'And what do I do there?'
'Report to the local police station. They'll give you an alien's registration form which all Irish citizens have to fill in and you'll also have to provide a passport photo, but we can get that with no trouble. Then you'll need insurance cards, an identity card, ration book, clothing coupons.'
She numbered them off on the fingers of one hand and Devlin grinned. 'Heh, hold on now. It sounds like one hell of a lot of trouble to me. Three weeks on Saturday, that's all, and I'll be away from here so fast they'll think I've never been.'
'All these things are essential,' she said. 'Everyone has them, so you must. It only needs one petty clerk in Fakenham or Kings Lynn to notice that you haven't applied for something and put an enquiry in hand and then where would you be?'
Devlin said cheerfully. 'All right, you're the boss. Now what about this job?'
'Warden of the marshes at Hobs End. It couldn't be more isolated. There's a cottage to go with it. Not much, but it will do.'
'And what will be expected of me?'
'Gamekeeping duties in the main and there's a system of dyke gates that needs regular checking. They haven't had a warden for two years since the last one went off to the war. And you'll be expected to keep the vermin in check. The foxes play havoc with the wild-fowl.'
'What do I do? Throw stones at them?'
'No, Sir Henry will supply you with a shotgun.'
'That's nice of him. What about transport?'
'I've done the best I can. I've managed to persuade Sir Henry to allocate you one of the estate motor-bikes. As an agricultural worker it's legitimate enough. Buses have almost ceased to exist, so most people are allowed a small monthly ration to help them get into town occasionally for essential purposes.'
A horn sounded outside. She went into the sitting-room and was back in an instant. 'It's Sir Henry. Leave the talking to me. Just act properly servile and speak only when you're spoken to. He'll like that. I'll bring him in here.'
She went out and Devlin waited. He heard the front door open and her feigned surprise. Sir Henry said, 'Just on my way to another command meeting in Holt, Joanna. Wondered if there was anything I could get you?'
She replied much more quietly so that Devlin couldn't hear what she said. Sir Henry dropped his voice in return, there was a further murmur of conversation and then they came into the kitchen.
Sir Henry was in uniform as a lieutenant-colonel in the Home Guard, medal ribbons for the First World War and India making a splash of colour above his left breast pocket. He glanced piercingly at Devlin, one hand behind his back, the other brushing the wide sweep of his moustache.
'So you're Devlin?'
Devlin lurched to his feet and stood there twisting and untwisting his tweed cap in his two hands. 'I'd like to thank you, sir,' he said, thickening the Irish accent noticeably. 'Mrs. Grey's told me how much you've done for me. It's more than kind.'
'Nonsense, man,' Sir Henry said brusquely although it was observable that he stretched to his full height and placed his feet a little further apart. 'You did your best for the old country, didn't you? Caught a packet in France, I understand?'
Devlin nodded eagerly and Sir Henry leaned forward and examined the furrow on the left side of the forehead made by an Irish Special Branch detective's bullet. 'By heavens,' he said softly. 'You're damn lucky to be here if you ask me.'
'I thought I'd settle him in for you,' Joanna Grey said. 'If that's all right. Henry? Only you're so busy, I know.'
'I say, would you, old girl?' He glanced at his watch. 'I'm due in Holt in half an hour.'
'No more to be said. I'll take him along to the cottage, show him around the marsh generally and so on.'
'Come to think of it you probably know more about what goes on at Hobs End than I do.' He forgot himself for a moment and slipped an arm about her waist, then withdrew it hastily and said to Devlin, 'Don't forget to present yourself to the police in Fakenham without delay. You know all about that?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Anything you want to ask me?'
'The gun, sir,' Devlin said. 'I understand you want me to do a little shooting.'
'Ah, yes. No trouble there. Call at the Grange tomorrow afternoon and I'll see you fixed up. You can pick the bike up tomorrow afternoon, too. Mrs. Grey's told you about that, has she? Only three gallons of petrol a month, mind you, but you'll have to make out the best way you can. We've all got to make sacrifices,' He brushed his moustache again. 'A single Lancaster, Devlin, uses two thousand gallons of petrol to reach the Ruhr. Did you know that?'
'No, sir.'
'There you are, then. We've all got to be prepared to do our best.'
Joanna Grey took his arm. 'Henry, you're going to be late.'
'Yes, of course, my dear.' He nodded to the Irishman. "All right, Devlin. I'll see you tomorrow afternoon.'
Devlin actually touched his forelock and waited until they'd gone out of the front door before moving into the sitting-room. He watched Sir Henry drive away and was lighting a cigarette when Joanna Grey returned.
'Tell me something,' he said. 'Are he and Churchill supposed to befriends?'
'As I understand it, they've never met. Studley Grange is famous for its Elizabethan gardens. The Prime Minister fancied the idea of a quiet weekend and a little painting before returning to London.'
'With Sir Henry falling over himself to oblige? Oh, yes, I can see that.'
She shook her head. 'I thought you were going to say begorrah any minute. You're a wicked man, Mr Devlin.'
'Liam,' he said. 'Call me Liam. It'll sound better, especially if I still call you Mrs. Grey. He fancies you, then, and at his age?'
'Autumn romance is not completely unheard of.'
'More like winter, I should have thought. On the other hand it must be damn useful.'
'More than that - essential,' she said. 'Anyway, bring your bag and I'll get the car and take you along to Hobs End.'
.
The rain pushed in on the wind from the sea was cold and the marsh was shrouded in mist. When Joanna Grey braked to a halt in the yard of the old marsh warden's cottage, Devlin got out and looked about him thoughtfully. It was a strange, mysterious sort of place, the kind that made the hair lift on the back of his head. Sea creeks and mudflats, the great, pale reeds merging with the mist and somewhere out there, the occasional cry of a bird, the invisible beat of wings.
