SOURCE: “Compton Mackenzie: The Indiscreet Spy,” in Literary Agents: The Novelist as Spy, Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1987, pp. 66-76.

In the following essay, Masters recounts Mackenzie's espionage activities in Greece, his trial for revealing sensitive intelligence information, and publication of his “revenge” novel, the satirical Water on the Brain.

From the first moment I saw the little man with his mousy hair and pale, ragged moustache, his very pale blue eyes filmed by suspicion and furtiveness almost as if by a visible cataract, I recognized in him the authentic spy, the spy by nature.

—Compton Mackenzie, describing Davy Jones, his contact in Athens

Compton Mackenzie was the only novelist in his time employed by British Intelligence who quite naïvely disclosed secret information in his fictitious writings. As a consequence of the trial resulting from the Mansfield Cumming case, which found him guilty and fined him £100 plus costs...