British Secret Service During the Great War

by Nicholas Everitt

I promptly answered this communication by a special journey to London, of which I gave due notice as requested.

After passing the Police Guards at the entrance to the War Office, I traversed a long corridor to the inquiry room, where a number of attendants were busily engaged issuing forms to be filled up by applicants for interviews. Of course it was impossible to escape the inevitable form, on which I inserted the name of Captain P. W. Kenny, his room number, my name, address, and the nature of my business—private and confidential. It was a bit of a staggerer to hear from the attendant that he did not know Captain Kenny, nor of him, nor did he believe there was any officer of that name in the building. Inquiries, however, from others of his class elicited the information that someone had heard a name somewhat like it and if I went up to the floor on which the room was numbered as before-mentioned, and applied to the porter or commissionaire at the lodge up there, he might be able to locate him for me.

After a wait of some minutes in an ante-room where were collecting a large number of officers and others on errands of various natures, I was sent away in charge of a boy-scout, with about ten other form-fillers, whom he dropped at various floor lodges on the way. The system was for each boy-scout to conduct a whole bunch of followers, who carried their forms in their hands until the desired floors were reached, when the boy-scout guide handed one or more of his followers to the commissionaire in charge of the lodge on each floor sought, who in turn sent them off again in charge of another attendant to the desired room.

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.

Accordingly I at once made up my mind what to do. I went to the floor below, to the lodge there, and I asked for Lord Kitchener. There was no hesitation in answering that inquiry; within a few minutes I had reached the desired portion of the building, where I asked to see his Lordship's principal secretary. I have forgotten his name, but I was not kept waiting for a moment. I was accorded an opportunity to explain my mission. I showed him the letter I had summoning me to the War Office, and told him the difficulties I had met with in attempting to locate the elusive "Go-Between." This officer received me very graciously; he smiled at the short description I gave him of my wanderings, and said: "I think I can put you on the right track straight away; please follow me," and getting up he took me to another room at the far end of the corridor we were then in, where we interviewed another officer who also laughed and told us that Captain Kenny had just changed his room and would now be found in room number —— which was on the floor above. Having thanked these officers for their kindly services I ascended once more, and within ten minutes from abandoning my false scent I ran my quarry to earth and was tapping on his oak.

I explained the difficulty I had been placed in to Captain Kenny, who expressed some surprise. Whether he really felt it or not I do not know, but when I showed him the room number given at the top of his letter he admitted the recent change and made apologetic amends for the inadvertence, adding that the attendants in charge of the inquiry bureau below should certainly have known both his name and room number.

Quien sabe, thought I to myself. Anyway, I held my peace and we proceeded to business.