The Age of Exodus Page 10

  “There are some who take the view,” said Forrester, “that it would be better for us to give up the mandate and hand the whole thing over to the United Nations.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m hoping will happen,” said Eban. “There’s no guarantee the UN will support the idea of a Jewish state either, but I’d rather take our chances there than rely on the British government.”

  “Good for you, mate,” said a voice behind Forrester, and there once again was the huge Australian. “It’s all right, cobber,” said Billy Burke, putting a massive hand on Forrester’s shoulder. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Were you looking for me earlier on?”

  “I thought you were someone else,” said Forrester.

  “No,” said Burke cheerfully. “I was just me.” But his hand remained where it was, and Forrester was acutely conscious of the two-hundred foot drop to the churning wake and the dark waters of the Atlantic. Then the ship rolled again and suddenly only the Australian’s grip was keeping him from sliding over the rail. That and the fact that Forrester’s right hand was holding firmly to Burke’s forearm. He used it to pivot himself to the man’s left, and suddenly he was standing a yard away, looking at both men, ready for their next move. They stared at him curiously.

  “We should move away from here,” Forrester said, forcing himself to keep his voice calm. “I don’t think a lifebelt would be much use in that sea.”

  There was a pause.

  “You’re right,” said Aubrey Eban. “We should go inside.”

  “Yeah,” said Billy Burke. “Why not?”

  * * *

  They adjourned to one of the lounges, where Burke made it clear he disapproved of British policy in Palestine almost as much as Aubrey Eban did, and as the beers went down revealed that, whatever the Australian government’s policy, as far as he was concerned the sooner the Jews got their homeland the better. He also took the opportunity to tell Forrester what a ratbag Jack Casement was, and to explain in some detail how during the Depression Casement had conned him into investing in an aircraft factory just before a major government contract had been cancelled, effectively ruining him.

  “If I had my way,” he said, “I’d have his guts for garters.”

  As much to calm him down as anything, Forrester asked where he came from in Australia, and Burke’s expression softened. “The Blue Mountains, mate. Great towering cliffs and valleys full of eucalypts and waterfalls. What the Garden of Eden would’ve been like, if God had had the money. And the echoes! You never heard echoes like them.” And suddenly he was declaiming Banjo Paterson’s famous lines:

  “And down by Kosciusko, where the pine-clad ridges raise

  Their torn and rugged battlements on high…”

  He took another mouthful of beer.

  “The man from Snowy River is a household word today,

  And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.”

  “You should have seen me age ten yelling that from the top of a cliff in the middle of the Bluies and sending model aeroplanes off to ride the thermals. That’s where I fell in love with flying.” He turned to Forrester and grinned. “If I’d known what a cut-throat business it was building real bloody planes, I’d never have gone into it.”

  And suddenly Forrester could see before him that bright-eyed outback boy, his planes and his poetry soaring away into the blue, his eyes bright with the promise of the future.

  Several people, including Thornham and Priestley, had begun looking their way as the Australian had begun to declaim his poetry and Forrester chose the moment to walk over to where the two Foreign Office men were sitting with an elderly man with a jaundiced complexion and a big blond moon-faced character who couldn’t have looked more Dutch if he’d been wearing clogs.

  “Forrester, old man,” said Priestley. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Archaeological conference,” said Forrester, and trotted out his cover story.

  “This is Dr. Nicholas Van Houts,” said Thornham, indicating the older man, “formerly governor of Dutch Sumatra, and Jan Loppersum, formerly captain of the tug Isabella of Ghent. Now both with the Dutch diplomatic mission to the United Nations.”

  “Didn’t I read something about the Isabella during the war?” said Forrester. “Weren’t you the people who brought in that wheat ship? The one that was on fire?”

  Loppersum looked surprised. “I thought no one remembered that.”

  “Oh, it was in all the papers while I was home on leave,” said Forrester. “You did a fantastic job.”

