Chapter Twenty Two

Ein Engländer!

Cairo, Kingdom of Egypt, April 1937.

What was galling to so many in Egypt, especially those who made up the political class, was why on earth were the British still here? At least on paper, the country was independent and had been so ever since 28th February 1922. Something which, if it meant anything at all, was that Egypt was no longer ruled by Great Britain. Nonetheless, being recognised as an independent, sovereign state was one thing; achieving real independence was something else entirely. For the independence granted so magnanimously by the British, had proven to be a sleight of hand; so much smoke and mirrors. While in the guise, first of King Fuad, and now his son Farouk, the Muhammad Ali dynasty might reign here, it was the British who still ruled. They had not departed the North African littoral and still retained their interests in the region: whether throughout all of the one million square miles of the Sudan which lay far to the south, up and down the entire length of the Suez Canal, or elsewhere in Egypt where they maintained a sizeable military presence, as well as exercising control in both the police force and the judiciary, where many senior figures were British. This being so, the Egyptians could be forgiven for wondering why it was that the former colonial power still exerted so much control in what purported to be their country.


Rosenberg, Lower Austria, April 1937.

As to whether it was merely an association of ideas, Edith never really knew. One moment she was sitting here in her rose garden quietly rereading the latest telegram from Friedrich which told briefly how they had all arrived safely in Egypt from Palestine and were staying at Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo and that he intended taking the boys to see the pyramids. The next, as she raised her head, expecting to see before her the customary view of the soaring peaks of the Alps, this panorama had vanished, to be replaced by a vista of great length, at the far end of which there appeared, eventually, the rear view of a motor car, driving down a long, straight road lined on either side by acacia trees.

Edith recognised the trees, their shady boughs laden with fruit pods, from the time she herself had spent out in Egypt. Identified too the road as that which led from Cairo out to the Pyramids, along the left bank of the Nile, through groves of orange and lemon trees and fields of maize and cotton. Then, quite suddenly, another motor hove into view evidently pursuing the first at a very great speed.


"Madam?"

The scene dissolved as if it had never been.


Edith looked up to see, standing before her, the prosaic, black clad form of Frau Eder, holding in her outstretched hand the day's menu for approval, while behind her there reared the familiar panorama of snow capped mountains.


Northeast Spain, Province of Teruel, Southern Aragón, early May 1937.

The journey south eastwards from Bilbao, which had proven arduous, long, and uncomfortable, had been something of an eye opener for young Danny Branson. Between the sea and the mountains, the country was dry and dusty, a dun coloured, rocky, scrub covered wilderness, dotted with poor towns and villages, and even poorer people, while over everything and everyone there hung the bloody, malevolent spectre of the ongoing civil war.


To the sound of distant explosions and gunfire echoing and reverberating around the mountains, here in the ruined village of San Pedro de Aragón, the battered old lorry drew to a stand. The only building of any size had been the church, now a burned out, blackened shell. The single street of squalid houses, some of which had been destroyed by shell fire, appeared empty, seemingly devoid of life; save that was for a couple of snarling dogs. It was only when they had clambered down from the lorry and lined up for roll call by the fountain in the square in front of the ruined church, that they saw the body. It lay sprawled on its back in the dust; a lad of about Danny's own age, who had been shot through the head, with a swarm of noisy black flies settled on his bloodstained face. A makeshift notice had been hung around his neck, proclaiming him to have been a traitor to the Republic. Yet another young life needlessly snuffed out. Corporal Ortega shrugged dismissively, hawked, and spat in the dirt.

"¡Así perezcan todos los cerdos fascistas!"


Matthew and Mary's Bathroom, Downton Abbey, Yorkshire, England, April 1937.

Closing her eyes, Mary sank back deeply into the frankincense, lavender, and orange scented bath water. Oh, how absolutely heavenly! The Albano bath salts, contained in a beautiful, tall, gold encrusted green glass bottle, along with perfume and soaps of the same fragrance, created by Matchabelli, had been an extravagant gift from Matthew which he had brought back with him from one of his first trips to Switzerland. Mary loved presents and was delighted with what Matthew had bought for her in Geneva. However, later that same evening, when they were in bed, lying in his arms, she had asked him how it was he had known which of the many perfumes created by the perfume house she would like best, Matthew had grown coy. Pressed by her on the matter, he then admitted that one of his friends, a female acquaintance, had suggested the particular scent; which was how, not that she knew it at the time, Mary first came to hear of Alice de Torville, comtesse de Roquebrune.


