Flight From Honour by Gavin Lyall

Germany.” Dagner stared at the table-top for a few moments more, then reached for his uniform jacket. “I’ve breathed all the air in here a dozen times already. I’m going for a walk. And you’re coming with me.”
    *        *        *
    They crossed the endless belt of honking traffic in Whitehall, went through the arch of the Horse Guards and on to the parade ground itself. This was the very heart of the Empire’s military and naval bureaucracy and Dagner’s uniform meant he was saluting in all directions, majors being mere groundlings in this theatre.
    The uniforms thinned out as they reached the edge of St James’s Park, its trees still green but now dulled with dust and rustling dryly as they waited for the collapse of autumn.
    “How many agents,” Dagner said abruptly, “do you know we have abroad at this moment?”
    Ranklin sorted his experience. “From the reports I’ve seen, we have one, I think permanently, in St Petersburg. And somebody in Cairo, and I think Germany, but I don’t know where.”
    “And that’s all?”
    “All I know of.” He felt he ought to say more. “Actually getting people on to our establishment, like O’Gilroy and myself and now the new boys, seems to be quite recent. Until now, I think what happened was that the Commander ran into a chap who’s interested in Intelligence and had some money of his own, gave him dinner at one of his clubs – and sent him off somewhere to look at something. He wasn’t paid or reimbursed from our funds, we didn’t see him in the office, we
may
see his report – if he doesn’t wind up in jail somewhere. Is he one of ours or not?”
    “I see. And that’s how the world-famous British Secret Service works.” Ranklin wasn’t imagining the bitterness any more than Dagner was hiding it. “Did it surprise you, too, when you joined?”
    “It did, rather.”
    Dagner stopped and looked back through the trees at the jumbled skyline of the Horse Guards and Whitehall. “There must be a dozen departments in those buildings, all with budgets and staffs bigger than us, and all doing damn-all but churn out paperwork for each other to file in the wrong place. And I learn that K at MO5 only got his majority last month – forgive me, Captain.” But Ranklin was just as gloomy that the head of the nation’s spy-catching service, currently codenamed MO5, was only one recent rank above himself.
    Dagner went on: “I grew up on legends of the British Secret. Invincible, all-pervasive . . . Well, I’ve learnt not to trust legends like that, but to find the whole
thing
was a myth until three years ago . . . In India we’ve been organised for decades. What happened before the Bureau was founded?”
    “The Army and Navy had – and still have – their own specialised Intelligence departments. The Navy looks at harbours and fleets, the Army at other armies. And the Foreign Office decides who are heroes and villains. I
think,”
Ranklin said tentatively, “the idea was that we needed a more catholic approach, someone to look at potential enemies’ industry and economy and financial strength, as well as just counting uniformed heads.”
    “That sounds sensible enough.”
    “Yes, only that’s where we come into direct conflict with the Foreign Office.”
    They had reached the Mall, wide and serene with no motor-buses and only a few of the more elegant cars among the horse-drawn cabs and carriages. Perhaps the view overlayed memories of the Foreign Office, because Dagner smiled and said: “Ah, this is more the London I remember . . . Wouldn’t it be more sensible if we came directly under the Prime Minister or Cabinet?”
    Ranklin wagged his head vaguely. “They probably think spying belongs in a cheap novel – as the FO does. After all, they
could
have started the Bureau ages ago if they’d wanted to.”
    Dagner’s frown was as brief as his smiles. “Yet in India, the Game was well respected – accepted as a part of policy.