'I see what you mean about being isolated.'
She took a key from under a flat stone by the front door and opened it, leading the way into a flagged passageway. There was rising damp and the whitewash was flaking from the wall. On the left a door opened into a large kitchen-cum-living room. Again, the floor was stone flags, but there was a huge open-hearth fireplace and rush mats. At the other end of the room was an iron cooking stove and a chipped, white pot sink with a single tap. A large pine table flanked by two benches and an old wing-backed chair by the fire were the only furniture.
'I've news for you,' Devlin said. 'I was raised in a cottage exactly like this in County Down in the North of Ireland. All it needs is a bloody good fire to dry the place out.'
'And it has one great advantage - seclusion,' she said. 'You probably won't see a soul the whole time you're here.'
Devlin opened the Gladstone bag and took out some personal belongings, clothing and three or four books. Then he ran a finger through the lining to find a hidden catch, and removed a false bottom. In the cavity he revealed was a Walther P38, a Sten gun, the silenced version, in three parts, and a land agent's S-phone receiver and transmitter which was no more than pocket size. There was a thousand pounds in pound notes and another thousand in fivers. There was also something in a white cloth which he didn't bother to unwrap.
'Operating money,' he said.
'To obtain the vehicles?'
'That's right. I've been given the address of the right sort of people.'
'Where from?'
'The kind of thing they have on file at Abwehr Headquarters.'
'Where is it?'
'Birmingham. I thought I'd take a run over there this weekend. What do I need to know?'
She sat on the edge of the table and watched as he screwed the barrel unit of the Sten into the main body and slotted the shoulder stock in place. 'It's a fair way.' she said. 'Say three hundred miles the round trip.'
'Obviously my three gallons of petrol isn't going to get me very far. What can I do about that?'
There's plenty of black market petrol available, at three times the normal price, if you know the right garages. The commercial variety is dyed red to make it easy for the police to detect wrongful use, but you can get rid of the dye by straining the petrol through an ordinary civilian gas mask filter.'
Devlin rammed a magazine into the Sten, checked it, then took the whole thing to pieces again and replaced it in the bottom of the bag.
'A wonderful thing, technology,' he observed. 'That thing can be fired at close quarters and the only sound you can hear is the bolt clicking. It's English, by the way. Another of the items SOE fondly imagine it's been dropping in to the Dutch underground.' He took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. 'What else should I know when I make this trip? What are the risks?'
'Very few,' she said. 'The lights on the machine will have the regulation blackout fittings so there's no problem there. The roads, particularly in country areas, are virtually traffic free. And white lines have been painted down the centre of most of them. That helps.'
'What about the police or the security forces?'
She gazed at him blankly. 'Oh, there's nothing to worry about there. The military would only stop you if you tried to enter a restricted area. Technically this still is a Defence Area, but nobody bothers with the regulations these days. As for the police, they're entitled to stop you and ask for your identity card or they might stop a vehicle on the main road as part of a spot check in the campaign against misuse of petrol.'
She almost sounded indignant and, remembering what he had left, Devlin had to fight an irresistible compulsion to open her eyes a little. Instead he said, 'Is that all?'
'I think so. There's a twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit in built-up areas and of course you won't find signposts anywhere, but they started putting place names up again in many places earlier this summer.'
'So, the odds are that I shouldn't have any trouble?
'No one's stopped me. Nobody bothers now.' She shrugged. 'There's no problem. At the local WVS aid centre we have all sorts of official forms from the old Defence Area days. There was one that allowed you to visit relatives in hospital. I'll make one out referring to some brother in hospital in Birmingham. That and those medical discharge papers from the Army should be enough to satisfy anyone. Everybody has a soft spot for a hero these days.'
Devlin grinned. 'You know something, Mrs. Grey? I think we're going to get on famously.' He went and rummaged in the cupboard under the sink and returned with a rusty hammer and a nail. 'The very thing.'
'For what?' she demanded.
He stepped inside the hearth and drove the nail partially home at the back of the smoke-blackened beam which supported the chimney breast. Then he hung the Walther up there by its trigger guard. 'What I call my ace-in-the-hole. I like to have one around, just in case. Now, show me round the rest of the place.'
There was an assortment of outbuildings, mostly in decay, and a barn in quite reasonable condition. There was another standing behind it on the very edge of the marsh, a decrepit building of considerable age, the stonework green with mildew. Devlin got one half of the large door open with difficulty. Inside it was cold and damp and obviously hadn't been used for anything for years.
'This will do just fine,' he said. 'Even if old Sir Willoughby comes poking his nose in I shouldn't think he'd go this far.'
'He's a busy man,' she said. 'County affairs, magistrate, running the local Home Guard. He still takes that very seriously. Doesn't really have much time for anything else.'
'But you,' he said. 'The randy old bastard still has enough time left for you.'
She smiled. 'Yes, I'm afraid that's only too true.' She took his arm. 'Now, I'll show you the dropping zone.'
They walked up through the marsh along the dyke road. It was raining quite hard now and the wind carried with it the damp, wet smell of rotting vegetation. Some Brent geese flew in out of the mist in formation like a bombing squadron going in for the kill and vanished into the grey curtain.
They reached the pine trees, the pill boxes, the sand-filled tank trap, the warning Beware of Mines so familiar to Devlin from the photographs he had seen. Joanna Grey tossed a stone out over the sands and Patch bounded through the wire to retreive it.
