Chapter 46, Lisbon, 2 September 1936
Butler’s role in the 'Great Gorizia Gallop', as Sephton was calling it, was now complete. Given the chaos in Spain he and the Gibraltar team had raced it, via HMS Express, to Lisbon where an Anson from 48 Squadron had just coincidentally happened to have diverted with engine trouble. As was normal Sir Charles Wingfield, His Majesty’s Ambassador to Portugal, had been invited to put any important mail on the aircraft to expedite its journey home. And so it was that the documents and reports, along with Commander Sephton (
such a pity, Butler thought, still ‘in character’,
that his Aunt Nelly died. And so nice of the Royal Air Force to agree to take the good Commander home for the funeral). The air crew of the Anson had been told nothing. Only Sir Charles and his senior resident SIS man, an agent trusted by Butler, had any knowledge of the operation. Should the Anson crash, or divert to a third country, they would be more convincing if they genuinely believed that the Naval Officer really was flying home due to a bereavement and that the Foreign Office bag was purely diplomatic.
Butler had meandered through the city; while Rees, Passport Control Officer (a cover for his true role as the station chief) here in Lisbon was affable enough, he was too professional and too busy to offer more than a grudging hospitality to another agent on ‘his turf’ and had his hands full dealing with the Portuguese. Butler intended to take a day or two, look up a potential source of intelligence on the weapons smuggling to the Nationalists from the sympathetic Portuguese Army.
Rees be dammed, Butler thought firmly.
Those weapons are being used on my patch. It was the classic friction of station leads – issues such as gun running across the border nearly always involved more than one office. London was still finding its way with the turmoil in Spain, and Butler realised that the very careful Rees, who was known to be terribly ambitious, wanted to acquit himself safely in Lisbon; not blotting his copybook, perhaps showing judicious flair (his reports portrayed sleepy Lisbon as a hotbed of intrigue) would set him up for promotion and a return to Whitehall. And so Butler, who didn’t give a damn about Whitehall, decided to mess with Rees’ sober little world.
It’s a grubby little game, he thought with real determination,
and Rees’ desire for a nice desk in London doesn’t sit well with the gritty realities of life in the field.
He made his way from the rather quaint café and away from the centre of town, out in the direction of Belem. He made sure to follow the guidance and change taxis twice, making sure that the journey was as random as could be (he didn’t think he was being followed in Lisbon, but one could never be sure). Butler had never really cared for Belem, it had an arrogance and swagger that he didn’t really like although, he grudgingly admitted, it was cooler and quieter than the city centre. The address of the contact was a booksellers. Butler was immediately suspicious; depending upon how obvious the political persuasion of the store was flaunted there was an obvious risk that the authorities would be watching. He was intrigued, therefore, that it was a liturgical bookstore. He entered, his usual down-at-hell academic look fitting in with the tone of the store. He decided, in the space between finding the store and entering it, to keep the story as close to reality as he could. And so, he would pose as an engineer ‘treading water’ in Lisbon and looking for a gift until he could pick up a connection home.
“Olá”, Butler said cheerfully. He received a grunt in reply from the matriarchal figure running the store. “I am looking for a Senhor Dos Santos”. Butler couldn’t resist a wry smile at the name (he assumed an alias), a Portuguese translation of the phrase ‘of the saints.’
The woman, reading a newspaper, looked up and gave Butler a reappraisal. She jerked a thumb at the door.
Gosh, he thought sarcastically,
such a demonstrative gesture. “Cartão de visitas”, she said, stopping him dead with a deep-voiced growl.
Good, Butler thought,
she’s making it matter-of-fact. He presented his calling card, suggesting that he was a professor of engineering from Cambridge (but which contained what he hoped were enough clues to ‘tip off’ Dos Santos) and waited for approval.