Luxuriating in her hot bath, Mary now fell to considering what it was that Simon had told her earlier. While Matthew had not divulged the name of his informant to Simon, she knew it could have been none other than Prince Louis of Hesse and by Rhine, the young man who was so very well informed...


Drawing Room, Downton Abbey, February 1937.

Given the position which he occupied at the German embassy up in London, even if it was but a honorary one, what Prince Louis had been saying during tea taken here in the privacy of the Drawing Room with no servants in attendance, had amounted to nothing short of a betrayal of his own country. In so doing, even if in this room he had been guaranteed a sympathetic ear, the prince was taking a terrible risk, not only for himself, but also for his family over in Germany.

While Matthew was a consummate diplomat, occasionally, he chose to be disconcertingly direct, and he did so now; asking Prince Louis outright if he was he not loyal to Germany. Setting down his teacup in its saucer, the prince looked somewhat bemused. He had then gone on to explain that he was indeed deeply loyal to his homeland, but that Herr Hitler and the Nazis did not represent the country he knew and loved: the Germany of both Goethe and Schiller.


"Goe..." Mary looked to her husband for enlightenment.

"Goethe and Schiller". Matthew explained that the men to whom Prince Louis had referred were German and had lived during the eighteenth century. Goethe had been a statesman, a poet, and a playwright, and Schiller a dramatist, an historian, and a philosopher. The two men had been the greatest of friends.

While grateful for the explanation, Mary was really none the wiser. She found herself wondering exactly what a philosopher was, but felt it would have displayed a woeful ignorance on her part to ask any further questions on the matter. So, she smiled sweetly and then asked Prince Louis if he would like another cucumber sandwich.


Old Humphrey, Downton Abbey Estate, a short while later.

After tea was over, shortly before Prince Louis left for London, so as to be well away from prying eyes, and more importantly prying ears, Matthew suggested that they drive out in Matthew's motor in order that, as far as everyone else was concerned, he could show their visitor a little more of the countryside around Downton. Then, if the prince was to be asked by his superiors, he could impart, to them, if necessary even to von Ribbentrop himself, something of the overall size of the estate. So, it was ostensibly for this reason that Matthew and his guest were now standing beside the MG, parked next to the folly known as Old Humphrey; a stone tower, built deliberately as a ruin which, from the heights of Hawkstone Ridge commanded superb views over much of the Downton Abbey estate.

Yet, while Matthew was prepared to take most people just as he found them, in this particular matter, the stakes were far too high for any doubt as to where rested precisely the loyalties of Prince Louis of Hesse and by Rhine. This being so, for the last half hour, Matthew had been sounding the prince out again; trying to gauge his worth. So far the young man had rung true but while the prince was probably all that he purported to be - one of a small group of Germans who were opposed to Hitler and the Nazis - there still remained the possibility that he was an agent provocateur. It was only when Prince Louis made mention, and this only in passing, of a name, von Weizsäcker, that Matthew finally accepted that Prince Louis was what he claimed. For, Matthew had met Ernst von Weizsäcker, a member of the German Foreign Service in Bern several times where he had served first as German envoy to Switzerland and later as ambassador.

At the time, Matthew and the prince had been discussing the dramatic and far reaching political and social changes wrought in Germany after the end of the Great War; how what had been achieved during the period of the Weimar Republic was now all being undone.

"If by saying that, Lord Grantham, you imagine all I care about is the past, the world of Goethe and Schiller, then you would be mistaken. What impels me to act as I have done is that I fear greatly for the future of my country; that Hitler and the Nazis will lead all of us calmly by the hand and into another world war. A war, that in the end, Germany must and will lose".

Matthew nodded. It could have been he himself speaking.

"Very well then. So, to the matter in hand. I think it for the best if we both..."


Matthew and Mary's bathroom, Downton Abbey, late April 1937.

The perfumed hot water was like balm to Mary's soul; let alone her tired feet. A moment later, deep in thought, Mary's brows knitted. According to Matthew, both Prince Louis and his elder brother, the one with the unusual name, were members of the Nazi Party. Matthew had told her that was hardly surprising since most if not all German princes had joined the Party, some by force of circumstance; others willingly. For some, it was certainly pragmatism, a means of ensuring their survival and that of their families while others undoubtedly supported Hitler and his thugs. Mary recalled Matthew saying that they saw it as a means of regaining their lost status. However, if any of them had believed that Hitler intended to restore the Hohenzollerns to the imperial throne and with them all the German kings, grand dukes and princes to once again rule over the various kingdoms and duchies which, until November 1918, had made up the German Empire, they must have come to realise by now that this would never come to pass; that Herr Hitler did not intend to share power with anyone, least of all the relics of a vanished imperial past.


