“French history mostly, actually."
“French history?"
"It's a well-established qualification to the Royal Corps of Signals," said Roche, straight-faced.
"It is?" Sir Eustace gave him an old-fashioned look. "But you dummy5
volunteered for the RAEC nevertheless—did you want to be a schoolmaster, then?"
"No, Sir Eustace." Roche cast around for a respectable reason for joining the RAEC while not intending to go into teaching after demobilisation. He certainly hadn't wanted to be a teacher then—that had been Julie's idea later. Then ... he hadn't particularly wanted to be anything; and a degree in History, and more particularly a knowledge of French history, had equipped him with no useful qualification except for transmitting that otherwise useless interest to the next generation. And so on ad infinitum, from generation to generation—that bleak conclusion, as much as anything else, had turned him against teaching. The conviction that the later French kings had been not so much effete as unfortunate had somehow not seemed to him of great importance in the creation of a more egalitarian Britain, not to mention a better world.
"Why, then?" persisted Sir Eustace.
He met Sir Eustace's gaze and, to his surprise, truth beckoned him once more. And not just truth, but also a sudden deeper instinct: these were the top brass, not the middlemen he was accustomed to report to—their rank and demeanour said as much, Thain's obsequious departure said as much, and Admiral Hall's portrait confirmed the message.
They hadn't summoned him here simply to give him his orders, they had other people to do that. He was here because they wanted to look at him for themselves, to see the dummy5
whites of his eyes and—more likely—the yellow of his soul.
It was his chance, and he had to take it. And he wouldn't get it by answering 'Yes, Sir Eustace' and 'No, Sir Eustace' like the scared, timeserving nonentity he was.
"I thought, if I fluffed the selection board, or I didn't stay the course as an officer-cadet at Eaton Hall, then at least I'd end up as an Education Corps sergeant in a cushy billet somewhere," he said coolly.
"You like cushy billets?" Sir Eustace pounced on the admission. "Isn't Paris a cushy billet?"
"Yes, it is—"
"I don't know a cushier billet than Paris!" Sir Eustace looked around him for agreement.
"Or a duller one, either," snapped Roche, seizing his opportunity before anyone could answer. "And I'm not a poor bloody National Serviceman any more either—and that's also the difference. And I wasn't conscripted from the Signals to Intelligence—I volunteered."
Sir Eustace met his gaze steadily for a moment, and then nodded slowly, not smiling, but at least acknowledging the point.
"Yes . . . ." To Roche's disappointment it was Clinton who spoke now. "And just why, in your considered opinion, is Paris so dull these days?"
Roche transferred his attention to Clinton, and wished he knew something—anything—about the man beyond what the dummy5
faint warning bells had whispered to him.
He licked his lips and decided to play for time. "I handle the liaison traffic," he began cautiously.
"I know that," said Clinton.
Roche's courage sank. Sir Eustace had digested the assessments in the file, yet was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. But Colonel Clinton had reached a different and hostile conclusion, and there wasn't any time to play for.
"They don't love us, the French," He had to find something to give Clinton, something which might impress him.
"Go on."
"They don't even like us. . . . Last year, for maybe six months
—from the time Nasser seized the canal through to the landings—they tried to like us, but even then it was a bloody effort. But they tried." He paused.
"Go on."
"Now they don't even try." When he thought about it, the one thing he did know about Clinton was that he didn't know anything about him. Which meant that he hadn't been active in the Paris station. "They used to say that the Entente Cordiale was buried somewhere between Dunkirk and Mers-el-Kebir." The words were Bill Ballance's.
"Where?" St. John Latimer cupped his ear.
"Where we blew half their fleet out of the water in 1940, Oliver," said Sir Eustace.
dummy5
"Oh— there . . ." St.John Latimer looked down his nose at Roche. "Oran, you mean."
Roche concentrated on Clinton. "Now they say the corpse has been re-interred beside the Suez Canal, somewhere between Port Said and Ismailia. And their next entente will be with the Germans, who are likely to be more reliable."
"So?" Clinton again packed tell me something I don't know into the question.
"So they don't give us anything. Or practically nothing—in effect, nothing. . .But that's fair enough really, because we give them the same in return—nothing, as near as damn it."
Clinton favoured him with a tiny nod. "So you've got nothing to trade—is that it?"
Nothing to trade in more ways than one, thought Roche bitterly. Nothing to give dear old Anglophile Philippe Roux, who made up for his embarrassment with marvellous lunches, and nothing to give—or very little to give— to Jean-Paul either.
"Is that it?" repeated Clinton. "Is that all?"
The difference between Philippe and Jean-Paul was that Jean-Paul didn't seem to mind. Indeed, not only was he neither disappointed nor worried by the lack of information, but he was rarely even much interested in what there was. It was as though he knew it all already.
And then suddenly, as he was about to admit that it was all—
and enough to account for the dullness of Paris, if not to dummy5
satisfy Colonel Clinton that Captain Roche was God's gift to Intelligence—more of Bill Ballance's ideas sprang into Roche's mind. "No, sir."
Roche inspected the ideas first from the front and then from the back. They were fully armed and equipped, and their boots and buttons were shining.
Clinton was waiting.
"You asked me for my opinion, sir." Roche used the extra seconds to re-inspect the ideas. It didn't matter whether they were false or not—in fact, he himself was living proof that they weren't false, really. But now that he was no longer on Jean-Paul's side that didn't matter. "And this is only my opinion, sir—I'm not in a position to substantiate it." He allowed himself to glance uneasily at Sir Eustace for support.
"Go on, David," Sir Eustace encouraged him.
"Well, sir . . ." He came back to Clinton. "I think we're well-advised to restrict the traffic. Because I strongly suspect the Russians have got the French Special Services buttoned up from top to bottom. I think they already know what the French are giving us, for what it's worth—which isn't much.
And I think most of what we give them goes straight back to Moscow—" he let himself break off, as though afraid he had gone too far.
"Yes?" Sir Eustace leaned forward.
Roche shrugged. "Well. . . there's a lot of talk about their reorganising at the moment. But that isn't because they dummy5
believe they've been penetrated, it's because the present set-up can't handle the Algerian war, and holding on to Algeria is their Number One priority at the moment. In fact, if anything, they think they're secure at the moment—"
This time the break was genuine, as it occurred to Roche that the next thing Sir Eustace—or more likely Clinton—would ask him was for the source of his suspicions, unsubstantiated or not, and since he could hardly admit he was parrotting Bill Ballance, that put poor old Philippe in the cart, than whom no one was more truly red-white-and-blue and the soul of honour.
"I rather think there's someone high up who's sold that as the official line, and they're sticking to it, anyway," he added belatedly.
"Where did you get this?" asked Clinton.
"It's pretty much rumour, sir." Roche felt himself slipping.
"But you believe it?" Sir Eustace prodded him. "Obviously—