by Jack Higgins
'Oh, I smelt a rat there from the beginning,' Devlin said. 'It always seemed likely you were inviting us in, so to speak. I knew the only way to fool you was to fool Vargas as well. That's why he's still getting messages from Berlin.'
'And your own contacts? Nobody recently active, am I right?'
'That's about it.'
'You're a clever bastard, I'll say that for you. Mind you, as that fine old English saying has it: "There's many a slip between the cup and the lip." '
'And what's that supposed to mean?'
'Fog, Mr Devlin, fog,' Dougal Munro said.
Chapter Thirteen
JACK CARVER'S BIG game in the back room at the Astoria Ballroom had not gone his way at all, and if there was one thing guaranteed to put him in a bad mood it was losing money.
He broke off the game angrily at eight thirty, lit a cigar and went down to the ballroom. He leaned on the balcony rail watching the crowd, and Eric, dancing down there with a young girl, saw him at once.
'Sorry, sweetness, another time,' he said and went up the stairs to join his brother. 'You've finished early, Jack.'
'Yes, well, I got bored, didn't I?'
Eric, who knew the signs, didn't pursue the matter. Instead he said, 'I was thinking, Jack. You're sure you don't want to take some of the boys along when we pay that call?'
Carver was furiously angry. 'What are you trying to say? That I can't take care of that little squirt on my own? That I need to go in team-handed?'
'I didn't mean anything, Jack, I was just thinking…'
'You think too bloody much, my son,' his brother told him. 'Come on, I'll show you. We'll go and see that little Irish bastard now.'
The Humber, Eric at the wheel, turned into Cable Wharf no more than ten minutes after the van had left.
'That's the house at the far end,' Eric said.
'Right, we'll leave the motor here and walk. Don't want to alert them.' Carver took the Browning from his pocket and pulled the slider. 'Got yours?'
'Sure I have, Jack.' Eric produced a Webley .38 revolver.
'Good boy. Let's go and give him some stick.'
Mary was sitting at the table reading and Ryan was poking the fire when the kitchen door burst open and the Carvers entered. Mary screamed and Ryan turned, poker in hand.
'No you don't.' Carver extended his arm, the Browning rigid in his hand. 'You make one wrong move and I'll blow your head off. See to the bird, Eric.'
'A pleasure, Jack.' Eric slipped his revolver into his pocket, went and stood behind Mary and put his hands on her shoulders. 'Now you be a good girl.'
He kissed her neck and she squirmed in disgust. 'Stop it!'
Ryan took a step forward. 'Leave her alone.'
Carver tapped him with the barrel of the Browning. 'I give the orders here, so shut your face. Where is he?'
'Where's who?' Ryan demanded.
'The other mick. The one who came dancing at the Astoria with the kid here. The clever little bastard who shot half my brother's ear off.'
It was Mary who answered defiantly, 'You're too late, they've gone.'
'Is that a fact?' Carver said to Eric, 'Leave her. Check upstairs and make sure you have your shooter in your hand.'
Eric went out and Carver gestured at the other chair. 'Sit,' he ordered Ryan. The Irishman did as he was told and Carver lit a cigarette. 'She didn't say we'd missed him, she said we'd missed them.'
'So what?' Ryan said.
'So who was that pal of yours and who's he mixed up with? I want to know and you're going to tell me.'
'Don't say a word, Uncle Michael,' Mary cried.
'Not me, girl.'
Carver hit him across the side of the face with the Browning and Ryan went over backwards in the chair. As Mary screamed again Carver said, 'You should have stayed back home in the bogs where you belong, you and your mate.'
Eric came back at that moment. 'Here, what have I missed?'
'Just teaching him his manners. Anything?'
'Not a sausage. There was a major's uniform in one of the bedrooms.'
'Is that a fact?' Carver turned back to Ryan who was wiping blood from his face. 'All right, I haven't got all night.'
'Go stuff yourself.'
'A hard man, eh? Watch the girl, Eric.'
Eric moved behind her, pulled her from the chair, his arms about her waist. 'You like that don't you? They all do.'
