by Wilbur Smith
It will work, you know it will.
Time passed. Saffron looked at her watch: 10:15. She frowned. This was German-occupied territory. And German trains were never late.
Where is the damn thing?
And then, in the distance, she heard the whistle blow and a little while later the puffing of the steam engine and the clackety-clack of steel wheels on the line.
The bomb was in position.
She could see the train approaching the cutting, a dark shadow, blacked out to avoid being spotted by enemy aircraft. Saffron thought of all the times her father had taken her hunting as a girl at Lusima, her family’s estate in the Kenyan Highlands. Watching the quarry approach, she felt the same sense of excitement and anticipation as she had done then, yet there was a tinge of melancholy, too. Death was approaching. True, there was a difference between killing a noble, untamed creature or soldiers fighting for a dictator who wanted to crush the world beneath his jackboot heel. But they were young men and not so different, as people, from all the others who wore British, or Canadian, or American uniforms. Saffron knew that Germany’s rulers were vile, wicked men, but she also knew that there were German men who were decent, kind, and far from the stereotype of the thick-necked Nazi thug.
One of them was the man she loved.
There would be other men, with other girls who loved them, sitting aboard that train. And now it was her job to kill and maim as many of them as possible.
The moon was almost full that night but it had been hidden behind a patch of cloud. The veil vanished and a silvery wash of moonlight illuminated the train as it entered the cutting. It was making good speed, meaning that the crash, when it came, would be even more devastating.
Saffron looked toward the Fog-Signal Switch. It was less than two inches across but it seemed as wide as a soup plate.
Her heart skipped a beat as the train driver leaned out of his cabin to look up the line. The switch was so obvious, right there on the track.
He would see it. He would slow down.
But then he popped his head back inside the cab.
Two seconds later the train passed over the Fog-Signal Switch.
Everything had gone to plan.
•••
Saffron leaped into the woods, her hands over her ears, suddenly terrified of the carnage she had inflicted on human lives, the shockwave that would surely fling her into oblivion. The noises in her head were so shrill they were hallucinatory, so intense that she could hear high-pitched screams, and she hoped to God they weren’t coming from her own mouth. She could imagine the scene of devastation and bloodshed down below her in the cutting as the train careered off the tracks and the carriages behind it slewed and bucked and smashed into one another. The men aboard would have been taken unaware. They’d have been hurled about the compartments, slammed against walls, doors and seats, or thrown out of the windows against the brutally hard granite that rose on either side, their bones broken, their limbs unnaturally twisted.
All this she could picture in her mind’s eye. But any thought about what she had done swiftly gave way to her own immediate danger. Her senses focused on the ground in front of her and she began running for her life.
In the days after Jimmy Young had informed Saffron of her mission, she had pored over maps and photographs until she knew every path, every field, every sheltering copse and every bare expanse of open ground between the cutting and the cove, with the arm of its jetty pointing to freedom. She knew where she was going as she ran through the night, and she was not taken unaware by the springy ground, perforated with dips and holes that could easily twist an ankle or break a leg, or the cruel protrusions of rock that lurked beneath moss or wildflowers. She was used to land like this, every SOE agent was, and her feet instinctively adjusted to the rise and fall of the ground on which her steps landed.
She was about a third of the way toward her destination when she had to slow down to work her way around a village. It cost her almost fifteen minutes, but she had allowed for that when mapping out her route. But there were some things for which no one could plan, such as almost running into a German soldier and a local girl making love behind a hedge.
The first clue Saffron had to their presence was a female voice asking, “Why did you stop?” and a man answering, “I thought I heard something.”
Saffron dropped to the ground.
“I should go and look,” the soldier said.
Through the foliage that was all that separated her from the lovers, Saffron saw a hand—so close that she could almost touch it—reach to pick up a rifle. She moved her right hand down her body until she felt the handle of the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife that lay in its scabbard against her hip. The knife had a needle-sharp pointed blade that made it a deadly stabbing weapon, but the sides of the blade were as keen as razors and could slice through human flesh like a steak knife through tender filet mignon.
Saffron was not afraid of being shot. She had been trained in combat techniques more deadly than the average infantryman could imagine. She could kill that German soldier before he knew she was there. But then there was the girl. She would have to be eliminated too, before she could scream. Saffron knew that the girl would be too shocked to make any sound for a second or two, which was more than enough time to deal with her. But it was one thing to kill an enemy combatant and another to murder an unarmed female civilian, even a collaborator. And, all moral considerations aside, she would be left with two dead bodies to dispose of.
If the soldier looked over the hedge, Saffron would have to fight. She tensed herself, ready to spring at him. But she heard the girl say, “Don’t be silly. It’s probably just an animal—a fox or a badger, or something.” Then her tone changed and became more ingratiating as she purred, “Come back here. I miss you . . .”
Saffron saw the man stop moving. He was torn, she could tell, between his lust and his sense of duty.
“I really liked what you were doing, it felt soooo good,” the girl sighed.
