The Looking Glass War Part 20

Leiser was suddenly angry. He put his cue back in the cradle and took down his camel's hair coat from its peg.

"What's the matter, Fred, what the h.e.l.l's the matter now?"

"For Christ's sake, let me lose! Stop behaving like a b.l.o.o.d.y jailer. I'm going on a job, like we all did in the war. I'm not sitting in the hanging cell."

"Don't you be daft," Johnson said gently, taking his coat and putting it back on the peg. "Anyway, we don't say hanging, we say condemned."

Carol put the coffee on the desk in front of LeClerc. He looked up brightly and said thank you, tired but well drilled, like a child at the end of a party.

"Adrian Haldane's gone home," Carol observed. LeClerc went back to the map. "I looked in his room. He might have said good night."

"He never does," LeClerc said proudly.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"I never remember how you turn yards into meters."

"Neither do I."

"The Circus says this gully is two hundred meters long. That's about two hundred and fifty yards, isn't it?"

"I think so. I'll get the book."

She went to her room and took a ready-reckoner from the bookcase.

"One meter is thirty-nine point three seven inches," she read. "A hundred meters is a hundred and nine yards and thirteen inches."

LeClerc wrote it down.

"I think we should send a confirmatory telegram to Gorton.

Have your coffee first, then come in with your pad."

"I don't want any coffee." She fetched her pad.

"Routine Priority will do, we don't want to haul old Jimmy out of bed." He ran his small hand briskly over his hair. "One: advance party, Haldane, Avery, Jackson and Mayfly arrive BEA flight so and so, such and such a time December nine." He glanced up. "Get the details from Administration. Two: all will travel under their own names and proceed by train to Lubeck. For security reasons you will not repeat not meet party at airport but you may discreetly contact Avery by telephone at Lubeck base. We can't put him on to old Adrian," he observed with a short laugh. "The two of them don't hit it off at all." He raised his voice: "Three: party number two consisting of Director only arriving morning flight December ten. You will meet him at airport for short conference before he proceeds to Lubeck. Four: your role is discreetly to provide advice and a.s.sistance at all stages in order to bring operation Mayfly to successful conclusion."

She stood up.

"Does John Avery have to go? His poor wife hasn't seen him for weeks."

"Fortunes of war," LeClerc replied without looking at her. "How long does a man take to crawl two hundred and twenty yards?" he muttered. "Oh, Carol-put another sentence onto that telegram: Five: Good Hunting-Old Jimmy likes a bit of encouragement, stuck out there all on his own."

He picked up a file from the in-tray and looked critically at the cover, aware perhaps of Carol's eye on him.

"Ah." A controlled smile. "This must be the Hungarian report. Did you ever meet Arthur Fielden in Vienna?"

"No."

"A nice fellow. Rather your type. One of our best chaps ... knows his way around. Bruce tells me he's done a very good report on unit changes in Budapest. I must get Adrian to look at it. Such a lot going on just now." He opened the file and began reading.

Control said, "Did you speak to Hyde?"

"Yes."

"Well, what did he say? What have they got down there?"

Smiley handed him a whisky and soda. They were sitting in Smiley's house in By water Street. Control was in the chair he preferred, nearest the fire.

"He said they'd got first-night nerves."

"Hyde said that? Hyde used an expression like that? How extraordinary."

"They've taken over a house in North Oxford. There was just this one agent, a Pole of about forty, and they wanted him doc.u.mented as a mechanic from Magdeburg, a name like Freiser. They wanted travel papers to Rostock."

"Who else was there?"

"Haldane and that new man, Avery. The one who came to me about the Finnish courier. And a wireless operator, Jack Johnson. We had him in the war. No one else at all. So much for their big team of agents."

"What are they up to? And whoever gave them all that money just for training! We lent them some equipment, didn't we?"

"Yes, a B2."

"What on earth's that?"

"A wartime set," Smiley replied with irritation. "You said it was all they could have. That and the crystals. Why on earth did you bother with the crystals?"

"Just charity. A B2, was it? Oh well," Control observed with apparent relief, "they wouldn't get far with that, would they?"

"Are you going home tonight?" Smiley asked impatiently.

"I thought you might give me a bed here," Control suggested. "Such a f.a.g always traipsing home. It's the people. . . . They seem to get worse every day."

