His Master's Voice part 3: An MI7 Assssin origins story
The third bodyguard was out in the grounds. ‘I can see him!’ he shouted up, as he saw Stone scrabbling through the upper branches towards the trunk of the cedar. He fired up at him. ‘I’ve treed him!’
Welcome to MI7 Assassin! My new WW1 thriller kicks off with two origins short stories to warm you up: His Masters’s Voice and Scent of a Killer.
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Missed parts one and two? Read them here:
His Master’s Voice part 3
But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was an assassin: he killed war criminals, traitors who deserved to die, and whose deaths would genuinely make a difference. Not civilians.
Maybe he could persuade her to stay silent? She was the one who gave him access to the house. She might be considered an accomplice to murder and be tried and sentenced to death. Especially if he escaped. He stared at her, her face rigid with rage, and it was only then that he wondered why she was entering her master’s library so late at night. The answer seemed obvious to him.
She produced a Webley .455 revolver from her dressing gown pocket and pointed it at him. ‘He was mine.’
Not the obvious answer, then. He stared at her, wide-eyed. ‘What? Why?’
‘Because of what he did,’ she spat, looking contemptuously down at Crowe’s body. ‘My husband was second officer on a cruiser in the Arctic Ocean blockade squadron, based in the Orkneys.’
‘I thought he was a soldier who died at Loos?’
‘That was my cover story. Anna is not my real name.’
Sean was impressed by her deception. He nodded. ‘I see.’
‘David and his comrades risked their lives in mountainous seas and blizzards, intercepting neutral ships to check for arms or food supplies headed for Germany.’
‘And if they found them, they put a prize crew aboard?’
‘Correct. They brought the vessel into Kirkwall for the final decision to be made by the prize court.’
‘So the blockade was successful. ’
She nodded. ‘Very. But every time a telegram would be sent from Crowe’s Contraband Committee, over-ruling the prize court, allowing the ships to continue to Germany.’
‘I know,’ Stone said softly. ‘It’s why I had to deal with him.’
‘But what you won’t know,’ she said bitterly, ‘is what it did to everyone. The officers, too.’
‘Go on.’
‘They were so depressed, they gave up. The Captains and senior officers often stayed in their cabins and left it to junior officers like David and midshipmen to bring in the seized ships. Because they knew that within forty-eight hours, the vessels would be on their way again. There was a storm.’ She looked out the window and shuddered. ‘Like tonight. David’s ship Clan MacGregor went down with two hundred and forty officers and crew. He was one of the few survivors.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I told him it wasn’t his fault, no one could have brought the ship through that storm. But he said he just wanted to die with his shipmates.’
Stone winced. He knew just how that felt.
‘I tried everything but it was no use. He got worse and worse. Finally … he shot himself. I couldn’t have children, so David was everything to me.’
‘And so you came here looking for revenge.’
‘I had it all planned. The gun–’
There was a polite knock on the door. ‘Sir? May I come in?’
They looked at each other. It was gone ten o’clock. The bodyguards would expect to hear Crowe leaving his library and going to bed. Stone raised his finger to his lips. Anna nodded, her eyes wide. He padded quietly to the door and carefully turned the key in the lock. ‘Sir? Is everything all right? Are you all right?’ The bodyguard tried the handle then knocked louder. ‘Sir? Sir?’
Stone turned urgently to Anna. ‘You need to make this look good, otherwise they’ll think you’re involved. Fire after me. Not too close, if you don’t mind.’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ she said coolly. ‘But what am I doing with a gun?’
‘Tell them it’s mine.’ He pocketed his Mauser. ‘You disturbed me and saw it lying on the desk.’
‘Sir!’ Fists were now hammering on the door. Another voice had joined in. Two of them to deal with.
‘And why am I up here?’
‘The obvious, of course.’ She scowled. He grimaced apologetically. There was a massive thud as one of the bodyguards slammed his shoulder against the door. He gave her a reassuring look. ‘You fooled me. You’ll talk your way out of it.’
With a crash the door was smashed open and the two bodyguards hurled themselves into the room and at Stone: the butler and the valet.
Stone’s ju jitsu training, employed to deadly effect on his trench raids, instinctively kicked in. He caught hold of the butler’s belt with his right hand, pulling him forward, while at the same time forcing his head back. The man wasn’t going back quickly enough, so he assisted him with a knee groin kick. The butler was thrown back against a bookshelf, bringing down an avalanche of heavy volumes on himself.
Stone would have finished him with a neck stamp, but the valet was attacking, fists flying. He grasped the valet’s wrist, turned the palm upwards, striking a blow under the elbow. Then pulled down upon the wrist, snapping his elbow. The valet howled. A groin toe kick and backward trip and he was down. As he sprawled on the ground, screaming in pain, Stone gave him a neck stamp, throwing all his weight onto his stamping foot.
