Отрывок из книги
Bernard Newman
Published by Good Press, 2021
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I was not ashamed of my profession then, nor am I now. Intelligence is vital to an army; without it, any quantity of thousands of brave men are impotent. It was universal since Moses sent his spies into Canaan till Wellington wanted to know what was happening on the other side of the hill. Throughout the nineteenth century its importance increased tenfold each year. During the last war its effects were tremendous—the fate of the British Army in France changed, in fact, from the day when an optimistic Chief of Intelligence Services was replaced by a sober realist!
There is an over-worn cliché about truth being stranger than fiction. This is highly accurate, not only because fiction so seldom appears or even pretends to be true. I have already known people who have found my story impossible of credence. As I shall show, I spent the last three years of the war not only in Germany, but at German General Headquarters! An Englishman at German G.H.Q.—it does seem absurdly impossible. Yet my feat was only unique in the comparative eminence of my position. A German spy found occupation in the British censor’s office in London throughout the whole of the war, collecting priceless information.[1] A German spy was interpreter to the French courts martial for trying spies.[2] On the eastern front a Russian officer managed to serve on both sides! His story,[3] though confusing in its detail, makes fiction appear unimaginative. Yet it is fully confirmed. One German captain remained in France for over two of the war years—as a French officer; he was even invited to witness the trials of a new flame-thrower! Another German, Captain Preusser, three times penetrated British G.H.Q. at Cairo. His companion, Major Francks, was even bolder; he used to dress as a British Staff officer and wander about behind the British Palestine front; once, with supreme nerve and effrontery, he even inspected a regiment of artillery![4] But if any reader, in spite of these parallels, should be tempted to doubt my accuracy, there are a dozen obvious methods by which he can test it.
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