Page 27 of A Call to Home (Women of the Resistance #3)

Cairo

September 1943

Battle lines were being drawn up at Rustum Buildings. Leo had been aware for several months of feuding in the higher echelons of SOE between the supporters of Mihailovic and the Chetniks and those of Tito and the Partisans. She was conflicted herself in that respect. She knew that Sasha’s dearest wish was to see the Chetniks triumphant, and King Peter restored to the throne, and to some extent she shared his feelings. She had always been fond of the young king and the allure of returning to the old way of life she and Sasha had enjoyed before the war was strong. On the other hand, what she had learned about Mihailovic’s Greater Serbia ambitions and his attitude to people of other ethnic origins was chilling. And it had to be admitted that he had done very little to resist the German occupation. Now there was the new factor of Tito’s obvious successes and the prospect that he might be in a position to take control of the country when the war was over. Would there be any place for her and Sasha in a communist Yugoslavia? And more immediately there was one overriding consideration. Alix was with Tito and her life might well depend on how much military support he and the Partisans received.

It was not, however, this ongoing conflict that was raising the temperature in the offices of SOE’s Balkan desk. Orders had been handed down from London that a brigadier was to be sent to Tito to establish the grounds for British support. It was the identity of this man that was causing the uproar. Brigadier Keble was incandescent with fury.

‘Have the boffins at HQ gone completely out of their minds, foisting this Maclean character on us?’ he demanded. ‘He’s not SOE. He’s never been properly trained. It’s madness.’

‘Weren’t we told that he was the Prime Minister’s personal choice?’ James Klugmann queried, from behind his usual screen of tobacco smoke.

‘What does Winston know about undercover work behind enemy lines?’

‘He won’t be undercover,’ Klugmann pointed out. ‘He’s going in uniform, like Deakin and the rest.’

‘That’s not the point,’ was the response. ‘The man is totally unsuitable. He’s an adventurer, a romantic, thinks he’s some sort of Scarlet Pimpernel. He’s not even a regular soldier. He’s a diplomat. The Foreign Office wouldn’t let him join up, so he managed to get himself elected as a Tory MP so they had to release him. Then what does he do? He goes and signs on as a Private in the Cameron Highlanders. That’s his way of sticking two fingers up at the establishment, I suppose.’

‘So how come he’s a brigadier now?’ Leo asked.

‘He’s not! He’s a captain, that’s all. Got his commission soon enough of course. Then he was sent out here, found things a bit too quiet for his liking, so he signed up with that crazy bunch the SAS, went charging around the desert blowing up enemy tanks. Now he thinks he’s Lawrence of bloody Arabia!’

‘Well, the PM obviously thinks he’s the man for the job,’ Klugmann pointed out.

‘An aristocrat? The son of a Scottish laird? What’s he going to have in common with a Red like Tito?’ Keble demanded.

‘Maybe the fact that he spent several years in Russia as a diplomat before the war and speaks fluent Russian might be a help?’ Klugmann suggested slyly.

‘Ah well, there it is! The man’s a commie fellow traveller on top of everything else.’

‘And a Tory MP as well? Hardly likely,’ Klugmann said.

Keble found no answer to that, so he simply snorted.

Leo decided that she rather liked the sound of this quixotic Scotsman and was looking forward to meeting him.

‘What news is there of Mihailovic?’ Keble asked.

‘We had a message from Bill Hudson this morning,’ Leo told him. ‘He says the Chetniks are falling all over Captain Mansfield, the American marine who was dropped last month; they can’t do enough for him. They’ve more or less given up on support from us and think they are going to get much more from the Yanks. And it does seem to have changed their attitude to the Germans. Bill says since the end of last month they have derailed two troop trains, attacked the German garrison at Prijepolje and killed two hundred, and forced the surrender of the Italian garrison at Priboj.’

‘Huh!’ Klugmann grunted. ‘They’ve seen which way the wind is blowing and want to make up for lost time. But they are too late. History is against them.’

