Kingdoms Fall - The Laxenburg Message (13 page)

“British troops will be landed there in a few
weeks, and I’ve been asked to more or less clear the way for them. Part of that
involves sweeping up the debris, which I can handle all right. The other part
is more diplomatic. Of course, there are formal diplomatic discussions
underway, but it was suggested to me that a little informal ground work could
help grease the wheels. That’s where I could really use your assistance. And
when the Manchesters arrive in Salonika, you can rejoin them there, if you
wish. Perhaps you would be given a company command then.”

“Now you’ve told me something really important,
David. The only Manchesters in the Mediterranean are at Suvla Bay. If they are
to be redeployed to Greece, that means troops are to be drawn off the
peninsula. Is it just the Manchester Regiment?”

“Well, no, I don’t think so. Between us, it
looks as though the offensive at Gallipoli is over. We’ve managed to tie down
thousands of Turkish troops, but that wasn’t our objective. We’ve also tied
down thousands of Allied troops and the number of casualties is far too great.
The Allied forces will almost surely be evacuated.”

“Good Lord, what a terrible waste of men. A
defeat like this will certainly bring down the government in London; it’s
already ended poor Churchill’s career at the Admiralty. But why move the troops
to Salonika rather than redeploy them to Egypt or send them to France?”

“We’ll have to figure that out for ourselves.”

“I would like to solve that riddle, and I also
want to know who asked you to go to Salonika – was it Sir Ian?”

“General Hamilton will write our orders, but this
is something else. Confidentially, it comes from our Intelligence branch.”

“But the military intelligence office
would
report to Sir Ian, at least in the Mediterranean.”

“So I understand. This is not a military intelligence
office. It’s a civilian intelligence office.”

“I didn’t know we had one.”

“I believe they would like to keep it that
way.”

“And who controls this intelligence office, I
wonder?”

“I haven’t any idea, and if I did I’m quite
sure they would not want me to tell you.”

“I see. You have a way of putting things that
make them sound distinctly unflattering.”

“I don’t mean it that way.”

“Of course, otherwise you would not have asked
me to join you. Well, I suppose I’d be no worse off if I go with you to Salonika,
but I must have orders properly issued by my superiors. I’m all in favor of a
little diplomacy or espionage or what-have-you, but I can’t let down the
Manchesters and I will not be party to any political intrigues that might
embarrass Father.”

“Of course; I’m sure it can be arranged as you
like. Do you know when you’ll be ready to travel?”

“Another week more or less, after the risk of
infection has passed.”

“Good. Let’s skip the tea, then, and stick to
straight whisky.”

“Fine with me. Say, I did hear a good one the
other day: Have you heard what the dragon said to the knight in shining armor?”

“What?”

“Oh, no! More Bully Beef!”

Gresham returned to headquarters on Imbros
later that day to make his report to Mackenzie. After Gresham had delivered the
Arab Major to the intelligence office, Mackenzie and the al-Faruqi had held
several long and secretive meetings, and Mackenzie told Gresham that he would
prove to be extremely valuable in Arabia. In the meantime, Gresham assisted
Mackenzie with the interrogation of several Turkish agents captured on Imbros.
And then Mackenzie spoke to Gresham about the planned British landing at the
Greek city of Salonika. Gresham knew only that Greece was still a neutral
country and that Salonika was close to Serbia, a country which had thus far
successfully prevented an invasion by the Austro-Hungarians. Mackenzie knew
very little about the landing himself. Great Britain obviously wanted to
stiffen the Serbian resolve and was hoping to bring Greece into the war on the
side of the Entente. Mackenzie wanted Gresham to find out what was going on in
Greece and make sure the Allies would be warmly received in Salonika by both
the government and the local people. Gresham also knew that Mackenzie still
wished to enlist Wilkins to the service and had proposed approaching his fellow
officer in hospital about joining the trip to Greece. Mackenzie was delighted
with the idea.

