Читать книгу A Game for Heroes - Jack Higgins, Justin Richards - Страница 16

I suppose the most obvious difference between Fitzgerald and myself was to be found in the fact that my father had been born in a two-roomed cottage and had earned his living, at least in the beginning, as an inshore fisherman, whereas Fitzgerald was the son of one of the richest merchant bankers in America and would one day succeed him. Handicap enough for any man you added to it all that New England tradition. Looking back on it all now, I see that I should have been kinder to him, but a man is what he is, moulded by everything that has ever happened to him and change is difficult. Fitzgerald was branded in a way that only the very rich can be so that even Princeton must have been superfluous and I was a black little Welsh-Breton peasant in spite of my father’s money and Oxford and far too handy with a knife for the kind of gentleman who thought it was sporting to stand up like a man to have his face pulped by someone who could box better than he.

I took the knife out now, sprung the blade and threw it underhand all in one quick fluid movement. It quivered gently in the wooden post at the end of the verandah five feet above the ground.

I grinned at Henry as I went to retrieve it. ‘And I’d lay you odds I’m the only half-colonel in the British Army who can do that.’

Fitzgerald was sitting on the verandah rail, drinking his coffee. He cleared his throat. ‘Rather more difficult in the dark, sir, which after all is when one is more likely to want to use a trick like that. You know the sort of thing – night landing and sentry on the cliffs. We used to practise with our eyes blindfolded at the Commando Depot at Achnacarry. Remember, Sergeant Grant?’

Grant had been playing batman and stood at ease by the door. ‘I don’t recall anyone being much better at it than you, sir,’ he said dutifully.

It was a challenge of sorts and I took it, but for my own dark reasons. I knew he could do it before he made the attempt, for he was not the sort of man to accept failure of the public variety at anything he put his hand to.

He weighed the knife in his right hand for a moment, then closed his eyes and threw it by the blade with such force that the point buried itself two inches into the wood.

He opened his eyes and smiled blankly. ‘Ah, good.’

I retrieved the knife, folded it and shook my head. ‘As a gambling friend of mine used to say, never play against a winning streak.’ There was something close to uncertainty in his eyes, and then a kind of contempt. ‘But you’ve definitely earned yourself a very large Scotch, Major,’ I added. ‘If you’d like to go inside, you’ll find all you need in the parlour.’

He frowned and glanced at Henry. ‘May I ask when we may expect to get down to the business of the day, Professor Brandon?’

‘When I’m ready, Major Fitzgerald,’ I cut in brightly, ‘you’ll be the first to know.’

I thought he might blow then, but he simply turned on heel and walked out stiffly followed by Grant.

Henry didn’t say a word, so I walked to the far end of the verandah, closed my eyes, pulled out the knife, turned and threw it. It hit the post no more than an inch from the first mark.

‘Satisfied?’ I demanded.

He sighed and went to retrieve it for me. ‘Circus tricks, Owen. Schoolboy games.’

‘Three months, Henry, three months of my life I spent learning to do that on that farm in Brittany with my left leg in splints. The autumn of 1940. As I recall rather vividly, parachute packing wasn’t all that it might have been in those days.’

‘What are you playing at, Owen? Why ride Fitzgerald so hard?’

‘Because it pleases me – because I feel like it. If you don’t approve, you could always find somebody else.’

He wasn’t smiling any longer, even that perpetual, sardonic little quirk of his was missing for the first time since I’d known him.

‘What is it, Owen? What’s wrong?’

I held up the knife. ‘Schoolboy games, Henry? To you perhaps, sitting behind that desk of yours scheming and planning, paper all the way. I’ve killed five times with this little item. Give that a thought sometime when you’re having your tea break.’ I snapped the knife shut and slipped it back into my pocket. ‘I’ll see St Martin now and I’d like you to stay.’

He left, white-faced, and I opened the cupboard under the box seat and found half-a-bottle of Scotch and an enamel mug that didn’t look any too clean, but I’d drunk from stranger vessels than that in my time. The whisky burned through to the bone and I had another.

I was sitting on the verandah rail lighting a cigarette when Henry entered with St Martin. He looked pale and ill, a good ten years older than when I’d last seen him and there was hatred in his eyes. If I’d paid heed to it, I suppose things might have turned out differently, but then, you can never be certain of anything in this life.

I poured some whisky into the mug and handed it to him. He took it without a word and I asked Henry to get the maps. There was an Admiralty chart of the general area of the Golfe de St Malo and a pre-war ordnance survey map of St Pierre. A certain amount of information had been added to it in indian ink: gun installations, strong points and the like, presumably obtained from St Martin. I pulled the wicker chair forward to the table and motioned him into it. ‘I’m going to ask you some questions now and I want clear and accurate answers. Understand?’

He nodded and we went to work. Mostly, he was simply confirming what Henry had already told me, but we covered everything step-by-step because I wanted to know exactly what I was getting into.

