Cold Harbour (17 page)

“Really?”

“Yes.” Priem lit a cigarette and leaned on the parapet. “It seems that Château de Voincourt is a hotbed of conspiracy. Not only yourself, but most other Generals who stay here including Rommel himself, are suspected of designs on the Führer’s life.”

“Dear God!” Ziemke folded his paper. “My thanks for telling me, Max.” He got up and put a hand on Priem’s shoulder. “My poor Max. A hero of the SS and yet you’re not even a Nazi. It must make life terribly difficult.”

“Oh, I manage,” Priem told him.

There was a murmur of voices inside and Chantal appeared a moment later. “An orderly left this, General.”

Ziemke read the signal, then laughed out loud. “The cunning bastard. Still the chicken farmer at heart. He’s buying your services in advance, Max. Listen to this.
‘From Reichsführer SS to Max Priem. In recognition of services to the Reich above the call of duty, by special order of the Führer, you are promoted to the rank of Standartenführer from this date. Heil Hitler.’
”

Priem took it from him, bemused, and Ziemke pushed him into the bedroom. “What do you think, darling?” he said to the Countess. “Max here has been promoted twice at the same time. He’s now a full Colonel.”

“And what does he have to do for that?” she demanded.

Priem smiled ruefully. “I look forward to your niece’s return. Tomorrow, I think.”

“Yes, we’re going to need her to entertain Rommel at the weekend,” Ziemke said. “I thought we should have something special this time. A ball more than a dance.”

“An excellent idea,” Priem said.

“Yes, Anne-Marie has been staying at the Ritz,” Hortense de Voincourt said to Priem.

“I know,” he told her. “I’ve rung three times, but she’s always out.”

“What do you expect? Shopping in Paris is still shopping in Paris in spite of this dreadful war.”

“Yes, well I must be about my duties.” Priem saluted and went out.

Hortense looked up at Ziemke. “Trouble?”

He took her hand. “Nothing I can’t handle and not from Max. He’s caught in the middle.”

“A terrible shame.” She shook her head. “You know something, Carl? I really like that boy.”

“So do I,
liebling,
” and he took the champagne from the bucket and refilled her glass.

TOWARDS EVENING IT
was already getting dark at Cold Harbour, rain drumming relentlessly against the window of the kitchen. Julie and Genevieve sat opposite each other at the kitchen table and the French woman was shuffling a pack of Tarot cards. The gramophone was playing a man’s voice, very appealing, backed by a swing band. The song was “A Foggy Day in London Town.”

“Very appropriate considering the weather,” Julie said. “Al Bowlly. The best ever for me. He used to sing in all the great London nightclubs.”

“I saw him once,” Genevieve told her. “I had a date with an RAF pilot. It was back in 1940. He took me to the Monseigneur restaurant. That was in Piccadilly. Bowlly was singing there with the Roy Fox band.”

“I’d have given anything to see him in the flesh,” Julie said. “He was killed in the Blitz, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

Julie held up the Tarot cards. “They tell me I have a gift for these things. Shuffle them and give them back with your left hand.”

“You mean you can foretell my future? I’m not sure I want to know.” But Genevieve did as she was told and handed back the cards.

Julie closed her eyes for a moment, then spread the
cards face down on the kitchen table. She looked across. “Three cards, that is all you need. Select one and turn it over.”

Genevieve did as she was told. The cards were very old. The painting was dark and sombre, the title in French. There was a pool guarded by a wolf and a dog. Beyond it, two towers and in the sky above, the moon.

“This is good,
chérie,
for it is in the upright position. It tokens a crisis in your life. Reason and intellect have no part—only your own instincts will bring you through. You must, at all times, flow with the feeling. Your own feeling. This alone will save you.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Genevieve told her and laughed uncertainly.

“No, this is what the card says to me,” Julie told her earnestly and reached to put a hand on hers. “It also tells me you will come back from this thing. Choose another.”

The card was the Hanged Man, a replica of the sign which hung outside the inn on the quay.