She moaned, trying to get away and Carver picked up the poker from the hearth and put it into the fire. 'All right, hard man, we'll see how you like this. Either you tell me what I want to know or I put this, once it's nice and hot, to your niece's face. Not that she's much in the looks department, but this would really finish her off.'
Mary tried to move, but Eric held her, laughing. Ryan said, 'You bastard.'
'It's been said before,' Carver told him, 'but it ain't true. Slur on my old lady, that.'
He took the poker out. It was white hot. He put it to the table top and the dry wood burst into flame.
Then he moved towards Mary and the girl screamed in terror.
It was the scream which did it and Ryan cried out, 'All right, I'll tell you.'
'Okay,' Carver said. 'His name.'
'Devlin — Liam Devlin.'
'IRA? Am I right?'
'In a way.'
'Who was with him?' Ryan hesitated and Carver turned and touched the girl's woollen cardigan so that it smouldered. 'I ain't kidding, friend.'
'He was doing a job for the Germans. Breaking out a prisoner they had here in London.'
'And where is he now?'
'Driven off to a place near Romney. He's going to be picked up by a plane.'
'In this fog? He'll be bleeding lucky. What's this place they're going to?' Ryan hesitated and Carver touched the poker to the girl's hair. The stench of burning was terrible and she screamed again.
Ryan broke completely. He was a good man, but it was impossible to accept what was happening. 'Like I said, a place near Romney.'
'Don't, Uncle Michael,' Mary cried.
'A village called Charbury. Shaw Place
is the house.'
'Marvellous.' Carver put the poker down on the hearth. 'That wasn't too bad, was it?' He turned to Eric, 'Fancy a little drive down to the country?'
'I don't mind, Jack.' Eric kissed her on the neck again. 'As long as I can have ten minutes upstairs with this little madam before we go.'
She cried out in terror and revulsion, reached back and clawed his face. Eric released her with a howl of pain, then, as he turned, slapped her. She backed away as he advanced on her slowly, reached behind her and managed to get the kitchen door open. He grabbed at her, she kicked out at him then staggered back across the terrace against the wall. There was an ugly snapping sound as it gave way and she disappeared into darkness.
Ryan gave a cry and started forward and Carver had him by the collar, the barrel of the Browning at his ear. 'Go and check on her,' he called to Eric.
Ryan stopped struggling and waited in silence. After a while, Eric appeared, his face pale. 'She's croaked, Jack, fell on a jetty down there. Must have broken her neck or something.'
Ryan kicked back against Carver's shin, shoving him away. He picked up the poker from the hearth, turned with it raised above his head and Carver shot him in the heart.
There was a silence. Eric wiped blood from his face. 'What now, Jack?'
'We get out of here, that's what.'
He led the way and Eric followed, closing the kitchen door. They turned along the wharf and got in the Humber. Carver lit a cigarette. 'Where's that?'
RAC map book?' Eric found it in the glove compartment and Carver flipped through it. 'Here we are, Romney Marsh and there's Charbury. Don't you remember? Before the war I used to take you and Mum down there to Rye for a day out by the sea.'
Eric nodded. 'Mum liked Rye.'
'Let's get going then.'
'To Charbury?' Eric said.
'Why not? We don't have anything better
to do and there's one aspect to all this that doesn't seem to have occurred to you, my old son. We catch up with Devlin and this German and take care of them, we'll be bleeding heroes.' He tossed his cigarette out and replaced it with a cigar. 'Move it, Eric, move it,' he said and leaned back in his seat.
At Chernay, visibility was no more than a hundred yards. Schellenberg and Asa stood in the radio room and waited while Leber checked the weather. The American wore a leather helmet, fur-lined flying jacket and boots. He smoked a cigarette nervously.
'Well?' he demanded.
'They've listened to RAF weather reports for the south of England. It's one of those situations, Captain; thick fog, but every so often the wind blows a hole in it.'
'Okay,' Asa said. 'Let's stop monkeying around.'
He went out, Schellenberg following, and walked to the plane. Schellenberg said, 'Asa, what can I say?'
