I WAS MONTY’S DOUBLE Page 3

  “I have told you—”

  “Yes, I know. You’ve told me you’ve been chosen to help make secret Army films. That’s better than the Pay Office, isn’t it? But when you came out from that interview yesterday you looked absolutely ill with worry. David has noticed it too. He asked me if there was anything seriously wrong with you.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with me, darling.”

  “You never slept a wink last night and you haven’t eaten anything since we came here. That isn’t at all like you.”

  “Please, darling,” I said desperately, “we can’t go into that all over again. I’ve got to go now. The War Office want me to report at once. Stop worrying and I’ll tell you what happens when I get back this evening.”

  She sighed resignedly, and in a sort of panic I ran away from her. My own wife had become for me the most dangerous woman in the world.

  Chapter III

  M.I. 5 AS IT REALLY IS

  On my way to the War Office I decided for the umpteenth time that the whole thing was impossible. The very idea of my impersonating a famous military commander was fantastic, and it was doubly fantastic for a man with my upbringing who had a natural fear of Colonels and Generals. From my earliest youth I had always been getting into scrapes, so that I had little self-confidence, while my fear of senior officers sprang from my childish dread of Colonel Montagu James who, on the death of my parents, had assumed the guardianship of myself, my sister and my four brothers.

  My father, who was Chief Justice of Western Australia, had been a genial, humorous man, but his cousin Montagu was the living embodiment of the peppery Anglo-Indian Colonel of the ’nineties. The three maiden ladies, the Misses Hicks, who adopted us were distant cousins of his, and they used the terrible Colonel James as a bogey-man to frighten us when we were naughty.

  Our ‘Aunts’, as we were told to call them, lived with their aged father, a retired doctor, in a rambling old house in Baldock, Hertfordshire. Fanny, the eldest, was something of a malade imaginaire and she spent most of her time writing sentimental short stories, not one of which to my knowledge was ever published. Milly, stout and kindly, was more interested in gardening than in children, but Kitty, the dominant one, although sharp and severe, loved us in spite of our naughtiness.

  As for Dr. Hicks, who had seen the coaches go through Baldock long before the days of cats, he was one of those senile old gentlemen who live to develop tiresome eccentricities. One of them was to go round the house of a winter’s morning putting out the fires by shovelling dead ash on to the burning coals. Pursued by an irate Aunt Kitty he would wave his shovel and protest in his quavering voice that he was only tidying up the grates.

  As a child I was rather frightened of him because he had a habit of chasing me and giving voice to some ancient ditty in Latin. If I took refuge in a tree he would wave his stick like a baton and croak:

  Harum, scarum

  Sum divarum, etc.

  or:

  Amo, amas,

  I love a lass

  For she’s of the feminine gender… .

  He had a shocking habit, too, of going out in an ancient suit of clothes which would have disgraced a scarecrow. The coat was threadbare, and the trousers, falling apart at the seams, had huge unseemly patches on the seat and knees. The Aunts never quite dared to destroy this beloved garment of his but they buried it at the backs of drawers, whereupon the old man would dig it up again as a dog digs up an unsavoury bone.

  Attired in his Forbidden Suit and a rusty old pair of boots, he would sally forth to attend his only remaining patient, old Fanny Quiver, who lived in the almshouse. On discovering that he had gone out in this horrid garb the Aunts would await his return with compressed lips. But knowing what was coming to him the Doctor would bang loudly on the door and then shuffling quickly round to the back of the house and in through the kitchen he would gain the privacy of his own bedroom chuckling wickedly, “Tricked them again!”

  Due to the snobbery of those days we were forbidden to play with the ‘common children’, with the result that we were considered standoffish, and sometimes when we went out the town urchins would gather round us and shout, “Ya, ya, ’Icksie boys!” and even pelt us with filth.