Leiser sat at the table, the taste of the White Ladies still in his mouth. He stared at the luminous dial of his watch, the suitcase open in front of him. It was eleven eighteen; the second hand struggled jerkily toward twelve. He began tapping, JAJ, JAJ-you can remember that, Fred, my name's Jack Johnson, see?-he switched over to receive, and there was Johnson's reply, steady as a rock.

Take your time, Johnson had said, don't rush your fences. We'll be listening all night, there are plenty more schedules. By the beam of a small flashlight he counted the encoded groups. There were thirty-eight. Putting out the flashlight he tapped a three and an eight; numerals were easy but long. His mind was very clear. He could hear Jack's gentle repet.i.tions all the time: You're too quick on your shorts, Fred, a dot is one-third of a dash, see? That's longer than you think. Don't rush the gaps, Fred; five dots between each word, three dots between each letter. Fore-arm horizontal, in a straight line with the key lever; elbow just clear of the body. It's like knife fighting, he thought with a little smile, and began keying. Fingers loose, Fred, relax, wrist clear of the table. He tapped out the first two groups, slurring a little on the gaps, but not as much as he usually did. Now came the third group: put in the safety signal. He tapped an S, cancelled it and tapped the next ten groups, glancing now and then at the dial of his watch. After two and a half minutes he went off the air, groped for the small capsule which contained the crystal, discovered with the tips of his fingers the twin sockets of the housing, inserted it, and then stage by stage followed the tuning procedure, moving the dials, playing the flashlight on the crescent window to watch the black tongue tremble across it.

He tapped out the second call sign, PRE, PRE, switched quickly to receive and there was Johnson again, QRK 4, your signal readable. For the second time he began transmitting, his hand moving slowly but methodically as his eye followed the meaningless letters, until with a nod of satisfaction he heard Johnson's reply: Signal received. QRU: I have nothing for you.

When they had finished, Leiser insisted on a short walk. It was bitterly cold. They followed Walton Street as far as the main gates of Worcester, thence by way of Banbury Road once more to the respectable sanctuary of their dark North Oxford house.

Sixteen.

Takeoff It was the same wind. The wind that had tugged at Taylor's frozen body and drove the rain against the blackened walls of Blackfriars Road, the wind that flailed the gra.s.s of Port Meadow, now ran headlong against the shutters of the farmhouse.

The farmhouse smelled of cats. There were no carpets. The floors were of stone: nothing would dry them. Johnson lit the tiled oven in the hall as soon as they arrived but the damp still lay on the flagstones, collecting in the cracks like a tired army. They never saw a cat all the time they were there, but they smelled them in every room. Johnson left corned beef on the doorstep: it was gone in ten minutes.

The house was built on one floor with a high granary roof of brick, and it lay against a small coppice beneath a vast Flemish sky, a long, rectangular building with cattle sheds on the sheltered side. It was two miles north of Lubeck. LeClerc had said they were not to enter the town.

A ladder led to the loft, and there Johnson installed his wireless, stretching the aerial between the beams, then through a skylight to an elm tree beside the road. He wore rubber-soled shoes in the house, brown ones of military issue, and a blazer with a squadron crest. Gorton had had food delivered from the Naafi in Celle. It covered the kitchen floor in old cardboard boxes, with an invoice marked Mr. Gorton's party. There were two bottles of gin and three of whisky. They had two bedrooms; Gorton had sent army cots, two to each room, and reading lights with standard green shades. Haldane was very angry about the beds. "He must have told every d.a.m.ned department in the area," he complained. "Cheap whisky, Naafi food, army cots. I suppose we shall find he requisitioned the house next. G.o.d, what a way to mount an operation."

It was late afternoon when they arrived. Johnson, having put up his set, busied himself in the kitchen. He was a domesticated man; he cooked and washed up without complaint, treading lightly over the flagstones in his neat shoes. He a.s.sembled a hash of bully beef and egg, gave them cocoa with a great deal of sugar. They ate in the hall in front of the stove. Johnson did most of the talking; Leiser, very quiet, scarcely touched his food.

"What's the matter, Fred? Not hungry then?"

"Sorry, Jack."

"Too many sweets on the plane, that's your trouble." Johnson winked at Avery. "I saw you giving that air hostess a look. You shouldn't do it, Fred, you know, you'll break her heart." He frowned around the table in mock disapproval. "He really looked her over, you know. A proper tip-to-toe job."

