The officer who had spoken to him shrugged, as if to say this was none of his business, and at that moment one of the doors opened. Nicolai himself came out escorting a dazzling, slim, fair-haired girl. ‘Ah, Steinhauer,’ he smiled, oddly jovial. ‘Meet one of the ladies we are training here.’ He mentioned no name but the girl blushed when Steinhauer kissed her hand. Nicolai looked at her, smiled, and said he would see her later. I’ll wager you will, Steinhauer thought, bowing to the young woman as she left with another officer.
‘And where did you find that little peach?’ Steinhauer had never been intimidated by the military.
Nicolai gave a frosty smile. ‘She fell off the tree and right into our laps. If there is ever trouble with England, she can be of great help.’
‘Trouble with England?’ Steinhauer’s heart missed a beat. For a second he thought they must be on to his own special agent. ‘God forbid trouble with England.’
‘Their King is dying,’ said Nicolai, as though that explained the whole thing.
‘Ah.’
‘As for that girl, I might need your help there, but I asked you to come over to discuss reorganization.’
‘Since you people took over there’s been nothing but reorganization. Walter, why can’t you stick to pure Military Intelligence? It would make life so much easier.’
Nicolai actually sighed, ‘That is what I want.’ He dropped into his chair. ‘I agree, but the High Command do not. I’m sorry, Gustav, but I’ve got unpleasant news for you.’
‘Go on.’
‘The various people you’ve carefully spread around England – watching the docks and so on…’
Steinhauer nodded.
‘Well, I have been instructed to tell you that they are now to pass into naval control. You are required to see Captain Rebeur-Paschwitz and give him all the information – the way you communicate, the number of agents, codes and the like.’
‘Why the hell…?’
‘Because, in their wisdom, the High Command sees those agents as naval agents. Their targets are dockyards, the Royal Navy,’ a shrug, ‘that kind of thing. So, they are out of your hands. If you’re short of work, I can give you some.’
*
Thursday 19 May was the day on which, as all the newspapers bore witness, the earth was due to pass through the tail of Halley’s Comet. Astrologers, and prophets of doom, saw the event as one of importance. Halley’s Comet was the harbinger of disaster; though the only previous, proven, link was with the Norman Conquest, which was a blessing in disguise, and never the tyranny represented by Anglo-Saxon propaganda.
It is unlikely that the thunderstorm, during the night of 18 and 19 May, had anything to do with the Comet. It was restricted to the London area, and pouring rain followed throughout the morning of the 19th.
The body of King Edward VII lay in State within the Great Hall of Westminster, and the rain failed to affect the five mile line of his former subjects paying their last respects to their sovereign.
But Vernon Kell, Charles Railton, Patrick Quinn, and some of his men – mostly invisible, mingling with the crowds – were nowhere near Westminster Hall that morning.
They had dodged the pouring rain, placing themselves, early, at Victoria Station. Quinn and his shadows had been actively on duty in that area almost since the night of the King’s death; for it was at Victoria that the Royalty of Europe, and their entourages, had begun to arrive for the funeral.
Plans were made, in MO5’s room at the War Office, during the hours which followed Sprogitt’s midnight call upon Charles. Quinn was already there, though champing to get away as he was required at the Palace itself. He had things to say, though, and was going to say them now: ‘We’re going to see the largest gathering of foreign leaders in London, in living memory,’ he predicted. ‘It’ll be bigger than that for her late Majesty’s funeral, you can count on it. My feeling, gentlemen, is that you should watch – with my men’s help if you so desire – for possible infiltration by intelligence officers.’
So, before most folk in the suburbs of London even knew that their monarch was dead, the plans were already partially laid.
Now, Kell, Charles Railton, and the Branch officers were at Victoria Station, on the morning of 19 May, awaiting the arrival of the Kaiser Wilhelm and his party.
The new King George V, formerly the Duke of York, paced the platform, surrounded by his staff, seemingly anxious to meet his German cousin, the Kaiser. The purple carpet had been rolled out, and a set of matching steps stood nearby, to give the German Emperor easy access from train to platform.
