Free A Bitter Field by Jack Ludlow Page A

it was getting the boxes out of the barge hold that constituted the toil, which was carried out stripped to thewaist, took all night and left the two Brits and their companions with sweat-soaked bodies and aching muscles.
    When it was finally empty they and the Basques went aboard the ship, the latter disappearing to the crew quarters while Cal went to talk to the captain, returning to say that he had arranged that they should be taken into land down the coast by the ship’s motor boat the following day. He could then allow the barge to cast off and return to the canal system and its home berth, not a problem now that it was empty.
    As the engines of the freighter began to throb through the ship and the anchor chain rattled aboard, Peter had first dibs at getting properly washed and shaved, Cal doing likewise using kit he had borrowed. By the time they cleared the outer roads they were tucking into what Peter called a proper breakfast in the master’s cabin: eggs, bacon and sausages and toast, with a mug of strong tea.
    ‘None of that French muck,’ he insisted. ‘No wonder they get so fractious with each other when they start the day on nothing but bread and bloody jam. You can’t think straight on a rumbling stomach, old boy.’
    That consumed and it being the beginning of another hot day, it was two deck loungers on the shaded side of the main housing and some very welcome sleep.
     
    They were still on deck and awake, sipping gin and tonics and with the sun now dipping into the western horizon, when they turned to the subject closest to Peter’s heart: the recruitment of Cal to work in Czechoslovakia, a request to which he was sure he had more than qualified for an answer, while the man in question still had doubts about that, as well as other matters.
    ‘It might be best to tell me what it is you want and it would also be helpful to know what it is you are trying to achieve.’
    The response from someone normally so unruffled bordered on the impatient. ‘I take it that is a yes, old boy?’
    ‘No, Peter, it’s a bloody question. Who is running this and why? Next question, what is wrong with using your own people?’
    Peter stood up and went to the deck rail to look out over the sparkling waters of the Bay of Biscay, which reflected in the depth of their blue the colour of the sky, taking out another gasper and lighting up, drawing slowly several times and exhaling clouds of spent smoke. Cal wondered if he was really thinking or play-acting, increasing the tension in order to make more dramatic what he was going to say.
    ‘If you repeat what I am about to say to you, I will probably be chucked out on my ear or slung into Brixton for a breach of the Official Secrets Act.’
    Then he spun round to give Cal the kind of look that made sure he knew what he had just said was serious. ‘The word from on high – not, I might add, on any piece of paper anyone has ever clapped eyes on – is that Britain will not even contemplate going to war over the Sudetenland, and if we don’t budge the French won’t either.’
    ‘They have a treaty with the Czechs.’
    ‘They won’t honour it without the backing of Perfidious Albion and that’s not likely to be on offer.’
    ‘Not even if it could be proved to be a mistake.’
    ‘Of course it’s a bloody mistake and I don’t need you to tell me that!’
    ‘Sorry, but that does not answer either part of my question.’
    ‘Needless to say there are folk in SIS who do not see my return in a wholly benign light, given what I got up to just prior to being called back in.’
    He was not talking about Ethiopia but London. A couple of serving SIS operatives, either for money or conviction, one a pilot, the other a navigator, had helped to purchase a plane and had then flown a semi-exiled General Franco from the Azores to Morocco so he could take part in the senior officers’ revolt.
    It was a moot point if the rebellion would have been as successful without that intervention,