The skittish Combret was not so calm now. Walsh calculated the distance between them and his hiding place in the undergrowth, keeping a wary eye out for anyone the Milice man might have brought with him. Though he did not trust Combret, Walsh had gambled the man’s love for money and fear of retribution would outweigh his keenness to impress the Gestapo. Only when he was sure Combret was entirely alone, did Walsh walk into the clearing, the Luger held out in front of him.
‘Drop the gun, Combret.’
‘Harry?’ Emma called before she could stop herself. Walsh winced. In her surprise and relief she had used his real name once more.
‘Harry is it?’ asked Combret.
‘I said drop the gun.’
‘Why would I do that? I did what you asked. I brought the girl. Now you give me the diamonds and I go.’
‘No arguments, Combret,’ and he carefully aimed the gun at the Milice leader’s face. ‘If you want to leave here alive you place the revolver on the floor in front of you and move back.’
Combret would never normally have conceded his advantage so readily but it was not part of his plan to shoot the Englishman. Bruno would do that for him, and so he surrendered his weapon. With a show of reluctance, Combret held his arm out to the side to give Walsh a clear view of the revolver then he bent his knees and slowly lowered himself to place the weapon on the ground. He then dragged Emma backwards with him.
‘Now you come out where I can see you clearly,’ ordered Combret and Harry walked into the light.
Any moment now, thought Combret, Bruno will cut him down. Thanks to the lantern, he will have a clear shot. The Englishman would stand no more chance than the deer that succumbed to Bruno’s rifle the last time they hunted together.
‘You have the diamonds?’
‘I have the diamonds.’
Then I will take them from your still warm carcass, thought Combret. His vengeful fury at the man who’d invaded the privacy of his home was beginning to reach its zenith.
‘So how will we do this,’ he was stalling the Englishman, waiting for the beautiful moment when the shot rang out and Walsh fell to the ground. Then the diamonds would be his and in the morning the girl would keep her appointment with the Gestapo.
‘It’s very simple. You let go of the girl and she walks towards me,’ said Walsh, ‘when I am happy she is unharmed, I give you the diamonds and you leave, without your pistol naturally.’
‘Why not the other way around?’ What in hell was keeping Bruno? He’d had ample time to get into position. Why didn’t he fire, damn him? ‘You give me the diamonds then I give you the girl.’
‘Because it’s my show, Combret. You do as I tell you.’
‘Very well,’ Combret assented. He wanted to scream ‘Now, do it now, shoot him, Bruno!’ at the top of his voice, for he had almost run out of stalling tactics.
‘Then you let me go, eh?’ and still no shot came.
‘Then I let you go.’ Walsh was beginning to sound impatient.
Just then there was a rustling from the bushes at the far end of the clearing and a grim-faced Sam Cooper emerged, holding a familiar object, Bruno’s hunting rifle. Combret’s heart began to thump hard in his chest.
‘He had a friend waiting for you,’ Sam told Walsh, ‘with this,’ and he dropped the rifle onto the ground.
‘No friend of mine was here.’ Combret’s voice was high, instantly betraying his guilt and rising sense of panic.
The American turned to him, ‘Then you won’t mind that I cut his throat.’
Combret turned ghostly pale in the lamplight. Of course, Walsh knew he could never trust the Milice, which is why the maquisards had been watching his car as it approached then Sam had gone hunting in the night. Walsh sighed in the manner one might when a child has been naughty, ‘I told you what would happen if you did not come alone,’ and he raised the Luger once more.
Combret held up his hands in the manner of a surrender. ‘No, wait,’ then Emma wriggled free and stepped away from him so she could no longer be used as a shield, ‘sure, sure, yes, but,’ Combret was rambling, trying to find the right words as he backed away from Walsh, ‘it’s not…’
Walsh walked towards him, quickly closing the distance between them. Combret’s eyes flew towards the pistol in Walsh’s hand and he backed away fearfully.
‘No, wait a moment, let’s talk…’
‘There’s nothing left to talk about.’
