Putting the lid loosely back on the shortbread tin, she carefully repacked the rucksack, but left the straps undone.
Wolfganger wondered what she was up to and when he asked, she said, ‘Just some photographs and letters from home. I was going to take them out but decided not to. Memories, Helmut. I once had a child of my own. Louise … Her name was Louise.’ The smell … had he noticed it?
Awakening with a start, she tried to swallow but couldn’t. Hamish was gently shaking her. ‘It’s time, isn’t it?’ she asked, her stomach in a knot. ‘Will they blindfold us?’
Fraser dropped his hands in defeat. Wolfganger must have told her what was to happen. ‘O’Bannion’s here, Mary, with a German woman.’
‘Mrs. Tulford. … Has she her wireless set?’
He nodded. ‘They’re trying to get through to Berlin.’
It would be late then. ‘What time is it?’
‘Nearly two a.m. Nolan’s broken an ankle. Is there any surgical tape in your rucksack?’
She shook her head, wanted so much to hold him tightly but the burns were hurting terribly.
‘Lass, O’Bannion thinks you must have let someone know the location of the rendezvous. Was it Ria? Apparently the British Army have swarmed into Donegal; Dublin’s calling it an act of war.’
‘Is Erich here now?’
‘Does it still matter?’
‘I need Huber, too. Darling, listen to me, please. I love you very much, that’s all that counts.’ Breaking away from him, she went in to the rucksack, felt for the watch and pushed in its stem, waited, but could not possibly have heard its ticking, said only, ‘Use this shirt of mine, Hamish. Tear it into strips.’ Save Nolan, but only for a little.
O’Bannion was waiting for her in one of the lesser chambers. An arsenal of guns leaned against the far wall; two Irishmen she had never seen before were busy cleaning and oiling them and didn’t even bother to look up.
Behind Kevin, Erich Kramer, Vice Admiral Huber and one other man stood in a tight circle about Ursula Tulford who was on her knees in front of the open suitcase that held her wireless set. There were numerous dials and switches. The set must weigh a lot, for the suitcase wasn’t small. Again and again the woman sent a signal, pausing each time to listen intently through the earphones. An aerial wire had been strung along the roof of the passageway. O’Bannion told her to leave it alone or else. ‘Fay’s out there with some others. I’ll be along in a moment.’
Somehow she had to stall for time. Ten minutes … had ten passed since she had left Hamish? ‘Isn’t Berlin receiving her signal?’
He pointed to the passageway and reluctantly Mary got down on all fours and crawled into it. Hamish wouldn’t know what happened. The poor darling would be dead in an instant.
The night was cold, the wind bitter. There were stars in plenty, and the booming of the surf was much louder than before.
Fay saw her standing just beyond the portal stones. Things hadn’t gone well. Liam had been out looking for Kevin and the others when he’d taken a wrong step. They’d be lucky to get him off, lucky to get to the island at all. Kevin hadn’t liked what she’d done to Jimmy Allanby and had knocked her down and threatened her with dismissal. Never mind that she and Brian Doherty had been lovers, or that Brian had been his cousin. Never mind, too, that Liam, if he’d had an ounce of guts, could have saved the lot of them at Parker O’Shane’s and killed Allanby into the bargain. Never mind that everything counted on the Jerries bringing in that submarine. More guns and ammo than they’d ever had before and a million pounds sterling. Kevin was just too soft on this one and had told her never to touch the woman again.
‘So it’s you who are to get it first, is it?’ she said. ‘God knows I’ll be listening.’
‘Fay, take off. I want to talk to her alone.’
‘Fancy her, do you, Kevin? Soiled goods I should think.’
‘There’s no sense in getting her back up. She has to cooperate. We’ve got to know if the island’s clear.’
‘I’ll tell you nothing, Kevin, unless you let my husband go free.’
Fay sucked in a breath but O’Bannion knew he would have to ignore her. ‘You know I can’t do that, Mrs. Fraser. Both of you know too much.’