The rifle fell to the ground. The soldier went back to the girl. Saffron prayed that he was a terrible, inconsiderate lover. Get a move on. Get what you want. Button up your trousers and go!
But now of all times she had to bump into a Casanova in uniform. He put his heart into it. He paid attention to his partner. Whatever he was doing, it was working because the girl was being aroused to such ecstasy that he had to clamp his hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming. Saffron felt a brief twinge of jealousy. It had been a long time since she had known pleasure like that.
Five minutes passed, then ten. Saffron considered trying to make her getaway while lover-boy still had his pants down, but if he heard another rustle in the hedgerow he would be bound to investigate.
But finally the mutual passion reached its climax and, to Saffron’s surprise, it was the girl who promptly stood, pulled up her underwear and said, “Better be off, then. My mother will be wondering what’s become of me.”
She started walking away, followed by the soldier asking, “When can I see you again?” and at last Saffron could move.
She told herself there was plenty of time and that she didn’t want to arrive too early and have to shelter among the rocks until the Resistance man and his boat arrived. The moon was still out and there was enough light to see where she was going.
Saffron’s spirits rose; she was elated. Her mission had been a success and she was half a mile from the cove. Maybe she would get away with it after all. And then she heard a howling sound. For a second she was plunged into a dark fantasy world of witches, wolves and malice, but an instant later she had reined in her fevered imagination and realized that it was dogs.
The hunting hounds had been unleashed, and she was their quarry.
•••
Saffron ran hard, away from the direct route to the cove. She knew that there was a stream no more than three or four hundred yards ahead, which she could use to put them off her scent. By the time they picked it up again, s
he might be able to make it to the cove, meet the waiting boat and get away.
The water was snow-melt and icy cold. She ran downstream, slipping on slimy, moss-covered rocks on the stream bed but keeping her balance and maintaining her pace, even if she was being taken further off her course, for the stream met the sea some way north of the cove. The stream ran along a gully, whose bush- and tree-lined banks provided Saffron with some shelter from the hounds and the German soldiers who were following. Soon she would have to get back onto dry land again and turn toward the cove. She glanced upward. The night sky was smeared with clouds, but none of them seemed to be passing over the moon, which remained gloriously isolated, reflecting its glow onto the earth.
If she wanted concealment, she needed to find a hiding place and stay there, in which case she would miss the boat. But to reach the cove in time, she would have to risk being seen. Her only hope was speed. She had to open a gap that her pursuers could not close and pray that the Resistance man had the nerve to wait for her, even though he would see that the Germans were on her tail, and that his motorboat was fast enough to escape before the enemy’s guns could blow them both to pieces.
She kept running, taking the single-lane road, no more than a track that twisted along the coastline, serving the farms and fishing hamlets in the area. It struck her that it had been a few minutes since she had heard the barking of the dogs, but no sooner had the thought occurred than she caught the sound of them drifting over the still night air, faintly audible over the gentle susurration of the sea against the shore.
Run faster! Come on, you lazy cow . . . run faster!
Now Saffron understood why her training had been so brutal and her instructors so merciless. They had been preparing her for a moment such as this, when her life depended on being able to push herself onward and increase her speed when her lungs were screaming for mercy, her heart felt ready to burst and the muscles in her legs were cramping as lactic acid seeped into them past the pain barrier and beyond.
There was a turning off the road up ahead of her to the right: a track that ran downhill toward a large house that was set back a few hundred yards from the cove, screened from the sea by windblown trees that some long-dead owner must have planted as windbreaks. Saffron had planned to work her way discreetly around the property but it was too late for that now.
She sprinted downhill, then left the track before it arrived in front of the house. Here she scrambled over an ornamental rockery, through which artfully constructed paths, linked by stone steps, wound down the steepest slope of the hill. Once these would have provided agreeably civilized strolls for gentle summer afternoons. Now she was fleeing for her life over the rocks and plants, leaping down the steps three at a time, with enemies and their animals hot on her heels. She emerged from the rockery, almost at sea level, and turned onto a rough path that ran between the beds of a vegetable garden.
The dogs were much louder and Saffron could hear the guttural commands of their handlers. A flash of light behind her caught her eye and she glanced back to see a bedroom window opening on the first floor and the silhouette of someone looking out. But then the window closed and the light went out. Whoever was in there, they didn’t want to get involved.
Saffron came to the trees at the end of the vegetable patch, ran across a patch of open ground and discovered a chest-high, barbed-wire fence, marking the perimeter of the property. She stopped, her chest heaving, wondering if she could get over it.
She looked to either side. About ten yards away was a metal gate, facing the sea, held shut by a chain. She ran to it, clambered over and landed on the soft, tussocky sea-grass on the far side.
Saffron could see the cove. The grass spread down to the beach, exactly as the aerial reconnaissance photograph had suggested. She looked to the left, toward the rocks and the steps down to the jetty.
There was no boat.
But then she saw a shadow rising above the line of the jetty. It was a man, and he was beckoning toward her. Of course! He’d moored the boat on the far side, out of sight.
