I have first class contacts there. We can even sell the boat. Some slight recompense for my loss and I’ve a little matter of business coming up in the Somali Republic that you might be able to help me with.’
‘What sort of business?’
‘The two thousand pounds a month kind,’ he replied calmly.
Which was enough to shut anyone up. He produced a small cassette tape-recorder from one of his pockets, put it on the chart table and turned it on.
The band which started playing had the unmistakably nostalgic sound of the ’thirties and so did the singer who joined in a few minutes later, assuring me that Every Day’s A Lucky Day. There was complete repose on Meyer’s face as he listened.
I said, ‘Who in the hell is that?’
‘Al Bowlly,’ he said simply. ‘The best there ever was.’
The start of a beautiful friendship in more ways than one.
I was reminded of that first meeting when I went down to Meyer’s Wapping warehouse on the morning following my arrival back in England from Greece, courtesy of Ferguson and RAF Transport Command, and for the most obvious of reasons. When I opened the little judas gate in the main entrance and stepped inside, Al Bowlly’s voice drifted like some ghostly echo out of the half-darkness to tell me that Everything I Have Is Yours.
It was strangely appropriate, considering the setting, for in that one warehouse Meyer really did have just about every possible thing you could think of in the arms line. In fact, it had always been a source of mystery to me how he managed to cope with the fire department inspectors, for on occasion he had enough explosives in there to blow up a sizeable part of London.
‘Meyer, are you there?’ I called, puzzled by the lack of staff.
I moved through the gloom between two rows of shelving crammed with boxes of.303 ammunition and rifle grenades. There was a flight of steel steps leading up to a landing above, more shelves, rows and rows of old Enfields.
Al Bowlly faded and Meyer appeared at the rail. ‘Who is it?’
He had that usual rather hunted look about him as if he expected the Gestapo to descend at any moment, which at one time in his youth had been a distinct possibility. He wore the same steel-rimmed spectacles he’d had on at our first meeting and the crumpled blue suit was well up to his usual standard of shabbiness.
‘Simon?’ he said. ‘Is that you?’
He started down the steps. I said, ‘Where is everyone?’
‘I gave them the day off. Thought it best when Ferguson telephoned. Where is he, by the way?’
‘He’ll be along.’
He took off his glasses, polished them, put them back on and inspected me thoroughly. ‘They didn’t lean on you too hard in that place?’
‘Skarthos?’ I shook my head. ‘Just being there was enough. How’s business?’
He spread his hands in an inimitable gesture and led the way towards his office at the other end of the warehouse. ‘How can I complain? The world gets more violent day by day.’
We went into the tiny cluttered office and he produced a bottle of the cheapest possible British sherry and poured the ritual couple of drinks. It tasted like sweet varnish, but I got it down manfully.
‘This man Ferguson,’ he said as he finished. ‘A devil. A cold-blooded, calculating devil.’
‘He certainly knows what he wants.’
‘He blackmailed me, Simon. Me, a citizen all these years. I pay my taxes, don’t I? I behave myself. When these Irish nutcases approach me to do a deal, I go to the authorities straightaway.’
‘Highly commendable,’ I said and poured myself another glass of that dreadful sherry.
‘And what thanks do I get? This Ferguson walks in here and gives me the business. Either I play the game the way he wants it or I lose my licence to trade. Is that fair? Is that British justice?’
‘Sounds like a pretty recognizable facsimile of it to me,’ I told him.
He was almost angry, but not quite. ‘Why is everything such a big joke to you, Simon? Is our present situation funny? Is death funny?’
‘The sensible man’s way of staying sane in a world gone mad,’ I said.
He considered the point and managed one of those funny little smiles of his. ‘Maybe you’ve got something there. I’ll try it – I’ll definitely try it, but what about Ferguson?’
‘He’ll be along. You’ll know the worst soon enough.’ I sat on the edge of his desk and helped myself to one of the Turkish cigarettes he kept in a sandalwood box for special customers. ‘What have you got that works with a silencer? Really works.’
He was all business now. ‘Handgun or what?’
‘And sub-machine-gun.’
‘We’ll go downstairs,’ he said. ‘I think I can fix you up.’
The Mk IIS Sten sub-machine-gun was especially developed during the war for use with commando units and resistance groups. It was also used with considerable success by British troops on night patrol work during the Korean war.
It was, indeed still is, a remarkable weapon, its silencing unit absorbing the noise of the bullet explosions to an amazing degree. The only sound when firing is the clicking of the bolt as it goes backwards and forwards and this can seldom be heard beyond a range of twenty yards or so.
Many more were manufactured than is generally realized and as they were quite unique in their field, the reason for the lack of production over the years has always been something of a mystery to me.
The one I held in my hands in Meyer’s basement firing range was a mint specimen. There was a row of targets at the far end, life-size replicas of charging soldiers of indeterminate nationality, all wearing camouflaged uniforms. I emptied a thirty-two round magazine into the first five, working from left to right. It was an uncomfortably eerie experience to see the bullets shredding the target and to hear only the clicking of the bolt.
Meyer said, ‘Remember, full automatic only in a real emergency. They tend to overheat otherwise.’
A superfluous piece of information as I’d used the things in action in Korea, but I contented myself with laying the Sten down and saying mildly, ‘What about a handgun?’
I thought he looked pleased with himself and I saw why a moment later when he produced a tin box, opened it and took out what appeared to be a normal automatic pistol, except that the barrel was of a rather strange design.
‘I could get a packet from any collector for this little item,’ he said. ‘Chinese Communist silenced pistol. 7.65 mm.’
It was certainly new to me. ‘How does it work?’
It
