Free Riptide (aka Bluffing Mr. Churchill) by John Lawton Page A

want everyone to hear?’
    ‘For God’s sake, Charlie – just tell me!’
    ‘It isn’t Hitler, it’s Hess.’
    ‘Hess?’
    ‘Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess. He took off from Germany late on Saturday in a Messerschmitt and baled out over Scotland around midnight. He was picked up at once and – you
won’t believe this – he asked for the Duke of Hamilton.’
    ‘Hamilton? Hess? Picked up? By whom?’
    ‘The Home Guard.’
    Reggie was only seconds away from forswearing champagne for ever. He’d certainly think twice before finishing the day with a cheese sandwich again.
    ‘The Home Guard? The Home bloody Guard?! What did they do?’
    ‘Well . . . they sent for Hamilton actually.’
    ‘I don’t believe it. I do not bloody believe it!’
    ‘You’d better. It’s completely pukkah. And you’d better get dressed too. It’s past nine and McKendrick wants to see us in thirty minutes. He sent me over to get
you. He doesn’t trust the phone at all where this is concerned.’
    McKendrick was Gordon McKendrick, an Argyll and Sutherland Brigadier in a plain-clothes world where rank was all but invisible next to power – Reggie and Charlie answered to McKendrick,
McKendrick answered to Churchill.
    It was a fifteen-minute walk to McKendrick’s office in Broadway – all the same they took a cab, across Trafalgar Square, along the bottom end of St James’ Park and up Birdcage
Walk into that corner of London that was inescapably Royal, military and, occasionally, secret. Palaces, barracks and spooks. Reggie sat in the back still fiddling with his collar studs and
cufflinks, and still muttering, ‘I don’t bloody believe it’, more to himself than to Charlie.
    McKendrick looked as though he had lost a night’s sleep – while Reggie had slept and snored and dreamed, Gordon had worked – his eyes watery, his little white moustache looking
droopy, every vein in his large hands standing out as he locked them together on his desk. He spoke quietly in his soft Highland accent, as though he were trying not to wake someone in the next
room. But that was Gordon’s manner – he had long seemed to Reggie to subscribe to Teddy Roosevelt’s dictum ‘speak softly and carry a big stick.’
    ‘It turns out that Hamilton had met Hess at some do or other in Germany. He’s positive the man is Rudolf Hess, not some imposter or doppelgänger . And he is, to put it
mildly, somewhat annoyed that Hess should think he’d have any pro-Nazi sympathies whatsoever. He got through to the Foreign Office yesterday afternoon. So happens the Prime Minister’s
Private Secretary Jock Colville was there at the time. The FO put Hamilton onto Jock, and Jock relayed the message straight to the PM down in Dytchley. I gather the PM was rather cool about the
whole matter. Told Jock to get Hamilton flown down as soon as possible and he’d see him there. In the meantime he’d got a new Marx Brothers film he wanted to watch, and he wasn’t
going to let any Hess, real or fake, make him miss it.’
    ‘Oh really,’ said Reggie. ‘They’re awfully good. Is there a new one?’
    McKendrick unlocked his hands, pinched the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes and ignored the question.
    ‘Hamilton and the PM are on their way up to London now. Later today the Foreign Office are sending Ivone Kirkpatrick up to Scotland to interrogate Hess. Kirkpatrick also met him in Berlin,
so he can further identify Hess or not as the case may be. Hamilton’ll go with him. This is where you two come in. You’re to follow Kirkpatrick and watch. Do not tread on the FO’s
toes, just listen to everything that’s said and be ready to step in when they get nowhere. Personally I think Hess will run circles round them, and the PM is of like mind. However protocol is
being observed. We will give them their chance. But be ready – think of yourselves as . . . the watchers. Better still, the guardians. We’ll use “guardians” as your codename
if necessary. Hess