‘I can help you,’ pleaded Combret, ‘I can give you information… I can…’ but he seemed at a loss now to explain just what it was he could do for them and Walsh was still coming. Instead Combret settled on the single word, ‘please’.
Walsh ignored the cornered man and adjusted his aim to administer the final shots.
‘Wait, don’t! Not like this, not out here… please.’
Emma jumped as the loud crack-crack of two bullets broke the silence of the night. Even with the blindfold, Emma knew Harry had just employed the double-tap method used by SOE to send two rounds, one straight after the other, into his target and she realised Combret was gone.
Emma did not see the Milice man’s body fall almost backwards, as the bullets took Combret in the centre of his chest. He was dead almost as soon as he hit the ground.
‘Harry!’ cried Emma, unable to bear the darkness and uncertainty any longer. Harry walked towards her and pulled the blindfold away from her eyes. Then he used his knife to cut Emma free from her bonds and embraced her.
As he did so, a dozen curious maquisards, who had been completely hidden from view, slowly emerged from the bushes to survey the corpse of the stricken Combret, a man considered almost untouchable because of his position, who had been lured out into the night then clinically despatched at the hand of their ruthless new leader; and he had succeeded in rescuing the girl into the bargain, which meant two miracles in one night from Captain Walsh.
One of the maquisards spat on Combret’s face as Harry led Emma away but not before she took one last look at the body. The maquisards would dispose of Combret and the foolish Bruno. Their bodies would be buried deep in the woods, somewhere they could never be found. Emma shuddered at their fate, because she had been convinced of an identical one for herself that night. It had been a grim and hard day. Better them than me, she thought, as Harry led her safely away.
35
‘It is more shameful to distrust one’s friends
than to be deceived by them.’
Duc de La Rochefoucauld
That same night Walsh moved in to Emma Stirling’s tent. The Maquis accepted this for it was nobody’s business but their own. The next morning, just after first light, Walsh and Montueil walked up the hill together away from the camp so they could not be heard.
‘Who could have done such a thing, Montueil?’ asked Walsh.
‘I have been thinking about nothing else, Harry, over and over in my mind, but I cannot believe any one of us could betray you.’
‘And yet someone did or how could the Milice know I was at the Hotel Europa?’
Montueil shook his head slowly. The big man seemed tired all of a sudden and looked every one of his years.
‘Who knew about it?’ asked Walsh.
‘Only the ones who were there when we talked of it.’ He counted each name on his fingers, ‘Alvar, Triboulet, Lemonnier, Valvert, Cooper, Simone, Emma, you, me.’
‘Nine other people knew I’d be at the Europa, apart from your man at the hotel. Let’s discount you and me, shall we?’
‘I’m glad you feel that way, my friend.’
‘Emma is hardly likely to place herself in such danger and has no reason to betray me so…’
‘Okay, from the men I know, Alvar’s hatred of the Germans has lasted through two wars in two different countries; Triboulet abandoned his family to fight with us and never flinched, I cannot see either
of them running to tell the Germans anything except “go to hell”.’
‘Lemonnier then?’
‘Harry, I know he is a hothead, one might even term him a fool and he has reason to resent you for knocking him on his back in front of everyone, plus I think he is jealous that Simone looks up to you…’
‘But?’
‘But really, I cannot believe it, can you? He may not see you as a friend but help the Germans by giving them your head? I simply cannot accept he would do this thing. He hates them even more than me I think, if it is possible to measure hatred. And you gave him the job to silence the baker, which was a clever move, it kept him close.’
‘So none of those three, which leaves Valvert and Cooper?’ conceded Walsh.
‘Can you trust the American?’
Walsh paused. Would anything be gained by telling Montueil about Yugoslavia? He decided not.
‘The truth is I don’t fully trust anyone. I can’t afford to.’
‘And Valvert? What did you know of him before this mission?’
‘Nothing but that is quite normal.’
