‘Really?’ Not even Giles’ eyes gave him away. He knew exactly what James was up to. ‘Abroad, eh? Yes, I think I did hear something about his being off on a trip a few weeks ago.’
Sara had never noticed that Giles’ eyebrows were so frosted with grey until he raised them now. ‘He spent a whole month in Germany. What would an army officer be doing at the Kiel Regatta, Giles?’
‘Looking out for his own.’ He did not have to lie directly. James had been there as a military observer; just as some naval officers went along to watch military manoeuvres. ‘The delegation to Kiel was rather special. Mr Churchill was there…’
‘And half the senior officers of the Royal Navy. Andrew seemed quite annoyed because he was not invited.’
‘Andrew’s only a Commander. Hardly a senior officer. Though the whole business of Kiel is quite incomprehensible. Either Mr Churchill’s very naive, or more than usually machiavellian.’ Giles gave her a thin smile. ‘Churchill has some idea that we should pool all military and naval information with the Germans – particularly naval. The First Lord, it seems, feels that a frank exchange of information will do away with any spy mania.’
He paused to sip the excellent Pouilly Fume which Sara was serving with the trout, before adding, ‘Much good will it do now.’
‘You honestly think it’s that serious?’
‘Very. All trust is ebbing away. I’d never trust the Imperial German Navy with my laundry, let alone the battle order of the Grand Fleet.’
‘Especially now that you have a grandson with the Grand Fleet.’
Sara, Giles thought, was not given to being arch, but the way she spoke of Rupert was as near as damn it. ‘Rupert,’ he nodded. ‘Yes, Andrew’s very proud that one of his sons has followed in his footsteps. Rupert’s in Monmouth.’
‘Yes, I do know.’ She laughed again. ‘I’ve heard Andrew preening about it. Rupert’s obviously very much the family favourite now he’s in an armoured cruiser.’
Sara turned the conversation to her plans for the estate and the farm, but a section of Giles’ mind strayed into the area of family secrets, and like a scribbled note in his head, there was a nudge of frustration over Bridget’s – his daughter-in-law’s – latest piece of intelligence.
She had reported the details of a landing of arms for the Home Rulers near Dublin. Giles duly passed it on to the military, who, in turn, told him that their people on the spot in Dublin had an informer of their own. The details were similar to those Bridget had given, but not quite the same. They were convinced that their own man had the correct information. He would have wagered on Bridget.
Giles was to recall the thought a couple of days later when Ramillies came into his office with news that the police, and a detachment of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, had failed to foil the landing of arms. ‘They were landed at three a.m., near Howth,’ the lad said. It was exactly as Bridget had reported, and the military information was that the landing would be at five in the morning at Malahide. Two hours late, and a few miles out.
*
Padraig O’Connell drained his glass, grinning at his comrade, Fintan McDermott. ‘Sure we had ’em by the knackers. Confusion and consternation, Fintan. The boys were grand. Worked like true soldiers of the revolution.’
‘And the police, with the bloody British army ended up only nineteen rifles to the good.’ Fintan spat loudly onto the bar floor. ‘The bastards go for our lads, but never a murmur when the Ulster Volunteers had their weapons handed to them on a plate, so.’
They were drinking together in a bar right on O’Connell Street, and, almost as Fintan spoke, the sound of loud jeering came floating in from outside. Padraig nodded towards the door, ‘Something’s up. Let’s take a look, then.’
Outside, along the broad thoroughfare, they could see an approaching crowd – a shouting mass of drab men, women and children capering and dancing in the middle of the street.
‘It’s the soldiers,’ Fintan muttered as the khaki uniforms came into view between the crowd surrounding and marching with them.
Padraig nodded. ‘King’s Own Scottish Borderers. Some of the bastards that were out last night.’
His companion grinned. ‘Come on, then, let’s have some fun.’ Together they moved towards the crowd.
