I WAS MONTY’S DOUBLE Read online

  Feeling every sort of a cad I sat beside her and tried to calm her down. At length she sat up and examined her tear-stained face in a mirror. Forcing a smile she said: “I suppose this is good-bye? Before you go I want you to know that I overheard you phoning just now. It wasn’t the Pay Corps but the War Office you were speaking to. You’re still telling me lies.”

  “You don’t understand. I had to phone the War Office—”

  “All I understand is that you’re mixed up in something very mysterious. I won’t ask you any more questions, but whatever it is you know I’ll be thinking of you all the time. Will you promise me just one thing?”

  “Yes, darling, of course.”

  “Promise you’ll write to me at least once a week and tell me how you are?”

  “I promise.”

  Only too well I knew that I should never be allowed to write a single word to her. But what else could I say?

  We clung to each other for a few moments and then. I left her—perhaps never to see her again.

  Perhaps it was a good thing for me that I was to work at such pressure that I hardly had time to stop and think. The mills of MI 5 ground exceedingly fine. Conferences were held every day and hundreds of small details were thrashed out. There was no point however apparently insignificant which was not gone into, and every conceivable untoward circumstance was guarded against with the utmost care.

  Above everything, I was warned again and again about the need for secrecy.

  “Mind you keep your mouth shut, James. Don’t breathe a word to anyone. Always be on your guard. Don’t trust a soul. Don’t go into bars more than you can help and never drink with strangers. Be wary of anyone who accosts you. If anyone phones you, be suspicious. If someone you know asks you what you’re doing in London, don’t be mysterious about it but answer naturally as if you had nothing to hide. Say you’re here on Special Pay Duties and refuse to go into details. If they try to pump you, give us their names and we will shut them up. Don’t get tight. You will not write a single letter to anyone. Be careful you don’t talk in your sleep.”

  My mind went back to 1941 when in the Pay Corps at Leicester I was hard at work on the pay sheets of men who were engaged in secret troop movements. We had been warned about keeping our mouths shut over this, but the work at this time was so arduous that there was hardly any opportunity for unguarded talking or anything else. However, when I developed a raging toothache I was at last obliged to take time off to visit an Army dentist who gave me gas and extracted the troublesome molar.

  When I came round from the gas, both the dentist and the doctor were looking rather solemn. At first I thought it was because there had been difficulty in the extraction, but to my astonishment they told me that I had been babbling about the destinations of some of the men whose pay-books I had been handling. Just as some delicately minded people come out with foul language when under gas, so I suppose patients with secrets on their minds are apt to talk about the very things they wish to guard most strictly.

  The need for secrecy was drummed into me so persistently that at first I was scared of talking to anyone at all. But I soon realized that the last thing I must do was to give the impression that I was sitting on a secret. I must not only understudy Monty, I must learn to play another part—that of a very ordinary Lieutenant of the Pay Corps with nothing whatever on his mind.

  After a few days, I realized that I was very much on probation. Although MI 5 had checked up on me since my early boyhood, they could hardly afford to take any chances in such a vital plan of deception as this. For all they knew I might have developed habits and characteristics about which they had no information.

  At times when I was off duty I had the uneasy suspicion that I was being followed and watched. It is a most disconcerting experience. One day I would look at some man sitting opposite me in a bus or a cafe and realize that his face was familiar. I had seen him before, perhaps that very morning—but where? Later on I might run across him once again, perhaps by David Sender’s house. I no longer seemed to have a private life of my own.

  I remember going into a bar in Shaftesbury Avenue one evening on my way home to Hampstead. A young man standing near by turned and stared at me.

  “Hullo, James, fancy running across you! I don’t know if you remember me? We met at a party just before the war— at Mrs. Guy Nicholas house in Southsea.”

  I looked him up and down but couldn’t place him at all. Certainly I had been playing at Southsea in 1939 and a Mrs. Guy Nicholl had thrown a party to which some of us actors had been invited. But I had no memory at all of this young fellow.

