The Secret Generations (37 page)

James wondered if his uncle had somehow seen one of the poems he had written to Margaret Mary, into which he had put those very words.

*

Caspar was the only member present who could not be truly counted as one who was concerned in this arcane profession. Now, on Boxing afternoon, with a weak, snowy sun throwing a pale imitation of its summer glory across the fields and gardens, he was brought by the attentive Phoebe into Giles Railton
’s presence.

Apart from his small, and private, breakdown in front of Mary Anne, Caspar contrived to keep up a spirit of bonhomie before the rest of the family.

‘How goes the Christmas spirit, sir?’ he greeted his grandfather. ‘You wished to see me?’

Giles raised his head, looking at the young officer, the Bath chair, and Phoebe, in that order. Phoebe smiled at the unspoken command, and withdrew.

‘Yes, I wished to see you.’ He then asked Caspar if he had thought further about the matter they had discussed at the hospital.

‘
You mean the secret stuff?’

‘
Exactly.’

‘
I want to kill Germans. Vengeance is mine.’

‘
You’ll not do it in the field. So why not at a distance?’

‘
What on earth
could
I do?’

‘
A great deal,’ Giles hunched forward, as though taking the young man into his confidence. ‘The Chief of Service has also suffered mutilation. He’s lost a leg. You’d get on well with him, and he has need of a good young military head close to his. I want to propose you as his ADC.’

‘
Yes, but what would I do?’

Giles paused, then lowered his voice
– it was an old actor’s trick – to gain attention and underline the secret nature of their conversation. At heart, Giles was a cunning old actor. ‘Must go no further than this room, mind you.’

‘
Of course.’

Giles explained that, as he
saw it, the generals and politicians would soon be divided within the present deadlock. ‘There will be two schools of thought. On the one hand those concerned with a war of attrition; battling trench against trench. A siege, conducted on the largest scale Europe has ever seen. On the other hand, there will be those who wish to go around the trenches. They will want some kind of breakthrough instead of frontal assaults. A breakthrough around the lines.’

‘
And?’

‘
And, for a long time, neither faction will really see the true essential in this war. In the end, it will boil down to a matter of supply.’

He explained about the train-spotting networks behind enemy lines.
‘You would be of immense use to the Service by collating the reports. That would be a start, surely? When you’re truly fit, of course.’

There was a long pause, filled only by the crackling of the log fire.
‘Grandfather, when I’m fit enough might I come on probation, so to speak? It sounds interesting, but I need to see results for it to satisfy me.’

A minute piece of the ice in Giles Railton
’s soul melted.

*

As Sara had suggested to Dick Farthing, Ramillies William Railton was far and away the most brilliant member of the family. He was also adept at hiding the fact behind what was often taken as a reticent shyness. Ramillies had that rare ability of being absolutely unobtrusive – a young man who preferred to watch and listen instead of joining in, and so, by his very silence, could become almost invisible.

When Porter sought him out
, late on that Boxing Day afternoon, Ramillies was mentally apart from the rest of the household, his nose stuck into Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall
. Even so, Ramillies, if pressed, would have been able to state, with the accuracy of a skilled navigator, the exact location of almost everybody in Redhill Manor. He was not, then, surprised at being asked to join his grandfather in The General’s study.

‘
Before we meet in the office again,’ Giles began, ‘there is one word I should like to drop into your ear.’

Ramillies waited.

‘Russia,’ Giles said the word quietly, then stopped for the reply that did not come, so that he had to speak again. ‘Your feelings on Russia, Ramillies?’

The young man never wasted words.
‘Turbulence. Trouble. Potential chaos. The biggest internal power struggle in Europe since Attila the Hun. Nothing’s worked so far; the revolutionaries – failed once – will make another bid for power. This time they’ll be successful.’

‘
Yes.’

Ramillies gave a diffident shrug.
‘Grandfather, what am I to say? Our own politicians wouldn’t listen.’ He paused, as though the next sentence was a prophecy on which he might be called to account. ‘The Tsar’s planning to be away from St Petersburg.’ He used the old name out of familiarity, even though the city had become Petrograd a few months before. ‘It’s common knowledge that he’ll take supreme command of the Army. Once he’s left the city… Well, I’d say the upset will happen pretty soon.’

