Read Online The Light of Day by Eric Ambler - Free Book Online

offer sir, I'll take my medicine.' C.O.can't think of anything to say except 'Don't let it happen again.' Charge dismissed.
    The only trouble is that in the Army, unless you are always making a damned nuisance of yourself, they would sooner give you the benefit of the doubt than not, because it's easier for them that way. Besides, they know that even if you have made the whole thing up, at least they've had you sweating over it. The police are much more difficult. They don't want you to have the benefit of any doubt. They want to start checking and double-checking your story, and getting witnesses and evidence, so that there is no doubt. What was the lady's name? Describe her. Exactly where was the house to which you escorted her? Was her mother in fact there? Did you see her? It takes twenty-two minutes to walk from the shopping arcade to the other side of Artillery Park, and a further thirty minutes to walk from there to the barracks. That makes fifty-two minutes. But you were two hours late getting in. Where did you spend the other hour and eight minutes? We have a witness who says that he saw you...' And so on. You can't buy well-sirs good enough for the police for half a crown. Intelligence people are even worse. Nine times out of ten they don't even have to worry about building up a case against you to go into court. They are the court—judge, jury and prosecutor, all in one.
    I did not know anything about this Second Section which the Commandant had mentioned; but it was not hard to guess what it was. The Turks have always been great borrowers of French words and phrases. The Ikinci Büro sounded to me like the Turkish counterpart of the Deuxième Bureau. I wasn't far wrong.
    I think that if I were asked to single out one specific group of men, one type, one category, as being the most suspicious, unbelieving, unreasonable, petty, inhuman, sadistic, double-crossing set of bastards in any language, I would say without any hesitation 'the people who run counter-espionage departments.' With them, it is no use having just one story; and especially not a true story; they automatically disbelieve that. What you must have is a series of stories, so that when they knock the first one down you can bring out the second, and then, when they scrub that out, come up with a third. That way they think they are making progress and keep their hands off you, while you gradually find out the story they really want you to tell.
    My position at Edirne was hopeless from the start. If I had known what was hidden in the car before the post Commandant had started questioning me, I wouldn't have told him about Harper. I would have pretended to be stupid, or just refused to say anything. Then, later, when I had finally broken down and told all, they would have believed at least some of what I had said. As it was, I had told a story that happened to be true, but sounded as if I thought they were half-witted. You can imagine how I felt as I waited. With no room at all for manœuvre, I knew that I must be in for a bad time.
    The sun went down and the window turned black. It was very quiet. I could hear no sounds at all from other parts of the jail. Presumably, things were arranged so that there they could hear no sounds made in the interrogation room —screams etc. When I had been there two hours, there were footsteps in the corridor outside, the door was unlocked and a new guard came in with a tin bowl of mutton soup and a hunk of bread. He put these on the table in front of me, then nodded to his friend, who went out and locked the door. The new man took his place on the bench.
    There was no spoon. I dipped a piece of bread in the soup and tasted it. It was lukewarm and full of congealed fat. Even without my indigestion I could not have eaten it. Now, the smell alone made me want to throw up.
    I looked at the guard. 'Sul?’   I asked.
    He motioned to the washroom. Evidently, if I wanted water I would have to drink from the tap. I did not