Last Clear Chance

By Burke Wilkinson

First published in 1953, this book is the second in author Burke Wilkinson’s trilogy, Adventures of Geoffrey Mildmay, and follows on from the 1948 bestseller Proceed at Will.

In Last Clear Chance, the reader is introduced to Mongoose, who follows a thin, dark thread of treason and the game played for survival stakes by Geoffrey Mildmay, a British adventurer of doubtful loyalties who comes back into the life of Bill Stacy in 1951 through the front door of the Pentagon.

Once again exposed to Mildmay’s flippant, faithless charm, Bill is also introduced to his friends, including Lady Sylvia Huntting, whose lost unhappiness attracts him; Cotton Craig, a power politician now in limbo; and the Gales, Craig’s neighbors, who alone have resisted his small-time empire. Stacy’s mistrust of Mildmay is confirmed by his association with Craig and Gale’s accidental death; their subversive activities become more overt when Stacy is beaten up and locked up, and a General kidnapped; and the ugly ambitions of a disappointed politician end aboard a Russian submarine after an unnerving run through dangerous waters….

Another gripping escape-entertainment read!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Muriwai Books
• Release date: Sep 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9781789122282

Burke Wilkinson

Burke Wilkinson is the author of four novels of suspense, the best known of which is Night of the Short Knives. The Zeal of the Convert is his fifth biography. He made many trips to Ireland to gather the material. Among his sources were newly-declassified papers in Dublin Castle which shed a cold, new light on the circumstances of Childers’ death.

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Text originally published in 1953 under the same title.

© Muriwai Books 2018, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

LAST CLEAR CHANCE

BURKE WILKINSON

In life as in the Law, there is such a thing as the moment of Last Clear Chance.—GEOFFREY MILDMAY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 4

PROLOGUE 5

BOOK ONE — THE THICKENING TIME 6

CHAPTER I — Midafternoon of Empire 6

CHAPTER II — In Which I Go Against My Better Judgment 11

CHAPTER III — Geoffrey Quotes the Poet Poe for His Own Ends 17

CHAPTER IV — The Land Where Cotton Is King 19

CHAPTER V — Everyone for Tennis 28

CHAPTER VI — The Cliffs of Nomini 32

CHAPTER VII — A Drive, a Drink, a Man Called Miracle 39

CHAPTER VIII — The Concrete Cobweb 47

CHAPTER IX — In Which the Lady Doth Protest Too Little 53

CHAPTER X — In Which I Make an Enemy 60

CHAPTER XI — Death in the Delta 67

CHAPTER XII — Home Is the Sailor 73

BOOK TWO — THE TIME OF VIOLENCE 78

CHAPTER I — The Interim 79

CHAPTER II — The Snatch 87

CHAPTER III — Incommunicado 93

CHAPTER IV — The Escape 97

CHAPTER V — The Captain 101

CHAPTER VI — Chincoteague Run 108

CHAPTER VII — Max 113

CHAPTER VIII — Rendezvous¹ 116

CHAPTER IX — Rendezvous² 120

CHAPTER X — The Crack-up 125

CHAPTER XI — Hour of Truth 131

CHAPTER XII — Hitching Post Mortem 140

EPILOGUE: THE WAY OF THE ADVENTUROUS HEART 144

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 146

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes to thank Famous Music Corporation for permission to quote the lines from My Future Just Passed by George Marion Jr. and Richard A. Whiting. Copyright 1930 by Famous Music Corporation.

All characters in this novel are imaginary. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.

LAST CLEAR CHANCE

PROLOGUE

IN THIS RESTLESS MID-CENTURY TIME, TREASON is never out of season. A brace of British diplomats bolt for the dubious shelter of the Iron Curtain. An Italian scientist vanishes into thin air, leaving the acrid stench of the traitor behind him. And short, squat names like Fuchs and Cold light marshfires in the mind—flickerings of fear and wonder at the duplicity of the human soul.

