All Honourable Men (14 page)

Zurga gave a fatalistic little shrug. “We hope not.”

When they were rolling through Munich's stolid surburbs, Dahlmann appeared back in the saloon. “Lady Kelso, gentlemen: we are now attached to the Orient Express but it is most strictly agreed that we must remain separate. There is no connecting door, and I must ask you not to board their carriages when we stop at stations. Thank you. Now, Dr Streibl has brought me some important news that has come from Turkey. If you will please . . .”

So they trooped in to join Streibl in the dining compartment and sit, conference-like, around the bare table. A subdued Lady Kelso caught Ranklin's eye and made a little moue of mock apprehension.

Dahlmann hunched himself as chairman at the head of the table; at least he didn't stand up. “This is an unfortunate development.” He looked around to make sure they were well braced. “The railway camp in the south has had a message from Miskal Bey. He demands, as payment to release our officials, a ransom in gold coin of 400,000 marks.”

Dear me, what a wicked deceitful old banker you are: you knew that all along, Ranklin thought. But it was a relief to stop pretending not to know it – for both of them, probably. He adjusted Snaipe's expression to a baffled frown.

But if Lady Kelso hadn't naturally been sitting bolt upright, she would have done so now. “
That
doesn't sound like Miskal. He's a gentleman, not a
bandit
.”

Dahlmann's voice had a hint of satisfaction. “I am afraid – unless the message is quite misunderstood – that he
has
done this.”

“I could understand him shooting your people, for trespassing.
Or putting out their eyes and sending them back as a warning. But not holding them to
ransom
– that's just not him.”

“Perhaps you understood him wrongly,” Dahlmann suggested rashly.

She stared at him as if he were a new and unnecessary discovery in the insect world. “And just how well do
you
know him?”

Dahlmann mumbled that he hadn't met Miskal.

“I knew him
rather well
.”

Dahlmann looked for support and didn't get it. Zurga avoided his eye, Streibl seemed honestly devoted to the painted ceiling. “Perhaps . . . we may hope when we arrive, it is all a mistake. But please, at this moment, may we pretend it is true? And my Bank must decide if paying it is advisable.” His confidence crept back with the sound of his own voice. “My thought now is to hope that you, Madam, can persuade the Bey to release the men without payment. But if you do not succeed, and Zurga Bey cannot also persuade him, then I think I must recommend payment.

“But naturally, I welcome all your opinions . . . Lady Kelso, do you have any more . . .?”

Her voice was gentle but distinctly cool. “You already know my opinion, Dr Dahlmann . . . But if you want me to
pretend
Miskal has made a ransom demand, I'm not sure there's any point in my going there at all. If what he wants is 400,000 marks, he's not going to settle for me fluttering my eyelashes at him.”

Oh
Lord
. Ranklin saw the whole scheme collapsing gently around him. Because if she decided to get off at the next stop and go home, he had no choice but to go too.

But Dahlmann was just as taken aback. “Oh, no, Madam, I beg you to do as Sir Edward Grey himself has asked you to. As you agreed.”

“To save you 400,000 marks?”

“Naturally, the gold is important. But it is not everything—” He was floundering. Yet, though he couldn't admit it, he'd had
plenty of time to foresee such an obvious snag. Poor staff work, Ranklin disapproved.

Zurga rode calmly to the rescue. “But to pay the money will not change Miskal Bey's mind. Only you can do that, Lady Kelso. And end the matter in peace – for his people as well as the Railway.”

She was cool to any idea coming from Zurga, however sensible. And, Ranklin guessed, she probably didn't trust a word he said. But in a sudden change of mood, she smiled. “Very well, you've persuaded me, Zurga Bey. But if I don't succeed, then my opinion doesn't count for anything. You must do whatever you think best.”

Dahlmann couldn't have been more relieved than Ranklin, but at least he could show it. “Thank you, Lady Kelso. And you also, Zurga Bey. Do you have anything more to say?”

Perhaps Lady Kelso's change of mood was catching, because Zurga's politeness seemed more than formal. “I much regret I still do not agree with Lady Kelso about Miskal Bey, though I do not know him. But, like her, if I fail I cannot tell you what you should then do. But also I must tell you that some of the Committee, the Government, will not want you to pay money to a man
they
think –” and he looked carefully at Lady Kelso “– is a bandit. So if you must pay, it must be most secret.”

