The Second Midnight. Andrew Taylor

“language” and “nation”. As you know, it is written in Latin characters; this was an early development, despite the problems associated with the transliteration of specifically Slav sounds—’

      ‘Please, sir,’ Hugh said desperately. ‘I don’t understand.’

      The excitement drained away from Spiegel’s face. ‘Forgive me, Pan Kendall. I was giving you a condensed version of the introductory lecture I used to deliver to my first-year students. Perhaps it is not altogether appropriate to our present circumstances.’ He drank again and stared into the cup as if enlightenment was hidden there.

      ‘Sir, I really want to be able to understand what people are saying on the streets – what the signs mean – to know how to ask for something in a shop.’

      ‘Ah. I see you favour the practical approach.’ Dr Spiegel looked relieved. He poured himself another cupful, which emptied the bottle. He flicked a fingernail against the glass. ‘I have an idea. We shall further your education and, if you have no objection, my convenience at one and the same time. If you return to the road and walk to the left, you will come to a shop on the corner. There you may purchase our lunch. A humble collation – bread, a few slices of sausage and some more of this excellent Pilsener. The modern Czech, my dear Kendall, makes two things superlatively well – guns and lager.’

      The first day established a pattern that they followed with little variation for the next few weeks. In the mornings they studied languages – Czech or German, according to Spiegel’s whim. The afternoons were devoted, at least in theory, to general knowledge and history.

      The old man proved to be a surprisingly efficient teacher, particularly in the first few hours of the day. He gave Hugh a grounding in the grammar of the two languages, but for most of the time they concentrated on speaking them.

      Dr Spiegel revealed a talent for mimicry. He would invent little scenes, and he and Hugh would act them out. He gave Hugh a dictionary and a grammar, and made him puzzle out the main stories in the newspaper. Hugh often did his tutor’s shopping.

      Dr Spiegel drank his way steadily through every day. His main source of nourishment seemed to be the strong export Pilsener which he had produced on that first morning. On later occasions, Hugh drank sweet black tea which he made himself in the cramped and evil-smelling kitchen. His tutor rarely drank tea; but he would sometimes bring out the little brown bottle between cups of lager.

      As the day wore on, Dr Spiegel’s step would become unsteady and his eyes had difficulty in focusing. But his courtesy to Hugh remained unchanged; nor did the alcohol affect his speech.

      In the afternoons he talked. Most of his monologues concerned two inextricably entwined subjects – himself and the recent history of central Europe. He spoke with nostalgia of the heady days of the Great War when he had fought with the Czech Legion on the Allied side. He described the early years of the newly created republic of Czechoslovakia and the democratic constitution he had helped to frame. He was particularly proud of the course on Czech nationalism which he and his wife had founded at the Charles University.

      But there were bad days as well, when the nostalgia was supplanted by bitterness and the brown bottle came out of the kitchen and stood beside Dr Spiegel’s chair. He was obsessed by the weakness of his country – an infant democracy surrounded by increasingly hostile neighbours; its allies, Britain and France, were hundreds of miles away and lacked both the will and the means to intervene. Across the border was Germany, gleefully exploiting her neighbour’s political problems and racial divisions.

      ‘Hitler wants to carve us up like a big sausage,’ Spiegel said on one afternoon, early in March. ‘Our minorities rush to join the feast. They do not realize that they will be eaten too.’

      The rape of the Sudetenland, Spiegel claimed, was but a symptom of what he regarded as a wider evil – Hitler’s perversion of the sacred traditions of nationalism.

      ‘With all the means at his disposal, that foul little man has encouraged the separatist nationalist movements in our Slovakian and Ruthenian provinces. Quite simply, he plans to undermine Bohemia and Moravia, which form the core of Czechoslovakia.’ Spiegel raised a trembling hand and hammered it down on the arm of his chair. ‘Once he invades us, Hitler will be exposed as the fraud he is: all his previous conquests could be justified, if only speciously, on the grounds that they brought Germans into the Reich. But Bohemia and Moravia are chiefly inhabited by Czechs, not Germans. You grasp my point, my dear Kendall?’

      Hugh nodded; what puzzled him was his tutor’s uncharacteristic vehemence.

      A few hours later he discovered the answer. Madame Hase had dined with the Kendalls at the Palacky. She was in a confidential mood after the better part of a bottle of wine and several brandies. Hugh was puzzling his way through an illustrated magazine when he heard his tutor’s name.

      ‘You would not believe that Spiegel was once a friend of President Masaryk, would you?’ Madame Hase was saying. ‘Today he is nothing more than a political fossil. At one time my father believed he would succeed him as professor of history, but he destroyed his career when he wrote that pamphlet about Nazi tactics in the Sudetenland. So foolish – what did he hope to achieve? He lost all sense of proportion after his wife disappeared. Jewish, you know. She went to visit relatives in Berlin in the spring of ’thirty-eight and never came back. He spent thousands of crowns trying to find her. We thought he was going insane.’

      As March progressed, Dr Spiegel’s behaviour became more erratic. He developed a craving for the news. Hugh gathered that the government had proclaimed martial law in some parts of the country; but in Prague life went on much as before.

      On 14 March, they heard that Slovakia had declared itself to be an independent state.

      ‘The fools have changed masters,’ Spiegel said. ‘They prefer Berlin to Prague.’

      Later the same day, the Czechoslovak president took the train to Berlin. The following morning, the German Army flooded smoothly across the border into Bohemia and Moravia.

      As usual, Hugh reached his tutor’s apartment at nine o’clock. For the first time in their acquaintance the old man was unshaven and he forgot to shake hands. He stumbled back to his chair. The brown bottle was already within reach.

      ‘It is the Ides of March,’ he murmured as if to himself. ‘Today a country has been murdered.’

       Four

      Colonel Dansey continued writing when Michael came into his office; with his free hand he pointed to the chair in front of his desk.

      Michael rubbed his bloodshot eyes and sat down, grateful that there was no immediate need for him to make intelligent conversation. He had spent most of last night in the company of Betty Chandos, proving yet again that lack of sleep and an almost exclusive diet of champagne cocktails created a five-star hangover. Up here, on the eighth floor of Bush House, the rush-hour traffic in the Aldwych was mercifully muted.

      Dansey capped his pen and used his blotter on the letter before him.

      ‘No news from your man Kendall yet?’

      ‘No, sir. I can’t understand—’

      ‘It doesn’t matter now. You can forget him.’

      ‘I don’t follow you, sir.’ Michael’s tongue seemed too large for his mouth. ‘If Hitler – I mean, since yesterday – we need …’

      ‘If I were you, I’d start again,’ Dansey said.

      Michael flushed. ‘Bohemia and Moravia are now part of the Reich. More than ever we need all the Czech allies we can find. I admit that Kendall and Hase have probably failed, but there’s still an outside chance.’

      Dansey picked up a newspaper and tossed it to Michael. It was yesterday’s Times. A small news item, ringed with pencil, announced the arrival of several unnamed Czechs at Croydon Airport.

      ‘Someone