I said, ‘What briefly were your impressions of this man Harry Kondit – and of Fernandes Tomas?’
Da Cunha unwound the gold-wire spectacles from his ear and extricated them from his white hair. ‘Harry Kondit; it was a pun of your English word “conduit”, of course.’
I nodded.
‘Witty, physically a little over-aware of himself. Natural charm in a brash unsophisticated way.’
‘His business?’
‘Managed with great care.’ Da Cunha answered immediately, then paused. ‘He obeyed what I imagine are the basic rules of the narcotics trade.’
‘Really,’ I said, ‘what are they?’
‘Nations are two-faced about narcotics,’ he said. ‘Few police forces arrest people who buy narcotics and take it away from that country. The rules are: never sell them in the same country that you buy, never process in the country where you sell, never sell in the country of which you are a citizen.’
‘Personality?’
‘He was an idealist gone sour,’ said da Cunha. ‘To be an idealist it is as well not to be born in America. Men like Kondit go through life acting like criminals, but persuade themselves that they are being persecuted for their ideals.’
‘What about Tomas?’ I asked.
Da Cunha smiled. ‘I am tempted to say that men like Tomas go through life acting like idealists but find themselves persecuted as criminals; but it would not be exactly true. Tomas was a unit of a nation’s strength. Anything that he finally became was due to the environment through which he passed. He was neither good nor bad; his misfortunes have always been due to the fact that he was prepared to listen to the other side of the argument. Not a very grievous fault, I would say.’
I agreed.
Da Cunha said, ‘And now you want to know why I did nothing to halt these two men and their disgusting trade. That is why you have followed me, or rather followed my laboratory equipment,’ said da Cunha. I nodded. He said, ‘It arrived so quickly and seemed to excite so little attention en route … There is an old Spanish proverb which runs “For a fleeing enemy make a golden bridge”.’ I bowed.
He said, ‘I knew that there was a risk of it, but …’ he shrugged his shoulders. ‘Without it I couldn’t work anyway. What is it that you really want: the “Weiss List”?’
‘I really don’t know for sure.’ I paused. ‘You as a scientist know that you start an experiment to find a coefficient of expansion and end up with control of the world.’
‘Some of us,’ said da Cunha, ‘prefer the coefficient of expansion.’
‘London has always been very interested in your ice-melting work,’ I said. Da Cunha’s eyes went very bright but he said nothing.
‘The ice-melting,’ I said again. I unfolded a message from London. ‘I sent them photos of your laboratory. This message says … blah blah here we are, says … “when the molecular construction of water forms regular patterns the result is ice, similarly if the regular patterns of the molecules of ice can be rearranged the ice would become water, instantaneously, instead of going through the laborious process of melting. Since at the present time the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. have large fleets of missile-carrying submarines and none of them so far is capable of discharging missiles under even thin ice, the advantages of a method of making a hole in the ice (technically known as a ‘polynya’) are obvious and manifold. The work of Professor Knobel is vital to the Free World’s stake in the Arctic.”’
I folded the paper and placed it inside my wallet, taking great care not to let him see the message.
‘You come to the point very quickly,’ said da Cunha. He smiled a great self-satisfied smile and said, ‘The military aspects of this project do not interest me at all. All I want is to be left in peace. A painter is allowed to disappear to a remote part of the world and paint, why should I not disappear to a remote part of the world and continue my studies?’
‘I can imagine the owner of a flick-knife factory saying the same thing,’ I said.
The servant had brought pancakes with almonds and sugar inside. He offered them and we munched heartily into the plateful. I was wondering how to handle the next part while keeping an eye open for Ossie’s exit. Da Cunha leaned towards me. ‘It has no military importance and never has had,’ he said.
I said, ‘The way I heard it, there was a plan to freeze a narrow section of the English Channel in 1940 to march a German army over it.’
‘It was of no importance,’ said da Cunha.
I said, ‘I was on the other side of that Channel; I was keen it should stay liquid.’