Then he was out the window, with Anna firing wide after him and the rain stinging his eyes. He dropped down onto the roof of the bay window, then launched himself up into the valley between the two main roofs, scrabbling up the wet slates towards the ridge. In the distance he could hear the butler yelling to the third bodyguard: ‘He’s on the roof! Head him off outside!’ Then he was past the chimneys, and down the other side, sliding towards the nearest branch of the cedar tree.
The third bodyguard was out in the grounds. ‘I can see him!’ he shouted up, as he saw Stone scrabbling through the upper branches towards the trunk of the cedar. He fired up at him. ‘I’ve treed him!’
Stone grimly acknowledged the truth of it. He was treed, with nowhere to go. He heard the butler, now recovered, running out into the garden, bellowing to the maidservant. ‘Call the police! The master’s been murdered!’ He joined the third bodyguard at the base of the tree ‘Get up there after him,’ he ordered, and bent to give him a leg up so he could reach the lowest branch. The bodyguard scrabbled for a hold and then began climbing up through the dense branches. The butler flashed a torch upwards, but it wasn’t giving much away. Ensuring he wouldn’t hit his colleague, he fired blindly into the darkness, perilously close to Stone. He hugged the trunk, as the bullets thudded into it and gouged off splinters of bark.
The bodyguard called down to the butler. ‘No need. We’ve got the bastard. He can’t get away.’
‘The police are on their way,’ said the maidservant, joining the butler. Anna, too, came out and fired up at the tree.
‘I said – stop shooting, you nearly bloody killed me!’ yelled the bodyguard.
Stone couldn’t be sure but it looked like she’d aimed for the bodyguard. He permitted himself a small grin.
‘I’ll deal with him!’ the bodyguard called down. He was now closing in on Stone. ‘Surrender, or you’re done for, mate,’ he warned him.
Stone was at the top now, the final branch, the wind buffeting the tree as if he was at the top of a ship’s mast on a treacherous sea with the icy rain pelting him hard. He was all out of tree. He looked down on Crowe’s house far below and also the imposing houses of Lexden Road opposite. And back at the bodyguard. He was just a couple of feet below him, reaching up to that last branch. A moment later, he was upon him, grabbing his ankle in a vice-like grip, dragging him down.
Then he saw it: a single light piercing the rain, heading towards him along Lexden Road. An open-top tram rattling into town in its reassuring livery of brown and cream. A prominent Milkmaid Condensed Milk sign on its front was briefly illuminated as it sped under a street lamp. How many cups of tea had he made in the trenches with Milkmaid? Enough to hate the stuff. The tram was on the far side of the road, but a leap into its open top was still possible. Maybe. He kicked the bodyguard in the face, sending him crashing back down the tree. Then hurriedly crawled along the uppermost sprawling branch. It bent and swayed under his weight, but still jutted out encouragingly in the general direction of the oncoming tram.
He looked at the tram drawing closer, and did his best to estimate time and motion, as if it were a trapeze flying towards him high above the stage when he had been one of the Flying Desperados – third billing, no less – in the music halls. And he leapt into space.
As he fell through the air, he found himself thinking about that publisher who rejected The Aerialist. Doubtless he would have been expecting him to do a mid-air somersault, too. Fat chance. He landed heavily at the back but managed to roll to absorb the impact and stop himself from tumbling down the stairs. There were no other passengers on the upper deck, given the rain and the cold, instead they were all crowded below, the fug of cigarette smoke and the sound of drunken Saturday night singing wafting up to him.
He looked back and saw the butler running onto Lexden Road, pursuing the tram. And checked ahead: There was a request stop about a hundred yards along the road, in front of a white stucco Regency terrace, but fortunately no one was waiting or wanted to alight, and the tram serenely clattered on its way, leaving its impotent pursuer far behind.
Sean sat down and unhitched the waterproof cover from the seat in front, covering himself from the waist down. The rain had stopped now, but the reassuring routine helped calm his pounding heart as the adrenaline surged through his body. Pears Soap adverts were on the backs of all the seats. Stone and his mates would laugh about them in the filth of the trenches. ‘Pears Soap produces Soft. White. And Beautiful Hands.’ They would wave their dirty, scarred paws in the air as ‘proof’ it worked. Dean had taken exception to a Pears advert where a black child’s skin turned white, thanks to using the wonder soap. They agreed with Dean, not because they really understood why it made him so angry, but because he was their mate.
