After some flurries of cables and certain Congressmen trying to throw doubts and discredit the message, Zimmermann himself admitted its authenticity.
By the first week of April, the United States of America was at war with Germany, though it took almost a year for the American Expeditionary Force to build up in France.
It took only three weeks for Richard Farthing’s uncle, Colonel Bradley Farthing, to arrive at Redhill Manor.
*
On the Western Front the slaughter continued – the armies, now swollen in size, constantly heard the cry ‘The Yanks Are Coming’, but the fact that they were not yet there, fighting and assisting, except in the air, did little to hearten men who still lived, fought and died around the now familiar place names – Bapaume, Vimy Ridge, Cambrai.
Like his Chief, Caspar now found his mind drawn to new matters further east, for the cracks in the Russian Army, and their country as a whole, appeared to be widening. He became more and more conscious of the presence of his brother, Ramillies, moving in and out of C’s inner sanctum with disturbing regularity.
He was also soon to meet another Farthing. The fact of Dick’s uncle’s arrival in England had flashed through the bush telegraph of the Railton family. On the whole, the Railtons had begun to behave as though Sara’s husband’s family were some rare species, needing particular and close examination.
*
Charles and his team, in the meantime, had made a small amount of progress. By a fluke, they caught the scent of ‘The Fisherman’ in Holborn. A Mrs Blacket, owner of what was styled as a private hotel, had cause to report some small items of silver missing.
The local police took note of any guest who had left suddenly. One such was an ex-serviceman, who had lost a leg on the Somme. His departure had been sudden, and Mrs Blacket had not yet let his room. The locals searched and, behind a chest of drawers, discovered a notebook. It was empty but for two pages containing notes in scribbled German. Even they could make out the word Natal. The book was passed on to the Branch, and eventually found its way, by early summer, to Charles.
Charles appeared to be recovering from the traumas which, with Mildred’s illness and death, had previously surrounded him. Only occasionally, Wood noticed, did he appear to be not his usual self. The detective could not know that these lapses coincided with secret orders to pass more information to ‘Brenner’.
One such request had come in the spring for all information on new types of tank, their dispersal and armament. ‘Brenner’ was unsympathetic when Charles went to him and bluntly said he saw no reason to carry on the charade. Now he wanted more information from ‘Brenner’.
‘My dear fellow, don’t you understand that this is a necessary matter? What we are doing is for the British cause. You must continue this fiction.’ Thus ‘Brenner’.
Now, Charles prayed there would be no more demands, for at last, ‘The Fisherman’ was in their sights.
From Mrs Blacket, they knew he had been posing as a wounded senior NCO. They even had a name – Sergeant Major Willis. Soon, they also discovered that the man Willis had used an ex-serviceman’s pass to gain a cheap railway ticket to Scotland. ‘The Fisherman’ was getting careless, and the three-man team decided to follow the trail. What better place to look than Cromarty again?
They left London late on the after of 9 July. As their train was pulling out, news was just coming through of yet another act of sabotage. HMS Vanguard, a battleship, had unaccountably exploded with the loss of seven hundred lives.
*
They did not tell James about America’s entry into the war until the end of June, and then casually, as though it was a matter of little importance. He was weaker, and certainly thinner. The previous winter had taken its toll and the Commandant had appeared concerned on the two occasions that James had suffered severe bouts of bronchial trouble.
The diet was not helping, and, by January, they were reduced to the most meagre rations. Even when spring finally arrived, the food improved only slightly. To James it was an obvious sign that the blockade of Germany was having a profound effect. The Commandant still dreamed of his cavalry charges, yet, one evening in mid-June, after an almost inedible dinner, the old man suddenly started to speak of the terrible butchery on the Western Front. James said nothing, but thought he was learning a great deal as the aging officer rambled on about the way tanks were playing havoc with the infantry, and how poison gas, bombs from the air, and the grappling struggle of trench warfare was taking the very heart of Europe’s youth.
