In a peaceful Kent village, Mr Behrens lives with his aunt at the Old Rectory, where he plays chess and keeps bees. His friend Mr Calder lives nearby with Rasselas, a golden deerhound of unnatural intelligence. No one would suspect that they are in fact working for British Intelligence, carrying out the jobs that are too dangerous for anyone else to handle – whether it’s wiping out traitors, Soviet spies or old Nazis – in these gloriously entertaining stories.
BookBub brought this book and the rather wonderful Penguin Modern Classics – Crime & Espionage series to my attention. Amazon were offering it for £0.99, so I gave it a try. It’s the first of two short story collections dealing with two allegedly retired spies who are actually working in a special department that takes care of the more unpleasant operational tasks performed in the interests of national security.
The stories were short and grim. They were made grimmer by the civilised, cultured matter-of-fact tone of these two retired men as they killed for their country.
The prose was sparse but very effective. It reinforced the chillingly efficient violence that our two main characters brought to bear on every problem,
These stories were like opening a time capsule to the 1960s as seen from the point of view of men who were already adults when World War II started. It’s grim but thoughtful. It speaks of a generation that drew its energy from a dogged determination not to lose what they have, rather than from hopes for a brighter future.
Each story is completely self-contained, but, as I read through them, they built a picture of Calder and Behrens as men who had been honed down to their essential selves and had understood that they were the people who would always do what needed to be done and would then bury the outcome.
I’ve rated and commented on each story in the collection below.
THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS ★★★★
A great start to the collection. A local woodsman uncovers a WWII secret and so takes it to Calder, as he’s a man who would know about such things. Calder delves into the secret, knows what it means and shares the secret with Behrens. Together they hunt down the person responsible and mete out justice. What they do is undramatic, remorselessly efficient and completely outside the law. I realised that, for these two men, and perhaps for many like them, the war didn’t end; there was simply a change in the rules of engagement.
ON SLAY DOWN ★★★
There’s an exchange in this story between Calder and Behrens (listened to but not commented on by Rasselas, Calder’s deerhound) that does a lot to establish who they are. Calder tells Behrens that the day before, he had met with their mutual boss. Here’s the exchange.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Behrens. ‘He told me you had been to see him. I meant to ask you about that. What did he want?’
‘There’s a woman. She has to be killed.’
Rasselas flicked his right ear at an intrusive fly; then, when this proved ineffective, growled softly and shook his head.
‘Anyone I know?’ said Mr Behrens.
The rest of the story explains why the woman must be killed and how the two of them go about it. It’s chillingly dispassionate.
THE SPOILERS ★★★
This story was longer, more complex and harder edged. It emphasised bothe ‘the enemy within’ threat and the ignorance of the threat and or reluctance to deal with it that civilians and politicians feel.
This quote made me smile and shows the mindset of the story:
‘We’re getting so Security-minded,’ said Miss Nicholson, ‘that we might as well be living in a totalitarian state, under the control of the Gestapo.’ Miss Nicholson, who was an intellectual liberal, often said things like this in letters to the Press and at public meetings, possibly because she had never lived in a totalitarian state and had no experience of the Gestapo …
The prose is sparse but very effective. It reinforces the air chillingly efficient violence that our Calder and Behrens bring to bear on every problem,
THE CAT CRACKER ★★★
This story uses a catalytic cracking plant as an analogy for how to break people. It’s introduced in a quietly pragmatic way that deliberately robs it of emotion. Unexpectedly, but amusingly, the problem is resolved not by the application of pressure but by an entirely different kind of inducement that neither Calder nor Behrens foresaw.
TREMBLING’S TOURS ★★★★
This story caught me by surprise. Once the plot was revealed, it was a classic counter-intelligence story, but I didn’t see it coming. It’s credible and well told, and, for once, the mission is not entirely successful, which made the story easier to believe.
THE HEADMASTER ★★★★
A story of an attempt to catch a master spy operating in England. This time, the other side demonstrates that it’s just as ready to kill when it’s deemed expedient to do so. Somehow, the dispassion of that kind of decision is more chilling than either personal enmity or an adrenaline-fueled reaction to a threat. In the first part of the story, I got to see Rasselas, the deerhound, do his thing. He’s as quietly menacing as his master, Calder. The resolution was beautifully done. It kept me guessing until the end. The end itself was dramatic and credible. This story was a good example of what it means to play a ‘game without rules’.
HEILIGE NACHT ★★★
This story took us to West Germany on Christmas Eve, where what should have been a simple operation had gone badly wrong. I liked the way the complacent attitude of the diplomats at the British Embassy in Bonn turned a risky situation into a potential disaster. The story brought the Cold War to life as a real, blood-in-the-snow conflict for both sides and reminded me that World War II was still a recent memory for many of those involved on either side of the Cold War conflict. The ending was swift, clever, but perhaps just a little too like a ‘Boys Own’ adventure to be satisfying.
‘UPON THE KING…’ ★★
This is the only story that didn’t work for me. It was written to the same standard, but the premise was more of a stretch, the violence felt less real, and the ending was too neat.
CROSS-OVER ★★★★
A full catch-a-spy black op story, complete with (for the times) high-tech equipment, a pursuit across Europe, tension and a very violent conclusion.
PROMETHEUS UNBOUND ★★★
TThis one misled me completely. It was a bold idea. I could see it working. But the emotional cost to those who survived was considerable. A lot of time was invested, and, of course, there were fatalities. It showed that this was not just a game without rules, it was a game without limits for the players.
A PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA ★★★★
This was an excellent story to end with because it had a big emotional impact. Calder believes that someone from his past is coming to kill him. When he’s asked what makes him so sure, he replies:
“I tortured him,” said Mr Calder, “And broke him. He’d never forget.”
That succinct factual statement gave Calder’s current use of violence a more detailed context. It made him more intimidating than ever.
The story is told in measured tones that increase rather than diminish the tension. The outcome was unpleasant. To my surprise, I felt sorry for everyone involved.
Michael Gilbert was born in a village in Lincolnshire in 1912. He worked as a lawyer and wrote his novels exclusively when commuting by train between Kent and Lincoln’s Inn, 500 words a day in 50-minute stints. He was made a CBE in 1980, awarded a Diamond Dagger for the Crime Writers Association for lifetime achievement, and named a ‘grandmaster’ by the Mystery Writers of America in 1988. He died in 2006.
Mike Finn's Fiction 