The Sword of Fate (33 page)

The days that followed were boring but not altogether
unhappy ones. My hopes were high now that both Daphnis and I were going to escape the consequences of this wretched business, and that sometime in March we might be happily married after all.

Three days after my last interview with Cozelli, Bulgaria definitely joined the Axis. Anthony Eden and Sir John Dill were much in the news as they had flown out to the Near East and were holding many conferences: first in Ankara, then in Athens, and lastly in Cairo. It was clear that they were making a stupendous effort to prevent the remaining Balkan countries falling into Hitler’s hands without a blow.

The Greeks were still putting up a magnificent fight against the Italians and were fiercely attacking Tepeleni, but a dark shadow was falling upon their prospects of continued victory. They had stood up to the Italians in a way that was beyond all praise, but the Germans were a very different proposition, and it seemed certain now that the Nazis meant to attack Greece through Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. It was only wishful thinking to imagine for one moment that the gallant little nation could stand up against the full weight of a Nazi blitzkrieg. On the 3rd of March it was reported that German troops had crossed Bulgaria and reached the Greek frontier.

The following day the papers splashed a British landing in Norway. Our naval forces had raided the Lofoten Islands and destroyed the valuable fish-oil plants there, taking a number of Germans and Norwegian Quislings prisoner. It was a fine exploit, but such gallant actions could not possibly affect the main strategy of the war or act as a bar to the armoured giant that was steadily rolling down into the Balkans.

A proposal was put up by the Nazis that the Yugoslavs should sign a pact with them, and for a couple of days it looked as though Yugoslavia, too, was to fall a victim to von Ribbentrop’s machinations; but the leaders of the Yugoslav Opposition put up the strongest protests against any pact with Germany, and from all quarters the Yugoslav Government was being urged to stand firm.

The best news for a long time came on March the 8th. The United States Senate had passed the Lease and Lend Bill, and it was immensely cheering to think that the Americans were now really as good as in with us. It was on the morning of the 11th that Major Cozelli sent for me again.

This time he greeted me very pleasantly and said, “Well, Day, you’ll be glad to hear that this business isn’t going too badly, so I’ve decided to let you out on parole.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Am I to take it that my fiancée has
helped you with further information, or that you’ve satisfied yourself that she can’t tell you any more than she has already?”

He smiled. “She hasn’t told me any more and I don’t think that she could if she wanted to; but she has proved amenable to reason.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, with sudden apprehension.

“I mean that she agreed to my suggestion that she should accompany her stepfather on a visit to Greece.”

“Good God!” I exclaimed. “Whatever for? Besides, if the Germans invade Greece she might get caught there.”

“I don’t think so. We should have plenty of time to evacuate important people like Diamopholus, and of course his stepdaughter would be brought back with him.”

“But why have you sent her there?” I asked anxiously.

His smile broadened. “Germany has not yet declared war on Greece, so the German Legation is still functioning in Athens, and of course it’s crammed full of their agents. Amongst others, as I happen to know, the Baron Feldmar von Hentzen is there, and it’s quite on the cards that the Portuguese won’t be far away from his colleague.”

“But—but …” I stammered, a horrible fear gripping my heart. “What’s that got to do with Daphnis?”

He shrugged. “Surely you realise that Mademoiselle Diamopholus must pay a price for her liberty and yours. She has agreed to get in touch with Mondragora again through von Hentzen; but this time she will be working for us.”

“You swine!” I cried, springing to my feet.

“Control yourself!” he snapped. “This girl can be extremely useful to me, and I have no intention of allowing you to interfere with my plans.”

I was positively seething with rage and fear as I cried: “I see your rotten game now. You’ve blackmailed her—probably told her that I’d be shot, played on her love for me in order to induce her to go into this dangerous game as the price of my life. Don’t you realise that a young girl like that would not have a hope in hell of double-crossing men like von Hentzen and Mondragora? You’ve as good as sent her to her death!”

