Making Enemies by Francis Bennett Read Free Book Online Page B

knocks and carry on fighting, came into its own. He refused to be brushed aside, refused, as he put it, to break faith with Peter’s courage.
    ‘If Peter risks his life for what he believes is right,’ he said, ‘then we have to fight his corner with him.’
    What Peter told us of the Red Army’s plans proved startlingly accurate. By the time Corless’s advocacy of the Peter intelligence was taken seriously the Russians were in the outskirts of Berlin. It was then too late to make use of what we’d learned, but Corless had won his own personal battle. The final score sheet showed a walkover for Corless and a whitewash for his and Peter’s detractors, from which we doubted they would ever recover. Corless’s star was in the ascendant. From then on it was a brave man who challenged Peter’s authority, and after VE Day no one sought the accolade.
    Then, within a few weeks of the end of the war, there came the fallow period of ‘Peter’s silence’, the immediate post-war months when no intelligence came out of Moscow and Corless’s reputation as wunderkind began to suffer. ‘Source’ Peter dried up. A number of theories were swapped in the corridors and committee rooms of Horseferry Road. Peter had been betrayed and shot; he had been seriously injured in the race to Berlin; he was languishing in prison. All guesswork, because none of us, Corless included, had any idea who Peter the Great actually was and Martineau couldn’t or wouldn’t help. All we had was the past evidence of his secret messages and the proof of their accuracy, just as we now had his silence.
    ‘Keep faith,’ Martineau wired from Moscow. ‘Peter not dead. Will rise again.’ It all sounded barmy, typical Martineau.
    During those uncomfortable weeks, the Peter cynics, nursing their wounds after Corless’s rise, regained lost ground.
    ‘Peter’s lost his tongue,’ Adrian Gardner said with malicious pleasure. ‘And Rupert’s lost his balls.’
    An anti-Corless whisper campaign spread like a bush fire. A number of us were sure Adrian Gardner was behind it. If he was, he concealed his involvement skilfully. Corless’s people advised a show of force. Corless had to fight his corner again and he showed great determination to do so. Over the years, steel had entered his soul and now he was a match for anyone.
    Whatever the reason for Peter’s loss of voice, he said, he had no doubt the ailment was temporary, patience would prompt his recovery and before long Peter would be returned to us.
    Corless was gambling his career on Peter’s return. We thought it was madness. All he had to go on was Martineau’s dotty telegram, and none of us would have staked sixpence on that. But Rupert was adamant. Peter was missing, not lost. He would return. It was just a matter of time.
    His courage and obduracy stemmed the tide. Rupert must know something no one else did, the whisperers said. How else could he make such a stand? Miraculously, in the face of such apparent certainty, the tide of hostility receded.
    A week later, without warning or explanation, Peter suddenly reappeared and once more the intelligence flowed. Somehow the lid on the Soviet Union had been prised open again and we could look in. The light was bad and we couldn’t see far, but Peter’s silence had shown us that without his connection we were totally in the dark. We had lived on a diet of surmise and prediction, which are never good for the decision-making process.
    ‘Peter risen,’ Martineau wired, ‘halleluja.’
    Once more the cynics retreated, Adrian Gardner among them. Corless’s star was on the move again but not quite with the heady speed he had experienced previously. The damage may have been limited by Peter’s Lazarus-like return, but damage there was. Seeds of doubt about the credibility of Peter the Great had been sown. The period of silence would not go away. Why had Peter vanished? What had happened? Was Peter still kosher? Explanations were asked for but none