Authors: Geoffrey Household
‘Willie, you are being led up the garden path again. Of course they do! Now go!’
‘Are you expecting anyone?’
‘That’s not your business.’
‘It is and I won’t go. It’s not fair to leave Eudora and Tessa without a proper explanation. All they know is that you were trying to clear yourself through Rachel and
it’s gone wrong.’
‘Come on up!’
I don’t know what the hide looked like when it was first built; since only buzzards had to be deceived, it was probably little more than a screen. The improved model was a low
turf-and-hazel beehive in the hollow torn out by a fallen elm, using the great slab of earth and roots as a back wall. A casual passer-by would never have noticed it, for the outline was broken by
a branch of the elm trailing dead ivy. The earth floor was dry and the roof rainproof. He had been living on oatmeal biscuits, tins of beef and water from a seepage—hardly big enough to call
a spring—which was depressing fare for a civil servant who had notably enjoyed his food and wine.
I managed to make him laugh with an account of my KGB interrogations, and that broke the spell. Discomfort and the intensity with which he plotted and re-plotted his schemes in his own lonely
head had kept him for some time without laughter.
He said that when Rachel came up to see him he had expanded his S.O.S. message, pretending that MI5 now suspected that he was in Devon. If he were caught and brought to trial, he told her, she
would inevitably be days in the witness box, and defending counsel was bound to leave a large question mark over her activities even though she was completely innocent. He would prefer to escape
abroad and leave things as they were rather than engage in a hopeless fight. So was there anything that Rachel could do to help him and herself? He never let her suspect that he knew she was
guilty.
Rachel agreed to try. Of course she did. She could hand him over to her Russian masters before MI5 could get at him. And she must have foreseen as clearly as Judas what was likely to happen to
him. She spoke of a friend with a van who might be persuaded to pick him up so long as she only said that he was in political trouble without giving away his identity. Two days later she returned
with the friend.
‘Not the kind of man I expected,’ Alwyn said. ‘Not a tough. Not a fiery communist from the Clyde. I’d have taken him for a university lecturer. Possibly he is. Just the
sort of chap to have far-out, left-wing opinions with a tendency to anarchism, and reasonably likely, given a good sob story, to help anyone in trouble for direct action. In the old days I would
have put him down as a harmless nuisance and never suspected that the KGB had got him by the short hairs. Their penetration is deadly clever.’
So it was arranged that on the afternoon of August 30th Rachel and friend were to drive slowly along a by-road easily reached by Alwyn across country. Yes, he knew that his game was far too
dangerous to be played in this way by ear, but there was no other procedure open to him. He foresaw that the KGB would have difficulty in disposing of him immediately. There must be some delay,
some sort of cat-and-mouse act which would give him a chance of unexpectedly bringing in the police and putting his finger on evidence which would stand up in court.
On the 28th the lecturer fellow turned up alone, approaching the copse as I had done, but from the other side, and waiting to be signalled on. He told Alwyn very reasonably that he didn’t
like a long journey with a wanted man inside his van and that it would be best to ran him straight down to some safe spot on the Kingsbridge Estuary where he could be taken off by boat. That had
been arranged. A friend with a motor cruiser was willing to pick him up on the evening of the 29th, a day earlier than had been agreed. Quarter of an hour later he would be out of Salcombe Harbour
and could be landed wherever he wished in England or France. Alwyn had to admit that it was a much more satisfactory solution and to show enthusiastic gratitude.
He asked why his rescue could not be at night. Because somebody in the scattered cottages or from the deck of a moored yacht might notice suspicious movement and possibly warn the Customs. At
the end of the day, however, there was nothing remarkable in a cruiser sending the dinghy ashore to pick up a guest or a crewman, and a credible answer to any question could be invented.
Alwyn was invited to choose the spot and mark it on the map. Somewhere remote but as near as possible to the harbour entrance. He had suggested the foreshore below the woods near the junction of
the South Pool and Goodshelter creeks. The van could get fairly close and there was a rough path down to the water. The beach was hard shale and a cruiser of normal shallow draft could come within
five hundred yards at half tide.