It was not something to which Mary usually gave any real thought but now, being in a decidedly reflective mood, with only her own thoughts for company, she found herself taking stock. At times, for all the air of carefully crafted detached aloofness which she was at pains to cultivate - in part as a means of concealing her innate shyness - Mary was prone to being impetuous; as had been the case today. No more so than when she perceived there to be a threat to the safety, wellbeing, or reputation of her immediate family and which therefore transcended everything else. Then she would fight tooth and nail to protect her nearest and dearest. For Mary, family always came first.

However, even after, in the space of some fourteen years, having given Matthew four children, there was no-one dearer to Mary than the man himself. Sybil alone had noticed this; had said as much when she had been in one of her forthright moods, wondering aloud to Mary if Robert, Simon, Rebecca, and little Emily, were what, in Granny's time, had been called proofs of attachment and nothing more. Although Sybil was somewhat wide of the mark, there was an element of truth in what she had said. For Mary's love for Matthew had very little to with being the mother of his children; was, instead, firmly rooted in her intense physical need of of him as a man. Not that Mary would have ever have expressed it thus, but she was wild about him and throughout their marriage, somewhat to her surprise, Mary had found great enjoyment in the physical side of their relationship. True, they had their ups and downs, what couple did not, but for all that, what Mary wanted, more than anything, was for the way they were now to last a lifetime. This being so, she hoped fervently that Matthew was right in his assessment of how things stood regarding Prince Louis. Because if not...

It was now that quite out of the blue Mary recalled, for no reason that she could fathom other than thinking about Sybil's propensity for speaking her own mind, an incident which had occurred on a long gone evening, years ago, when, en famille, the Bransons had come to stay here at Downton.


Dining Room, Downton Abbey, September 1925.

"Which is what, precisely?" Robert asked tersely, setting down his dessert wine glass with a smart rap on the spotless linen tablecloth. Then, on hearing Sybil's matter-of-fact reply, he blanched so that the colour of his face briefly all but matched the snowy whiteness of the tablecloth, with the earl wishing earnestly that he had not enquired so closely as to what it was to which Sybil was referring. Robert found himself wondering where he had gone wrong with his two younger daughters, given that at times Edith could be just as contrary as Sybil. Thankfully tonight she was not present. These days she was always away - off on yet another archaeological dig in some far flung part of the Near East - Mesopotamia or whatever it was now called. Iraq or some such place. That said the last letter he had received from Edith had been postmarked Vienna.

"Precisely, Papa? Well, it's a clinic, in Dublin. In fact, it's one of several, recently established for soldiers in the new National Army, for those who have been unfortunate enough to contract venereal disease". Sybil's response was concise and to the point. Glancing round the table, seated opposite her, Sybil saw that Matthew had chosen this very moment to become suddenly fascinated by some aspect of the plasterwork of the dining room ceiling which hitherto had escaped his attention. For her part, Mary resembled a figure in a tableau in one of the waxworks which Sybil remembered having seen at Madame Tussaud's up in London during one of their childhood visits to the capital; had paused with her dessert spoon halfway to her mouth. As for darling Tom, for all his knowing ways, he had turned a very fetching shade of pink, which almost matched exactly the colour of the narrow strip of evening sky presently visible through the windows of the dining room, out across the park, above the tops of the trees. Meanwhile, at the far end of the table, Mama was looking intently down at the Damask rose tablecloth, doubtless wishing that she could disappear beneath it.

As was only to be expected, in attendance on the family was Mr. Carson, ably assisted in this by both Thomas and James. Obviously privy to the conversation taking place around the dining table, the old butler was stony faced, but otherwise masked his true feelings and remained impassive, giving no indication that he was even aware of what was presently being discussed. Not so the two footmen who were both all ears, agog to hear what Lady Sybil - as Mr. Carson still thought her to be even if she had been married to the erstwhile chauffeur for some six years - had to say. So, realising the unhealthy as well as impertinent interest being taken by the two younger men in what Lady Sybil was saying, when the opportunity arose, the butler discretely ordered the two footmen to vacate the dining room forthwith.

