Traitors' Gate Read Online Free PDF Page A

wouldn’t mind becoming a Staff Officer in the War Room at the Cabinet Offices.’
    Gregory’s mouth fell slightly open. ‘You … you’re not fooling?’
    ‘I never fool,’ replied Sir Pellinore with mock severity. ‘But you must thank General Ismay when you see him, not me. Of course, I’ve told him from time to time of the very valuable services you have rendered; so he knows of you already. After Maudie Castletown’s dinner party I went back to his office with him. We had a word with Ian Jacob. Son of the old Field Marshal. Known him since he was a boy. He’s a bright young man. Colonel now, and in charge of War Cabinet communications.War Room is a three service show and comes under him. At Pug’s request Jacob agreed to get the D. of Plans, Air, to take you nominally on his staff.’
    ‘But this is terrific! In my wildest dreams I would never have hoped for anything so thrilling.’
    ‘Ah, well,’ Sir Pellinore took a good swig of the Roederer, ‘since you have to be in regular employment there are many worse jobs. It is a Wing Commander’s post, but they have some fool regulation now that no one can be put up by more than one rank a month; so you’ll have to go in as a Pilot Officer. Still, your promotion will be automatic and you’ll be a
Colonel de l’Air
before the autumn.’
    ‘I can’t ever thank you enough.’
    ‘Never mind that. Be at the Great George Street entrance to the War Cabinet Offices at three o’clock this afternoon and send your name up to Colonel Jacob.’
    A few hours later Gregory was sitting on a bench in a dim hallway of the great block which forms the north side of Parliament Square. Seeing the special importance of the offices in this corner of the building, he had been surprised to find that the only obvious security precautions were that the Home Guards checking passes on the door wore revolvers, and that, compared with the constant bustle in great headquarters which he had entered when on the Continent, they seemed almost deserted.
    After a wait of a few minutes an elderly messenger took him up in an old-fashioned lift to the second floor, then along a lofty corridor. It was here, well above the noise of the traffic, and with fine views over the lake in St. James’s Park, that the principal offices were situated. Among the names on their doors Gregory noticed that of General Sir Hastings Ismay and Brigadier L. C. Hollis, then he was shown in to a secretary who took him through to Colonel Jacob.
    The Colonel—dark, round-faced, young-looking—gave him a cigarette and at once disclosed that he knew all about his mission to Russia in the previous summer. After they had talked for a few minutes, he said with a smile:
    ‘In view of your previous activities, I’m afraid you may find life here rather dull. Are you quite sure that you wouldn’t prefer me to give you a chit passing you on to the chief of our Secret Operations Executive?’
    ‘No, thank you,’ Gregory replied promptly. ‘I’ve had enoughexcitement to last me for quite a time.’
    ‘Very well, then.’ The Colonel stood up. ‘I had a word with the D. of Plans, Air, about you this morning, and he is expecting us; so we’ll go over and see him.’
    The Operational Departments of the Air Ministry were in the same vast building, on its far side overlooking King Charles Street. After walking through seemingly interminable and almost deserted corridors they reached the Director of Plans’ office. There the Colonel introduced Gregory to a short, broad-shouldered Air Commodore who received them with cheerful briskness.
    ‘I’m sorry we have to send you to Uxbridge,’ he said. ‘As you had a commission in the last war it’s an absurd waste of time to lecture you on the elementary stuff that every subaltern picks up in a couple of months; but it’s a hard and fast regulation that there is now no escaping. Just sign these papers I have had prepared and they will attend to the rest of the formalities at