Saffron picked up her speed again. She could hear the dogs on the far side of the fence, barking furiously, but knew that by the time their handlers caught up with them and forced the gate open it would be too late, she’d be on the boat.
I’m going to make it!
As she raced forward, her right foot skidded. Where there should have been firm earth beneath the grass, waterlogged mud was sucking at her leg. She fought to free herself and realized that what appeared to be grassland from the air was actually a marsh. There had to be a path through it to the shore, but she had lost it and the only way to find it again would be to head back to the gate and start again.
But that would take her into the arms of the Germans.
Desperately she tried to struggle on, but her progress was painfully slow. She could never tell whether she would be stepping onto dry land, or watery mud, or a hard, roughly shaped piece of rock.
“Over here!” the man by the jetty shouted. She could see him pointing to her left. That must be the path.
She turned and floundered toward it.
“Come on!” the man shouted.
Saffron heard a burst of gunfire behind her.
The Germans had shot the chain that held the gate.
There was a clamor of shouts and barks, and the rumble of an engine being revved.
The boatman called out to her in desperation. “Quick, quick!”
The crump of a flare gun being fired echoed across the cove and it burst above Saffron’s head, casting a blinding white glare over the entire scene.
She saw the bearded face of her rescuer, a cap on his head, a fisherman’s sweater. And then he ducked behind the jetty again and the next thing she knew the boat was racing away across the cove, heading for the open water, and she had to throw herself into the morass of grass and mud and salt water as guns chattered and tracer bullets sparked through the air toward the fleeing vessel.
The gunfire died away, though the sound of the engine disappearing into the distance told Saffron that the Resistance man had got away. She was glad of that. She would not have his death on her conscience.
Saffron dragged herself to her feet.
No more than ten yards away, eight men wearing German army windbreakers were standing, their guns pointed at her, while their dogs paced to and fro, snarling angrily and casting hungry stares in Saffron’s direction.
One of the soldiers had a lieutenant’s insignia sewn onto his sleeve. He pointed toward Saffron and ordered two of his men to get her while the others kept them covered.
Saffron had her knife and her pistol. If she could move, or take cover, or had the element of surprise on her side, she might have fought it out. But she was stuck up to her shins in mud, without shelter, and she knew that the enemy was armed with MP40 submachine guns—“Schmeissers,” her instructors had called them—capable of firing 500 rounds a minute. By the time she had reached for her gun they would have torn her body to shreds.
Perhaps she should make the move and get herself killed. That way they couldn’t torture her and she couldn’t give away what little she knew about the Resistance movement. But something stopped her. It wasn’t that she was afraid to die, more that she refused to give up. As long as she was alive there was always the chance she could find a way to escape. All her life she had never let anything or anyone beat her.
Even as the soldiers’ hands grabbed her, pulled her from the swamp and dragged her toward the path, Saffron clung to her self-belief. They haven’t beaten me yet.
•••
Saffron was taken to the large country house that she knew had been appropriated by the SS. “It’s a branch office for all their various police operations,” Jimmy Young had told her. “Criminal Police, Secret Police and the SD: the Nazi Party’s own intelligence agency. In practice there’s a lot of overlap, particularly in the occupied territories. They’re all equally unpleasant.”
They took her gun, her kn
ife, her bag and all its contents. They stripped her naked and left her that way for three hours in an unheated underground cell, lit by a bare bulb, with no furniture, no privacy and nothing but a tin pot in which to relieve herself.
There was an opening in the door through which the guards could look into the room, covered by a small slat that slid open or closed. The guards made no secret of opening it and looking at her on a regular basis.
Saffron sat herself against the wall with her arms around her bent knees to provide a degree of modesty. She had been awake since three in the morning. At one point her head dropped down against her kneecaps as she fell asleep. Within seconds, a guard came in, dragged her to her feet, slapped her about the face and threw her back down on the floor. He looked at her, letting his eyes wander over her body, making her feel as vulnerable, exposed and helpless as he could.
Saffron knew that this was part of the softening-up process. Sleep deprivation was a fundamental form of torture, and the crushing of a person’s dignity and self-worth was the first stage in destroying their humanity. Well, she could go without sleep. She had been trained for that. And even if she was stuck in this hellhole, her mind was free to go wherever it wanted.
She took herself back to the day she had first reported to Norgeby House, an anonymous modern office block in Baker Street. Mr. Brown, the mysterious figure who had recruited Saffron’s mother for the Great War in the same way he had Saffron for this Second World War, had greeted her and said, “I thought you might like to meet someone you know.”
He led her upstairs, knocked on a plain office door, waited for the barked command “Come!” and led her in.
It took Saffron a second to realize who the man in the officer’s uniform, seated at the desk opposite the door, really was. Even then she couldn’t quite believe it.
“Mr. Amies?” she had gasped. “Is that really you?”
Hardy Amies had made several of Saffron’s favorite dresses before the war. “Captain Amies, if you don’t mind, Miss Courtney,” he said sternly. “Or ‘sir’ to you.”