The Secret War

DENNIS WHEATLEY

For
ANTHONY

Introduction

Chapter I Anthony Lovelace Hears of the Millers of God

Chapter II Murder?

Chapter III Valerie Lorne Takes a Hand

Chapter IV The Romance of a Queen

Chapter V The Intricate Web

Chapter VI The Opening of the Campaign

Chapter VII Into the Lion's Den

Chapter VIII Love and Loyalties

Chapter IX A Suicidal Plan

Chapter X The House on the Edge of the Desert

Chapter XI The Bluff that Failed

Chapter XII In the Cistern

Chapter XIII The Enemy Strikes Back

Chapter XIV Out of the Past

Chapter XV Abu Ben Ibrim Entertains

Chapter XVI The Hawk and the Sparrow

Chapter XVII The Land of Satan's Children

Chapter XVIII Dolomenchi of the Death Squadron

Chapter XIX The Secret of the Second Nile

Chapter XX The Last Black Empire

Chapter XXI The Flowering of the Passion Vine

Chapter XXII The King of Kings Goes By

Chapter XXIII Preparations to Kill and Run

Chapter XXIV “The Mills of God Grind Slowly …”

A Note on the Author

Dennis Wheatley was my grandfather. He only had one child, my father Anthony, from his first marriage to Nancy Robinson. Nancy was the youngest in a large family of ten Robinson children and she had a wonderful zest for life and a gaiety about her that I much admired as a boy brought up in the dull Seventies. Thinking about it now, I suspect that I was drawn to a young Ginny Hewett, a similarly bubbly character, and now my wife of 27 years, because she resembled Nancy in many ways.

As grandparents, Dennis and Nancy were very different. Nancy's visits would fill the house with laughter and mischievous gossip, while Dennis and his second wife Joan would descend like minor royalty, all children expected to behave. Each held court in their own way but Dennis was the famous one with the famous friends and the famous stories.

There is something of the fantasist in every storyteller, and most novelists writing thrillers see themselves in their heroes. However, only a handful can claim to have been involved in actual daring-do. Dennis saw action both at the Front, in the First World War, and behind a desk in the Second. His involvement informed his writing and his stories, even those based on historical events, held a notable veracity that only the life-experienced novelist can obtain. I think it was this element that added the important plausibility to his writing. This appealed to his legions of readers who were in that middle ground of fiction, not looking for pure fantasy nor dry fact, but something exciting, extraordinary, possible and even probable.

There were three key characters that Dennis created over the years: The Duc de Richleau, Gregory Sallust and Roger Brook. The first de Richleau stories were set in the years between the wars, when Dennis had started writing. Many of the Sallust stories were written in the early days of the Second World War, shortly before Dennis joined the Joint Planning Staff in Whitehall, and Brook was cast in the time of the French Revolution, a period that particularly fascinated him.

He is probably always going to be associated with Black Magic first and foremost, and it's true that he plugged it hard because sales were always good for those books. However, it's important to remember that he only wrote eleven Black Magic novels out of more than sixty bestsellers, and readers were just as keen on his other stories. In fact, invariably when I meet people who ask if there is any connection, they tell me that they read ‘all his books'.

Dennis had a full and eventful life, even by the standards of the era he grew up in. He was expelled from Dulwich College and sent to a floating navel run school, HMS Worcester. The conditions on this extraordinary ship were Dickensian. He survived it, and briefly enjoyed London at the pinnacle of the Empire before war was declared and the fun ended. That sort of fun would never be seen again.

He went into business after the First World War, succeeded and failed, and stumbled into writing. It proved to be his calling. Immediate success opened up the opportunity to read and travel, fueling yet more stories and thrilling his growing band of followers.

He had an extraordinary World War II, being one of the first people to be recruited into the select team which dreamed up the deception plans to cover some of the major events of the war such as Operation Torch, Operation Mincemeat and the D-Day landings. Here he became familiar with not only the people at the very top of the war effort, but also a young Commander Ian Fleming, who was later to write the James Bond novels. There are indeed those who have suggested that Gregory Sallust was one of James Bond's precursors.

The aftermath of the war saw Dennis grow in stature and fame. He settled in his beautiful Georgian house in Lymington surrounded by beautiful things. He knew how to live well, perhaps without regard for his health. He hated exercise, smoked, drank and wrote. Today he would have been bullied by wife and children and friends into giving up these habits and changing his lifestyle, but I'm not sure he would have given in. Maybe like me, he would simply find a quiet place.

Dominic Wheatley, 2013

“War,” declared Christopher Penn, “is the most terrible of all evils. Pestilence and Famine are natural ills which civilisation is gradually bringing under its control. Fire and Tempest, Earthquake and Flood—they at least are short-lived localised horrors which it's impossible to prevent. But War is man-made. It's a wilful, inexcusable act of barbarity. It entails the committal of mass-murder, mass-mutilation and every other crime in the calendar, by one set of normally peace-loving people against another. Nothing—nothing, I say, is too terrible a punishment for those who set it in motion.”