“I sincerely trust not,” he said calmly; “and I simply made her a fair offer—your freedom and hers as the price of one piece of really useful authentic information. When she gets that she will have paid up for you both, but not before.”

“But this is despicable!” I cried desperately. “It’s the sort of thing that you’d expect of the
Gestapo
, not of a British officer.”

He stood up and stared straight into my eyes. “Listen to me, Day, you’d better get this straight. Our people at home seem to think that we can fight this war with kid gloves on. Half of them are like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand. The bishops play Hitler’s game in urging that war work should not be carried on on the Sabbath. I wonder what the fools would say if our R.A.F. pilots refused to go up on Sundays. The Service Chiefs still have the mentality of the bayonet instead of the tommy-gun. The Foreign Office is so frightened of offending Catholic opinion that it still refuses to make any serious attempt to get Germany’s greatest natural enemy, Soviet Russia, with her 8,000 tanks and 20,000 aircraft, in on our side. The Propaganda people waste their breath dithering about the poor dear French, instead of working up a proper hate spirit against the Nazis; and they’re days behind the enemy with every piece of news that breaks. The Government panders to the Trade Unions and lets them play their own hand for after the war, instead of conscripting absentee labour that takes days off in the week because it gets double pay on Sundays. But I don’t use Whitehall methods and I’m not bound by Camberley rules. This is Total War, and if we mean to save the British Empire from annihilation we’ve got to use every weapon which comes to our hand and which our imagination can suggest.”

I knew that he was dead right, yet I shouted: “You’re wrong! Utterly and horribly wrong. Churchill has said that we must win this fight with clean hands, and it’s against everything that we’ve ever believed in to blackmail a woman into doing our dirty work for us.”

He simply shrugged. “Your fiancée is a valuable weapon and I intend to use her.”

“In that case I’ll go straight to Essex Pasha,” I threatened. “I’m certain he’ll support me and force you to change your tune.”

“You can’t. He’s with a mission in Turkey. Besides, the girl is in Athens now, and by the time you could get my decision overruled by a higher authority she’ll either have been caught out or on her way home.”

“All right! The moment I get out of this building I’m going to wire her that I’ve decided to face my trial and that she’s to stop any work that she’s engaged upon at once. I’d rather do that a thousand times than have her imperil her life.”

“Oh no, you won’t! I’ve already informed the postal authorities
that no telegrams or letters addressed to the Diamopholuses are to be despatched without having been censored by myself.”

He paused for a moment, then went on: “It only remains for you to say if you prefer to remain in prison or to be released on parole, having first given me your word that you will not endeavour to get in touch with Mademoiselle Diamopholus. I bluffed you about not being able to keep you inside without making a formal charge in order to get a little time to deal with her while you were out of the way. I have ample powers to detain you without trial for as long as I like. Now take your choice.”

“If you have powers to keep me in prison without trial for as long as you like, why are you offering to let me out now on parole?” I asked suspiciously.

“Because I promised Mademoiselle Diamopholus that I would if you proved sensible,” he replied calmly. “And it so happens that whenever I make promises I endeavour to keep them.”

My brain was racing furiously. I didn’t believe that Cozelli was the sort of man who would trust anybody on parole in a case like this unless he had to. He might have promised Daphnis that he would give me my freedom on these terms as soon as she reached Athens; but if he had the chances were that it was because he was lying about his powers to keep me in prison indefinitely without trial. If I could have been certain of that I should have told him that he could send me back to my cell—but I was not certain. Instead of being kept there for a day or two longer and then regaining my complete freedom, it was just on the cards that this clever devil could use some clause in the Emergency Laws to keep me confined for several weeks more without formulating definite charges against me.

And time was precious. As long as I remained in prison I could not make any attempt at all to get in touch with Daphnis and beg her to abandon instantly the dangerous business upon which
she was employed; and even a day might make the difference between life and death to her.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll give you my parole.”

