There was a moment outside while checks were made on both sides of the gate but finally they went through into the gloomy interior. Moravec was waiting for them inside and, without speaking, they set off on a walk through the now defunct graveyard, packed with tilted headstones, with the other two well back to avoid them being overheard. The intelligence chief was not even about to trust the young man he had sent to fetch them.
Cal could hear Vince questioning the young fellow, not in any pressured way, just curious about his time in London, what he had studied, what he thought of the place and had he come across any fascists at the LSE, but inside those replies there would be nuggets of information that might provide clues for future use, given neither had any idea exactly where this was heading.
On a clear night with a near-full moon and a sky full of stars, even in a part of the city low on the spill from street lighting there was no need for any extra illumination, though it did give a ghostly air to both their surroundings and the Moravec-Jardine conversation as they walked down the gravel paths that criss-crossed the burial ground.
Cal was wondering what Moravec wanted with him but was equally determined not to initiate anything; he would wait to hear what the intelligence chief had to say and that became frustrating, as Moravec seemed to want to talk about anything and nothing, thankfully mostly in German.
He was treated to a potted history of the Czechs, without doubt and unsurprisingly in the Moravec exposition the cleverest and most industrious of the former inhabitants of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Quite naturally that included a comprehensive list of the manifest failings of the rest of the groups with whom they competed for imperial attention in what had, until its dismemberment in 1919, been a somewhat rickety edifice.
To the Czech way of thinking it was made up of lazy Slovaks, mercurial Hungarians, puffed-up Poles, insular Ruthenians and double-dealing Rumanians, all beholden to soft overfed Austrians, with the rest, a good dozen races, not, it seemed, to be considered as human at all and a polity riven with the kind of deep-seated anti-Semitism that made men like Hitler.
‘And you can see how we Czechs did not just tolerate the Jews, but lived alongside them in harmony and mutual industry. There were no pogroms in Prague and as of this moment we are walking through a thousand years of Jewish history.’
Then he was on to the German minority, grudgingly admitted to be hard-working and industrious, though politically they had nothing to complain about, with the whole separatist campaign being orchestrated, if not forced, from Berlin.
Konrad Henlein, the leader of the SdP, was far from the most rabid of their number and, while he was strong in demands for regionalism, had never been a National Socialist. It was only pressure from others, rabid Nazis, and their success in the polls that had forced him to even consider incorporating the Sudetenland in the Reich.
According to Moravec, Henlein had been quite amenable to the Sudetenland regions remaining part of the Czechoslovak Republic, albeit with concessions, a position he maintained until he was outmanoeuvred by the National Socialists, who were being heavily backed financially from Berlin.
With less money to spend on elections Henlein had lost an internal struggle for votes against a faction led by an outright Nazi who was now his deputy, a thug called Karl Hermann Frank. He had then moved to the extreme right only to maintain his own position as leader of the ethnic Germans.
While what Moravec was telling him was of some interest it did not answer the central question of what this clandestine meeting was for. On and on he rambled until finally he came to the point, which was that the invasion was scheduled and the question as to how that knowledge would be received in London if it could be proved beyond doubt that it was not just some outline plan – the reason it had been dismissed before – but a real one ready to be executed.
‘It would have to harden their attitude to Germany.’
‘Enough to stop Hitler?’
‘It’s possible,’ Cal replied, thinking of his conversation in the courtyard of the Savile Club. ‘I can say no more than that.’
‘We cannot give up control of the Sudetenland without losing the means to defend the rest of the country. I suspect you know this.’
‘Of course.’
‘You asked about the Germans who fear Hitler will ruin their country?’
Cal did not speak; this was what he had come to Prague for.
‘That attacking us was bound to cause another war. Three we know of tried to change his mind, wrote strong memoranda saying it was madness, von Neurath, the Foreign Minister, Generals Blomberg and Fritsch; all were got rid of. Now General Beck, the Chief of the General Staff, has resigned, but it has not been made public.’
‘If a man of that stature took such a course there must be others willing to follow him?’
‘None as yet, they are behaving like sheep. Everyone who knows what is planned has been told it is Hitler’s unalterable will.’
That sounded like the Austrian Corporal all right: ‘unalterable will’ was one of his favourite sayings and a mantra adopted by those who worshipped him and his creed, as though the mere application of willpower could achieve whatever was desired, regardless of obstacles. It was an uncomfortable truth that, up till now, against all the odds, the little moustachioed bastard had been right.
‘Most of his senior generals are terrified of what he proposes and fear that he will use his leader’s speech at Nuremberg to declare his intention to invade.’
That was only a few days away. ‘Will they act if he does?’
‘If your country was at risk like mine, would you rely on a group of German generals to save you?’
‘No. Is there any prospect of help from elsewhere?’
‘The Polish jackals will not give us aid, they will not even let the Soviets cross their land to help us because they are itching to take back the Teschen coalfields, this while the Hungarians are circling like vultures too, waiting to feed on our carcass. Without help from the West we are doomed.’
‘You’re still negotiating.’
That produced a snort, which was supposed to pass for a laugh. ‘Let me tell you, my friend, a few days ago our president called in the two deputies Henlein has appointed to deal with us. He gave them a blank sheet of paper and a pen and asked them to write for themselves the conditions by which we could avoid a conflict, guaranteeing to accept whatever they wrote in advance.’
‘That sounds like surrender.’
‘It was not quite, but I think they were shocked. Oh, these men, they wrote such a list and Beneš accepted it in a bid to avoid our country being smashed. Then we had a riot up north in Moravia, engineered by the German deputies, in which they claim a policeman struck a deputy with his whip. You will not yet have seen your English papers reporting this, but suddenly we are again, in Germany, killing innocents even if no one died. And what happened to those terms that our president agreed to?’
‘Don’t tell me, no longer acceptable.’
Then, surprisingly, he reverted to his grammarless English and the previous point. ‘If we you give proof absolute of what Hitler planning, what with it would you do?’
‘What kind of proof?’
‘The details of attack.’
That required a long pause; was he being offered such proof? ‘Get it back to London, put it in the hands of those who could make use of it.’
‘The newspapers also?’
‘Perhaps. That would not be for me to decide.’
Even in the gloom Cal saw the smile. ‘Politicians the newspapers fear when they do not them control.’
‘Why do you speak in English when your German is fluent?’
‘Not fluent my English, is it, like Vaclav?’ Finally the young man had a name. ‘I am wound, but practise I must, my friend, if I need flee. If Germans come, a bullet only I can expect.’ The switch back to German was seamless as was the change of subject. ‘There are only four places where this truth you seek exists.’