It was a nice speech, seemingly not too rehearsed, and it put their little play back on track after Lady Kelso's surprise derailment. And the story was now as Gunther had been selling it nearly a week ago.

Dahlmann said gravely: “Thank you, Zurga Bey. That is an important matter – secrecy. Now: I have already the opinion of Dr Streibl.” He seemed to remember Ranklin, and asked politely: “Mr Snaipe – do you feel you can say what your Foreign Office might recommend?”

Ranklin said: “Four hundred thousand seems a bit of an odd figure – was it the result of bargaining or does it translate into something easier in Turkish money?”

“An interesting observation. No, not in Turkish money, but the demand is for half a million francs, to be paid in new
French gold coins. As you all know, such coins are the most common in Turkey, but at the Deutsche Bank we do not have so many, not new, so we must get it from the French Imperial Ottoman Bank in Constantinople. We will tell the French it is for wages and supplies. So I must beg you not to mention this to anyone – and especially, Mr Snaipe, your colleagues in the British Embassy.”

“Oh, absolutely our little secret,” Ranklin said. “As long as the French Bank isn't going to be surprised at you suddenly wanting that much in coin . . .”

Dr Streibl abruptly came down to earth to say: “In Turkey almost all payment is in coin, only a few in Constantinople use the banks. And in summer we have perhaps thirty thousand workers building the Railway who must be paid, and also fed from food bought locally. Nobody is surprised that we need a lot of coin.”

Ranklin doubted the average Turkish worker saw any
gold
coin, not unless he got paid yearly, but he had another thought to raise: “One other thing occurs to me: with half a million gold francs, old Miskal Bey's going to be able to buy a sight more repeating rifles, if he's a mind to.”

“But that,” Dahlmann said smoothly, “is why we must hope Lady Kelso – or Zurga Bey – will manage to change his mind.”

The meeting dispersed slowly back to the saloon and sleeping compartments in a sober mood. The thing that struck Ranklin was that if the gold was coming from a French bank in Constantinople (and why should Dahlmann mention that at all if it weren't true?) then it wasn't already aboard this train.

So what, if anything, was?

In the service carriage, O'Gilroy was coming to realise he had to hit someone. The train staff had not made him welcome. They hadn't expected anyone to bring a manservant, and when he took the fifth bunk in the sleeping compartment, it left only one spare for everyone to dump his kit on (their boss, who seemed to be called Herr “Fernrick”, shared another compartment with the chef, and good luck to him. In O'Gilroy's experience all chefs were mad, bad-tempered, and had access to knives).

Only Albrecht, who tended the boiler and anything else mechanical, spoke English, and O'Gilroy had virtually no German. But this allowed them to make jokes about him in front of his face and that had kept them reasonably sunny for the first twenty-four hours. But in the bustle of preparing lunch while he lay on his bunk and smoked, the insults got plainer and demands to get out of the way less reasonable.

So he was going to have to hit someone. The old manly ritual. Knock one of them down, helpless, to show he was as good as they. Ten years ago, the thought would have cheered him. Or rather, he wouldn't have
had
the thought, just lashed out from instinct. Now, at least he'd be working to a plan.

Of course, if they all ganged up on him, he'd be beaten to a pulp. But he didn't think that would happen. It would mean broken bones and bloody faces and how would that look when serving dinner? The row could go all the way up to the Kaiser.

It wouldn't be enough to pick on the smallest of them, which let one of the waiters off the hook. Nor Albrecht, partly because of the English, but also because he seemed the butt of jokes himself, being a Bavarian among Prussians. Which left
the second waiter or, preferably, the guard. He was beefy enough, and if his face got marked, he wasn't on public display.

The moment came after lunch. He had volunteered to help with the washing up, and they had seen to it that he got well splashed with greasy water. He was back in the compartment routing out a clean shirt when the guard jostled him and snapped for him to step aside.

“Fuck off,” O'Gilroy said over his shoulder.

That didn't need translating. He felt everyone in the compartment go still.