But if the rat-gray raiment of the traitor is becoming familiar garb, the gaudier plumage of the true adventurer grows rare. Geoffrey Mildmay, whose ultimate exploits are told herein, was a man who was many things, of which a talent for treason may or may not have been part. But one fact is certain: he shaped his life for the glittering moment of danger and decision. If, in the course that led up to that moment, he may have wobbled a little in his loyalties, give gallantry some leeway—as I have tried so hard to do. Remember that the stakes he played for were the highest stakes there are—survival stakes, including your survival and mine. Remember that, if treason there was, it was just one extreme of the sliding scale that was built into the man. Save your scorn until you are very sure.

BOOK ONE — THE THICKENING TIME

CHAPTER I — Midafternoon of Empire

GEOFFREY MILDWAY AND I HAD BEEN FRIENDS for a long time, but it was not until a year or so ago that our friendship ripened into active dislike.

It was in the autumn of 1951 that the celebrated British adventurer came back into my life, under circumstances I was to realize later were particularly inapposite. At the time I was employed as a civilian adviser to the Navy Department on submarine countermeasures. I was also very low in my mind, the main reason being the loss of someone dear to me, of which more later. But the fact that I was working in the Pentagon, that soulless daymare of a building, may have contributed to my sense of futility. And it was sad to be back in defense work after the brief, bright promise of the post-war years—the promise that war might indeed be outlawed at last.

That autumn was among other things the time of the visit to America by Britain’s Queen-to-be and her young consort. Thinking to lift my spirits, a friend at the British Embassy procured me one of the gold-encrusted cards to the reception in their honor. Although diplomatic events of the kind are a bit out of my line and not much to my liking, I appreciated the trouble my friend had taken, and accepted.

The day was late October, very gray and chill. My small convertible inched Embassy-wards down the long slope of Massachusetts Avenue, sandwiched between a high diplomatic Daimler and a Cadillac sedan sporting the four stars of a full general on a blue shield. Up the slope moved a stream of children tugging at their parents and nurses. They had been waiting at the gate of the Embassy and had been rewarded with a glimpse of the fairy-tale princess. In the air hung the thin, silvery sound of trumpets.

At last the Lion and Unicorn gates came into sight. I saw two royal standards flapping proudly from the brick façade and four buglers in heraldic tabards in the courtyard below….

Sometime later a major in the black-and-green plaid of the Black Watch was punching my invitation (that was so it wouldn’t be lowered out a window to an accomplice) and the long line of guests was moving slowly into the building. I knew no one to nod to, although the outsize cigar of the gentleman behind me and the lack of chin of the angular one just ahead were Cabinet features that year. All the women were in full firing-line regalia. As we neared the room where royalty was, the suppressed excitement, the expectancy, was almost palpable. But the line moved so slowly there was plenty of time to think and to observe.

Someone once said that England is like a motion picture in which all the bit parts are extremely well played. This, I mused, is especially true outside their own island. Everyone knows his part—his place, it really is—and plays it to perfection. Ambassadors look and act like ambassadors, porters like porters and admirals like the sea dogs they are.

The reception was a particularly good feature presentation. Lining the passages in which we waited were prints of Cowes and Kenilworth and other redolent places. Spaced at decent intervals, in the rooms we came to, were members of the Embassy staff to lend the right note of dignity and keep an eye on the silverware. As we neared the main event, the rank of these attendants increased. Flight lieutenants and third secretaries gave way to counselors of Embassy, very stiff and correct in black, to three-stripers of the Royal Navy and half-colonels from the right regiments,

In the fullness of time we came to the Ambassador’s paneled library where a Wing Commander was on guard. His blue tunic was ablaze. I spotted a miniature Victoria Cross on its crimson ribbon, the diagonal hatching of a D.F.C., the simple blue and white of the D.S.C.…

Have a nice snoop, said the face above the tunic, I do believe I left out the Order of the Orinoco, which the Venezuelans gave me last year. Careless of me.