  “What’s yours?” he asked affably, and when I rather hesitantly accepted his offer he asked, “Are you on a spot of leave?”

  I remembered Colonel Lester’s warning not to drink or talk with strangers and I knew that my cue was to make some excuse and escape. But a spirit of perversity prompted me to stay and allow this young man to try his hand at pumping me while plying me with drinks.

  At length I said: “I believe I do remember you now. At that party you were flirting with the youngest Nicholl daughter, Pat.”

  “I might have been,” he admitted gaily.

  “Smashing girl, wasn’t she? Do you know where she is now?”

  “I believe she’s in the Wrens.” ‘

  “No,” I said, “you’re wrong. She’s in your imagination. The Nicholls never had any children.” And with that I left him.

  I feel pretty sure that MI 5 had put him on my track to see if he could persuade me to talk.

  One morning when I phoned at the usual time I was warned that arrangements had been made for me to leave London at once. On reporting to Colonel Lester he told me the time had come for me to become an I.C. Sergeant.

  “There’s your stuff,” he said, pointing to a full kit-bag. “You’d better try the uniform on. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit you too well. I want you to look as unlike yourself as possible’’

  I shed my officer’s uniform and got into Sergeant’s battle-dress. It fitted me reasonably well and felt comfortable except for the boots.

  My feet have always been tender and I hadn’t worn a pair of regulation Army boots since the First World War. I felt very unhappy in them, and by way of cheering me up Colonel Lester said I looked quite unlike myself, which I can well believe.

  He told me to catch the 11.0 a.m. train next morning to Portsmouth and report to a place called ‘The Haven’. Nobody at Portsmouth, he explained, would know a thing about me; they would simply carry out the orders they had been given. And after I had reported I too would be given my orders.

  At that time I had not yet fallen into the ways of MI 5, which were to send a man out into the blue among strangers who had no idea who he was or what he was doing. Surely, I thought, this was much too vague. I should never be able to explain myself and I should soon get into a terrible jam. And who was going to give me my orders? I should have no idea whom to ask for. It was only later that I learned to trust myself to these men who were my stage managers and who seemed never to forget anything.

  Armed with a railway warrant and a permit to travel to a Protected Area, I managed to find a seat in a crowded train at Waterloo next morning. My last visit to Portsmouth had been just before the war when I was playing at the King’s Theatre, Southsea. How sadly different it looked when I walked out of the station! The town had been blitzed and was nothing but a skeleton of its former self.

  As I followed the deserted streets in the rain I passed rows of derelict shops with their windows out and the blinds flapping in the wind, and huge heaps of rubble where only a few years before had stood fine houses. It was nightmarish hardly to be able to find my way in a place I had known so well only a short time before.

  With some difficulty I reached a desolate road with a long drive leading out of it. When I asked a soldier where The Haven was he pointed up the drive to a blackened shell of a building. “That’s it, sir. Two days ago they dropped one bang on top of it. Bli
mey, it didn’t ’arf blaze.”

  Rather depressed by all this I made my way to the ruin. Not a soul was in sight. Could I have come to the wrong address? Wandering round I discovered a dilapidated stable with an old-fashioned bell-pull by the door. Like Alice, I pulled it, wondering if anything would happen. The door opened, but instead of a Frog Footman I saw a smart young Corporal of the Intelligence Corps.

  After he had taken my name and examined my pass, he led me down three flights of steps, and to my surprise I found myself in a huge underground building that must have housed at least a hundred I.C. personnel.

  I was taken to a room where a Lieutenant-Colonel gave me a friendly welcome, after which he went out, telling me to wait. Again, like Alice, I wondered who would be the next person I should meet. The door on the far side of the room opened and a man entered wearing a dark lounge suit and carrying a brief-case and a battered Homburg hat.

  “Well, James,” he said, smiling, “so you found your way here all right.”

