrow,” he began hesitantly, “I’m afraid I’ve got to escort an Italian senator down to Brooklands. He’s hoping to find an aeroplane-”
“Introduce him to Andrew, then,” she said promptly.
“Thank you. Another thing, O’Gilroy’s also down there, to learn to fly-”
Her laughter nearly fused the instrument to his ear. “Conall? Learning to fly? Has he gone crazy about airplanes, too?”
“You know him . . .”
“Who’s teaching him?”
“That’s my next question: can he ask Andrew who to go to?”
“Of course. I’m not having Conall’s neck broken by anyone but the best. I’ll telegraph Andrew right away.” There was a crackling silence, then: “Who’s this senator?”
“A Signor Falcone from Turin. Something big in textile machinery over there, big enough to be staying at the Ritz . . .” He held his breath, waiting to see if she’d take the bait.
“Is that so?” she said. “I wouldn’t mind hearing something about the Italian textile business . . . and seeing Conall again. Would I be welcome? I could bring the automobile and save you having to introduce yourself to Andrew as the man who’s wronging his sister.”
Ranklin stared at the earpiece as if it had become a snake. The line from here to the City was probably loaded with eavesdropping telephone girls; certainly one in his own outer office.
Mind, it was quite possible that that was why Corinna had said such a thing.
“Most welcome,” he said weakly. “Could we say ten o’clock at the Ritz?”