Giles nodded agreement.
‘Quite. A fair digest of the situation. And, yes, nobody here will listen, so we must be prepared. My feelings are that the great revolt will not engulf simply Russia, but the whole of Europe. There’s much to do when we get back to London, but at the end of January you will be expected to come into the Office only twice a week.’

Ramillies raised his eyebrows.

‘This is just a warning. You won’t be idle. Your time will be spent studying the Russian language, brushing up on Russian lore, art, culture and history – not to mention the ways and means of getting around the country.’

‘
I’m to go to Russia?’

‘
In the fullness of time, I think, yes. You must certainly keep that in mind. I want you to speak like a Muscovite; know the customs and protocol like a diplomat; and their folk lore like a peasant.’

‘
I understand.’

His grandfather had no doubt that Ramillies understood completely.

*

Alone again, Giles went back to his musing, and the thoughts which had obsessed him through the whole Christmas holiday
– thoughts of what Madeline Drew had, under pressure, revealed to him; and what he was bound to eventually pass on to her.

Being long experienced in the m
ore sinister arts of interrogation, Giles had not, initially, set out to discover anything new concerning the operations and organization of the German Military Intelligence. Already, Charles had performed that task more than adequately. There were further ways in which Miss Drew could assist, for Giles Railton’s devious mind played with the idea of compromising German intelligence officers. What he wanted was a view of the chinks in the armour of people like Walter Nicolai and his cohorts.

Madeline Drew
, trained by the intelligence people in Berlin, knew much of their private lives. Giles required the kind of information normally not spread abroad. Who had mistresses, and did their wives know? Who was perverted, in one way or another? Who preferred boys to men, or men to women? Who had strange habits, and who was constantly in debt, or feared some secret becoming public knowledge? These were the things he wished to feed to James, before the boy went off to Berlin in search of Marie. Giles considered that, if anyone knew anything of this kind, it would be a woman like Madeline.

The interrogation which had reduced Madeline Drew to a tearful wreck, and lasted over six hours, began calmly, but built into a dreadful, browbeating affair, thick with threats and heavy
with Giles’ personal abuse.

Within a couple of hours, he established that the golden-haired innocent and open girl facing him across the desk was herself implicated in a multitude of sexual gambollings with high-ranking intelligence officials i
n Berlin. From that discovery he had slowly broken Madeline, probing and prying into the most secret corners of her private life while in Germany.

It was only in the last hour that Miss Drew let slip a hint of her affair with Charles.

Giles had spent most of the Christmas holiday deciding not merely how best to use the general information on Berlin, but what to do about this unhappy liaison between the girl and his own nephew, Charles.

Just as dinner was ending that night, Porter hobbled into the dining room. There was a gentleman to see Mr Charles, urgently.

Brian Wood waited, full of apologies, in the big flagstoned hall. It was very urgent. Mr Kell had insisted he should bring Charles straight back to London.

‘
What the hell’s wrong?’ Charles was half way across the hall, ready to arrange his packing and make excuses to the rest of the family.

‘
Seagull, sir. She’s threatened to pull out altogether unless she sees you within twenty-four hours. Something vital’s happened, and she’ll speak only with you.’

Charles, anxious and concerned, set about getting away from Haversage in reasonable order.

Within three hours he was back in London reporting to Vernon Kell.

‘
She’s been ordered back,’ he told MO5’s Director. ‘We’ve got ten days at the most either to pull her away from this contact – Eagle – or let her go.’

Kell sat in silence for a full five minutes. Then:
‘You’d better come with me. Your uncle’s holding the fort until C gets back. We need his Service’s advice on this one. See if they can run her at long range, inside Germany.’

It was with mixed feelings t
hat they set off for Northumberland Avenue and what Charles suspected could be a lengthy – and possibly unpleasant – meeting with Giles Railton.

*

The man they knew as ‘G’ – or Eagle – had arranged a meeting with Madeline Drew on Christmas Eve. The message was to the point. Berlin wanted her to return. The means for that return – a U-Boat – would be available within the next two weeks.

