Alias Uncle Hugo

Manning Coles

Description

A Hambledon espionage story set in Central Europe behind the Iron Curtain. A 13-year-old princeling has been sent into Russia to a school for leadership and Hambledon is assigned to his rescue and spiriting him out of Russian hands to safety in England. Plenty of violence, quick thinking, fast talking and changes of identity before a plane is used to make a speedy getaway!

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Fiction
• Espionage
• Thrillers

Informations

• Publié par: Rare Treasure Editions
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781774643297
• Langue: English

Extrait

Alias Uncle Hugo
by Manning Coles

First published in 1952
This edition published by Rare Treasures
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
ALIAS UNCLE HUGO


by MANNING COLES

To L. Y.

“ In her tongue is the law of kindness .”

1

In the town of Bereghark the Mayor polished up his chain of office, put on a clean shirt although the day was only Wednesday, brushed his hat and went to inspect the Town Guard. They also had taken trouble with their appearance for their uniforms had been washed and ironed and their rifles polished until the barrels shone like silver. They stood, drawn up in two lines of eight men in one row and seven in the other, and the Mayor looked them over carefully.

“Where are the others?” he asked.

The Sergeant said that so-and-so and so-and-so were haymaking, that another absentee had the toothache, that three more were in jail and that one other was getting married.

“Thus arranging to share the fate of the one in pain and the three in prison,” said the Mayor, and the Sergeant laughed obsequiously.

“These three men,” said the Mayor, passing behind the front rank, “should have had their hair cut. This one also.”

“The barber has strained his wrist,” said the Sergeant.

“Someone else should have borrowed his scissors,” said the Mayor.

“His scissors are too blunt to cut. That is how he came to strain his wrist.”

“Then why does he not call in the scissor grinder?”

“Because he is in hospital, having been partially eaten by wolves.”

“Difficult,” murmured the Mayor, “very difficult. I will excuse the uncut hair.” He looked up at the string of small flags fluttering above the entrance gate of the Bereghark Collectivized Farm Machinery Factory.

“The workers,” explained the Sergeant, “put up those little flags in order to make it plain to the Herr Soviet Farm-Productive-Machinery-Inspection Commissar how pleased they are to see him.”

The Mayor nodded. “The intention is laudable. As for the little flags, I have never seen their like before. I hope there is nothing politically unreliable in their curious designs?”

“I think that, subject to your greater knowledge, they mean nothing, being only as it were an outbreak of cheerful colour.”

As a matter of fact they were a string of International Signal Flags—with a few odd ones thrown in—and how they had come to Bereghark, which is three hundred and fifty miles from the nearest sea, is one of the minor riddles of history.

“I particularly like,” said the Mayor, “the one with the red cat on it, clawing. The man who made that had some knowledge of the elements of design.”

The Sergeant glanced up at the flag in question, which was one of the odd ones.

“Yes, indeed,” he said indifferently. “Excuse me, but is not this possibly the car approaching for which we wait?”

The straight road ran for miles across the flat plain and far in the distance a cloud of dust followed a black object which was moving fast.

“Good heavens, yes. Get your men into line, Sergeant. A double line, from where the car will stop to the gate. Quick!”

The factory was on the outskirts of the small town on the road to the north by which the expected visitor would come. The display of bunting and guard of honour had been arranged mainly to ensure that he would notice it and stop instead of rushing past to lose his way in the narrow twisting streets between the tall old houses of Bereghark, which was a town in the days of the Emperor Constantine. The part-time soldiers were hustled into line, the Sergeant drew his sword, the car stopped and the Soviet Farm-Productive-Machinery-Inspection Commissar alighted and looked about him. The Sergeant saluted with his sword and the Mayor took off his hat.

“Is this,” asked the visitor, “the Bereghark Collectivized Farm Machinery Factory?” He spoke German, for that is the language of the country.

“It is,” said the Mayor, “rejoicing at receiving a visit from the Herr Comrade Commissar Peskoff.”