‘Well, they are going to get their own brigadier,’ Keble announced. ‘I’m sending Charles Armstrong. He’s one of us, a regular soldier, thoroughly sound chap. He’ll sort the Americans out and get Mihailovic back on track.’

Two days later a tall, athletic-looking man in the uniform of the Cameron Highlanders, complete with kilt and with the insignia of a brigadier, walked into the office.

‘Fitzroy Maclean,’ he said by way of introduction. ‘Reporting for duty in obedience to instructions.’

Keble rose to his feet, bristling. ‘What in the name of god are you doing in that uniform, Captain Maclean?’

The newcomer met his eyes. ‘I’ve just come from General Wilson. This was his order.’

Wilson was the British Commander in Chief in the Middle East.

‘And what did you think you were doing going to him instead of reporting here first?’

‘Again, those were General Wilson’s instructions.’

Keble was breathing hard, like a bull preparing to charge. ‘Well, I’ll tell you this. You are not going to Yugoslavia. You will get no help from this office.’ His gaze swept over Leo and Klugmann. ‘This man is not to be given sight of any documents relating to the work we do here. That’s an order!’

Leo stared at him. Had he lost his mind? How did he think he could get away with directly contradicting orders from above? She turned her attention to Maclean, expecting to see confusion, or fury perhaps. She saw instead cold contempt.

‘I think I need to refer this to the General,’ he said. ‘If you will excuse me?’ He turned on his heel and left the room.

An hour later Keble was summoned to the General’s presence. He returned glowering. ‘Seems we are lumbered with this chap, like it or not.’

‘So do we share information with him or not?’ Klugmann asked.

‘Oh, do want you damn well please,’ was the response.

Maclean reappeared in the office an hour later. Keble was nowhere to be seen and Klugmann had gone off on some mysterious errand of his own.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Leo said. ‘Brigadier Keble is not here at the moment.’

Maclean smiled. ‘Probably just as well. Anyway, I’m told you are the lady I should address myself to.’

‘Me?’

‘According to General Wilson no one can tell me more about Yugoslavia and its people than you can. So, if you can spare the time, I should be grateful for a detailed briefing.’

Leo smiled at him. He was very good-looking, with a broad forehead, a straight nose, a slightly cleft chin and lips that, though firm, suggested to her a certain sensitivity and a readiness to smile. His eyes were blue and possessed a directness of gaze that carried a natural assumption of command. Altogether, she reflected, he lived up to the image she had conceived from Keble’s description.

‘Please sit down, sir. I’ll be glad to help in any way I can.’

For the next hour he quizzed her not only about any information she had gleaned from the reports she had read from Deakin and other members of his team but about life in Yugoslavia before the war. He asked for her opinion of members of the government and other influential people she had known and was very interested to learn that she and her husband had been close to the young king. When she let slip that they had been involved in the coup that had overthrown his Uncle Paul, Maclean’s interest sharpened to admiration.

‘One more thing,’ he said eventually, ‘a little bird told me before I left London that you have a daughter currently fighting alongside Tito. Can that possibly be true?’

‘How did you know?’ Leo asked.

He shook his head. ‘I can’t reveal my sources. So it is true, then?’

‘Yes, that is what I have been told.’

‘So how did that come about?’

Leo lifted her shoulders. ‘Your little bird probably knows more about it than I do. I haven’t seen or had any direct communication with Alix since before the war. I left her in Paris, and I thought she was there still until my husband was given a letter from a mysterious source in Yugoslavia saying he had seen her with Tito in Bihac. It seems…’ the words caught in her throat, ‘it seems she was being commended by Tito for heroic actions during the siege of the city. Since then I have had two very short messages, one from Captain Deakin and one from Captain Davidson, to let me know she is well.’

Maclean’s blue eyes were sympathetic. ‘She is obviously a remarkable young lady.’