‘I mean it was impossible to do. The theory was correct but the practical difficulties were insurmountable. But by 1945 I had done enough research to be near a breakthrough in basic science.’ Da Cunha chewed into a honey cake. ‘But by 1945 it was too late. The army had disintegrated; it was too late to do anything but wait.’
‘Wait for what?’ I asked.
‘For the renaissance of the middle class,’ he said. He was oversalivating, and now he prodded my chest.
‘You have come a long way to see me. I appreciate that. I am given to understand that you are highly placed in the Civil Service of your country. Whether you come offering good or threatening ill does not change the compliment you pay me. I shall give you advice to take back to your government: “Don’t destroy the middle classes!”’
I thought of taking that message back to the government of my country. I imagined trotting into Dawlish and saying, ‘We are not to destroy the middle classes.’ I looked at da Cunha and said ‘Yes.’ He went on hurriedly:
‘The Allies destroyed the middle classes in Germany after the war.’ I realized that he was speaking of the First World War. ‘The inflation destroyed savings overnight and pushed the middle classes into the arms of the Nazis. Where else could they go? The Dawes Plan gave Germany a loan of $200,000,000. It didn’t go to helping the middle classes – the people you had sitting in Spitfires in 1940. Ten million dollars went to Krupp and another twelve million to Thyssen, which meant to Hitler. The industrialists and the finance houses had a wonderful time, but the middle classes had disappeared into a political whirlpool.
‘And now we are reappearing. The new Europe will be a middle-class Europe. Run by people with taste, run not by jumped-up trade unionists and terrorist rabble-rousers but by men of culture, breeding and taste.’ Da Cunha was looking beyond me in a fixed way. I dared not look round. His sharp, bony fingers dug into my arm, his words were laden with spittle, ‘You call me a Fascist …’
‘No,’ I said nervously, ‘I called you nothing of the kind.’
He hadn’t waited for my reply. ‘Perhaps I am,’ he shouted, ‘perhaps I am a Fascist. If Young Europe is Fascist then I am proud to be a Fascist too.’
The servant boy was hovering at the door. How he had grown! I noticed for the first time that he was well over six foot of oiled muscle.
‘Take him,’ da Cunha shouted. He heaved at my arm and his adroit wiriness threw me off balance. ‘Take him to the cellar,’ he shouted, ‘give him six lashes. I’ll teach these thieving reactionary friends of the Jew Kondit what I mean by discipline.’ His mouth was a mousse of anger.
I said gently, ‘A man like you would never imprison an envoy.’ Da Cunha stretched himself to a regal height. ‘I have your message for my government,’ I coaxed. He looked through me for a moment or so and then gradually brought me into close focus.
He said, ‘It is only because you are an envoy that you shall live.’ He was speaking a little more quietly now. I caught the servant boy’s eye and he gave a slight twitch of the shoulders that might have been a shrug.
‘I shall carry your words to England,’ I said like something out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then da Cunha and I shook hands gravely as though one of us was about to step into a space capsule.
He said, ‘Could you let me have that message your London office sent?’
‘About molecular rearrangements of water particles?’ I said. ‘
I’m afraid not, I shouldn’t have brought it with me really.’
‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘How did the last sentence read?’
‘I can remember it,’ I said, ‘It reads: “The work of Professor Knobel is vital to the anti-Bolshevist world’s stake in the Arctic”.’
‘When you get to my age,’ he said, ‘such food for the ego suddenly means a lot to one.’
‘I understand,’ I said. It was an understatement.
55 In me for a change
‘Marvellous,’ said Ossie, ‘absolutely delicious.’
It was true. The jam doughnuts in the buffet at Marrakech station are among the best I have ever tasted.
‘You’ve got it?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Ossie. He tapped the canvas bag on the table. ‘Went like a dream. Just like you said. A puny little thing. The people who make shoddy safes like that should be locked up.’
‘You sent the message?’
‘I sent “Phase one complete. Commence Phase two. Stop. Eliminate Baker”, then they sent an acknowledgement.’ He smiled. ‘You think that Baix will think Baker means Baix when he intercepts the message?’
