She neither moved nor spoke. Charles rose, starting towards the door. ‘I fear the next people who question you will not be so gentle.’ He looked at her gravely. ‘Co-operate now, Miss Drew. Tell me everything. But you must do it now.’
He thought he had failed. His hand was on the door-knob before she spoke softly, ‘How can I be certain?’
‘Certain of what?’
‘That you will not simply take all I have to tell you, then hang or shoot me?’
Charles shook his head. ‘There is no way of being certain. You can only trust me. It’s now well past midnight, and there is no possibility of your saving Sklave. Co-operate, and I swear, as an officer and a gentleman, that I shall do everything I can to help you.’
A minute seemed to stretch into a lifetime. Then, suddenly, the poise left her. She raised a face which, he now saw, was stained with tears. ‘I’ll tell you everything.’ A sob, ‘God help me.’
It had turned out as Charles hoped and planned. Silently he thanked his Uncle Giles for recommending him for this operation.
She began to talk – so rapidly that Charles was forced to hold up a hand, speaking to her in the way he had so often had to talk to Mary Anne, to comfort or soothe her when she was much younger.
‘If you’re really going to tell me everything, it’s essential that you first give me all details of the present situation, here in Cromer. If you tell the truth about that, then we shall know you can be trusted. You’ll be cared for, looked after, and protected.’
It took over half an hour for her to calm down. It would be a long night. If she was going to tell everything, the heart of her information would spill out in a great gush. After that it would be a tedious business taking weeks filling in detail – some of which would possibly have to be wrung slowly from her. Guilt would follow the first confession.
As he listened, Charles realized that he was already quite captivated by the girl. Since the birth of their last child, things had not been well between Mildred and himself; and he had imagined passion to be buried, but, as he looked at Madeline, the familiar broth of lust begin to boil within him, grow and bubble into the need to bury himself within her. This unprofessional emotional confusion worried him.
He heard everything, but was aware of the old sensations. How would her skin feel to the touch? What words could be conveyed by those eyes? Was the fair hair silky to the touch? Would her kiss burn, and her tongue flick inside his mouth like a small pink animal? He imagined her breasts and thighs, and wondered what it was like between them. Men, he thought, are capable of such mental folly. They always wonder what lies in the secret places of a woman’s body. They know, they’ve touched and seen, and felt the spot, yet each time, with every new woman it is as though they expect to find a novel magic thing – and sometimes, occasionally, the quest reveals just such a pleasure.
Charles dragged his mind back from the edge of fantasy, to listen and do his job. Yet the pictures were already firmly planted. Would she respond, enjoy, screech with pleasure as they mounted to their ecstasy? Would she possibly share his own lascivious pleasings? Already he knew it was going to happen.
Within half an hour the details of matters regarding Sklave, and the kidnap plot, were out. The plan was to take Mrs Churchill off in a submarine. Sklave waited on a secluded part of the beach, an inlet near Overstrand. They had also bribed a cab driver to help convey her, unconscious, to the rendezvous.
As Miss Drew had not kept the meeting with the cab driver, it was now certain that Sklave would be getting anxious. The odds were that he would signal the submarine to abort the mission.
With this information, Charles summoned the woman officer, instructing her to arrange for food and tea for the subject, while he rapidly briefed Dobbs. It took about twenty minutes. Then telephone calls were made: instructions to the troops, and an alert to the Admiralty, so that a frigate could be dispatched, in an attempt to catch the lurking submarine.
Dobbs went off with specific orders for Wood and Partridge. Sklave was to be taken, but only at the last possible moment.
When all this was completed, Charles returned to the girl, and patiently heard her out.