Leo swallowed. ‘Yes, I think she is.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I promise you that when I get there, I will give her any message you want me to and if I possibly can I will get word through to you to let you know how she is doing.’

Leo thanked him with tears in her eyes and shortly after that he took his leave, promising to return next morning.

It was the following afternoon that Leo decided to have tea at the sporting club during her time off. She had not been there long before a couple of young lieutenants attached to Military Intelligence came over and asked if they might join her. She was surprised because she had spoken to them casually once or twice but did not regard them as friends.

‘I say,’ one of them said, ‘you’ve met this new chap Brigadier Maclean, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ Leo admitted cautiously. The proceedings of SOE were secret and she never allowed herself to be drawn on them.

‘What do you make of him?’ the other man asked.

‘Why are you asking me this?’ she enquired. ‘It has nothing to do with you.’

‘It’s just that we’ve heard the rumours and we wanted to know if they are true?’ the first man said.

‘Rumours? What rumours?’

‘Well, the word in the bazaar is he’s as queer as a coot and can’t hold his drink.’

Leo stared at them. ‘I don’t know who is spreading rumours like that, but I can tell you that I don’t believe them for a minute. It’s a wicked lie spread to deliberately undermine his mission. If you hear it repeated, please tell whoever it is that it is pure malice without any foundation.’

When she returned to work Maclean was there and she repeated what she had heard.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said. ‘I think we can both guess the source of the stories. Leave it to me.’

Next day Keble was summoned again by General Wilson. He came back, spent a few minutes in his office and left with a few possessions in a cardboard box. He was never seen again.

Leo spent the next days in detailed discussions with Fitzroy Maclean and they were some of the most enjoyable she had had for some time. Fitz, as she came to call him, had a gleam in his eyes that told her she was appreciated for herself, not just as a source of information. So when he invited her to join him for a drink she felt a lift in her spirits that she had not known since Bill Hudson left. It was not long, however, before she realised that any attractive woman who came within his orbit was treated to the same flattering attention and he was soon to be seen dining and dancing with one or other of the young FANY radio operators who worked in the same building. Leo upbraided herself for imagining that a woman of her age could be of any real interest to a man like that. But he was good company and he had a brain that seemed to absorb information like a sponge. When the time came for him to be dropped into Bosnia she was convinced that he was the right man to bring Tito into the Allied fold and she felt reassured that Alix would be safer because of that.

‘Can I give you a short note to give to Alex?’ she asked.

He shook his head regretfully. ‘I’m sorry. I’d rather not. I know I’m being dropped to friends and there shouldn’t be any problem but you can never be sure that you won’t find yourself falling, literally, into the wrong hands. I don’t want to carry anything that might incriminate me, or someone else. Do you understand?’

Leo bit back tears. ‘Yes, I do, of course. I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘I can give her a verbal message, at least. Will that do?’

‘Yes. Yes, please. Just tell her that… that I’m proud of her, and give her my love.’

‘I’ll do that, I promise.’

The day before he left, she plucked up courage to ask him something that had been in her mind since he first arrived.

‘This may be a silly question, but you don’t wear a kilt when you are dropped by parachute do you?’

He laughed. ‘I wish I had a pound for every time I’ve been asked that. The answer, of course, is no.’

As usual, she went to Derna airfield to see him off. An aircraftman brought him a parachute, which he handed back with a smile. ‘If you don’t mind, I never take the first ’chute I’m offered. I’ll come and pick one out for myself.’

They shook hands and Leo said, ‘Good luck, and give my love to Alix.’

‘Trust me,’ he replied.

Leo returned to the office feeling rather flat, as she always did when she had seen agents off into the field; but next day she had news that raised her spirits. Sasha succeeded in getting a phone call through to her.

‘Peter has decided to move the court to Cairo. He feels that now Italy is out of the war it can’t be long before Yugoslavia is freed. He wants to be as close as possible so he can respond immediately when the time comes.’