Avery grinned dutifully. Haldane ignored him.

Leiser was concerned about the moon, so after supper they stood at the back door in a small shivering group, staring at the sky. It was strangely light; the clouds drifted like black smoke, so low that they seemed to mingle with the swaying branches of the coppice and half obscure the grey fields beyond.

"It will be darker at the border, Fred," said Avery. "It's higher ground; more hills."

Haldane said they should have an early night; they drank another whisky and at quarter past ten they went to bed, Johnson and Leiser to one room, Avery and Haldane to the other. No one dictated the arrangement. Each knew, apparently, where he belonged.

It was after midnight when Johnson came into their room. Avery was awakened by the squeak of his rubber soles. "John, are you awake?" Haldane sat up. "It's about Fred. He's sitting alone in the hall. I told him to try and sleep, sir; gave him a couple of tablets, the kind my mother takes; he wouldn't even get into bed at first, now he's gone along to the hall."

Haldane said, "Leave him alone. He's all right. None of us can sleep with this d.a.m.ned wind."

Johnson went back to his room. An hour must have pa.s.sed: there was still no sound from the hall. Haldane said, "You'd better go and see what he's up to."

Avery put on his overcoat and went along the corridor, past tapestries of Biblical quotations and an old print of Lubeck harbour Leiser was sitting on a chair beside the tiled oven.

"h.e.l.lo, Fred."

He looked old and tired.

"It's near here, isn't it, where I cross?"

"About five kilometres The Director will brief us in the morning. They say it's quite an easy run. He'll give you all your papers and that kind of thing. In the afternoon we'll show you the place. They've done a lot of work on it in London."

"In London," Leiser repeated, and suddenly: "I did a job in Holland in the war. The Dutch were good people. We sent a lot of agents to Holland. Women. They were all picked up. You were too young."

"I read about it."

"The Germans caught a radio operator. Our people didn't know. They just went on sending more agents. They said there was nothing else to do." He was talking faster. "I was only a kid then; just a quick job they wanted, in and out. They were short operators. They said it didn't matter me not speaking Dutch, the reception party would meet me at the drop. All I had to do was work the set. There'd be a safe house ready." He was far away. "We fly in and nothing moves, not a shot or a searchlight, and I'm jumping. And when I land, there they are: two men and a woman. We say the words, and they take me to the road to get the bikes. There's no time to bury the parachute-we aren't bothering by then. We find the house and they give me food. After supper we go upstairs where the set is-no schedules, London listened all the time those days. They give the message: I'm sending a call sign-'Come in TYR, come in TYR'-then the message in front of me, twenty-one groups, four-letter."

He stopped.

"Well?"

"They were following the message, you see; they wanted to know where the safety signal came. It was in the ninth letter; a back shift of one. They let me finish the message and then they were on me, one hitting me, men all over the house."

"But who, Fred? Who's they!"

"You can't talk about it like that: you never know. It's never that easy."

"But for G.o.d's sake, whose fault was it? Who did it? Fred!"

"Anyone. You can never tell. You'll learn that." He seemed to have given up.

"You're alone this time. n.o.body has been told. n.o.body's expecting you."

"No. That's right." His hands were clasped on his lap. He made a hunched figure, small and cold. "In the war it was easier because however bad it got, you thought one day we'd win. Even if you were picked up, you thought, They'll come and get me, they'll drop some men or make a raid. You knew they never would, see, but you could think it. You just wanted to be left alone to think it. But n.o.body wins this one, do they?"

"It's not the same. But more important."

"What do you do if I'm caught?"

"We'll get you back. Not to worry, eh, Fred?"

"Yes, but how?"

"We're a big outfit, Fred. A lot goes on you don't know about. Contacts here and there. You can't see the whole picture."

"Can you?"

"Not all of it, Fred. Only the Director sees it all. Not even the Captain."

"What's he like, the Director?"

"He's been in it a long time. You'll see him tomorrow. He's a very remarkable man."

"Does the Captain fancy him?"

"Of course."

"He never talks about him," Leiser said.

"None of us talk about him."

"There was this girl I had. She worked in the bank. I told her I was going away. If anything goes wrong I don't want anything said, see. She's just a kid."

"What's her name?"

A moment of mistrust. "Never mind. But if she turns up, just keep it all right with her."

"What do you mean, Fred?"

"Never mind."