  By this time I was getting used to surprises. I should hardly have been astonished if Colonel Lester had come in with Mr. Churchill.

  He gave me a cigarette and we sat down. “While you are here,” he said, “you will meet a great many people in the different Services, and you may find that they change their ranks and regiments. One day you may see a Naval Commander, but the next time you run into him he may be a Private soldier or an Air Force ground officer. Take no notice of this. It is not your business.”

  I suppose I must have looked rather inquisitive, for he added: “It’s a sort of chess game. Things happen on the board, but you can’t see who moves the pieces about or why pawns get turned into queens.”

  “No, sir.”

  “Think what would happen if you were playing a game of chess and your chess men began to take a part in the game themselves, not knowing what was in your mind. Of course a few people have to know something, but the rule is that the fewest possible know the bare minimum.

  “This applies to you and your little job. Hardly anyone is in the plot. I, and no one else, will tell you who these people are; but you must say nothing even to them because they know only some of the plot. You and I will be among the very few who know all of it.”

  He went on to give me my orders for the next twenty-four hours.

  “You are free to do what you like until 7 p.m. Then you will change into your Sergeant’s uniform. A jeep will be ready to take you to Monty’s headquarters. On arriving there you will be taken to the General’s Top Deception Officer. He’s a very clever man, and he’s in the know.”

  Colonel Lester smiled a wintry smile. “There is a certain rivalry between MI 5 and the 21st Army Group Deception Branch, and they would love to put one over on us. Be on your guard. He may try to catch you out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You will sleep at the camp, and next morning you will be on G.H.Q. Staff. When the General appears you must shadow him; he’ll be expecting you, of course. There is someone else on his staff who knows about you. Colonel Dawnay. If you get into a jam., go to him; but I don’t think you will get into a jam—I have tried to guard against all possible difficulties.

  “Somebody in the I.C. who doesn’t know about you might grow suspicious and start asking you questions. You will be supplied with, a complete set of papers made out for Sergeant James, of the Intelligence Corps. Also I have arranged for you to meet a bona-fide Sergeant in the Corps who is now at headquarters.

  “You must question him closely about his service since the date he joined up. What were the different places where he was stationed? Who were his C.O.s and what were their nicknames? What courses has he been on? When was he promoted? And so on. Go through all this in your mind until you have memorized it perfectly, then you’ll have nothing to fear if questions are suddenly fired at you.”

  “My memory’s not too good,” I said. “Suppose—”

  “Suppose you take your fences when you come to them. This impersonation of an I.C. Sergeant is just nothing. Don’t worry about imaginary mishaps. Worry about watching Monty so closely that you can carry a picture of him in your mind’s eye.”

  Soon after this he left me to my own reflections, which were not very optimistic. Was I going to be another square peg in a round hole, as I had been in that first job my guardian had found for me in Cornhill?

  Although nearly thirty years had gone by, I remembered with startling clearness that morning in 1914 when, dressed in striped trousers, top-hat and patent-leather shoes, a creaking old lift had carried me up to the third floor of Marsden & Co., shipping insurance agents, and with a sinking heart I had walked in through the glass-panelled door.

  Before me stood a tall counter, beyond which I caught sight of several desks at which sombre-looking clerks scribbled wearily. A tall, gaunt man with a ragged black moustache came forward respectfully and took me into the office of Mr. Thomas, the Managing Director.

  “Ah, James,” said Mr. Thomas, rising and shaking hands. “Colonel James has told me all about you. Ah—h’m, I am sure you will be very happy with us.”

  I said I was sure that I would.

  “It’s up to you, James, it’s up to you,” went on my new boss, sitting back and putting the tips of his fingers together. “There is every opportunity of making good in this firm.” He rang a bell and the man with the black moustache stole in obsequiously.

  “Ah, Jenkinson, this is James, our new office boy. James, this is Mr. Jenkinson, our head clerk. He will instruct you in your duties.”