Asa laughed and pulled on his gloves. 'General, I've been on borrowed time ever since I crash-landed in that blizzard in Finland. Take care of yourself.'
He clambered into the cockpit and pulled down the cupola. Schellenberg stepped back out of the way. The Lysander started to move. It turned at the end of the field and came back into the wind. Asa boosted power and gave it everything, rushing headlong into that wall of fog, darkness and rain. He pulled back the column and started to climb, turning out to sea.
Schellenberg watched him go in awe. 'Dear God,' he murmured. 'Where do we find such men?'
He turned and walked back to the radio room.
In the study at Shaw Place
, Lavinia turned from the radio and removed her headphones. She hurried out and found Shaw in the kitchen cooking bacon and eggs.
'Felt a big peckish, old girl.' There was the usual tumbler of whiskey close to hand and for once she felt impatient.
'Good God, Max, the plane's on its way and all you can think of is your wretched stomach. I'm going down to South Meadow.'
She got her shooting jacket, one of her brother's old tweed hats, found the bag of cycle lamps and set off, Nell following her. There was electricity in the barn so she switched on the lights when she got there. It was obvious that, considering the weather, breaking the blackout regulations wouldn't matter and there wasn't another house for two miles. She put the cycle lamps by the door and stood outside, checking the wind direction. The fog was as thick as ever, showed no sign of lifting at all. Suddenly it was like a curtain parting and she could see a chink of light from the house three hundred yards away.
'How marvellous, Nell.' She leaned down to fondle the dog's ears and the fog dropped back into place as the wind died.
Getting out of London itself was the worst part, as Devlin discovered, crawling along in a line of traffic at fifteen to twenty miles an hour.
'A sod this,' he said to Steiner.
'It will make us late for the rendezvous, I presume?' Steiner said.
'A midnight departure was the aim. We're not done yet.'
Munro said from the back, 'Put a bit of a spoke in your wheel, this lot, Mr Devlin.'
Devlin ignored him and kept on going. Once they were through Greenwich, there was much less traffic and he was able to make better time. He lit a cigarette with one hand. 'We're on our way now.'
Munro said, 'I wouldn't count your chickens.' Devlin said, 'You're a great man for the sayings, Brigadier. What about one from the Bible? The laughter of fools is as the crackling of thorns under a pot?' and he increased speed.
The Carver brothers in the Humber had exactly the same problem getting out of London and Eric managed to take the wrong turning in Greenwich town centre, going three miles in the other direction. It was Jack who sorted him, getting out the RAC handbook and checking their route.
'It's bleeding simple. Greenwich to Maidstone, Maidstone to Ashford. From there you take the road to Rye and we turn off halfway for Charbury.'
'But there's hardly any road signs these days, you know that, Jack,' Eric said.
'Yes, well, there's a war on, isn't there, so just get on with it.'
Jack Carver leaned back, closed his eyes and had a nap.
There was a school of thought in both the Luftwaffe and RAF that recommended approaching an enemy coastline below the radar screen all the way on important missions. Asa remembered trying that with his old squadron during the Russo-Finnish war, coming in low off the sea to catch the Reds by surprise, all nice copy-book stuff, only nobody had counted on the presence of the Russian Navy. Five planes, that one had cost.
So, he charted a course for Dungeness that took him along the Channel in a dead straight line. There were strong crosswinds and that slowed him down, but it was good monotonous flying and all he had to do was check for drift every so often. He stayed at eight thousand for most of the way, well above the fog, keeping a weather eye cocked for other planes.
When it came, it took even an old hand like him by surprise, the Spitfire that lifted out of the fog, banked and took up station to starboard. Up there, visibility was good with a half-moon and Asa could see the pilot of the Spitfire clearly in the cockpit in helmet and goggles. The American raised a hand and waved.
A cheerful voice crackled over his radio. 'Hello, Lysander, what are you up to?'
'Sorry,' Asa replied. 'Special Duties Squadron, operating out of Tempsford.'
'A Yank, are you?'
'In the RAF,' Asa told him.