Gresham was taught a few simple codes and given
a pad of special single-use code sheets so he could communicate with Mackenzie
securely. The code sheets were supposedly impossible to decipher, he was told.
Each sheet had a unique six-digit serial number and was printed with lines of
random numbers in groups of five. One merely translated each letter (or empty
space) of a given message into a number (A being one, B being two, and so
forth) and added on the number in the corresponding place on the code sheet.
One would then transmit the numbers with the sheet’s serial number. The
receiver of the message would reverse the process by using his copy of the same
code sheet. Since each sheet was unique and the code numbers were entirely
random, the code could not be decrypted. Gresham was instructed to name
Mackenzie in his messages simply as
M
and sign each message with his
three-digit code number,
006
.

For close work Gresham preferred to rely on the
trench knife he kept strapped to the back of his belt. But for this operation,
Gresham was especially determined to see that nothing bad happened to Wilkins,
and the service be damned if they didn’t like it, so he obtained a Browning M1911
magazine-fed .45-caliber handgun. The guns were made in America but were very
popular in the British Navy for their moderate size, reliability and magazine
loading. Lastly, for the trip to Greece, Gresham was given a fortune in British
gold sovereigns and Greek drachmas, the better to buy the alliance of anyone
who needed to be and could be persuaded in that manner.

In the evening following his return from
Tenedos, Gresham met with Mackenzie for one last supper at the little
white-washed house on Imbros. Mackenzie would be off early the next morning to
escort al-Faruqi to the Foreign Office in Egypt, where plans vis-à-vis British
support for an armed Arab uprising against the Turks were to be discussed.

“I wanted a final word before I leave for Cairo,”
Mackenzie began. They were sitting on the patio again drinking brandy. In the
night sky above them, the moon was bright, but the air was still and heavy. “As
you prepare to depart for Greece and leave your Manchesters behind on the
peninsula, David, I imagine you have begun to wonder what you have gotten
yourself in to.”

“To be honest, Compton, I have tried very hard
not
to wonder.”

“I really do appreciate the trust you have
placed in me, to be certain, David, but you must understand that my purview is
limited. For one thing, I work only in the Aegean arena; I may end up in Athens
myself one day. But the intelligence service is a larger institution, albeit a
fairly new and terribly disorganized one. Much of what our agents do involves
counting railway cars, taking inventory of enemy ships, and questioning spies.
We are gatherers of information and we pass that information on to those who
will most benefit from its use, whether that is the army, the navy, our allies,
or what have you. But I intend that you will be something far less passive than
a mere information collector.

“I want to state plainly to you that I am not
your superior officer. You shall keep in contact with me, and I will pass on
your government’s assignments to you, but in every other respect you will be
your own man. Of course, you also hold the rank of Captain, in the Border
Regiment as it turns out. But you will not be receiving orders or have any
other contact with that regiment; they will not even know you exist except as a
name on a list in a book that no one ever reads. You will be an independent
instrument of our government, but, conversely, the British government will deny
responsibility for anything that you do that may be embarrassing or even
diplomatically uncomfortable. Is that clear?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“It must be very clear, David, because I am
saying to you now that you are charged with doing what you deem must be done to
serve your country’s best interests and fulfill your assignments, but even
though you are an agent of your country’s Intelligence Service, you may never
admit it. If you are captured or arrested, you may not plead to us for
assistance, as there will be none forthcoming. Do you understand?”

“For my part, I do. But what of Wilkins? I fear
he would be very uncomfortable with such an arrangement, were I to explain it
to him in those terms.”

“Captain Wilkins shall remain a Captain in the
Tenth Manchesters and, for a time, he can assist you in that capacity. After
that, he will have to decide for himself whether he wishes to make a commitment
to the service. Confidentially, I will tell you that Lord Bartlett would
strongly approve of what James is doing. I am not naming any names, you
understand. The Intelligence Service is not controlled by the War Office or the
Admiralty, or by any Lord, Minister or King. It is run by the government, and
by men who work anonymously in permanent offices set up by the government with
the sole purpose to defend the people of the British Empire from harm.”