  One day the Aunts gave one of their tennis parties at which sedate games of tennis were combined with gossip about servants and neighbours in agreeable proportions. On the day before, my brother Charlie and I had had a fight with the ironmonger’s son, who lived next door, and his rude friends. Cups delicately poised, the guests were embarking upon a stream of petty gossip. Sir Gerard Smith, late Governor of Western Australia, was there, and Phyllis Neilson-Terry, the well-known actress, at that time a girl of twelve.

  Suddenly, as if by some freak of meteorology, there descended on the polite gathering a shower of dried horse dung.

  After a horrified pause Aunt Kitty charged gallantly into the breach. “I am so sorry. The men are cleaning up the field over the wall. Charlie, Meyrick, run round and speak to them at once.”

  Charlie and I looked at each other in dismay. As we went slowly to the gate conversation was nervously resumed. Some of the visitors stood up and shook their dresses. The Aunts quickly brushed the tea table.

  But a moment later the heavens discharged a still heavier downfall of manure accompanied by shouts of “Ya, ya, Icksie boys! Dirty ole ’Icksie boys!” And when Charlie and I opened the yard gate we were met by a raking fire of filth thrown from buckets by an enemy outpost.

  Recoiling in disorder, we rejoined the main body. The guests stared in horror at our filthy condition. As for Aunt Kitty, she was furious and refused to believe that the fiasco was not entirely our fault. She sent us straight to bed with the terrible threat, “If this happens again you will go straight back to Colonel James!”

  Yes, I think this imaginary picture of my guardian as a sort of military ogre must have done something to my psychology. And so too did the many boyish adventures which so often ended disastrously for me. There was for instance the first occasion when Charlie and I acted as theatrical entrepreneurs.

  When we had nothing else to do we found endless pleasure in exploring the upper recesses of the outbuildings and unused rooms. We bored a large opening in the lath-and-plaster wall of one of the lofts and called it the Ghostly Hole. At first our imaginations peopled it with demons, ghosts and hunted criminals. But suddenly the Ghostly Hole lost all relation to its name and became a source of forbidden pleasure and profit.

  One day when we had crept further along the Hole than we had been before I stumbled on a trap-door. Lifting it we found ourselves looking down into the servants’ bedroom. Some time later when we cautiously returned we found the maids changing to go out. It seemed to us that our Ghostly Hole had the makings of a lucrative peep-show.

  We rounded up two little boys of our acquaintance, charged them a penny for admission and made a modest profit on the First Night. We anticipated that the show would enjoy a long and profitable run, but unhappily these hopes were not fulfilled.

  A few days later, having got together a full house, we crawled along to see if the strip-tease act was about to begin, when to my horror my foot slipped off the joist and went right through the ceiling of the maids’ bedroom. Immediately there was an uproar. The maids in their underclothes ran screaming from their room while Charlie led the Upper Circle and Gallery in what must have been one of the swiftest retreats in history.

  This struck me as most unbrotherly behaviour, for my leg was jammed tight in the hole and I couldn’t move.

  Presently an indignant Aunt Kitty arrived and pulled me roughly to my feet. I was packed off to bed with the terrible threat, “This time I shall certainly send you back to Colonel James!”

  Next day no one would speak to me. Even Charlie, after blaming me for ruining our financial prospects, lapsed into a disgruntled silence. I felt sulky and depressed, but presently I was cheered by the sight of three large tins of green paint which Aunt Milly had bought to renovate the g
reenhouse.

  All right, I thought, I’ll do something which really will break this chilly silence. In the stables I took off my clothes and decorated my skin with a brilliant coat of green. Sticking a long feather in my hair and yelling like a Red Indian I rushed into the street.

  Aunt Milly, sitting in the drawing-room, was conscious of some strange excitement in the road outside. People were behaving as if a lunatic had escaped from the Three Counties Asylum. Then she saw me. Swiftly opening the front door she grabbed me and dragged me into the hall.

  Aunt Kitty, who by this time had come on the scene, looked at me with compressed lips. Rather to my surprise she did not send me back to Colonel James. Instead, both Aunts rolled up their sleeves and scrubbed me from head to foot in turpentine. I shall never forget the agony of that scrubbing or the painful way that my skin peeled off next day.

