Flight From Honour Read Online Free PDF Page A

physical opposite of Dagner: fair-haired, shortish but not too tubby, at least not to his own mind, and with a round schoolboy face on which he usually wore a small hopeful smile that adjusted easily to the sympathetic. In any case, the hopefulness was entirely deceptive, belonging with his current “disguise” as a middle-ranking civil servant dedicated to the future of his pension and the Empire. And nobody could now force him back into uniform since he had thankfully shaved the regulation moustache which, even at the age of thirty-eight, had grown only as a juvenile fluff.
    “Some do say,” he said, sucking experimentally on his pipe, “that, being the Foreign Office, they represent foreigners. Myself, I think that’s too simple, because whatever the FO is, it isn’t simple.”
    Dagner’s smile was cold and brief. “But we’re an official Government department – or Bureau – as well. What do they expect of us?”
    “Oh, I think Sir Aylmer was quite straight with you there: they want nothing. Or, at most, to take us over themselves and disband us. But I fancy that the sub-committee which thought us up foresaw that; that’s why they put us under the protection of the big, bold Admiralty and with a Naval man in charge.
    “I suppose—” he put a match to his pipe and began puffing up a smokescreen; “—that they see our very existence as a standing reproof: that they can’t learn everything by their own methods. And to be fair, we may occasionally tread on their toes. Perhaps the problem with Europe is that, if we’re caught, we
don’t
usually get quietly tortured to death and dumped in a ditch. It can happen, of course, but we’re more likely to get a well-publicised trial producing a Diplomatic Incident, which means our ambassador there gets a roasting, the FO here gets a wigging from the Cabinet
and
His Majesty – and we sit in the shadows saying smugly: ‘But we don’t exist, you can’t blame us.’ That’s the way the FO sees it, anyway.”
    A true, slow smile broke across Dagner’s stem face. “Thank you, Captain . . . R,” he said formally. “I can see I’ve got a lot to learn. But the Chief said that I could rely on you, as the senior agent present, for an uncompromising view of our work and its problems.”
    That startled Ranklin. Senior agent? – he had only been with the Bureau for nine months, only “home” in London – which had never been his home – for the past two weeks. Granted they had been busy months, and he was probably the oldest in the office bar the Commander and Dagner himself, but
senior
? Of course, Dagner had said “present”, so it might be that the Continent was crawling with the Bureau’s more experienced and skilled spies, too valuable to keep in London. But Ranklin doubted it.
    “Nice of him to say so,” he mumbled.
    “So I hope you’ll forgive me if I rely rather heavily on you until I find my feet.”
    “Oh, quite, yes, of course.”
    Then the Commander came out of his inner office to shake hands with Dagner while still patting the shoulder of a rather tearful stenographer who was telling him to be sure not to get into trouble with the nasty Germans, and calling for someone to find a taxi.
    Finally he shook Ranklin’s hand, said: “Get everything organised so that I can ruin it when I get back, Captain,” and chuckled loudly. “And don’t forget that Sir Caspar Alerion’s coming to lecture you all on Friday. Give him my regards and apologies. Don’t come down to see me off.” Then he drew and flourished his swordstick, nearly emasculating a hanging light, and was gone in a swirl of green cloak.
    Nobody wanted to be the first to speak after that exit. Ranklin began cleaning out his pipe, gradually others began a gentle bustle, and then Dagner said: “Very well, then. I suppose I’d better say a few words to set the pace for the coming weeks. Captain, would you make sure everybody’s here in, say, five minutes?” He went through into