The picture which emerged was a reasonably gloomy one. All beaches were mined which was only to be expected and a landing of any sort seemed impossible, which was already indicated by the information on the map.

‘Only one place I can think of.’ He stabbed his fingers at the peninsula that jutted into the sea in the south-east corner of the island.

‘The Devil’s Staircase?’

‘You could do it if the tide was right and it ought to be.’

‘But the cliffs must be three hundred feet high at that point,’ Henry said.

St Martin nodded. ‘That’s why they haven’t any defences there. Don’t reckon to need none.’

‘And they don’t know about the Devil’s Staircase?’

He shook his head. ‘If they did, I’d have known for sure.’

I explained quickly to Henry. ‘At low tide it wouldn’t be possible, but a twenty-five-foot rise puts you level with a hole in the cliff face that take you into a fissure inside going all the way up.’

‘I must say it still sounds something of a performance,’ he observed.

‘I’ve done it before.’

‘In daylight, presumably?’

I shrugged that one off and moved on to discuss the exact location of each of the civilians still left on the island. Doctor Riley was living in the town and Ezra Scully still resided in his old cottage by the lifeboat station at Granville on the south side of the island.

‘Don’t know how he does it,’ St Martin said. ‘All on his own like that. The other cottages at Granville have stood empty since 1940.’

‘Jethro Hughes and son – they’ll still be at the Manor Farm?’ He nodded and I went on, ‘and Miss de Beaumarchais?’

‘At the Seigneurie – at the Manor House as always.’

Which surprised me, but I was on dangerous ground here and I think he knew it. I contented myself with asking whether she had anyone billeted on her.

He shook his head. ‘No, her father wouldn’t have that. Insisted on his rights as Seigneur and the Jerries met him more than half-way. They didn’t want any trouble, see? After the old man was killed they offered her a cottage in town, but she refused.’

I left it at that. ‘What about the frogmen?’

‘They moved in about five months ago after most of the islanders had gone to Guernsey. There was thirty of them when they first came.’

‘Who was in charge?’

‘A young lieutenant called Braun was supposed to be, but he was drowned second week there, not that he ever counted for much. It was Steiner all the way from the first – Sergeant-Major Steiner!’

I could feel the hollowness inside me, the coldness uncoiling and poured myself another drink. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘What do you want to know?’ I think it was then that I realized he hadn’t liked Steiner at all, which was something in the German’s favour. ‘You takes your pick with him. Even the governor, the old general used to treat him with kid gloves and he was SS.’

‘What is so special about him?’

‘I don’t know. To start with he just doesn’t give a damn for anyone. Spends half his time sketching and painting all over the island and speaks English better than you do. One of the Pioneer corporals once told me that he’d been to college in London, and that his father – no, his stepfather, that was it – was a big man back home.’

I turned to Henry who was already opening his briefcase. ‘We checked all the London Art Colleges. There was a Manfred Steiner at the Slade from 1935–37. We managed to trace a couple of his tutors with very little difficulty.’ He produced a paper. ‘Do you want to read it?’

I shook my head. ‘Tell me.’

‘He was born in 1916 and his father was killed in the last year of the war. Prussian family – the kind who usually go into the Army. His mother married again when he was ten. A man called Otto Furst.’

‘Furst the industrialist? The arms manufacturer?’

‘That’s him.’

‘Do you think Steiner could have been working as a spy, amateur variety before the war?’ I asked. ‘Plenty of these so-called students were.’

‘I don’t know.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s this sergeant-major thing that I find so puzzling.’

And he was right. Considering Steiner’s background, it was all wrong, but there was little to be gained from any further discussion and I moved on to other things.

The governor, old General Muller, had been killed in some kind of accident about a week before St Martin had fled, which had left his chief aide, an SS Colonel called Radl, as acting governor. St Martin had plenty to say about him, the word swine figuring largely in his description, which left me with the distinct impression that Colonel Radl was a hard man.

I made a few notes on the map, stared at it speculatively for a moment then nodded, ‘All right, that’ll do me, Henry. Get rid of him.’

Joe St Martin got to his feet and leaned heavily on the table, his eyes wild. ‘I hope they get you, Owen Morgan. I hope they leave you hanging on the wire for the gulls to finish off.’

‘It’s certainly a thought,’ I said and went back into the house, taking the maps with me.

I could hear voices as I approached the parlour, the door being ajar. Grant was speaking in the kind of voice senior NCO’s in the Guards Brigade keep for those few occasions when they find themselves on some kind of social footing with one of their own senior officers. Good hearty man-to-man stuff with just the right touch of deference from someone who knows his place.

‘Funny kind of set-up, sir,’ he was saying. ‘Colonel Morgan.’ There was just the right small laugh, nicely judged. ‘Well, sir, not like the old days when I was in the Scots Guards, I can tell you. He wouldn’t have fitted in at all.’

He had made a very bad mistake. Fitzgerald’s voice was like ice-water. ‘Grant, if I ever hear you discuss Colonel Morgan or any other officer in those terms again in my hearing, I’ll break you, understand? Now get out of here and wait for me in the car.’