The Kaiser had already arrived in the Thames estuary aboard the German royal yacht, the Hohenzollern, under escort of four Royal Navy destroyers. He would make the journey into the centre of the capital by train, just as the other crowned, and uncrowned, heads of Europe – and the world – had been doing all week.
From their vantage point, in one of the main station offices, high above the spread of platforms, Quinn, Kell and Railton waited and watched, field-glasses at the ready; while an orderly, trained in shorthand, stood patiently by, to take down every comment made by the three officers.
The train appeared, gliding over the last few hundred feet of track, with steam shut off to reduce the noise.
The figure, with the familiar curled and spiked moustaches, quietly descended to be greeted by his cousin. They kissed on both cheeks, and the platform suddenly came alive with the Kaiser’s party.
The trio of officers barely glanced at the Kaiser. They were more interested in the officers following in the wake of ‘The Bane of Europe’, as his dead uncle had once called him.
As various faces clicked into memory, either from previous knowledge, or well-studied photographs, one or other of the three men spoke names. In turn, the names were noted by the orderly: a litany of diplomats, advisers, military and naval attachés, ADCs.
Quite suddenly, as the last carriages were due to leave, and only lesser dignitaries waited, Quinn let out a gasp, ‘Vernon! Look! To the right of the German Military Attaché. See him?’
‘What’s that particular ferret doing with the royal party, I wonder?’ Kell also recognized the face and put a name to it.
*
‘Captain Rebeur-Paschwitz,’ he told Giles Railton later that afternoon. The pair walked in Regent’s Park. ‘Remember him? Rebeur-Paschwitz?’
Giles stumped along, lips tight, as though he would like to swallow them. ‘Last time we saw him here was during Jacky Fisher’s days at the Admiralty. He’s most certainly Naval Intelligence. What think you, Vernon?’
‘Swine among pearls. He has no place at this particular event. Grand Admirals yes; but German Intelligence, no!’
A small child almost ran between their legs, chased by its nanny, scolding and apologizing to the two gentlemen.
They walked on in silence. ‘You’re having him watched, I presume?’ Giles could have been talking to himself.
Kell smiled. ‘Quinn says we’ll have details of his every movement. Even his bowels. That’s what he said.’ Giles simply nodded.
*
Quinn was on duty, marching in the funeral as a bodyguard to the Royal family. But Charles joined Kell and the orderly, occupying an empty room in a government office which afforded a view of the entrance to Westminster Hall.
Standing back from separate windows, they saw the entire, moving, procession: kings and emperors, princes and potentates, the military escorts, the regiments of the line, cavalry, bands, regiments of German, Russian and Austrian armies, and the whole heraldic panoply of England.
In all, nine kings, a battalion of princes, armies of dignitaries, sixty-three aides-de-camp (all Peers of the Realm), England’s three Field Marshals (Kitchener, Roberts and Wood), six Admirals of the Fleet (including the famous Lord Fisher), the late King’s horse, saddle empty, boots reversed in the stirrups, and – with a touch of British sentiment – King Teddy’s wirehaired terrier, Caesar, trotting behind.
The bluejackets
carried the coffin, wrapped in the Royal Ensign, from Westminster Hall, to place it on the gun carriage for the journey along Whitehall, down the Mall and Piccadilly, and then through the Park and on to Paddington – where the final lap was made, to Windsor, by train, for the committal.
Giles watched from a different vantage point, and as he looked at this incredible gathering, he had a strange premonition, based on his own particular sense of history. To see all this splendour and power on display was like watching the last act in an incredible opera. In his heart he knew it was never going to be the same again.
In their secret watchtower, Kell, with Charles, noted that Captain Rebeur-Paschwitz was present. Idly Kell again wondered why this particular intelligence officer was in England at all.
*
‘Apparently he came over for a haircut,’ Quinn told them late on the Monday afternoon, when they met at a house recently purchased as a ‘safe property’ by the Branch, for most private meetings or interrogations.