‘The Matron’, as Butler had decided to christen the storekeeper, nodded him through. The office was truly, gloriously, Dickensian in detail. And when the sounds of shuffling and banging presaged that someone was coming, Butler steeled himself not to laugh if a Uriah Heep or Newman Noggs character ambled toward him. But he was wrong, he realised that immediately; Moley from
“The Wind in the Willows” would be more accurate. He was a swarthy, waistcoated little character, who had once, probably, been quite stylish but now wore patched trousers and a clean, if tattered shirt. He peered at Butler through thick spectacles, his eyes framed by impressively bushy white eyebrows.
“You are English,” ‘Dos Santos’ said in confirmation rather than question.
“Yes,” Butler said gently. He found himself liking this eccentric bookseller.
“Did you know, Senhor, that the Catholic Church was one of Wellington’s greatest supporters?”
Butler had heard that, but feigned an innocent unawareness. “Really?”
God he’s smart, Butler realised as Dos Santos saw straight through the polite lie. “Let me tell you something, Mr Byrne,” Dos Santos said, an alias talking to another alias. “I am loyal to Portugal.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Butler said, perhaps too nonchalantly.
There was another shrewd glance. “And how do you know Mr Gershater?” Gershater was a trader in Madrid who was on MI6’s payroll (and probably those of all the big spy services).
“I have worked in Madrid, and our paths have crossed from time to time,” Butler replied, coolly.
“His daughter is well?”
You predictable bastard, Butler thought happily.
Testing me on that one.
“His
son is a lunatic and remains hidden away by the family,” Butler said with perhaps too much warmth. “He longed for a daughter but got a weakling son,” he added.
Having passed the test, Dos Santos appeared to relax. “You want information?”
“I do.”
“I will give it, only if it does not harm my country.”
Butler realised that he was being asked to spell out his request. “I understand, Senhor Does Santos, that there have been items making their way to the factions, er, different groups…”
“…I understand the term,” Dos Santos said without anger.
“Er, good. The different groups in Spain.”
Dos Santos rolled his eyes. “Asking for what goes across the border is like counting drops in the sea.”
Butler frowned.
Here goes. “Well, let’s just say that I am concerned…”
“…I am concerned?” There was a slightly mocking tone.
“My employers are concerned that a stock of Browning M nineteen-nineteens from a Portuguese armoury have made their way to the Nationalist forces. I want to know if that is true, and how they did it.”
“Anything else?” He was giving nothing, absolutely nothing, away.
“Pistols, Walthers I think. Good ones. An
acquaintance,” (he couldn’t stop himself from putting the odd emphasis on it) “has reported that he is aware that a large supply has been hoarded here in Lisbon. I want to know where they are going.”
Dos Santos exhaled, noisily. He walked over to a battered old British tea tin and, to Butler’s astonishment, produced two cigars, one of which he offered to Butler. “You will smoke with me, Mr Byrne?”
Butler nodded and Dos Santos handed him a cigar. He drew upon it and found it a very easy blend to smoke. It must have cost Dos Santos, or whoever acquired it for him, a fortune.
“It is from the Pacific,” Dos Santos said, “Alhambra brand”.
“It is excellent.”
Dos Santos nodded. “Tell me, with honesty. Are you buying weapons, or do you want to stop them moving?”
Well actually old sock it’s a bit of both; the former to achieve the latter, Butler thought flippantly. But he felt another sensation, one that he had not felt for a while, that moment when he definitely crossed the line of what was authorised. Finding evidence of official / private supplying of weapons from Portugal to any of the sides in the Spanish war was absolutely within his remit; doing anything more, such as buying a load of small arms to stop them from getting into the wrong hands (
and, he thought angrily,
who precisely is the wrong side in Spain? All of ‘em? One of ‘em?) was strictly prohibited without explicit approval from London.
He decided to declare part of his hand. “I am merely looking for confirmation that the weapons are available,” he said frankly, before adding “and that would mean it would be better, for me, if they were not sent to Spain.” He felt that that was actually a pretty honest answer. Dos Santos could read that as a desire to buy them, or merely (and truthfully) a wish for them to not be added to the nightmare over the border.