The real name was Hanna Haas, and she was twenty-six years of age, the daughter of a German businessman and an English nurse. Illegitimate, of course, but her father, Frederick Haas, had been a man of some considerable honour. Mother and daughter were taken to Germany, and the girl was initially brought up among pleasant surroundings in Berlin. At the age of fifteen, with a reasonable education behind her, she returned to London; working for some six years, first as a nursery maid, then a governess, to a family in Highgate. In 1909 Haas summoned her back to Berlin, where she found her mother seriously ill. For two years she nursed the dying woman, and, when it was over, Frederick Haas helped her. This experience led her towards nursing. She studied, and eventually qualified. It was during, and after, this period, that she carne – through her father – into contact with military people.
Hanna Haas now found herself being wooed by the Intelligence Branch of the Military High Command. At first this surprised her, but she soon succumbed to the possible glamour of the situation. Until the training and briefing for the present mission, she spent much time under the direct command of Walter Nicolai; and her instructions, after this mission, were to remain in England and set herself up in some job which would give her access to military or naval information – not a difficult proposition, for a girl with her skills and ability. She had been provided with a whole range of espionage techniques, and was familiar with the names of personalities within the German Service. Also, she had observed the workings of that Service at close quarters. There was no doubt of the small gold mine of intelligence in Hanna Haas. She was a source which, if used properly, could be tapped and manipulated, as an agent working for both sides in England.
‘Do you truly feel great allegiance to the German cause?’ Charles asked, after three hours’ talking.
She did not hesitate. ‘I felt trapped once they got me back here – into England. To be honest, Mr Rathbone, until then it was just a kind of game. Unreal. Then, after I was flown here, there were many moments when I simply wanted to run straight to the police. Yet I was very frightened of what they would do; or of what my German superiors would do if I became a traitor to them.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I feel more English than German. That is the truth, so help me God. It’s also natural. The only real relations I have are here, in this country.’ She spoke of an aunt in Coventry, and another aunt and uncle in London. ‘Mr Rathbone, I am English and I feel so ashamed at what I’ve done.’
Wood, Partridge and the others returned to the police station around dawn. Sklave had obviously warned off the submarine – they had even seen it surface, half a mile or so from the beach, and Wood gave orders for the German agent to be taken. The moment he was challenged, Sklave produced a revolver and, following a swift exchange of shots, died from two bullets fired by Wood himself.
‘I’m sorry.’ The Special Branch man was upset. ‘Tried to aim low, but the light was bad and he was moving.’
As for the cab driver, the local police arrested him in the early hours, on the road between Cromer and Overstrand. Eventually he would be quietly interned – under DORA – for it was essential that no suspicion should fall on the Haas girl.
Just after nine that morning, Charles had a lengthy guarded telephone conversation with Vernon Kell.
At first, Kell had thought that the best form would be to hand her over to C’s people. Then he said, ‘Look, Charles, she’s in your charge. Keep her close, and take no chances with her. Get her to London as quickly as you can. We’ve a house you can use to complete the interrogation, then we can decide what’s best to be done – how to use her, when she’s had time to settle down.’
It was exactly what Charles Railton wanted, and he boarded the London train with Brian Wood and the demure, pretty blonde girl, later that morning.
As things turned out, the finding of H
anna Haas was to drastically change many lives.
*
Through his own sources, Giles managed to get copies of Charles’ report and the interrogation transcripts.
Now he pondered on them as he moved siege forces on a simulated ‘war ride’ of the Black Prince through Aquitaine during the Hundred Years War.
Life had changed rapidly for Giles since the arrival of his granddaughter, Denise, from Paris. At sixteen the girl was incredibly mature, and almost miraculously like Marie – in both looks and temperament. It took little time for Giles Railton to discover that her heartache was over the loss of her mother. Her father hardly entered her mind; and in many ways he detected that she was relieved to have been removed from him, and his pompously stern regime.
For the first time since the death of his own wife, Giles had to adjust to having a woman sharing his home, but the pair got on well, and quickly established a working relationship, with Denise slowly starting to run the house.
As he moved foot soldiers, cavalry, waggons, mangonel, cannon and siege equipment towards Poitiers, Giles thought about the Haas girl. Vernon Kell wanted to use her as a lever, to feed misleading information directly into the German Military Intelligence Service.