“It does not mean what you think. Destruction and change, but leading to regeneration. A major burden is removed. You go forward as your own person for the first time, owing nothing to others.”

There was a pause. Genevieve took a third card. It was reversed, a knight on horseback, a baton in his hand.

Julie said, “This is a man close to you. There is conflict for its own sake.”

“Would that be a soldier?” Genevieve asked.

“Yes.” Julie nodded. “Probably.”

“A crisis that only my own instincts will carry me through. Change, a major burden removed. A man, possibly a soldier, interested in conflict for its own sake.” Genevieve shrugged. “I mean, what does it all add up to?”

“The fourth card will tell. The card you did not know you must draw.”

Genevieve hesitated, finger poised, then pulled out the card. Julie flipped it over. Death stared up at them, a skeleton with a scythe mowing not corn, but corpses.

Genevieve tried to laugh, but her throat was dry. “Not too good, I presume?”

Before Julie could reply, the door opened and Craig came in. “Munro wants us in the library now. It’s decision time.” He paused, smiling. “God, have you been messing around with those things again, Julie? You’ll be getting yourself a tent next at the spring fair at Falmouth.”

Julie smiled and scooped the cards together. “An interesting idea.”

She got up as Genevieve did, came round the table and squeezed her hand as they followed him.

MUNRO AND HARE
were in the library bending over the table examining a large-scale Admiralty chart of the Channel between Lizard Point and Finisterre in Brittany. René sat by the fire smoking one of his little cigars, simply awaiting orders.

Munro looked up. “Ah, there you are. The weather as you can see hasn’t improved and the weather boys still can’t actually guarantee that it will if we follow your original schedule which you’ll recall was take-off at eleven.”

The door opened and Joe Edge came in. Munro said, “Any further word?”

“I’m afraid not, Brigadier,” Edge told him. “I’ve just spoken to Group Captain Smith in London who’s running the weather department for SHAEF at the moment. He confirms what we already know. Things could get better, but
there’s a better than fifty per cent chance that they won’t.”

Genevieve glanced at him curiously. He’d been keeping out of the way since the incident in the woods, had even kept out of The Hanged Man. His face was blank, no expression at all, but the eyes said it all, only hatred there.

Munro said, “That does it. Can’t leave it any longer because you’ll need to leave earlier if it’s to be a sea passage.” He turned to Hare. “You’re sailing now, Commander.”

“Fine, sir.” Hare nodded. “We leave at eight. I know that won’t give you much time, Genevieve, but there it is. The fog is rather lighter at sea level, variable in patches. The forecast after three to four miles was with rain squalls. Should be perfect for a nice invisible run.”

“To where?” Genevieve asked.

Hare turned to Osbourne. “Craig?”

The American said, “We’ve already spoken to Grand Pierre on the radio just in case.” He traced a pencil along the chart. “Here’s Leon and Grosnez light, the bay where the
Lili Marlene
picked me up. Grand Pierre tells us that the Germans closed the light down two days ago.”

“Why?” Genevieve asked.

“They’ve been closing lights down progressively for some time now,” Hare put in. “Invasion fever.”

“The point is,” Craig told her, “that directly below the Grosnez light there’s a quarry in the cliffs. Hasn’t been worked since the 1920s, but there’s a deep water pier there that the boats used in the old days when they went in for the granite.”

“Perfect for our purposes,” Hare said.

Craig carried on. “We’ll call Grand Pierre to confirm the new arrangement. He’ll be waiting with suitable transport. You’ll still be at St. Maurice on schedule.”

“Using that pier at Grosnez we can go straight in and straight out,” Hare told her. “No problem.”

“And if anyone did happen to be in the vicinity, what would they see?” Munro demanded. “The pride of the Kriegsmarine going about its business.”

Genevieve looked down at the chart, feeling strangely calm. “That’s it, then,” she said softly.

Genevieve and Craig and René stayed below at Hare’s request as the
Lili Marlene
left harbour. Sitting at the table in the tiny ward room Genevieve found herself reaching for a Gitane almost as a reflex action. Craig gave her a light.