The two other men at the table—fair, fat, red-faced Billy Van Der Meer, and grey-headed Hythe Cassel—were silent for a moment; they were a little taken aback by this unusual vehemence in the slim, frail-looking young man opposite them. His pale face was ascetically handsome, with features as clear cut as a cameo, and its natural pallor was in striking contrast to the jet-black hair above his high forehead.

Van Der Meer shrugged his broad shoulders. “Well, I don't see what you can do about it, Penn. There always has been war in the world and it looks as if there always will be.”

“Nonsense!” expostulated Cassel. “Two hundred years ago people said the same about duelling, but public opinion condemned it, so duelling, or private war, was stamped out. Nowadays, public opinion
has advanced to a stage where it condemns national war, so why shouldn't that be stamped out too? This Italian invasion of Abyssinia is sheer unprovoked aggression.”

The war in North-East Africa had already been raging for six months. Ever since the Wal-Wal incident Mussolini had been massing men and material in Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. All through the previous summer he had parleyed with the bickering League, outmanœuvring the anxious diplomats at every turn. In the autumn he had withdrawn Italy's representatives from the Assembly and, contemptuous of world opinion, marched into Abyssinia without even a formal declaration of hostilities. He was “adjusting his frontiers” he said, and quite a lot of people were exceedingly worried as to where he would ultimately decide that the frontiers of Italy's African possessions should be. Some thought that the modern Cæsar would not be satisfied until the whole of North Africa was again a Roman province; others, experienced in hill fighting against hardy tribesmen in hideously difficult country, that he had burnt his fingers and would never reach Magdala, let alone Addis Ababa. Yet by the spring he had avenged Adowa, captured the sacred city of Aksum, and his legions were steadily advancing into the interior, building solid motor roads for their supporting artillery and supply columns behind them as they went. The problem still uppermost in the minds of most thinking people was, what would be the final issue of the campaign and would the dilatory League come to the assistance of the Abyssinian Emperor in some really practical manner.

Thin-faced, grey-haired Hythe Cassel; castigating the Italians for their attack upon a free people, as he sat with his friends, young Christopher Penn and red-faced Billy Van Der Meer, had voiced the opinion of many.

As he spoke, a newcomer entered the room in the Union Club where the three were talking: a tall,
soldierly figure, brown-haired, his temples just touched with grey, brown-eyed, thin-nosed, with a small up-combed moustache making a dark line above his tight mouth and long chin. He was an Englishman and only an honorary member of the Club for the short period of his stay in New York. He did not know many of the men who were sitting or standing about the big room, but he was aware that they were not of the type who make spectacular money overnight and drop it again next morning. Most of them came from families who had governed the destinies of the United States for several generations, and approximated very closely to the landed gentry of Great Britain. Quiet, exclusive, travelled, very sure of themselves, they were of the class that makes its spirit felt, at any crisis, in the best interest of their nation.

Christopher Penn caught sight of the newcomer and beckoned. “Come and join us, Lovelace. We're talking Abyssinia and you know the country.”

“Thanks.” Sir Anthony Lovelace had met the young American, casually, on only two previous occasions, but Penn's strangely beautiful face had aroused his interest. He was introduced to the other two, and sat down, stretching out his long legs. “Don't know,” he went on, “that I can tell you much about Abyssinia, though. I wasn't there for long. Only on a visit to see the Emperor's coronation in 1930.”

“I was just saying,” Cassel began, “that the League of Nations ought to enforce sanctions to their fullest possible extent, so as to put an end to this senseless slaughter.”

“The League!” Van Der Meer's plump face held an expression of disgust. “What's the good of the League, anyhow? There are seven major powers—the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Italy and Japan. For all practical purposes in this dispute only three of them, Britain, France and Russia, are in the League. All talk of collective security is just hot-air
so long as four of the seven big boys remain outside the ring.”

“You're wrong!” Cassel was protesting hotly. “Even a weak League is better than no League at all. It's still the only international instrument for the maintenance of peace. Even with ourselves, Germany and Japan outside it, the League is strong enough to smash Mussolini and restore peace if it really wanted to.”

“That'd mean revolution in Italy, though,” Lovelace said slowly, “and there are a lot of people who would hate to see a Bolshevik state in the middle of the Mediterranean.”

“Hi! Steward!” Cassel caught the attention of a passing waiter. “What will you drink, Sir Anthony?”

“A dry sherry, please.” Lovelace hunched his lean figure in the chair and pulled out an ancient pipe.

Cassel gave the order. “I've nothing against Mussolini personally,” he said, “and no one wants revolution anywhere, but such considerations should not be allowed to affect the high purpose of the League. The tragedy is that members of the League betray it whenever it suits their own ends best to do so. France wants to keep Mussolini in power, and so she's put every difficulty in the way of applying sanctions that she possibly could.”

“Well, you can't say that of Britain, although it wouldn't suit us to have Italy go Red.”

“On the contrary, Britain's playing her own hand every bit as much. She's only backing the League this time because she doesn't want Italy to have Abyssinia.”