Quinn had put his two best men on the surveillance of Rebeur-Paschwitz – Detective Inspectors Drury and Seal. ‘Drury telephoned me, quite late last night. The Captain went back to his hotel after the funeral. He changed out of uniform, then ate a slap-up meal at the Café Royal.’
The German had returned to his hotel, and the two surveillance men would have lost him if they had not been so experienced. One took the front entrance while the other watched the rear. Sure enough, fifteen minutes later, Rebeur-Paschwitz came out – ‘Quite furtively,’ – from the back.
‘Now, you’d expect a naval officer to go over to the Savoy or the Dorchester to have his hair trimmed. Not so our man. Would you say it was normal for a senior German naval officer to get his hair cut, late at night, in a barber’s shop in the Caledonian Road?’
They remained silent as Quinn told them that it was a seedy place, owned and run by a man named Karl Gustav Ernst.
‘Technically the fellow’s British.’ Quinn’s distaste showed, like a man who has taken a mouthful of spoiled fish. ‘British born, but with strong German links. I have men watching the place now. We’ve rented a little terraced house across the road.’
Charles, naturally, wanted to barge straight in. ‘Kick the beggar hard.’
Kell slowly shook his head. There could be large rewards if they played it carefully. ‘I’d put money on the barber’s shop being a “post office” – and an important one at that, if someone like Rebeur-Paschwitz takes the trouble to visit.’
Quinn agreed. ‘There are ways of finding out, Vernon. We have our own methods, but I sense we should keep this strictly official. We’ll need permission to get all Ernst’s post intercepted and opened. It should be done fast, I feel. There’s no point in putting this one “on the long finger,” as they say where I come from.’
‘Charles,’ Kell hardly turned towards him, ‘I think we should have a word with your Uncle Giles.’ He actually winked at Quinn before turning to face Charles. ‘Your Uncle Giles is a friend of the Home Secretary, is he not?’
‘They live practically next door to one another, yes.’
‘If we have to get post intercepted, then we must see the Home Secretary. Let’s go and see Giles Railton and ask if he can put in a word for us. This must be settled now.’
The large operation that was now mounted, by MO5 and the Branch, against the Caledonian Road shop, became directly responsible for more staff, and offices, being made available to Kell.
*
The full chapter of events, springing from the German Captain Rebeur-Paschwitz’s visits to the barber’s shop in the Caledonian Road, was discussed again later in the year, on a beautiful Sunday in August, at Redhill Manor.
The houseparty was Sara’s idea. Giles had been one of the first to receive an invitation, and he telephoned to ask a favour. Could Sara ask Captain and Mrs Vernon Kell? ‘Charles’ boss,’ he said, with no hint of intrigue.
This week-end at Redhill was a welcome break for everyone, though Sara had no inkling that Giles had managed to turn her invitation into a meeting for Kell, Charles, John Railton and himself, to discuss clandestine affairs. He also wanted to view Charles at close quarters.
Charles almost turned down the visit, for Mildred was in the last weeks of her pregnancy – continually tired, and warned by her doctors that she should rest even more than usual. But Mildred loved Redhill, and insisted that the change would do her good. To be safe, Charles had ensured that their daughter, Mary Anne – roughly James’ age – should accompany them.
Mary Anne, a slender vivacious girl, with eyes – as Andrew once remarked – ‘the colour of the North Sea in winter, though with more warmth’, had become something of a problem.
Already they were talking of her ‘coming out’; but Mary Anne stubbornly refused to discuss any arrangements. Mildred, with time heavy on her hands, had even started to make lists to cover the ball they would give for her, following the usual ritual presentation at Court, and other social delights which surrounded girls of Mary Anne’s age and station. But when it was mentioned, the girl showed no interest. At last, during one angry evening, Mary Anne claimed that she wanted none of the tradition, revealing her only aim in life.
‘Please, Mama and Papa,’ she had spoken with cold reason. ‘I know you won’t like it, but I think all the “Season” business is a waste of time and money. Besides it isn’t going to help me.’ It was then she told them that she wanted to become a nurse. ‘Eventually I shall be a doctor and the way into that profession is through nursing.’
Charles and Mildred were scandalized.