‘Sir!’ Grant’s voice rebounded from the walls and I could picture the salute as his foot stamped in hard. He came through the door, swerved to one side and saluted me on the way past. It was all very un-American.

Fitzgerald was standing at the window, and turned as I entered. ‘Did you find the Scotch all right?’ I asked as I spread the maps on the table.

‘Indeed I did, sir.’ He came forward, his swagger stick under one arm, hands behind his back.

I went to the sideboard and opened a bottle. ‘Care for another?’

‘No thank you.’

‘Suit yourself. How does a Highland Scot come to be in the American Army?’

‘Grant?’ He shrugged. ‘He was a regular soldier in your own Army for a while – Scots Guards. Bought himself out and turned prizefighter. Took out American nationality just before the war.’

‘Is he any good?’

It was as if I’d made an improper suggestion. ‘A first-rate fighting man,’ he said, a touch of indignation in his voice.

‘All right, no need to get emotional about it.’ I half-filled a tumbler and carried it over to the table as Henry appeared. ‘Right, let’s get down to it! I’ll have a look at your orders now, Major.’

He produced them without a murmur and I read them through briefly. They closely resembled my own and particularly stressed the really important things. That my mission was to take precedence over his, that on no account was he to land or look for unnecessary trouble and that in any extreme situation he was to turn to me for orders.

‘You’ve read this thoroughly and understand it?’

He nodded. ‘Perfectly.’

I dropped it into the fire and returned to chart and the map. ‘I know these waters like the back of my hand, Major, which is rather important because they’re a death trap and the orders you’ve been given would have very probably been the end of you and your men.’

Henry stared at me in astonishment, but Fitzgerald took it rather well and waited patiently for me to continue. ‘On completion of your mission, you’re supposed to leave the harbour, paddle due east one mile and signal for the pick-up.’

‘That’s right.’

I shook my head. ‘If you do, they’ll wait all night and never see you.’ I ran my finger along the water off the northern edge of the island. ‘See that, Major, Le Coursier – The Mill-Race. A hell of a place at the best of times, but when the tide starts to ebb, you’ll get a ten knot current that’ll take your light canoes in its grip and never let go until it smashes you to a pulp against the cliffs on the east coast!’

‘I see,’ He nodded gravely. ‘What would you suggest as an alternative?’

‘Once out of harbour, turn south round Fort Windsor, then follow the coastline till you come to here.’ I tapped the spot with my finger. ‘Which is where I’m being picked up.’

Fitzgerald examined the map for a moment. ‘I’d say it’s an improvement. We’ll save time on the pick-up all round.’

‘That’s settled then.’ I folded the maps and gave them to Henry. ‘All yours, Henry. When do you want me to come up to town?’

‘No need for that, Owen. Falmouth tomorrow night. I’ll send a car. You’ll leave at noon the following day.’

‘That suits me. The sooner the better now that we know what we’re doing.’

‘Good, I think that’s everything.’ Henry put the maps into his brief-case. ‘We’ll be off. I’ll just make my farewells to Mrs Barton.’

He moved out and Fitzgerald started to follow, then hesitated, strangely awkward. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but the painting above the fireplace there. It really is quite extraordinary, but I couldn’t make a great deal of sense out of the signature.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘It’s in Welsh. An affectation of the painter.’

‘I see. It’s remarkable – quite remarkable. If there was ever any chance that you were considering selling …’

I looked up into the steady grey eyes of the woman in the picture and she seemed to be about to speak to me as she always did. I shook my head. ‘I hardly think so. I’m glad you like it though. It’s a painting of my mother done the month before my father was killed. The best thing he ever did which is saying a great deal, Major Fitzgerald.’

There was a silence that for some reason, grated on me. It occurred to me that he was perhaps attempting to make some kind of gesture. I know now that I misjudged him badly.

‘Just one thing before you go,’ I said. ‘No boy scout stuff on this one, no fancy heroics. You’ve got all the medals you’ll ever need to impress them back home.’

His face went very pale for a moment, there was something like pain in his eyes. He took a deep breath, adjusted his forage cap and saluted formally.

‘May I have the colonel’s permission to leave?’

‘Oh, go on, damn you, get out of it!’ I said sourly and he saluted again, face grave and left.

I could imagine now how Burgoyne must have felt at Saratoga.

I was in no mood to face Mary after that and went out quietly through the garden. I spent the afternoon walking rather aimlessly along the cliffs, thinking about it all and didn’t return to the house till early evening.

There was no sign of her and I went out to the verandah. The sky was every shade of flame, orange and purple, the sun dropping vast beyond the rim of the world and there was silence as dusk fell, everything black, etched against flame.

Ravens, seven of them perched on the roof of the old summer-house. A sign, surely, a portent, but of what, I could not be sure. That was the writer in me, the part of me that wanted things to happen for a reason, to have a sequence to them, some meaning.

There was a stirring in the darkness and Mary said, ‘Can you tell me about it?’