Thirty-seven

 

Salonika was a bedlam of men, guns and ships ready for the move northwards. Edward’s boats were ready for instant action but he couldn’t imagine them ever being used. They had brought all their gear, the launching platforms and the torpedo troughs, the fittings for depth charges, the 3-pounders and machine-guns, the tools, the mechanics, the torpedomen and marine fitters.

The sea in the Gulf of Salonika was an exotic green, and the town had a distinct Eastern style, with its minarets and mosques, relics of Turkish rule. The front line was forty miles to the north round Lake Doiran.

Built of lath and plaster, the town had been destroyed by fire the previous year and everywhere were the blackened scabs of its passage. The streets were still covered in sooty ash, and when the Vardar blew from the west the air was full of it, too.

Within a day or two, Ginny’s letters began to arrive. Though she seemed to have accepted that he would go home to England and his wife when the war finished, there was no hiding her feelings because they shone through every line on the paper.

Augusta’s letters, however, had stopped. Edward could only assume that they were being addressed to Egypt. One came from Egg, however, months out of date. Apparently the firm was enjoying an unparallelled run of prosperity. There was also one from Aunt Edith and, surprisingly, one from Maurice who didn’t see eye to eye with Egg about the future.

‘Nobody will want to buy boats when the war is over,’ he said. ‘You’ll be able to pick them up for two a penny.’

Augusta’s letters finally arrived. They had been addressed to the hospital in Cairo and forwarded, he suspected, by Ginny. They gave him the news but not much else and it wasn’t hard to detect irritation with him.

The general in command of the Allies was a Frenchman called Franchet d’Esperey, and Edward constantly found himself dragged in to endless staff meetings where a naval captain called Bois d’Effre asked questions on the general’s behalf.

‘Will Ferdinand resist?’ he asked.

‘From what I know of him,’ Edward said, ‘he’ll be concerned only with preserving what he has – chiefly what he personally possesses.’

‘I think he will be luckier than he deserves if he keeps his throne,’ Bois d’Effre smiled.

‘Would you be prepared,’ he interpreted for d’Esprey, ‘to meet the King and explain our position, the numbers we have, the fact that he doesn’t stand a chance in hell?’

‘With great pleasure, sir.’ Edward smiled.

‘You realise,’ Bois d’Effre said later, ‘that you will be going into Bulgaria in civilian clothes. You could be shot as a spy.’

 

It wasn’t difficult to slip across the frontier. Edward had been supplied with plenty of money and was able to acquire an old Peugeot for the trip north. The car was pretty clapped-out and petrol was very scarce. Edward drove only as far as Burgas, where he contacted Enescu at the boat-yard where they had delivered the two Bourdillons. To his surprise, they were still there, completely forgotten in the confusion of the war. But Enescu’s fitters had taken good care of them.

Enescu also found him a place on one of the coastal steamers going to Varna. McClumpha was delighted to see him. There were tears in his eyes and squeals of delight from his daughters.

‘I want a meeting with the King,’ Edward explained. ‘If not the King, then one of his ministers.’

McClumpha thought for a moment. ‘Ah reckon ye’re in luck, laddie. Drimic was brought intae the government. I think he fiddled it tae get a grip on all the money that was being spent. He still has a house here. I could contact him. He’ll contact the King. In the meantime, ye stay here.’

The first meeting was with Roboshva. His smile was as fixed as ever, and made no mention of having searched the border area in 1914 for Edward. He promised to contact Drimic, and a week later Drimic himself appeared in McClumpha’s office.

‘I speak for the King,’ he said.

‘I prefer to speak to the King personally,’ Edward said.

Drimic eyed him warily. ‘I’m afraid I don’t think that will be possible,’ he said.

‘I think,’ said Edward, ‘that it would be to the King’s advantage to spare me a little time.’

He kicked his heels in Varna for a week, and then a message arrived. A meeting had been arranged at Krivodol near Plevna. It was a picturesque village in a sheltered valley, surrounded by a number of curious mounds that were said to be the tombs of Greek settlers from the Byzantine period. After taking the train to Plevna, Edward was met by a car and driven in warm sunshine to a low white house with red roofs set among eucalyptus trees and apple orchards. Armed police were on guard but Edward wasn’t even frisked to see if he might be carrying a gun. Drimic came to meet him, and gestured to a room on his right. As they sat down, a girl in native dress appeared with coffee and slivovitz.

