The Secret Generations
Her tone softened, ‘John, dear. I’ve come to love this place. It has a sort of magic about it that ensnares a person. Other Railton wives have found the same, I know. You haven’t the time to deal with everything. I have, and I mean what I say about Berry and Hunter.’
John said nothing. He needed time to think. Yet, after two more conversations with Sara, he finally agreed. ‘I shall pension off Hunter, and see Berry.’ Oddly, he felt that, for a Railton, he was being weak. Yet he wanted to dedicate the bulk of his time to the political work. Sara was happy at Redhill, and a few small changes would do no harm.
As for Bob Berry, the farm manager was already putting to rights the problem which had worried him from the moment of The General’s death. He had formed a liaison with the sixteen-year-old daughter of Jack Calmer, the best butcher in Haversage.
Young Rachel Calmer had first put in an appearance when she had been sent to the farm on an errand. The errand, a minor matter – a ten-minute chore – took her the best part of three hours, after which she began to walk out with Berry.
By late spring, young Rachel, who was a fine slim girl, with dark, almost gypsy, looks, told her suitor that she was pregnant. She did not tell him that she had set out to become pregnant by him.
For Bob Berry, the future was prepared. The banns were read, and shortly afterwards his new appointment as farm and estate manager was confirmed.
Hunter left quietly, a fact which amazed many people. But John saw to it that he was provided with a regular annuity, and a house, far away on the other side of Oxford.
At Redhill Manor, things were changing.
*
Giles, in his own secret way, had been a one-man intelligence service for so many years now that he had long since ceased to be answerable to any of the official bodies. He shared his private knowledge – or most of it – and undeniably trod a delicate and dangerous path, with contacts which took him into strange areas, encompassing practically every country in Europe.
True, he had recently opened up a rich vein of information through his own kinfolk in Ireland, but long before his son, Malcolm, had even met Bridget Kinread, Giles had skilfully infiltrated his own agent within the now reblossoming Fenian movement.
In the past he had personally visited the man, interrogated him, and been the recipient of his private letters and messages, which provided a wide variety of intelligence concerning the Republican Brotherhood. The man’s real name was Declan Fearon. They had coded him SNAKE, which seemed apt, even amusing, to Giles.
Now, the elder Railton called on Vernon Kell to ask a favour. He learned that Charles was progressing well and suggested that his nephew could possibly receive further training by seeing the man known as SNAKE. For the first time Giles shared this secret source with Kell who, suitably impressed, agreed that Charles might well benefit from a short clandestine operation.
So it was that Giles briefed Vernon Kell who, in turn, gave Charles the details of what he was to do. The agent would be expecting him, on one of three consecutive nights, between seven and nine at his home in West Cork. Passwords were arranged and Charles felt more than a small thrill at being entrusted with bringing back detailed intelligence from Ireland. The dates set were in a matter of a fortnight’s time.
*
Hans-Helmut Ulhurt – ‘The Fisherman’ – sailed, ostensibly as second mate, on the merchant vessel Möwe, out of Hamburg, in early April.
They unloaded in Liverpool, leaving only machine parts in the cargo hold. These were to be delivered, during the return journey, in Dublin. The task in Liverpool should have taken four days at the outside. Unfortunately, though, the ship developed trouble with her steering, causing her to wait for replacement parts to be brought from Hamburg.
In all, Möwe was in Liverpool docks for almost two weeks, during which time ‘The Fisherman’ travelled to Porstmouth, Southampton, Plymouth, London and thence to Scotland, via the industrial heart of the Midlands.
He was able to pass himself off quite easily as an Englishman, and had no trouble while travelling. On the contrary, he made some very pleasant friends and, in all, had five liaisons with young women who were fascinated by his stories of the sea, his wooden leg, and other parts of his anatomy which provided hours of pleasure and homely fun.
He promised to visit these women again – in particular a Mrs MacGregor, who kept a boarding house in Invergordon.
While he took pleasure with the ladies, ‘The Fisherman’ behaved himself on other counts, getting drunk only once – and that in the privacy of his room at a small private hotel in London.
Finally, they delivered the machine parts in Dublin where the ship was to be berthed for six days.
On the first morning, Steinhauer’s man visited Bewley’s Café where he got into ‘casual’ conversation with a man who gave him a number of messages for a mutual acquaintance in Germany.
‘Our friend once told me that he had a man who could do almost anything for good comrades,’ the Irishman said quietly, after passing on certain intelligence which ‘The Fisherman’ was sure would interest his chief.
‘Yes,’ ‘The Fisherman’ nodded. ‘Yes, that man is myself. Can I be of service?’
The Irishman looked at him with clear hard blue eyes which reminded Ulhurt of broken glass. ‘Some friends of mine have a great problem, he began. ‘You see, we’ve discovered a traitor in our midst, and there’s really only one thing you can do with a traitor…’
‘How well I know it.’
‘But, you see, the fellow’s well-known and lives in a small community. If my friends did the job themselves they’d be surely tracked down. They need an outsider; but someone who can come and go without leaving a ripple on the water, so.’
