Hanover Street by Maureen Gregson

Author:Maureen Gregson [Gregson, Maureen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780553124132
Amazon: 0553124137
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 1979-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Before the war Paul Sellinger had been a stockbroker, showing flair as well as acuteness. He was successful. Men playing the market trusted and liked him. They shared the same tastes and knew each other's families and came from the same conventional background of prep school, public school, and Oxbridge. It was a time when the strength of the old school tie was at its most powerful.

Operating, for Sellinger, provided excitement. He made few inspired guesses, but enjoyed taking calculated risks, and saw his career as a serious game, to be played with humor and a certain style. But this speculative side of his character did not show in his private life. At home he was r steady, charming provider, witty and considerate, the almost-too-perfect husband.

It was only when the war came that he began to suspect his life had, in fact, been remarkably sheltered. He had never moved out of his circle, made any unorthodox decision, or questioned the establishment in any way.

After call-up, he had been stationed near London for normal military training. Margaret had begun nursing, and soon her letters and conversation were full of extraordinary experience, stories of despair and courage. When he had been attached to intelligence, his first reaction had been one of extreme disappointment To his surprise, he realized he had been looking forward to action.

Intelligence was full of oddballs with agile minds, and led into strange and previously unsuspected areas. Sellinger found himself working with psychiatrists, writers, actors, small businessmen, and even criminals, all with wits for use against the enemy. He learned how to train men to withstand types of torture and abuse he had never before imagined possible. The years before the war had been innocent times for him.

Forbes, the agent recently killed in France, had joined the service a few weeks after Paul himself and was a very different man. Flamboyant and extroverted, he seemed an open book superficially. Yet although they became friends and regularly took a drink together at the end of each day before going home, Paul Sellinger discovered very little about the other's life. On file he was married with a family and had been an "entrepreneur," which could mean anything. Beneath the exhibitionist show, he gave nothing away and occasionally displayed almost alarming perception.

"You're a gambler," he had said unexpectedly not long after they met "I want you to meet someone."

Sellinger, already aware of Forbes's weakness for the tables, grinned. "Not one of your poker school?"

The agent had tried before to draw him into that, but now shook his head. "No. Though he's not unconnected. It's someone who wants a favor and who can do you and the department favors."

They took the subway to Plaistow. Paul Sellinger had never been to the East End of London before. The devastation was appalling; acres and acres of rubble-strewn land pitted with craters where only a few weeks before, thousands of people had lived. The buildings still standing were mainly slums, small back-to-back hovels, or tenements crammed with poverty-scarred women whose children had all been evacuated and whose men were now soldiers.

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