Cold Harbour (6 page)

“And the third reason?” Craig asked.

“Simple. You’re an officer in the armed forces of your country just like me and you’ll obey orders, just like me.” Munro stood up.

“No more nonsense, Craig. We’ll go down to the pub, see Hare and tell him and his boys you’re now a member of the club.”

He turned and walked to the door and Craig followed him feeling curiously light-headed, despair in his heart.

THE HANGED MAN
was exactly what one would have expected, a typical English village pub. The floor was stone flagged, there was a log fire on an open hearth, iron-work tables which had seen years of use, high-backed wooden benches. The ceiling was beamed and the old mahogany bar was conventional enough, bottles ranged on the shelves behind it. The one incongruous thing was Julie pulling pints behind the bar and the Kriegsmarine uniforms of the men who leaned against it.

As the Brigadier entered followed by Osbourne and Edge, Hare was sitting by the fire drinking coffee and
reading a newspaper. He stood up and called, in German. “Attention. General officer present.”

The men clicked heels. Brigadier Munro waved a hand and said in fair German. “At ease. Carry on drinking.” He held out a hand and said to Hare, “No need for the usual formalities, Martin. We’ll use English. Congratulations. Good job last night.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Munro warmed his backside at the fire. “Yes, you used your initiative, which is fine, but do try to clear things with me in future.”

Edge said to Hare, “Good point, old boy. For all you knew, the gallant Major might have been expendable.”

Something flared in Hare’s eyes and he took a step towards Edge who backed off, laughing. “All right, old boy, no violence if you please.” He turned to the bar. “Julie, my blossom. A very large gin and tonic,
s’il vous plaît.
”

“Calm down, Martin,” Munro said. “An unpleasant young sod, but a flyer of genius. Let’s all have a drink.” He turned to Craig. “It’s not that we’re alcoholics here, but as the lads work by night, they do their drinking in the morning.” He raised his voice. “Listen, everybody. As you all know by now this is Major Craig Osbourne of the Office of Strategic Services. What you don’t know is that as of right now, he will be one of us here at Cold Harbour.”

There was a moment’s silence. Julie, at the bar, paused in the act of pulling a pint, face grave, then Schmidt raised his glass of ale. “Gawd help you, guvnor.”

There was a general laugh and Munro said to Hare, “Introduce them, Martin.” He turned to Osbourne. “Under their assumed identities, of course.”

The Chief Petty Officer, Langsdorff, who had been at the
wheel, was American. So were Hardt, Wagner and Bauer. Schneider, the engineer, was obviously German and as he discovered latter, Wittig and Brauch, like Schmidt, were English Jews.

Craig was feeling more than light-headed now. He was sweating, he knew that, and his forehead was hot. “It’s warm in here,” he said, “damn warm.”

Hare looked at him curiously, “Actually I thought it rather chilly this morning. Are you okay?”

Edge approached with two glasses. He gave one to Munro and the other to Craig. “You look like a gin man to me, Major. Get it down. It’ll set the old pulses roaring. Julie will like that.”

“Screw you!” Craig told him but he took the glass and drank it.

“No, the general idea is screw her, old boy.” Edge squeezed on to the bench beside him. “Though she does seem to keep it to herself.”

“You’re an unpleasant little swine, aren’t you, Joe?” Martin Hare said.

Edge glanced at him, managing to look injured. “Intrepid bird man, old boy, that’s me. Gallant knight of the air.”

“So was Hermann Goering,” Craig said.

“Quite right. Brilliant pilot. Took over the Flying Circus after von Richthofen was killed.”

Craig’s voice sounded to him as if it came from someone else. “An interesting idea, the war hero as psychopath. You must feel right at home in that Ju88 you’ve got up at the airfield.”

“Ju88S, old boy, let’s be accurate. Its engine boosting system takes me up around four hundred.”

“He forgets to tell you that his boosting system depends on three cylinders of nitrous oxide. One hit in those tanks
and he ends up in a variety of very small pieces,” Martin Hare said.

