by Craig Thomas
"Go on." The captain was childishly impatient for the climax of the story.
"The channel is almost a mile wide, and we estimate it runs from the southern edge of the minefield—" he began to pull a chart from his inside breast-pocket, unfolding it so that it crackled in the warm, temporary room. Gilliatt listened to a typewriter in one of the other partitioned cells of the drawing-room, and a saucer rattled in a cup. Ashe spread the chart, the minefield on it, a peppering of little red crosses. The captain leaned forward, touched it almost reverentially. Then Gilliatt saw it was nervousness like their own that made him hesitant.
Ashe continued, clearing his throat, "Here it is — it runs north by east to south by west, from the coast at a point just east of Cork to the dog-leg here which marks the edge of the minefield—" Ashe's finger traced carefully, as if across the surface of a still-wet print. His finger moved down, and as if to stop him, the captain spoke.
"North to south — Ireland to France. Very well, gentlemen—" He looked at the chart again, at the hard black lines that denoted the discovered channel through Winston's Welcome Mat that Ashe had marked — a dotted line indicated the remaining area that Bisley had not searched. When Gilliatt studied his face, he saw that it was clenched tight around some indigestible fact or emotion. There was white along the line of the jaw, the lips were thinned and bloodless, the fine lines around the eyes had become creases. "Gentlemen — the sooner all three of us get this to London, the better."
* * *
As the D-class cruiser signalled each of the three merchantmen in turn to alter course on another leg of their zig-zag route, the noise of the U-boat spotter — a seaplane — overhead faded into the murk of the coming dusk and the rain-squall. It should have stayed with the convoy for another two hours, to the limit of its range, but the weather was already closing in on its Gander base, and unless it returned immediately it would be unable to land either at the airfield or on the lake. And it did not possess sufficient reserves of fuel to outfly the weather.
The noise of its engines disappeared behind the gale-force wind which flung great sheets of green-white spray against the superstructures of the four ships. They would be alone now, without escort or spotter planes, for fifteen hundred miles of the North Atlantic. Perversely, the bad weather was almost welcome. No U-boat could operate at periscope or torpedo depth in the troughs and peaks of the sea that was now running.
The three merchantmen altered course in turn, shepherded by the cruiser. Each man aboard assumed that, whatever his dreams demanded or envisaged, they were headed for the perilous North Channel and the Clyde or the Mersey, if they survived the wolfpacks that without doubt waited for them. Except the cruiser's captain and first officer, who had opened their sealed orders after they rendezvoused with the convoy, and knew that a passage was being swept for them at that moment through the St George's Channel minefield.
Those two officers also knew the nature of the special cargo carried on board the cruiser itself, more vital in its way than the grain and oil and machine-parts on board the merchantmen, more vital even than the experimental route of this special fast convoy.
October 198-
Goessler and Lobke were shopping in Oxford Street, — the younger man with an almost child-like pleasure, sampling boutiques and department stores and record shops with the hurried inquisitiveness of a garden bird seeking food in winter. Goessler's attitude was parental, a mock reserve covering his own enjoyment. After a couple of hours, they abandoned the thudding rock music of the small boutiques for the encompassing, air-conditioned expanse of Marks & Spencer near Marble Arch. For Lobke, Oxford Street had already almost replaced the Kurfurstendamm as a place of dreams.
They had travelled to London as accredited personnel of the East German embassy the previous afternoon, registering at a modest but comfortable hotel in Bayswater. From their floor, there was a distant view of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.
While they shopped with the habitual comprehensiveness of East European diplomats visiting the West, Goessler answered Lobke's questions concerning the operation that Goessler had termed Juwelier — jeweller. McBride was the merchant who would handle the gemstones of Smaragdenhalskette. Their deliberately casual and interrupted conversation provoked no interest in the shoppers around them.
