James Mason, an Englishman, was born on June 24, 1824; where and of whom is not well documented. He gained a degree in geology from Paris University and participated in France’s bloody revolution in 1848. He became manager of the Bilbao iron mines and made a fortune from copper extraction in Sao Domingos, southern Portugal, where he owned vast estates. The King of Portugal, alarmed at Mason’s increasing influence, sent an army to reestablish royal authority. Mason’s private security force defeated the soldiers, so the King, changing tack, ennobled the Briton with the title Conde de Pomarao, a hereditary title, held to this day by his great-grandson.
Mason sank his fortune into the 4,000-acre estate of Eynsham Park, five miles west of Oxford. His only son had an affair with the King of Portugal’s daughter, married the Earl of Crawford’s daughter, was director of the Great Western Railway and in due course handed Eynsham Park to his only son, Michael.
After Eton and Sandhurst, Michael became Army Boxing Champion in 1918 and traveled to Canada for three years as a prizefighter, bootlegger and hunter. In 1938 he was recruited by the Director of Naval Intelligence and spent much of the Second World War on clandestine assignments in Europe. A great sailor and traveler, he wrote many books and became High Sheriff of Oxfordshire in 1951. He died thirty years later, leaving Eynsham Park to his eldest son, David.
Perhaps this unusual pedigree explains why David Mason was born without fear.
On Sunday, October 31, 1976, a week after the killing of Pia and the judge in Paris, Captain David Mason’s alarm clock woke him from a deep sleep in his bedroom on the first floor of Buckingham Palace. He dressed as quickly as his uniform allowed and left the palace.
Straightening his back, he walked over the gravel of the front courtyard. Above, in the cold autumn breeze, the Royal Standard fluttered to confirm that the Queen was in official residence. In fact, David knew, she had been away for some time. A gust caught at his bearskin as he emerged past the police sentry box. Instinctively he braced his lower jaw against the chin strap and cursed the fact that it did not lie below his chin at all, but sat just below his lower lip. The bearskin itself was hollow, with plenty of room for carrying loose items. The previous week one of David’s guardsmen had been caught on sentry duty with a transistor radio tuned to Radio Caroline on his head. When approached by the ensign, he had come smartly to attention and jogged the volume control. He got eight days’ detention.
Such temptations had been unknown in the less boring days when the sentry boxes were outside the palace railings. Sadly the tourists had grown more and more familiar when posing for photos-sometimes girls would strip-and even steal items of uniform. The young guardsmen could only grin and bear the indignities, so they had been brought inside the railings. Many regretted this and various lost perks. It had not been unknown for American tourists to part with good money when prompted by a veteran, speaking out of the side of his mouth, “That will be twenty dollars for the photo, sir. Just roll it up and stuff it down my rifle barrel… Thank you very much, sir. Anyone else? How about you, madam?”
Underneath his greatcoat David wore his dark blue “number one dress tunic.” The trousers sport a broad red band and are worn outside “Wellingtons,” footwear that looks like cowboy boots minus the high Cuban heels. Since the tunic jacket is often too warm when worn beneath a greatcoat, many officers dispense with it except in very cold weather. One lieutenant was badly caught out when summoned into the royal presence and invited to make himself comfortable. He wore only a Snoopy T-shirt under his greatcoat, and Her Majesty was not amused.
At 8 a.m. sharp David crossed from the palace to the “Birthday Cake,” as Guards officers describe the Victoria Memorial, and then across to the far side of the busy roundabout. Many officers, frightened of being run over, take the slower route to St. James’s Palace, by using the pedestrian crossing at the Buckingham Palace end of Constitution Hill, but David regarded this as a waste of time. He carried his sword menacingly free of its polished steel scabbard and, since his bearskin appeared to perch on his nose, obscuring his vision, the traffic invariably screeched to a standstill and let him pass.
On arriving at St. James’s Palace, he acknowledged the shouldered rifles and salutes of the sentries and entered to eat a full cooked breakfast in sumptuous surroundings. In the officers’ sitting room on the first floor, he paused to look at the Times headlines. In a revenge raid following the murder of white farmers, Rhodesian commandos had penetrated deep into Mozambique. During the night, at midnight, 3 a.m., and 6 a.m., while his ensign, the young and rather green Second Lieutenant James Manningham-Buller, had inspected the St. James’s Palace Guard, he had inspected the Buckingham Palace Guard. Now he wrote up his Guard Report and signed for his mess bill.