I looked up then, although it really wasn’t necessary. Anywhere, any time, I would have known the pleasant, slightly husky voice with the bubble of mockery in it. Now, with a sudden stab of misgiving, I found myself gazing into the face of Geoffrey Mildmay, big as life and too genial by half.

What are you doing here? was all I could manage, and truculently fired at that.

Hullo, laddie buck, I’m delighted to see you. The handshake was firm in welcome, almost conspiratorial, the eye was clear and merry in the bold, well-chiseled face.

Only a tiny twitch in the lid of one eye hinted at tension.

The people behind me stirred and I moved on. Geoffrey just stood there and showed his white teeth in a wide grin which seemed to say: Cog of Empire, old boy, chap’s got to do his bit....As I left the room he stabbed a forefinger in the general direction of the next drink. It was the old meet-me-at-the-nearest-pub gesture of our Cambridge days a few hundred light-years before.

I don’t remember the main event as well as I should. For, as I went through the motions of shaking the hands of the small pink princess with the charming smile and of her blond and strapping Duke, my brain was whirling. I remember just two details about the big room itself. The far end of it was solid with press correspondents, banked like geraniums, jotting down the big names as they went by. Immediately beyond the royal pair stood the naval and military attachés, foaming with aiguillettes, ready to catch you as you spun out, just in case.

What was Mildmay doing here, amid all the panoply of aging Empire? Didn’t they know he was feckless and faithless? Hadn’t they learned that his loyalty was of a weather-vane only, that the causes he served were quicksilver? But then, memory flowed back: I knew him as no one else did. I alone had seen through the cloak of courage he wore so easily.

There was a big striped tent on the lawn, warmed by braziers against the chill. There was champagne by the trayload and a Royal Canadian Marine Band playing something agreeable in one corner. The whole effect was like a wedding, with no chief mourners. Everyone was delighted to be there and the tent was gay with greetings.

My friend on the staff had a portion of the tent to patrol. He greeted me, shaking hands in the languid way affected by British men of war and state, and then moved dutifully on to a dowager who was signaling him imperiously with her fan.

Quite soon Geoffrey came out into the tent, cocked a jet eyebrow to right and left, spotted me and came over.

Short rest between the halves, old cock. A thousand fell, a thousand must fall. Clocked them in myself. They doubted I could count that high so they gave me this. He clicked a small metal device at me and grinned. Heavy responsibility, Billy boy, and he cranked it back a notch and slipped it in his pocket.

There was a little vacuum of silence between us, Geoffrey sighed and snagged a glass of champagne from a passing tray with all his old-time dexterity. He touched his glass to mine.

What’s new with you, Bill? You look fit, if a bit worn. Marriage agree?

He might as well know straight off, I thought.

There was no marriage, Geoffrey. I wrote you but I guess the letter never did catch up. Sandra...lost her life in a fire at the Phipses’ Adirondack lodge. Just two weeks before the wedding...was to have been.

That was nearly six months ago and it still hurt like holy hell and maybe always would.

Geoffrey gripped my arm hard just above the elbow in quick sympathy. The gesture was so spontaneous, the response to my suffering so frank, that I thawed a little despite all that lay between us.

My dear Bill, I deeply grieve for you, he said quietly. You know how I felt about Sandra Phips. She was the truest, bravest girl ever.

Yes, she was, she was just that. And we both fell silent again for a long retrospective moment. In my thoughts I thanked him for not saying what he had often said before: She was never for you, old man. You were mismatched and would have been mismated.