‘The Fisherman’ nodded, ‘I’m your man. Just tell me where, and who. It will be done in a matter of forty-eight hours.’
‘Well, now.’ Padraig leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, so. You’ll be having to take the train. The fella you’ll want lives in the village of Rosscarbery. That’s in West Cork.’ He then started to give the German more precise instructions. ‘We’d like a real example made of him,’ he ended.
*
Charles had arrived in Rosslare on the steam ferry, complete with rod, fly-box, and the usual impedimenta, looking every inch a visitor out for a week or so of pleasant fishing.
He took the train to Cork and then moved on by omnibus, putting up for the night in an inn some five miles from Rosscarbery. In the bar he could not detect any suspicion – ‘There’s a lot of people here for the fishing from across the water’ – they told him. So he arranged matters with the innkeeper, and spent the following day catching nothing in nearby fresh water.
At about four in the afternoon, Charles packed up his rods, returned to the inn and announced that he was off for a walk. Nobody seemed surprised – the English were mad anyway and there was no accounting for them. If the Englishman wanted to go walking at this time of day who were they to comment?
Rosscarbery stands high on rocky ground, its one access being a steep rising road which takes you straight into a small square; the whole, perched confusion of grey houses reminiscent of a Provençal village. The main road forks up the hill, and is approached over a fine straight causeway.
It was a blustery March evening, with cloud lowering in from the west, and the last struggling rays of pale sun trying to cast slanting beams onto the sea lying to Charles’ left. Ahead of him, the long causeway led to the road and the hill. He paused for a moment. Vernon Kell had told him not to arrive early. It was straightforward, he said, and merely a matter of timing. The man they called SNAKE lived in a small house on the far side of the town, on the western slope of the hill. Charles had studied a plan of the place. From the causeway it would take him about an hour to walk to their informant’s door.
He rested, looking out at the sea, reflecting on its constant movement, aware of the noise as small breakers hit the rocks, but at the same time remaining alert, alive to the possibilit
y of someone watching him.
At last, clutching the ash plant he carried, Charles began to cross the causeway, walking steadily, timing himself; then, more slowly up the hill, and into the square where lights were just starting to be lit. A woman, dressed in crow black, her head and shoulders covered by a shawl, hurried from the small general shop, and three men lounged near a bar entrance. Nobody appeared to be interested in this tall stranger – though, later, his description was certainly circulated to the police and military.
It was exactly five minutes to seven when he turned the corner of the narrow street where SNAKE lived – at the far end – in the three-roomed cottage known as Farnagh.
He could see it in the gathering gloom, and slowed as another figure approached on the far side of the road.
Charles did not look straight at the man, but took in the slightly limping gait, the fact of his size – tall and broad –and that he walked with his head lowered, the peak of his cap pulled down as though to avoid anyone seeing his features. The man walked steadily, unhurried, the halting clip of his boots on the broken pavement dying away as he headed back towards the square.
A few minutes later, Charles was knocking on the door of Farnagh, three quick raps, ready to give the first passwords: ‘Can you tell me the way to O’Malley’s Farm? I’m sorry to trouble you.’
But nobody answered the door even though a light burned clearly in the front room.
He rapped again, and, as his stick struck the door, so it swung open, and he saw that the latch had been shattered. Charles felt the horror before he laid eyes on it.
Their informant had been a large man, heavy and fat. Now he looked like some grotesque deflated blimp that had been filled with blood and offal, then punctured unsuspectingly.
The little front room, once neatly ordered, had become an abattoir. Blood decorated walls and floor, soaked curtains, and flung hideous patterns over pictures. The victim – the informer – lay hacked and split, in the centre of the room, his entrails spilling onto the carpet, his blood, still warm, dripping from the table. The instrument of this wild orgy of death, a large, sharp-bladed axe, had been tossed to one side, knocking over a small table so that the blade now lay half across a picture-frame containing a bloodied sepia photograph of a young woman who had probably been the victim’s daughter.
Charles retched once, then was violently sick.
It was not until he was half-way back along the street that three thoughts crossed his mind. First, as a stranger he would obviously be suspect; second, the frenzy of killing had not long taken place; third, the figure he had passed in the street was clad in a long coat, and he wondered what state that man’s clothing would be in. If he were the killer, then whatever he wore under the coat must now be drenched with blood.
In fact, the body was not found for twenty-four hours; and, by then, Charles was well away on the return journey to England. Only later did Quinn tell him that two strangers had been reported in the area of Rosscarbery that evening: one was undoubtedly himself, the other matched the description of the man he had glimpsed near the informant’s house. A week later the remains of burned clothing were found near the Rosscarbery hill. The killing remained unsolved, though one report, seen by Charles almost a year after, was of the opinion that, from half-charred buttons retrieved from the burned clothes, it was possible the murderer was German.
For several months, Charles suffered nightmares, seeing again the mutilated corpse and hearing the dripping blood. Hardly a week passed but he recalled the figure with a slight limp clumping towards him on the opposite side of the narrow street.
Chapter Nine
Winter slowly drifted away. By mid-April the blossom was showing, trees began to lose their bare skeletal look, taking on a fine filigree of green, the true herald of spring.
