Over and Out

by Michael Gilbert

Louis said, ‘I see that Celia has turned. She will come ashore at De Panne. I will be there to congratulate my brother.’

  ‘We’ll come with you,’ said Fleming. ‘There’s still a lot to sort out.’

  The ultimate sorting out, which was attended by Tom and Joe, took place that evening in Inspector Routley’s office.

  ‘You do realise,’ said Luke, ‘that we still have the local contingent to deal with. Eight men originally, but two of them were killed in the fight at Tante Marie’s house.’

  ‘So. Six of them. Very well. We’ll attend to them in due course; But we’ve got a little tidying up to do first.’

  He sounded, thought Luke, like a woman who was planning her summer holiday and wanted to leave her house in apple-pie order.

  ‘We’ve got the names of the four members of Tante Marie’s sisterhood who were getting regular supplies of cash and drugs brought in via the Liebling.’

  ‘Thanks to Minette,’ said Joe.

  ‘Yes, we will see that she is suitably rewarded. Those four women must be visited and searched. If we find any drugs—particularly morphine of German army origin—they can be charged with smuggling or trading with the enemy and put away somewhere where they will cease to trouble us. As for Tante Marie, we don’t know exactly where she’s got to. Her escape route was obviously very carefully planned. She may be lying up somewhere with friends, or she may even have succeeded in reaching Germany.’

  ‘If she has,’ said Joe, ‘she will receive the personal thanks of the Kaiser and the female equivalent of the Iron Cross.’

  ‘And with her out of the way,’ said Tom, ‘I’d surmise that the sisterhood will go into voluntary liquidation.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Fleming. ‘Then I think we can write off the southern wing altogether. So far as the northern wing is concerned—the farmer who stabled their horse and cart and the woman who charred for them—I think they can be let off with a warning.’

  Two more rooms swept and dusted.

  ‘Which brings us to the central part of their organisation. Six men, holed up in that clump of houses on the marsh.’

  ‘From which,’ said Luke, ‘if we don’t move quickly, they’ll slip away’

  ‘Where exactly do you suppose they’ll slip away to?’ said Tom. ‘And if you’re suggesting that they’re planning to follow Tante Marie’s example and get across to Germany to collect their Iron Crosses, I’m afraid they’ll find that they’ve left it too late. At the time Tante Marie departed, the fishing fleet was still, ostensibly, friendly to the Belgians. At least, it was glad of their money and still a bit apprehensive of what Rudi might do to them if he came out on top at the end of the day, and they had refused to help him. Not now. Not after what happened this morning.’

  ‘Not on your life,’ said Joe. ‘More likely to lynch them.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Fleming. ‘If they leave their present quarters they’ve no place on this side of the line to hide. And no means of getting back to Belgium. They’re trapped.’

  Inspector Routley, who had been following the discussion keenly, said, ‘Might they try to cross the line on foot?’

  ‘It may be a quiet section,’ said Tom, ‘but I don’t think anyone could do it. Our line, and the German line without being challenged and shot? Forget it.’

  ‘In short,’ said Fleming, ‘our best course is to leave them where they are. For the time being. They can have a comfortable time working out their slender chances of survival.’

  Luke was reminded, at this point, of Sergeant Britain talking about Fleming, as head of an Eton house, getting pleasure out of the thought of small boys waiting to be beaten. He said, rather abruptly, ‘In my opinion the sooner we go in the better. Not tonight, but as soon as it’s light enough for us to see what we’re doing.’

  The sense of the meeting seemed to be with him.

  Tom said, ‘You’re the only one of us who’s been there. So you can explain the lay-out.’

  ‘I can do better than that,’ said Luke. ‘I’ve still got the plan I made.’ He took it out of his wallet and laid it on the table. ‘The rectangle in front is the main house and the squares are the two smaller houses.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Fleming. ‘But we’re going to need a lot more detail than that. Exterior and interior.’

  Luke thought back to the brief and rather frightening time he had spent in the enemy’s stronghold with doors wedged open, ready for flight.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ he said.