Dos Santos understood, or thought that he did. “I think that you are Irish,” Dos Santos said, “and that you are a Catholic.” He saw that Butler was going to say something and tried to silence him. “I do not need confirmation, it is better for both of us if we do not confirm who or what we are, yes? You are interested in weapons, and I am interested in your interest. But we do not talk of the Walthers.”
“No?” There was something so certain in the way that Dos Santos spoke that Butler felt a terrible sense of dread.
“No,” Dos Santos confirmed, again injecting the words with real finality. “They are needed, here.”
“Here?”
Dos Santos again became the put-upon bookseller. “What would I know, I merely make a little money for the Church and for my retirement. It is not the same, Irishman, since the revolution.” He looked at Butler shrewdly, and the reverie gave way to cold calculation. “I can keep the Brownings from their destination. It is easy; the Army driver can lose them somewhere near the mountains. The Walthers have been delivered. We have an agreement?”
Butler was nervous, but pulled out what he hoped was enough cash for a down payment, a deposit.
“Yes, that is enough I think.” Dos Santos scribbled some figures, and dates. “These amounts on these dates. Not before, not after. These are the days before I make my payments: the money stays here for one night only. The Government asks, I am collecting for the Church.”
“Are you?”
“No confirmations, my Irish friend. You will see the dates, yes?”
Butler looked down at the note. There was a pattern, or perhaps, more accurately, a familiarity. “Saints?”
“Yes, you are an Irish Catholic I think. They are the feast days, yes.”
Dos Santos rose, took his scribbled note, and placed it carefully in the jacket of a small paperback which he handed to Butler. “It is a series of readings,” he explained, “in Portuguese and Latin. To help you learn our language, which is why you’re here, yes?”
Butler smiled, liking this smart old Portuguese for being sharp enough to provide cover for the visit. “Until next time, Senhor.” He nodded in thanks.
“Senhor Byrne,” he finished, and then, after seemingly conflicted, adding, “you are in Lisbon tonight?”
“Yes,” Butler said warily.
“Stay in the centre of the city. Avoid the river,” this was said with the same certainty as the comment on the pistols. Butler didn’t know why, but he made a link.
“The Walthers? They’re not leaving Portugal, are they?”
“I think, Senhor, we should stop now.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Now look mate,” Rees said in a patronising tone, “I don’t think that you’ve got enough for me to warn HE that there’s a revolution on the way.”
Butler wanted nothing more than to hit Rees square on the nose. “Look at it. Dos Santos would hardly warn me like that, would he? I’m telling you, even if the Walthers aren’t connected, then why would he tell me to stay away from the docks?”
“Because you asked too many questions,” Rees said, in his weird voice over which an unpalatable accent (Brummie? Northampton?) had been papered over with an oddly rootless pronunciation. “It’s probably how he gets it over the border, and back to your patch.” That was yet another tiring reminder that Butler was operating in Rees’ area of operations.
“He wasn’t like that. He was of the old ways, almost pre-War I’d say. Does your office have any dealing with him?”
“Of course not,” Rees said almost immediately. “We’re not here to buy and sell information, never mind weapons.” Butler thought that he detected wounded professional pride on Rees’ part, and actually felt some sympathy for him. It had taken Butler having time to kill in Lisbon and acting on impulse and a ‘tip off’ to reveal Dos Santos.
“Fine,” Butler said angrily. “But you have to act, you have to tip off the Embassy, and London. Blame it all on me, if you have to.”
“Well, I have to report your breach of protocol anyway. I have to protect Lisbon station if anything came of your meeting with Dos Santos. I could put in a word about his warning.”
“Yes!” Butler was delighted, not with Rees’ willingness to go ‘telling tales’ to Whitehall, but for reporting the warning. “Do it, let’s do it now.”