The visitor glanced up at the string of bunting overhead and if the Lion Flag of Scotland meant anything to him he made no sign of recognition. The wooden gate of the factory, which had been ajar, was now flung wide open and a compact group of the managerial staff came out, introduced themselves, and welcomed the Commissar with studied politeness concealing their anxiety, for the shadow of Stakhanov overhangs all such visits. However, the Commissar seemed friendly and even affable, he shook everyone warmly by the hand, returned the Sergeant’s salute, ran a professional eye over the two ranks of the guard of honour, and was conducted inside.

The Manager’s office provided a number of wineglasses and a supply of slavovic , which is plum brandy of surprising potency. The Herr Commissar evidently had no objection to plum brandy but when it became apparent that he was expected to drink a glass with every one of the fifteen or twenty in the managerial party, he jibbed, courteously but definitely. “This is, without exception, the best slavovic I have ever tasted,” he said, putting down his seventh empty glass, “and I cannot imagine a happier way of passing an afternoon than enjoying it in your hospitable company. But, Herr Company Director, duty is not served in that manner. Let me walk round your factory while I can still be sure whether I am looking at one machine or two.”

The Bereghark factory did not make tractors, only the various implements which tractors draw behind them: mowers, hay rakes, reapers, ploughs, harrows and such other weapons as are used for the assault upon the soil. Commissar Peskoff was conducted through the foundry—very hot, the smithy—very noisy, and up and down lanes between lathes, drilling machines, grinders and millers all humming, clanking, rattling and whining after their kind. He paused at intervals to watch some operation, nodded his head gravely and moved on again. He did not ask so many questions as the Managing Director expected or, perhaps, feared, and sometimes he was obviously lost in thought for he would stop and stare blankly at some machine as though he did not take in the meaning of what he saw. When he stopped the whole managerial procession stopped, when he moved off again they all trailed after him. The workers did not lift their eyes from their work, at least not while they were themselves being looked at, and the whole proceeding was decorous in the extreme. The managerial staff, who had been inspected by Soviet Commissars before, were agreeably surprised.

“The machines all seem to be working,” said the Commissar suddenly, and the Directors thought he was employing sarcasm.

“We do our utmost to minimize the occasional unavoidable breakdown,” they said.

“I do not doubt it. I meant that your factory is at the moment in full production.”

A sigh of relief rippled down the ranks.

“We always are,” said the Managing Director, “unless we are held up for supplies of steel.”

“I will report that,” said Peskoff, and they entered the paint shop where the completed machines were being given coats of the traditional gaudy colours by painters working by hand with brushes.

“Surely,” said the Commissar, “this work could be done more quickly by spraying the paint.”

“Undoubtedly, Herr Commissar, but there is a difficulty in obtaining air compressors. There is, it seems, a bottleneck somewhere in the supply of compressors.”

“These bottlenecks,” said the Commissar, “the trouble they give us. Except, of course, the kind you keep in your office.”

The Managing Director laughed loudly and all the other Directors joined in. The laugh ran down the length of the procession and quite convulsed those at the back who could not possibly have heard what was said. Commissar Peskoff and party emerged from the paint shop into the air and drew long breaths of refreshment.

“Do you not, then, manufacture self-binders?” asked the visitor.

The company’s faces fell. There had to be a catch in it somewhere if a Commissar were friendly and reasonable, and this was evidently it. They not only did not make them but no member of the firm had ever seen such a thing. Pictures of them, yes, but not even engineers’ drawings. The Production Manager’s knees felt weak.

“No, Herr Commissar,” he bleated, “that is, not yet—the factory is, as you yourself saw, in full production as it is—when we have our new shops erected—”

“The difficulty, I understand,” said the Managing Director, “is in the binder twine. That which we make is suitable for hand tying but will not pass through the machines. We only get a small amount imported, not enough to make it worth while turning out large numbers of these machines.”

The Production Manager looked at him gratefully and the Commissar said that he understood what little was imported came from Belgium by devious routes. The company looked surprised. Commissar-Inspectors are as a rule mere ginger-uppers, one does not expect them to know what they are talking about.

“Another bottleneck,” said the most junior Director with a nervous giggle, the Commissar nodded agreement and the Managing Director said that, talking about bottlenecks, would not the gracious Herr Commissar deign to return to the office and—er—carry his inspection a stage further? The Commissar smiled but refused politely. He was fatigued after his long journey, he understood that there was a dinner arranged for that n