  ‘And it would help if you could put in some measurements. For instance, how far are those two cottages from the main house?’

  When Luke hesitated, Tom said, ‘Think of it in terms of a cricket pitch. That’s twenty-two yards.’

  ‘Then one and a half cricket pitches.’

  ‘So, call it thirty-five yards.’

  This was duly entered into the plans.

  ‘Now for the interiors,’ said Fleming. ‘Let’s take the two smaller houses first.’

  ‘They’re identical. One room downstairs and one above, big enough to take three beds, with a bathroom at the left end.’

  ‘Let’s stick to the points of the compass,’ said Fleming.

  ‘Sorry. I mean at the west end. When I saw them it was only these bedrooms that were in use. I imagine that when the houses were properly occupied, the downstairs room would then have been a sitting-room-cum-kitchen. Certainly part of it was a kitchen, because in each case there’s a rusty old stove in the corner and a scullery at the left-hand—sorry—the west end.’

  ‘That’s logical,’ said Tom, who, like Fleming, was now drawing his own plan. ‘The scullery would be directly under the bathroom to facilitate the run of the pipes.’

  ‘Very well. Now for the bigger house.’

  ‘I imagine it was the main farmhouse. Large enough for the farmer, his wife and one or two kids. Downstairs, it was divided by a short hall. Kitchen and scullery on the left. Sitting-room on the right. Upstairs, two sizeable rooms. A bathroom and lavatory at the west end.’

  ‘I take it there was a door at each end of the hall.’

  ‘Yes. Front door and back door.’

  ‘Now tell me about the windows.’

  Feeling like a student facing a stiff oral, Luke said, ‘Give me time to think. All right. Yes. The cottages are simple. They both had one window on the north side and one on the east. Same downstairs and upstairs. The big house was better off for windows. Upstairs, two in the north wall of bedroom number one. One in the north and two in the east walls of bedroom number two. No window in the bathroom. The sitting-room has two east-facing windows, corresponding to the windows in the bedrooms above it, and one in the north wall. The kitchen—’

  ‘Go slow now. The kitchen’s important.’

  ‘It had one window, I’m certain, in the south wall and one, I think, in the north wall.’

  ‘Was there a window in the scullery?’

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t look.’

  ‘A pity.’

  ‘We could see when we close in on the house,’ said Tom.

  ‘We could. But I’d like to have our plans cut and dried before we start. What sort of windows were they?’

  ‘The ones I saw were all the same. Box windows, opening top and bottom, with a catch in the middle. Easy to force.’

  When a window was mentioned Fleming not only marked its position, but drew a fan of lines to demonstrate the field of fire from it. Some of these crossed each other and increased the impression of a geometrical spider’s web. He spent some time looking at his plan, with his lips moving. He said, ‘Originally, eight beds for eight men. I wish we knew how they’d rearranged themselves now that they are only six.’

  ‘I’ll offer a guess,’ said Tom. ‘Scared animals huddle together. No one would want to be left alone.’

  ‘Two alternatives then. Either a man has come out of one of the cottages and joined the three in the other cottage, or he’s brought his bed into the farmhouse.’

  ‘Then one c
ottage will be empty. But which?’

  ‘Toss up for it,’ said Joe. He was getting bored with talk and wanted to get on with the action.

  ‘I think that any plan we make has got to be based on certain prior assumptions,’ said Fleming primly. ‘That they’ll hold the main house—say four men there—and at least one of the cottages, to give them covering fire from the rear. Say two men there. If they had enough men they could put one in each window. As it is, they’ll be forced to leave some of the windows unguarded.’

  ‘Technically that’s right,’ said Tom. ‘Psychologically I doubt it. I think they’ll all be in the main house. They’ll be happier in a bunch and if they do it that way they could, in fact, put one man at each window, of the downstairs rooms at least.’

  Fleming thought about it. He evidently had a considerable respect for Tom’s views.

  ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘We’ll take a chance on your being right. The first step will be to get two men into the scullery. I assume there’s some sort of partition between it and the kitchen.’