‘Then take your chances on Inishtrahull!’ she yelled as she ran from them. She would lead them on a chase, lead them back and round the barrow before coming out on top of it. Forty minutes … would it take that long? Thirty-five? God give her the strength. She had to do it for Hamish’s sake; had to for herself.
Huddled in a crevice, Mary listened to the waves. She knew she couldn’t help but hear them break and be filled with terror, for as they hit the cliffs below, a hail of boulders both large and small smashed against the rocks. Then the waves would drag everything back, only to fling it again while in between, the boulders and pebbles would roll about and bash each other, and everywhere about her the rocks were slippery, the wind like ice and blinding.
Fay Darcy, Kevin and some others had chased her out to the very edge. More than once she had had to go to ground, their torches searching for her only to pass overhead. Hounded by their shouts, she had been forced far from the barrow, one fold or furrow much like another until at last she’d reached the very edge and known it instinctively, she dropping to her knees to reach out and feel the emptiness ahead.
Only darkness was out there; behind her, the land in silhouette with dark shadows outlining the more prominent. But nothing had moved for some time and the problem was she had no idea of how long she’d been on the run. Fifty minutes—had it been that long? Shouldn’t she have heard the bomb go off?
When a figure darted across the rocks at a crouch, another took its place. When Fay Darcy stood not six feet from her, Mary knew it was the end. Flashes of fire shot out of the Thompson gun the woman held, herself hugging the crevice and crying out for mercy.
Fay’s boot nudged a shoulder. ‘Up you get, sweetheart. Kevin and the others have gone back so there’s only the two of us and you to answer to me. He’s seen the light, he has. Your running away’s what did it. Disappointed in you, he was, but settled now.’
The muzzle of the gun prodded the slut in the backside. ‘Who’d you tell about Inishtrahull?’
Clawing for purchase, Mary found a rock and waited as the question was repeated. There’d be no sense in lying, none whatsoever in telling her anything.
Dragged by the hair, she was forced to stand. As Fay set the gun down, it began to slide away and the woman had to use a foot to stop it. ‘How’s the baby?’ she asked. ‘Not jarred the little bastard loose, have you?’
Swinging the rock, brought only a laugh and, ‘A fight, is that what you’re wanting?’
The rock fell. The two of them rolled over and over. Fay was far too heavy, far too strong. Lifted up, Mary was bashed down against the rocks only to be yanked up again and swatted several times until, dazed and bleeding, she began to crawl away only to be caught and dragged back across the moss. A rock … she had to find another.
Shrieking as she was bitten by the bitch, Fay hugged her tightly and rolled the two of them over and over towards the edge. She’d toss the fucker into the air, would kick her if she could.
A rock … a rock … Mary found one and swung it hard against the woman’s head, felt spittle and blood fling themselves into her face, mustn’t shut her eyes, must kill her, kill her!
They went down together and Fay jerked away to grab the slut and throw her from the cliffs but teetered on the brink herself. ‘Ah Jesus … Dear Jesus …’
With a piercing shriek, the dark silhouette of her disappeared.
At dawn a Bristol Beaufort flew low in along the coast and Mary heard its engines long before they had drowned out the sound of the waves and the boulders, but then the aircraft passed swiftly on to lose itself in the west over Malin Head.
Easing her cramped
limbs, she slowly dragged herself up into a sitting position and, leaning against the rocks at the very edge, took to searching the awakening land.
A tooth was loose, there was a split in her lower lip and a cut above her right eye. The blisters had each broken. The breast was red and swollen, its ruined nipple stinging even more with the salt spray.
Not a thing moved but the tussocks. There was not even a gull. Satisfied, she got shakily to her feet and when she reached the Thompson gun, flung it into the abyss. She had as much as killed the woman and they’d not forgive her, but the barrow would be gone, blown to pieces. Hamish would be dead.
