The Unlikely Spy

It had been Alfred Vicary's inability to repair a motorbike that led to his shattered knee. It happened on a glorious autumn day in the north of France, and without a doubt it was the worst day of his life.

 

Vicary had just finished a meeting with a spy who had gone behind enemy lines in a sector where the British planned to attack at dawn the next morning. The spy had discovered a large bivouac of German soldiers. The attack, if it went forward as planned, would be met with heavy resistance. The spy gave Vicary a handwritten note on the strength of the German troops and the number of artillery pieces he had spotted. He also gave Vicary a map showing exactly where they were camped. Vicary placed them in his leather saddlebag and set out back to headquarters.

 

Vicary knew he was carrying intelligence of vital importance; lives were at stake. He opened the throttle full and drove perilously fast along the narrow track. Large trees lined both sides of the path, a canopy of limbs overhead, the sunlight on the autumn leaves creating a flickering tunnel of fire. The path rose and fell rhythmically beneath him. Several times he felt the exhilarating thrill of his Rudge motorbike soaring airborne for a second or two.

 

The engine rattle began ten miles from headquarters. Vicary eased off the throttle. Over the next mile the rattle progressed to a loud clatter. A mile later he heard the sound of snapping metal, followed by a loud bang. The engine suddenly lost power and died.

 

With the roar of the bike gone, the silence was oppressive. He bent down and looked at the motor. The hot greasy metal and twisting cables meant nothing to him. He remembered actually kicking the thing and debating whether he should leave it by the roadside or drag it back to headquarters. He took hold of it by the handlebars and began pushing at a brisk pace.

 

The afternoon light diminished to a frail pink dusk. He was still miles from headquarters. If he were lucky, Vicary might run into someone from his own side who could give him a lift. If he were unlucky he might find himself face-to-face with a patrol of German scouts.

 

When the last of the twilight had died away, the shelling began. The first shells fell short, landing harmlessly in a field. The next shells soared overhead and thudded against a hillside. The third volley landed on the track directly in front of him.

 

Vicary never heard the shell that wounded him.

 

He regained consciousness sometime in the early evening as he lay freezing in a ditch. He looked down and nearly fainted at the sight of his knee, a mess of splintered bone and blood. He forced himself to crawl out of the ditch back up to the path. He found his bike and blacked out beside it.

 

Vicary came to in a field hospital the next morning. He knew the attack had gone forward because the hospital was overflowing. He lay in his bed all day, head swimming in a drowsy morphine haze, listening to the moaning of the wounded. At twilight the boy in the next bed died. Vicary closed his eyes, trying to shut out the sound of the death rattle, but it was no good.

 

Brendan Evans--his friend from Cambridge who had helped Vicary deceive his way into the Intelligence Corps--came to see him the next morning. The war had changed him. His boyish good looks were gone. He looked like a hardened, somewhat cruel man. Brendan pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed.

 

"It's all my fault," Vicary told him. "I knew the Germans were waiting. But my motorbike broke down and I couldn't fix the damned thing. Then the shelling started."

 

"I know. They found the papers in your saddlebag. No one's blaming you. It was just bloody awful luck, that's all. You probably couldn't have done anything to repair the bike in any case."

 

Sometimes, Vicary still heard the screams of the dying in his sleep--even now, almost thirty years later. In recent days his dream had taken a new twist--he dreamed it was Basil Boothby who had sabotaged his motorbike.

 

Ever read Vogel's file?

 

No.

 

Liar. Perfect liar.

 

Vicary had tried to refrain from the inevitable comparisons between then and now, but it was unavoidable. He did not believe in fate, but someone or something had given him another chance--a chance to redeem himself for his failure on that autumn day in 1916.

 

Vicary thought the party in the pub across the street from MI5 headquarters would help him take his mind off the case. It had not. He had lingered at the fringes, thinking about France, gazing into his beer, watching while other officers flirted with the pretty typists. Nicholas Jago was giving a rather good account of himself at the piano.

 

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