Piling two Shetland pullovers onto the heap of shirts he carried in the crook of one arm, Lobke said, "Herr Goessler, I don't understand something—"
"Yes, Rudi?" Goessler replied pleasantly, the greater part of his attention taken up by a cellophane-wrapped pile of cardigans through which he was searching for his size. "What would that be?" He seemed to reject the fawn-coloured sample in his size, and began rooting under the piles again for another colour. When he did not find his size in navy-blue, he clucked his tongue against his teeth.
"Why the Wehrmacht ever attempted to invade Ireland in November?"
Goessler smiled. He had moved on to the sweaters, and held up one with a vivid green lightning-flash down its middle. He checked the size, nodded.
"Pride, more than anything else. The Pact with the Bolsheviks, the cancellation of Seelowe — an army of occupation sitting on the coast of France, doing nothing." He tucked the sweater under one arm, moving on to the underwear counter with a surprising eagerness. Lobke trailed after him, the racks of suits irritating the corner of his eye, making him impatient. He returned to his questions as to an anodyne against helpless covetousness. For a moment, he understood shoplifting.
"That's all, Herr Goessler?"
"Inertia — yes. The Wehrmacht had rolled over everyone except England — and that prize had been taken away because Goering could not subdue the RAF. They decided to enter through the back door. Sit in Ireland until the spring, threatening the mainland. A sort of second front which would also have the effect of dissuading the Americans from sending more convoys, increasing their aid to Britain—"
A woman with rinsed hair arranged to frame her narrow face looked up at the sound of Goessler's German, and Lobke wandered off towards the suits while Goessler answered her questions concerning the whereabouts of men's overcoats — a friend had bought a long leather trench-coat on her last visit for less than three hundred and fifty marks, were there any left? Goessler seemed amused by the conversation.
When he joined Lobke, the young man was already being instructed by a sales assistant not to leave his parcels unattended on the floor while he tried on a suit jacket. Goessler laughed, explained that he would stand by the heap of plastic bags. Lobke paraded in front of a full-length mirror, shy of Goessler's proprietorial smile.
"It was rather a good scheme—" Goessler explained, half to himself.
"Why did the Nazis try to hide all trace of it?" Lobke asked, shuffling through a rack of trousers to find his size.
"Another failure was not to be admitted, even remembered, Rudi — besides which, I think it was hidden deep in case it was to be used again in "41, or maybe even as late as "42."
"But it wasn't?"
"No — Barbarossa was on the road by then." Goessler seemed tempted by the racks of suits, studied a conservative brown one, held it out from the rack while Lobke guarded the parcels — aware, briefly, of the irony of the IRA bomb-panic that inspired the assistant's concern. Goessler swiftly selected jacket and trousers, and returned to Lobke without trying on the jacket. An Arab passed them, carrying four jackets, followed by his veiled wife. Both East Germans watched the couple, shaking their heads, smiling.
"Will McBride be of sufficient use to us?"
"The good Professor? Of course. He will be back in London within a couple of days. Then he will begin to look at Admiralty records, and we all know what he will discover there—" Goessler grinned in a way that was almost good-natured, kindly. He looked at his suit, nodded. "I believe the Americans would call it dirty for dirty. Oh yes, my dear Rudi — and how dirty it all is!"
Someone who spoke German looked at Goessler then at a nearby Oriental, and nodded in complicity.<
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A bell began ringing. Neither Goessler nor Lobke heeded it, Lobke already collecting his parcels and unbought clothes and heading for the topcoats next to the suits. Goessler shook his head as the younger man walked away, followed him clutching his own prospective purchases. The bell went on ringing. People moved past them.
Lobke was pulling himself into a leather topcoat when the assistant approached them, the young woman who had reminded Lobke not to leave his packages unattended.
I'm sorry, but the bell means you must leave the store," she announced calmly. Goessler seemed to attend to the bell for the first time, cocking his head as if to hear it more clearly. Lobke, one arm hitched into the topcoat, looked stunned.
"I am sorry—" Goessler said, watching the customers trooping towards the exits, canteen staff passing down one of the escalators, the blue overalls of the sales staff more evident than ever. The doors out into Oxford Street and Orchard Street were wide open.