  “It will be a pleasure, sir,” Mr. Jenkinson purred. But as soon as we were outside the door his expression changed as suddenly as a revue star’s going off stage into the wings.

  “Well, well,” he said unpleasantly, “so you’re the new office boy. Fancy that now. Allow me to tell you that you’re the humblest member of the staff and not the Grand Duke of Cornhill. Put that top-hat away, my lad, and don’t let me see it again.”

  Some of the junior clerks began to titter. Mr. Jenkinson, who was enjoying the scene, gave me a rapid outline of my duties. ‘

  “You will arrive ’ere at eight sharp, take out the ledgers and place them on their respective desks, fill the ink-wells, sharpen the pencils, open the mail and sort it. When the staff arrives find yourself a seat if you can and commence addressing the envelopes. I will hand you certain documents which you will reproduce on the Roneo machine, after which you will take the policies from Mr. ’Arris and convey them to their destinations as directed.”

  It all sounded too depressing for words and I realized that my premonitions about office life in the City were only too true.

  Next morning, opening my eyes and glancing at my watch, I found it was already the very hour at which I should be taking out the ledgers and placing them on their respective desks, etc. Dressing with extreme haste and abandoning the idea of breakfast, I tore out of the house and reached the office at a quarter past nine.

  “Well, well,” said Mr. Jenkinson with a sardonic grin, “fancy seein’ you.”

  I began to say something about an alarum clock which had failed to go off, but he cut in with: “Now look here, James, when I says you’re to be ’ere at eight sharp I mean eight—not nine or ten. You’ve upset the whole day’s work. This is an office, not Madam Two Swords Exhibition.”

  He said a good deal more which I don’t remember very clearly, gave me a packet of envelopes to address, and when this exciting job was finished, some papers which I was to deliver to the Belling Insurance Company.

  Thankful for the chance to escape, I ran down the stairs into the street. In the entrance to the Belling Insurance Company’s offices stood a lordly commissionaire who looked like the Duke of Plaza-toro. When I asked him where I should take the papers he was exceedingly rude.

  It seemed to me that it was time someone struck a blow in defence of office boys whom everybody insulted as a matter of course.

  “If the old school motto is correct,” I said, “and manners m
ake a man, you ought to be living up a tree.”

  He was so taken aback that he was speechless, and I marched past him feeling a little better.

  Perhaps I was a little light-headed by this time, for after meeting with unhelpful treatment upstairs I lost patience, opened a large door at random and walking up to the head of the massive table at which ten or twelve elderly men sat in conclave I flung down my packet and said, “For Heaven’s sake take these papers, I can’t find anyone to give them to,” and left the room, which had lapsed into a stupefied hush.

  I sauntered back to Marsden & Co., but as soon as I entered the office there was dead silence and all eyes were turned on me. Mr. Jehkinson rose and came towards me like a hostile gunboat. “Mr. Thomas wishes to see you at once,” he said.

  When I entered the office marked ‘Private’ I found that a startling change had come over the genial Mr. Thomas.

  “What is this, James?” he asked idly. “I hear that you grossly insulted Lord Belling. You had the impudence to burst in on him during a Board meeting. I have just received a telephone call from him. He threatens to break off business relations with us.”

  I felt very much upset about this. My boss was a most likeable man and I didn’t want to cause him any trouble. I stammered an apology.

  Mr. Thomas sighed and shook his head. “It’s all very well to be sorry, but the harm’s done.”

  I went out shamefacedly to be met by a caustic Mr. Jehkinson. “Well, well, well, and ’ow is Lord B.? I hope ’is Lordship will make you a co-director when you leave this establishment.”

  He amused himself at my expense for several days, but at length he saw that his audience was growing a little tired of his heavy sarcasm and he quietened down.

  A week later I was sent to Lloyd’s to deliver some policies. On my arrival there I had to line up with half a dozen other office boys, most of whom were shabbily dressed and sucking oranges.