Rees started typing (for they were in his office in the centre of town) and studiously ignored Butler.
Butler, a committed ‘people watcher’, enjoyed the view from Rees’ first floor office. “C’mon Rees, your instincts as an agent must tell you that something is up. We have a warning that we have to at least pass up.”
“Ok, ok,” Rees’ folding was swift. “But…”
“…here we go.”
“What are
you going to do?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because I have authority over SIS operations in Portugal.”
Butler laughed, actually pleased that Rees had some fight, wasn’t completely lost to the paperhangers. “We’re the same rank,” he said this cheekily, wanting to provoke the spark of action again. “I’m not subject to your orders.”
“Please mate,” Rees said, irritating Butler (who believed it was unintended) with the use of ‘mate’ again. It made him seem false. “If I agree to report it up, you promise not to
do anything.”
“I’ve got nothing to go on, have I?” Butler was being provocatively evasive.
“But the Naval weapons,” Rees said suddenly, “you told Dos Santos that you had a lead. Which means that you think you know where they’re being kept.”
Butler smiled enigmatically at Rees. “I thought that I might go for a little stroll. Coming?”
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rees had proven more tenacious than Butler had imagined. He had stubbornly refused to accompany Butler and had written a formidable condemnation of Butler’s actions in his report. His only, grudging concessions, given as he basked in what he believed was a victory, were to mention Dos Santos’ words in his report and to turn a blind eye to Butler going off on his own. As per standard procedure, Butler had given a thorough briefing to Fitzgibbon, Rees’ number two and a bit of a toady to his boss, just in case the Embassy was asked to collect an errant agent if it all went wrong. Fitzgibbon had seemed very, very interested in Butler’s planned whereabouts.
It was not quite dusk, Butler enjoying fairly unhindered access around the fledgling Naval base on the South bank of the Tagus. The whole place was an agent’s treasure trove, and he was completely unprepared to deal with it. With help, pretending to be one of the many foreign engineers and consultants supporting the Portuguese Navy, he managed to find a helpful junior officer who directed him to the armoury complex. Butler didn’t know much about maritime affairs, and even less of military protection of weapons, but seriously doubted that he, on his own and with no local contacts (beyond a heroically eccentric bookseller) could get into an arsenal.
Still, he thought,
have to try.
He was right; the arsenal was a fortress, with barbed wire, what looked like Army guards (he wasn’t sure if the Portuguese had an equivalent of the Royal Marines) and several checkpoints. It made sense; a dictatorship was hardly going to let any would-be rebel walk in and seize a few dozen rifles. Which made Butler even more convinced that the weapons shipments, which remained his only (authorised) reason for being even vaguely interested in Portugal, were sanctioned by the Portuguese military. He just couldn’t shake Dos Santos’ warning to keep away from, well, pretty much where he was now, the Tagus Estuary. And a military armoury was plausibly a good place to stash weapons. Not wanting a beating from some Portuguese corporal, he made the best of cover that he could and hid, with a decent view, among some building supplies.
He waited, by his own estimation, for over an hour. It was now fully dark, and in the distance Butler could easily make out the bright lights of Central Lisbon where, God willing, a clean bed and warm hotel room. Something was happening. A nondescript truck (it was military, beyond that Butler drew a blank) pulled up. They were clever, they had timed this until well after the sentry change and after an officer (Butler presumed some form of Orderly Officer or Officer of the Day) had completed a set of rounds. The guards, smiling, opened up the arsenal without a single check of identification or papers.
And so it begins, Butler thought tensely. Half a dozen Portuguese sailors, their uniforms a complete mess, jumped out and hurriedly, sneakily (the irony of their stealth now after such a loud, blatant arrival not lost on Butler) into the Arsenal. Butler’s Portuguese was ambitiously described as ‘developing’, but even with his poor grip on the language he could here references to Spain, and the Republicans. He had to get closer.