‘So there it is. At 8.30 tonight,’ he said. ‘Rachel and her friend genuinely believe that I trust them to help me to escape. If I back out now, I gain nothing.’
‘You’re not going to run for it? You’re giving up?’
‘No, Willie, not quite. There’s a slim chance for me to get clear without arousing suspicion—if it works.’
I did not see why the boat was worse for him than the van and said that if the KGB wanted to get rid of him they could close up and bury him where he was.
‘They could indeed. But KGB 13 like to avoid burial. It’s never very safe. The deep sea is.’
‘What’s KGB 13?’
‘The assassination squad.’
‘But in God’s name why?’
‘I told you long ago. While at liberty I am a continual embarrassment. But as soon as I am dead they can safely say that I defected. Invaluable propaganda! All over Europe and America our
security is discredited.’
‘Then you have to live!’
‘No, I don’t have to. I have only to make it impossible for them to claim that I am alive and in Russia.’
‘Get the police and catch the lot on the foreshore!’
‘And tell the police what? That I am Alwyn Rory and being rescued by KGB agents?’
‘We ought to be able to identify the cruiser.’
‘She won’t have arrived yet. If I were doing this, I should come in casually as if looking for an anchorage, turn to starboard just past the harbour, pick up my passenger, decide
that none of the creeks had enough water at low tide and run straight out again.’
‘Does John Penpole know all these creeks?’
‘I have ordered you to keep out!’
‘But you can’t stop me. And if I’m not to make matters worse …’
‘Then just watch if you must! Your evidence might be of use some time or other. Don’t be seen and for God’s sake don’t attempt any violence! You could only
lose.’
I asked him if he expected Rachel to be there. He replied that she was not that kind of agent.
‘Propaganda, fishing for information, possibly recruiting—that would be her line. I should guess that the escape of Mornix was the only time they ever used her for rough stuff. That
house of hers with all the fancy dress tenants underneath was a gift.’
He was in no mood to answer more questions, so I wished him luck and slid away. It was already after five when I reached Eudora and the car. Her only comment when she heard my story was that
she’d welcome a chance to boil Rachel for the hounds but guessed they’d throw up. There was no time to lose. She drove straight back through Molesworthy to the house and on to the
Penpole cottage, with me on the floor of the car.
While I was wondering how much John should be told, Eudora went straight to the point.
‘John, Mr. Alwyn is being taken off by boat tonight at 8.30 and he doesn’t want to go. You and Willie here will watch what happens. That should be easy from the woods on the point.
Don’t mix it with them, but get him back here if you see half a chance!’
‘Very good, Master. The captain will have to keep an eye on his chart.’
‘Of course he will, John. He’s probably a bloody admiral in Willie’s trawler fleet.’
‘Is there any objection to my taking Mr. Alwyn’s ten-bore?’
I think she was about to say that he could take a punt and loaded punt gun if he liked, but I reminded them that Alwyn had strictly forbidden all violence. I had a feeling that his very exact
choice of the rendezvous was not calculated to help his gallant rescuers and that we should not interfere. If the police were alerted by shots and he was caught, there was not a scrap of believable
evidence in his favour.
‘Where shall we put him if we get him, Master?’ John asked.
‘In the car. I’ll be parked off the lane down from Cousin’s Cross. And then in the kennel room until he tells us whether he wants to go back to the old place or not.’
To avoid too much coming and going of Eudora and curiosity among the villagers of Molesworthy, John and I walked over the ridge by the path through the bracken and were picked up by
Tessa’s car. She let us out a couple of miles to the east of the point and by half past seven we were lying down among tall tussocky grass well back from the water and close to the path by
which Alwyn and his supposed lecturer were almost certain to come.
He had chosen the spot well—trees and brown water and a gentle current as if we were at the junction of two rivers far from the sea. A solitary fishing boat was chugging up the creek
against the ebb. Three or four small craft were moored to the opposite shore; further out towards the main channel, was a converted ship’s lifeboat anchored bow and stern, appearing derelict
though she had a canvas cover, shabby and streaked with gull droppings, to keep out the rain. In the South Pool creek was nothing. Half of Salcombe was in sight over a mile away—another world
occupied with the business of its waterfront.
