Read Online The Shepherd File by Conrad Voss Bark - Free Book Online
Authors: Conrad Voss Bark
Ads: Link
what it was all about.’
They went through the reports of Foreign Office intelligence. The blue flimsies confirmed the feeling about which Holmes had reported. More and more agents were flooding into African territories, from Russia, from China, from South Africa, India, America. The struggle now, wrote one agent in Lusaka, is for the soul of the African people.
‘We’ve heard it all before,’ said the sceptical Morrison. They’ve been a-struggling for the dark soul of Africa ever since — what’s-his-name?’
Lamb looked surprised. ‘Stanley and Livingstone?’
‘No,’ said Morrison, ‘Cecil Rhodes.’
Holmes appreciated the point. Rhodes, as distinct from Stanley and Livingstone, had had money and a private army.
‘Which brings us back to Shepherd,’ said Lamb. ‘Why make this drug in Africa and which army is going to use it? So far there’s no evidence from Africa that anyone is. The more I think about it the more likely that it isn’t for military use at all. It’s black market. Kick pills. That sort of thing.’
‘So Shepherd comes back to London to see the Russians about organizing a black market in pep pills?’ asked Morrison, in scorn.
Lamb, a trifle dourly, said: ‘He may not have come back for that at all. It may be something quite different.’
That was the trouble.
The three of them eventually dispersed after a fruitless meeting to follow up their own ideas, and in the case of Lamb and Morrison to urge their departments to new and intensive effort. Holmes had his long-delayed lunch with the gentleman from the Sudan who had recently been as far south in Africa as the Transvaal and as far west as the Niger. His news was that one or two East African territories were near to revolution. Troops were being subjected to intense propaganda. Food was bad. Pay was meagre and irregular. In a crisis it was doubtful if the troops were entirely reliable. The gentleman from the Sudan wanted to know what Britain’s attitude would be if there were to be a large-scale mutiny or coup d’état in an East African country which was a member of the Commonwealth.
‘I suppose,’ said Holmes, ‘if the government asked for British troops to be sent in to restore law and order we would send them,’ he dutifully reported his conversation to Downing Street where his memo was put in the Cabinet Office files. Copies of it were received by the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office, where it was generally felt that Holmes had gone too far.
The heatwave from which London was suffering during that fortnight increased in its intensity, which was one reason why Holmes, after his lunch mid-day with the Sudanese, in a very hot room at the embassy overlooking St James’s, decided to walk home that evening. He worked at Downing Street until nearly nine and then walked out through the back entrance, over Horse Guards’ Parade. It was a very pleasant beginning to a walk home. The buildings on three sides of the parade ground were in exquisite proportion and on the fourth gleamed the ornamental waters of St James’s Park. Apart from the bulk of the Citadel, on the far side, it was a scene which had been more or less unchanged since Nelson had sat in his room at the Admiralty, and Pitt in the house built by Sir George Downing.
More or less unchanged since the days of Cecil Rhodes.
The thought came back unpleasantly in the midst of a vague and idle reverie; unpleasantly, not because of Rhodes but because it was the private army he could command which had made the changes in what the man at Lusaka had called the soul of Africa. It was force which mattered; and the build-up of force in Africa was becoming more and more ominous.
Holmes came to the Horse Guards’ arch and as he turned the corner he looked back and stopped in the archway to admire the view from another aspect. He took in the buildings, the park, the lake glistening silver beyond the trees, the Guards’ memorial. A man crossing the vast expanse of
They went through the reports of Foreign Office intelligence. The blue flimsies confirmed the feeling about which Holmes had reported. More and more agents were flooding into African territories, from Russia, from China, from South Africa, India, America. The struggle now, wrote one agent in Lusaka, is for the soul of the African people.
‘We’ve heard it all before,’ said the sceptical Morrison. They’ve been a-struggling for the dark soul of Africa ever since — what’s-his-name?’
Lamb looked surprised. ‘Stanley and Livingstone?’
‘No,’ said Morrison, ‘Cecil Rhodes.’
Holmes appreciated the point. Rhodes, as distinct from Stanley and Livingstone, had had money and a private army.
‘Which brings us back to Shepherd,’ said Lamb. ‘Why make this drug in Africa and which army is going to use it? So far there’s no evidence from Africa that anyone is. The more I think about it the more likely that it isn’t for military use at all. It’s black market. Kick pills. That sort of thing.’
‘So Shepherd comes back to London to see the Russians about organizing a black market in pep pills?’ asked Morrison, in scorn.
Lamb, a trifle dourly, said: ‘He may not have come back for that at all. It may be something quite different.’
That was the trouble.
The three of them eventually dispersed after a fruitless meeting to follow up their own ideas, and in the case of Lamb and Morrison to urge their departments to new and intensive effort. Holmes had his long-delayed lunch with the gentleman from the Sudan who had recently been as far south in Africa as the Transvaal and as far west as the Niger. His news was that one or two East African territories were near to revolution. Troops were being subjected to intense propaganda. Food was bad. Pay was meagre and irregular. In a crisis it was doubtful if the troops were entirely reliable. The gentleman from the Sudan wanted to know what Britain’s attitude would be if there were to be a large-scale mutiny or coup d’état in an East African country which was a member of the Commonwealth.
‘I suppose,’ said Holmes, ‘if the government asked for British troops to be sent in to restore law and order we would send them,’ he dutifully reported his conversation to Downing Street where his memo was put in the Cabinet Office files. Copies of it were received by the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office, where it was generally felt that Holmes had gone too far.
The heatwave from which London was suffering during that fortnight increased in its intensity, which was one reason why Holmes, after his lunch mid-day with the Sudanese, in a very hot room at the embassy overlooking St James’s, decided to walk home that evening. He worked at Downing Street until nearly nine and then walked out through the back entrance, over Horse Guards’ Parade. It was a very pleasant beginning to a walk home. The buildings on three sides of the parade ground were in exquisite proportion and on the fourth gleamed the ornamental waters of St James’s Park. Apart from the bulk of the Citadel, on the far side, it was a scene which had been more or less unchanged since Nelson had sat in his room at the Admiralty, and Pitt in the house built by Sir George Downing.
More or less unchanged since the days of Cecil Rhodes.
The thought came back unpleasantly in the midst of a vague and idle reverie; unpleasantly, not because of Rhodes but because it was the private army he could command which had made the changes in what the man at Lusaka had called the soul of Africa. It was force which mattered; and the build-up of force in Africa was becoming more and more ominous.
Holmes came to the Horse Guards’ arch and as he turned the corner he looked back and stopped in the archway to admire the view from another aspect. He took in the buildings, the park, the lake glistening silver beyond the trees, the Guards’ memorial. A man crossing the vast expanse of
Similar Books