“You’re really enjoying those things now, aren’t you?”

“A bad habit.” She nodded. “I’ve had the horrible idea that it might haunt me for the rest of my life.”

She leaned back and thought of the leave-taking in the rain on the quay. Munro, strangely serious in his old cavalry coat as he shook hands, Edge in the background, watching her malevolently all the time. And then Julie’s quick, affectionate embrace, the final whisper.

“Remember what I told you.”

The movement of the E-boat was quite pronounced and a door opened as Schmidt came in from the galley balancing himself, three mugs on a tray. “Tea,” he said. “Hot and sweet. Lots of lovely condensed milk.” Genevieve made a
face. “No, you drink it down, sweetheart. Good for the stomach on this kind of trip. Stops you being sick.”

She doubted that, but took him at his word and somehow managed to get some of the sickly brew down. After a while, he glanced in again. “The guvnor says you can come up top if you want to.”

“Fine,” Genevieve turned to Craig. “Coming?”

He looked up from the newspaper he was reading. “Later. You go.”

Which she did, leaving him with René, going up the companionway. When she opened the door the wind dashed rain into her face. The
Lili
seemed vibrant, full of life, the deck heaving beneath her feet as she held on to the lifeline and struggled towards the ladder going up to the bridge. She felt totally exhilarated, rain on her face, pulled herself up and got the wheelhouse door open.

Langsdorff was at the helm, Hare at the chart table. He swung to face her in the swivel chair and stood up. “Sit here. You’ll be more comfortable.”

She did as she was told and looked around her. “This is nice. Exciting.”

“It has its points.” He said to Langsdorff in German, “I’ll take over for a while. Take a coffee break.”

“Zu befehl, Herr Kapitän,”
the Obersteuermann said formally and went out.

Hare increased speed, racing the heavy weather which threatened from the east. The fog was patchy so that at times they travelled in a private, dark world and at others, burst out into open water, for the moon was clear on occasion in spite of rain squalls.

“The weather doesn’t seem to know what to do,” she said.

“It never does in this part of the world. That’s what makes it so exciting.”

“Different from the Solomon Islands.” It was a statement, not a question.

“You can say that again.”

It was rougher now, the
Lili Marlene
rolling occasionally, barrelling forward, the floor of the wheelhouse tilting so that Genevieve had to brace her feet firmly to stay in the chair. Visibility was poor again and as the waves broke, there was a touch of phosphorescence on the water.

The door opened and Schmidt lurched in, the oilskin over his pea jacket streaming. He had a Thermos jug in one hand, a tin biscuit box in the other. “Coffee in the jug, love, and sandwiches in the box,” he told her cheerfully. “You’ll find mugs in the cupboard under the chart table. Enjoy.”

He retreated, banging the door and Genevieve got the mugs out. “He’s quite a character, that one. Always a quip for every situation, just like a comedian.”

“True,” Hare agreed as she handed him a mug, “But have you ever noticed that he doesn’t smile all that much? Sometimes humour is simply a cover for pain. Jews know more about that syndrome than any other race on earth.”

“I see,” she said.

“Schmidt, for example, had a cousin he adored. A nice Jewish girl from Hamburg who lived with his family in London for a few years. She went back on a visit just before the war because her widowed mother had died unexpectedly. They tried to persuade her not to go. She was still a German citizen, you see. She was too late for the funeral anyway, but there were family affairs to see to and then nobody in England really believed the stories they were hearing.”

“What happened?”

“Schmidt insisted on going with her. They were both picked up by the Gestapo. The British Consul in Hamburg
saved him, of course, as a British citizen. He was given a two-day deportation order.”

“And his cousin?”

“He made enquiries. She was a pretty blonde girl. Seems she was allocated to the programme servicing troops’ brothels in spite of the fact that sexual relations with Jews are illegal. The last word he got, she’d been put on a train going east to the border just before the Polish invasion.”