Charlotte Gray Read Free Page A

to see what further national emergency could arise." Cannerley's voice took on a signalled languor.
    Morris did not blink.
    "I haven't played there since the spring. The wind was terrible. On one of the par threes I had to take a wood."
    The spoken assumption was that their games were as important as their work.
    Each thought he held some part of Britain in his hands. They lunched in clubs that flanked St. James's Street; they talked to politicians, serving officers and newspapermen-not reporters, but editors or proprietors.
    Cannerley had been put up for membership of two clubs by his father when he was still at Cambridge and had moved over their dim parquet and threadbare rugs with ease since he came down; he was bilingual at his father's insistence, having studied with a French tutor in the holidays from school and spent a year at university in Poitiers.
    At some stage in his education he had grasped, without exactly being taught it, the knowledge of what was right for his country. In the meetings of his department and in its dealings with other departments there was never any need to spell things out. Cannerley knew. Morris knew. Sir Oliver Cresswell, the head of the service, certainly knew.
    Morris had had to work harder than Cannerley to acquire this understanding. In his last year at Oxford he was surprised at his books by the Chaplain of the college, a gaunt man with grizzled silver hair. Despite his ascetic manner, the Chaplain was reputed to know 'people' in London; he had a collection of avant-garde French paintings and a bronze by Archipenko. In a college where publication by the fellows was viewed as vulgar, he had been in print three times: on Saint Augustine, on Jacob Epstein and on Greek ceramics. He had held the position of Chaplain at the British Embassy in Athens and had been briefly in Teheran. Morris at first believed the Chaplain was trying to recruit him to a homosexual prayer camp, but the Chaplain's meaning gradually became clear, by way of digressions into European political history and the integrity of British institutions. He talked about a time of coming national emergency and left Morris with a telephone number in Whitehall. This was fourteen years ago.
    "By the way," said Cannerley.
    "We've finally got a man into G Section."
    "That's marvelous. Who is it?"
    "It's some little Midlands crook called Fowler. He's not one of ours, he's one of theirs. He's already been in France twice, blundering about, blowing up trains, recruiting a lot of reluctant villains to the noble cause of Resistance."
    ' "Setting Europe ablaze", as the PM would have it." The drawling manner was not quite as natural to Morris as to Cannerley.
    "Exactly so. And completely buggering up our operations. Anyway, a little research by our chaps has shown that several of his Brummie businesses have serious Revenue failings. He was called in for a chat last week. We pointed out that the tax man might be very interested in a closer inspection of his books."
    "I see."
    "At this point he became most anxious to cooperate."
    "What's he going to do for us?"
    "Sir Oliver hasn't decided yet. Something simple but destructive. In France."
    "Destructive of what?"
    "I don't know yet." Cannerley looked suddenly worried. His manner became urgent.
    "Listen, Robin, I entered this business to do some good. That may sound awfully quaint to you. I don't want ... complications. Compromises. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes I think Sir Oliver-" But there was a noise as the door was slid back and Charlotte Gray reappeared. They went down the corridor Cannerley in front, Morris behind, like her bodyguards. The other compartments were all full: overhead lamps in their glass shades illuminated the laps on which books were held, many face-down as their owners' heads began to loll and jerk against the antimacassars. They had crossed the unseen Tyne and were in the frozen fields of the North Riding; there was a flash of Yorkshire ground beneath their feet as