“Can I have a few splashes in the bathroom, sir, and a wet shave before I go? I do like to look spick and span when I travel, as befits a gentleman ranker.”
I gave permission. “Don’t mind the blood all over the place. I had a little accident this morning.”
“Looks like somebody’s killed a pig in there,” he called, coming back pink and clean. His clothes fitted well enough, my best navy blue suit with a white handkerchief in the lapel pocket, striped shirt with gold cufflinks, old school tie, elastic sided boots (long out of fashion, but he had taken a shine to them) my best fedora, a fortuitous transformation from a relative down-and-out to a well-dressed man of forceful character who would take no palaver from anyone. The British Army was a good finishing school for a willing learner from the slums.
He ran my tortoiseshell comb through his hair, then packed the case with half a dozen of my shirts, three sets of underwear, socks, handkerchiefs, extra ties, and a silk dressing gown. I envisaged myself strolling along Piccadilly in brown paper. “You’re only going for a week at the most, Sergeant.”
“I’m trying not to take too much, Major, but you just don’t know what the future holds, do you?” So in went an electric shaver, shoe polish and brush kit, and a handful of cigars. “A half-filled suitcase looks very suspicious at the customs,” he said. “But I’ll look after everything as if it was my own, and bring it all back. When I stood at your door half an hour ago I didn’t think I’d be sent on one of the most interesting operations of my life. You can be sure I’ll be a credit to you, and get Michael out of any dreck he might be in. If I can’t do it, nobody can.”
I wondered if such a personable braggart could do all he claimed, but there was no one else to rely on. I’d seen so many meticulously concocted schemes go awry in the squalor of conflict, though the odd one now and again had come off well enough to make up for them. “I hope so. I shall want a full report from the field. Meanwhile I’ll draw up your operations sheet, then photocopy it, before taking you to the airport.”
“There are a few other things I’d like before we go, sir, if you have them on the premises.”
My patience wasn’t endless, but I said: “And what might they be?”
“A pair of binoculars and a pocket compass, for a start. Then a length of twine, but not string, because it snaps too easily. Oh yes, some rubber gloves and a pair of strong pliers — rubber handled if possible.”
My blood went down a few degrees. “You aren’t instructed to kill anyone, or go through barbed wire. It’s strictly against regulations.”
“I realise that, sir, but every soldier knows something unexpected is always bound to happen, especially when he thinks it isn’t.”
His attitude seemed appallingly realistic. “You would have done well in my platoon during the War, sergeant, except that you would have been dead in no time, and probably so would I.”
I could only allow him to assemble what equipment he needed, while Mabel, looking on as if happy she wouldn’t have to give out white feathers today, seemed pleased to see me in contact with what she thought was the real world at last. Pulling the bloody rags from my head, and after cleaning up prior to getting dressed, I let her use half a lemon as antiseptic for my wound. It stung like a hot poker when the plaster fell in place as if magnetised, so painful I relished even more taking her to task, or to pieces, on my return from the airport.
William Straw was smoothing another pair of trousers into the case. “Oh, and I’ll take a light mackintosh as well.”
I did my best to put on a sombre expression. “What about a primus stove, to brew tea now and again?”
Straightening, he showed an aspect of reliability no one could fault, marred only by my detection, from the army days, of a slight untrustworthiness. Yet I couldn’t complain, not having had such an interesting time since the War. I almost wished I was going with him, except that an author couldn’t allow himself to be endangered if he was to write about the experience afterwards. Though it was my duty to let others live for me, I was always willing to give them a little help.
“I shan’t need a primus,” he said. “If I want a cup of tea by the roadside I can easily get a fire going.”
Half the damned hillside as well, I shouldn’t wonder. Perhaps it was good I was staying behind. As the salt of the earth he would be uncontrollable, a type I’d met before, recalling how I’d once been told to take my platoon and deal with a machinegun in a house on the edge of a village. Unfortunately we couldn’t move an inch without being killed. My arm was hit by shrapnel, which so enraged Sergeant Cohen, a resourceful chap from the East End, that he dropped his rifle, took out a cutthroat razor, opened it, and zig-zagged into the house, standing at the door a few minutes later to present me with a bag of fingers, saying: “You can come in now, sir. They can’t shoot without these.”
“Do you want a cutthroat razor then?” I said to the current specimen of the apocalypse.
He took it with so much alacrity that I could in no way see him as a suitable emissary for a United Europe. “I work too stealthily to need one of these, but you’re right, sir. You never know, though I’ll try not to make a mess of your suit.” He went through the flat for a final look, as if in the house of an enemy. “I’ll chuck in a pair of these shorts, and this nice flowered shirt, if I may, and these sandals.”
“You aren’t going for a holiday,” I said morosely.
He was not a man for self-pity, only for looking pitiably on those who held views other than his own. “I know, sir, but I might allow myself an hour or two’s leave when the dirty work’s done.” He aimed a playful tap at my ribs. “If you see what I mean,” and gave that knowing, British infantryman’s lantern smile, as if to reassure me that he would survive at anyone’s expense except his own. “Mind you, sir, it’s a million to one against finding him.”
“No it isn’t, Sergeant. All you have to do is get him out. You have your orders. Just think of the kudos when it’s all over.”
“Will do, sir. You can rely on me.” He rubbed his hands with lunatic enthusiasm, “Zero hour, here I come!”
Chapter Ten
While on the one hand I gloated at having let Bill Straw loose on the soft underbelly of Europe, on the other I was terrified at what the international repercussions might be. You can imagine my state of trepidation while waiting for news, and going through The Times every morning, which I sent Mabel out to buy not too long after dawn. “He won’t do it,” I wailed to her. “I just don’t see how someone like him can bring such a long shot off, at least not without another murder as at Sarajevo.”
“Fiddlesticks!” Her cry went some way towards soothing my anxiety. She was more right than I was. Her lascivious glances of dumb admiration at William Straw when he was changing into decent clothes before departure told me that she trusted him absolutely, and might even be hankering after a touch of rough trade after too long enjoying, and becoming bored with — as was possible with any woman — my gentle and highborn ministrations.
Be that as it may, a missive came at last from Greece, the stamps placed neatly upside down on the quarto brown envelope. I hadn’t imagined William Straw to be familiar with Attic script, but the school he had been to must have had excellent and dedicated teachers, because he could spell and punctuate to an extent that had he been in my battalion during the War he would have been recommended for Sandhurst. His dispatch was cleanly typed, though where he had found a secretary to do it wasn’t stated. I give the document exactly as laid out, with no words doctored: