I WAS MONTY’S DOUBLE Read online

  “Very well, I’ll have to see him at once and ask him.”

  That same evening, he went down to the South Coast and had a strange conversation with the General which went something like this.

  Col. Lester: “I’m sorry to trouble you, sir, but what do you eat?

  Monty: What do you mean, what do I eat?

  Col. Lester: When James impersonates you he’ll have to eat just what you do. Are there any peculiarities in your diet?

  Monty: Certainly not. I don’t eat meat, I don’t eat fish, and I take no milk or sugar with my porridge. That’s all.

  Chapter XI

  A FEARFUL DILEMMA

  I heard all this next morning when we had our final rehearsals. The time for action was getting very near now and when Jack and Stephen took me out for lunch I noticed that they shepherded me across the road crossings as if I were Royalty. With only a few hours to go it would have been disastrous to let me get run over. In the bar of the Berkeley Hotel they did their best to keep me cheerful, which was not so easy considering that I had to drink ginger ale without even a cigarette to console me.

  Peter Cheyney came in and I wondered what he would have thought had he known what ‘copy’ was standing there within a few feet of him.

  Appearances are often very deceptive. During lunch I remember noticing a slovenly-looking officer who was drooping over the back of a chair talking to a girL

  “What a wet-looking bloke,” I said. “I wonder how he got a commission.”

  Stephen replied: “He’s just come back after his fifth parachute drop in Northern Italy. He speaks six languages and works with the Resistance Movement. He’s one of the bravest chaps I know.”

  Since then I have made it a rule never to criticise anyone in uniform. You just can’t tell unless you happen to know a man intimately.

  Our rehearsal room was crowded when we returned to it after lunch. Besides the Secret Service people and my two aides, I found two Army officers and a civilian. A screen had been put up at the end of the room and beside it stood a camera on a stand.

  “This is our last rehearsal,” Colonel Lester said. “It’s the Dress Rehearsal. Behind the screen you’ll find your uniform, and when you’re ready we’re going to have some photos taken. Mr. Churchill wants to see them.”

  I went behind the screen and saw a table, a chair, a tall mirror, and hanging over the back of another chair a full General’s battle-dress with a black beret and a fleece-lined leather jacket.

  As I sat down and studied my face in the mirror, a scared creature who looked about as much like a successful General as a hypnotized rabbit stared back at me, and I was overcome by the worst fit of stage-fright I had had yet.

  I don’t know how long I sat there before professional pride began to come to my rescue. I studied my face again and saw that I needed hardly any make-up at all. Just a touch of grease-paint to grey my temples. I trimmed my moustache almost to vanishing point, brushed up my eyebrows to make them bristle, then put on the uniform with its five rows of ribbons and the gold chain from pocket to pocket.

  There is an old saying in the Theatre: “Once you get your make-up on, it will all come to you.” Adjusting the black beret with its badge of the Armoured Corps, I looked at my reflection again and all my self-confidence came back with a rush. With my hands clasped behind my back, I drew a deep breath and came out from behind the screen.

  I don’t suppose any actor has had a more nerve-racking audition. Eight pairs of eyes studied me in dead silence; then there was a sort of gasp as each man turned away to hide his feelings. I knew that I had made a hit.

  Colonel Lester, whose face expressed intense relief, posed me for several photographs, and after the photographer had gone he began to give me my final instructions.

  “When you leave Government House you will be driven to the airport, sitting beside the Governor. On arrival there you will find all the Top Brass drawn up to see you off. This is much the same pattern as before, but now there is something additional.”

  He gave me a wintry smile. “You may remember that I have warned you once or twice about the necessity of keeping your mouth shut. Well, at this point you have got to forget this and open it as wide as you like. You’ve got to give the impression of having swallowed a dose of the Truth Drug, though what you say must of course be the purest invention. There’s a good reason for this. By now every enemy agent in Gib. will have heard of your visit and will be there to see you leave.

  “So get out of your car and throw your weight about as if you were giving last instructions in secret. Don’t be afraid to let yourself go. Take Sir Ralph by the arm and draw him apart. Be madly indiscreet, but try to make it plausible. Mention the War Cabinet and Secret Plans. Talk to him earnestly as if you were so intent on impressing last-minute instructions on his mind that you were oblivious of the danger of being overheard.

  “And don’t forget to give everyone a good look at you. Walk up and down with him as if absorbed in vital conversation. Change your manner occasionally. Point to certain parts of the harbour as if you had noticed changes since your last visit to the Rock. Remind him of past incidents. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Right. After you have taken off from Gibraltar the Brigadier will give you your instructions for the next scene. Gib. isn’t the only place you’re bound for. You’ll be travelling all through the Middle East.”

  We rehearsed my departure from Gib. and then I changed back into my own uniform.

  Colonel Lester seemed satisfied. “We’ve got over most of our hurdles for the time being,” he said. “All I want you to do now is to relax. Take it easy for a bit. Don’t worry. Enjoy yourself.”

  I thought of the teetotal, smokeless evening which lay before me, with the heavy feeling of Zero Hour hanging over me like a thunder-cloud, and I wondered if this was a piece of sarcasm. Jack and Stephen, who knew quite well how I felt, took me out to tea at the Piccadilly Hotel. I must say they worked as hard to keep me cheerful as a couple of comedians at a Command Performance. I thought of the sacrificial victim among the Aztecs who was feted for a whole month before being offered up on the altar. How I wished that I possessed some of Monty’s phlegm—Monty who after an intense day’s fighting in the Western Desert when the issue hung perilously in the balance would retire for the night and simply order himself to sleep.

  The evening wore on and we finished up at the Cafe Royal in Regent Street. By this time I had lost my appetite and the whole thing had become like an uneasy dream.

  At 6.45, with only half an hour to go, we took a taxi to the Brigadier’s flat in Kensington where I found Colonel Lester and my two aides waiting for me. This time the Colonel acted as my dresser. The Brigadier’s wife, a charming woman, brought me coffee and sandwiches. When I apologized for turning the bedroom into a dressing-room, she told me that so many strange things occurred in the flat that she never gave them a second thought.

  When I had donned my General’s uniform we sat down together for our last conversation.

  “I’m not going to give you a pep talk,” he said with a grin. “Provided you don’t worry you’ll be absolutely all right. You won’t be alone. The Brigadier will always be there to help you. But if you’re ‘on the stage’ and get stuck, just play it off your cuff.

  “Now about money. You know, don’t you, that this job is simply part of your duties as a soldier? It was suggested to the War Cabinet that you should be paid danger money—”

  “Danger money, sir?”

  “Oh yes, you’ll be in danger all right. But the Treasury said no, you couldn’t draw extra pay for carrying out your duties. However, General Montgomery got to hear this and he took a strong line about it. He said, ‘If James is good enough to wear my uniform he’s good enough to draw my pay.’”

  I thought of the austere, kindly man I had met in Dalwhinnie, sitting alone in his bare room, and I was surprised to find my eyes filling with tears.

  “That’s very good o
f him,” was all I could say.

  “By the way,” said Colonel Lester, “what pay does he get?”

  “What pay does he get, sir?”

  “Dammit, you ought to know. You’re in the Pay Corps, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, but I’ve never had to deal with a General’s account.”

  I suppose that at this critical hour just before the curtain rose Colonel Lester for all his apparent sang-froid was feeling a little on edge. I know I was. He thought me an idiot for not knowing a General’s pay, and I thought him unreasonable for expecting me to know it. We almost glared at each other. Then both of us saw the absurdity of getting heated over such a trifling matter at a moment like this.

  “Oh well, we won’t worry about that now,” he said. “There’s one last thing. Here are a dozen khaki handkerchiefs each marked with the General’s initials, BJLM. In the course of your travels I want you to drop these about as if by accident wherever you think fit. You see the idea? If anyone has any suspicions that you’re not Monty, discovering one of these should give him a little reassurance. The written word abideth. In this game it’s the little details that count.”

  He had said, “There’s one last thing,” which meant that his job was done and that it was time for us to say good-bye. I looked at this strange man of many parts and thought of all that had happened since first I met him at the Grand Hotel. In a short time we had come a long way together, and now that I was to lose him I felt as if I were losing a lifelong friend.

  “I’ll say good-bye now,” he said, “because I may not have another chance. When once the curtain goes up you mustn’t even think of yourself as James. All the best of luck to you.”

  He gripped my hand hard and went out of the room, leaving a terrible feeling of loneliness behind him.

  Quickly I set my beret at the correct angle, turned my wrist-watch inwards, adjusted the false finger and practised one or two salutes to make certain it was firmly secured, picked up the small Bible like the one Monty always carried and put it in my hold-all, and I was ready for the opening scene.

  Stephen, Jack and my two aides were waiting for me in the next room, and all four of them stared at me critically just as they had done before. And again I felt a lessening of the tension and a general sense of relief.

  The first two shook me by the hand with a “Cheero, Jimmy, see you when you come back. All the best.” The Brigadier said heartily: “I’m certain you’ll be a big success. I’ll see you at the airport, sir.”

  “Thanks, Heywood,” I replied, giving him one of Monty’s quick smiles. I led the way down, followed by the Brigadier and Captain Moore, my second aide, carrying my hold-all. At the front door I paused for a moment. Outside were three Army cars, and a crowd had gathered round the leading one which flew Monty’s pennant. This at last was my entrance on to the stage which I had imagined so many times in the last few weeks.

  As I made my way to the leading car the crowd stared at me in deep curiosity. Returning the driver’s salute, I got in and sat down in the left-hand seat at the back. I was feeling a little dazed.

  A cheer went up from the crowd, and then the door on my right opened and Colonel Lester jumped in.

  “They’re cheering you,” he hissed in my ear. “Salute, wave to them. You’re Monty!”

  Next moment he was gone. As my car moved off, the crowd cheered again and I heard shouts of “Good old Monty!”

  In my anxiety to play my part I had clean forgotten to play to the audience. Looking out of the window I gave them a brilliant Monty smile and the famous Monty salute. As we sped down Kensington High Street people came running towards us from all directions.

  It was the same when we stopped at the traffic lights. The pennant drew people as if by magic. They cheered and waved, and I smiled and saluted them in return until the muscles of my face were stiff and my arm began to ache.

  MI 5 must have discreetly advertised the news that Monty was leaving for Northolt aerodrome because when we got there a crowd of civilians stood by the gates. Rows of Air Force personnel lined the approaches while a detachment of military policemen on motor-cycles escorted us front and rear.

  As we came to a halt on the airfield the scene was just as I had pictured it. Drawn up in front of my plane was a row of smart RAF men with a young Wing Commander in front of them. On the left I saw a formidable array of high-ranking officers of the Army and Navy.

  My heart was pounding like a piston and for a moment I thought I should be unable to get out of the car and go through with it. Then something inside me gave way. The fear and the paralysis were coming from Lieutenant James. With a violent effort I pushed James aside and became Monty. From that moment the James side of me receded more and more into the background as the hours passed, until it became hardly more than a memory. If I had not been able to perform this psychological trick I should never have been able to do what I did.

  Stepping briskly out of the car and smiling a little, I heard the senior officer call his top-rank party to attention. He saluted and I returned his salute. Followed by the Brigadier, I slowly walked along the ranks of these veterans and then went over to the crew of the aircraft.

  I was now about to speak my first lines, and I offered up a silent prayer thay they would be absolutely convincing.

  “How are you, Slee?” I asked. “D’you think we shall have a good trip?”

  “I think so, sir,” he replied, standing stiffly to attention. “The weather reports are quite favourable.”