“Don’t be like that, old boy,” Edge moved closer to Craig. “This kite is a real honey. Usually has a crew of three. Pilot, navigator and a rear-gunner. We’ve done a few improvements so I can manage on my own. For instance, the Lichtenstein radar set which actually enables one to see in the dark—they’ve repositioned that in the cockpit so I can see for myself and . . .”

His voice faded as Craig Osbourne plunged into darkness and rolled on to the floor. Schmidt ran across from the bar and crouched down as the room went silent. He looked up at Munro.

“Christ, sir, he’s got a raging fever. That’s bloody quick. I only checked him out an hour ago.”

“Right,” Munro said grimly and turned to Hare. “I’ll take him back to London in the Lysander. Get him into hospital.”

Hare nodded. “Okay, sir.” He stood back as Schmidt and two others picked Osbourne up and carried him out.

Munro turned to Edge. “Joe, get through to Jack Carter at my office. Tell him to arrange for Osbourne to be admitted to the Hampstead Nursing Home as soon as we get in,” and he turned and followed the others out.

CRAIG OSBOURNE CAME
awake from a deep sleep feeling fresh and alert. No sign of any fever at all. He struggled up on one elbow and found himself in what seemed to be a small hospital bedroom with white painted walls. He swung his legs to the floor and sat there for a moment as the door opened and a young nurse came in.

“You shouldn’t be up, sir.”

She pushed him back into bed and Craig said, “Where am I?”

She went out. A couple of minutes passed. The door opened again and a doctor in a white coat, a stethoscope around his neck, entered.

He smiled. “So, how are we, Major?” and took Craig’s pulse. He had a German accent.

“Who are you?”

“Dr. Baum is my name.”

“And where am I?”

“A small nursing home in north London. Hampstead to be precise.” He put a thermometer in Craig’s mouth, then checked it. “Very good. Very nice. No fever at all. This penicillin is a miracle. Of course the chap who treated you gave you a shot, but I gave you more. Lots more. That’s the secret.”

“How long have I been here?”

“This is the third day. You were quite bad. Frankly, without the drug,” Baum shrugged. “Still, now you have some tea and I’ll ring Brigadier Munro. Tell him you are all right.”

He went out. Craig stayed there, then got up, found a robe and went and sat by the window looking out at the high-walled garden. The nurse came back with a pot of tea on a tray.

“I hope you don’t mind, Major. We don’t have any coffee.”

“That’s okay,” he told her. “Do you have any cigarettes?”

“You shouldn’t really, sir,” she hesitated then took a packet of Player’s from her pocket and some matches. “Don’t tell Dr. Baum where they came from.”

“You’re a honey,” Craig kissed her hand. “First night out I’ll take you to Rainbow Corner in Piccadilly. Best cup of coffee in London and great swing to dance to.”

She blushed and went out, laughing. He sat there, smoking, staring into the garden, and after a while there was a knock at the door and Jack Carter limped in, a stick in one hand, a briefcase in the other.

“Hello, Craig.”

Craig, truly delighted to see him, stood up. “Jack—how bloody marvellous after all this time. So, you still work for that old sod.”

“Oh, yes.” Carter sat down and opened the briefcase. “Dr. Baum says you’re much better?”

“So I hear.”

“Good. The Brigadier would like you to do a job for him, if you feel up to it, that is.”

“Already? What’s he trying to do? Kill me off?”

Carter raised a hand. “Please, Craig, hear me out. It’s not good, this one. This friend of yours, Anne-Marie Trevaunce?”

Craig paused, a cigarette to his lips. “What about her?”

“The Brigadier needed to see her face-to-face. Something very big is coming up. Very big.”

Craig lit his cigarette. “Isn’t it always?”

“No, this time, it really is of supreme importance, Craig. Anyway, a Lysander pick-up was arranged to bring her out and I’m afraid things went very badly wrong.” He passed a file across. “See for yourself.”

Craig went to the window seat, opened the file and started to read. After a while, he closed it, great pain on his face.

