Len Deighton - Harry Palmer 02 - Horse Under Water Read online

  Len Deighton - Harry Palmer 02 - Horse Under Water

  I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as 'twas said to me. SCOTT

  Perhaps the worst plight of a vessel is to be caught in a gale on a lee shore.

  In this connection the following... rules should be observed:

  1. Never allow your vessel to be found in such a predicament...

  CALLINGHAM,

  Seamanship: Jottings for the Young Sailor

  CENTRAL REGISTER.

  The attached original document is No. lwk/649/1942 and is filed under the personal file of Smith Henry,

  DO HOT DETACH

  HOT COPY

  NOT DESTROY

  DO NOT TRANSFER

  DO NOT CROSS REF. IN ANY OTHER DOCUMENT

  This document requires a_______priority for removal from this file.

  House of Commons.

  London, S.W.

  Sunday 26th January, 1941.

  Dear Walter,

  I shall ask you to turn this the sonant you have read it. Tel K.E.F that he will too to supply anything from the factory in Lyon that you ask. Remind him that it wasn't the French Resistance that have paid his wages for the last ten months. I want the chimneys smoking again at the earliest possible moment or I will sell the whole plant.

  Would your Wehmacht people be Interested in buying the place? Should you be interested I will appoint you as the agent at the usual rate. Surely a factory in the Vichy Free Zone could be useful in the light of this 'Trading with the Enemy Statutory list?'

  I think these people here are beginning to realise which the wind has blown and already a little of the bravado has disappeared. You can mark my words that should your fellows actually come into the conflict with the Soviets we British will not be long in understanding that most be done.

  Our plant In Latvia has gone down the drain now that they have been subverted by the Bolshies and I can only say how glad I am that the plans for the Bukovina place didn't materialize.

  I am forming a 'Brains Trust' (as they say these days) of people who see eye to eye with me on these points so that when the country finally comes to ltd senses we will be in a position to do something about it.

  You are right about Roosevelt's crowds now that he's safely In for the third time they will foment the spiteful retaliatory attitude of the socialist mob here. However, Roosevelt isn't America you know, and as long as your people don't do anything foolish (like dropping: a bomb on New York) only a small number will be willing to pick up a gun if it means putting down a cash register.

  Burn this now, Yours, Henry

  1 Sweet talk

  Marrakech: Tuesday

  Marrakech is just what the guide-books say it is. Marrakech is an ancient walled city surrounded with olive groves and palm trees. Behind it rise the mountains of the high Atlas and in the city the market place at Djemaa-el-Fna is alive with jugglers, dancers, magicians, story-tellers, snake-charmers and music. Marrakech is a fairy-tale city, but on this trip I didn't get to see much more of it than a fly-blown hotel room and the immobile faces of three Portuguese politicians.

  My hotel was in the old city; the Medina. The rooms were finished hi brown and cream paint and the wall decorations were notices telling me not to do various things in French. From the next room came the sound of water , dripping into the stained bath tub and the call of an indefatigable cricket, while through the broken fly-screens in the window came the musical sound of an Arab city selling its wares.

  I removed my tie and put it over the back of my chair. My shirt hung suddenly cold against the small of my back and I felt a dribble of sweat run gently down the side of my nose, hesitate and drop on to 'Sheet 128: Transfer of sterling assets of Government of Portugal held in United Kingdom, Mandates or Dependencies to successor Government'.

  We sipped oversweet mint tea, munched almond, honey-sticky cakes, and I took comfort in the idea of being back in London inside twenty-four hours. This may be a millionaire's playground, but no self-respecting millionaire would be seen dead here in the summer. It was ten past four in the afternoon. The whole town was buzzing with flies and conversation; cafes, restaurants and brothels had standing room only; the pickpockets were working to rota. 'Very well,' I said, 'availability of thirty per cent of your sterling assets as soon as the British Ambassador in Lisbon is satisfied that you have a working control within the capital.' They agreed to that. They weren't delirious with joy but they agreed to that. They were hard bargainers, these revolutionaries.