Whatever the dangers, Giles, in C
’s absence, was decisive. He wanted the Drew woman out of England.

So, on 5 January 191
5, Madeline Drew left Coventry for Holyhead, where she took the RMS Connaught sailing to Kingstown, Ireland. From Kingstown she went by train to Galway.

In the early hours of 8 January, in a secluded bay some six miles from Galway, a small boat picked her up, rowing a mile off-shore, to the waiting submarine.

By 24 January, Hanna Haas – as she had again become – arrived back in Berlin. She was emotional and in a state of confusion, mainly because, following the quickly-called meeting with Charles on the day after Boxing Day, they had not allowed her to see him alone again. She was a very frightened women on that first morning back in Berlin.

A few weeks later, unknown to her, Charles
’ kinsman, James Railton, arrived in the German capital. Herr Franke had come home, though in his memory James carried a picture of his cousin Mary Anne preparing to leave for France to nurse the wounded; and an even more surprising recollection of Caspar in a wheel chair, sitting behind a desk in C’s outer office.

Chapter Seven

Sara appeared to be blessed with boundless energy, and, during the second week in January, a bitter freezing winter that year, she returned from her thrice-weekly visit to the Cottage Hospital to find Mildred and Charlotte had arrived, as planned, from London.

Over Christmas, they had spoken at length on how the estate and farm could now be run. Sara made a list of strong young girls and older men in the district who knew something about farming and were in need of work. The Railton women would each have to play their part. Charlotte, Mildred and Margaret Mary had spoken to their husbands, all of whom expressed their admiration for Sara’s sensible plan. They had even spoken to the quiet, nervous Denise who, in turn, had told Giles. Initially Giles wondered if it was some form of intrigue, though, intrigue or not, he felt Sara was doing the right thing by involving the whole family.

Already the women had each agreed to try and spend one week in three at the Manor, to assist in the general running of the place. Later that afternoon, they would bring Rachel Berry into their circle.
‘She’s a shrew at heart,’ Sara said, ‘but if we handle her properly, allow her to think she’s organizing everything, I think she’ll be a good ally. We need someone like her who can mix with the girls and old men on their own terms. I think she’ll be the whip in our hands.’

In fact, when Porter knocked and entered The General
’s study, Sara thought Rachel had arrived.

‘
It’s Miss Mary Anne,’ he told them curtly, for he did not hold with women closeted together on farm business.

‘
What about her?’

‘
She’s here.’

‘
A flying visit.’ Mary Anne stood in the doorway. ‘I have twenty-four hours, and they told me Mama was here. I leave for France tomorrow afternoon.’

Mildred rose and went to her daughter, embracing her and smothering her with questions. Was she getting enough to eat, enough sleep? How were they treating her? Until Mary Anne had to push her gently away.

‘Mama, I’m fine. I couldn’t go without saying goodbye.’

‘
You look tired out. You really have to…’

‘
Go?’ Mary Anne smiled. ‘Yes. I’m as much under orders as a soldier.’

They sat her down and Sara rang for tea.
‘We can feed you up at dinner time. At least you can relax now, rest, and be with your mother.’

Mary Anne signalled a look of gratitude, acknowledging that Sara understood her emotions far better than Mildred.

Rachel Berry arrived soon after, and the meeting continued, with Mary Anne going upstairs to rest. But she talked later, when they heard she had been working twelve-hour shifts.

‘
But that’s ridiculous!’ Charlotte began.

‘
War is ridiculous.’ Mary Anne had changed from the soft – if stubborn – well-bred girl. ‘Only the men who are out there, and the women who have to care for the dying and wounded, can know how ridiculous it is.’

‘
These Anglo-Catholic nuns…’ Mildred began, a distaste creeping into her voice. She mistrusted anything in the Church of England which appeared to ape the Church of Rome.

‘
Are incredible,’ Mary Anne snapped, tartly. ‘Some of them work more hours than we do. They rarely lose their tempers, and even the youngest is wiser than I’ll ever be.’ Then she talked, at length, and with passion, of the war horrors she had already dealt with as a nurse.

