Cold Harbour (23 page)

“A message from London perhaps.”

“Can you get away from the Château all right?”

“Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing.” He smiled. “It goes well?”

“Perfect so far.”

“I’ll contact you some time tomorrow, but I must go now, Mamselle. Goodnight.”

He opened the door and went out. For the first time, she was conscious of a feeling of real unease. Stupid, of course. She poured some of the coffee he’d brought and went and sat by the window to drink it.

THEY WERE USING
the old music room for dancing. There was a grand piano in the corner on a slightly raised section, in shadows now. She remembered the last time she’d played for Craig Osbourne and hoped that no one would ask her to repeat the performance.

Anne-Marie had always been more accomplished, had worked harder at it. She could have been a professional, but she was careful not to become quite that good. It wasn’t, she maintained, what people wanted her to be. She was probably right—as usual.

Genevieve played the aristocrat to the hilt, a way of keeping at a distance people she was probably supposed to
know. Someone opened the window to the terrace and coolness rushed in. There was quite a crowd. That afternoon an SS Brigadier General named Seilheimer had arrived with his wife and two daughters and an Army Colonel with one arm in a sling, who seemed to be held in high esteem by the younger officers. Some kind of war hero from the way they hung around him. Ziemke’s presence and that of the Brigadier put rather a strain on things. Perhaps they noticed, because they left early to talk and the music became a little more lively.

Two young officers spent the first hour seeing to the gramophone between them, but soon relinquished the task to one of the orderlies and tried their luck with the Brigadier’s daughters who both looked no more than seventeen and were flushed with excitement at all the attention they were receiving.

They were looking forward to the ball, of course, and the chance to meet the great Erwin Rommel. The youngest, with an irritating giggle, said she had never met so many handsome young men in one room before and what did Genevieve think of the dark Colonel in the Waffen-SS? She spoke in French which most of the Germans made a determined effort to do.

This last was said just a little too loudly. Max Priem, a glass of cognac in one hand, kept his face very straight as he talked to the Army Colonel, but there was wry amusement in those blue eyes when he glanced at Genevieve briefly.

She watched him for a while, this man who was nothing like what she had expected. All Germans were Nazi brutes like Reichslinger. She had believed that because that was what she was supposed to believe.

But Priem was different from anyone she had ever known. When she looked at him, she knew what they meant
by the phrase “a born soldier.” And yet there was the fact of what he and people like him had done. She had already seen something of that for herself in the past couple of days and there were other, darker things. The camps, for instance. She shivered slightly. Such thoughts were stupid. She was here for a purpose and must hold on to that fact.

The music was a curious mixture and not always German. There was French and even a little American Boogie. Tomorrow would be nothing like this. The lights would be bright and strong and the music dignified, an orchestra. They would drink punch from the de Voincourts’ silver bowls and lots of champagne, and soldiers would wait upon them in white gloves, dress uniforms.

A young lieutenant approached and asked her to dance so diffidently that she flashed him Anne-Marie’s most brilliant smile and said she’d be delighted. He was a beautiful dancer, probably the best in the room and blushed when she complimented him.

While the record was being changed, she stood in the centre of the room, chatting and a voice said, “My turn now.”

Reichslinger pushed between the boy and Genevieve so that the young lieutenant had to step back.

“I like to choose my company,” she said.

“So do I.”

As the music began, Reichslinger took a firm grip of her waist and hand. He was smiling all the time, enjoying his temporary mastery, knowing there was little she could do about it until the record ended.

“The last time we met,” he was saying, “you told me I was no gentleman. I must learn to mend my manners, then.”

He laughed as if he’d said something exceptionally witty and she realised he was more than a little drunk. As the
record ended, they stopped by the open french windows and he pushed her out on the terrace.

“I think that’s enough,” she said.

“Oh, no, not yet.” He grabbed both arms and held her back against the wall. They struggled while he laughed, enjoying himself, using only half his strength and then she brought her heel down hard on his instep.

“You bitch!” he said.

His arm swung up to strike and then there was a hand on his shoulder, pulling him away. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that isn’t good manners?” Max Priem told him.

Reichslinger stood there, glaring and Priem faced him, hands on hips, looking strangely menacing. “You are on duty at ten, is this not so?”

“Yes,” Reichslinger said thickly.

“Then I suggest you go about your business.” Reichslinger glanced at Genevieve wildly. Priem said, “An order, not a suggestion.”

The iron discipline of the SS was in control now. Reichslinger’s heels clicked together.
“Zu befehl, Standartenführer.”
He gave a perfect Nazi salute and marched away.

“Thank you,” Genevieve said, rather inadequately.

“You weren’t doing too badly. Is that what they taught you at finishing school?”

“The syllabus was extremely varied.”

Another record started and she recognised the voice with something of a shock. Al Bowlly, Julie’s favourite.

“I, too, like to choose my company,” Priem said. “May I have this dance?”

They went through the french windows and moved on to the floor. He was an excellent dancer and suddenly, it was all rather pleasant. And yet, she was a spy, surrounded by the enemy. If they found out, what would they do to
her? Those Gestapo cellars in Paris where Craig Osbourne had suffered? It was hard to reconcile such facts with the laughter, the gay conversation.

“Of what are you thinking?” he murmured.

“Nothing very special.”

It was rather marvellous drifting there, the light swimming in a haze of smoke. The music throbbed and then she realised what Bowlly was singing—“Little Lady Make-Believe.”

A curious choice. Last time she had heard the song was during the London Blitz. A probationer nurse with a few hours off duty and too tired to sleep. She had gone to one of the clubs with an American pilot from the Eagle Squadron. Al Bowlly had just been killed by a Nazi bomb and the American had laughed when she said it was eerie and she had tried to make herself be in love with him, just because everyone else seemed to be in love. And then he’d shattered her eighteen-year-old romantic dream by asking her to sleep with him.

