From the very private memoirs of Mycroft R. Holmes, OBE, at Her Majesty's Pleasure
An Excerpt from Chapter Five – My Early Career
The service is a cruel mistress. One may be decorated repeatedly by the Queen, serve and save the country again and again, and yet to the outside world you appear merely to be a civil servant, and worse, one whose career has stalled. And even though one is well paid, extravagance with that money is impossible, lest one reveal one's true occupation. Fortunately I was allowed to attain a position which appeared commiserate with my lifestyle and additionally I had a comfortable background to explain away possible luxuries.
While I would became known, if I may flatter myself, for my intellectual prowess, and my abilities would come to be in high demand on both sides of the Atlantic, most people are unaware that I served in the field in my very early service before it became obvious to the higher ups that my natural talents were better used elsewhere.
As I related in the last chapter, I was recruited at Cambridge and embarked upon my career after leaving with my double first.
Because of my remarkable memory and knowledge of world events as well as skills with languages, I was posted to Berlin under the extremely humble guise of a translator for a shipping firm. In reality, I was quickly entrusted with running several of the most important agents. I was also brought in to evaluate new recruits and the value and authenticity of their offerings because, like my brother, I am able to observe the minutiae that cannot be hidden.
Warum sind Sie hier?
Wer hat Sie geschickt?
Wie glaubwürdig sind Ihre Informationen?
Warum sollte sie uns nützlich sein?
Warum sollten wir sie anerkennen?
Warum sollten wir Ihnen Vertrauen schenken?
Erklären Sie mir noch einmal, wie Sie an die Information gelangt sind.
Wieviel mehr können Sie uns anbieten?
Warum sind Sie hier?
The breakdown of their answers: could they answer truthfully why they had come to us (nobility of purpose is never to be believed); was there hesitation when we asked who had sent them or was their denial of a controller real; could they even answer why the information was valuable, or were they tools sent to infiltrate with some third class knowledge of no importance. All of these, as well as the visual clues—too poorly dressed, too well dressed; too subservient, too contemptuous—served to tell me whether they were of genuine use. It is almost worse to waste time on a source with no value, than to miss one that is significant, and a double agent would be the worst disaster of all.
Unfortunately, the errors or possible betrayal of another player led to the collapse of one of our vital networks, and it was required that I go from simple drops to actual field work for a time.
Of course, I had been trained in various forms of combat before I was sent out. This was during one of my all too brief slender periods. I was a master at fencing. That may seem a ludicrous skill in the modern world, but consider that for the silent attack, the man armed with a concealed blade with which he is well skilled, will certainly be at an advantage over an unarmed thug. (I have left my range of specially designed umbrellas to various armory museums in my will.)
I spoke the ridiculous code phrase, "Ich komme gerade aus München. Das Bier dort schmeckt besonders gut," to the man I had been assured was a friendly contact. Instead he whirled around and caught me with a devastating upper cut. "Erwischt, englischer Spion!" he screamed. I was as stunned by his vitriol as by his punch. I managed to wield my umbrella but the scuffle was heated and I sustained several injuries. How ignominious to be caught out like some character in a sensationalist spy novel.
I had fractured ribs, broken fingers, tendon damage in my right ankle and several other abrasions and bruises. Because my cover was then somewhat blown—a civil servant with a police record is of no use to anyone—I was sent home, both to recover, and to wait on her Majesty's pleasure for my next assignment, if there was to be one. It may shock you to know that I was actually distraught with the fear that my career in the service might be over while barely begun. I sank into a depression and retreated to my parent's house in the country.
You must remember that I was just twenty-three. My brother was sixteen and at the time of my convalescence, home for his summer hols.
After our very close childhood we had drifted apart considerably and so I found it strange that he chose to spend a great deal of time in my company that summer.
I remember one occasion in particular when he joined me, rather to my displeasure, on the wide chaise lounge where I was resting. For some time he seemed content to read in silence, but I awoke from a light slumber to feel his long, fine fingers brushing against a particularly lingering injury along my temple and cheekbone. I was disturbed by the intimacy, both because of the pain that it caused, but also because of the way that he seemed simply curious about the injury, not concerned in any brotherly way.
"Don't," I said. My voice was low and calm, but some of my emotion must have come through, even to one as emotionally oblivious as Sherlock, because he took his hand away.
Then he did the most curious thing. He leant in so close that his breath was warm against my cheek, warmer than the summer breeze that ruffled our hair. The light scent of his sweat was mingled with the smell of the grass in which he had been lying before joining me. He was so close that I could almost taste it. I thought that he was about to kiss me on the cheek as he had done so often in our childhood. Instead, he pulled back and I could feel his stare through my closed eyelids.
I don't know what he wanted of me or if he wanted anything at all. My brother, of all the people in the world is sometimes, though not always, opaque to me. At any rate, I did not open my eyes, curious as to what he would do, if he would perhaps reach out metaphorically to bridge the distance between us.
Instead he rose and walked away and when I opened my eyes I was alone in the garden, with just the pristine blue sky, and the sound of birds chittering in the trees.