By Steven Nester
Nicolas Whistler is the most improbable spy one could imagine; so improbable, that even he has trouble believing it. Self-reflective enough to at least acknowledge that “I am not qualified to do anything. I am also a coward,” he’s more the type to share a pint with his mates in the local pub, tool around in his beloved MG roadster and, a close third, perhaps, canoodle with his patient girlfriend Maura. The problem is that there never seems to be enough money to keep the good times coming, or even pay the bills. Couple that with fecklessness, immaturity, and a vague sense of
direction, and it isn’t difficult to believe that this 24-year-old Londoner was bound to get into serious mischief—even though his path ahead had sounded totally legit. At first. And it’s no wonder that, career-wise, Nicolas Whistler is on the fast track to nowhere in Night of Wenceslas (1960), Lionel Davidson’s witty debut thriller.Returned home after stints at university and with the military, Nicolas is employed in his uncle Bela Janda’s glass business and has been promised a partnership once he learns the ins-and-outs. However, his uncle now lives in western Canada and is no longer involved with the company. Try as Nicolas might (and it doesn’t seem like he’s trying at all), his climb up the corporate ladder isn’t happening sufficiently fast. This smug, magisterial trainee blames his tight-fisted, uncooperative boss, a Czech émigré named Karel Nimek, for his situation, bestowing upon him the scornful sobriquet “ratface” (one of many sarcastic nicknames he dispenses freely to people). Meanwhile, Nicolas addresses himself as “the young master.” Master, indeed: It’s fate, or dumb luck—yet most likely the careful observation of a third party—that allows easy opportunity to present itself, to Nicolas’ detriment.
Stephan Cunliffe, a lawyer, seems to possess all the answers to Nicolas’ problems. But the impecunious young man is too impatient, arrogant, and naïve to see the trap closing around him.
Cunliffe informs Nicolas that Uncle Bela has died, bequeathing him a bundle. He then loans Nicolas a couple hundred English pounds to tide him over until his big windfall arrives. Wouldn’t you know it, though—Nicolas spends the money in a matter of days. Had he not been so busy practicing at being rich, he might have paid more attention to the troubling clues he has noted in this first-person narrative: that Cunliffe and his secretary (dubbed “Bun-face”) both have slight foreign accents; and, as he says of Cunliffe, “I had the uncanny feeling I was watching a performance by some master ventriloquist who would shortly reveal himself.” Reveal himself, Cunliffe certainly does—but not before a few papers are blithely signed and the bravado and reveries of an anticipated spending spree take hold.
“The young master has come into his own with a vengeance,” a relieved Nicolas says to himself. “I could almost feel the gigantic sack of loot on my shoulder like some unimaginably heavy pile of nuclear material darkly awaiting conversion into other more useful forms.” It’s this type of observation and expression that shapes Night of Wenceslas into a light romp instead of a grim odyssey through a gray and forbidding Stalin-scape. On the other hand, what prevents Davidson’s coming-of-age-saga-wrapped-in-an-espionage-novel from becoming fatuous and farcical is its clever plot (you’ll see), its believable circumstances, and the author’s sharp characterizations.
Nicolas is so disregarding of risk and so desperate to change his situation, that he’s blind to the guile of people bent on using him for their own ends. Cunliffe, for instance. He’s done his homework, and in Nicolas he has found the perfect patsy. When Nicolas, tail between his legs, asks the attorney for another advance, the facts of life are revealed to “the young master” as Cunliffe reels him in.
Cunliffe tells him his uncle isn’t dead after all, so there’s no fat bequest. And he reminds Nicolas that he’s already into him for £200. He warns that unless that “loan” can be repaid, Cunliffe will take away his MG. However, there’s one thing Nicolas could do if he wants the debt forgiven: Travel back to his boyhood home of Prague, Czechoslovakia (remember, this story takes place before that nation’s split), and there drop by a glassworks that has a secret formula for making unbreakable glass. The assignment should take only a few days, Cunliffe assures him—enough time for Nicolas to satisfy his nostalgia for his homeland, and for the author to supply his readers with a bit of a highlights tour. Once in Prague, all Nicolas need do is leave a guidebook casually on the desk of his host, and the formula with be tucked into its binding by the time he returns.
Nicolas agrees to this deal, though he’s pretty much on pins and needles about the trip. Fortunately, “beautiful giantess” Vlasta Simenova, his “moodily magnificent” driver in Prague, helps to make him feel welcome and quite comfortable. Vlasta’s Communist bloc flirtations include such come-hither lines as “One hears stories.
They say all westerners are spies for the Americans. Isn’t it so?” Nicolas assures her this is misinformation … after which Vlasta, as voracious for sex as she is for food and drink, has her way with her hapless “little merchant,” as she calls him.Thinking his mission (and himself) well satisfied, Nicolas returns to London, only to be told there’s a major problem. It appears, says Cunliffe, that the glass formula Nicolas retrieved is incomplete, so he’ll have to go back to Prague. Once there, though, Nicolas discovers the real purpose of these cross-Europe excursions: He’s not smuggling information out of Prague, he’s smuggling information into Prague—sensitive military information. Nicolas Whistler has been magnificently played, and there’s no one to blame but himself.
Alone and stranded in Prague, a stooge for an obvious Cold War espionage ring, Nicolas is unsure of who his friends are on either side of the Iron Curtain. His Irish lover, Maura? The stunning Vlasta? Certainly not Cunliffe! Learning how Cunliffe found Nicolas in the first place and determined he could be so easily manipulated will at some point become a priority—should he ever return safely to the Big Smoke. But other matters are of more immediate priority. Realizing he’s finally the master of his own fate, Nicolas decides to make a dash for the British Embassy, only to be apprehended and beaten by the Czechoslovakian secret police. He escapes them, makes his way through busy Wenceslas Square, and after several changes of disguise and a harrowing journey, reaches the sanctuary of the embassy.
Yet he’s still not out of the woods.
Lionel Davidson (1922-2009) was a journalist both before and after World War II. Reporting duties sent him across Europe, and it was during a visit to Czechoslovakia that he came up with the plot for Night of Wenceslas (often given as The Night of Wenceslas). The novel would go on to win the Crime Writers’ Association’s Gold Dagger Award in 1960 and be adapted as a 1964 UK spy comedy retitled Hot Enough for June, starring Dirk Bogarde and Sylva Koscina.
After being out of print for many years, Faber & Faber re-released this novel in the UK in 2016. Some aspects of its story are as outdated as the Cold War itself, yet readers surely understand that the world is not a static place. Novels, especially, reflect an era and attitudes that may no longer exist; they sit on a shelf while the world changes around them. Vlasta’s “bomb-like breasts,” while truly appreciated by Nicolas Whistler, wouldn’t play in this day and age except perhaps as farce. But again, readers can recognize the point Davidson seeks to get across—that she is most likely an agent for the opposition, and her sexuality is a weapon to keep Nicolas in line.
Readers lucky enough to find Night of Wenceslas on a bookshelf somewhere are in for an entertaining experience.
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