Sandra and Geoffrey and I had shared a Jamaican ad-venture two years before. It was Mildmay who lured me into taking a job there in the first place, under an Island politician called Gregorius. Gregorius, in the event, turned out power-mad and bent on dictatorship. The leverage for his power was his vast bauxite deposits in the back country, and my job as engineer to figure how to get the bauxite out. Geoffrey was serving as a sort of chief of staff to the man-who-would-be-king. Sandra was there with her father, a senior American man of business whose task it was to buy the bauxite from whoever did gain control. You may remember the episode, for the papers covered it pretty thoroughly at the time. The plot below sky high, the uprising staged by Gregorius went off half-cocked. Geoffrey did what looked to me like a quick volte-face and came out of the whole murky business with a grievous wound and, by some minor miracle, an untarnished reputation. In a rare moment of candor, at the time he thought the wound had finished him, he had confided to me that he had been acting as British agent all along. Later on in London, on discreet and specific inquiry with MI-5, I was told that it was most unlikely that anyone as irresponsible as Mildmay would be entrusted with such a mission. So there the matter stood, and each had gone his own way since.

Now Sandra, who had loved Geoffrey for a while and who had agreed to share my life for longer, was with us in the big striped tent, a tall dark girl with a sweet, dreaming face.

I broke the mood deliberately, firing my original salvo again but less truculently.

Might one ask what brings you to Washington, Geoffrey?

Civil Defense no less. Ever hear of it? How to open the family card table and crawl under it when the big bomb goes off. Cellars and sirens and wardens and all that dreary business. Can’t think how I ever got involved. Seems I’m an expert. I’m over for an exchange of information. Some things we do better, some you. I’m here for a quick take-out, as you say, or is it a fill-in?

As always, Geoffrey had a crop of American slang expressions, many archaic, which he misused enthusiastically. The memory of that, and of his terrible, endless flippancy, came flooding back to me now. Geoffrey changed not. It made me sad.

I’m stopping at the St. Rupert, he went on, not waiting for my comment. By the grand way he said it I figured the St. Rupert must be several notches above the May-flower, although the name rang no bell with me. Come see me soon and we’ll have a real yam and catch up on a lot of things. Now I must leave you. Curtain going up for Act II. Saul has slain his thousands and Geoffrey his ten thousands. And he clicked the metal device at me and hurried away.

I watched his fine broad back as he moved through the tent. He was bowing right and left. Geoffrey seemed to know everybody at the party. I liked him little, and was alarmed at his being there. But still I felt more lonely and dispirited than ever after he had gone.

The enormous wife of a naval officer with whom I worked spotted me and bore down under full sail, glasses glinting.

The Admiral tells me you and he were at the same conference in New York last week. Did you see some shows?

I said no, I hadn’t had time. I remember that all her conversational sallies opened with the talismanic words the Admiral.

"The Admiral saw the new Christopher Fry. He said it is better than The Lady’s Not For Burning. Which did you prefer? The Admiral says The Lady’s Not For Burn—why, what a strange young man, he just turned pale and mumbled something and bolted away, I really must tell the Admiral…."

But I was already halfway down the tent toward freedom. Away from Geoffrey Mildmay, who raked embers better left unraked. Away from the unwitting cruelty of people in the mass, the mass I was not yet ready to face because my own sweet lady had been for burning.

CHAPTER II — In Which I Go Against My Better Judgment

THE ST. RUPERT TURNED OUT TO BE A MODERATE sort of a place in one of the dingier sections of Northwest Washington. It was brownstone, with an elaborate iron fire escape slung across the front, masking whatever looks it had ever possessed, and two lines of dirty white chairs leading from entrance to street. A doctor’s card in one of the ground-floor windows lent, if it did not permanently impart, an air of respectability, and there was a raffish collection of TV masts on the roof.

Oh yes, I went to see him right enough. Four days after the Embassy reception to be exact, and not without calling myself every kind of damned fool for doing so. For four days I earned on an internal debate telling myself he was mad, and bad for me, and dangerous to mix with again. For four long nights I tossed and dreamed of my lost girl and swam shoulder-deep in a great brackish sea of self-pity and loneliness.

Then I went to see him. It was on a Monday, after work, and I took the chance of finding him in. The clerk at the desk, which was built of glass bricks turning yellow, took a toothpick out of his mouth long, enough to give me the room number.

And he’s sure enough in, said the clerk, "and playing that damn Victrola of his again, I’ve had