British Secret Service During the Great WarEveritt, Nicholas
History
British Secret Service During the Great War
Everitt, Nicholas
Secret service -- Great Britain; World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service -- Great Britain
I was the last one to depart from our diminutive guide. But when I got
to the lodge on the floor on which the room I was seeking was numbered,
the commissionaire in charge said he knew nothing of the officer named
on my form. After arguing the matter discreetly with him I persuaded him
to take me to the room specified on my form, which we found unoccupied,
although there were a table and chairs there, as I saw them through the
half-open door.
As the bona fides of my quest seemed to be doubted I produced the letter
I had received, when he politely escorted me to two other lodges on the
other floors; but only one of the men in charge could help me at all,
and in that he was very vague. He believed there had been an officer,
whose name he did not know, using the room so numbered or another room a
day or so ago, and he was not certain which it was; he had since changed
his room, but where he could not say. Anyway, as he expressed himself,
he was a mysterious kind of person, and what he did, or what functions
he performed, no one seemed to know. I must confess I was at a loss to
understand the position. Suddenly, however, the thought struck me that
it might be a possible stunt to test one's capabilities for a research
or investigation; so I listened with interest to the conversations of
the various commissionaires and gleaned that the gentleman I sought, if
such an individual had any business in the War Office at all, was tall,
thin, and aristocratic. The one man who described him thought he knew
whom I meant--"A horficer as spent his time a-dodging back'ards and
forrards betwixt the War Hoffice and the Hadmiralty, who never said
nothink to nobody, so one didn't know which he did belong to; one who
'ardly ever was in 'is room and one who 'ad some queer blokes come to
see 'im."
I thanked the commissionaires politely and said I would try another
floor on my own account, as once inside the building with a form in
one's hand it seemed one could wander anywhere at will and without
question.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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