  On arriving at the War Office I signed the form which was handed me by a messenger saying who I was and whom I wished to see, and then I sat down and waited. Many a day I was to go through this same procedure, and as time went on I came to marvel at the cheerful way these messengers did their job. People of all ages, temperaments and degrees of importance came in a never-ending stream to this nerve-centre of war. Some were calm and aloof, some vague and helpless, some excitable, some domineering and rude, but I never saw a messenger anything but polite and unruffled. Nothing seemed to disturb the placidity of these men. I wondered what they would say if I announced in impressive tones, “I am the man who is going to impersonate General Montgomery.” Most probably the reply would be: “Oh yes, sir. Won’t you take a seat? Looks like more rain, doesn’t it?”

  On this my first visit, after waiting a few minutes the messenger led me down a great many passages and at length into a room.

  I don’t know what most people’s imaginary picture of Secret Service headquarters may be. After reading a variety of thrillers about spies and counter-espionage, I imagined a darkened room with mysterious figures wearing cloaks and false moustaches, but it turned out to be a very ordinary looking office with an elderly woman sitting typing. She gave me a pleasant greeting and showed me into another room, where I found Colonel Lester and two officers, whom he introduced as Captain Stephen Watts and Lieutenant Jack Hervey.

  At first I felt rather shy of these other two who stared hard at me for rather obvious reasons, but I soon found they were thoroughly human and lost my fear of them. The trio were a perfect team. Colonel Lester was the producer and the others were the stage director and stage manager. Both these junior officers had a thorough sense of theatre, and from the moment I met them they set to work on me with tact, patience and skill.

  What I particularly liked about them was their keen sense of humour, which somehow is a thing one doesn’t naturally associate with MI 5.

  Time and again I would be in a panic about what might happen if I got in a jam.

  “Don’t be a B.F., Jimmy,” one of them would say. “If some ass asks you what you’re doing in the country, say you’re studying Fauna and Flora. And if they ask who Fauna and Flora are, say they’re two Greek Generals from Wigan.”

  “Suppose somebody recognizes me,” I said once. “What could I do?”

  “Look at him as if you were the butler when someone comes to the door and tries to sell the Duke a tooth-brush.”

  Of course I had to laugh, and that made me feel less nervous.

  On this first morning Colonel Lester outlined the scheme. “I want you to look on this as a play we are going to produce for the benefit of the enemy. You, as a professional artiste, have been cast for the biggest role in the history of acting. Our audience are not simple, like the dramatic critics—here he looked slyly at Watts—we have to hoodwink the German High Command.

  “For the next two or three days you will come here for conferences. Later on I’ll arrange for you to spend a day or two on Monty’s staff so that you can study his voice, gestures, mannerisms, and so on.”

  He threw a packet across the table. “Here are some Press photos of him.”

  I studied them and at once I saw that I really was rather like the General. He was an older man than I, but if I wore a beret as he invariably did I should need very little make-up. The others who had been studying me pretty closely all this, time thought so too and I sensed a feeling of relief.

  “I should think you’ll get a good Press in Berlin,” said Watts.

  I began to hope so too. But I had something else on my mind. I had now been absent from my unit in Leicester for two days and if I didn’t report back at the end of seven days I should probably be posted as a deserter.

  When I explained this there was an uncomfortable silence. “Why not ring up and ask for an extension,” Watts suggested.

  I shook my head. “My Colonel would never stand for that. Even if he did, what’s to happen when the extension has expired?”

  “I don’t know, unless we get a Double for you at Leicester.” The Colonel seemed to be lost in thought about something else, but now he came down to earth and said quietly, “I’ll have a word with Pay headquarters and tell them to ring your C.O. and say you’re to be released for Special Pay Duties.” He grinned at me. “I don’t know what Special Pay Duties means, but I suppose it means something?”

  “It sounds pretty good,” said Hervey.”