David paused in front of a large mirror inside the door of the officers’ guardroom and adjusted his calf-length, blue-gray greatcoat and the brass-link chin strap of his bearskin with its six-inch green and white plume. He emerged from the guardroom without bending. In his bearskin David was almost eight feet tall, but the doorway had been designed with just such problems in mind. He returned to Buckingham Palace, causing en route a motorcyclist to collide with a taxi.
At 10:30 a.m. Major Charles Stephens, Captain of the Queen’s Guard, handed over to the New Guard to the camera-clicking delight of the tourists.
As the majority of the New Guard marched off down the Mall with the Corps of Drums, the Old Guard, including David and his men, headed for the nearby Wellington Barracks to the tune of “Liberty Belle.” As well as being good marching music, this was also the signature tune of the television comedy series Monty Python’s Flying Circus. David had nobbled the Band Sergeant-Major, who substituted the correct final note with a huge, discordant fart from the tuba as in the Python version. This was enjoyed by the troops and tourists alike.
David gave his orderly his uniform for cleaning back at the Guards Barracks in Caterham, south of London. Then, in slacks and a tweed jacket, he located his R-registration Porsche 911 Targa convertible and drove through near-empty streets to his flat in South Kensington.
Letting himself in, he noticed a white, two-inch-square card with the rest of his mail. The card was blank. He felt a surge of anticipation, for this was no ordinary caller.
David, a great believer in priorities, went into the kitchen, switched on the kettle and put hot water in the teapot. Then, without removing the brown paper band that circled its butt, he lit up a Montecristo Number 5 cigar. He smoked half a dozen a day and especially relished his first post-palace-duty puff.
Spike Allen was standing by the bookshelf and greeted David with a creasing of the skin at the corners of his eyes. David disguised his pleasure. “You break in here on a Sunday morning when I am knackered by forty-eight hours of ensuring the Queen’s personal safety.” He gestured at the copy of the Times that lay beside a green cardboard file. “I had assumed you were in Mozambique leading the attack.”
Spike grimaced. “I hope you’re not sardonic with Her Majesty. Sarcasm ill becomes an officer of the Welsh Guards.”
David had been on a sniper’s course in West Germany when one of Spike’s talent-trawlers had spotted him and, a year later, Spike had made the approach while David was on a demolition and explosives course with the Royal Engineers. The committee had specifically instructed Spike never to recruit from the Armed Forces and, in the case of ex-soldiers, no one who had ever served with the regular (22nd) Special Air Service Regiment. Spike had adhered rigidly to this rule until 1971, when a specialist job in Edinburgh had proved beyond the expertise of his two dozen operatives-his “Locals,” as he called them-in Britain. He had needed a man with up-to-date military contacts and skills.
He managed on that occasion by himself but decided then and there to recruit a suitable person from Her Majesty’s Forces. Since he and he alone knew the identities of the founder, the committee members, and the Locals, and since the committee entrusted the work of running the Locals entirely to Spike, no one objected to the recruitment of an active soldier because no one except one or two of the other Locals knew about it. Ignorance was bliss, decided Spike, who was a realist.
David had worked for the Feather Men for four years, and Spike had every cause to congratulate himself on his choice. He knew the details of Captain Mason’s file, as he knew those of every one of his Locals. Spike was married with two children, but the Locals were his extended family and Mason, Local 31, was a star performer. His file read:
Born Oxford 8/13/51.
Arrogant but fiercely loyal. Old-fashioned but quick, confident and decisive
Eynsham Park, Witney, Oxon; 97a Onslow Square, South Kensington
Eton. Mons Officer Cadet School. 1st Bn. Welsh Guards
Skills/Abilities: Cross-country runner BAOR Championship ’71, ski, marksman
Instructor-Sniper’s Course BAOR ’72
Northern Ireland 1971-72
O. C. IS/CRW weapons trials 1972/73
Demolitions/Explosives courses ’72
Best Regimental handgun shot ’73
Military adviser to BBC for Internal Security Program ’73
Sultan’s Bravery Medal ’75 (Oman active service 1974-76)
London District duties ’76
Height 6?4?. Weight 200 lbs. Hair brown. Eyes gray.
Languages: Arabic, French, German
One of Spike’s practices before selecting a Local was to discover his views on a number of topics, some apparently immaterial. Mason’s responses were also filed:
Abortion: “I think Parliament has got it about right. I don’t think a woman should be forced to give birth to an unwanted child, especially if it is diagnosed early on to be disfigured. Many handicaps can now be diagnosed twenty-two weeks into pregnancy, and a termination should be at this early stage or not at all.”