James realized, not for the first time, that he was living in a dream. He had no idea of what battles were like, nor could he divine the true situation. Only the news that America had entered the war cheered him.
*
Colonel Bradley Farthing was the youngest of Dick’s father’s brothers. The family likeness was uncanny – the same constantly amused expression, a similarity in build and features. Bradley was of course a family name. Dick’s second youngest brother now training with an infantry battalion in Texas was another Bradley. Colonel Farthing was, Sara thought, incredibly attractive, barely 50 years of age, and with a charm that would probably make sour milk drinkable.
He pronounced her name ‘Sar-rah’, making two long syllables and refusing to alter this quirk even after Dick pointed it out to him.
Redhill he found delightful. ‘England as I imagined it,’ he said; and Sara twinkled, telling him that she understood that France and Belgium had changed a little. He might not find them as pleasant.
‘I guess I won’t be seeing much of France.’ He scratched his head. ‘I can promise you that our Doughboys’ll be over soon, making mincemeat of the Hun, but our General Staff doesn’t really see me as a commander in the field.’
He did not have to add anything. Sara already had a shrewd sense of why Brad Farthing had come over with the advance guard; but, for the moment, she did not care; his arrival had brightened Dick, about whom she was becoming deeply concerned.
He had certainly become disturbingly depressed, his old sense of fun vanishing into a morose silence, returning only in flashes after his uncle arrived.
So far, there had been two medical boards and both had ruled that there should be no return to duty as yet. But Sara thought she knew her husband. He wanted to get back into the air and fly even more than ever, now that his own country had joined the battle.
Dick did not know that she watched him regularly each morning; for he would slip from their bed and try to get to his dressing room without disturbing her. The first time it happened, she took a full fifteen minutes to discover what he was doing; then, looking from the upstairs windows, she saw him in the rose garden, first stumping back and forth without the aid of a stick, and then sitting on one of the low, grey stone walls, his legs thrust forward, the stick jammed between them. He would push hard, first with his left foot, and then his right, going through the physical motions of flying an aeroplane.
On the next evening she deliberately set out to goad him. ‘You’re homesick,’ she accused, as they went up to prepare for dinner.
‘Rubbish. This is my home now, Sara. You are my home.’
‘Then why, Richard, do you suddenly become a different person when your uncle arrives in my house?’
He laughed, ‘My darling, your house? The sinister Giles would probably tell it a different way…’
She opened her mouth, a sudden squall crossing her pretty face. Dick went to her, stopping the outburst with his lips before it had a chance to explode. ‘I jest, my dear Sara,’ locking eyes with her.
‘Well, tell me?’ She was still on the verge of anger, though secretly pleased that he had come to her. In the past weeks, it had been Sara who always made the moves.
‘Tell you? Tell you what?’
He had been limping around the house like a lame duck – she told him – looking dour, bad tempered, edgy. Now, as soon as Uncle Brad arrived, he was a changed man. ‘I even heard you laugh, this morning, Dick. Do you realize ho
w long it is since you actually laughed?’
‘Yes.’ He spoke so quietly, and with such an odd timbre, that Sara turned to look at him. He was shaking, pale, propped with one hand against the table. ‘Yes, I know.’
Then he began to talk. He told her from start to finish about the operation to rescue Denise – right up to the moment he lost consciousness in the crash. Through it all Sara detected something she had never yet seen in him. He spoke of fear; of terror as they approached the German lines; of the need to vomit as he got Denise on board; and then of the blind panic during that terrible take-off when pure luck had got them airborne.
‘I’ve never been so frightened, Sara. And hope never to be like that again. I…’ a stammer, ‘I befouled myself,’ looking away. ‘Yes, I shit myself with fear, and why? Because your good, kind diplomatic uncle Giles…’
‘Not my uncle…’
‘Adopted uncle Giles, put that child out behind enemy lines. He had her running intelligence through from Belgium to Holland. Ten of her fellow spies were shot…’
‘How do you… ?’