  Noticing that I still looked dubious, Colonel Lester added: “It’s all right, your Colonel will do as he’s told and ask no questions. Now the thing is, how are we going to get you on to Monty’s staff without anyone growing suspicious and making awkward enquiries? Any suggestions, you two?”

  “How about posting him to H.Q. as an official photographer?” said Stephen.

  “Not bad. What do you think, James? You could follow the G.O.C. about and nobody would question you.”

  “There’s only one thing against it, sir. I don’t know the first thing about photography. What would happen if someone began talking to me about my work?”

  “H’m, yes. Perhaps we’d better not risk that.”

  “Why not a Press reporter?” Hervey suggested.

  Watts shook his head. “There aren’t any Press men in on this. If it got round that a reporter was with Monty, Fleet Street would have something to say about it.”

  “I think I’ve got it,” Colonel Lester said. “We’ll make you a Sergeant of the Intelligence Corps. I don’t think it would be unusual for an I.C. Sergeant to be attached to Monty’s staff. You could mess with the other N.C.O.S and I hardly think anyone would dare ask you questions. Usually they’re a bit nervous of Security people.”

  This plan was agreed to unanimously, and after discussing the details of how I was to be slipped into the General’s staff without arousing suspicions I was told that I was free for the rest of the day.

  Colonel Lester proposed that I find some cinema where they were showing a news-reel of Monty. I had little difficulty in doing so for at this time Monty was top-line news. Once again I was struck by the extraordinary likeness between us, but of course the General’s whole manner was different from mine. He exuded a tremendous air of assurance which I should find it hard to imitate.

  Chapter IV

  MY FIRST REAL-LIFE ROLE

  I couldn’t enjoy the film very much because I was thinking about Eve. Just before I left him Colonel Lester had said, “By the way, have you sent your wife away?”

  “She’s going tomorrow, sir.”

  “Good.” He looked at me sharply. “Did you have any trouble with her?”

  “Just a little. It’s all right now, I think.”

  As I travelled back to Hampstead in the Tube I prayed hard that I could fulfil this promise. Special Pay Duties was the latest hand-out. I hoped to God that I could put this one over on my wife and persuade her to leave London. By now I had begun to realize what a tremendous job I had undertaken. I simply had not enough energy left over to wrestle with Eve.

  As soon as I got home I contorted my face into a cheerful grin and began, “Well
, darling, at last I can tell you the truth.”

  Her face relaxed and I plunged like a Serpentine bather in mid-winter.

  “You see, dear, I was approached first by Army Kinematograph section with the idea of making secret films. You know what the Army is like. Apparently they are not yet ready to go ahead. They simply wanted to get a few people lined up so that they could call on them when needed at a moment’s notice. It was rather a disappointment yesterday when David Niven explained this to me and told me that the film job was somewhere in the indefinite future.”

  “I see.”

  “He went on to say that I was to report to Pay Corps H.Q. for an interview. This worried me still more. I wondered if there was some trouble about my work in Leicester. Today I went to headquarters and was told by a high-ranking officer that I was to be temporarily transferred for Special Pay Duties directly under the General’s command. This will mean travelling all over the Kingdom. I may even have to go abroad.”

  Eve listened quietly to all this and I was just beginning to congratulate myself on having got away with it when she asked, “But what exactly does Special Pay Duties mean?”

  What on earth did it mean? “Well, dear,” I said at a venture, “it’s a job where you go round the various commands checking up the accounts of Paymasters. It’s a form of security really, something like a bank inspector checking the accounts at the different branches of a bank.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you see there’s nothing to worry about, darling, and although I hate to say it I do think it would be better for both of us if you went back to Leicester. It’s not as if I shall have any time to spend with you.”

  “All right,” she said quietly, “I’ll go.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. At last, I thought, this wretched business is settled.

  But next morning when I phoned the War Office and was told to report at once as before, I ran upstairs to say good-bye to Eve and found her sobbing her heart out on the bed.