Mary Anne
’s outburst threw them into an uneasy silence; and Charlotte, in particular, thought much about Caspar and his personal bravery.

*

Caspar was aware they had an agent in Berlin, and that he, or she, was known as Peewit. He had no idea that Peewit was his cousin, James. He also knew there was another agent who was presumed to be in Berlin. The code name of this one was Seagull, and Seagull was daily expected to be in contact with one of their men attached to the British Office in Switzerland. The contact was known as Ruby. Peewit’s contact, also in Switzerland, was Pearl, and each day C asked if there was news from either of them. Ruby and Pearl remained silent. This did not bother Caspar, he had other things on his mind, mainly what he saw as alarming information emanating from the train spotters.

‘
The figures speak for themselves, sir.’ He had taken his wheelchair into C’s office. Even C wheeled himself around, and both men practised using their peg-legs at home, in off-duty moments. ‘Even if our people are exaggerating, the ratio of arms and ammunition being moved up to the German front line is seventy per cent heavier than our arms movements.’

C nodded. Urgent reports had gone to the Committee of Imperial Defence and the Government. There was much talk of stepping up arms production, but so far little had been done.

‘Our troops’ll be annihilated unless we get more ammunition to them.’ Caspar was excited. ‘If they collapse, the Channel ports’ll be easy meat.’

‘
Exactly what I’ve reported.’ C’s tone lay on the borderline of anger. ‘Silly damned fools are so tied up trying to find a way to break in through the back door – Turkey and all that – they can’t see how quickly the war can be lost.’

In the outer office again, Caspar began to leaf through a batch of new signals. He detached one from the pile, and made for C
’s door. It was a short message from Switzerland – Peewit had made contact with Pearl. A full report would follow.

*

Gustav Franke stepped off the train at the Charlottenburg Station and made his way through the crowd to the egress, taking the numbered metal tag from the policeman on duty. The number on the tag was that of his allotted erste Klasse cab.

He was going to the Hotel Minerva on Unter den Linden. Herr Franke was returning to Berlin for the first time in years and his face showed all the nostalgic emotion of a man coming home, with smiles of recognition as he spotted old landmarks from his childhood.

For the past ten years, Herr Franke had lived in Switzerland, his family having moved there for reasons of health. His mother had died two years after the move, and his father followed her last year. Now Germany was at war, there seemed to be no reason for Herr Franke to remain outside the Fatherland. True, the damage to his leg in a skiing accident, three years ago, would prevent him from serving with the army. But his knowledge of the theory of flight, and the workings of modern aeroplanes, could be of use.

His papers showed he wanted for nothing. He carried a letter of credit for several thousand marks – the bulk of his deceased father’s estate. There were no surviving relatives living in the city, so he would stay at the Minerva for a day or two while he looked for a suitable apartment. After that, he would report to the authorities and see what service he could be to the Fatherland.

Even in the damp cold of a slightly misty evening, Gustav Franke
’s heart leaped at the sight of the ‘Linden’, the trees in their winter nakedness, the great buildings and shops just as he remembered them. With the memory came other pictures – his Aunt Irma’s house near the Tiergarten, and the fine ladies and gentlemen parading along the Sieges-Allee; the grand marble monument of Frederick William III, which his grandfather Franke took him to visit some Sundays in the summer, travelling in from their house in Wilmersdorf.

In his mind, he could see the house, with its heavy mahogany furniture, the red curtains hanging across the high windows, the smells of cooking filtering up from below stairs. He remembered his toy soldiers
– Grenadiers, smart in their red jackets, and led by an officer on a great black horse.

It was as though these things had really been a part of James Railton
’s childhood, so well had the professors at Oxford taken possession of his mind.

He felt no fear at being deep within the heart of Germany.
‘
Be
Gustav Franke,’ they had told him. ‘
Be
the complete man, with a past, present and future. Live him. Do everything he would do. Regard your mission as the fantasy.’

The Minerva was functioning with the normal efficiency of any first-class Berlin hotel, and, even at this time in the morning
– his train had arrived at seven a.m. – a number of guests were about. As at the station there were a large number of uniforms. Only occasionally did the reality creep into his mind – a brief flash of Margaret Mary’s face, a sound in the street reminding him of London.