  “Good, good,” I said. After slowly inspecting the air crew I went up the gangway, turned to give everyone a last salute and then entered the plane.

  Most actors know that sense of relief which comes to them when they have successfully weathered their first scene. My own relief was heightened by the lavish appointments of the aircraft—the beautiful padded seats which tilted back, the perfectly equipped miniature kitchen and the bathroom.

  The engines roared and presently we were airborne, climbing steadily and headed for Spain. I thought of what had happened in the last five minutes. All those high-ranking officers, some of whom knew Monty intimately, who had really believed they were honouring him when they were turning out in all their glory for lieutenant James of the Pay Corps. And suddenly I remembered old Dr. Hicks banging on the front door and then rapidly shuffling round to the back in his disgraceful trousers, chuckling, “Tricked them again!” and I burst out laughing.

  Feeling a hand on my shoulder I turned round and saw the Brigadier looking at me with concern written all over his face. I’m certain he thought I was hysterical, but in the roar of the engines I could hardly explain to him what the joke was.

  However, by getting our heads close together we managed to have a short conversation.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Not too bad, thanks.” I took off my beret and stretched my legs.

  “I’ll bet you’re feeling pretty bad. But if it’s any consolation to you, you were simply splendid. Dying for a smoke, are you?”

  “Nearly dead. But what’s the use?”

  “You’re off duty for another seven hours. I should think we might risk it if you’re careful”

  He gave me a cigarette, and when I had lit it he handed me the top of a thermos flask.

  “It’s all right,” I said, “I’m not feeling sick.” ‘

  He laughed. “I know that. It’s to catch the ash. ‘When we get to Gib. someone might spot the ash and begin to suspect that you’re not Monty.”

  “It might be your ash.”

  “What, with Monty in front of me? Unlikely.”

  I remembered how in my early youth I had smoked tea leaves and shavings in an old pipe of the Doctor’s and what a fuss there had been when Aunt Kitty had caught me in the act. Monty had also been caught smoking when he was a boy, and his father, the Bishop, had taken him into the chapel and the two of them had prayed about it. It was very characteristic of him that he would never give his promise not to smoke o
r drink, but that when he was old enough to do as he liked he had become a non-smoker and a teetotaller.

  Time passed. The skipper of the aircraft came along and the three of us sat talking under a brilliant moon which lit up a lovely carpet of fleecy clouds stretching into the far distance.

  Two incidents concerned with my departure from England and my voyage to Gibraltar stick in my memory, though I did not know about them at the time they happened.

  After my plane had left Northolt there was some conversation among the high-ranking officers, and none of them had any suspicions about the identity of the man they had just seen off. One of them, who had been on Monty’s Staff, remarked that the old man looked very fit but a bit tired.

  The other incident the Brigadier told me about while we flew above the moonlit clouds. Standing some twenty yards from the parade of high-ups he had spotted a civilian in a dark suit and a battered hat. As he was going up the gangway into the plane he looked back and saw that the figure was standing close to him. Colonel Lester had winked and made a rude gesture as if to say, “We’ve spoofed them all right, old boy!” It was all he could do not to burst out laughing.

  The skipper took me into the control room and I spoke to some of the crew. They were accustomed to being on hush-hush work and had been personally briefed by the Colonel, who had told them nothing of the plot. To them I was the real Monty, of course, and I don’t think they had any suspicions, but evidently the skipper was in the know.

  The hours passed pleasantly enough and I snatched a little sleep. “When I woke up dawn was beginning to break. Presently the skipper appeared and spoke in low tones to the Brigadier. What they said I couldn’t hear, but both of them looked extremely grave and I sensed that something was amiss. It was only months later that I heard what it was.

  The skipper said that a serious position had arisen. Owing to a fault in refuelling, or possibly to sabotage, we were running short of petrol and it was doubtful if we could reach Gibraltar. Two courses were open to us: we could come down in the sea and risk being drowned, or we could make a forced landing in Spain, in which case we should all be interned. Which course should he take?