Pulling himself out of the pile of wooden beams and bags of dusty cement, he made a pointless (and involuntary) attempt to dust himself down and crept to the gate. His early scouting had proven that there was only the one point of access and so he would wait until the guards, who seemed relaxed now that their colleagues (or accomplices, Butler thought) had arrived, were distracted. He did not have to wait long, as an argument had broken out.
It was about, Butler deduced, the Walthers. One of the guards wanted only two crates to be loaded, while the sailors, particularly their leader (he seemed, to Butler, to be some form of NCO or Senior Rating type) wanted three. Sensing his moment, Butler ran towards the checkpoints, crept behind the guards and ran to the van.
Stupid, stupid, bloody stupid fool, Butler thought, as the sounds of the footsteps closing on him grew louder and the rifle butt slammed into his back.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
He came to inside, he thought, the arsenal. The sailors were loading weapons, all but two of them who watched Butler with shifty eyes.
The NCO type figure, wiping dirty hands, walked over. He started speaking in fast an guttural Portuguese that Butler, in his dazed state, had no hope of translating.
“Deutsche?” He frowned, angry.
Butler said nothing. His back hurt, a lot, from the rifle but.
“Francais?” This was accompanied by a punch to his mouth. Butler’s lips felt like swollen, tender.
“English?” Something, a flicker in the eye, a pause in breathing, gave him away. “My English, ah, not good. But ok,” he shrugged. He was saved by one of the younger, shifty looking men, walking over.
“He asks why you are here?”
“I’m an engineer,” Butler said through painful lips and trying desperately to keep to the cover story. “I have just been working with the Royal Navy in Gibraltar and wanted to find a friend here in Lisbon. I was told he was here.”
“The name of this friend?”
“Commander John Sephton,” Butler gasped, “Royal Navy. Check your records, I’m sure that he was supposed to be in Lisbon.”
That caused a confused babbling between the three of them. Portuguese government agents they were probably prepared for (a stiff beating, Butler imagined, or worse would be
their fate); a random Englishman was not part of the plan. “Check my pockets, if you haven’t already,” Butler said, regaining his composure, “you’ll see that I have some money and a hotel key for Lisbon, and tickets for a ship going to England in two days’ time.”
That prompted another round of arguing. The older man, whom Butler was convinced was the leader, the NCO looking man, pointed to his watch.
“He says that you will be left here until after the rising,” the younger man frowned as if realising that he might have said too much. “You will be rescued by the authorities tomorrow. We go!”
As if adding a signature to a pre-written letter, the NCO type walked over and punched Butler, again in the face.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Hello mate,” a familiar voice sounded from the darkness. Butler looked up, still in the armoury building, finding the guard prone on the ground, with a smug looking Rees holding a pistol by the barrel. Next to him an equally smug Fitzgibbon was going through a sheaf of papers. “New orders from HE and London. The Head of Section wants me to investigate your lead. London thinks that there might be something in it.”
Butler, spitting out coppery saliva (his bust lip was actually quite painful), could only focus on one word. “You? He wants
you to investigate?”
“’Section says that if you’re able to you can stay on and work with me.”
“Well that’s fucking generous of them,” Butler said furiously. “They’re planning a mutiny, tonight Rees,” he raised a hand to silence the other man. “Don’t ask me who, or how, but they’re planning a mutiny.”
“Where?” That was Fitzgibbon.
“It’s got to be here, if it’s tonight it’s got to be here on the Tagus.”
“Or Lisbon itself,” Rees said thoughtfully. “Navy, or Army?”
Butler nodded. “The people that held me, and who took the weapons from this arsenal were Portuguese Navy. They’re amateurs, though; they organised getting the weapons well, very well, but after that it was all a bit haphazard.”
Fitzgibbon shook his head. “There’s nothing of worth from this,” he held up the papers. “It’s all transport orders for the pistols.”