  “There was never any time to read the papers,” said Loppersum, shrugging. “As soon as we got back to port, the Admiralty sent us out again.”

  “Loppersum is a hero,” said Nicholas Van Houts. “Everyone in Holland is very proud of him.”

  “And of the other captains,” said Loppersum. “I was only one of many.”

  Forrester knew just how heroic those Dutch tugboat men had been. They had escaped from Holland with their sturdy little boats as the Germans invaded, and immediately offered their services to the British Navy. Their reward had been possibly one of the most dangerous unarmed naval duties of the war – being sent out among the U-boat packs into the Western Approaches to bring back torpedoed cargo ships that hadn’t yet sunk. Scores of badly damaged merchant vessels had been brought into port with much-needed supplies of American food and war materiel because the Dutch tugboats had managed to attach towlines and drag them back. They had saved countless cargoes and crews – but only at immense cost to themselves, because as the convoys vanished over the horizon the slow-moving tugs became prime targets for German U-Boats.

  On one of these missions, the crew of the tug Isabella of Ghent had gone aboard a blazing freighter they were towing in order to extinguish a ferocious fire in a cargo of wheat, which they had then brought safely home. Forrester discussed the feat for a moment, and then, in politeness, asked Loppersum’s older colleague Van Houts about his experiences as the governor of Sumatra before the Japanese invasion.

  “It must be infuriating that the Jewish settlers refuse to regard you as their legitimate colonial masters,” said Loppersum, and as he glanced across Forrester thought he caught the ghost of a wink. Doubtless his experience as an independent tugboat skipper being ordered about by the Royal Navy had given him a slightly jaundiced view of the British establishment.

  “Well, it is true,” said Priestley, “that the Arabs seem to accord us the kind of respect Jews are reluctant to give.”

  “You mean the Arabs are suitably deferential, and the Jews stand up for themselves,” said Loppersum.

  “The Jews,” said Thornham, “are a bloody nuisance.” He paused as if remembering that he was, after all, a diplomat, and added, “But if I were in their position, I probably would be too.”

  “Anyway,” said Van Houts, “I think Britain would be very wise to hand the predicament over to the United Nations and let the international community sort it out.”

  “The problem is,” said Priestley, “that in the meantime British troops have to hold the ring. And are being murdered daily doing it.”

  “I bet you wish Colonel Lawrence had never gone to Arabia,” said a voice, and Forrester turned to see Gillian. Before any of the diplomats could think of a suitable response, she put her hand on Forrester’s arm. “I came to ask if you’ll take me to the pictures, Duncan. There’s a film I rather want to see.”

  So Forrester, secretly relieved to be able to slide away from a conversation which threatened to become acrimonious, took her to one of the ship’s cinemas, where they watched a charming new Ealing comedy called Hue and Cry, starring Alastair Sim, and for the next eighty minutes Forrester forgot all about Charles Templar, Ernest Bevin and Palestine and sat back to enjoy a light-hearted adventure about stolen fur coats, culminating in a glorious finale where hundreds of children, aided and abetted by an announcer on the BBC, raced from all over London to catch the thieves.

  “That was fun,” said Gillian as they
left.

  “Oh, how I loathe adventurous-minded boys,” said Forrester in the lugubrious tones of Alastair Sim, and Gillian laughed. She had a lovely laugh.

  “Are you allowed to have women in your cabin?” said Gillian.

  “Have in what sense?” asked Forrester, and wished he hadn’t.

  “In any sense you like,” said Gillian. “Let’s go and see if there are any notices pinned up telling us exactly what we can and can’t get up to.”

  So they did.

  As they reached the cabin Forrester glanced down the corridor to see a woman staring at them from the far end. It was Theresa Palmer.

  “Are you going to open the door?” said Gillian, and Forrester remembered where he was, turned away from the woman and took out his key.

  “Gosh,” said Gillian, as the cabin door closed behind them. “So this is how the other half live.”

  “You are the other half,” said Forrester, who had spent time on the Lytton estate at Cranbourne.