  ‘Wood to shoulder height and frosted glass above that.’

  ‘Good. That means it’s almost certainly got an external window. The two men we select force it quietly, get inside and wait for the shooting to start. Then they come out quick and deal with any men they find in the kitchen.’

  Luke said, ‘Joe and I could do that bit. He’s handy at forcing locked doors and windows.’

  ‘Very well. Then that’s our plan of battle.’ Mouthing the words seemed to make Fleming happy. ‘Now for the approach march. Any ideas on that, Luke?’

  ‘I suggest that we base ourselves at Haut Kerque. I know the farmer there. He’ll let us use the barn I used to keep my motor cycle in. A comfortable haystack, I remember, not that we’ll have much time for sleep. From there we have to go on foot and we’ll have to allow a full two hours to reach the farm. It’ll be single file and everyone treading in each other’s footsteps.’

  ‘Start two o’clock then. Kick off four-fifteen.’

  ‘That should give us enough time,’ said Luke. ‘Unless someone slips off the path and has to be rescued. Something which, I can assure you, is quite likely to happen.’

  His mind went back to his slow and difficult descent of that path. He wished he felt as cheerful as Fleming.

  The mist they had hoped for had arrived by the time they reached the outskirts of the farm. It had slowed their approach, but concealed them as they deployed.

  Luke and Joe, with their own job to do, now left the main party and made their way, on a left-hand circuit, until they were behind the two cottages.

  So far, no sign of life from either of them.

  Joe whispered, ‘Maybe they’ve all bunked.’

  ‘No such luck.’ Luke pointed to the farm building ahead of them. There was a light in one of the upper windows.

  The scullery window was where they had hoped to find it. Joe extracted a curiously shaped piece of steel from his pocket and set to work. It took five minutes to get the window open. Then they cut the sash cords and removed both sections. It left a hole around twenty inches square.

  ‘How are we going to get through that?’ said Luke.

  ‘I’ll give you a back,’ said Joe. ‘Best slide in feet first. When you’re in you can pull me up. And don’t forget I’ve only got one real leg.’

  This manoeuvre proved surprisingly easy, but once inside they found that the scullery was crammed with pots and pans and things which make a noise if disturbed, and it took them a further five, very careful, minutes to reach the door at the far end. Luke had his eye on his watch. He wanted to be in position when the main attack went in.

  The door was unlatched, and they opened it a crack and peered into the kitchen which was lit by the dying fire in the stove.

  There was a man on the floor in front of each of the windows. They could see that the one nearest to them, at the south window, had his eyes shut, and from his relaxed attitude seemed to be sleeping comfortably. The one further away, at the north window, looked equally relaxed, but his head was turned away from them and they couldn’t see whether his eyes were open or shut.

  Joe murmured, ‘Let me take the near one. I’m not as nimble as you.’

  As well as a pistol, he was carrying a wooden club, a wicked implement, one end hollowed out and filled with lead. Luke carried only a loaded pistol.

  They reclosed the door quietly and waited. A few minutes later the opening shots from the main attack roused the two men on the floor. The nearer one was on his knees when Joe reached him and felled him with a single thudding blow on the top of his head. The man opposite Luke had a little more time to get into action. He was on his feet when Luke shot him. The gun he was using was an army .45, a weapon of great stopping power. The first shot from it hit the man in the chest. The second, as he was falling, went into his head.

  From the room across the hall, and from the rooms above, the sound of firing had been almost continuous. When, at last, it stopped, Luke ventured to open the kitchen door and look out. He could hear Colonel Fleming in the sitting-room shouting orders. Then the door opened and he emerged holding a pistol in his hand and looking pleased with himself.

  At the same moment, Routley appeared at the head of the stairs, also looking happy.

  ‘Two bods up here,’ he said. ‘Neither of them dead, but neither of them capable of any further mischief.’

  ‘Good,’ said Fleming, swinging round. ‘And you?’

  ‘Two,’ said Luke. ‘One definitely dead. The other with a cracked skull.’