Now that he had been untied by one of Rees’ flunkies, Butler was able to act and strode over to Fitzgibbon where he snatched the pile of papers. “These,” he hissed, “are for Madrid station business. They contain, I hope, the names of the Portuguese military officers sending weapons into the one place on Earth where we don’t want more weapons.”
“I, I, ok Butler.”
“Thank you,” Butler gasped. Breathing was hard.
Rees looked at Fitzgibbon and then to the shambles that was Butler. He read from a sheet of paper of his own. “I know what we’re going to do,” he said quietly. Leaving the other two men to make up their minds to either follow or remain, he walked from the Arsenal and into a waiting car. Fitzgibbon and Butler exchanged confused glances and ran after him.
The car drove them, at speed, across the Naval Base to a gleaming, floodlit headquarters type of building. It was a little after midnight. Rees, who had been silent in the car, jumped out and walked with purpose to the headquarters. As the British trio walked across a marble lobby, their shoes making a terrific noise in the silent, pristine building, a Portuguese officer hurried down a flight of stairs.
“You speak English?” That was Rees.
“I do, Senhor,” the Officer said.
“Do you have a wireless and an operator? I need to warn your ships and units that you are in danger.”
Butler was shocked. “Why the hell?”
Rees turned to Butler. “Section’s orders. If we get wind of anything disruptive we’re to stop it if there is no risk to you or British interests.”
Fitzgibbon was typing a hastily translate note which, after a quick glance and nod of approval from Rees, he shoved in the hands of the Portuguese officer.
“Time to go,” Rees said, “we’ve done our bit. Tell the Lieutenant if he wants to be a hero he should keep quiet and get his wireless operator to send that signal.” Fitzgibbon hurriedly issued the advice and with a nod he and Rees, dragging the resisting but weak Butler, into a car.
Rees was silent as they drove to a jetty, the car screeching to a halt beside an access ladder where a small launch waited for them. “This is from HMS Express,” he said as if divulging a state secret. “Your mate Sephton has real clout for a Commander. This launch is ours for as long as we need it.”
The agents clambered down, a Rating giving Butler a cup of piping hot tea which he accepted with good grace.
“Mate, think this through,” Rees explained, “we cannot have the same chaos in Portugal that you have in Spain. We need a stable Portugal, even one under Salazar, with everything else going on in the world. Section’s orders were to do all that we can to keep the status quo.”
“We still don’t know, I am guessing, who the mutineers were? What they wanted?”
Fitzgibbon looked at Rees, who nodded. “There is some chatter about Communists, and what that Petty Officer type was up to matches a contact I am observing. The talk of Spain suggests either copying some of the leftist stuff that your station is dealing with, or perhaps even supporting them.”
A Chief Petty Officer, mercifully reassuring, climbed down from where he and a Leading Hand were piloting the launch and looked at Rees. “Sir, you might want to see this.”
They clambered out of the small cabin and up to the bow.
“Portuguese Admiral’s launch,” the Chief said, impressed, pointing to another small vessel on the water. “It’s doing a round of the Ships I’d say. That anything to do with you, Sir?”
Rees adopted a superior air and looked away, Butler was too angry, so Fitzgibbon offered a cheeky wink and a knowing smile.
“Fair dos, Sir, you’ve caused someone a busy night”.
In the distance they watched as ship, after ship, answered the calls from the launch. Only a destroyer and another ship ignored the calls.
Butler watched the scene for as long as he was able, but the RN launch soon had them alongside Central Lisbon. An embassy car was waiting.
Rees immediately offered his hand to Butler. “All done, mate,” he said with false warmth. “Order restored and everyone back where they should be.”
Butler thought about arguing but, to his own disgust, shook the station head’s hand. Next to him, grinning stupidly, Fitzgibbon also offered a hand.
“Home for a bit then, yes? Back to the war?”
“Back to the war,” Butler said, exhausted.
“Do pass on my best to Section when you write this up. We ‘in the field’ men should stick together.”
As the Embassy car took him back to the hotel, Butler’s head was a mess of half-formed thoughts.