  2 Old solution

  London: Thursday

  The W.O.O.C(P) owned a small piece of grimy real estate on the unwashed side of Charlotte Street. My office had an outlook like a Cruikshank illustration to David Copper-field, and subsidence provided an isosceles triangle under the door that made internal telephones unnecessary.

  Dawlish was my chief. When I gave him the report on my negotiations in Marrakech he laid it on his desk like the foundation stone of the National Theatre and said, 'Foreign Office are going to introduce a couple of new ideas for tackling the talks with the Portuguese revolutionary party.'

  'For us to tackle them,' I corrected.

  'Top marks, my boy,' said Dawlish, 'you cottoned on to that aspect of their little scheme.'

  'I'm covered in the scar tissue of O'Brien's good ideas.'

  'Well, this one is better than most,' said Dawlish.

  Dawlish was a tall, grey-haired civil servant with eyes like the far end of a long tunnel. Dawlish always tended to placate other departments when they asked us to do something difficult or stupid. I saw each job in terms of the people who would have to do the dirty work. That's the way I saw this job, but Dawlish was my master.

  On the small, antique writing-desk that Dawlish had brought with him when he took over the department -W.O.O.C.(P) - was a bundle of papers tied with the pink ribbon of officialdom. He riffled quickly through them.

  'This Portuguese revolutionary movement...' Dawlish began; he paused.

  'Vos nao vedes,' I supplied.

  'Yes, V.N.V. - that's "they do not see", isn't it?'

  ' "Vos" is the same as "vous" in French,' I said; 'it's "you do not see".'

  'Quite so,' said Dawlish, 'well this V.N.V. want the P.O. to put up quite a lump sum of money in advance.'

  'Yes,' I said, 'that's the trouble with easy payment plans.'

  Dawlish said, 'Suppose we could do it for nothing.' I didn't answer. He went on, 'Off the coast of Portugal there is a boat full of money. It's money that the Nazis counterfeited during the war. English and American paper money.'

  I said, 'Then the idea is that the V.N.V. boys get the money from the sunken boat and use it to finance their revolution?'

  'Not quite,' said Dawlish. He probed the hot pipe-embers with a match. 'The idea is that we get the money from the sunken boat for them.'

  'Oh no!' I said. 'You surely haven't agreed to that. What do F.O. Intelligence Unit [Foreign Office Intelligence Unit, part of M.I.6.] get paid for?'

  'I sometimes wonder,' agreed Dawlish, 'but I suppose the P.O. have their troubles too.'

  'Don't tell me about them,' I said, 'it might break me up emotionally."

  Dawlish nodded, removed his spectacles and dabbed at his dark eye-sockets with a crisp handkerchief. Behind him on the window ledge the sun was rolling dusty documents into brandy snaps.

  In the street below a man with a twin horn was dissatisfied with the existing disposition of traffic.

  'V.N.V. say that off the Portuguese coast there is a wrecked ship.'

  Dawlish could never tell you anything without drawing a diagram. He dre
w a small formalized ship on the notepad with a gold pencil. 'It was a German naval vessel en route to South America in March 1945. Inside it there is a considerable amount of excellent counterfeit currency, sterling five-pound notes, fifty-dollar bills and some genuine Swedish stuff. It was for high-ranking Nazis seeking exile, of course.' I said nothing. Dawlish dabbed his eyes and I heard the traffic outside begin to move again.

  'The V.N.V. want us to help them retrieve these items. For "help them retrieve" you can read "present them with". P.O. see this as a way of supporting what they think is an inevitable change of power, without implicating us too deeply, or costing any money. Comment?'

  I said, 'You mean the Portuguese revolutionaries are to use the counterfeit U.S. money and the genuine Swedish stuff to buy guns and generally finance a political Paul Jones, but the English money they can't use because the design of the fiver has been changed.'