Priem said, “You may have noticed the music has stopped.”

“Which shows how tired I am. I think I’ll go to bed. I’ve had what you might call an interesting evening. Say goodnight to the General for me.”

An orderly appeared with a message for him. He took the piece of paper and read it and curiosity made her stay just to see if it was important. Not a muscle moved in his face. He slipped the paper into a pocket.

“Goodnight, then,” he said.

“Good night, Colonel.”

She felt dismissed and had a strange feeling about that paper as if it meant something she ought to know. How ironic if Rommel wasn’t coming. If everything was
cancelled. No, it wouldn’t be ironic, it would be bloody marvellous. She’d stay on at the Château. They’d drift along until the war was won and hopefully, she’d be able to go home to her father. It was a while, she thought uneasily, since she’d considered him.

She moved up the stairs and along the corridor to her room. When she went in, she could feel Anne-Marie there for the first time, a dark presence, and had to get out, at least to the balcony, where there was no wind, only a cool stillness.

She sat in the rocking chair in the shadows, remembering Anne-Marie and what had happened to her. And they had been men of the Waffen-SS, her executioners, which was what it came down to, just like Max Priem. But that was nonsense. He was different.

There were quiet footsteps below and she looked down to see a figure silhouetted by the light from the room he’d just left. He stood quite still and she found that she had stopped rocking, was scarcely breathing.

She was not sure how long she watched, safe in the shadows, but he didn’t move at all. It created a still harmony between them, all the more magnetic because he was unaware of it. He turned, the light from one of the windows on his face, and looked up at the balcony.

“Hello, there,” she said from the shadows.

It was a moment or so before he replied and she let the silence ride, peaceful. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

Somewhere by the boundary wall, a guard dog howled, splitting the silence, and others joined. Priem strode to the parapet and leaned on it, his body rigid and tense. The eeriness of that first cry was gone now. The dogs were very real. There was lots of noise down in the lower garden, voices raised, the flicker of torchlight.

A searchlight was turned on and its beam travelled like a yellow snake along the ground until it caught the tail-end of the pack, five or six Alsatians, and then the quarry, a man, leaping just ahead of them. They caught him by the lower fountain. He went down and then the dogs were all over him. A moment later the guards arrived to beat them off.

Genevieve was cold with horror, watching as the wretched man was lifted to his feet, covered with blood. Priem called out in German and a young sergeant turned and ran across the lawn to report. After a few moments, the sergeant returned to the group by the fountain and the snarling dogs, the prisoner, were led away.

“A local poacher after pheasant,” Priem called softly. “He made a bad mistake.”

She hated him then, there at that moment, for what he stood for. The brutality of war, the violence that could so easily touch the lives of ordinary people, but she was a de Voincourt after all. A family who, in an earlier century, would have had that poacher’s right hand in exchange for the pheasant.

She took a deep breath to steady her voice. “I think I’ll go to bed now. Good night to you, Colonel Priem.”

She backed into the shadows. He stayed where he was, the light on his face, looking up. It was quite some time before he turned and walked away.

The Grenadier in Charles Street was on the corner of a cobbled mews. When Craig went in he found himself in a typical London pub, marble-topped tables, a coal fire burning in a small grate, a mahogany bar, bottles ranged against an enormous mirror behind. It wasn’t too busy. A couple of air raid wardens in uniform played dominoes by the fire. Four men in working overalls sat in a corner enjoying the beer. A motherly looking middle-aged blonde in a tight satin blouse looked up from the magazine she was reading behind the bar. Her eyes brightened at the sight of his uniform.

“What can I get you, love?”

“Scotch and water,” he told her.

“I don’t know, you Yanks expect the earth. Haven’t you heard of rationing?” She smiled. “Still, I suppose there could be a drop for you.”

“I was hoping I might find a friend of mine here. A Dr. Baum.”

“The little foreign doctor from that nursing home up the road?”

“That’s right.” She was filling a glass out of sight of the other customers behind the bar. “He’s in the snug through that glass door, love. In there most nights. Likes to be on his own.”

“Thanks.” Craig paid her and took his drink.

She said, “He ain’t half putting it away these days—the booze I mean. See if you can get him to slow down.”

“He’s one of your regulars then?”

“I should say so. Ever since he’s been running the clinic and that’s got to be three years now.”

There was information to be gained here, he knew it. He took out his cigarettes and offered her one. “He hasn’t been drinking hard all that time, has he?”

“Good lord, no. Used to come in every night, same time, sit on the stool at the end of the bar, read
The Times,
drink one glass of port then go.”

“So what happened?”

“Well his daughter died, didn’t she?”

“But that was some time ago. Before the war.”

“Oh, no, love, you’re wrong there. It was about six months ago. I remember it well. Dreadfully upset he was. Went in the snug and leaned on the bar with his head in his hands. Crying he was. I gave him a large Scotch and asked him what was wrong. He said he’d just had bad news. He’d heard his daughter had died.”

Craig managed to stay calm. “I obviously got it wrong. Never mind. I’ll have a word with him now.” He emptied his glass. “Bring us another of those and whatever Baum’s drinking.”

He opened the Victorian frosted glass door and found himself in the long snug. The main bar extended into it. In
other days it had been intended for ladies only. Leather benches fringed the wall and there was another small coal fire in a grate, Baum sitting beside it, a glass in his hand. He looked seedy and neglected, clothes hanging on him. The eyes were bloodshot and there was a stubble on his chin.