Mildred Railton was only just showing her condition, but Charles already felt concern. The whole thought of Mildred carrying another child at her age nagged at the back of his mind.
By the end of April he was spending much more time in MO5’s room, high and tucked away in the War Office itself. He was there on the afternoon of 3 May, when Vernon Kell returned from a meeting at the Admiralty. He looked worried, and spoke even before closing the door. ‘Charles, the King’s ill.’
‘Ill? Too much wine? He’s only just got back from gallivanting around Biarritz.’
‘Don’t joke,’ Kell snapped. ‘I gather it’s serious.’ Before he could continue, the private telephone rang.
‘Could you possibly get away, now, and come to Eccleston Square?’ Giles asked quietly at the other end of the line.
Vernon Kell found Giles Railton in the Hide, a huge map spread out, with the opposing forces of Hannibal and Scipio arranged for him to study the tactics and dispositions of the battle of Zama.
‘You’ve heard the news?’ Giles did not look up from the model soldiers.
‘The King?’
‘Yes. It’ll be public knowledge soon enough…’
‘How bad is it really?’ Kell asked.
‘Very. It appears that he was not well while abroad. The Cabinet are on permanent standby. King Teddy’s dying, and you must consider what this could mean in the long view of European politics. I cannot deny my own concern. Europe is in turmoil, and nobody seems to realize the underlying seriousness. Even the workers are restless – more than restless in other countries – and before we know it, their grievances will spread to here.’
The two men talked for almost three hours, and Kell left with a number of serious subjects for discussion with Charles and Quinn.
Giles had met his nephew, John, that morning, and they had certainly spoken of the gravity of the situation, though John was more interested in talking about his wife, Sara. ‘I find it incredible, Uncle Giles. When The General died, she hated the very idea of the country on any permanent basis. Yet it’s taken her only a few weeks – weeks, mark you – to settle down.’
Giles said that the speed with which Sara had adjusted was not unusual. ‘It was the same with your mother, John. That house has an odd effect on women.’
Privately, he had his own thoughts about Sara. Redhill Manor and the estate had become a new lover and husband for her. Time would see how things turned out, and time was sifting away for the King.
*
Two days later, in the evening of 5 May, the whole country knew. King Edward VII was gravely ill.
At Buckingham Palace, the Queen sent for the King’s faithful companion and mistress, Mrs Keppel; but he continued to work, even on that last day, between fainting fits, having oxygen administered.
On the afternoon of 6 May King Edward lost consciousness. Crowds began to gather, silently, in front of the Palace.
Just after midnight, there came a great knocking at the door of the South Audley Street house.
Mildred awoke, agitated, asking what was wrong, and a maid appeared a few minutes later, saying there was a young gentleman for Mr Railton.
Sprogitt stood, uncomfortably, in the hall. ‘Sir,’ he all but whispered. ‘His Majesty passed away about a quarter of an hour ago. Captain Kell says would you please come to the office right away. He feels His Majesty’s death is a matter for the country’s internal security.’
Charles nodded. The Uncle of Europe was gone, at the age of sixty-nine years. Charles did not realize this was truly the end of an era. His work was soon to begin in earnest.
*
The information brought back by ‘The Fisherman’ was well-presented, but without much to interest Steinhauer – except for one name. Railton. He had heard it before, yet could not quite put his finger on it. The name had come in from ‘The Fisherman’ via the Irish contact called O’Connell, who had boasted of a private informer – ‘…name of Railton’ – closely connected with the English military in Ireland.
Steinhauer was still working out of the Wilhelmstrasse, and his new masters had a few of their people also in the Foreign Ministry, though the bulk of their operations were centred
in a house on Courbierrestrasse, in the Western part of the city, to which they all referred as Number 8. There was one old school-fellow of Steinhauer’s – an army captain, von Schurer, at the Wilhelmstrasse. He could trust von Schurer, and it was to him that Gustav Steinhauer went on the day after ‘The Fisherman’s’ return.
He was greeted with a look of surprise. ‘I did not expect to see you here, Gustav.’ Von Schurer was a tall, very handsome, man, a shade of the dandy and thought of as a devil with the ladies. Only his intimates knew his particular sweet tooth for young boys. ‘Did you not get Major Nicolai’s message?’ Nicolai had been appointed overall Commander of Intelligence, with the rank of Major, only a few weeks before.
Steinhauer had not even looked on his desk. ‘Nobody’s said anything to me, old friend.’
‘Well, he wants you over at Number 8 immediately.’ Hermann von Schurer sounded as though he should have delivered the line with a stamp of the foot.
‘Oh, well he’ll have to wait. I’m tired.’
‘All that wine, and beautiful women spies,’ von Schurer pouted archly.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever met a beautiful woman spy in my life.’
‘Well, Steinhauer, get over to Number 8, they’ve got a really lovely one there. Working hard with the gallant Major.’
‘Yes,’ Steinhauer feigned weariness, ‘I suppose I’d better go and see what they want.’
At Number 8, Steinhauer was told that Major Nicolai had been asking for him all morning. It’s the bad communications, Steinhauer said blandly.