All Honourable Men (8 page)

* * *

Fazackerley handed across the diplomatic passport with the cheering comment: “You understand that this confers only as much immunity as you can squeeze out of it? You can expect virtually no backing from us if you get yourself into any sort of trouble. If that happens, we'll say that you misrepresented yourself as an old friend of Lady Kelso's and we gave you the same sort of temporary protection we're giving her, and we're sorry we didn't know what a fearful rotter you really were.”

Ranklin nodded appreciatively. As alibis went, it should stretch to cover the Foreign Office if things went wrong. Just the Secret Service Bureau up to its slimy tricks again.

He unfolded the document and was impressed despite himself. It might have little backing, but the least sensitive border guard could scarce forbear to cringe before the dignified imperialism of that passport.

He checked the Snaipe personal details, then sprinkled the paper with drops of coffee, rubbed them in with a fingertip and began crumpling its edges. “Don't want it to look as if I've only joined the Service today,” he explained.

Fazackerley smiled. Hapgood prompted him: “You were going to mention travel arrangements.”

“Oh yes. The German Embassy said you'll be met in Strasbourg tomorrow evening. It seems they've managed to borrow a . . . well, not quite a private train, but a couple of coaches from the Emperor Wilhelm's one. It sounds as if the whole thing has Very High approval.” He frowned a little at that, and Ranklin himself wasn't overjoyed. If the German Emperor was taking an interest, the details were likely to be carefully scrutinised, and he was one of the details.

“What do they want private carriages for?”

Fazackerley shook his head. “Something about having to collect people at different places in southern Germany, including Lady Kelso . . . I didn't cross-examine them, we want it to seem just a minor administrative chore for us.”

Ranklin approved of that. Then Hapgood suggested: “Or perhaps they want something safe and private to carry a ransom in gold? That could be a useful opportunity. Anyway, worth watching out for.” He smiled, in an encouraging team-spirit way, then took a paper from an inside pocket. “I've made a few calculations that might prove useful. I was working in sovereigns, but since gold is valued by weight, this should apply, roughly, to any coinage. Twenty thousand sovereigns should actually fit, without any other packing such as canvas bags, into a box only a foot square. However, they're unlikely to, because they weigh approximately three hundred and sixty pounds.”

“Two mule-loads,” Ranklin said absently.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You reckon about two hundred pounds to a mule-load.”

“Fascinating,” Fazackerley said. “Your Army experience, no doubt. Still, it might be relevant, since I imagine the final stages of this journey will be by horse or mule. And are you otherwise all prepared?”

“I think so.” Already the world of Whitehall offices was becoming unreal, fading into translucence as Ranklin's mind reached out on the journey ahead. He pocketed the passport and stood up. “It's going to be crack-of-dawn stuff from Dover tomorrow, so I'm getting down there tonight. Just one more thing: our Embassy in Constantinople – are they expecting the Hon. Patrick Snaipe?”

Fazackerley stood also. “They're expecting a genuine honorary attaché, so keep up the front; a pity if
they
unmasked you. Still, they should be too panic-stricken at entertaining the notorious Lady Kelso to notice you much. Good luck.”

* * *

A model of servile sobriety, O'Gilroy raised his bowler and asked: “Would it be the Honourable Patrick Snaipe I'm addressing, sir?”

Just as important as each of them playing their parts was the relationship between them – almost a third character in itself. And no time like the present to get started. So Ranklin acted surprised. “Yes? Ah, yes. You must be Gorman, of course. Er . . .” He directed a rather vacuous scrutiny at O'Gilroy, who was wearing the traditional manservant's “pepper-and-salt” suit under a long dark overcoat. “Yes. Yes, you'll do. See to my baggage, will you? Just the two suitcases, they've got my initials on them.”

“Certainly, sir – only ye haven't said where we're going.”

“Haven't I? Oh, Strasbourg. Yes, definitely Strasbourg. Well, get on with it, man. Find a porter.”

“There was one other thing, sir . . .”

“What? What other thing?”

“In yer letter, ye mentioned a week's wages in advance. One golden sovereign.”