‘Caspar told me. Told me at Christmas. Giles would have seen his grandchild shot in a field, and…’
‘And it’s his job – or was; I gather he’s retired.’
‘His kind never retire. They carry suspicion to the grave. I don’t blame him for what happened to me. Yet, for the first time in my life I was afraid – like I’m afraid now.’
Uncle Brad had brought with him a piece of Dick’s past. ‘Just him being here’s made me feel better, because he’s familiar; and, through him, I can remember how I used to be. He gives me a morsel of my old confidence. Oh, Sara…’ He was in her arms, and she had never thought to see a man weep like this, sobs shaking his body as if bullets were hitting it. She made out some of his words, ‘…Still frightened… Don’t know if I can do it again…’
‘You almost certainly won’t have to, darling Richard…’
‘No, not fight… I don’t even know if I’ve got the guts to fly an aeroplane again. I’ve become a coward.’
She shushed him and made soothing noises. He was shivering and moaning, muttering that he was a fraud to have taken the medal. ‘They’re for heroes…’ when she got him into bed. She locked the door, stripped and climbed in beside him, lying close, trying to will her own small strength into his body, telling him he had nothing to reproach himself for. ‘It happens to a lot of men, darling. It’s a kind of fatigue…’
‘And they shoot them for it, for being cowards…’
‘No. You’re not a coward. Dick, remember yourself before the crash, before the flight. You say Uncle Brad’s made you think about how you were. You can do it again, though nobody’s going to make you; and you are a hero, I promise.’ And he relaxed, becoming calm, tenderness returning with the tranquillity, then fire ravaging his loins so that she first took him in her mouth, and then into her body, and when it was over they slept.
They missed dinner, and wondered what Uncle Bradley must have thought; but then Sara said it just did not matter what he thought. At midnight, she crept downstairs and the great old house was silent, breathing its history, the stones and wood recalling other people who had admitted to being cowards, yet were full of courage for admitting it.
She prepared a simple cold meal and took it up, so they ate it like children having an illicit dormitory feast.
The next day Uncle Brad went up to London. He would be back within the week.
*
Colonel Farthing had been given plenty of official introductions, as his main duty was to examine liaison with security and intelligence. So, Brad Farthing was taken first to meet Reginald Hall at the Admiralty. In passing, he was introduced to Andrew.
‘Been staying with Richard and the lovely Sara,’ Brad boomed, almost wrenching Andrew’s arm from its socket.
He talked long with ‘Blinker’ Hall, who gave little away; and certainly let the American nowhere near the men and women of Room 40.
Farthing’s meeting with Vernon Kell, and the people from MI5, turned up little except technicalities.
Charles Railton was still in Scotland – attached to the Branch – so Brad Farthing did not meet him. On the fourth day of his London visit he did, however, meet Caspar when calling on C – a visit which was arranged with all the trappings of secrecy.
They talked for the best part of a day, for other matters were becoming an increasing concern to C’s Service and to the men at Military Intelligence also – not only important, but also exceptionally worrying.
Earlier in the year, on 16 March, Czar Nicholas II of Russia had abdicated. A provisional government under Prince Lvov had proved ineffective. There were stories of an imminent rebellion in the Russian Army, of shortages of food and supplies, and – only a day ago – the collapse of Lvov’s regime.
Returning prisoners and Bolsheviks who had been hiding in Switzerland swelled the revolutionary ranks. The situation was confused, and the latest hard information was that a revolt in Petrograd – formerly St Petersburg – had failed, yet had caused the setting up of a new government, Socialist-orientated and led by Lvov’s former Minister of War, Alexander Kerensky. C and many of his colleagues could only see Bolsheviks round every corner. ‘If they’re going to act successfully, this is their time,’ C had told Caspar, who now understood why certain known Russian-speakers and experts had been haunting C’s headquarters – not least of all the familiar ghostly figure of his brother Ramillies.
At the end of the week, Brad Farthing went back to Redhill Manor to find Dick vastly improved. His worries, on first seeing his nephew, must, he thought, have been unfounded.