Gresham felt a jolt of pride. He did not want
to be judged for who he was. He wanted to be judged solely for what he did. Now
he would serve his country doing what he did best, and his country would know
him solely by his deeds and appreciate him solely for rewards it could perhaps
not even clearly identify.

“I believe, Compton, that you have saved me,”
he said. “And not just by getting me out of Suvla Bay – that is obvious
enough.”

“I hope so, David, I truly do. Just be careful
and use your head.”

Gresham and Mackenzie parted that night with a
handshake and a mutual understanding, yet neither knew when or if they would
ever meet again.

Gresham, like Wilkins, wanted to know the
reason Salonika had been chosen for a British landing, but he also felt it was
important to understand the political situation in Greece and how that fit into
the overall advancement of the war effort. He had been told there were already
British diplomats in Greece seeking the King’s consent to a British landing,
but there were surely German and Austrian diplomats there as well and perhaps
German intelligence agents, and most certainly a mysterious and complex
political situation. While the British government had plans for Gresham, he
knew his new role would require him to be more than a good soldier for his
country. He would have to understand what his country was seeking to accomplish.

After losing Hart at Suvla Bay and learning
about the murder of the Armenians in the Ottoman Turkish Empire, Gresham had
become even more focused. More than that, he was fiercely angry. He already
grasped that his government was developing a plan to destroy the Ottoman Empire
by encouraging outright rebellion from within. It was an audacious way to win a
war, and would likely prove to be more effective than killing men on a
battlefield had been. But why Greece, why Salonika, and what was to come after
that?

A few days later, Gresham and Wilkins stood on
a pebbly beach up the coast from the fortress on Tenedos, a bottle of cheap rum
that Gresham had purchased sat on the hot pebbles beside them; whisky was
becoming hard to find. The sun was bright and warm, so the men had stripped
down to their shorts and had been swimming in the cool blue water.

To look at them, both men had changed in the
weeks since they had arrived at Suvla Bay. In preparation for the trip to
Greece, Gresham was now cleanly shaved and his drooping black mustache and long
greasy hair had been neatly trimmed, much more respectable looking and more
suitable for the work he would be doing as an
agent provocateur
. He
emerged a handsome young gentleman, no longer troll-like in appearance, sullen-
or moody-looking. His blue eyes were sharp and bright, and he moved with a
new-found sense of purpose. Wilkins, once a fair-haired boy, already had the
gaunt and chiseled look of a war veteran. Across his left cheek lay a wide red
scar which led to an ear that was noticeably smaller and more crinkled than his
right. He had more confidence, which was justified by his experience under
fire, and a more mature outlook on the war.

Side by side, Gresham and Wilkins bent over the
M1911 handgun that Gresham had brought. He had purchased a second handgun for
Wilkins and was showing him how the magazine was loaded. They planned to walk
further up the coast and practice shooting. In two days, they would board the
HMS
Fincher
and sail for Alexandria. From Alexandria, they would take a
common passenger ferry to Athens as British soldiers on holiday and from there
take a ship or train to Salonika. Wilkins had received unusually vague and
open-ended orders signed personally by General Hamilton. Gresham no longer needed
written orders at all. He would simply do whatever needed to be done.

Wilkins sat on the beach and poured some rum
into his tin cup. “The choice of Salonika does make sense,” he argued to
Gresham. “British defeat on the Gallipoli peninsula will certainly embolden
Bulgaria to join the war with Germany and Austria-Hungary. The Austrians have
been trying to invade Serbia for more than a year so that the railway lines can
be opened between Germany and Constantinople. With Bulgaria attacking from the
east and Austria from the north, Serbia would stand no chance at all. And once
Serbia is overrun, Greece itself would be threatened. The only thing that might
dampen our enemy’s ambitions is an Allied force backing up the Serbian Army,
and the only place to land such a force is at Salonika.”