When O’Bannion came upon her, she had tripped in her haste to get back to them. At first he thought her crazed by being lost and afraid of this more than what they’d do to her, but then he realized she was terrified of something else, for when he made her stand still, she continually looked away towards the long barrow.
‘Where’s Fay?’ he asked at last. Vacantly she blinked and he shook her sharply.
‘Fay?’ she blurted. ‘How should I know?’
The Beaufort came back and they heard it long before they saw it as a dark shape on the western horizon. The plane, flying traverses at regular intervals, came closer and closer and went on out to sea off Glengad Head.
She seemed as much in fear of discovery as himself, and he couldn’t understand this, was alarmed by it. ‘Mrs. Fraser, what the hell happened? Did you fight with Fay? We tried to bring you back. We thought you’d fallen.’
Stubble bristled the clefts that lined his cheeks. The grey eyes were not hard and unforgiving but full of concern, though not for herself, never that, not now. ‘Fay’s dead.’ She knew the loss would hurt him deeply and when this registered, knew it was all over for herself, but then he said, ‘Come on, and we’ll make a run for it.’
Mary let him take her by the hand and ran with him over the hills and down into the valleys, through the shallows, through anything until, still some distance from it, she saw the barrow and stopped suddenly—couldn’t understand why there wasn’t a gaping hole in it; looked questioningly at him, only to see that he was at a loss to know what was the matter with her.
‘Who did you tell about Inishtrahull?’ he asked.
He’d shoot her now. ‘Ria. I asked if you had relatives up here someplace.’ The bomb … why hadn’t it gone off?
O’Bannion nodded. Looking away in the direction the Beaufort had taken, he said, ‘That’s why they’re searching for us up here then.’
For all the world they were like two people cast upon an empty land, but she still couldn’t understand what had gone wrong.
‘Does your Mrs. Haney know the date and time of the rendezvous?’
‘No, I … I didn’t tell her that.’
‘Even so, the lighthouse crew will have been notified. The Brits will be waiting for us.’
‘Not if the Royal Navy want to capture that submarine. Trant did tell me that was what they’d in mind. If so, they’d leave the island to you and the others, probably wouldn’t even notify the lightkeepers. Besides, you could always leave some of your people here to make the British think they had caught up with you.’
She had meant it, and he couldn’t understand her desire to cooperate, was suspicious of it and silently cursed himself for not having killed her. Yet if the Royal Navy really did want that sub, they’d do as she’d said, and there might just be a chance.
Again he wondered about her, for she couldn’t seem to take her gaze from the barrow, kept searching the very length and height of it. ‘What is it with you?’ he asked.
Starting out again, she told him. ‘I want my husband freed. That’s all. Do that for me and I’ll help you all I can.’
1 Number 9 Glasgow, with sulphanilamide antiseptic and cetavalon cleansing cream.
11
Inishtrahull … in Gaelic, Mary knew it meant ‘the big strand,’ but when viewed from the sanctuary of its lighthouse not a thing moved but the windswept grass, the waves and an occasional herring gull. Here and there a small cottage stood out among fields whose bleakness matched the emptiness. All had long since lost their thatched roofs. Caved in, blown away, they had but rafters, chimneys and crumbling walls of island stone.
The lighthouse was on the bleak, low summit of the hill at the eastern end of the island, perhaps one hundred feet above the sea. From here, the land fell into a flat, grassy saddle which—never more than six hundred yards across—stretched for about a mile to the west before rising to the fog station on the other summit. All around the island there were rocks, much gullied and often stripped bare of turf. The ‘strand’ wasn’t at water level but formed the rim of the saddle where an ancient beach had been left high and dry by rebound of the land since the last Ice Age. Now that cliff, some fifty feet high and steep, faced the fiercest gales but left the rocky shores and present beaches to meet the sea at all other times.
They had come across from Culdaff, the small fishing and farming village just to the south of Glengad Head. Kevin had had a trawler waiting there. The crossing, after all that had come before it, had been rather uneventful: pitching seas, an absolute drenching—six or seven miles of it, Jimmy Allanby silent and withdrawn.