"Would you please put down all the items you haven't paid for — just on the floor, and leave by the Orchard Street exit." She pointed across the shop. The bell insisted.
Lobke looked betrayed, mocked. He let his arm sag back out of the coat, studied the mound of cellophane-wrapped garments on the floor by his feet, and looked to Goessler as to a parent, who would somehow reverse the logic of events. Goessler laid down his own unpurchased items, picked up the bags that belonged to both of them, and simply nodded.
"Thank you," he said to the assistant. Their corner of the ground floor seemed suddenly empty. Lobke trailed after him, joining the orderly flow towards Orchard Street. He was sulking, pouting at Goessler.
"Damn," he muttered. "Shit and damn."
"There is an irony, my dear Rudi — perhaps it serves us right, you know?"
"Will we be able to come back in?" Lobke asked eagerly.
"Not for hours — the police will be here to search the store thoroughly. That will take the rest of the afternoon. I suppose it serves us right. Dear Herr Moynihan and his friends. We must look on the bright side, Rudi."
They came out into Orchard Street. Someone was holding a placard high, instructing the staff of M. & S. to congregate on the forecourt of the Selfridge Hotel, across the other side of Orchard Street. Customers drifted away towards Oxford Street.
"Come, Rudi," Goessler offered. "We will try Selfridge's." Lobke appeared unconsoled. "After all, if there is a bomb in the store, you may have arranged its shipment to Herr Moynihan yourself!" Goessler laughed, slapping Lobke on the back.
November 1940
McBride was sitting in an armchair beside the fireplace when Drummond arrived. Maureen was sewing, looking up in occasional disapproval at the plaster adorning McBride's forehead. She had been gruffly solicitous when he returned the previous night after unsuccessfully scouting for the vanished German; then, when she thought him asleep, her hands had traced his face and shoulders and hair again and again in delicate butterfly-touches, something she would not do, feeling herself not permitted, when he was conscious. Waking was a barrier between them; he was never helpless enough when his eyes were open.
"You're all right?" Drummond asked while Maureen made tea for him. McBride nodded, seemed instantly to regret the motion of his head, and grinned tiredly.
"He wanted to kill me," McBride observed without emotion. "He could have run at first, but he wanted to kill me. And he was an expert." He had lowered his voice and kept his eyes on the door to the tiny kitchen. "Now, why do they send that kind of man, all of a sudden, do you suppose?"
"I wonder if the man they landed last night was of the same ilk?" Drummond murmured.
"Another one?" Drummond nodded.
"Oh, yes — becoming quite a popular holiday resort, the Cork coast. That's four we haven't traced, four in the last couple of weeks. Hardly a sniff of them, from Cork to Bantry, but they're all in the area somewhere."
"Are they working as a team?"
"I don't know. Your chap was on his own — before last night. Perhaps the others are, too?" He spread his hands as if warming them at the fire. "Whether they're here on the same job would be a more profitable speculation, perhaps."
Maureen McBride brought in the teacups on a tray, and poured out tea for the three of them. Drummond was polite, but made no attempt to engage her in conversation while he drank. For some obscure reason, Maureen McBride disturbed him. Her silences were not abstractions so much as vivid, careful attention. He felt as if he were being spied upon; and he felt that too little of the woman appeared on the surface, a sense of her withholding herself, to disarm his suspicions as to her opinion of him.
When he had finished his tea, he said: "If you're fit, I think we should have our own scout about, don't you?" He watched Maureen for signs of agitation, but she merely studied her sewing. Mending one of McBride's shirts, it appeared. McBride nodded in reply.
"You've checked out the cottage?"
"Oh, yes. I think he had a pushbike in one of the outhouses."
"Yes, I let the tyres down with a skewer."
"He came back for it. His puncture kit was on the floor, and the bowl of water to look for the bubbles." McBride looked crestfallen. "Don't worry. It just shows he wasn't going far, mm? He ran off, then came back after you'd left. Cool customer. He must intend staying on for a bit yet."