‘Unless he’s a bigger dope than I think he is. I’ve used a simple one-part code. I don’t know what else I can do to make it easy for him.’ Ossie chuckled again. He’d taken an unreasonable dislike to Baix and loved the idea of him avoiding a nonexistent assassin.
‘How did it go with you?’ asked Ossie. ‘You keep looking at your watch; you weren’t followed, were you?’
‘No. Train’s due in five minutes,’ I said; it was 2.55 p.m.
‘You won’t drag it in any quicker by quizzing the watch. Tell me about the talk you had with the old nut. And have a doughnut. You are sure you weren’t followed?’
‘I wasn’t followed.’ I took another doughnut and told Ossie about the conversation with da Cunha.
‘But that’s not true,’ Ossie told me at various places in the narrative.
‘If you are going to say “that’s not true” every time I say something that’s not true you’d better go and gargle now or wind up with a sore throat.’
‘Best liar I know, you are,’ said Ossie in great admiration. ‘And so that old blighter is really connected with the English Fascists.’
‘With English Fascists, French Fascists, Belgian Fascists and even German Fascists.’
‘So the Germans have them too,’ said Ossie, like he hadn’t been running his pork-sausage fingers through secrets for the last quarter of a century. ‘That stuff you invented about the message from London. I liked that. What did the message from London really say?’
I passed him the cable that Dawlish had sent me:
KNOBEL STOP NAZI STOP HOAXER STOP WATER FREEZING DISCOVERIES ENTIRELY IRREVOCABLY REPEAT ENTIRELY IRREVOCABLY DISCREDITED REPEAT ENTIRELY: DAWLISH
The long green modern train slid into the station. I helped Ossie with our luggage.
A man with a face like a half-eaten bar of Aero chocolate wanted money for showing us a seat on the almost deserted train. In exchange for my declining to play my part in this transaction he taught me some new Arabic verbs. The train pulled out of the neat little station of Marrakech. Ossie said, ‘That Baix, I’d love to see his face.’
‘That’s just what I’m trying to avoid,’ I said as I opened Ossie’s canvas bag. We both looked at the little radio transmitter that could talk to machines under the sea.
56 Deep signal
The long flexible blades cut the air above our heads. I tapped the pilot on the arm.
‘One more sweep,’ I said, ‘then we’ll return to the ship and try again tomorrow.’ He nodded.
We dropped towards the heavy sea and I watched the wave-tops, blunted by the downward thrust of air from the blades.
‘O.K., Chief,’ I shouted over my shoulder. Chief Petty Officer Edwards of H.M.S. Vernon leaned through the door and watched the ocean top.
‘Back a bit,’ Edwards shouted. It had always been a bomb-aimer’s joke, but now the pilot obediently brought the helicopter along a reciprocal course.
‘Just a floating piece of wood,’ Edwards’s voice said over the intercom. We moved on to the next square of the area search. Twelve miles away on the starboard side I could see the Portuguese coast at Cape Santa Maria. Through the grey sea ran black veins as the light fell across the contours of the water. ‘Too dark now,’ I said, and Ossie switched off his radio and the cabin glowed with the green light of the instrument panel.
It was two and a half days before our effort was rewarded. Hours of ‘backing a bit’ over foamlashed pieces of flotsam and sliding over for a close look at a shoal of fish.
When we made contact the extreme long-wave radio set on Ossie’s knees – the one he had stolen from da Cunha’s safe – gave a ‘beep beep’ of response. The pilot held us steady. The wave-crests were inches under us.
‘Beep beep’: it was emitting a signal to us. Ossie was shouting over the intercom and I grabbed the diver’s rubber-clad arm and tried to go through his instructions all over again in thirty seconds flat. Edwards patted my hand and said, ‘It will be O.K., sir’, then like a demon king in a pantomime he was gone. Hands crossed, face lowered, he hit the water with a splash. Only now did I see the target he had dived at. The silver metal floating amid the waves shone here and there through the green vegetation. C.P.O. Edwards had the cable lashed around the big metal cylinder within ten minutes. The winch operator began to haul it up and brought it splashing and dripping into the cabin of the helicopter.