What will happen to the mutineers? Did Rees’ message get through in time to stop the munity? Will British involvement be revealed? And how the hell did Fitzgibbon know about the NCO type? I didn’t tell him!
Thinking dark thoughts, Butler knew that this was not finished.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
GAME NOTES
I am, genuinely, not sure if this is a game event for Portugal but the Lisbon Naval Revolt of 1936 occurs, pretty much as it did in the real world; aside, that is from the British angle (more on that later). This update stemmed from a number of elements, particularly my love of Lisbon (truly, a wonderful city – one of only a handful of foreign cities in which I think that I could live a happy existence), the fact that it features in
“Tinker, Tailor” (well, the TV adaptation, not the book!), a realisation that if Butler was escorting the ill-gotten gains from the
Gorizia episode he would plausibly be in or near Lisbon at the time of the revolt, and a desire for another fun (hopefully!) spy story. It is tied, as was the
Gorizia chapter, on Butler being my agent in Spain building a network in (largely) Nationalist areas, but beyond that has little game impact or effect.
The rising itself was a farce, and there appears to be general agreement that the Salazar regime was never really threatened by it (some go further and suggest that the regime encouraged it, knowing that it couldn’t lose). Its aims appear to be a desire to sail to Spain and assist the Republicans. The tip off from a wireless operator is true, as is the bit about the (Portuguese) Admiralty launch chugging around the fleet. In the end only two ships actually rose in mutiny, and after a mildly farcical skirmish, in thick fog, with the shore defences of the city, twelve sailors died and around twenty were wounded. The surviving mutineers were exiled to Cape Verde (which is lovelier now, I suspect, than the 1936 penal colony!). There is, as described, an armoury at the Naval Base, a sprawling complex (still not completed by the time of Butler’s visit) just across the Tagus from Lisbon. Now, of course, the incredible bridge makes it a ten minute drive, but in 1936 a river crossing by boat was the quickest method. There is no record of a British destroyer being in the area, so I took some liberties with HMS Express and had her ‘on station’.
Talking of ‘stations’, Lisbon was a long-established SIS station by the time of 1936 although readers may be surprised by its modesty; there was usually only one (occasionally two) SIS agent(s) working as a Passport Control Officer (I’ll look at this in an upcoming update) out of the Embassy. Rees and Fitzgibbon are both fictional, although heavily based upon people that I know (they also work together in real life!). The poor assessment of Rees by Butler is based, in part, on Lisbon Station’s record in the late ‘30s – it had a reputation as an unhappy assignment and an unproductive station and more than one agent met his (professional) end there. Rees and Fitzgibbon are more fortunate than most of the resident agents in that they appear to get along: there is more than one record of wartime Lisbon PCOs and Deputy PCOs hating one another. So, while the characters may be fictional, I hope that they are not too unrealistic.
Key to understanding Rees and his deputy is an understanding of Butler, and here I have determined to make him fallible; he rushed in without a clear objective and had to be rescued by the morally ambiguous, very conservative colleague who did act, under orders from London. I quite deliberately did this – I’m not (I hope!) advocating either character’s approach, but hopefully it shows that spies are not all Geroge Smiley or James Bond types.
And I’ll finish at the start, with an Avro Anson whisking the technical reports from the
Gorizia home to ‘Section’ and analysis. The Anson (which does not feature in HOI4 – it seems to favour the Bristol Bombay) was introduced with 48 Sqn RAF and so the story of a diverted airframe is plausible enough. I really included as, for some odd reason, it’s one of those aircraft that occasionally jumps into the consciousness. I genuinely think that Airfix, who had an Avro Anson model out when I was a youngling, are to blame – I think that my local toyshop had it on display and the advertising was at least partly successful!
Does the tantalising mention of the ILP signal we’re in for some Maxton soon?
Yes, two or three updates' time.
...whomever Edwards pick is. This is going to be awful.
