The Dardanelles Conspiracy by Alan Bardos (you can read anyone txt) 📕

Von Wut looked at the chit. ‘Obviously some swine has filched it! How dare you accuse the Imperial German Embassy of such a crime!’

‘I'm not suggesting that someone in this embassy took it, Excellency. In fact, the evidence suggests that the perpetrator was from a different embassy.’

‘I wager that scar was not taken in a student duel?’

Breitner glanced at the faint scars on von Wut’s cheeks and realised he took such matters seriously. ‘I received this scar on the Eastern front, from a Cossack’s sabre.’

‘I see, you are a man of action and have now been made to serve a mindless sheep like von Grubber. Very well, you may look through our records. Müller here will assist you.’ He pointed at the neat little clerk.

Breitner was extremely impressed by the German archive, the contrast with the Austrian Embassy was stark. Everything was fastidiously catalogued and filed in a coherent and logical fashion. And the clerk, Müller, was excellent. For the first time since the war started, Breitner felt a sense of tranquillity.

He spent the rest of the day going through all the shipments the embassy had received for the past month, but found nothing resembling the delivery of champagne.

‘I think that this might be what you’re looking for.’ Müller handed him two crumpled bits of paper. ‘We never actually received the champagne, at the embassy, so the paperwork was filed under Miscellaneous.’

‘That sounds promising.’ Breitner said. Miscellaneous was where dirty little secrets were hidden.

‘I can only assume that the shipment in question was consumed in transit, before reaching the Embassy, sir.’

Breitner took the crumpled sheets of paper. The first was signed E von Jager but the name on the second sheet, written in the same hand, made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Johnny Swift.

‘It can't be,’ Breitner whispered. It was drunkenly scrawled, but there was no mistaking the name. He couldn’t believe that Swift had infiltrated the German Diplomatic Service. The damage he could have done in a region as sensitive as the Balkans was inestimable.

Breitner looked again at the drunken scrawl. If Johnny had been causing mayhem for any length of time, he knew he would have pilfered from other shipments and left similar paper trails. Breitner had to find him, before he could do any more harm.

‘I need to keep these receipts and see all similar records,’ Breitner said, wondering if he’d just found the golden thread that would lead him out of the disaster he was in.

‘I’m afraid I’m not authorised to release documents without the express permission of the Graf von Wut, and he will have left for the day.’ Müller sighed, it wasn’t his fault.

‘Then let me speak to someone else in authority,’ Breitner shouted, starting to feel like himself again. Now that he’d actually found something of interest in this sea of banality, the last thing he intended to do was share it with his allies and lose control.

‘The disappearance of the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador’s champagne is a very serious diplomatic matter, which I’m sure you would not wish to be held responsible for, Müller.’

‘Very good, sir, I’ll find the duty officer,’ Müller marched off. He returned with a self-regarding cavalry officer from an Uhlan regiment.

‘I am Captain Sigmund Stolz, how may I be of assistance?’

‘Are you in authority?’ Breitner asked.

‘I have been appointed aide-de-camp to General Liman von Sanders,’ he declared, very pleased with himself.

‘Very well, you’ll do. I demand that you release these documents into my care, they are vital to the honour of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.’ Breitner handed the two crumpled papers to the Captain.

He glanced at them. ‘Really, champagne? Is that all anyone cares about? Very well, if they are so vital to your country’s war efforts then please, by all means, take them and be damned!’

‘Thank you, now I need access to all your shipping records since July last year, including all miscellaneous receipts.’ Breitner would start his search from the last time he had seen Johnny.

Chapter 22

Johnny knocked back his schnapps and cringed as raw, pear-flavoured alcohol burnt his throat and warmed his stomach. Kurt and Dolly followed suit and he poured another round.

They'd enjoyed a splendid dinner of chicken schnitzel in a café along an elegant glass-covered arcade on the Grand Rue de Pera, and now the serious drinking could start.

So far Johnny had been able to keep up with Kurt and Dolly, but they were drinking with total abandon. They would not be able to drink like this where they were going and may never drink like this again. There was a sombre mood underlying the little gathering and Johnny felt that his companions would rather be on their own, but were doing what was expected.

Kurt and Dolly had just got their orders and were being sent to the Dardanelles Strait in preparation for the expected attack by the Allied fleet. Johnny didn't envy them being on the wrong end of naval guns. He tried to ignore his guilt and switched his attention to the undulating women performing on the stage.

Johnny drank another schnapps and then felt himself retch. Sigmund Stolz was picking his way through the café. He shot a disgusted look at the belly dancers and moved towards Johnny’s table.

‘Good evening, gentlemen.’ Stolz looked around at the group disapprovingly, waiting to be invited to join them.

'Stolz, what can we do for you?' Kurt said. The alcohol had done little to ease his anxiety.

Stolz shot another disgusted look at the belly dancers. 'I’m in need of diversion. I've been with the most extraordinary person from the Austro-Hungarian Embassy. He had me running back and forth trying to find champagne belonging to the Austrian Ambassador, which he had the audacity to claim had been waylaid by a German diplomat.'

Kurt and Dolly roared with laughter, making