As the tram reached Crouch Street, he looked down from the upper deck at a Ford ‘Tin Lizzie’, rather like his own, speeding past with four resolute policemen on board, clearly headed for The Avenue. It was chucking out time and everyone was spilling out of the pubs and hurrying away into the night, collars turned up against the weather. He spotted a few Military police shepherding soldiers back to their barracks.
The trolley turned left into Head Street and he looked back at the distinctive Elephant and Castle Hotel on the far side of the junction. Makes you feel at home, Sergeant? Stone asked.
It’s closed and it’s a Saturday night, fer crissake, Dawes growled. It’s a bleedin’ disgrace.
‘Headgate!’ called the clippie. Stone stood up, pushing the waterproof cover off his lap and made his way downstairs to join the alighting passengers as the motorman stopped in Head Street. The clippie gave him a suspicious look as he alone came down the stairs, but, before she could ask for his ticket, he was quickly lost in the throng. ‘Come on, Jed, let’s get you home, you’re pissed,’ said one woman as her husband leaned heavily on her. ‘How can I be pissed?‘ he protested. ‘They water the bleeding beer. That Lloyd George. He’s got a lot to answer for.’ ‘Ain’t there any pubs open?’ someone else enquired. ‘You’ll be lucky,’ their companion replied. ‘Not with the beauty sleep order.’ ‘I know a club that’s open,’ another suggested. ‘Between the Jumbo and the church.’ ‘It’s the same the world over,’ said a happy soldier, staggering towards the Jumbo water tower. ‘Wherever you go, there’s always a club to get round the rules.’
Stone watched the tram glide away and turn into the High Street, then made a point of purposefully striding down North Hill in the direction of the train station. Just in case any witnesses might remember and report him. Those police he’d would be turning round and coming back any moment now. And they would be checking all the late night trains, especially to London.
Making sure he wasn’t being observed, he took a right turn, cutting through the narrow medieval streets of the Dutch Quarter down to the entrance to Castle Park. The tall wrought iron gates were closed with a padlock and chain. It took him a couple of seconds to clear the gate, and he made his way swiftly through the deserted park, retrieving his coat and hat from the shrubbery, keeping to the shadows until he reached similar gates at the eastern end, by the weir. Vaulting over them, he saw the Old Siege House at the bottom of East Hill, already closed for the night. Stone then walked briskly along the river path to the port of Wivenhoe. And his rendezvous with the Thames barge skipper with whom he had arranged his escape. He gave him the second instalment of the money he had promised, with the rest due on his safe arrival in London.
Stone bedded down in one of the ‘stackies’ laden with hay for London’s horses. He slept better than he had in months as the barge sailed down the coast to the city. His voices were pleased with him and left him in peace, just as they had promised.
He was in the clear, but he knew that the assassination of Crowe could alert other traitors who were deliberately prolonging the war. They didn’t know who he was, but they might realise what drove him. After all, Crowe’s fake blockade was well known in their circles. They didn’t know his identity. And yet they did.
He was not ‘one of us’.
Perhaps it was coincidence, but the naval blockade was strictly enforced in the following months. The prize vessels the Arctic squadron seized and brought into Kirkwall were not released. Their precious cargoes never reached Germany. Thus helping to defeat the enemy sooner rather than later. The assassination of Crowe must have been a factor.
Stone knew he had made a difference.
The mysterious role of Crowe’s German wife, Clema, Stone never got to the bottom of. One explanation, he conjectured, was that British intelligence wanted Germany to declare unrestricted submarine warfare in order to bring the United States into the war, just as they had played a similar dubious role in the sinking of the Lusitania in May, 1915. Clema may have mislead her uncle, encouraging him to believe that his plan would bring Britain to its knees. All part of that secret strategy to destroy Germany so it could never rise again.
Stone was ready for work at MI7 Monday morning, bright and early, as Captain Pollard arrived and fired his gun into the ceiling of the library as he was fond of doing from time to time. Stone had grown so accustomed to Pollard’s theatrical entrances that, like the other MI7 agents, he didn’t even bother to look up from his work. He was still pondering on how ‘Anna’ had fooled him and how nobody is ever who they appear to be. Not Anna. Not Crowe. Not himself. And maybe not even Captain Pollard. He realized he still had a lot to learn.
But one thing he did know: next time there would be no conversation with his target. Next time: shoot to kill.
THE END
I hope you enjoyed reading His Master’s Voice! Next week we kick off with another Sean Stone origins story: Scent of a Killer.
P.s. I found this old postcard of a tram going down Lexden Road, which is just like the one that Sean Stone made his escape on. I don’t know why, but I love trams. It’s a shame that so many were discarded in favour of the automobile.