It was a small detachment of some twenty men, a sergeant and a young officer. All looked tired after their night chasing around Malahide and Howth, ten miles or so north of the city. But the men marched with set faces, only the young officer occasionally glancing at the people who milled around them, shouting: ‘British Out… Home Rule Now… Go Home Now…’
The men marched towards the bridge over the Liffey and the crowd grew. From time to time the sergeant murmured words of encouragement. ‘Steady lads. Soon be back at the Castle.’ But the chorus became louder, more violent. The sergeant could not see his young officer starting to twitch – a slight tic of the facial muscles.
Padraig and Fintan ran alongside, enjoying the spontaneous taunting.
The detachment turned into Bachelor’s Walk, a small quay running alongside the river; and, as it did so, the chanting reached a pitch: ‘Home Rule NOW… Home RULE NOW… HOME RULE NOW!!!’
The young subaltern’s nerve finally cracked. With an unexpected command, he swung the squad about; and, before his sergeant had time to do anything, the order was given.
Too late, Padraig realized what was happening. Even he could hardly believe his eyes, as the officer heaved out his heavy Webley side arm. The troops turned as one, the front rank dropping to their knees. Padraig yelled: ‘Fintan! Down! Fintan…’ thrusting out an arm to push his comrade to the pavement, as the fusillade of shots crashed out.
The bullet that killed Fintan McDermott nicked O’Connell’s arm before splattering his friend’s throat.
The crowd turned, some screaming in panic. There were other shouts: of the wounded, of women and children caught in the hail of lead. Then the sobering order from the cool, experienced sergeant, ‘Cease fire!’
Padraig saw a woman, her shawl covered in the blood waterfalling from her mouth, and a man lying on his back, eyes wide with the wonder of so suddenly meeting his Maker. Around him, the wounded lay groaning; a boy of about twelve years crying out, ‘Mammy… Mammy,’ and the sound of the people crushing and cramming their way back towards O’Connell Street; while the troops were moved away at the double.
O’Connell cradled Fintan’s body in his arms, the hatred washing over him, so that he shouted mindlessly, not even hearing his own voice. ‘You bastards! Bastards! Murdering bastards!’
There, on the pavement of Bachelor’s Walk, with three people lying dead, and over thirty wounded, Padraig O’Connell made a vow. His soul would not be quiet until they were driven for all time from his country – from Ireland – which had been so cursed by English rule.
*
All Europe basked in sunshine, and for those many thousands on holiday in England there was little thought of war. The assassination of the Archduke had taken place hundreds of miles away – just another example of extravagant Balkan bloodshed.
By July, any concern was centred on the latest business in Ireland. Three dead and thirty-eight civilians wounded, in the centre of Dublin, by a section of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. The newspapers and public house politicians brooded, prophesying civil war across the water.
Indeed, most of the British government were on holiday, though keeping in close touch as the situation moved from bad to worse. They fought until the eleventh hour to avert the crisis, but pessimism prevailed.
For most people, when it came, war arrived like an unexpected thunderclap – sudden, and unconnected with anything that really concerned them.
Towards the end of July, James and Margaret Mary Railton arrived at Redhill Manor.
They had agreed to stay for a week, but, as the days passed, so Sara became more concerned at the way that James would hardly leave the vicinity of the house. She wanted to show off her plans for
the farm and estate, but James had no inclination to move further than the rose garden. Margaret Mary had no excuses to give.
‘We do a great deal here for the local community,’ Sara told her, as they walked across the upper meadow, ‘but I feel we could be more practical. The farm, and estate, can be made to pay handsomely. It’s no sin to make money out of one’s land.’
Margaret Mary nodded, her mind far away. Much as she liked Sara, she hardly shared James’ stepmother’s tastes, her real interests lying in the arts: music, literature and the theatre. She was an accomplished pianist, and, as James would tell anyone, given half a chance, better read than most men of her age and class.
But, as she walked the Railton land on that hot afternoon, Margaret Mary’s mind was a long way from Sara’s vision of a future profit-making estate and farm, or even her beloved books and music. Distractedly, she dwelt on her husband and the future. Though James tended to play the bluff, hearty soldier, she knew that underneath his military manner lay something more sensitive. His tough outer skin could be penetrated by words and the sounds of certain composers. Theirs was a relationship of sensuality on a cerebral, as well as physical, plane. Sometimes, she felt James was almost embarrassed by this, and recently his protective shell had appeared to have grown thicker.