‘So, you don’t know him at all,’ concluded Montueil, ‘and he does have a radio, takes it with him up to the high ground to get a better signal but no one ever goes with him, nobody hears what he transmits or to whom.’
Walsh had to concede Montueil had a point. ‘True, but there is another possibility we have overlooked.’
‘And what is that?’
‘Your man in the hotel. Who did he tell about the Englishman he was going to meet; a trusted friend? Did he boast about it to his lover? Is there a relative who worries he is risking his neck like this? Did he get sloppy? Can he truly be trusted? Perhaps the Germans own him.’
‘I’d love to tell you all of that is impossible, Harry, but you know I can’t. Maybe one of our trusted group told someone else and that trust was betrayed; perhaps the woman you mentioned on the hotel desk did not like the look of you or maybe she was suspicious of Emma. Who knows, we could talk about this all day and never work out the truth. How many of us really know any one at all, Harry? We are all of us a secret.’
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Walsh.
‘Prevail, my friend,’ said Montueil.
An hour later, Walsh watched the convoy from a distance through field glasses. It rumbled swiftly along the road, throwing up clouds of dust on either side. He was flat on his belly next to Cooper as they counted the professor’s personal bodyguard.
‘Two cars?’ asked Cooper of the staff vehicles sandwiched between the troop lorries and flanked by motorcycle outriders.
‘One is probably a decoy. Either that or there’s Luftwaffe top brass accompanying the professor to the airfield every day.’
‘Then we hit both cars,’ said Cooper.
‘The only way to be sure,’ agreed Walsh.
The convoy rumbled past while they both silently contemplated the difficulty of attacking a well-drilled, battle-hardened unit with a ragged bunch of half-trained partisans. Causing a little havoc was one thing, conducting a successful assassination on Gaerte was looking like a much more daunting mission.
‘We could use some of those fancy explosives of yours, blow the trees down to block the road behind and ahead of them,’ suggested Cooper.
‘Maybe,’ admitted Walsh and he almost added and then what but thought better of it. Would it be the Germans who were trapped by an ambush like that or the Maquis if they were overwhelmed?
Perhaps Cooper was thinking the same thing for he asked, ‘Are you sure we couldn’t get to him at the hotel?’
‘Not according to Montueil’s man. Gaerte’s security detail is made up of Leibstandarte SS; elite, battle-hardened troops specially ordered there by Colonel Tauber. They have men outside every door and more inside. No one gets in unless they are known staff. There are no other residents in the hotel except the group of scientists, their bodyguards and officers. Guards are on duty in the hotel reception, in the kitchens and on every landing. There is a guard outside Gaerte’s room twenty-four hours a day, even when the professor is at the air base, so there’s no opportunity to get into his room and plant explosives, hide in there and wait for him, or conceal weapons to use later. We can rule out all of that. The cooking of his meals is supervised and the chef tastes everything before it reaches his plate. The food is then delivered to him by one of his own men, so poisons cannot reach him. He never ventures from the hotel at night, nor does he leave the air base during the day. The only way to get to him is to attack the convoy on its way to or from the air base.’
Cooper digested the information then sighed at the seeming hopelessness of their situation, ‘You know, when I first signed up, I believed God, luck and training would get me through this war.’
‘And now?’ asked Walsh without looking up from the field glasses.
‘Just luck.’
‘Blasphemer,’ chided Walsh, ‘never underestimate the value of training.’
Cooper laughed, ‘So what do you believe in, Harry?’
‘Men, mortars and machine guns,’ replied Walsh without hesitation.
‘Well, we have some men,’ acknowledged Cooper doubtfully, ‘and a couple of machine guns.’
‘Here’s to luck then,’ and he handed Cooper the plain silver hip flask, ‘go on, I think we’ve earned the right.’
Cooper took a drink and winced, ‘God, what is that?’
‘Calvados, to keep out the cold.’
‘I think I’d rather be cold,’ and he handed the flask back to Walsh who had a swig himself then took one last look at the convoy before it disappeared from view in the distance. He turned back to Cooper.