Surprisingly, Granny was the only one of those seated here tonight who seemed to be taking the content of the present conversation entirely in her stride.

"When your late grandfather and I were in Russia, in Moscow in 1896 for the coronation of the last tsar, from what dear Alexei told me it was much the same with the city garrison there. Apparently, it was no better in St. Petersburg," Violet observed drily.

The earl of Grantham sat back in his chair; gazed in open mouthed incredulity at his mother.

"Mama..."

"Robert, it is the height of bad manners to stare. To do so with your mouth agape makes it doubly unpleasant. Please close your mouth". Promptly and meekly, as if he was a little boy, Robert did as he had been instructed.

"Thank you for those few choice words, Mama. However, I hardly think the subject to be one that is fitting for discussion at the dinner table..."

"Don't be so provincial, Robert. As far back as Ancient Rome, doubtless even before that, and certainly ever since, down the centuries, the disposition and proclivities of the licentious soldiery towards fornication are well attested and equally well known. That they have continued into the twentieth century is to be regretted but hardly something at which to be wondered. After all, human nature being what it is, such things have always occurred, and I expect they always will".

Taking her cue from her grandmother, Sybil breezed on.

"Thank you, Granny. The situation is just as bad in Cork, so too in Galway, Limerick, and Wexford. In fact anywhere there are military garrisons. But it's especially bad in Dublin not only because there are several barracks in the city but because of the Monto, the red light district. Tom wrote a piece on it, didn't you, darling?"

Robert noisily cleared his throat and Tom, who at any other time would have defended Sybil's unfettered right to speak her mind to the hilt, emitted what sounded like a mewling whimper, weakly nodding his assent, before taking another mouthful of trifle which, despite the fact that it was his favourite dessert, tonight seemed not to taste the same.

"Mind you, it was just as bad if not worse when the British Army..."

At this point even Violet had had enough.

"Sybil, dear, this is hardly the stuff of polite chit chat..."


Somewhere south of Scarborough, coast of Yorkshire, April 1937.

The clipped order given to Matthew, to come out from his hiding place and with his hands raised was promptly repeated. It took considerable nerve on Matthew's part to do what he did next. However, as he had proven a few years ago when in Hungary, he did not lack courage so. Of course, part of this sangfroid had something to do with his military training, even if that had taken place many years earlier, but it was also because of Matthew's own innate, personal courage. So, what did he now do? He did absolutely nothing. Instead he remained exactly where he was hidden, crouching there in the darkness in the embrasure beneath the staircase. He knew that the hauptmann could not possibly have seen him, given that the German had not once looked in the direction of Matthew's hiding place, and that with the all pervading fog, hereabouts, all was as dark as dusk on a dismal December day. All the same...

Then, all of a sudden, there came the sound of yet more footsteps and, a moment later, Matthew heard a second pair of feet on the treads of the rusting metal staircase. A rapid exchange of words in German now followed, these between the hauptmann and the new arrival. While Matthew's German was far from perfect, he had picked up a good, working knowledge of the language from interrogating German prisoners on the Western Front. Moreover, his time spent at the headquarters of the League of Nations in Geneva meant that like his French, his German was now better than it had ever been.

Things were much as Matthew had suspected. The new arrival was another member of the crew of the u-boat which had been sent to collect Armitage. It was Matthew's considered opinion that once aboard the submarine, Armitage was unlikely to have survived very long. A bullet in the back of the head and then thrown overboard was the most likely outcome. After all, now that his cover had been blown, what earthly use was Armitage to the Germans? Maybe he himself had realised this to be the case and was the reason why he had not kept the rendezvous. The second member of the crew was now urging the hauptmann that they should not linger here; that, despite the all pervading fog, every passing minute risked discovery, if not of themselves, then of the submarine itself now on the surface out at sea, by a passing trawler or even, Gott bewahre, the Royal Navy.

Eventually, the hauptmann saw the sense in what had been urged upon him and agreed that they should both now leave. Thereafter, Matthew heard the two men climbing noisily back up the metal treads of the stairway before walking away whence they had come. The sound of their footsteps gradually faded and a deep silence enshrouded the crumbling buildings of the old fort. A few moments later, having quitted his hiding place, Matthew cautiously made his way up the same stairway, to find himself on the flat roof of a building. What purpose the structure had once served, he knew not, but, it was as he made his way slowly across it, and towards the sound of the sea, that Matthew realised the fog was now beginning to lift.