Carter said, “I’m sorry. It’s pretty bad, isn’t it?”

“About as bad as it could be. A horror story.”

He sat there thinking of Anne-Marie, the lipsticked mouth, the arrogance, the good legs in the dark stockings, the constant cigarette. So damned irritating and so bloody marvellous and now . . . ?

Carter said, “Did you know of the existence of this twin sister, this Genevieve Trevaunce in England?”

“No.” Craig handed back the file. “She was never mentioned in all the time I knew Anne-Marie, even in the old days. I knew there was an English father. She once told me Trevaunce was a Cornish name, but I always thought he was dead.”

“Not at all. He’s a doctor. Lives in Cornwall. North Cornwall. A village called St. Martin.”

“And the daughter? This Genevieve?”

“She’s a Staff Nurse here in London at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. She was recently rather ill with influenza. She’s on extended sick leave staying with her father at St. Martin.”

“So?” Craig said.

“The Brigadier would like you to go and see her.” Carter took a large white envelope from his briefcase and passed it across. “This will explain just how important it is that you help us out on this one.”

Craig opened the envelope, took out the typed letter and began to read it slowly.

Just behind the village of St. Martin there was a hill, a strange place with no name that was marked on the maps as probably having been some kind of Roman-British fort in ancient times. It was Genevieve Trevaunce’s favourite place. From its crest she could sit and look out across the estuary to where the surf washed in over treacherous shoals, only the seabirds to keep her company.

She had climbed up there after breakfast for what was to be the last time. On the previous evening, she had reluctantly faced up to the fact that she was well again and those raids on London, according to the BBC news, had intensified. They would need everyone they could get on the casualty wards at Bart’s now.

It was a fine, soft day of a kind peculiar to North Cornwall and nowhere else, the sky very blue, white water breaking across the bar. She felt at peace with herself for the first time in months, relaxed and happy, turned and
looked down at the village below, her father working in the garden of the old rectory. And then she noticed a car some distance away. At that stage of the war with severe petrol rationing it usually meant either the doctor or the police, but as it drew nearer, she saw that it was painted with the drab olive green colour used by the military.

It stopped outside the rectory gate and a man in some sort of uniform got out. Genevieve started down the hill at once. She saw her father straighten, put down his spade and go to the gate. A few words were exchanged and then he and the other man went up the path together and went inside the house.

It took her no more than three or four minutes to reach the bottom of the hill. As she did so, the front door opened and her father came out and started down the path. They met at the gate.

His face was working terribly, a glazed look in his eyes. She put a hand on his arm. “What is it? What’s happened?”

His eyes focused on her for a moment and he recoiled, as if in horror. “Anne-Marie,” he said hoarsely. “She’s dead. Anne-Marie is dead.”

He pushed past her, making for the church. He went through the graveyard in a grotesque, limping, half-run and entered the porch. The great oak door closed with a hollow boom.

The sky was still blue, the rooks in the trees beyond the church tower called harshly to each other. Nothing had changed, yet everything was different. She stood there, suddenly ice-cold. No emotion at all, only an emptiness.

Footsteps approached behind. “Miss Trevaunce?”

She turned slowly. The uniform was American, a trenchcoat open over an olive drab battledress. A Major and with several medal ribbons. A surprising number for
such a young man. The forage cap was tilted across gold hair with lights in it. A smooth, blank face gave nothing away, eyes the same cold grey as the Atlantic in winter. He opened his mouth slightly, then closed it again as if unable to speak.

She said, “You bring us bad news, I believe, Major?”

“Osbourne.” He cleared his throat. “Craig Osbourne. Dear God, Miss Trevaunce, but for a moment there it was like seeing a ghost.”

SHE TOOK HIS
trenchcoat in the hall and opened the parlour door. “If you’ll just go through, I’ll ask the housekeeper to make some tea. No coffee, I’m afraid.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

She put her head round the kitchen door. “Could we have some tea, Mrs. Trembath? I have a visitor. My father’s in the church. I’m afraid we’ve had bad news.”