As Giles’ model siege train made its bloody progress across France, other things were happening in the world of secrets. The man they called ‘The Fisherman’ was already on his way to London, carrying a letter, received with special instructions, from Steinhauer. This letter was to be delivered under a great cloak of secrecy, for it originated from Walter Nicolai, Chief of German Military Intelligence. Nicolai had entrusted it to Steinhauer – though he had no idea how the devious spymaster would have it delivered. The letter was but the first stage in a great web of deceit and manipulation which could only end in betrayal and treachery, both of which were meat and drink to Nicolai and Steinhauer.
*
‘I don’t care what your hillbilly folks, like Natter, or the precious Mr Berry, say, I…’
‘They’re not hillbillys…’ Sara gave a look suggesting grave offence, then giggled.
‘Well, what do you call them over here? Country bumpkins?’ Dick Farthing feigned irritation. In other circumstances he might have been taken for drunk, but a few glasses of wine over dinner, and some port were not enough to affect Dick’s cast iron capacity.
They sat in the dining room, alone now that the servants had retired, with only the decrepit butler, Porter, hovering outside the door to be sure that coffee was served immediately they went to the drawing room.
‘Anyhow,’ Dick continued, ‘there is no possible chance of this damned war being over by Christmas.’
The smile peeled from Sara’s face. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’
‘Think, my dear Sara. Just look at what’s happened.’ He began to tick items off on his fingers, like someone counting out a bill of lading. ‘First, that gilded Archduke gets himself murdered in Bosnia; then Austria, rightly, assumes that this is a direct result of pro-Serbian feeling; so, they shoot an ultimatum at Serbia. No answer, so they declare war. Russia, the patron sainted country of all the Slav peoples, gets worried and mobilizes its forces; Germany is an ally of Austria; Britain and France are allies of Russia. The politicians get tough. They all start playing poker without really counting the fact that bluff, and double bluff, will be taken seriously. So, bang! Nobody, except perhaps Germany, wanted a war; but they’re stuck with one.’
‘Against their will, yes. Yet men are flocking to the colours.’ Sara’s face glowed brown in the candlelight, and Dick could not fail to notice that the low cut of her flared turquoise gown showed off her shoulders and neck almost down to her breasts, bringing a wink of desire to his loins.
He had arrived uninvited and unannounced but for the telephone call from Haversage to say he was there, and would like to visit Sara at the Manor.
‘I’ll give you British that,’ looking into her large eyes, ‘you’re not cowards. Once the ball begins to roll, you people can’t be stopped.’
‘Oh, don’t you believe it. There’s plenty of men shaking in their shoes, ready to avoid fighting.’ She sighed. ‘But Mr Berry wants to go; and poor Martha Crook’s in a terrible state. Billy’s just disappeared, leaving a note to say he’s taken the King’s shilling. She has no idea where he is.’
Dick looked sheepish. ‘Tell the truth, I was about to join up, if they’d take me. Our President, the inflexible Mr Wilson, seems hell-bent on keeping America out of it.’
‘Then why don’t you? – join up, I mean.’
‘That’s really why I came down to see you, Sara. Look, can we have coffee? Move out of here?’
‘Of course.’ A hint of unaccountable alarm sounded in her voice. Since John’s death she had seen Dick only three times – all very proper, with Dick behaving perfectly. Today, though, there was something different in his manner.
Porter arrived with the coffee, asking if they required brandy, or anything else. Sara said that it was all right; they would help themselves. Porter looked disapproving, but, with grumbles under his breath ‘In The General’s day…’ accepted Sara’s advice that he should go to bed. ‘I’ll make sure everything’s locked up,’ she told him, with a smile, in the manner of one of the housemaids. Porter would never adapt to taking orders from her, so she played a game of her own with him.
‘Oh dear, poor old Porter, he just will not give up.’ Richard seemed not to have heard her. ‘Dick?’
‘Who? Oh, sorry, Sara, I was daydreaming.’
