Read Online Graham Greene by The Spy's Bedside Book - Free Book Online

be hung for a sheep,”
    â€œCowardy, cowardy custard,” grown-up and childish exhortations oddly mixed.
    But as he moved he heard footfalls in the street, the sound of several men walking rapidly. Charlie Stowe was old enough to feel surprise that anybody was about. The footsteps came nearer, stopped; a key was turned in the shop door, a voice said: “Let him in,” and then he heard his father, “If you wouldn’t mind being quiet, gentlemen. I don’t want to wake up the family.” There was a note unfamiliar to Charlie in the undecided voice. A torch flashed and the electric globe burst into blue light. The boy held his breath; he wondered whether his father would hear his heart beating, and he clutched his nightshirt tightly and prayed, “O God, don’t let me be caught.” Through a crack in the counter he could see his father where he stood, one hand held to his high stiff collar, between two men in bowler hats and belted mackintoshes. They were strangers.
    â€œHave a cigarette,” his father said in a voice dry as a biscuit. One of the men shook his head. “It wouldn’t do, not when we are on duty. Thank you all the same.” He spoke gently, but without kindness: Charlie Stowe thought his father must be ill.
    â€œMind if I put a few in my pocket?” Mr Stowe asked, and when the man nodded he lifted a pile of Gold Flakes and Players from a shelf and caressed the packets with the tips of his fingers.
    â€œWell,” he said, “there’s nothing to be done about it, and I may as well have my smokes.” For a moment Charlie Stowe feared discovery, his father stared round the shop so thoroughly; he might have been seeing it for the first time. “It’s a good little business,” he said, “for those that like it. The wife will sell out, I suppose. Else the neighbours’ll be wrecking it. Well, you want to be off. A stitch in time. I’ll get my coat.”
    â€œOne of us’ll come with you, if you don’t mind,” said the stranger gently.
    â€œYou needn’t trouble. It’s on the peg here. There, I’m all ready.”
    The other man said in an embarrassed way, “Don’t you want to speak to your wife?” The thin voice was decided. “Not me. Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. She’ll have her chance later, won’t she?”
    â€œYes, yes,” one the strangers said and he became very cheerful and encouraging. “Don’t you worry too much. While there’s life …” and suddenly his father tried to laugh.
    When the door had closed Charlie Stowe tiptoed upstairs and got into bed. He wondered why his father had left the house again so late at night and who the strangers were. Surprise and awe kept him for a little while awake. It was as if a familiar photograph had stepped from the frame to reproach him with neglect. He remembered how his father had held tight to his collar and fortified himself with proverbs, and he thought for the first time that, while his mother was boisterous and kindly, his father was very like himself, doing things in the dark which frightened him. It would have pleased him to go down to his father and tell him that he loved him, but he could hear through the window the quick steps going away. He was alone in the house with his mother, and he fell asleep.
    GRAHAM GREENE

20. A SEGMENT OF GERMAN SAUSAGE
    n 2 September 1940 four German agents embarked at Le Touquet in a fishing boat which was escorted across the Channel by two minesweepers. According to one of the men the fishing boat’s crew consisted, improbably, of three Russians and a Latvian; another said it was manned by two Norwegians and one Russian. All had confused memories of the voyage, and it seems possible that they were drunk.
    The spies were to hunt in couples. One pair, after transshipping to a dinghy, landed near Hythe in the early hours of 3 September. They