The Soldier Spies (Men at War 3)

“Thank you very much, Dick,” the Duchess Stanfield said.

“No offense, Your Gracefulness,” Canidy said,“but please don’t interrupt your commanding officer when he is speaking.”

“I don’t understand,” Bitter said.

“Dick suspects, Commander,” the duchess said, “that the car will come with a driver.”

“And we don’t need a sailor spy around here,” Jimmy Whittaker said. “We have our hands full as it is with French and German spies. And English ones.”

“The pair of you can go to hell!” the duchess said.

“Present company excepted, of course,” Whittaker said.

“I have the feeling, I can’t imagine how, that my leg is being pulled,” Bitter said.

“No, it’s not,” Canidy said. “We spend so much time spying on each other that it’s a bloody miracle we have any time left to spy on the Germans.”

“It’s unfortunately true, Commander,” the duchess said.

“In order to forestall you finding yourself in debt to the admiral, or the Navy generally, Her Gracefulness suggested, and I agreed, that the thing to do is send you to London, and then High Wycombe and Fersfield, in my personal Packard. With the faithful Agnes at the wheel, of course, to lend a final touch of class.”

“Your ‘personal Packard’?”

“You don’t want to hear about that,” the duchess said.

“Yes, I do.”

“It is a matter of some delicacy,” Canidy said. “But what the hell, Your Gracefulness, we either trust him or we don’t.”

The duchess shrugged.

“Lieutenant Jamison was prowling the premises, Commander, and came across a door in the stables, hidden behind hay bales. Curious chap that he is, he moved the hay bales and opened the door, and lo and behold, there was a Packard automobile up on blocks and otherwise preserved for the duration and six months. Somehow, Her Gracefulness had simply forgotten about it when His Majesty’s Government came around requisitioning motorcars. ”

The duchess, Bitter saw, was embarrassed.

“Once the car surfaced, however,” Canidy said, “she was of course anxious to put it to work in the war effort. And who was the most deserving person we could think of?”

Bitter chuckled.

"So we painted ’U.S. Army’ on the doors, and Whittaker’s serial number on the hood.”

“Whittaker’s serial number?”

“We haven’t figured out how to get the proper papers for it yet,” Whittaker said. “We are trusting in the hunch that very few MPs are going to demand the trip ticket of a U.S. Army Packard driven by an English lady sergeant.”

"Stevens has chosen to look the other way,” Canidy said. “But I suppose there are those who would consider my personal Packard violates some petty regulation or other.”

“So be careful, Ed,” Whittaker said.

“There’s a moral in this tale, Edwin,” Canidy said.

“I’d love to know what it is.”

“If you hadn’t been nosy and asked questions, you would not now possess potentially damaging information. If you should now encounter an overzealous policeman, you can no longer honestly proclaim innocence.”

“What am I supposed to say if I get stopped?” Bitter asked.

“Don’t get stopped,” Canidy said. “That would be easier.”