During the drive down to Haversage he had suddenly quoted from Shelley’s Queen Mab: ‘War is the statesman’s game, the priest’s delight,
The lawyer’s jest, the hired assassin’s trade.’
She joked back with a line from Romeo and Juliet: ‘Oh! Then I see Queen Mab has been with you.’
‘Not a jest, old darling,’ his eyes fixed on the hot, dusty road ahead. ‘It’s going to happen, and there’s precious little the statesmen, priests, lawyers or even hired assassins can do about it.’
‘War?’ A sense of cold in the pit of her stomach. Nobody – she thought – knew what to expect from a modern war. ‘Surely not! England doesn’t have to be involved. It’s not our quarrel – the Balkans: Serbia, Austria, Russia, and the damned Germans.’
‘Events make it our quarrel.’
He went on to explain the delicate situation; how the Austro-Hungarian differences with Serbia, together with those between Germany and Russia, had merely been waiting, as though in storage, until some opportunity presented itself to bring the rising hatred to the point of violence.
‘We’re certain the Kaiser sees the Archduke’s assassination as an opportunity not to be missed,’ James shouted, above the engine and rushing wind. ‘They’ve played it very close. A long game as Uncle Giles would say. Kaiser Bill continuing with his sailing trip around Norway, while the Emperor remained in the Tyrol. We suspect they were planning all the time. Now the good old Kaiser’s turned up in Potsdam. There’s talk of doing some old-fashioned bartering over France and Belgium, but the Government isn’t going to wear that. I fear we’ll be at war within the week.’
‘Who are we, James?’ she asked.
‘Who? … What? …’
‘You said… We are certain… We suspect. Who are we?’
James glanced at her, then back to the road ahead. ‘Military people…’ Then, flatly, with no feeling, ‘Maggie, you must have some idea of the kind of work I do.’
‘I find it odd that a Sandhurst instructor’s always dashing around Europe. You disappear for weeks on end.’ Somewhat coolly she added, ‘I have no reason to believe you keep a mistress…’
‘Maggie!’
‘Well,’ the laugh came back to her voice. James loved the laugh. ‘Well, you service me enough when you’re at home –and I’m certainly glad of that. My friends tell me they come off rather badly in that department when their husbands find a little actress, or a tart, to play with.’
‘Good God, do you all get together and discuss your…?
‘Sex lives,’ she supplied. ‘Yes, I think we do. The silly brainless girls I’m forced to mix with seem to think they should provide the stud references in case they play musical beds at one of the idiotic little house parties. I suppose it’s really quite healthy, Jamie.’
‘Don’t call me “Jamie”,’ he snapped. He disliked the diminutive for himself, though called his wife ‘Maggie’ without turning a hair.
‘Then don’t treat me as though I was one of those idle pretty-pretty ladies who haunt country houses at week-ends. I’m asking plainly enough: what do you do, James? Tell me straight.’
He stopped the car by the roadside, leaving the engine ticking over loudly. A horse reared up in the field across the hedge; then snorting, cantered away.
James looked her full in the eyes. ‘I’m under instruction as an intelligence officer. When I go away, that’s part of it.’
‘And when you go abroad?’ He sensed she was very still, like someone in church, at prayer. Some doves cooed from a copse on the far side of the road. You could hear them, all mixed up with the low growl of the idling engine.
‘Sometimes it’s a test. Twice it’s been to find out things and talk to people. Now, you must promise not to tell a living soul, not Sara even. Certainly none of your pretty-pretty friends.’
She gave a little nod. ‘You’re a spy.’
He said that no, it wasn’t that easy. ‘Like talking about the world situation, it’s an oversimplification. Spy is not a word we…’
She laid a hand on his arm. ‘It’s all right, darling James. I know. I’ve suspected for some time. You Railtons are such a secretive bunch.’ She remained silent for a moment. ‘Funny, everyone’s been so full of that business in Dublin, and the possibility of civil war. We should have been looking further afield.’ She held on to his hand, nails digging into his palm. ‘Thank you for telling me. I worry. I love you so much, you see, and, if war does come, then I shall worry a lot more. But I won’t ask anything, I promise.’