  'Quite so,' said Dawlish.

  I said, 'I'm cynical. Do you have the name of the ship, charted position of the wreck and German bills of lading from Admiralty Historical Department?'

  'Not yet,' said Dawlish, 'but I have confirmed that there have been a fair number of counterfeit fivers in that region. They may have come from a wreck. Also V.N.V. have a local fisherman who is confident about locating it.'

  'Item 2,' I continued, 'the idea is that we mount a subversive operation in Portugal, which is a dictatorship whichever side of the dispatch box you rest your feet. This in itself is a tricky enterprise, but we are going to do it, in cooperation with, or on behalf of, this group of citizens whose openly avowed aim it is to overthrow the government. This you tell me is going to cause H.M.G. less embarrassment than planting a few hundred thousand into a bank account for them.'

  Dawlish pulled a face.

  'O.K.,' I said, 'so don't let's have any false ideas about motivation. It's a way of saving money at a considerable risk - our risk. I can see the working of the P.S.T.'s eager [Permanent Secretary of the Treasury: Head of the Treasury and therefore holds the title 'Head of H.M. Civil Service'.] little mind. He is going to organize a revolution while the Americans have to finance it because there are so many counterfeit dollars turning up all over the world. But Treasury are wrong.'

  Dawlish looked up sharply and began tapping his pencil on the desk diary. The twin horn had nearly reached Oxford Street. 'You think so?' he said.

  'I know so,' I told him. 'These Portuguese characters are tough guys. They have been around. They will get rid of the British stuff all right, then the Treasury will be all long faces and little pink memos.'

  We sat hi silence for a few minutes while Dawlish drew a choppy sea above his drawing of a boat. He swivelled his chair round so that he could see through the dingy windows, jutted his lower lip forward and beat it with his pencil. In between this he said 'Ummm' four times.

  He turned his back to me and began to speak. 'Six months ago O'Brien told me that he knew of one hundred and fifty experts on world currency. He said there were seven who knew all the answers about moving it, but when it came to moving and changing it illegally, O'Brien said that you would be his choice every time.'

  'I'm flattered,' I said.

  'Perhaps,' said Dawlish, who considered illegal talent a dubious virtue; 'but Treasury may have second thoughts if they know how strongly you are against it.'

  'Don't sell tickets on the strength of it,' I told him. 'What F.S.T. [Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who deals directly with the Prime Minister and directs the Treasury to implement decisions of the Government] will pass up a chance of saving perhaps a million pounds sterling? He probably has the College of Heralds designing a coat of arms already.'

  I was right. Within ten days I had a letter telling me to report to the R.N. Instructional Diving School (Shallow Dive Course No. 549) at H.M.S. Vernon. The F.S.T. was going to get an earldom and I would get an Admiralty diving certificate. As Dawlish said when I complained, 'But you are the obvious choice, old boy.' He inscribed the numeral 'one' on his note-pad and said, 'One, Lisbon 1940, many contacts, you speak a bit of the lingo. Two,' he wrote 'two', 'currency expert. Three,' he wrote 'three', 'you were in on the first contacts with the V.N.V. in Morocco last month.'

  'But do I have to go on this frogman course?' I asked. 'It will be wet and cold and it'll all take place in the early hours of the morning.'

  'Physical comfort is just a state of mind, my boy, it will make you fighting fit; and besides,' Dawlish leaned forward confidentially, 'you'll be in charge, you know, and you don't want these blighters nipping below for a crafty smoke.' Dawlish then uttered a curious polyphonic sound, rather high-pitched at first, ending in a vibrating palate and terminated by the distribution of tobacco ash throughout the room. I stared incredulously; Dawlish had laughed.

  3 Undersea need

  There is a point on the A3 near Cosham at which the whole of Portsmouth Harbour comes suddenly into view. This expanse of inland water is a vast grey triangle pointing to the Solent. The edges are sharp serrated patterns of docks, jetties and hards enclosing the colourless water.

