Mary felt the wind as it teased the strands of hair that protruded from beneath her beret. It irritated the fine threads of the soft yellow scarf she wore. Though she had hardly taken her eyes from Trant’s office, she sensed that the private hadn’t yet been told to return.
Trant was making her feel as though Fay Darcy and Liam Nolan would tie her to the flagstaff if they could. He was making her hate herself all the more—Jimmy must have shown him that button he’d found. Did they now know beyond a shadow of doubt that she had been having an affair with Erich Kramer right within the walls of their castle?
Erich would be waiting for her. He’d be anxious—was that not a part of it too, this psychological warfare of Trant’s, she still with a bullet for them, and why that bit about Nolan’s past? Trant and Jimmy and the colonel must know where Nolan and the others had got that dynamite, yet he’d said nothing of this.
Scotland Yard would have followed up Nolan’s trail in England both before and after the bomb incident at Charing Cross, yet that hadn’t been mentioned either. And if the IRA were on the run in the South and smashed, did this not put Mrs. Tulford of the White Horse in jeopardy? And why that bit about Fay Darcy and her sister? Did they know she had met with Brenda? Had they been watching the sister’s house in Kinsale for just that reason?
If Brenda Darcy should die of her wounds, that would only make Fay more violent, but had Trant wanted her to see this too?
‘I hate you, Major,’ she said. ‘I absolutely loathe what you and Jimmy and the colonel stand for because you’re using me just as is everyone else.’
Trant gave her another fifteen minutes. There would have been no thought of his undressing her with those field glasses of his, no danger of his finding the bullet. Trant wasn’t like that, not while on duty, and he was always on duty, yet she knew then that he had wanted not only to provoke her into thinking things over but into doing something rash so as to betray herself.
Would he leave her out here all night if he had to, leave her to the prisoners, to men like Bauer just to see what would happen? Would he not care tuppence about her so long as he got what he wanted?
Philip Werner was sitting at the desk in the library when she came in. His crutches leaned against the wall behind him. The hello he gave was subdued but she wouldn’t pursue things because there was no sense in that. Philip knew only too well she had ratted on them.
It was Helmut Wolfganger, though, who trapped her between the rows of shelves to whisper, ‘You should look a little closer, Mrs. Fraser,’ he nodding towards the desk where Franz Bauer awaited her return.
Mary touched his hand. ‘Helmut, I’m sorry. I … I had no other choice.’
Wolfganger grinned. ‘So now you give them the truth, or do you hold it back until you need it?’
He couldn’t have been ordered to tell her this—he couldn’t! ‘I hold it back.’
Wolfganger nodded in that curt way Germans do. ‘But you watch yourself very carefully. Don’t let our Franz get too close when others are not around.’
Bauer saw the light of fear enter the bitch’s eyes and understood he’d been fingered. Ach, when you’ve hanged a man, the rule of law prevails. Murder was murder and the Kapitänleutnant’s Hure knew it too.
‘The Oberst Karl-Ernst Tatlinger of the Luftwaffe, the Generalmajor Walter Storch of the Army, and Vizeadmiral Dietrich Huber. Those are the High Command at Tralane. Berlin will already know of this, through the International Red Cross.’
Tatlinger, Storch and Huber … ‘Erich, you must tell them that I have to meet with all of them in person.’
‘That’s impossible.’
She had run all the way up the stairs, had bolted along the corridor and up yet another flight, could hardly catch her breath. ‘It’s no more risky than what I’ve been doing, is it?’ she managed. ‘The IRA are insisting and want proof I’ve done this.’
‘Why aren’t the negotiations proceeding swiftly?’ he demanded, his tone of voice something she had never heard before.
When she didn’t answer, but only looked questioningly at him, he asked for the ammunition and had she brought any this time. ‘One? Why only one?’ she heard him say.
Had she been such a fool as to believe he was in love with her? ‘Because they are in control and what they say and do goes. It’s something we have to discuss. A lot has happened since I last saw you.’