The bomb had not gone off because Helmut Wolfganger, having smelled the gelignite, had stopped the watch with only four and a half minutes remaining. He had even managed to replace the lid and to repack some of her things before he’d died, but hadn’t tried to dismantle the bomb and could not have told anyone of it, not even Hamish, leaving her to puzzle over his reasons. Would she ever know?
In a tiny cove just below the lighthouse and facing north, there was a small concrete and stone wharf, and she remembered how calm it had suddenly become once they’d passed in under the light. Fine if the wind was from the west as it had been, not good if from the north.
A boom hoist serviced this wharf. Nearby there was a stack of steel forty-five-gallon oil drums and a shed where the lighthouse crew must keep the hoist’s donkey engine. Not far from the pier, the raised strand ran its edge round to the ruined cottage where they had taken shelter after leaving the trawler. There had been no shooting, no killing—Kevin, Dermid Galway and some others had simply rushed the lighthouse to seize it. Now the light’s crew did as they were told. Now, at least, she and Hamish, and the colonel and Jimmy, were warm and dry, and for the first time in ages, had had something to eat.
When Fraser found her, she was looking out a small window on the narrow staircase between the second floor and the light above. ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked.
Mary leaned back against him. ‘Only that I seem always to be finding myself among ruins with these people. If not a Neolithic long barrow, then an empty smithy or the walls of some ancient abbey. How could people have lived continuously here for over five thousand years? It’s horrible, so isolated and hard, it’s cruel.’
‘But safe,’ he said, his hands now on her hips.
Two curraghs lay side by side behind the low stone wall that surrounded the lighthouse on three sides, the sea being at its fourth. Each of the boats was perhaps fourteen feet in length, and both were higher in the prow and blunter in the stern, the whole made of tarred canvas that had been stretched over a lathed frame, but lying there like that, they looked like strange, shiny black sea creatures that had crawled up to feed voraciously on the windblown turf.
Hamish pointed to the fog station at the far end of the island. Smoke rose from its chimney to be quickly caught by the wind. ‘There’s a man in that hut, Mary. O’Bannion was asking the others where he was, and they told him he’d been taken off last week with stomach cramps. That man must have heard or seen us come in last night and has decided to stay put. If I could get to him …’
Alarmed, she turned to face him. ‘We’re not to go outside. Someone’s always guarding the door. There’s no place for you to hide …’
‘But there is, lass. Once I’m below the edge of that elevated strand, I can make my way around the shore and out of sight until I reach the far end of the island.’
It might be possible, but from there he would have to run across empty fields in full sight, then up the other hill to the station and without a stone wall to hide behind as here.
Depressed at the thought of his attempting such a thing, she said, ‘Darling, even if you did manage it, what then?’
Fraser knew that something had to be done, and that he couldn’t lose her now. ‘They’ll have a flare pistol in that hut. It’s our only hope. Bannerman thinks Derry are on to things and is certain that is why they’ve left us alone. They must really want that sub.’
‘And Jimmy?’
He’d have to tell her. ‘Is terrified. Och, I’ve seen too many break. Nolan’s aware of it too, but if he goad’s him one more time, the captain may well do something we’ll all regret. Let me get to that hut and get us some help. Distract the guard. O’Bannion and the others are busy discussing things, but when chance allows, he’ll want to check it himself. With luck I won’t be missed and can get back before he does.’
‘And if you’re missed?’
He held her from him. ‘Then find a way of putting a hole in each of those boats. That sub won’t be able to come right into that wharf, not at night.’
Kevin had six others, not counting Nolan. There was Erich, too, and Huber and Mrs. Tulford. ‘They’re bound to see you, Hamish.’
‘And we’ve four days to wait, lass. Four! Berlin couldn’t move the rendezvous up as Huber wanted. They’ve had to set things back.’
Betrayal Page 36