18
generous friends (and family) for his economic survival. Yet it now seems
obvious that the hidden hand and secret vote of British intelligence may
well have ensured his welfare too. In a decade of tremendous political
upheaval in Europe, why else would the ‘penniless’ Adrian Bishop have
made his home in Vienna in the 1920s before and after the July 1927
Revolt, and in Berlin in 1930–1935 during the tumultuous rise of the
Nazis? Why on earth in August 1932 did Kim Philby and Tim Milne hap-
pen purely by chance to come across Bishop living in Metković, a small
malaria-infested town in the far south of Yugoslavia on the Herzegovinian
border, unless perhaps because Serbs and Croats were at each other’s
throats over the assassination of Milan Šufflay, and things were heating up
in the region?^52 And why, during those ten years abroad working occasion-
ally as a freelance journalist and as a tutor, does Bishop appear at intervals
in France, Italy, and crucially again in Vienna in 1934–1935 in the wake
of the Dollfuss assassination? In stating that Bishop had spent much time
in collecting lurid information on what had happened, his companion
Maurice Bowra came closest to identifying Bishop as a scout.^53 Though
clear evidence is lacking, it is conceivable that Bowra too, Bishop’s inti-
mate friend and frequent companion on his European travels, may have
himself scouted on and off for British intelligence, either in tandem with
Bishop or alone—especially in Germany where Bowra met Hitler in per-
son, and (though he always denied this) saluted the Führer with the words:
‘Heil Bowra!’^54 As a patriotic former artillery officer, Bowra was devas-
tated in 1939 when, probably with an intelligence job in mind, he formally
placed his many talents at the government’s disposal, just as Bishop had
done, but unlike Bishop and most of his friends, Bowra was flatly rejected
and left with no choice but to command a local Home Guard unit.^55 At
any rate, no lack of funds seems ever to have deterred his dear friend
Adrian Bishop from being in the right political hotspot at the right politi-
cal time: telltale signs of a scout hard at work.^56
Though often short of funds herself, Freya Stark never faced the penury
that at times appears to have beset Adrian Bishop’s scouting exploits. In
addition to whatever modest remuneration she may have received from
government funds, we know from various sources that Freya Stark’s inter-
war missions were financed to some degree by the Royal Geographical
Society (RGS), with whom she was obliged to file a detailed report each
time she returned to Western civilization—devoid of any sensitive military
intelligence of course. Such was the official and public justification for
Stark’s travels. In fact, it was a shrewd choice of ‘suitably scholarly’ cover,^57