The Pigeon Tunnel by John le Carré Read Free Book Online Page A

concierge as a last resort, and for ten pounds he did not disappoint:
    â€˜Halfway up Curzon Street on your left-hand side, sir, and there’s a blue light in the window says “French Lessons Here”. If the light’s out, that means the girls are busy. If it’s not out, that means they’re open for business. But keep it on the quiet side.’
    To accompany my wards through thick and thin, or leave them to their pleasures? Their blood was up. They spoke little English, and their German was not always on the quiet side. The blue light was not out. It was of a peculiarly insinuating fluorescence, and seemed to be the only light in the street. A short garden path led to the front door. An illuminated bell button was marked ‘Press’. Ignoring the concierge’s advice, my delegates weren’t keeping it on the quiet side. I pressed the bell. The door was opened by a large, middle-aged lady in a white kaftan and bandana headscarf.
    â€˜Yes?’ she demanded indignantly, as if we had roused her from her slumbers.
    I was on the point of apologizing for disturbing her, but the parliamentary member for a constituency west of Frankfurt was ahead of me.
    â€˜ We are German and we wish to learn French! ’ he bellowed in his best English to roars of approval from his comrades.
    Our hostess was undaunted.
    â€˜It’s five pounds each for a short moment, and one at a time,’ she said, with the severity of a prep-school matron.
    About to leave my delegates to their specialized interests, I spotted two uniformed constables, one old, one young, approaching us down the pavement. I was wearing a black jacket and striped trousers.
    â€˜I’m from the Foreign Office. These gentlemen are my official guests.’
    â€˜Less noise,’ said the older one, and they walked sedately on.

4
    Fingers on the trigger
    The most impressive of the politicians that I escorted to Britain during my three years at the British Embassy in Bonn was Fritz Erler, in 1963 the German Social Democratic Party’s leading authority on defence and foreign policy, and widely tipped as a future chancellor of West Germany. He was also, as I knew from stints of sitting out Bundestag debates, a scathing and witty opponent of both Chancellor Adenauer and his Defence Minister, Franz Josef Strauss. And since privately I disliked the pair of them as much as Erler appeared to, I was doubly pleased to be given the job of accompanying him on a visit to London, where he would be holding talks with leading British parliamentarians of all persuasions, including the Labour leader Harold Wilson and the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan.
    The burning issue of the moment was Germany’s finger on the trigger: how much say should the Bonn government have in the decision to launch US missiles from West German bases in the event of nuclear war? It was this topic that Erler had recently discussed in Washington with President Kennedy and his Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara. My job, on assignment from the Embassy, was to accompany him throughout his stay in England and generally make myself useful as his private secretary, factotum and interpreter. Although Erler, no fool, spoke more English than he let on, he liked the extra thinking time granted him by the interpreting process, and was undeterred when he was told I was not a trained interpreter. The trip was to last ten days and the schedule was tight. The Foreign Office had booked him into a suite at the SavoyHotel and provided me with a room a few doors down the same corridor.
    Each morning around five o’clock, I bought the day’s papers from a news vendor in the Strand and, with the Savoy’s vacuum cleaners whizzing round my ears, sat in the hotel lounge marking up any bits of news or comment that I thought Erler should know about ahead of the day’s meetings. I then dumped them on the floor outside his room, returned to mine and waited for the signal for