Racism: “A whole industry has sprung up around this issue. Ostensibly to prevent racism, it has the opposite effect by noisily drawing undue attention to the subject. People should be treated the same and, if black or brown, they should neither be penalized nor rewarded. Positive discrimination is counterproductive.”
Arming the Police: “This would be a dreadful mistake. The police on the whole know very little about firearms. The training given to those officers who are occasionally authorized to carry firearms is inadequate.”
Sounds: “Dislike: Radio 1, Radio 2, airport announcements, in-flight announcements, women gossiping, telephones ringing, BBC reporters’ voices, children whining, traffic.”
“Like: clocks ticking, birds singing, stags roaring, children laughing, huge explosions, wind in trees, foghorns.”
Smells: “Dislike: gangrene, B.O., fast food, car exhaust, wet sleeping bags, hospitals, nylon socks, dog shit, instant coffee, government offices.”
“Like: the sea, sawed timber, mown grass, heather, cordite, wood smoke, Harrods Food Hall, clean children, cigar smoke, the African bush.”
People: “Impossible to categorize. Everytime I have tried to do so I have found an exception to the rule. But if I had to paint a stereotype of the sort of character for whom I reserve particular derision… chin sticking in rather than out, watery eyes, runny nose, wispy red beard, CND amulet around the neck, plays guitar in modern church services, goes to prenatal classes with the wife after she has been made pregnant by the milkman, lives in Hampstead, faints when a car backfires, vegetarian, no sense of humor, follows trends, reads the Guardian, feet smell despite (or because of) sandals, uses words like ‘totally,’ ‘at the end of the day,’ ‘up and down the country,’ ‘ongoing struggle,’ etc.”
Germaine Greer: “An intelligent and interesting woman. Unfortunately a horde of shrill harpies have taken over the feminist issue in much the same way as strident black activists have the race industry. If someone applied to me for a job I would appoint the person most suited to it, regardless of sex.”
Politics: “In a nutshell I am a right-winger, but there has been almost as much interference with personal freedom under the Conservatives, even if they have been more subtle about it. Government should be kept to a minimum. People should be able to get on with their lives unimpeded by bureaucracy, nannying, hectoring and meddling by ignorant politicians anxious to make their names.
“Socialism is a religion espoused by fools, crooks or liars or, as in the case of many people at the BBC, people who are all three. It has failed miserably, but the more dimwitted of its adherents have still not realized this.
“Liberalism is not much better. There are just fewer crooks and more fools. There are some honorable exceptions but not many.”
Coming from the majority of people, these responses would have put Spike off right away. A fascist bigot, a narrow-minded elitist, were descriptions that sprang to mind. But he decided, and the recruit-trawler agreed, that Mason simply liked to appear bluff and autocratic.
The passage of time and a number of testing jobs at home and abroad had confirmed Mason to be a fair-minded man, a friend to anyone regardless of background, once he had decided they were genuine.
Like the rest of the Locals, David Mason operated for Spike without remuneration and often without payment even of his expenses. He knew only that the Committee of the Feather Men commanded Spike’s loyalty and stood for freedom and democracy. They aimed to operate within the law to protect individuals or to prevent crimes, where the official arm of the law was powerless or too undermanned to be effective. For the most part Spike worked the Locals within their home areas, where they were likely to be streetwise. This also saved travel expenses. Few of the Locals knew one another since Spike kept them apart as far as possible.
David studied the scanty contents of the file Spike handed him. It contained street maps of Bristol and the personal details of one Patrice Symins, drug dealer. When David laid the file down and stubbed out his cigar, Spike told him the background.
“Two weeks ago the only daughter of a Chippenham accountant, once a squaddie with C Squadron in Hitchin, died of drug abuse. She was supplied by the same group who organized her introduction to heroin when she was a student at Bristol University last year. The police know all about the dealer, Symins, but can prove nothing. There is a local Hungarian who has helped us in the past. He knows the city like the back of his one good hand. He will be your guide. Symins is well protected, which is why I want you to back up our Local, a Welshman called Darrell Hallett.”
They talked for an hour. Then Spike Allen handed over some equipment and left. David sighed. He had asked for a day to recover from palace duties, but Spike’s hit was planned for that Monday night.