In one sense, it was fortunate that the mist was indeed clearing for, as Matthew reached the far side of the building, he found his way barred by a low parapet which, in part, had fallen away completely, thus leaving a sheer, unprotected drop of some fifty feet to the ground below. In the fog it would have been all too easy to have blundered over it, with catastrophic consequences. Now, with the mist rapidly disappearing, Matthew espied a broad strand of shingle beach, bisected by several decaying wooden groynes, each one marked at its seaward end by a tall pole topped by a rusting metal triangle. There, down at the water's edge was drawn up a rubber dinghy and, standing beside it, two men in uniform, towards whom two others - the hauptmann and his fellow crewman - were presently making their way purposefully, albeit slowly, across the shingle bank. As Matthew continued to scan the cold, grey waters of the North Sea, some distance offshore he caught sight of the metal conning tower of the u-boat which had brought the men here to this isolated spot here on the Yorkshire coast. While the rest of the vessel was not visible, it was there nonetheless; submerged below the surface of the sea.


All would yet have been well, had not fate, in the form of a pair of squawking cormorants intent on feeding their young, landed in a flurry of wings on the parapet close to where Matthew was now standing, not conspired to alert the German submariners that they were being watched. The cormorants, whose nest was close by, continued to flap their wings, screeching fit to wake the dead. The ensuing fracas caused the hauptmann and his crewman to pause, turn, and look back at the old fort. While Matthew was quick to throw himself to the roof behind the crumbling parapet, he was not quick enough. The cry went up: ein Engländer!

Matthew had been seen, and even if he had not, the kerfuffle caused by the cormorants had ensured that the German sailors would, in any case, have returned post haste to the fort to investigate the reason for all the sudden noise. Through a crumbling embrasure, Matthew saw, down there on the beach, the hauptmann pointing franticaly back to the fort and yelling to the two men still standing beside the rubber dinghy in which they had all rowed ashore, to come and join him and the other crewman.


Four against one!

Well, thought Matthew, grimly, I'll settle for those odds. In fact, he had faced far worse, both on the Western Front and, rather more recently, defending that bridge out in Hungary against forces loyal to the Regent, Miklós Horthy.


Scrambling across loose shingle is never easy at any time, under fire even less so, and with the four Germans seeking to take cover wherever they could, their progress towards the old fort and its would-be solitary defender, was exceedingly slow. However, had they known it, had it been at all practicable and which it was not on account of the shingle - they could have raced towards the fort at speed because the result would have been exactly the same. His only weapon being his service revolver, Matthew let the Germans move forward until they were, all of them, at the very outer limit of the range of his pistol, so, some fifty yards off. Then, taking deliberate aim, Matthew coolly opened fire. In so doing he made use of a stratagem he had once employed over in France when a group of men under his command, desperately awaiting reinforcements, had found themselves trapped in a shelled out forward trench, facing being overrun by wave upon wave of German soldiers advancing towards them across No Man's Land.


Let them come on, men. Hold your fire until they are in range and then, when I give the order, pick off the officers first, one by one, then the NCOs... Wait for it... wait for it... Now, do as I told you... Open fire!


That ploy had worked back then; the pickelhaube wearing Bavarian infantrymen of the German 6th Army, who seeing first their officers shot down and then their NCOs falling like swatted flies, had turned tail and scuttled back ignominiously to the safety of their own trenches. A short while later, Matthew and those under his command were relieved, much to Matthew's own personal satisfaction, by soldiers of the 18th Battalion of the Manchester Regiment. But, would the gambit he had used in a forward trench back in 1916 work again twenty odd years later?


As Tom would readily attest, for all that Matthew abhorred blood sports, he was, nonetheless, a first class shot. While the distance between him and the four Germans was greater than fifty yards, so more than the limit for Matthew's service revolver, and the light poor, nonetheless, he took careful aim. Matthew's first shot hit the hauptmann squarely in the right shoulder, exactly as he had intended. The man dropped his outstretched pistol, clutching at his wound with his left hand, before falling down onto the shingle. A split second later, Matthew's next shot took the oberfähnrich, identifiable as such by the tabs on the shoulders of his tunic, in more or less the same place. Matthew was shooting both calmly and deliberately so as to incapacitate; not to kill.