“Good,” he nodded. “Your C.O. believes that you were sent away from Alex at a moment’s notice on special work. You will report back to him tomorrow morning and resume your normal duties. It is understood between us that you will neither leave Alexandria without my permission nor seek in any way to communicate with Mademoiselle Diamopholus. I have your word as to that?”

“Yes,” I replied abruptly.

“Very well, then.” He pressed the buzzer on his desk, signed a form authorising my release, and when the orderly appeared said that I was to be let out of the side door of the Police Headquarters.

As I walked back to my cell I was still seething with anger. I could cheerfully have killed Cozelli. My adorable Daphnis was now in Athens, where she had been set the impossible task of trapping some of the cleverest criminals in the world. As well send a bird of Paradise into an iron cage and expect it to get the better of two vultures. I had not the faintest intention of keeping my parole. Cozelli had deliberately placed my future wife in a situation where at any moment of the day or night she might be caught, and once caught would probably die a violent, horrible and painful death. Daphnis meant more to me even than my word of honour, and Cozelli’s wildly optimistic idea that she might secure some important piece of information which would help Britain win the war seemed to me so fantastic that I did not allow it to weigh with me for a second.

By the time I was outside the prison I had already considered and dismissed most of the means of getting in touch with her. Those not barred by Cozelli’s special censorship were subject to either insupportable delays or grave danger of total miscarriage owing to war conditions. There was only one thing to do. By hook or by crook I must join her as speedily as possible in Athens.

I had no sooner reached this decision than I turned my steps towards the docks with the idea of finding out what ships would be leaving for Greece in the next few days and arranging for myself an unauthorised passage in one of them. The commandant at the prisoners-of-war camp had now been deprived of my services, through no fault of mine, for just on three weeks, so he could remain deprived of them for a bit longer.

As a British officer it might have been exceedingly difficult to
get a passage, but I was still wearing the civilian clothes in which I had been arrested; and the lack of a passport did not particularly bother me. The world pays its merchant seamen scandalously badly, so it has little right to grumble if the less scrupulous among them do not resist the temptation to accommodate stowaways as a regular means of making a bit of extra cash. Money, thank goodness, was my strong suit, and ever since the outbreak of war I had carried a considerable sum on me, so I felt as confident of being able to buy an unofficial passage to Greece as I was that I meant to order myself a gin fizz at the nearest decent-looking bar as soon as I had found out what ships in the harbour were sailing for Athens.

I was not half-way there when a sudden shout roused me from my black day-dreams and brought my vacant gaze back into focus upon the people along the pavement. Bearing straight down on me, his face wreathed in smiles, was Toby Spiers.

“Julian!” he cried the moment our eyes met. “I felt certain it must be you. But what the devil are you doing out of uniform?”

“It’s a long story,” I smiled, coming to a halt. “But what are you doing here in Alex? Managed to wangle some leave, I suppose!”

“Good lord, no! It’s been almost as good, though.” He looked anxiously round at the passing crowd and lowered his voice. “The Battalion’s been down here for the best part of a fortnight, refitting for a big show. But come on, let’s find a place where we can have one.”

The Morocco Bar was just across the street, so we disappeared into its cool depths and were soon seated on two high stools with frothing gin fizzes before us.

The place was almost empty, and as the barman moved away Toby said: “Come on now, spill the beans! What’re you up to in that blue lounge suit, and where the devil have you been all this time? Directly I got here, after having visited Jack in hospital—–”

“How is the old boy?” I interrupted.

“Going splendidly. It was a nasty flesh wound on the inside of the thigh, but not high enough up to be dangerous. It’s cleaning up now, and he’ll be out in about a week, but of course he won’t be fit enough to come with us on this new party. As I was saying, directly I’d seen him I went along to the prisoners-of-war camp to dig you out, but they told me that you’d been seconded for some special duty.”

“Hush!” I whispered with a meaning wink.

He whistled and his boyish face took on a half-incredulous, half-serious look as he murmured: “My hat! Secret Service, eh! How frightfully thrilling!”