The More Deceived Read Free

Special Branch.’
    Edward had come across Ferguson when he had been trying to retrieve Mrs Simpson’s letters and had then been commissioned by him to protect Lord Benyon on his recent trip to the United States.
    ‘You want something investigated? A crime?’
    ‘Not quite that. Have a cigarette? No? Well, you won’t mind if I do.’ Vansittart took a cigarette from a box on his desk and subsided once again into his chair. He was obviously finding it difficult to know where to start.
    ‘No crime has been committed, or at least none that I am aware of, but there has been a . . . a lapse in security.’
    ‘A foreign agent?’ Edward hazarded.
    ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ Vansittart said hurriedly. ‘Oh dear! I had better be explicit. I need hardly say that anything I tell you is confidential.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Well then, have you met Mr Churchill?’
    The question was so unexpected that Edward thought for a moment he had changed the subject but a glance at his face made it clear he had not. Through a cloud of smoke, Vansittart was peering at Edward and expecting a reply.
    ‘No, I never have.’
    ‘That’s good!’
    Edward looked puzzled. ‘I’m afraid I’m not following you, Sir Robert.’
    ‘No, of course you’re not. I just wanted to be sure you were not a friend of Mr Churchill’s because that would have made the investigation very difficult . . . if not impossible.’
    ‘I have never met Mr Churchill,’ Edward repeated.
    ‘You are, however, aware of his political opinions?’
    ‘On foreign affairs?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I know from what he writes in the newspapers that he believes Germany is building up an army and air force which we would have difficulty in withstanding in the event of a war. And, I must say, I am sure he is right.’
    ‘He is right in that, if in nothing much else,’ Vansittart concurred. ‘You do not have to be Talleyrand to see that Germany is a threat to the British Empire. As Mirabeau is reported to have said, “
La guerre est l’industrie nationale de la Prusse.
” The question is what to do about it. The government is rearming. We are doubling our expenditure on the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in the next two years.’
    ‘I am no expert, Sir Robert, but surely one must respond, “too little, too late”?’
    ‘What more can we do? We are already deeply in debt to the Americans. The government wishes to postpone war, if indeed it is inevitable, by negotiating with Germany – satisfying her legitimate demands and giving her no excuse for further aggression.’
    ‘I understand. My friend, Lord Benyon, has explained to me how close we are to bankruptcy but, if we give ourselves more time to arm, surely that gives Germany time to do the same? A fellow passenger on my recent trip to the United States was a German Jewish aeronautical engineer. Fortunately for us the Nazis had been stupid enough to hound him out of his job.’
    ‘Which was?’
    ‘To work on the new jet engines which would make every fighter we have obsolete. However, if we allow Hitler the time, they will be built.’
    ‘We too have jet engines in development,’ Vansittart said, ‘but, of course, there is something in what you say. In any case, as you know, it is not my task to make policy but to implement it.’
    Edward was aware that this remark was disingenuous. Sir Robert was not a man to leave policy-making to the politicians.
    ‘But no doubt you would like me to get to the point. It’s a delicate matter. To put it bluntly, confidential information concerning our defences – particularly our air defences – is being passed to persons unauthorized to receive it.’
    ‘You mean to a foreign power?’
    ‘No! – at least not as far as we know. The information is being passed to Mr Churchill. The figures he quotes in his newspaper articles and in debates in the House of Commons are uncannily accurate.’
    ‘So you think someone in the Foreign Office is giving him the ammunition to