The two other Germans - matrosen - ordinary seamen, now returned fire, but their volley of shots, loosed off in rapid succession, flew wide, before they threw themselves flat on the shingle. There, snakelike, they wormed their way forward on their bellies, zigzagging across the shingle, making towards their two wounded comrades. Matthew's gamble had paid off. It had also put paid to any flanking move; for given the labyrinthine nature of the old fort, a veritable rabbit warren of passages, had the four Germans reached the buildings - which they evidently knew rather better than Matthew - they could have appeared more or less anywhere and so taken Matthew unawares. In such circumstances, he did not rate his chances of survival very highly.

Matthew let the matrosen come on, untrammelled. Having reached the two wounded men, their comrades helped each man back towards the waiting dinghy. For his part, Matthew didn't stop to see if they made it; instead, he turned tail himself, keeping low, heading back across the roof of the building on which he had been crouching, and so made his way out of the old fort.


With the fog having lifted completely, Matthew was able to make good speed back across the headland - he had been good at cross country at school - and, save for his sciatica, his regular tramps around the estate kept him fit. Occasionally, he glanced back. Not that he expected there to be any pursuit. After all, the German Navy would never want to be forced to admit that one of their grey hulled u-boats had violated British territorial waters and thus provoke a diplomatic incident. Nor would they wish to own up to the fact that men from the same vessel, having come ashore, had landed on English soil, and then engaged in a brief military action with a former British army officer, even if he himself was long since retired. Should the matter ever come to light, officially it would no doubt be denied that any such incident had ever taken place. So, Matthew reasoned the likelihood of pursuit by others from the u-boat was slight indeed. Yet, there remained the slim possibility that it might happen. All the same, by the time the dinghy with its cargo of wounded and uninjured reached the submarine and raised the alarm, he would be long gone.


Yorkshire, sometime later.

As the MG crested the long rise, it was with an infinite sense of relief, that Matthew saw what he had been looking for. With the landscape spread out below him as if it was a map, there, far down in the valley, on the edge of a village, in fact, little more than a cluster of stone built cottages huddled round a church with a squat tower, there stood a red public telephone box. Grimly satisfied, nodding, Matthew pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator. The MG shot forward, down the hill, trailing behind it a cloud of choking dust.


Approaching the village, Matthew changed down rapidly through the gears, braked, and checked his speed. Not that he need have bothered to do so, for, as he drove into the grey stone hamlet, save for a couple of curtained, lighted windows shewing at the local inn - The Blacksmith's Arms - the place seemed to be completely deserted. A few minutes later, having brought the motor to a stand beside the church, Matthew clambered out, slipped inside the isolated telephone box, and called the abbey.

However, when Barrow answered, Matthew was most surprised to learn that Her Ladyship had not yet returned from York. Looking at his wristwatch, Matthew was aghast. Where the devil was she? Barrow said that he didn't know. Matthew then asked that when Her Ladyship returned, as she must, to let her know that he would be back at Downton within the next hour or so. Thereupon, not waiting for a reply, Matthew hurriedly replaced the receiver, left the telephone box, clambered back into the MG, and set off. After all, there was little else he could do other than press on as quickly as he could. The MG roared out of the village, narrowly missing a couple of sheep grazing placidly on the verge, evidently escapees from a nearby field. As he drove away, Matthew pondered on what he had been told by Barrow, and which had been little enough. Surely, after what he had said to Mary on the telephone, she would not have been foolish enough to have... Or would she?


In the matter of Armitage, there was absolutely no need for Mary to have gone off half cock, as Matthew would have termed it. He forced a wry smile. When she had the bit between her teeth, a metaphor which aptly described her subsequent actions would be charging around like a bull in a china shop. However, in this damnable business of Armitage, it was, and would have been, singularly to no purpose whatsoever. Matthew had communicated immediately what she had told him with the relevant authorities, and matters had been swiftly put in hand, or so he had been led to believe, that the London express would be stopped somewhere south of York and the fugitive arrested. That he supposed was what had happened; which would explain why Armitage had not been at the old fort to keep the rendezvous with the u-boat. Yet why then had he boarded the London express which would have taken him south when he needed to have been heading northeast? It didn't make any sense. Unless, of course...


Sometime later, while on his long, lonely drive back to Downton, glancing up, Matthew saw that the sky had darkened ominously. Not long afterwards, it began to rain although to begin with it was no more than a few spits and spots here and there. Eventually, it became a persistent drizzle but having put up with far worse while out on patrol on the Western Front or else doing his rounds of the tenant farms on the estate, Matthew ploughed on, hoping that the rain would cease. However, quite the reverse; it grew ever heavier so that eventually Matthew was compelled to pull over and put up the hood.