He moved, as though to begin the drive again, but she would not let go of his hand. ‘Turn the engine off.’
He did as she said, and she took him by the hand, into the field where the horse now stood a few hundred yards away. There, behind the hedge, she laid herself on the grass, lifted her skirt and took him. It was exciting for both of them, out in the open, with only turf under them, the warmth of the sun on their bare flesh, the possibility of discovery adding a piquancy to the experience.
Now, as she walked with Sara, Margaret Mary recalled the moment so vividly that she could almost feel James within her. Sara’s voice shattered the daydream. ‘Oh, Lord, what’s this?’ Billy Crook was galloping towards them on Mr Marconi, one of the big greys. He pulled the horse up close to the two women, touching his cap. Billy was a tall, good-looking lad of almost seventeen now. ‘Mr James sends his compliments, Ma’am,’ he spoke directly to Sara. ‘He asks if you’d do him the honour of going back to the house as quickly as possible.’
Sara thanked him, noticing, not for the first time, that he had certainly inherited the Railton nose and eyes. Something really would have to be done for Billy.
‘What on earth can James want…?’ Sara began, then saw the look on Margaret Mary’s face. ‘Oh no? You don’t think they’ve let things get that far? Not war?’
‘I have to get back to Town.’ James was calm. Margaret Mary simply asked if it was the worst.
‘I fear so. The Austrians have bombarded Belgrade. Half Europe appears to have mobilized, and the German Imperial Army seems to be preparing to move through Belgium. Ultimatums and notes are flying about like confetti.’
Within the hour they were walking out to the motor.
Sara watched. James had gone through a great change. She felt that his marriage had probably helped, but there was something else – an inner reserve, giving off an almost monastic feeling. There was a part of him which Sara could not reach, and she wondered if Margaret Mary was able to penetrate it.
*
In Berlin, as matters became clear, Steinhauer was at work day and night. If it really was to be war he would have to visit other countries straight away. First, though, he had
particular work to do.
One of his priorities was to send a series of messages to six spies in England. There were various ways he could do this: by courier – a neutral sailor, or the like, who would post the messages to certain addresses; by wireless, using the link now established via the Embassy in Washington which was able to relay coded signals to England and France; or by a simple personal letter, taken out and posted in Switzerland.
Before ‘The Fisherman’ had left, Steinhauer carefully set up three new ‘post offices’, unknown to Naval or Military Intelligence, one in Scotland, another in the British Midlands, and the third on England’s south coast. ‘The Fisherman’ would call at all three, making the journeys specially, once a month.
He sent six letters to six different names. Inside was a one-word order, hidden in normal pieces of correspondence, plus the designated code for each agent. These spies were Angler, Dust, D12, D14, Brewer, and Saint. Only Angler and Saint were real – the same person, Ulhurt – the others being ‘ghosts’, so that the number might confuse Steinhauer’s superiors. The key word in the letters for Angler and Saint was ‘hook’. That one word meant that ‘The Fisherman’ was to begin his sabotage work.
*
In London the whole family knew that it was only a matter of days, maybe hours. Caspar telephoned his mother, Charlotte, to say that he expected movement orders soon. She must not worry if she heard nothing for a while.
Mary Anne – who had got her way and was training at St Thomas’s Hospital – came home full of the rumour that the student nurses there would be asked to take up some form of active duty immediately they qualified.
Andrew was now sleeping at the Admiralty, just as Charles spent all his time at the – considerably enlarged – MO5 offices.
Giles, with his grandson, Ramillies, in almost constant attendance, rarely left his suite of rooms in the Foreign Office. It was there, at roughly the moment James was returning from Redhill Manor, that the first Railton family catastrophe exploded.
The telegram came quite normally. Ramillies even recognized the name, but could make nothing of the contents. It was brought over from one of the many convenient addresses Ramillies had come to know well. He had taken it in to his grandfather immediately.