She poured the coffee, her hand trembling slightly. In the back of her mind there was a picture of leaves in autumn being blown over the surface of the lily pond behind the Great Lawn. Then she asked about his daydream.
‘Oh, that? It’s a recurring dream – awake or asleep, my dear.’ Though he sat across from her, his hand moved, as though he could reach out and touch her. ‘Sara, you must know that I dream about you day and night.’
The picture of the lily pond changed in her head, a vivid recollection of the night they had almost made love taking its place. That was her own recurring dream.
‘If I was able, I’d ask you to marry me now – I mean as soon as you’re out of mourning. After a decent…’
The mist of silence stretched between them, and the pictures in her brain altered, shuffled clearly: Richard Farthing and herself in this very room, before and after John’s death; times together with words not spoken; the Downs and watching him teach James to fly; his aeroplane wheeling over the house at dawn; the muddle of emotions this tall American seemed to leave behind him.
She asked what he meant by ‘if he was able’?
He took a deep breath. ‘I came to see you… to say goodbye.’
Sara had not expected her reaction to be so violent. He spoke almost harshly and, for a second, it took her breath away.
As though he detected the shock, Dick hurriedly added, ‘Oh, not for good and all. I was on the point of joining the Royal Flying Corps. They’d accepted me. Then I had an urgent cable. My father and my uncle – the Senator – both want me home fast. They seem to think there’s a special job I can do. A duty for your country, is how the old man put it. As I see it, my duty’s to the survival of mankind. If I have my way you’ll see me back here again in a matter of months, if not weeks. Sara, you know I’ve loved you almost from the first moment. I know there was a time when you felt the same, because…’
‘Because we very nearly did something exceptionally foolish…’
‘Yes.’
‘My dear, dear Richard. Of course I care for you. But… Oh, after what happened that night… Well, I suppose it was a kind of guilt. I felt…’
‘That you had to support John. That you loved him more…’
She put her cup down slowly, rose, and came towards him, stopping his mouth with her hand. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s partly true. But not wholly. You’ve never been far from my thoughts since that night.’ Her brow creased. ‘I’m not running away from decisions and
things, Dick, but I ask you not to talk about it now – not yet. It’s difficult, I know. But, please, remember one thing. If I ever marry again, then I hope it will be you.’
He made as if to speak, but Sara overrode him, raising her voice slightly. ‘Dick, you have to go away. You tell me that you’ll be back. While you’re away I’ll be thinking about you – about us,’ she wondered at her own control, for half of her mind thought of the bed upstairs and Richard’s body; the church in Haversage, with orange blossom and the tall, handsome man standing beside her as she promised to love, honour and obey him. ‘Please, Dick, don’t ask me to commit myself now, at this moment. When you come back – if we both feel the same when a little more time has gone by – then we’ll talk. But not just yet.’
Dick Farthing remained silent for some time. He did not look at her when he spoke. ‘If that’s what you want, Sara, so be it. We won’t speak of it until I return. But I will not change.’ His face turned towards her, suddenly, the old, confident dazzling smile enveloping her. ‘Believe me, when I get back, I’m going to ask you to marry me,’ the grin broadened, ‘unless you’ve found somebody else.’
She kissed his cheek, whispering, ‘Thank you. You know that I’m not going to find anyone else.’
Slowly, after another long, tender kiss, she disentangled herself, and he stood up, crossing to the table, asking if he could help them to brandy.
When the glasses were filled, he raised his. ‘To my return?’ looking full into her eyes over the rim. She nodded, feeling more content than she had done for weeks.
Presently, keeping to the bargain and not talking about their personal futures, he asked after James. ‘I haven’t had a word from him…’
‘Margaret Mary says he’s away most of the time – here, there and everywhere. She knows he was in Antwerp during the siege, and she gave me the impression that he’s off on special duties for most of the time. He’s like you – turns up, like a will o’ the wisp, out of nowhere, sleeps for forty-eight hours, then spends a day cosseting his loved ones before disappearing again. She says he’s changed.’