With nothing to show for an exceedingly trying journey of some two hours, made on poor roads - even with Matthew's love of speed, it could not have been accomplished any faster without risking both life and limb - and now the same to be traversed again in failing light in order to return to Downton, the earl of Grantham was decidedly crestfallen. However, much as he wished to reach home as quickly as possible, with the onset of darkness, Matthew had no option but to drive more slowly. He fell once more to considering the information which Prince Louis had vouchsafed to him on the telephone and which had been very specific. That, with Armitage's identity now blazed forth across the newspapers, albeit not for the real reason he was being sought, arrangements had long been in hand, for when his mission to assassinate the king had been accomplished, to pick Armitage up from off the Yorkshire coast by a submarine despatched from Wilhelmshaven for the purpose. The co-ordinates of the rendezvous had matched precisely the location of the old fort from where the dinghy Matthew had seen drawn up on the shoreline below the cliffs would have taken the fugitive but a short distance out to sea and so to the appointment with the waiting u-boat. All the same, Matthew was still firmly of the opinion that Armitage would never have reached Germany alive.

However, for whatever reason, the rendezvous had not been kept. Matthew found himself reminded of what Charles I was reputed to have said when, in January 1642, on the floor of the House of Commons, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to arrest five Members of Parliament for treason, shortly before the outbreak of the English Civil War: I see my birds have flown. Or in this case - Matthew chuckled - had caught the London express.

Drumming on the roof of the motor, the incessant, driving rain made the night its own.


Shepheard's Hotel, Ibrahim Pasha Street, Cairo, Kingdom of Egypt, April 1937.

After breakfast was over, with Friedrich having explained that Tibor and Harriet intended joining them later, and with Herr Horst remaining behind at Shepheard's to answer several telegrams which had arrived here from the Department of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, only Friedrich and the boys would be travelling out to the Pyramids. It was as the three of them reached the front desk of the hotel, that Friedrich was hailed, being informed there was a telephone call for him.

"Go on, you two. I'll be along in a minute". Nodding, unconcerned, chatting of this and that, Rob and Max walked together out into the bright morning sunshine to wait beside one of the two small sphinxes which stood either side of the main entrance to the hotel. From their elevated vantage point, the two boys were able to survey the myriad comings and goings on the street below. Not that they had to wait very long because almost directly, Friedrich re-joined them.

"That was singularly odd," he said, as all three of them now descended the flight of steps leading down to the street.

Ever alert, Max's ears pricked up.

"What was, Papa?"

"Well, when I picked up the receiver and answered, whoever was there at the other end of the line promptly put the 'phone down. Or that's the way it sounded. Probably something wrong at the exchange. Here in Cairo, the telephone service is not at all reliable. Now... Ah, there we are!" Friedrich pointed to the taxi waiting beside the kerb which was to take them out to the Pyramids.


It was as they set off that, for the first time in the journey Max saw his father seemingly taking a great interest in what was going on behind them. A moment later, Friedrich turned back to the boys.

"Papa?"

"Hm?"

"What is it, Papa?"

Friedrich smiled.

"Nothing, my boy. I was just thinking back to the last time I was here. The traffic seems to be far worse than it was then". With that, sitting between his father and Robert on the back seat of the A-Model Ford, Max had to be content and a moment later, the taxi had moved sedately away from the steps of the hotel, bound for Giza and the Pyramids.


Matthew and Mary's bathroom, Downton Abbey, Yorkshire, England, late April 1937.

Sometime later, Mary awoke to find herself still in the bath; the water yet deliciously warm. She yawned and stretched. Dear God, she must have dozed off. She recalled having added more hot water and several further liberal doses of the Matchabelli bath salts from the gold encrusted green glass bottle. Thereafter, she supposed, despite her concern for Matthew, worn out after all the excitement and exertions of the day, she must have fallen asleep.

The bathroom was wreathed in steam, much like she imagined a Turkish bath to be, Mary recalling what Tibor had told her of such establishments in Budapest. Like a dense fog sometimes does, the steam seemed to possess the capacity for distorting reality, creating an atmosphere that was almost otherworldly; blanketing off some sounds and letting others through, and playing tricks with both light and shadows. Otherwise why else a moment ago had she thought she heard the door of the bathroom first softly open and then close again just as quietly. After all, no-one would come in here, while she was alone in the bath. Not the children and certainly not the servants. The only person who might do so was Matthew and from what Simon had told her, his father was miles away over on the coast. Here in the bathroom, Mary had no way of knowing the time but surely it stood to reason that if anything had gone awry, she would have heard of it by now.