‘Then tell me!’
‘I can’t. There isn’t time and even if there was, the IRA would want me to tell it to you in the presence of your commanding officers since they are the ones who ultimately must make the decisions.’
Her chest was still rising and falling. There was none of that uncertainty he had come to expect, none of her needing reassurance.
She would have to tell him, thought Mary, since he was looking at her as if he doubted her loyalty. ‘Berlin are refusing to go through with things unless there is further proof. You have to understand that the IRA not only mean business but that they will set the terms and the time and place. No one else.’
Irritably he ran a hand through his hair. ‘Berlin will never agree to that and neither will Tatlinger and the others. It’s finished.’
‘They having come this far?’
‘These IRA people of yours must want a great deal.’
They weren’t her ‘people’ but she wished he’d not said it. ‘I don’t really know what they want. I’m only doing what I’ve been told to because I have no other choice.’
If he didn’t soften, they’d lose her, thought Kramer. ‘Liebling, of course you’re doing all you can. It’s stupid of me to be angry but I have to get out of this place and the sooner the better.’
But with no thoughts of escape when in Canada, then? ‘Look, I must get back. Trant hasn’t given me much time today.’
‘Then go. I’ll speak to the others. You’ll hear from me on Thursday.’
‘Come yourself. Don’t send Bauer.’
He would give her the boyish grin that had never failed to warm that heart of hers, would take her by the hand and kiss her fingers. ‘Trant has forbidden me to visit the library. If I burn books, I’m not fit to borrow them. It’s really very stupid of them but we go along with such things because they are so stupid and we can use them.’
‘And Bauer?’ she asked, betraying a nervousness he found curious and … and funny—did he find it amusing?
His look grew serious. ‘Franz knows what to do. He’s a good man in a pinch, Mary. The very best.’
The clearing in the woods on the opposite shore of Lough Loughie offered a haven and a chance to think on the way home. The swans cruised by in the gathering dusk while the castle seemed to welcome its shroud and the mist began to rise off the water.
Trant hadn’t wanted to speak to her on the way out and that, in itself, was disconcerting enough, but Erich had said, ‘Franz,’ in that way a man does when he’s lived in close company with other men and has come to know their every strength and weakness and to either respect or reject them.
Bauer wasn’t Erich’s Number One. He was somewhere further down the chain of command. Perhaps he’d been in charge of the engine room—he had that way about him. Out of necessity, U-boats had short chains of command—five officers and a crew of fifty or so, all cooped up for weeks on end, months too, sometimes. The pale blue eyes that were always without a hint of feeling had never failed but to make her uneasy. The faded, washed-out blond hair and pale, thick brows, bony, pasty face with its freckles and the squat solid build all spoke of the engine room. Bauer’s hands were those of a pipe fitter—big, strong, thick fingered and fleshy, the nails clipped short but with dirt and grease under them always. A man who knew her body was being used by his captain and who laughed at her predicament but gave no outward sign of this beyond his not trusting her for a moment.
Try as she did, Mary couldn’t avoid the thought of h
e and Erich living together for months on end. They’d have gone on leave in Normandy, in Brest perhaps. Had their good times, their laughs—returned to base from a successful tour of duty to wreaths and bunches of flowers, a brass band and medals. To pretty French girls who would want to party. To whores who’d be willing to do something else—Bauer would be like that. No time for the girls who wanted a drink or a dance at least. Simply first in line, he slinging his duffel bag over a shoulder and heading off alone to the nearest maison de tolérance for a clean-out just like his diesel engines. No feeling for the woman he was having sex with, no compassion, just the rut so as to get it all out of his system.
Then back again to the North Atlantic.
Erich had said so little about his men. Hans Schleiger, who had often kept watch for them too, was a bit older than Bauer—perhaps thirty and vastly different. Tall, thin, well educated, well mannered, good-looking—lots and lots of attributes and yet, a good man in a pinch. He’d have had to have been because Erich would not have tolerated sluggards. Not Erich.