The skirmishes moved backward and forward, though Mary Anne’s mind appeared to be unchanged. In time there would be an inevitable clash, but, for the moment, the real battle was carefully avoided.
Giles detected an uneasiness between the girl and her parents, but that was not unusual for headstrong young women of Mary Anne’s age. In any case, he had little time to concern himself with small family struggles. In truth, the maze of Giles Railton’s mind, was at this moment so full of twists and turns, so devious and confused, that even he wondered how he managed to keep all the threads together.
Giles had not seen John for nearly a month, and the sight of him at Redhill now gave cause for alarm. John Railton had lost weight, becoming almost gaunt. His hair had turned even more grey, and his facial colour constantly changed from a sallow lack of pigment to sudden crimson flushes.
They met, after dinner, in The General’s study, John slumped behind his father’s old desk looking listless and tired.
‘Sara’s worried, but I dare not tell her the truth,’ he answered when Giles asked after his health.
‘And what is the truth?’
John gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘That I’m the odd man out; a Railton who is not going to make old bones…’
‘But, my dear fellow…’
John held up a hand, shaking his head, ‘It’s all right. There’s nothing to be done. I’ve got what one doctor described as “A dicky heart”. The man I saw in Harley Street was more precise.’ He gave a resigned shrug.
‘But, surely, you should rest. Stop, take a holiday…’
‘And gain an extra year? Maybe two? That’s not my style: not the Railton style. The General could have died suddenly in battle, from the age of sixteen onwards. I shall go in my early fifties. A year, two years with luck.’
Giles nodded. He would have felt the same.
So, on the Sunday afternoon, four of the men were seated on the rear terrace of the Manor – the women having taken themselves off; while the other male members of the party, including James Railton and Dick Farthing, were examining a new aeroplane – the prototype MF7 ‘Longhorn’ – that Dick had flown down to Redhill.
Mildred rested; the sky remained clear, a deep blue; and the sun blazed hot on the stone terrace where the men sat watching the butterflies among the lines of flower beds, conscious of the background drone of bees and other insects.
Giles began by sayin
g he felt it was an ideal opportunity to review the situation. ‘…Put the pieces together: particularly for John. He has only the barest of details, and, as Cabinet minister with special responsibilities, he should know everything.’
‘We could have been badly hindered.’ Kell gazed at a stone urn, as though the flowers cascading from it held some particular secret known only to him. ‘Could have been held up and missed much. That fellow King proved a great stumbling block.’
Charles asked why they had been saddled with King, at all? ‘We really thought you could work the oracle with Winston, you know, Uncle Giles.’ Sir Alexander King was the civil servant in charge of the General Post Office.
Giles gave a friendly growl, recalling how Kell had arrived, with Charles, seeking immediate clearance to have Karl Gustav Ernst’s mail intercepted and examined.
Half thinking aloud, and partly for his own amusement, Giles went over the facts of that night.
After hearing Kell out, he had immediately telephoned Churchill’s Eccleston Square house. After a short delay, the Home Secretary came on the line: not too pleased at having been called from his bath. Giles told him that this was a matter of national importance, and was reluctantly asked to come straight to the house. ‘You’ll have to take me as you find me,’ Churchill said. ‘I have the onerous duty of making an after-dinner speech tonight. Clearly, I am tardy with my ablutions.’
‘I was received by the Home Secretary in his dressing room, as he bumbled around for studs and tie,’ Giles told them. ‘He was dressed informally – in his under-drawers and shirt, stockings and carpet slippers.’
After listening to Giles, Churchill had looked glum. ‘You realize the Royal Mail is sacrosanct?’ he said.
Giles had caught a glint in Churchill’s eye. ‘Come on, Winston. This is a question of the country’s security. By scrutinizing this fellow’s “Royal Mail” we could bag a whole nest of the blighters.’
Winston Churchill nodded. ‘Very well, I’ll make my recommendation tonight. But I fear it will take a few days. My order alone will not bear complete weight. To have Ernst’s post examined you must get assistance from a man not noted for speed.’ He spoke of Sir Alexander King.