"Oh, my dearest dear, please, please come home," she whispered silently; prayed fervently that Matthew was safe and that all would yet be well.

The steam in the bathroom spiralled and swirled about. Then, as Mary looked up, the shadows danced. Her hand flew to her mouth and her heart skipped several beats as some sixth sense told her that she was no longer alone. There was definitely someone here with her in the bathroom. Then, through the veil of steam, she glimpsed the naked figure of a man.

"Would you mind it so very much if I joined you?" Matthew asked, his eyes alive with mirth.

Author's Note:

Egypt had once been part of the Ottoman Empire, from which it had broken away in 1805. From 1882, the country had been occupied by the British, albeit not annexed - what became known as a "veiled protectorate". Any lingering connection to the Ottoman Empire ended in 1914 with the outbreak of the Great War when the sultanate was re-established but Egypt did not become independent. This led to the Egyptian Revolution of 1919 and the granting of a nominal independence in 1922. Continued British presence in the country, throughout WWII, and thereafter, would be one of the reasons for the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 which swept away the monarchy and brought General Nasser to power.

"¡así perezcan todos los cerdos fascistas!" - "So perish all fascist pigs!"

Born in Tiflis, (Tbilisi) the capital of Georgia, at the time part of the Russian Empire, Prince Georges Vasili Matchabelli (1885-1935) was a Georgian aristocrat. A mining engineer and a diplomat, he and his wife emigrated to the United States following the Soviet occupation of Georgia in 1921. An amateur chemist, the prince and his wife, Norina, established the Prince Matchabelli Perfume Company, which became known for its colour coded, crown shaped bottles.

Ernst von Weizsäcker (1882-1951) German naval officer, diplomat and politician. Having joined the German Foreign Service in 1920, by the time of the story, Weizsäcker was Director of the Policy Department at the Wilhelmstrasse and in 1938 would be appointed Staatssekretär ("State Secretary") - second only in seniority to von Ribbentrop. Weizsäcker 's opposition to the Nazis was equivocal insofar as what he and many others wanted at all costs was to avoid Germany being drawn into a war which she would lose. In 1949, he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for having been complicit in the deportation of Jews to Auschwitz. Churchill is on record as stating the sentence was "a deadly error". After being released early from prison, Weizsäcker published his memoirs - written in prison - which portrayed him as a supporter of the German resistance to Hitler. In this century, a claim has been advanced that both his trial and conviction were a political necessity in order to discredit the former aristocratic and bourgeois German ruling classes.

For what happened in Hungary, see my story Alpine Interlude.

During the early 1920s, the prevalence of venereal disease among the ranks of the newly established Irish National Army caused considerable concern to the authorities of the nascent Irish Free State. The situation was made much worse by the fact that the Catholic Church was strongly opposed to the use of prophylactics, stating that "...75 per cent of soldiers are "god-fearing" boys" and that only about 10 per cent were "morally low... promiscuous sinners". Religious figures within the Irish Army suggested instead that efforts be directed to a renewed "moral drive" within the military. Church parades and "frequentation of the sacraments" among the troops were put forward as the most viable remedies. Hardly surprisingly, this did little to improve the situation, with levels of gonorrhoea and syphilis among the common soldiery continuing to rise.

Equally, and unfairly, military reports of the period laid much of the the blame on "ignorant" country girls coming into Dublin and other garrison towns and then going on the game:-

"In my opinion, seven girls out of every 10 in Bray are of ill repute". So wrote a Lieutenant Murphy serving on the Irish Army's Provost Marshall Staff during a routine inspection of that seaside town (situated some fifteen miles south of Dublin) in a report submitted late in 1923.

The Monto was Dublin's notorious red-light district, situated in the area of the city now known as Summerhill. Following a raid in March 1925, the Dublin Metropolitan Police announced that all the brothels in the area had been closed down. However, the kip-houses (as they were called) continued in business well into the 1950s.

Alexei Alexandrovitch Sheremetev with whom, in my stories, Violet has an affair. A captain in the elite Preobrazhensky Regiment, Sheremetev was later shot by the Bolsheviks.

For Matthew's bravery in Hungary, see my story Alpine Interlude.

ähnrich - passed midshipman.

Budapest is famous for its thermal baths.