Schleiger had managed to save his heavy grey turtleneck pullover, the leather trousers and the towel he had wrapped about his neck just before going up into the conning tower that last time. He had even kept the red glasses they put on belowdecks to accustom their eyes to the darkness outside, so he’d been up there when it had happened and they’d lost their boat.
A man who could still laugh at himself and the world, though. One of the elite.
Yes, they were a close group of men. They did as they were told and withdrew into themselves to form a fighting unit, even at Tralane.
Erich had two other officers with him who could have been on watch at times—those pictures of naked girls Private Summers had been shown? Had one of them, or both, singled Summers out while she and Erich had made love in that tiny room—love? Hadn’t it simply been sex for him and she nothing but a fool as she’d felt earlier today? She still hadn’t been able to learn the names of these two officers but had those been deliberately kept from her?
Unsettled by the thought, she switched on the headlamp of her bike, but remembered the blackout regulations and quickly turned it off, the road becoming dark and unfriendly.
Private Summers hadn’t been his usual self—no jokes, no comments about the war, the world, the weather and the wife. Had he been hauled on the carpet and forced to tell Trant about those pictures? Had that been it?
If so, then Trant would know Summers had been purposely distracted, yet he hadn’t said a thing about this and she’d managed again to meet with Erich. Same place, same time, well almost, but had Trant allowed that meeting to take place and had one of his men watching for it to happen?
The thought was more than she could bear.
Hamish was reading aloud, in by the fire in the study. Caithleen was wearing the white flannel nightgown she’d been loaned, and was curled up on the hearthrug at his slippered feet, with Robbie resting his muzzle in her lap. There was some question of refreshment, then the reading got on to horses and Robbie stirred at the mention of them. Someone had been asked to stay to dinner but had declined as a brave general should, asking only for time to feed his horse and have a glass of water for himself.
George Washington?
Mary started into the room. Robbie looked up, torn between objecting at the intrusion and ignoring it. Caithleen sat up. Hamish closed the book, but kept a finger in place. ‘Lass, you’re late. Mrs. Haney and Bridget and William went home a wee bit early. Your supper’s in the warming oven.’
‘What were you reading?’
As if she hadn’t known. ‘Och, Caithleen and I were discussing the prospects of America. It’s The Virginians. I could na find that copy I had wi’ those lovely lithographs but we settled on another.’
‘The Virginians.’
‘Aye. ’Tis a story of much interest. Robbie was quite taken wi’ it.’
He would use that brogue, knowing it would upset her! ‘That copy was destroyed in one of the stoves at Tralane.’
He prodded the girl’s shoulder and reluctantly Caithleen got up to stand a moment with a fierce pout, then to leave the room in a huff with only, ‘My thanks t’ ye. Dr. Fraser. ’Twas kind of you to read t’ me, seeing as I’ve neither th’ knowledge nor th’ art.’
‘Robbie, go with her.’
‘Hamish, Erich burned that book in his stove.’
‘So Trant was telling me.’
‘When?’
‘Mary, why in God’s name won’t you tell me what’s been going on? You’re scared stiff. Even a daft old bugger like myself can see it.’
‘Because I can’t. Because nothing’s been going on. Because Trant is overly suspicious of everyone and kept me waiting far longer than he should have.’
‘Did you see Erich?’
‘He isn’t allowed to come to the library.’
Fraser set the book aside. It was just after 7.00 p.m. so she must have been somewhere other than that damned prison for at least an hour and a half unless, of course, Trant had really kept her waiting that long, but he’d best say nothing of it. ‘Mary, the major has his worries. Apparently that bomb you found was only a small part of the five cases of gelignite that were taken from the Montrose Stone Quarry in the Mountains of the Mourne back of Kilkeel. God only knows why the place was left unguarded in a time of war, never mind the North of Ireland, but the IRA got away with sufficient fuse, blasting wire and caps to level a good portion of Tralane should they be so inclined.’