  ‘Two plus two plus two,’ said Fleming. ‘Unless my mathematics is badly astray that makes six, and wipes up the whole contingent. Better have a look into the cottages to make sure.’

  Luke walked across, followed by Joe.

  The first cottage was not only empty of all human inhabitants, but seemed to have been retaken over, during their short absence, by a colony of bats, which flew out, indignant at this further disturbance of their privacy.

  Luke opened the door of the second cottage, and came face to face with Rudi Naroch. Fury had painted patches of white on his scarlet cheeks. His eyes and his mouth were venomous.

  With the pistol which he held in his right hand he shot Luke, at point-blank range, in the chest. Joe, just behind him, emptied his own gun into Naroch.

  As Luke fell onto his knees, and wave after wave of blackness started to fold over him, he had an instant to notice the expression of surprise on Rudi’s face. He wondered whether there was a similar expression on his own face.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Luke used to maintain that during the first hours after he was shot he had not been unconscious. Not even half-conscious. If there was a word meaning nine-tenths conscious he’d settle for that.

  He could remember very vividly the concern on Joe’s face as he knelt beside him. He was trying to make out what Joe said, but the clock in the kitchen was ticking so loudly that it drowned his words. He wanted someone to remove the clock or stop it, and tried to indicate this by pointing and gesturing, but found that he was unable to raise his hand.

  This had shaken him badly.

  After that he remembered every yard and every minute of the slow descent, on a stretcher, down the difficult path that led off the marsh; or he thought that he remembered, but he was carried with such care and it was so smooth a passage that yards and minutes could have got telescoped.

  Colonel Fleming had got hold of an open touring car and had driven it himself to Haut Kerque where the stretcher was lifted on board and lashed down. He remembered the next part of his journey to hospital at Montreuil very clearly indeed.

  The roads which they were using had not been repaired since before the war, and each boulder and pothole that they encountered launched red-hot needles of pain through his whole body.

  When they were able to lift him off the stretcher and lay him down on the hospital bed, the relief was so great that he did, at last, lapse into full
unconsciousness.

  This, merging into sleep, had lasted for three days and nights.

  On the morning of the fourth day he was able to listen, with interest and without any undue apprehension, to the XIX Corps surgeon discussing with a divisional medical officer and a nursing sister the chances of his survival.

  He heard the sister say, ‘Will he live?’ and joined in the debate by nodding his head; an impertinence which seemed to shock everybody.

  Discussing it, long afterwards, he learned that the medical fraternity had been able to see no hope of saving him.

  The bullet had pierced his right lung. A tube had been inserted, and a quantity of clotted blood had been drawn from the pleural membrane. The current subject of debate had not been whether he was going to die, but what exactly he was going to die of.

  The leading candidates appeared to be blood poisoning and shock.

  But Luke refused to die.

  He surprised everybody, including, if the truth be told, himself, by staying obstinately alive.

  From time to time, he voiced his intentions aloud, saying, ‘I won’t die. I won’t do it. Just to please a bastard like Rudi.’ What was it Joe had once called him? A stuffy bugger. Was he going to allow a stuffy bugger to get the better of him? His father, that celebrated Norfolk poacher, would not have approved of him falling in a back-street skirmish. If he was to die, it would have to be on the battlefield, in desperate combat, with a posthumous VC coming up.

  So he lived. It seemed to be the only thing to do.

  After that, for most of the time, he dozed, recovering each day a fraction of his strength.

  When those fractions added up to a whole number the doctors, grumbling at his obstinacy, allowed him to be lifted off his bed and transported to the Hôpital de Saint-Esprit, at Boulogne, which boasted one of the best equipped surgical units outside Paris.

  Here he signed, with some difficulty and without reading it, a letter which absolved the surgeons from blame if they killed him. They then set about removing the bullet which, after passing through his lung, had got itself tucked away under his back ribs.

  ‘You’re a lucky man,’ said the senior surgeon when he had carried out this piece of gardening. ‘If it had been deflected by your ribs, it would have ended up in your heart bag, and you’d have been dead within days.’