336 • MASON, A. E. W.
Following his recruitment, Mason, who had been educated at Dul-
wich College and Trinity College, Oxford, transferred to the Royal
Marine Light Infantry and thence undertook his first secret mission,
to Spain. Unlike the conventional intelligence officer posted under
some semitransparent diplomatic cover to an embassy abroad, Mason
adopted the lifestyle of a wealthy expatriate, cruising the Mediterra-
nean in an impressive motor yacht. Exactly what occurred during this
period, when Mason sailed between Spain, Morocco, Gibraltar, and
the Balearics, is unknown, but there are some clues to be found in
two of his subsequent publications. InOne of Them, which has a
definitely autobiographical flavor, Anthony Strange consulted Major
Slingsby of the British Secret Service about neutral ships that were
loading large quantities of a cargo that purported to be bicarbonate
of soda. Working together, Slingsby and Strange established that the
suspect barrels contained fuel for enemy U-boats and a trap was laid
for a submarine attending an illicit rendezvous in a secluded bay in
supposedly neutral waters. Strange had fitted his yacht with a gun
disguised as a capstan, and when the German vessel approached to
refuel, it was sunk by Strange’s accurate shelling. This tale bore a
strong resemblance to an incident in Cartagena where Mason had
photographed a U-boat refueling and had circulated the pictures as
postcards, much to the embarrassment of the Spanish authorities.
In another episode, recounted inThe Four Corners of the Earth,
Mason told the story of a German saboteur whom he had first met in
Lisbon. At a second meeting, in Alicante, ‘‘Peiffer’’ offered todefect
and sought permission to enter Gibraltar. Peiffer was later arrested
as he tried to leave the Rock and was interned, the suspicions of
Slingsby and Strange having been justified. The German was indeed
a dangerous spy, trained inHamburg, and had planned with a Span-
ish accomplice to mount a surprise aerial attack on the undefended
part of Gibraltar under cover of an air race.
In October 1916 Mason returned to London via Paris, where he
was a witness at the execution ofMata Hari. His second assignment
took him back to the Mediterranean on Lord Abinger’s yacht, theSt.
George, together with a group of guests that included Professor W. E.
Dixon, the noted pharmacologist upon whom the character of Ben-
dish is based inThe Summons. Bendish was described as an expert
on the detection of secret ink and the opening of suspect mail without
leaving a trace.