‘You have come as an emissary,’ Drimic said. ‘You have arrived carrying a white flag.’

‘I have come,’ Edward said, ‘to advise you to produce a white flag.’

Drimic choked on his strong sweet coffee, and Ferdinand suddenly appeared. He had obviously been listening outside the door.

‘Majesty,’ Drimic said as they rose.

The King was in uniform but he sported no badges of rank. He looked older and greyer and more lined. His eyes seemed to have shrunk while his nose had increased in size. ‘Please sit down, gentlemen,’ he said wearily. ‘Now, Mr Bourdillon, you have come to tell us it’s time we ended our part in the war. Is that not so?’

‘It is, sir.’

‘I never received my boats,’ the King said. ‘I paid for them and they were never delivered.’

‘They are waiting for you even as I speak,’ Edward said. ‘At Burgas, where they have been since 1914. Minister Drimic knows their location.’

The King looked hard at Drimic who went pink.

‘And I no longer want them,’ said Ferdinand, ‘since I shall have no use for them. Will you buy them back?’

‘I didn’t come here to do business, sir,’ Edward said. ‘At least not that kind of business.’

Ferdinand shuffled in his seat and ran a finger round his collar. ‘Of course not. Well, I will give you your boats back. They are yours.’ He glanced at Drimic. ‘If Minister Drimic doesn’t have any other plans for them, that is. I expect the war got in the way. Now, what exactly do you wish to discuss?’

‘I have no power to grant or promise anything,’ Edward explained. ‘But I am instructed to inform you that you will not be pursued or accused if you instruct your army to lay down their arms.’

‘But I would be advised to leave Bulgaria?’

‘That’s up to you, sir. We want the war over as quickly as possible. Germany can’t hope to carry on if her allies leave her side. Austria is already negotiating. And Turkey.’

Ferdinand sat in silence for a while. ‘I was a flea in Europe’s ear,’ he said slowly. ‘I caused trouble. I know that. But I made Bulgaria a country to be reckoned with. I changed the capital from a dreary Balkan village to a city and I brought the railway to Sofia and the coast. And my reward is this.’

‘There must be no demolitions. Railways and port installations must be left exactly as they are. Troops are to withdraw from strategic points.’

‘Which are?’

‘It isn’t my job, sir, to tell you that. You know them better than I. If you agree, Allied plenipoteniaries will arrive for any meeting we can agree to.’

Ferdinand managed a wry smile. ‘They have thrown you in at the deep end, young man, haven’t they! If I wished I could have you shot. You arrive in civilian clothes when you are an Allied officer and we are at war. And you have no documents to prove you are who you say you are. Am I right?’

‘Quite right, sir.’

‘And suppose I did have you shot?’

‘I shouldn’t like it very much. And I don’t think that it would be in your best interests.’

Absent-mindedly, Ferdinand picked his nose. ‘Perhaps Vienna might be bearable,’ he said. He swallowed his slivovitz in one gulp. ‘It doesn’t look as though I have much choice. I have just been defeated by your armies at Dobropole and I fear we are beyond any hope of recovery. You can inform your superiors that they can send their plenipotentiaries, soldiers, ministers of state and prison warders. I give up.’

 

At the end of the month Ferdinand asked for an armistice, withdrew from the war and headed for Vienna. Southern Europe was suddenly wide open and the Allies could advance directly to the Danube. Then came the news that German agents, in defiance of Ferdinand’s agreement, were destroying port installations. Clearly they were going to have to hurry.

By the time they reached Thrace, it was obvious that the congested roads, which were always unmetalled and invariably in a terrible state, were holding up the vast convoys of lorries, carts, guns and supplies. Bois d’Effre suggested a fast-moving column of half a dozen armoured cars, with lorries to supply them, to head swiftly for the coast.

The cars were Crossleys, Daimlers and Rolls Royces which had been used in the desert in the surge northwards to Damascus. The crews were British but the lorries were full of Frenchmen who, following Napoleon’s precept, saw nothing wrong with living off the land. As soon as they reached Burgas, Edward headed for Enescu’s yard. MacNab was due to bring round his boats by sea, because Turkey was expected to sign an armistice within days.

The two Bourdillons were still there and, to make sure the French didn’t take over the yard, Edward hung out a Union Jack, left a guard under a petty officer and stuck up a black-lettered notice, British Naval Yard. No Entrance.

He did the same thing at McClumpha’s in Varna, since there was also a considerable danger from looters.