‘Assuming the lorries are full, what are we looking at? Platoon strength?’
‘I’d say so,’ said Cooper, ‘with motorcycle outriders and maybe a couple of personal bodyguards in the two cars.’
‘We might still outnumber them,’ said Walsh, ‘slightly.’
‘I’ll grant you that but these guys are the elite. If they are veterans pulled from the front line for this detail their trigger fingers’ll be damn itchy. How many of our guys is each one of those veteran soldiers worth in a firefight?’
‘You’re right,’ conceded Walsh, ‘the odds are not good.’
Cooper nodded in agreement. ‘You about ready to tell them what they are getting themselves in to?’ he asked quietly.
‘I think so.’
Walsh finally delivered the news of their mission to the Maquisard commune in an unflinching manner and without any form of false optimism concerning the likelihood of its success. He wanted each man understand the situation. It was received less positively than even he could have anticipated. There was stony silence at first but then an opinion was finally offered up and it was a forcible one.
‘My God, we’ll all be slaughtered!’ Coming as it did from Montueil, the leader and optimist of the group, Walsh realised this was probably as good as it was going to get. His brief, factual account of the need for the attack on Gaerte’s convoy had not been persuasive enough.
‘Not necessarily…’ countered Walsh but he wasn’t permitted to continue.
‘It’s a crazy idea,’ interrupted Alvar. ‘I know, I’ve seen it,’ he said before adding, ‘I’ve done it! Attack a convoy with rifles and Sten guns, they shoot back with heavy machine guns. They’ll cut us to pieces.’
‘Ordinarily we wouldn’t risk it,’ said Cooper, ‘but it has to be a full assault or nothing. Otherwise we won’t get the Professor.’
‘And what of the reprisals,’ asked Alvar, ‘do you really think the Germans won’t massacre civilians if we kill their famous professor?’
‘No,’ admitted Walsh, ‘I’d say there is a strong chance of reprisals against the civilian population.’
‘And you want us to go ahead and assassinate him anyway?’ aske
d Montueil. ‘Do you realise what you are asking these men to do, Harry?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘I’m not sure you do,’ their leader told him, ‘you don’t have family in the town.’
It was Lemonnier’s turn to speak, ‘Almost every man here has a mother, sister or wife in Elbeuf or Rouen. Some have children. They could all be shipped to a camp or shot in the square. Are you seriously asking us to risk that?’
‘Yes, I am. You risk it every day already by your participation in the Maquis. This increases the risk, I’ll grant you, but it’s the only way.’
‘Then you ask too much!’ shouted Montueil.
Walsh allowed Montueil’s fury to abate. ‘Perhaps, but we have to kill this man, one way or another.’
‘Because of his miracle plane?’ asked Triboulet, who was calmer than his comrades.
‘Yes,’ said Walsh.
‘Could it really prevent an invasion?’ pressed the school teacher.
‘It could, unless we stall it.’
‘Then we have no choice,’ concluded the teacher.
‘No,’ said Walsh, ‘none whatsoever.’
And I have no choice either, thought Walsh than to trust you all, though I can see by the looks on your faces right now that you no longer want to follow me and I’m almost certain one of you betrayed me to the Milice. How else could they know I was at the hotel that day? But who could have done it?
Walsh would tread more carefully from now on. He had no choice but to inform the Maquisard commune of his intention to kill the professor, he could hardly do it alone after all. But he would not betray the detail of his plan just yet. The date, timing and method of the attack would stay with him until the last moment, when it was impossible for anybody to leave the camp and tip off the Germans.
Gaerte approved of her. The young whore’s flesh was pleasingly firm, her naked skin turned golden by the light from the bedroom’s lamp. This was one aspect of the professor’s status he had become happily used to; a steady flow of young women. His wife was safely back in Germany so she could never hear about this and his elevated position ensured he would never want for female company at the end of a long and demanding day. Women were discreetly procured for him on demand.
Ungentlemanly Warfare Page 22