Yakimov murmured in admiring awe: ‘So they have, dear boy!’
‘What’s going to happen here, I’d like to know? Something’s got to be done. I was sent here in error. I came to the Balkans in all innocence. All innocence. Yes, all innocence. No one knew the dangers; they don’t know now. If they did, they would order me back. But the Organization is bound to repatriate me; it is in my agreement. And now’s the time. Yes, now’s the time. I want it fixed up without delay.’
‘I have nothing to do with the Organization,’ Alan said with even patience. ‘You are the Organization head. Surely it’s up to you to fix your repatriation?’
‘I am fixing it. I’m fixing it now. Here and now. Yes, yes, here and now, I’m putting it into your hands, Frewen. I look to you.’
‘Oh? Well! I don’t know what I can do, but I’ll make inquiries. There’s no regular transport; you know that. I’ve heard it suggested that a civilian – one of the top brass, of course – might, if the need arose, be given a lift to Egypt by the R.A.F.’
‘I came on a service plane,’ Pinkrose said eagerly. ‘I travelled in a bomb bay.’
‘Did you indeed! Well, I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Yes, yes, see what you can do. Give it top priority. Treat it as an emergency. Let me know within the next hour.’
‘Good heavens, the next hour! I won’t hear anything within the next week. There may be nothing for six weeks.’
‘Six weeks? Six weeks! You speak in jest, Frewen.’
‘I do not speak in jest. These things take time.’
Pinkrose’s face quivered. Drawing in his breath, he cried in agony: ‘Then I’m trapped?’
‘We’re all trapped, if it comes to that. But I see no immediate cause for alarm. The situation’s no worse. If anything, it looks a bit brighter. The Germans have agreed to respect Yugoslav sovereignty; they say they won’t send troops through Yugoslavia. I know you can’t trust them, but they’ll be tied up for a bit.’
Pinkrose stared at Alan, then asked in a small voice: ‘Where did you get this?’
‘It’s official. And what about the lecture? Are we to call that off?’
Pinkrose swallowed in his throat and looked down at the floor. ‘No,’ he said after a long pause. ‘I was precipitous, Frewen, I was precipitous. Hold your hand a while.’
‘You don’t want me to try to arrange a flight?’
‘No. My duty is here. The lecture is of paramount importance. It must be given. Yes, it must be given. And there are other matters …’ Turning abruptly, he hurried off to attend to them.
One of the other matters was no doubt now on Miss Gladys’s desk. She had just begun to type it when Pinkrose flustered in with another foolscap sheet. ‘Here’s the rest,’ he said and, speaking in a low, intimate and conspiratorial tone, he called Miss Gladys over to a table by the wall. Pushing the maps away and spreading the sheet out, he whispered: ‘Read it through. Tell me if there’s anything you don’t understand.’
A long interval followed, during which Pinkrose, running his pencil along the lines, muttered under his breath and Miss Gladys whispered: ‘I understand, Lord Pinkrose, I understand.’
Feeling that her presence was intrusive, Harriet decided to go to the News Room. As she rose, the others were alerted. The muttering ceased. They turned to watch where she might go. She passed Miss Gladys’s desk and stopped. Miss Gladys had typed: REPORT ON GUY PRINGLE. In my opinion Guy Pringle is unsuited for Organization work … Harriet picked up the draft.
In a stern tone, Miss Gladys said: ‘How dare you touch that! That’s a confidential report.’
Harriet read on. In the opinion of Pinkrose Guy had dangerous left-wing tendencies. He was a trouble-maker who mixed with notorious Greeks. He had become a centre of sedition and was disapproved by all responsible persons in Athens.
‘What a pack of lies!’ she said.
Further, he had staged an obscene production and complaints had been received from prominent members of the British colony. The Director had banned the production. In spite of that, Pringle was visiting army camps with a play liable to demoralize all who saw it …
‘Lord Pinkrose!’ Miss Gladys turned on her superior, indignant that he should give her no support, and Pinkrose began obediently to chatter:
‘Put it down. Put it down, I tell you. Put it down.’
Harriet put it down and asked: ‘What else have you written?’
‘It’s nothing to do with you.’ As she approached, Pinkrose snatched up the paper: ‘You have no right …’ he shouted. The paper shook in his hand.
‘Oh, yes, I have a right. The Organization does not permit confidential reports. If you write a report on Guy’s work, you’re required to show it to him. He’s supposed to sign it.’
‘Sauce!’ said Miss Gladys.
‘Required! Required, indeed! I’m the Director; I’m not required to do anything …’ Beside himself with indignation, Pinkrose let his voice rise and at once Miss Mabel began to moan and give little cries of terror.
Miss Gladys spat at Harriet: ‘Go away. You’re upsetting my sister.’
‘Yes, go away,’ Pinkrose screamed. ‘Leave this office. At once. You hear me, at once.’
Harriet went to her desk and gathered up her belongings. ‘Before I go,’ she said, grandiloquent with rage, ‘I must say: I am surprised that at a time like this, anyone – even you Lord Pinkrose – could stoop to intrigue with Cookson, Dubedat and Lush in order to injure a man who is worth more than the whole lot of you put together.’
She went out. Alan and Yakimov were peacefully drinking the first ouzo of the day when she burst in on them to say:
‘I’m going.’
‘Where?’ Alan asked.
‘Pinkrose has sacked me; but if he hadn’t, I’d go anyway.’
‘Have a drink first.’
‘No.’
Near hysteria, she ran to the church hall. It was shut. She took a taxi to the School. No one there had seen Guy since early morning. She went to Aleko’s. The café was empty. She walked back down Stadium Street looking into every café and bar she passed, and came to Zonar’s. Guy was not to be found.
Harriet was meeting Charles at the Corinthian. As she walked towards the hotel, Guy’s voice, loud and cheerful, came to her from the distance.
She saw him helping the driver to take luggage from a taxi. The luggage was being heaped up beside a man who, impressive and large in a fur hat, fur-lined overcoat and fur-topped boots, had the familiarity of a figure in a fairy-tale. Harriet at that moment had no eyes for him but seized on Guy, furiously asking: ‘Where have you been?’
‘To the station, to meet the Belgrade Express.’
‘Why?’
Guy stared at Harriet as though only she would not know why. ‘I thought David Boyd would be on it.’
‘Oh!’ Harriet subsided. ‘And was he?’
‘No. He hasn’t turned up yet. But …’ Guy indicated that he had not returned empty-handed. Indeed, he seemed to think he had brought back a prize. Presenting the large, be-furred man: ‘This is Roger Tandy,’ he said.
Harriet had heard of Tandy. When he passed through Bucharest, he had been described in the papers as ‘the famous traveller’. That had been before Harriet’s time but Guy had met him briefly, and Tandy, famous traveller or not, had been grateful to see a familiar face when he turned up in Athens among the refugees from Belgrade. He and Guy had fallen on each other like old friends. Now Guy, playing the host, unloading and counting his luggage, wanted to know: ‘How many cases should there be?’