“Ah yes. As regards that . . .” Ranklin leant a little closer and said: “Balls.”

“Very good, sir.”

The compartment's ashtrays were full, so O'Gilroy lowered the window just long enough to pitch his cigarette butt into the grimy, windy afternoon. “So we jest find a strong-box full of gold, change half of it for lead, and run away laughing?” He shook his head in wonder. “Does that Foreign Office get all its fellers from mad-houses, like yeself?” He thought a little more. “Mind, do we get to keep the gold if'n we
do
get our hands on it?”

“Sorry, I never thought to ask. The thing to remember is putting some blight on the Railway – in any way we can find.”

“Mebbe we should start a union.”

Neither the time of year nor time of day made the train popular, so they had a first-class smoker to themselves and could step out of character while Ranklin explained their purpose.

“Oh – did you hear about Gunther van der Brock getting killed?”

“I did that.” O'Gilroy's face turned grim. “And a whisper around the parish that somehow we'd been mixed up in it. I been keeping me head down on that front.”

Ranklin nodded gloomily, though it was no worse than he'd feared. “He
may
have sold the Railway plot to the FO, and it
may
have been the Germans who had him killed – so they
may
be suspicious of anybody like us turning up on this trip.”

“Thank ye for telling me. What was ye thinking of doing about it?”

Ranklin shrugged. “Just keeping an eye open for it. . . Are you armed?”

“I am.”

“I'm sorry; but that had better go out of the window before we cross the frontier. I don't think a manservant would carry a pistol, and we have to assume they're going to search our baggage at some point.”

“And yeself?”

“Going into brigand country, I think the Hon. Patrick would bring a pistol. You can always borrow it if needs be.”

“Yer usual popgun,” O'Gilroy said sourly. He loved anything mechanical and new, and nothing more than his Browning semi-automatic pistol. Ranklin had simply pocketed a Bulldog revolver, such as any gentleman might sport unsuspiciously. O'Gilroy despised it, but really, so did Ranklin. As a Gunner, he didn't think anything that fired less than a 13-pound shell was serious.

“And we're going all the way to Constantinople?”

“And beyond. We stick with Lady Kelso.”

O'Gilroy lit another cigarette. “Then ye'd best be giving me one of yer lectures, 'fore we meet up with anybody.”

A
lecture?
Ranklin felt he should haul a lantern-slide projector out of his hand-baggage, cough and ask if he could be heard at the back. But some précis of whatever country they were heading for had become a necessary routine. O'Gilroy's self-assurance made it too easy to forget how much basic
education – and educated conversation – he had missed by being born in an Irish back street.

On the other hand, he had no fashionable opinions and prejudices to unlearn.

Ranklin coughed (he couldn't help himself) and began: “I've only spent a few days in Constantinople years ago, so this is very much school-room stuff. . . The Turkish Empire's a big place. Theoretically it covers most of North Africa and the Levant as far east as the Persian Gulf. So it's got a very mixed bag of inhabitants: Arabs, Kurds, Armenians, a lot of Greeks and God-knows-what-else. And the average Turk doesn't think much of any of them.

“Until a few years ago, it was officially run by a Sultan. Real old-school sort: corrupt, murderous, looted the treasury and so on. Then he got shunted aside by a thing called the Committee for Union and Progress – they seem to be mostly Army officers and usually known as the Young Turks. But as someone said: ‘They've got hold of the dog's collar, but has anyone told its fleas?'

“So we'll probably find the fleas still in charge: the bureaucrats. I'll give you one example I came across of just how weak the central government is: it can only collect five per cent of taxes itself. It has to farm out collecting the other ninety-five to the governors of provinces and districts. Gives them a figure, and anything they collect above that, they keep. Plus the bribes, the
baksheesh
, for doing their jobs. . . well, you can see why most of them
buy
their positions. And why a railway linking things up better appeals to the Government,” he added.

“Things are a bit different in Pera, that's the part of Constantinople we'll be in. That's run by Europeans: they have their own hotels, clubs, shops, houses of course, newspapers – and courts. And all have virtually diplomatic immunity: a European can't be tried by a Turkish court, a Turkish official can't even enter the house of a European without his permission.”