‘Charles may be coming for the week-end,’ Sara, announced brightly. She had received a telegram from him. ‘From Glasgow, of all places. You never know where Charles will pop up next.’
‘Let’s hope he pops up here’ Uncle Brad swallowed his whisky. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting Charles. That fellow Kell’s told me a lot about him.’
*
It was Vernon Kell who was initially responsible for Charles’ return to London, though Kell would never know what drama was produced by his orders. The two men had spoken on a number of occasions as Charles, with Wood and Partridge, had continued to follow ‘The Fisherman’s’ trail in Scotland. Now, as they seemed to have reached a dead end, Kell decided he could use Charles in better ways. He informed Thomson and telegraphed Charles to return. He was to report to the office on Monday. It was now Thursday afternoon. Wood and Partridge laboured at the police headquarters; Charles was at the railway hotel, right by Glasgow Central Station. He rang London immediately on receipt of the telegram.
‘There’s a train in an hour or so,’ Charles told Kell, ‘but I’ll leave it and come down on the night sleeper. Prefer it.’
‘As you wish. See you on Monday, around lunchtime.’
He telephoned Wood, breaking the news that he was being returned to normal duties and would travel back that night. The trail had gone cold.
Then he put in a trunk call to Redhill Manor and spoke to Sara, confirming that he would be coming for the week-end. Only if he brought Mary Anne and young William Arthur, she said. But he could not promise. Mary Anne was now working in one of the London hospitals and William Arthur had his school books. Nanny Coles was patiently coaching him.
Charles packed his bag, placed it on the bed for the porter, automatically checked the cumbersome Webley revolver he now carried everywhere, and went down onto the station concourse to book himself a sleeping berth on the night train.
At the ticket office, the man in front of him was also trying to book a sleeper. Charles had long since become wise to the ways of a good agent. His eyes were seldom still, his head turning in a natural manner, constantly on the watch, and his ears alive to sounds and conversations.
‘Harker,’ the man booking the sleeper told the ticket clerk, spelling out the name, as though the woman clerk might find it difficult, ‘H-A-R-K-E-R. Harker.’
/> And Charles turned his head in the direction of the concourse, saw that one of the platform gates was open, with passengers already moving through for the afternoon London train, and, with disbelief, laid eyes on a tall man, walking with a heavy limp. The man turned slightly to show his ticket at the barrier, and Charles saw the rough, pitted red skin of the terrible burn scar down the right side of his face. It was quite visible as he lifted his head and the light struck below the broad-brimmed hat. ‘The Fisherman’ was there within his grasp. In one of those strange mental visions, he again saw him in the Rosscarbery street. This was overlapped by the cottage interior. Warm blood dripped down a framed photograph.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks…
Charles stepped forward and bought a first class single ticket to London, then turned and moved with gathering speed, back to the hotel. Within four minutes he had settled his bill while a porter was dispatched to bring down his small bag, and headed back onto the station concourse. He had fifteen minutes, and knew this was one occasion when he would have to resort to that part of his work he most distrusted – a disguise.
In the gentlemen’s lavatory he delved into the bag, bringing out the tin containing a few small devices for use in emergency. The hair had been chosen to match his own, and the spirit gum held the neatly-made walrus moustache in place so that even he, peering closely in the glass, admitted its seeming reality. The spectacles, added to the moustache, completely altered his appearance to the extent that he looked at himself a little too long.
Then he set out for the afternoon train, pausing briefly to buy a newspaper. In his mind there was one picture – the man going through the barrier: the man in Rosscarbery, the man who killed and maimed with explosives, the man who strangled with a white silk scarf.
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Charles sauntered casually along the platform, glancing sideways into compartments, as if looking for one that was suitably empty, and seeing everything – from the uniformed soldiers going back off leave, to the nervous thin girls escaping from their Glasgow homes, to what they believed to be brighter lights and golden opportunities in London.