  A penetrating drizzle had been leaking through the low cloud since I had joined the A3 at Kingston Vale about 6.45 a.m. Window display men were junking polystyrene Xmas trees and ordering gambolling lambs. On their way to work people were sneaking a look at shop windows to see how much their relatives had paid for the presents they had received.

  The snow had been around a long time. Layer upon layer had crystallized and hardened into abstract shapes. Now it sat like a delinquent child glaring at passers-by and daring them to try moving it. The ground had absorbed so much cold that rain made a slippery layer on the ice. I slowed as crowds of factory and dockyard workers swarmed across the streets. I turned into the red-brick gate of H.M.S. Vernon. A rating stood there in oilskins that gleamed like patent leather. He waved me to a halt. I walked to the porch where half a dozen sailors in damp saggy raincoats sat huddled together, hands in pockets. From the brittle Tannoy came a message for the duty watch. I knocked at the counter.

  A young rating looked up from the assorted parts of a bicycle bell that lay before him on the table.

  'Can I help you sir?'

  'Instructional Diving Section,' I said.

  He asked the operator for a number and sat, eye-glazed, waiting to be connected. On the notice board I read about the Q.M. of the watch being responsible for boilers when there were men hi cells. Under it hung a copper bugle with highly polished dents. I signed into the visitors' ledger 'Time of arrival 08.05', a drip of rain spattered on to the page. Inside the office were the highly polished lino and blancoed belts that go with military police systems everywhere hi the world. A two-badge seaman took over the phone and clobbered the receiver rest a few times. A P.O. emerged, holding a brown enamel teapot. He looked at my Admiralty authority.

  'That's all right - take him over to Diving.' He disappeared still holding the teapot in both hands.

  The ram hammered the concrete roadways and paths and large freshly painted ships' figureheads dribbled pensively. The Instructional Diving Section was a barn-like building that echoed to the noise of metal drums being moved. Behind a wire screen was a hardboard counter and a muscular rating.

  'Course 549?' he asked.

  'Yes,' I said. He eyed my civilian raincoat doubtfully. Over the Tannoy came the clang of one bell in the forenoon watch. A tall one-stripe hooky exchanged a Gauloise cigarette for half a cup of dark brown tea and I warmed my hands on the enamel sides of the mug. I knew it would all take place in the early hours of the morning.

  The grey winter light and wet fog crept through the tiny windows and illuminated the rigid lines of school desks, engraved with hearts, patterns, and initials. I looked around the classroom. At the other desks were quiet, smooth-faced N.O.s with carefully dirtied gold stripes wrapped around brushed blue worsted. They talked quietly together in a well-bred clubby sort of way. I found my cigarettes and lit up. Behind me someone was saying '... and the bedrooms will be al
l G-Plan too...'

  'Here we go,' someone else said. The door clicked open. With a smooth legerdemain perfected amid the tyranny of gunrooms the class came to attention on, half-smoked cigarettes.

  The golden arm of a senior officer waved us back to relaxation and gave us some 'team spirits', some 'work hard and play hards' one 'welcome aboard' and then gave us Chief Petty Officer Edwards.

  C.P.O. Edwards was a pink man. His face was the same shade all over, neither more pink at the lips nor less pink around the eye sockets. He clasped a pink right hand inside a pink left hand and thrust them floorwards as though trying to cope with an almost unmanageable weight. His hair was short and the colour of 'tickler' and he was anxious to find out how high he could lift his chin without losing sight of his class.

  'Seeing how this is an officers' course some young gentlemen may feel that the due care and attention in respect of hours of commencement need not be observed. I would like to correct this impression right away. Late arrivals will not, repeat not, enter the classroom after the door is closed but will report to the Lieutenant-Commander's office. Third door on the right down the corridor. Any questions. Right.' There could be no questions.