‘I think I’ll go and have my supper.’
‘They even took one of the blasting machines—one of those plunger things that generates the electrical current needed to set off the blast.’
‘Do you want some tea? I think I’ll make myself some.’
‘Jimmy Allanby was by. He’s been out and about a good deal in the rough. He’s been run off his feet.’
‘That’ll be good for him. I’m sure he’ll have enjoyed beating up the natives and tearing their places apart. Now do you want some tea or not?’
‘I do. Oh my, yes, but I do, lass.’
In the morning she went to see Parker. They had their chat about the cows and all, and only then did she timidly broach the subject that had brought her to him.
Parker waxed eloquent. ‘Ah sure, and you could burn that stuff in the grate, you could, missus, and it’d not give you the twinkle of the tiniest star. You needs the cap and fuse, you does, or the cap, the wire and the electrical battery or the blasting machine—the plunger. Down with the one and up with the other, as they says, or the catching of the match head beneath the nail of your thumb and the burning of a few feet of black-powder fuse held so close the one catches light the moment the other does. But now why would a girl like you be wanting to know a thing like that?’
‘Nolan left a bomb at the colonel’s party.’
‘And did he now?’
Parker would have heard of it—the whole of County Armagh would have. He’d know about the theft from the quarry too, but one had to go carefully.
‘How many sticks was there now?’ he asked, sucking on that fire of his while leaning on the handle of his pitchfork.
She wished he hadn’t asked. ‘I didn’t count them. A lot, I think.’
Parker pitched out another clump of manure from the pony’s stall. ‘Twelve they was, missus, and there’s the likes of Liam Nolan himself busting his britches to get a bomb inside the colonel’s house but forgetting to wire the blessed thing up.’
He clucked his tongue, sucked on the fire and speared more manure, his life a round of cows, their milking and the pony cart to the stop out by the road to wait for the dairy’s wagon to come along and take the milk away.
‘Captain Allanby was here, he was. A ginger man, missus. A man with vengeance in his heart, I be thinking, and purpose on his mind.’
‘He didn’t search this
place, did he?’
‘Now why would you be thinking the likes of that?’
‘I’m not. I only … No, of course not, Parker. Not you.’
‘And why not? Sure and it’s as good a place as any to hide five cases of gelignite and some fuse and all, but the captain didn’t search, missus. He has them dogs what’s trained t’ smell dynamite. All they got was manure.’
Dogs that had been trained—the shed at home! Oh damn, but she couldn’t leave now, couldn’t run from him, would just have to tough it out and take a chance things would be safe. ‘Parker, what exactly do you mean by cap and fuse or wire?’
He stabbed the pitchfork into the heap and wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers. ‘Well, it’s been some time, missus. Was that dynamite sticky, do you think?’
‘Sticky? No, not at all.’
Then she’d had her hands on it well enough, she had. ‘And not leaking, thanks be t’ God, otherwise you might have jarred it and we’d not be talking. Nitro doesn’t like to be knocked about and that juice would have been nitro.’
A length of frayed halter rope served as the black-powder fuse, a bit of lead pipe no more than two hands long was the stick of gelignite, and a cigarette cadged from God knows whom for it had been ages in his pocket, was the blasting cap.
‘You must crimp the black-powder fuse into the cap, missus, using a set of pliers. Then the cap be inserted into the end of the dynamite like so, after first cutting off the length of fuse you needs.’
Some fuses burned at a foot a minute; others were faster, and still others much slower. One had always to check the rate of burning first.
‘You slits the other end of the fuse, missus. A good half-inch now, and no more, being careful not to spill the black powder out.’
Just like a trooper she was, attentive and all. ‘The match must be at its hottest, so if you’re wise you’ll break the head off one and tuck it into the end of the fuse.’
‘Which end?’
‘Why, the one you lights. T’ other’s in the dynamite, for God’s sake, and stop makin’ me so blessed nervous with all this talk!’
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