O'Gilroy let smoke trickle slowly from his nostrils. “How in hell's it keep going?”

“European loans – mostly French. And European help. All the Powers want some part of the Empire only daren't take it because of the other Powers, so they all help instead: we're reorganising their Navy, the Germans their Army and building this Railway, the French lending money—”

“Wasn't ye fighting the Turks yerself a coupla years ago?”

Ranklin nodded. “On behalf of the Greeks.”

“Was they any good? – the Turks?”

“Traditionally, they're a warrior race. But terribly badly equipped: most of them hadn't even got boots.” And after a few weeks in the mountains, his Greek Gunners were no better off, so it was a real prize to find a Turkish officer, dead or prisoner (in practice, the difference was that he felt he should look the other way while his men stripped a live officer of his boots).

“And at yer own game – as gunners?”

“They'd got the latest German seven-point-sevens – they'd spent their money on those, not boots – and they used them pretty well. To start with. We heard their artillery commander was a German, but that might have been just a Greek rumour put about to explain why he was any good. We just knew him as ‘the Tornado'; I think it was one of those silly newspaper nicknames . . .

“Then one day, after we'd had a counter-battery duel –” was he getting too technical? “– guns shooting at guns, trying to knock each other's pieces off the board – their control seemed to fall to pieces. They weren't shooting to any plan . . .” It was odd how, behind the apparently random confusion of modern war, you might still sense a pattern that was an enemy mind, isolate a personality and feel you were duelling with
him
.

“
I
said we must have killed their gunner commander, or knocked him out, anyway. My brigadier didn't agree, he was . . .” He shrugged.

“Did it matter?”

“We'd have advanced quicker if we'd known they wouldn't react because their gunnery control had collapsed.”

O'Gilroy had been about to make a glib comment, then
realised Ranklin was talking about a level of soldiering he would never know. “Did ye ever find out?”

“No, I was pulled home soon after that. But their gunnery was supposed to have saved Constantinople from the Bulgarians a few weeks later, so they must have got themselves sorted out by then.”

Then he shook his head. “All a bit once-upon-a-time by now. Cut along to the dining carriage and see if you can rustle up some tea.”

* * *

It was near nine o'clock when they chugged into the frontier station of Deutsche-Avricourt and changed to a German train and railway time, an inconvenient fifty five minutes ahead. And although Ranklin and O'Gilroy were nodded through Customs, thanks to the diplomatic passport, they still had to wait for less significant souls. Luckily the buffet was open.

”
Un cognac, s'il vous plaît
.” Ranklin tossed a sovereign on the table. “
Et une bière
. This is exceptional,” he warned “Gorman”. “Normally you buy your own alcoholic drinks. And only when you're off duty, mind.”

O'Gilroy nodded, then asked: “Did I hear that Mrs Finn will be in Constantinople?”

“Most likely.”

“Will ye be calling on the lady?”

“I don't think she'd ever have met Patrick Snaipe before.” Corinna had little enough time for any diplomatists, let alone ones who were
en poste
by birth rather than merit. “But I think it's quite likely we'll bump into her, so I'll probably send you round with a note as soon as we know where she is. I did think of sending her a telegram, but what could it say if she isn't supposed to know me?”

O'Gilroy nodded, looked around and hunched his shoulders into a posture of deference. This frontier was a metaphorical one as well: from here on, they must both play their characters full-time, except in moments of certain privacy. “Ah – might I
be so bold as to ask what part of the Ould Counthry ye come from, sir?”

“South Limerick.”

“Of course, sir. Then perhaps ye'd be knowing Mr Tobias Gallagher? – a noted farming man in those parts . . .”

“Please tell me more.” So for ten minutes O'Gilroy recalled some of the notables he had encountered during his time as a chauffeur at one of the Big Houses, and whom a real, and sane, Patrick Snaipe would know. The one thing neither of them was bothered about was Ranklin's lack of accent: most of the Irish nobility learned the King's English at their nanny's knee.