The guard's
What
-did-you-say? didn't need translation, either.

“Tell him,” O'Gilroy said to Albrecht, “to learn some manners or bring his mother along to protect him.
Tell him
!”

Albrecht did, hesitatingly. There was a moment's pause, then O'Gilroy felt the guard's hand clamp on his shoulder and spun around, trying for a head-butt, realised he couldn't make it and followed up with a left-hand punch whacking into the guard's stomach. As he folded forward, O'Gilroy yanked him up by his lapels and rushed him against the door, slamming it shut and knocking a waiter aside.

“Bugger around wid me and I'll break every fucking bone in yer body!” he spat. “
Verständen
?”

The guard hung there, pop-eyed and gurgling for breath. Then the door tried to open behind him. O'Gilroy pushed him away, a cannon off the waiter and onto a bunk. The door opened and Herr Fernrick stood there, moustache bristling, eyes glaring.

Everyone except the guard snapped to attention, and O'Gilroy realised he had, too. The scene had an old, familiar feel to it.

Fernrick started to speak.

“Tell him,” O'Gilroy instructed Albrecht, “that I started it and I apologise.”

Albrecht began, but Fernrick shut him up. He looked at O'Gilroy. “Thank you, but I understand enough English . . . This place is too small for trouble, too small for trouble-makers.
Do you understand? If anything more happens, I will report you to your master.”

He switched back to German to say what must have been much the same except longer and with a mention of the Kaiser. Then he slammed out.

As they relaxed with a collective sigh, O'Gilroy made a vulgar gesture at the closed door. And someone laughed. Then someone handed him his shirt off the floor, another gave him a cigarette.

It's only in schoolboy stories that the man you've beaten shakes your hand and becomes your friend for life. Quite likely the guard had become his enemy for life, but what mattered was that the rest now accepted him. Just like in a new barrack room. Which wasn't surprising, since he was now certain they were all soldiers.

* * *

With the party complete and now hooked up to a proper train – and one of the fastest in the world – the journey took on a new sense of purpose. Indeed, they let most of their own purposes drift into limbo and the journey take over. As they were bustled across the last of Bavaria and through Salzburg into Austria, they picked their favourite chairs and invented their own time-spending routines – just as a visitor to a strange city will quickly adopt a certain table at a certain café as his own. They were all used to long passive journeys by train and ship; it was what most travel was about.

And the longer they travelled, the more the view from the train windows became unreal, just exquisitely-painted stage scenery of snowy peaks, the onion domes of Orthodox churches, wayside shrines. It needed no caring, no interpretation; turn one's eyes to a book or magazine and it was gone. A stop became like the end of a balloon journey, an unwelcome bump back into reality.

They were due into Vienna soon after eight in the evening and Dahlmann announced that dinner would begin immediately
they left. So they had to dress first, and Ranklin summoned O'Gilroy to “help” by sitting and smoking a cigarette.

O'Gilroy mentioned that the staff were all soldiers – “Except the chef, probly. He's just barmy like them all.”

Ranklin considered. “I suppose it's not surprising. I believe a lot of the Kaiser's staff are soldiers; he likes having them around him. What have they been doing? Close-order drill in the corridor?”

O'Gilroy told briefly about the fight and Herr Fernrick's intervention—

“
Who
?”

“The chief butler, Swiss Admiral, that's his name.”

“I think you mean
Fähnrich
. It means senior n.c.o. Colour sergeant.”

O'Gilroy nodded slowly, letting smoke trickle from his nose. “Ah. Then I wasn't so clever as I thought. They're not hiding it, jest not saying it neither . . . Give me some money: I'll rate better with cigarettes and a bottle of me own to share round.”

Ranklin gave him a sovereign. “Where do they hide the bottles?”

“In the coal for the boiler. Herr Fernrick don't inspect that.”

In so many things, armies are all the same.

For many Orient Express travellers, Vienna was the end of the line; from here, it was downhill socially to Budapest, Belgrade and Sofia, and a month too early for visiting Constantinople. So the train loitered while baggage was unloaded and most of the remaining passengers got out to buy cigarettes and newspapers, smoke, chatter, try to peek into the Kaiser's carriages, and generally get in the way.