The evening was overcast with only a ribbon of clear sky, hardly wider than the setting sun, between cloud and the western hills. We heard feet stumbling down the stony path to our left, but
nobody came as far as the beach. Soon afterwards a white motor cruiser appeared end on, feeling her way up from the main harbour against the tide. There was nothing about her to attract attention.
The distant hum of the diesels promised plenty of power when it was needed. She might have come round from Plymouth on one side or Dartmouth on the other, and I have little doubt that her papers
were in perfect order and her owner as British as I was—or rather more so. But no mere victim of blackmail could have been trusted not to mess up essential details; secret and enthusiastic
sympathy with the Communist State must have been responsible for the exactitude with which he had obeyed orders.
She did not anchor but remained in the channel stemming the tide while the pram she towed was pulled alongside. A solitary oarsman dropped into it and began to row towards the point. At the same
time Alwyn, his post-graduate protester and a woman who had to be Rachel stepped out of cover on to the beach. I was surprised to see her. Either she was mistrusted or had been brought along to
give Alwyn confidence.
As the pram’s keel grated on the muddy shale I had a job keeping John Penpole quiet. He wanted to burst on to the beach and start a free-for-all. I put an arm across his
shoulders—gesture rather than compulsion—and whispered that it would do no good as the rower was armed. But I am sure he was not. He was just a deck-hand with no suspicions. My
experience of secret agents, friendly, enemy or what you will, suggests that nine times out of ten cunning and smooth operation are the only weapons ever needed. The tenth time is rare and likely
to be more embarrassing than useful.
Alwyn said effusive goodbyes to his kindly helpers and sat down in the stern of the pram. The other fellow pushed it off and began to pull for the cruiser. When they were about two hundred yards
out, I heard Alwyn yell:
‘Look out, man! Pull with your right! You’ll be aground!’
The startled oarsman obeyed and dipped his sculls for one more hearty pull to get clear. I could see the discoloured water as the pram glided over a mudbank and stopped. Alwyn appeared to be
cursing either his luck or the rower’s carelessness, probably both. The other fellow tried to push the pram off. That was no use, for if he succeeded in moving the pram he pulled it straight
back again trying to withdraw the scull. Awful stuff that mud was—a grey, sandy colour above and jet black underneath.
I could not hear details of the conversation, just low and intense voices. Alwyn must have used his most military and cock-sure manner. He stood up as if to get out and push. The rower
wouldn’t let him and lowered himself cautiously over the bow. A circular black pool spread around him as he sank to his waist, frantically trying to get back into the pram which heeled over
and must have shipped a bucketful. As soon as it righted, Alwyn stood up at the stern, bent his knees and hurled himself as far as he could with a resounding belly flop. Frog kicks in the black
porridge took him off the shoal and he settled down to a steady stroke for our shore. I thought he would never make it, for the current looked like carrying him down beyond the point; but twice I
saw him treading water as if feeling for the hard bottom where fresh water scoured the channel at low tide. He walked towards us nearly up to his shoulders and must have then hit mud again for he
struck out boldly and managed to land on the point before the brown ebb could sweep him past it.
Meanwhile the pair of fellow travellers had prudently retired to the woods. Alwyn walked back along the shale, dripping a trail of black behind him. They came out to meet him, Rachel fluttering
and asking if the rower could swim.
‘I don’t know and I don’t care!’ Alwyn stormed. ‘The damned fool! He’ll never get back into the pram. His only chance is to hang on to it and yell for help.
And as they can’t reach him he’ll be there till dawn.’
No word betrayed the fact that he knew they were both working for the KGB. He sounded appalled at what they had let themselves in for just to do a kindness, and at the carelessness of idiots who
didn’t look behind them when they were rowing on a falling tide.
‘We’d better take him back to where he was,’ Rachel said to her companion.
At the moment I could see nothing attractive in her, strung tight with nerves as she was. She might be devastating in argument and a dark-eyed bit of excitement in bed; but if one did not
particularly want either, all that remained was a little woman like a tense wire rope.