“Oh, I think Sir Aylmer was quite straight with you there: they want nothing. Or, at most, to take us over themselves and disband us. But I fancy that the sub-committee which thought us up foresaw that; that’s why they put us under the protection of the big, bold Admiralty and with a Naval man in charge.
“I suppose-” he put a match to his pipe and began puffing up a smokescreen; “-that they see our very existence as a standing reproof: that they can’t learn everything by their own methods. And to be fair, we may occasionally tread on their toes. Perhaps the problem with Europe is that, if we’re caught, we don’t usually get quietly tortured to death and dumped in a ditch. It can happen, of course, but we’re more likely to get a well-publicised trial producing a Diplomatic Incident, which means our ambassador there gets a roasting, the FO here gets a wigging from the Cabinet and His Majesty – and we sit in the shadows saying smugly: ‘But we don’t exist, you can’t blame us.’ That’s the way the FO sees it, anyway.”
A true, slow smile broke across Dagner’s stem face. “Thank you, Captain . . . R,” he said formally. “I can see I’ve got a lot to learn. But the Chief said that I could rely on you, as the senior agent present, for an uncompromising view of our work and its problems.”
That startled Ranklin. Senior agent? – he had only been with the Bureau for nine months, only “home” in London – which had never been his home – for the past two weeks. Granted they had been busy months, and he was probably the oldest in the office bar the Commander and Dagner himself, but senior ? Of course, Dagner had said “present”, so it might be that the Continent was crawling with the Bureau’s more experienced and skilled spies, too valuable to keep in London. But Ranklin doubted it.
“Nice of him to say so,” he mumbled.
“So I hope you’ll forgive me if I rely rather heavily on you until I find my feet.”
“Oh, quite, yes, of course.”
Then the Commander came out of his inner office to shake hands with Dagner while still patting the shoulder of a rather tearful stenographer who was telling him to be sure not to get into trouble with the nasty Germans, and calling for someone to find a taxi.
Finally he shook Ranklin’s hand, said: “Get everything organised so that I can ruin it when I get back, Captain,” and chuckled loudly. “And don’t forget that Sir Caspar Alerion’s coming to lecture you all on Friday. Give him my regards and apologies. Don’t come down to see me off.” Then he drew and flourished his swordstick, nearly emasculating a hanging light, and was gone in a swirl of green cloak.
Nobody wanted to be the first to speak after that exit. Ranklin began cleaning out his pipe, gradually others began a gentle bustle, and then Dagner said: “Very well, then. I suppose I’d better say a few words to set the pace for the coming weeks. Captain, would you make sure everybody’s here in, say, five minutes?” He went through into the Commanders sound-proofed inner room.
Ranklin directed the rearrangement of chairs into a rough line. Three of the new recruits were Army officers, one a Marine, and all around thirty years old. They had trickled in over the past week and he knew very little about them apart from their reports. And CR’s were tricky things, supposedly frank assessments by former CO’s, but seen by the reportee himself. It helped if you knew the CO’s – which he didn’t – and could read between the lines, which he had been trying to do.
He gave a mental shrug; whatever the CR’s said, these were the people he had to try and train. And it wasn’t your seniors who forced you into believing in what you were doing, it was having damned juniors whom you mustn’t disillusion.
After precisely five minutes, Dagner reappeared. He stood looking at them for a moment, cautiously tested a table for its solidity, then sat on the corner of it, swinging one long leg. “Smoke if you want to,” he invited them, then began: “We – you and I – are all new boys in this Bureau. Although I’ve played the Game out in India for a few years, already I’ve realised that I’ve got a great deal to unlearn in the very different climate of Europe. So we’re starting at the bottom of the ladder together.”
He had an easy confidence, Ranklin conceded. It took that to admit ignorance to subordinates yet be sure you wouldn’t lose their respect.
“But one thing I think I shall find is the same: that there comes a time when all the scaffolding of authority falls away and you have to stand alone. And it is not how you cope with that loneliness that will make you an effective agent but how you do more than cope, how you decide and act.” He paused, then went on thoughtfully, almost diffidently: “It can help to remember that at such moments you are working directly for your country. The link is simple and unimpeded. I suggest you let that be your guide.
“Now-” he relaxed and let a small, friendly smile show; “-we aren’t going to send you out equipped with only a few noble thoughts. Captain . . . R is laying on a training programme to give you some basic knowledge and skills that you’ll find useful in the field. That will begin-” A telephone rang and Ranklin almost knocked over his chair in reaching it.
“I thought I asked you not to put any calls through here,” he whispered huskily.
The telephone girl was unimpressed. “It’s Mr O’Gilroy, sir.”
“All right, I’ll come out there. Don’t lose him.” He hung up, nodded apologetically at Dagner and tiptoed out.
The outermost room of the suite was both spartan and had the Feminine Touch, being staffed by girls, and one widow, of good naval and military families. All wore a semi-uniform of dark skirt and demure high-necked white blouse fixed with a bow-tie or cameo brooch. Somebody – perhaps they had organised a rota – brought in fresh flowers for each desk every day, and there were cheerfully dull prints of Scottish landscapes on the walls.
The telephonist indicated a spare instrument, then did something brisk and technical with her wires and plugs. Ranklin picked up the earpiece and said: “Hello?”
O’Gilroy sounded very stilted and exaggeratedly Irish. “Matt? Matt? Is it yeself, Matt?”
“It’s me.” He settled himself for an obscure and roundabout conversation; O’Gilroy wisely didn’t trust telephone operators. “Where are you speaking from?”
“The hotel. Jest got into town. Seems like nobody was meeting us.”
Blast Scotland Yard. They’d promised to have someone ready to take over from O’Gilroy the moment he came ashore at Harwich. Arranging that had been a courtesy on the Bureau’s part, to demonstrate that their people were not “active” on British soil.
“Sorry about that. I’ll remind them. Did you have a good crossing?”
“Wasn’t exactly a storm.” That probably meant a flat calm; O’Gilroy was a dedicatedly bad sailor.
“Any trouble in Brussels?”
“The feller was right about having problems. Near had a nasty accident with an aeroplane.”
“An aeroplane?” How on earth . . . But the telephone system wasn’t private enough for explanations. “Was anybody hurt?”
“Nobody we know. I thought it was mebbe in the papers.” Come to think of it, Ranklin had noticed a small item about a fatal aeroplane crash in Brussels. But he hadn’t read more – it was a common enough headline – and certainly hadn’t connected it with O’Gilroy’s work.
“Anyway, you’re back. Which hotel are you at?”
“The Ritz.”
“The Ritz? Good Lord, with dinner, that could cost him a pound a night.”
“I’m thinking he’d never notice.”
“Then I don’t suppose you’re in any hurry to leave, but I’ll get on to the Yard anyway. Come back here when you’re relieved.”
“Thanks, Matt. I’ll say goodbye, then. Goodbye.”
Ranklin hung up, thinking: It’s unfamiliarity with telephones that makes O’Gilroy sound so stilted, but can it be the electricity that somehow emphasises his accent? If so, and you had somebody whose English was good but you suspected he was foreign, then perhaps . . . Then he shook his head and asked the girl to get him through to Scotland Yard.