  “Not anymore,” said Gillian. “Land rich and cash poor we are these days, thanks to your crowd.” And then she kissed him.

  He had been determined to resist, to make it gently clear that he liked her, liked her a lot, but because of the weight of the past they could only be friends. And then he felt the softness of her lips against his and suddenly they were on the sofa, in each other’s arms. They sat for a long time, kissing, and then she pulled away from him and looked him in the eyes, and at last shook her head.

  “You’re not ready yet, are you?” Forrester did not reply. “You’re crazy,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “It’s a self-inflicted wound.”

  “Not entirely self-inflicted.”

  “No, not entirely,” she acknowledged. “But you don’t know what you’re turning down.”

  “I’m not turning anything down. I’m just…” and his voice trailed away. What the hell was he doing? She reached out and touched his face.

  “Poor Duncan,” she said. “Caught between past and present, like a butterfly on a pin. Poor Gillian, on the same bloody pin.”

  “You shouldn’t be. You’re too young and too lovely,” said Forrester. “So damn lovely.”

  “Then do something about it, you fool,” said Gillian, and in answer Forrester leant his forehead against hers and let out a long breath.

  “Believe me, Gilly,” he said. “I would if I could. But I just bloody well can’t.” She stood up then, poured herself a drink and sat in one of the armchairs, looking at him over the rim of the glass.

  “You remind me of the Isle of Skye,” she said.

  “Should I be flattered or alarmed?” said Forrester.

  “Mummy and Daddy took us up to Scotland one year and we were going to go over there, but there was a deep depression over the Atlantic or something and the sea got up and we couldn’t. We just sat there in the car, looking at it over the waves.”

  “Speed, bonnie boat,” said Forrester automatically.

  “Like a bird on the wing,” said Gillian. “Only we never did. That’s why you remind me of Skye.” There was a silence while they both thought about the words.

  Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,

  Onward! the sailors cry;

  Carry the lad that’s born to be King

  Over the sea to Skye

  “All right,” said Gillian at last. “Let’s talk about something else. All the murderers, for example.”

  “The murderers?”

  “Well,” said Gillian, “all the suspects, anyway. The ship seems to be full of them, doesn’t it?”

  Forrester laughed. “That depends whether there is any link between what happened to Charles Templar and what almost happened to Ernie Bevin. Or might happen to Ernie Bevin.”

  “And is there?”

  “I’ve no idea. Templar worked in the Foreign Office. Ernest Bevin is Foreign Secretary. That’s the only link I’m aware of.”

  “What about the suspects? Are any of them connected to both men?”

  “Jack Casement is connected to Templar because he’d been making love to his wife, but apart from the fact that he is on the same boat as Bevin, the link between them isn’t obvious.”

  “Except that during the war Ernie Bevin was providing all the labour for Jack Casement’s factories, wasn’t he?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” said Forrester. “But of course you’re right. Bevin was in charge of all civilian workers in Britain during the war, and Casement employed a good many of them. But I’ve never heard of any conflict between them, and I assume Bevin gave Casement all the workers he needed or we wouldn’t have won the war.”

  “But that doesn’t mean that they never clashed, and Sir Jack is famous for his temper.”

  Forrester thought about what Bell had said at Scotland Yard, about the head injury and the violent outbursts.

  “Point taken. But being prone to violent outbursts doesn’t seem to square with hiring a bunch of gunmen to shoot up the Foreign Secretary’s car.”

  “Perhaps not, but it seems to fit in awfully well with getting rid of your mistress’s husband by killing him in the British Museum.” There was a pause.

  “Listen,” said Forrester. “I don’t want to spook you, but I had an odd conversation with a woman at my table tonight,” and he told her about Theresa Palmer and her warning.

  “She’s a perceptive woman,” said Gillian. “Sir Jack certainly did make me feel uncomfortable. I don’t know that he wishes me harm, though. Well, depending how you define harm. I’ve made it pretty clear to him he’s barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Good,” said Forrester.