Four or five updates' time
Rexit proceeds to its messy denouement, with chaos and confusion for all. How very 2020. This really needs to be sorted through, given the actual threat is armed with tanks, aircraft and u-boats, not a dodgy mistress, a bunch of tawdry political misfits and a few newspapers.
The parallels, particularly with recent UK political crises, are difficult to avoid. Later on there is a moment that feels very 2016...
I suppose my hope about Attlee's inability to manage his party is it bodes ill for his future chances, so there is at least that small plus amongst the gloom and impending disaster.
Labour has taken, at this stage, the most pondering. The Tories are easy, the members either fall in behind Baldwin/Chamberlain or throw their lot in with the King. The Liberals have all, Simon and the National Libs aside, supported the King's right to choose. Labour is in an odd position, the left is in chaos in 1936.
Of course they shouldn't. But HOI4 does appear to be fundamentally not a very good game, so I am unsurprised that they are.
The heartbreaking thing is, it has so much potential. The industrial model and ship and division designers are wonderful. But instead of addressing the huuuuuuge problems (awful land combat, demented AI) our chums at Paradox pump out fantasy focus trees. We've talked about how a North Africa focus would end up with pharoahs and floating pyramids. I'm looking forward to a Scandi one with mountain spirits, longboat-class aircraft carriers, a morale bonus for pointy hats and a Disney-sponsored Frozen II event.
I'm not at all certain what Italy does when I'm not ruling it (it is far and away the most enjoyable faction in HOI4 and always has been for me), but if they do what I did (i.e. initially play the start well and then skull-fuck the world until the teeth fall out), it should prove interesting. My money is on them trying to be neutral but fucking up at some point during their campaign to conquer the Balkans by themselves (but who they end up fighting is up for debate because it could be the Nazis, the soviets or the Allies, and perhaps all three), at a very inconvenient time for everyone else.
Either that, or they actually do manage to stay neutral and start picking off the other neutral nations one by one like a murderer in a slasher film. By that I expect (probably) the Middle East and the Iberian nations to be getting into scuffles/getting into bed with Mussolini. Which is about as annoying to everyone else as the first possibility, but at least they aren't shooting each other.
Later, dear boy, later.
I'm not saying these are good choices, just that they are all far more acceptable options than Wallace. Because anyone would be.
I said acceptable people. I'm actually rather surprised no one from the minor European nobility managed to catch him considering how many of them there were in this period, and how desperate most of them were for money/a new country to be noble in.
That's the appeal, she was so different from what he knew and so clearly unpalatable to mummy and the gang.
Wallis is many (mostly bad) things, but at least she is not *shudders* French.
I'm trying to think of our last French consort. Henrietta Maria?
I do wonder if there was a self-destructive streak in Eddie's choices. After all he had proposed to an entirely suitable aristocratic woman in 1917, but Queen Mary refused it as the family had a reputation for being a bit odd (and that's compared to the high bar of the aristocracy). I get the sense that every relationship after that was based as much on annoying his parents as anything else, he was quite the petty and petulant man-child after all.
Yes. This.
Ok, prompt idea for his courtship going smoothly in 1917 and a new royal family coming from that? And its 1917, so the writer can feel free to change the writing of Versailles as well, the russian revolution etc. Hmm. Actually, a good year to start. Loads of problems, and points of divergence.
A 1917 point of divergence? Say, would Huey Long have any eligible daughters?
Technically, yes. In practice... well Rose Lolita Long would have been 19 while Eddie was 42, which seems horribly icky even before you get to all the other problems. She does at least have the right middle name for it should a match go ahead.
The internet tells me Huey had a sister the correct age, but sadly she was already married to Stew Smoker Hunt Jr. Which is an amazing name and prompted me to stop looking, as nobody could hope to live up to the impression I immediately formed of him.
What you have found there, Pip, isn’t so much a man as a type of casserole.
Marvellous stuff