He stood up.
"Goodbye, Captain Drummond," Maureen said suddenly. Drummond nodded to her, and went out to wait for McBride in the car. McBride studied his wife as if he had just received a new and surprising insight into her character. He crossed to her, pulled her to her feet and kissed her quickly.
"Now, don't worry. Drummond will look after me."
"I'm not worried. But, take care, just for a bit of a change, will you?" She touched his face, once, with her right hand. He did not seem to resent the gesture, kissed her again.
"All right, I'll be careful, Maureen." He saw concern flicker in her eyes despite her control, and witnessed in that moment the small, important distance they had travelled back towards each other since the beginning of his work for Drummond and the British. He had acquired a mistress she could not rival, and she accepted that. To himself, he had emerged from some chrysalis state into a self his pre-war personality could not match. He kissed her again, more gently and in understanding, and squeezed her to him as if to erase all distance between them. Then he let her go as Drummond sounded his car-horn, and his attention, she could see, was instantly elsewhere. The moment had only a diminished and awkward meaning for him. "I'll be back tonight," he said almost guiltily, and went out. She watched him shut the door behind him, shutting her off.
She clenched her teeth, sniffed loudly once, then began to clear the tea things. If she ever apportioned blame — rather than standing beside her marriage staring dumbly at it as if into a new, unnerving bomb-crater — then she blamed Michael and not herself. She had remained still, it was he who had travelled in another, and unexpected, direction.
October 198-
His parents" former cottage in the hamlet of Leap had crumbled by the side of the road. Nettles thrust through the remains of floorboards, infested empty windows, filled the open doorway, while heavy trees leaned towards the decaying, and partly missing, roof. It was impossible to enter the house without difficulty, and pointless to try. Nothing remained. Tinkers had used it as a staging-post for a while, but periodic storms and its habitual emptiness had made it uninhabitable. McBride was sorry he had suggested that Claire Drummond show him the place. There was nothing of his father there, except a sense that he might never have lived there, lived at all.
Their first awkward embrace in the front seat of the small MG — hood down on a day of fine, cool sunshine — had, however, more than compensated for the empty cottage that had lost its power to evoke even qualified melancholy. Claire Drummond had responded to his kiss lightly, but without reluctance, even perhaps with promise. McBride was enlivened, sensed himself at the beginning of something. Claire was desirable, and pliable
in spite of her self-assurance.
After she had driven up into the hills behind Leap, they sat in the car looking down over the Skibbereen-Clonakilty road winding below them and towards Glandore Harbour, its sound dotted with the low humps of tiny islets. They shared cold chicken and a bottle of Moselle from the hamper she had packed, and McBride began to luxuriate in her proximity, the small airy space that enclosed them, and in the prospect of an affair with the woman. There were only the briefest moments where a sense of his lack of direction, his Pavlovian response to outside and immediate stimuli, disturbed his equanimity; they occurred only in the silences between their words.
"What will you do now?" she asked him, finishing her wine and smoking a cigarette. "What's the next step?"
It was as if she had awoken him to a less than perfect state of affairs.
"Go back to London, I suppose. Begin working on Admiralty records, and try to dig up some harder facts concerning Emerald Necklace. That guy Walsingham, if I can get to him—"
She was surprised at his diffidence. "You're still interested in it, then?"
He looked at her carefully. She seemed to be appraising him.
"I suppose I am. Look, it's like a light I can see in the distance, mm?" She nodded, prepared to follow the analogy. "It gets brighter and then it fades, and I seem to get closer then seem to be further away?" Again she nodded. "Well, I guess that's this book of mine. I can see it on the best-seller lists, I can feel the money— yet I wonder whether there's anything real out there, you know?"
"Do you want to write the book?"
"Maybe I should never have gotten out my doctoral thesis — should have started fresh on something else."
"But this is leading you to this Emerald Necklace thing, isn't it? That's new."