  Gillian pulled a face. “Tell me about this Palmer woman. Is she just a concerned onlooker?”

  “That’s what I’ve been asking myself,” said Forrester, and explained.

  “You think she hypnotised you to think you were seeing this Aleister Crowley?”

  “Either that or she glanced at the door, thought she saw Crowley herself, and inadvertently put the same thought in my head.”

  “Why would she think that? Might he be on the ship?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Have you checked the passenger list?”

  “Yes,” said Forrester. “And he’s not there.”

  “And you think this woman might be a follower of Aleister Crowley?”

  “I don’t know that she’s a follower. It just flashed into my mind, because of her interest in the occult. But even assuming she is, what would that gang have against the Foreign Secretary?”

  “Does Israel play any part in their mythology? Might there be some strange prophecy in the Book of Revelation that they’re trying to bring about – or prevent?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that either,” said Forrester.

  “Well, it’s lucky I’m here then, isn’t it?”

  He considered for a moment. “Tel Megiddo.”

  “Tel Megiddo?”

  “The real name of the place referred to in the King James version of the Bible as Armageddon. I’m just bringing that up as the kind of thing that might be a link between a bunch of occultists and the future of Palestine.”

  Gillian’s eyes brightened. “So what if Templar had got onto something like that and they did away with him to prevent him passing on what he’d discovered? With the cylinder seal as the clue?”

  “Hmmm,” said Forrester. “Interesting theory. But it sounds a bit elaborate to me.”

  “That’s only because you didn’t come up with it yourself. What about that big Australian? He obviously thinks that Casement did him down in some deal before the war.”

  “He does,” said Forrester, “and if Casement turns up dead before we get to New York I would certainly want to ask Mr. Burke a few questions. But I can’t see any connection between him and either the Foreign Office or what happened to Charles Templar.” Even as he said these words, however, Forrester realised they weren’t true. Billy Burke was now an Australian diplomat an
d had made his sympathies for the Zionists clear. He was on his way to the United Nations, where the issue would be discussed. And was it coincidence that he had turned up at the stern rail while Forrester was talking to Aubrey Eban?

  “All right,” said Gillian. “We have to keep him on the list though, don’t we? And your pal Aubrey Eban, of course, though when I saw him he looked rather plump and scholarly to be an assassin.”

  “The odd thing is,” said Forrester, “that despite being a passionate believer in carving a homeland for the Jews out of Palestine, he’s a great admirer of Arab culture.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” said Gillian. “There don’t seem to be many people like that. What about those two Foreign Office people you were talking to?”

  “There’s a lot more than two,” said Forrester. “Bevin’s got an entourage of about fifteen, to say nothing of Lanchester and whatever other security he’s brought aboard.”

  “I mean the ones who were involved with Charles Templar,” said Gillian. “The fat one and the thin one who looks like Leslie Howard. Thornberry and Priestman or whatever they’re called.”

  “Richard Thornham and Crispin Priestley. Yes, but I haven’t had much time to talk to them in depth,” said Forrester, suddenly weary. “I’ve been too busy dealing with importunate women.”

  Gillian took an olive out of the bowl on the table beside her and threw it at Forrester, who caught it and ate it.

  “You’re a bastard,” she said.

  “Not really,” said Forrester. “But I sometimes wish I were.”

  10

  FOG ON THE ATLANTIC RUN

  At three pm on Wednesday afternoon, Crispin Priestley stood below the huge wood veneer map of the Atlantic, watching, as a tiny electrically illuminated model of the Queen Mary moved almost imperceptibly from east to west along a long groove running through the huge inlaid mural. A stylised moon shone down from the upper left corner of the map and the rays of a golden sun beamed northward from the lower right. The towers and domes of an idealised European city lay over Europe; inlaid images of bridges and skyscrapers glowed on the map of America. Altogether, it was an exhilarating sight, and Priestley seemed absorbed in it.