Jack of Spies Read Free Page B

soldiers.
    There was a moment of hesitation before the older one extended a hand and took one. His partner happily followed his lead.
    “If I need to come up here again, I will get permission from army command,” McColl promised. “Now, is there a supply road back to town?”
    There was, and they were happy to show him where it started, on the other side of the emplacements. Walking past the latter, he took in the ferroconcrete installations, heavy steel cupolas, and lift-mounted searchlights. And the guns were new-looking 28-centimeter pieces, not the old 15-centimeter cannons on theAdmiralty list. “Our base seems well protected,” he said appreciatively.
    He thanked the soldiers, promised he wouldn’t mention the accidental discharge, and left them happily puffing on his cigarettes. He managed to cover a hundred yards or so before the urge to burst out laughing overcame him. Moments like that made life worth living.
    Fifteen minutes later he was skirting the wall of the barracks and entering the town. In the square in front of the station, a bunch of coolies were huddled over some sort of game, their rickshaws lined up in waiting for the next train. McColl walked the few blocks to Friedrichstrasse and wondered what to do with the rest of the day. Tsingtau in winter was worth a couple of days, and he’d been there for more than a week. Like an idiot he’d forgotten to bring any reading, and the two bookshops on Friedrichstrasse had nothing in English. A German book on his bedside table would rather give the game away.
    It occurred to him that the British consulate might have books to lend, and indeed they did. Just the one—a copy of
Great Expectations
some careless English tourist had left on the beach the previous summer. But the consul was out playing golf, and the English-speaking Chinese girl left in charge of His Majesty’s business was unwilling to let the salt-stained volume out of the building without his say-so. It took McColl fifteen minutes and no small measure of charm to change her mind. And all this, he thought bitterly, for a book he already knew the ending to.
    Still, Pip’s early travails kept him entertained for the rest of the morning and half the afternoon. He then ambled around the German and Chinese towns before dropping anchor in the bar of the Sailors’ Home down by the harbor. Through the window he could see the huge gray ships straining at their chains in the restless water.
    What would this fleet do if war were declared? It could hardly stay put, not with England’s ally Japan so close at hand, withships that outmatched and outnumbered the Germans’. No, if the East Asia Squadron weren’t already at sea when war broke out, then it soon would be. But sailing in which direction? For its home half the world away? If this was the intention, then whichever direction it took—west via the Cape of Good Hope or east around Cape Horn—there would be ten thousand miles and more to sail, with uncertain coal supplies and the knowledge that the whole British fleet would be waiting at the end of its journey, barring its passage across the North Sea. And what would be the point? More than five cruisers would be needed to tip the balance in home waters.
    If McColl were in charge, he knew what he’d do. He’d send the five ships off in five directions, set them loose on the seven oceans to mess with British trade. That, he knew, was the Admiralty’s nightmare. Each German ship could keep a British squadron busy for months, maybe even years, and that
might
tip the balance closer to home.
    Whether or not the Imperial Navy had such suicide missions in mind, neither he nor the Admiralty knew, and he doubted whether any of his current drinking companions did either. He bought beers for a couple of new arrivals, traded toasts in pidgin English to Kaiser and King, and eavesdropped on the conversations swirling around him. But no secrets were divulged, unless Franz’s fear that he had the French