Dawlish had done his stuff. When the helicopter got back to the ship everything was ready and waiting – even a ration of rum for the still wet C.P.O. Edwards. I was in the captain’s day-cabin with the cylinder; a Marine sentry was stationed outside and even the captain knocked before coming in to ask if there was anything more I required.
Two bolts had to be chiselled off, but that was only to be expected after more than a decade under the water. The light alloy panel came free to reveal a large compartment and give access for adjustments to the barometer, thermometer, hygrometer and the motors.
Every twelve hours this metal cylinder had surfaced and its voice had told da Cunha that it was still ‘alive and well’. Fernie Tomas had tried to ‘home’ on the signal, but failed to spot it before it descended to the sea bed again. Harry Kondit knew that his boat travelled twelve miles on each of da Cunha’s trips. ‘Down the coast’ he had said, because Harry Kondit thought he was the only man who kept rendezvous at sea.
I reached inside to where the instruments had once been, and found a slim metal tin with the Nazi eagle and the bright-red sealing wax. Before I opened it I sent for a jug of coffee and sandwiches. It was going to be a long task.
57 Lost letter in the mail
Christmas 1940
Dear Baron,
What a wonderful surprise to have your letter, it had taken nearly nine weeks to reach us. You may well wonder what the ‘state of mind’ is here in England. You would never recognize Number 20 now and it is like no other Christmas I care to remember. They have used the gardens for some sort of dump and five of the houses are full of Polish officers who are for ever shouting and singing. Gerald is in the Cameroons negotiating with the French, and Billy is with the Fleet, goodness knows where. We have only cook and Janet now to look after us and are ‘camping’ in the study and the gold room that you liked so much. We don’t go into London at all, as there is little petrol available and the trains are blacked out and quite filthy, and now they are talking about restricting restaurant meals. That Karl is having a wonderful time in Paris we have little doubt, how we all envy him! You must send him my love when you next write.
How we agree with you about this dreadful war. The government here is completely dominated by these dreadful Labour Party people, and Sir B. is quite sure they are plotting with the Bolsheviks against the poor, gallant little Finns. At least, Daddy says, they are going to have the Daily Worker newspaper ‘put down’ next month.
You say that if only we had an hour’s conversation together you are sure that we could help our countries in these days of internecine bitterness. You are right, and I must tell you that it is not as impossible as you seem to think. Lord C. is going to the United States in February and Miriam will be going with him. Surely it is not impossible that you should have to go to Lisbon on some pretence or other? You always were able to find excuses to satisfy Nanna at Goodwinds. Is Grandmama well? You know that Cyril is still at the same address in Zürich; I know I would love to see you again, it seems so long. Of course Helmut can use the house in Nice, the agent in the village has the keys, I only hope it hasn’t been damaged, but one never knows, the way the French have been behaving lately is past comprehension. Please write again soon, the news that you are well and still thinking of us has brought a breath of fresh air to our dusty old lives.
Your true friend,
BESS
Sunday, 26th January, 1941 London
Dear Walter,
I shall ask you to burn this the moment that you have read it. Tell K.E.F. that he will have to supply anything from the factory in Lyon that you ask. Remind him that it wasn’t the French Resistance that have paid his wages for the last ten months. I want the chimneys smoking again at the earliest possible moment or I will sell the whole plant.
Would your Wehrmacht people be interested in buying the place? Should you be interested I will appoint you as the agent at the usual rate. Surely a factory in the Vichy Free Zone could be useful in the light of this ‘Trading with the Enemy Statutory List’?
I think these people here are beginning to realize which way the wind has blown and already a little of the bravado has disappeared. You can mark my words that should your fellows actually come into conflict with the Soviets we British will not be long in understanding what must be done.
Our plant in Latvia has gone down the drain now that they have been subverted by the Bolshies and I can only say how glad I am that the plans for the Bukovina place didn’t materialize.