The Court Ball itself-dancing on the path to Armageddon as Holmes called it grimly-was no less brilliant for being the last of its kind. It was to have been held a month earlier, before the ultimatums of war were issued. Instead, it had been postponed during a period of court mourning for the assassination in Sarajevo of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie by a Bosnian student on 28 June. Who would have thought that two deaths in a remote and dusty Balkan town would plunge the entire world into such conflict?
Even as a century of peace was dying, the scene at the palace on that gala night was one I shall never forget. The young Prince of Wales, a shy boy who was to succeed his father as Edward VIII in 1936, was his mother’s partner and piloted Queen Mary through the Royal Quadrille. King George stood apart, in grave conversation with the Ambassador of our Russian ally, Count Benckendorff. The Germans and the Austrians had feigned a diplomatic absence and were packing their bags for the journey home, as the minutes of our ultimatum ticked away.
At the edge of the grand ballroom, Holmes and I found ourselves chatting in a small group round Lord William Cecil, the King’s Equerry, who was also an officer of Military Intelligence at the War Office. Holmes had no appetite for small talk of any kind. He soon lapsed into a gloomy and discourteous silence. Even when a reply was necessary, he responded by a monosyllable.
I was only too anxious to be rescued from this embarrassment. I looked across the floor towards the tall and elegant figure of Sir John Fisher, in formal royal blue uniform and gold piping of Admiral of the Fleet. He caught my eye but gave no sign of recognition. He too was now unsmiling, despite the “laughter lines” round his mouth. Even the brightness in his pale eyes had died away.
Holmes and Jacky Fisher had been firm friends for many years. Fisher was a man after Holmes’s heart with his simple policy for naval warfare. “Hit first, hit hard, and keep on hitting.” Sherlock Holmes would never hear a word spoken against the admiral, describing Fisher as having “not an inch of pose about him.” My friend gave him the motto, “Sworn to no party-of no sect am I. I can’t be silent and I will not lie.”
Just then, Lord William Cecil ceased to talk ballroom trivialities. As if he had received a signal, he took us each by an elbow, murmuring something about “supper.” He led us towards the grand buffet, where a crowd was beginning to gather. However, we were not to reach those supper tables with their sparkling white cloths, their silver and porcelain dishes of salmon and caviar, where royal footmen were waiting to serve us. To one side of this display was a white panelled door with gilt mouldings. Beyond it lay an ante-room. In a moment we had passed through and the door had been locked behind us. The exchanges which followed were to remain under our wartime oath of secrecy.
Sir John Fisher was there to speak for King George. Lord William Cecil held a brief for the General Staff. There was one other man who was a complete stranger to me. Yet if I had never met him again I should not have forgotten his appearance. He was wearing the uniform of a Royal Navy captain. I recall him as being dapper, alert, with a perfectly-domed bald head, a large hooked nose and a strong cleft chin. Most memorably, he had eyes that were possessed of a dark and penetrating hypnotic power.
As we entered the damask-panelled chamber, Fisher went up to this newcomer and then turned to us.
“Gentlemen, may I present to you Captain Reginald Hall, who is at present commander of the battle-cruiser Queen Mary? You will see and hear a good deal of him before long. He will very shortly be taking up his appointment among us as Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, Director of Admiralty Intelligence.”
After that, I needed no further hints to deduce what part Holmes and I were invited to play. When the formal introductions were over. Reginald Hall casually picked up a copy of that evening’s Globe newspaper, which had been left on a small occasional table. Its tall black headlines proclaimed the immediate German military threat to Belgium and hopeless Belgian gallantry in meeting an overwhelming attack. As a way of introducing himself, the captain tossed the paper back again and looked at us with his penetrating gaze.
“Well, here’s a business, Mr Holmes and Dr Watson.”
“I daresay, Sir Reginald,” said Holmes, rather too coldly as it seemed to me, “but it is not a business of my making nor is it to my taste. I confess that I have killed one or two men in my time-and without regret-but slaughter of this kind is not a dish I can relish.”
Fisher intervened at once, before my friend could make matters worse.
“Nor I, Mr Holmes. However, now that the choice is set before us we must either win this war or lose it. My sole duty to His Majesty is to ensure that we win.”
I could guess what was coming, for I had heard it from so many people in the past few weeks. Fisher reminded us that England had fought no great European war for almost a century, since the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. In consequence, we had been caught thoroughly unprepared for this one, as he had repeatedly warned us that we would be. Now there was work for us all, and we must do it with a will. There could be no “civilians.” Every man and woman at home had duties to perform, as surely as the first of our front-line regiments who had embarked secretly for France. The particular duties of Sherlock Holmes and I had yet to be agreed, but that they must be a matter of national importance was constantly implied.
“There can only be one place for you, Mr Holmes,” Fisher said at length, his eyes holding my friend’s gaze, “Your gifts belong at the heart of our nation’s security. Without such intelligence as you can bring us, we fight blind-and deaf too, for that matter.”
“To begin with,” said Holmes, more gently than I had feared, “if I were to travel like an office boy each day from Baker Street to Whitehall, I should soon have every spy in London on my back. I take it that when we speak of Whitehall we are talking of the famous Room 40 in the Old Admiralty Building. Room 40 is a secret so well kept that every newspaper boy in the West End streets can tell you a dozen stories about it.”
“If there are spies on your tail, the more easily shall they be caught,” said Fisher evenly. “We shall get the better of those fellows, believe me. I have given the matter considerable thought.”
Holmes seemed only to be half listening. He was looking round the ante-room, as though it were beyond his conception that any sane man should choose to live among such paint and gilt, such damask and satin as this. He responded to Fisher by raising his eyebrows a fraction, indicating a little surprise that a mere admiral of the fleet should presume to think in competition with the sage of Baker Street. Then he sighed.
“Very well. Tell me what you propose.”
Jacky Fisher relaxed and began to explain himself.
“Some years ago, you will recall that you first came to my assistance by recovering the Bruce-Partington submarine plans which had been stolen from Woolwich Arsenal. Indeed, our friend Dr Watson wrote an account of your adventure on that occasion.”
“Not by my wish,” said Holmes quickly but Fisher ignored him.
“At the time,” he continued, “I recall that you had made a hobby-or a study-of the choral music of the Middle Ages. Indeed, you were writing an analysis of the Polyphonic Motets of Orlando Lassus, were you not? I was much struck by that.”
“Your memory does you credit,” said Holmes dryly. Sir John brushed this aside.
“I will make a suggestion. Our adversaries in Berlin would give a good deal to know of your activities in the course of this war. I intend to appease their curiosity by feeding them something to chew on. Now, then. Your reluctance to go to war is humane and sensible. I will not ask you to compromise your views. Indeed, I suggest that you should compose a letter to the editor of the Times or the Morning Post or both, expressing your disapproval of this coming entanglement with Germany and your hopes for an early resolution of the conflict…”