He bathed, shaved and changed. They had given him three addresses, two of people who, while not active agents, were at least known to have sympathies with Great Britain, and that of the house in the Courbierrestra
sse where the German Intelligence Service carried out some of its work. James also had another name and address with him – that of Major Joseph Stoerkel, the disillusioned officer with whom he had talked briefly in Friedrichshafen.

By ten o
’clock, refreshed and breakfasted, he was taking a cab to Elisabethstrasse, in search of Stoerkel. The Herr Major, they told him, was not at home. He had already left for his office with the Imperial Army Postal Service, near the main Post Office on Alexander-Platz.

It was almost eleven o
’clock before James discovered that Major Stoerkel was second in command of military censorship. Half an hour later, he arrived at the office in which he worked.

A rather surly clerk asked what his business with the Herr Major might be.

‘I have his card.’ James showed the piece of engraved pasteboard. ‘He invited me to call on him if I was in Berlin. Tell him it is the Swiss gentleman he met in Friedrichshafen.’ Three minutes later he was seated in front of Stoerkel’s desk.

‘
So, Herr…? Herr…? Grabben, is it not?’

‘
Franke,’ James looked him in the eyes and saw the right eyebrow twitch.

‘
Ah. My memory is faulty. As I recalled it, your name was Grabben. A Swiss gentleman.’

‘
German,’ James had decided to be brazen. ‘I was born here, in Berlin. I have spent many years in Switzerland, where my family moved a long time ago. But…’

‘
And how can I help you, Herr Franke?’

James did not allow his eyes to unlock from those of the officer.
‘I have returned to Germany. There is work to do for the Fatherland… I thought…’

Joseph Stoerkel pushed back his chair, and stood.
‘Come, Herr Franke. I usually take an hour or so for luncheon about this time. You know Habel, on the Linden? Excellent for luncheon.’

Habel
’s menu was comprehensive, for the restaurant had an international reputation, particularly for luncheon; and a bowing, obsequious waiter took them through the throng to a table in the far corner of the main room.

The Major was obviously well known at Habel. The waiters spoke to him correctly by rank and name. They drank the
Leberknodelsuppe
, and ate a main course of
Königsberger Klopse
– meatballs in caper sauce. It was only when the head waiter brought the ordered
Berliner Pfannkuchen
that Joseph Stoerkel began serious conversation.

‘
I always order these. In fact they make them especially for me, even out of season.’ The doughnuts were traditionally eaten on New Year’s Eve, and normally only served between Christmas and Lent. ‘Now, Herr Franke, what do you wish of me?’

James lowered his voice,
‘In Friedrichshafen you gave the impression that you were disillusioned with this war.’

‘
That was said to a Swiss businessman.’

‘
Pretend you’re speaking to the Swiss businessman.’ James experienced a surge of fear, as though he had only just realized the risk he was taking. A few words exchanged about the war with a man back from the front, was not enough upon which to base trust.

‘
If I did, how could I be of assistance? The doctors have pronounced me unfit for active duty, so I glance through random letters written by our fighting men, to make certain they are not indiscreet,’ he gave an apologetic smile. ‘They may, perhaps, tell the truth about the hell of war.’

‘
There are two things,’ James could do nothing but commit himself now. He would move straight out of the Minerva, and go to one of the addresses they had given him in London. Possibly people there could advise him of somewhere to live – an earth, for a fox. ‘First, I really should do something to help the Fatherland, otherwise people will take me for a coward, or an indolent fool.’

‘
And second?’

‘
I am looking for an Englishwoman.’

‘
Oh, my dear fellow, aren’t we all? Mind you a French girl would be a change.’

James ignored the remark.
‘She could be thought of as French. Her married name is, or was, Marie Grenot.’

‘
She is in Berlin?’

‘
I don’t know. She left Paris, the day before war was declared, with a German officer, Klaus von Hirsch.’

‘
Then she could be Frau von Hirsch, or the Grafin von Hirsch by now. I presume we speak of the old Count von Hirsch’s boy? The one who spent so much time at the Paris Embassy?’