'Saw the movie, old man. Terrible. Take care.' The Spitfire banked away to the east very fast and disappeared into the distance.
Asa said softly, 'That's what comes of living right, old buddy.'
He went down into the fog until his altimeter showed a thousand feet, then turned in towards Dungeness and Romney Marsh.
Shaw had his meal and a considerable amount of whiskey after it. He was slumped in his chair beside the sitting room fire, his shotgun on the floor, when Lavinia went in.
'Oh, Max,' she said. 'What am I going to do with you?'
He stirred when she put a hand on his shoulder and looked up. 'Hello, old girl. Everything all right?'
She went to the French windows and opened the curtains. The fog was as thick as ever. She closed the curtains and went back to him. 'I'm going to go down to the barn, Max. It must be close now, the plane, I mean.'
'All right, old girl.'
He folded his arms and turned his head, closing his eyes again and she gave up. She went into the study and hurriedly took down the radio's aerial and then she packed everything into the carrying case. When she opened the front door Nell slipped out beside her and they went down to the South Meadow together.
She stood outside the barn listening. There was no sound, the fog embracing everything. She went in and switched on the light. There was a workbench by the door. She set the radio up there, running the aerial wires along the wall, looping them over rusting old nails. She put on the headphones and switched to the voice frequency as Devlin had shown her and heard Asa Vaughan's voice instantly.
'Falcon, are you receiving me? I say again, are you receiving me?'
It was eleven forty-five and the Lysander was only five miles away. Lavinia stood in the entrance to the barn looking up, holding the headphones in one hand against her left ear. Of the plane, there was no sound.
'Am receiving you, Lysander. Am receiving you.'
'What are conditions in your nest?' Asa's voice crackled.
'Thick fog. Visibility down to fifty yards. Wind gusting occasionally. I estimate strength four to five. It only clears things intermittently.'
'Have you placed your markers?' he asked.
She'd totally forgotten. 'Oh, God, no, give me a few minutes.'
She put down the headphones, got the bag of cycle lamps and ran out into the meadow. She arranged three of them in an inverted L shape, the crossbar at the upwind end, and switched them on so that their beams shone straight up into the sky. Then she ran to a point two hundred yards along the meadow, Nell chasing after her, and spaced out a further three lamps.
She stood in the doorway of the barn looking up. She could hear the Lysander clearly. It seemed to pass at a few hundred feet and move away.
'Falcon here,' she called. 'I heard you. You were directly overhead.'
'Can't see a thing,' Asa replied. 'It's bad.'
At that moment Sir Maxwell Shaw appeared from the darkness. He was not wearing a raincoat or hat and was very drunk, his speech slurred and halting. 'Ah, there you are, old girl, everything all right?'
'No it isn't,' she told him.
Asa said, 'I'll keep circling, just in case things change.'
'Right, I'll stand by.'
There was a crash of some sort just outside Ashford, a large produce truck and a private car, potatoes all over the road. Devlin, gripping the wheel impatiently, sat there in a queue of traffic for fifteen minutes before pulling out and turning the van.
'Already midnight,' he said to Steiner. 'We can't afford to hang about here. We'll find another way.'
'Oh, dear,' Munro said. 'Having trouble, are we, Mr Devlin?'
'No, you old sod, but you will be if you don't shut up,' Devlin told him and took the next road on the left.
It was at about the same time that Asa Vaughan took the Lysander down for the fourth attempt. The undercarriage was of the non-retractable type and there were landing spotlights fitted in the wheel spats. He had them on, but all they showed him was the fog.
'Falcon, it's impossible. I'm not getting anywhere.'
Strangely enough it was Maxwell Shaw who came up with the solution. 'Needs more light,' he said. 'Lot's more light. I mean, he'd see the bloody house if it was on fire, wouldn't he?'
'My God!' Lavinia said and reached for the mike. 'Falcon here. Now listen carefully. I'm a pilot so I know what I'm talking about.'
'Let's hear it,' Asa said.
'My house is three hundred yards south of the meadow and downwind. I'm going to go up there now and put on every light in the place.'
'Isn't that what they call advertising?' Asa said.