“Quite the opposite, old man,” said Basil. “Now do as I suggested — veer westerly, cross the peninsula, and find me coastline.”
Murphy noted that the bullet had hit the compass bang on, shattered its glass, and blown its dial askew and its needle arm into the vapors.
“Basil, how’s the drinking?” the general asked.
“Excellent, sir,” Basil replied. “I’m up to seven, sometimes eight whiskies a night.”
“Splendid, Basil,” said the general. “I knew you wouldn’t let us down.”
“See here,” said another general. “I know this man has a reputation for wit, as it’s called, but we are engaged in serious business, and the levity, perhaps appropriate to the officers’ mess, is most assuredly inappropriate here. There should be no laughing here, gentlemen. This is the War Room.”
Basil sat in a square, dull space far underground. A few dim bulbs illuminated it but showed little except a map of Europe pinned to the wall. Otherwise it was featureless. The table was large enough for at least a dozen generals, but there were only three of them — well, one was an admiral— and a civilian, all sitting across from Basil. It was rather like orals at Magdalen, had he bothered to attend them.
The room was buried beneath the Treasury in Whitehall, the most secret of secret installations in wartime Britain. Part of a warren of other rooms — some offices for administrative or logistical activities, a communications room, some sleeping or eating quarters — it was the only construction in England that might legitimately be called a lair. It belonged under a volcano, not a large office building. The prime minister would sit in this very place with his staff and make the decisions that would send thousands to their death in order to save tens of thousands. That was the theory, anyway. And that also is why it stank so brazenly of stale cigar.
“My dear sir,” said the general with whom Basil had been discussing his drinking habits to the general who disapproved, “when one has been shot at for the benefit of crown and country as many times as Captain St. Florian, one has the right to set the tone of the meeting that will most certainly end up getting him shot at quite a bit more. Unless you survived the first day on the Somme, you cannot compete with him in that regard.”
The other general muttered something, but Basil hardly noticed. It really did not matter, and since he believed himself doomed no matter what, he now no longer listened to those who did not matter.
The general who championed him turned to him, his opposition defeated. His name was Sir Colin Gubbins and he was head of the outfit to which Basil belonged, called by the rather dreary title Special Operations Executive. Its mandate was to Set Europe Ablaze, as the prime minister had said when he invented it and appointed General Gubbins as its leader. It was the sort of organization that would have welcomed Jack the Ripper to its ranks, possibly even promoted, certainly decorated him. It existed primarily to destroy — people, places, things, anything that could be destroyed. Whether all this was just mischief for the otherwise unemployable or long-term strategic wisdom was as yet undetermined. It was up for considerable debate among the other intelligence agencies, one of which was represented by the army general and the other by the naval admiral.
As for the civilian, he looked like a question on a quiz: Which one does not belong? He was a good thirty years younger than the two generals and the admiral, and hadn’t, as they did, one of those heavy-jowled authoritarian faces. He was rather handsome in a weak sort of way, like the fellow who always plays Freddy in any production of Pygmalion, and he didn’t radiate, as did the men of power. Yet here he was, a lad among the Neanderthals, and the others seemed in small ways to defer to him. Basil wondered who the devil he could be. But he realized he would find out sooner or later.
“You’ve all seen Captain St. Florian’s record, highly classified as it is. He’s one of our most capable men. If this thing can be done, he’s the one who can do it. I’m sure before we proceed, the captain would entertain any questions of a general nature.”
“I seem to remember your name from the cricket fields, St. Florian,” said the admiral. “Were you not a batsman of some renown in the late twenties?
“I have warm recollections of good innings at both Eton and Magdalen,” said Basil.
“Indeed,” said the admiral. “I’ve always said that sportsmen make the best agents. The playing field accustoms them to arduous action, quick, clever thinking, and decisiveness.”
“I hope, however,” said the general, “you’ve left your sense of sporting fair play far behind. Jerry will use it against you, any chance he gets.”
“I killed a Chinese gangster with a cricket bat, sir. Would that speak to the issue?”
“Eloquently,” said the general.
“What did your people do, Captain?” asked the admiral.
“He manufactured something,” said Basil. “It had to do with automobiles, as I recall.”
“A bit hazy, are we?”
“It’s all rather vague. I believe that I worked for him for a few months after coming down. My performance was rather disappointing. We parted on bad terms. He died before I righted myself.”
“To what do you ascribe your failure to succeed in business and please your poor father?”
“I am too twitchy to sit behind a desk, sir. My bum, pardon the French, gets all buzzy if I am in one spot too long. Then I drink to kill the buzz and end up in the cheap papers.”
“I seem to recall,” the admiral said. “Something about an actress—’31, ’32, was that it?”
“Lovely young lady,” Basil said, “A pity I treated her so abominably. I always plucked the melons out of her fruit salad and she could not abide that.”
“Hong Kong, Malaysia, Germany before and during Hitler, battle in Spain — shot at a bit there, eh, watching our Communists fight the generalissimo’s Germans, eh?” asked the army chap. “Czecho, France again, Dieppe, you were there? So was I.”
“Odd I didn’t see you, sir,” said Basil.
“I suppose you were way out front then. Point taken, Captain. All right, professionally, he seems capable. Let’s get on with it, Sir Colin.”
“Yes,” said Sir Colin. “Where to begin, where to begin? It’s rather complex, you see, and someone important has demanded that you be apprised of all the nuances before you decide to go.”
“Sir, I could save us all a lot of time. I’ve decided to go. I hereby officially volunteer.”
“See, there’s a chap with spirit,” said the admiral. “I like that.”
“It’s merely that his bum is twitchy,” said the general.
“Not so fast, Basil. I insist that you hear us out,” said Sir Colin, “and so does the young man at the end of the table. Is that not right, Professor?”
“It is,” said the young fellow.
“All right, sir,” said Basil.
“It’s a rather complex, even arduous story. Please ignore the twitchy bum and any need you may have for whisky. Give us your best effort.”
“I shall endeavor, sir.”
“Excellent. Now, hmm, let me see… oh, yes, I think this is how to start. Do you know the path to Jesus?”
Another half hour flew by, lost to the rattle of the plane, the howl of the wind, and the darkness of Occupied France below. At last Murphy said over the intercom, “Sir, the west coast of the Cherbourg Peninsula is just ahead. I can see it now.”
“Excellent,” said Basil. “Find someplace to put me down.”
“Ah…”
“Yes, what is it, Pilot Officer?”
“Sir, I can’t just land, you see. The plane is too fragile — there may be wires, potholes, tree stumps, ditches, mud, God knows what. All of which could snarl or even wreck the plane. It’s not so much me. I’m not that important. It’s actually the plane. Jerry’s been trying to get hold of a Lysander for some time now, to use against us. I can’t give him one.”