I’ve moved hotel, from Bayswater to South Kensington. I have a bedroom and a small sitting room with a fireplace – should I need a fire. The days are growing noticeably milder as summer begins to make its presence felt.
And for me, suddenly – as someone who’s about to go there – the news from the front seems acutely relevant. I find I am following the bloody, drawn-out end of the battle of Festubert with unusual interest. I read the news of this great triumph for the British and Empire troops (Indians and Canadians also participated) but even to the uninitiated the cavils and the qualifications in the accounts of the battle stand out. ‘Brave sacrifice’, ‘valiant struggle’, ‘in the face of unceasing enemy fire’ – these tired phrases give the game away. Even some semi-covert criticism: ‘insufficient numbers of our heavy guns’. Casualties acknowledged to be in the tens of thousands. Maybe more.
Mother has forwarded my mail. To my surprise there’s a letter from Dr Bensimon which I here transcribe:
My dear Rief,
I trust all is well, in every sense of the word. I wanted to let you know that I and my family left Vienna as soon as it was clear that war was inevitable. I have set up practice here in London should you ever have the need to avail yourself of my professional services. In any event, I should be pleased to see you. My consulting rooms are at
117, Highgate Hill. Telephone: HD
7634.
Sincere salutations, John Bensimon
PS. The results of our Vienna sessions in
1913
were published in this year’s Spring number of
Das Bulletin für psychoanalytische Forschung
. You go by the pseudonym ‘The Ringmaster’.
I feel warmed and touched by this communication. I always liked and respected Bensimon but I was never quite sure what he thought about me. ‘In any event, I should be pleased to see you.’ I take that as clear encouragement, almost friendly, an explicit invitation to make contact.
Every day, Monday to Friday, I go to the house in Islington to be briefed by Munro, Fyfe-Miller and, increasingly, Massinger. I study maps and, in the basement, familiarize myself with a detailed sand-model of a portion of our front line. I thought this must be a War Office intelligence operation but I’m beginning to suspect it originates in some other secret government department. One day, Massinger referred inadvertently to a person known as ‘C’ a couple of times. I overheard him say to Fyfe-Miller, with some fervour, even suppressed anger, ‘I’m running Switzerland but “C” thinks it’s a waste of time. He thinks we should be concentrating our efforts in Holland. We’re counting on Rief to prove him wrong.’ What the hell does that mean? How am I meant to respond to that challenge? When I had an opportunity I asked Fyfe-Miller who this ‘C’ was but he said simply, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Stuff and nonsense.’
My Swiss railway engineer identity takes rapid shape. It’s based closely on an actual engineer – a man suffering from chronic duodenal ulcers in a Belgian sanatorium. We have quietly borrowed much of his identity as he lies in his ward, semi-conscious, suffering, hope fading. My name is Abelard Schwimmer. I’m unmarried, my parents are dead, I live in a small village outside Zürich. I saw my passport today – a very authentic-looking document filled with stamps and frankings from the borders I’ve crossed – France, Belgium, Holland and Italy. I’m to arrive in Geneva by ferry from the French side of the lake at Thonon and make my way to a medium-sized commercial hotel. The agent I’m to contact goes by the name of ‘Bonfire’. The Ringmaster meets the Bonfire. Bensimon would chuckle at that if he knew.
This morning Munro took me to a military firing range east of Beckton and instructed me in the use of the Webley Mark VI Service Revolver. I fired off many dozens of rounds at the targets and was fairly accurate. It was a powerful weapon and my forearm began to ache.
‘I hope I won’t be called upon to use this thing,’ I said.
‘We try to foresee every eventuality, Rief,’ was all he replied. ‘Have you ever thrown a grenade?’
‘No.’
‘Let’s have a try, shall we? The Mills bomb. Very straightforward as long as you can count from one to five.’
Back in Islington he gave me certain crucial pieces of information. The address of a safe house in Geneva. The secret telephone number of the military attaché at the consulate – ‘Only to be used in the most dire emergency’. The number of an account at the Federal Bank of Geneva where I could draw the funds necessary for the bribe. And an elaborate double-password that would enable me to identify Agent Bonfire – and vice versa, of course.
‘Take your time but commit them to memory, I suggest,’ Munro added. ‘Or if you can’t rely on your memory have them tattooed on a very private part of your anatomy.’
I think I can certify that this is Munro’s first attempt at a joke.
I dined with Blanche last night at Pinoli’s in Soho, one of her favourite places. She was about to start a run of The Reluctant Hero at the Alhambra and told me that the theatres were as busy as peacetime. I felt envious, experiencing a sudden urge to rejoin my old life, to be back on stage, acting, pretending. Then it struck me that this was precisely what I was about to do. Even the title of her play was suddenly apt. It rather sobered me.
‘I do like you in your uniform,’ she said. ‘But I thought you were a private.’
‘I’ve been promoted,’ I said. ‘I’m off to France soon. In fact . . .’
She looked at me silently, her eyes full of sudden tears.
‘Oh, god, no,’ she said, then gathering herself added, ‘I’m so sorry . . .’ She looked at her hands – at her missing engagement ring, I supposed – then she said, abruptly, ‘Why did it all go so wrong for us, Lysander?’
‘It didn’t go wrong. Life got in the way.’
‘And now a war’s got in the way.’
‘We can still be –’
‘Don’t say it!’ she said sharply. ‘I detest that expression.’
So I said nothing and cut a large corner off my gammon steak. When I bit into it I felt my crown go.
‘I can make you another,’ the Hon. Hugh Faulkner said to me. ‘But, in the present unfortunate circumstances, it’ll take a while.’
‘Just stick it back on if you can,’ I said. ‘I’m off to France any day now.’
‘Five of my Varsity friends are dead already,’ he said gloomily. ‘I don’t dare to think how many from school.’
There was no reply I could reasonably make so I stayed silent. He said nothing either, kicking at the chrome base of the chair with the toe of his shoe. I was sitting in Hugh’s special reclining chair in his clinic in Harley Street.
‘We all need a bit of luck,’ I said, to bring him out of his lugubrious reverie and to stop the tap-tap-tapping of his toe.
‘Well, you were damn lucky you didn’t swallow it, there’s a stroke of luck for you,’ he said, holding the crown up to his powerful overhead light. ‘Amazing to think they used to make these out of ivory.’ He unbuttoned the cuffs of his coat and rolled them back. ‘Open wide and let’s have a look.’
I did so and Hugh brought the big light close and peered in my mouth. He was wearing a three-piece dark suit and a tie I recognized but couldn’t place. He started to poke around in my mouth with his sharp metal probe.
‘Actually, I have to say that your teeth look in fairly good condition –’