Tapestry of Spies

“Ah! And for whom, may I ask?” the officer demanded.

“Certain elements, sir.”

“And what is that supposed to mean? Or do you mean to have me play a little guessing game?”

“Perhaps I’d best just say not only is the general staff interested in the outcome of this afternoon’s exercise, Herr Colonel, but equally so are certain elements in Berlin. They have requested an independent report on the outcome.”

“You’re from Security?”

“I’m not Gestapo, Herr Colonel.”

“If you were, I’d get you a seat on the lead tank into Huesca. And your skinny friend in the raincoat. You’re out of uniform, Herr Leutnant,” said the officer. “Your boots are not shined.”

“You’ll find, Herr Colonel,” Julian took up and threw back the challenge, “that the new German hasn’t time to shine his boots, he is so busy climbing the stairway of history, as our leader directs.”

“Papers, Leutnant. Or I’ll have to call my guards to escort you off the bridge. You may watch from the guardhouse. Perhaps you’re the English dynamiters the Spaniards fear so adamantly.”

He nodded to two noncoms, who reacted instantly and hurried toward them with machine carbines in hand.

“Herr Colonel,” Julian began ? but at that instant a roar arose in a sudden surge, and everybody looked for a cause and could see, just a the top of the slope, a column of dust.

“The panzers are coming,” somebody yelled.

They must have left just after we did, Florry thought. They were fast. He glanced at his watch. It was a minute till noon. The blockhouse was still almost fifty yards away. They hadn’t even reached the bridge. If Portela attacked now ?

“My papers,” said Julian, “are my blond hair, my blue eyes, my embodiment of the racial ideal. My credentials are my blood, sir.”

“Your blood is of very little interest to the German army, Herr Leutnant.”

“And this?”

Julian reached into his tunic and removed a document and opened it up.

“There,” he said, handing it over. “I think that should do the trick.”

The German colonel looked at it intently for some seconds.

“All right, Herr Leutnant,” he finally said. “You may of course position yourself where you want. But don’t get in the way. I’d hate to wire Berlin its representatives had been squashed into Strudel.”

“Thank you, Herr Colonel. Your cooperation will be noted.”

Julian smartly walked past the man, and Florry trailed along behind. In seconds they had moved beyond the last guard post and were on it, on the bridge itself.

“What in God’s name did you show him?”

“My party card. When I was in Germany in ’thirty-two I actually joined up one night as a drunken lark, under the name of a chap I was quite close to at the time, to see if I could get away with it. It was felt to be clever in the set I was running with at the time. I used to show it off at parties in London for laughs to prove how bloody stupid it all was. It’s a very low number, I’m told; impressive to chaps who understand how such things work.”

They turned to look at the brown water forty feet below, which trickled under the bridge.

“Robert, old chum, I’ve got that funny buzz again. About the next several minutes.”

“Stop it,” said Florry.

“I think my magic ring is fresh out of tricks. Tell my foolish old mother I loved her dearly.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Julian.”

“Say tally-ho to all my friends.”

“Julian?”

The first shot sounded, from high in the pines.

“Shall we go, old man?” whispered Julian, removing his pistol.

* * *

A klaxon sounded from somewhere, and the call “Partisans! Partisans!” in German arose. Yet panic did not break out among the professional German soldiers, who instead responded with crisp, economic movements. Or maybe it was that for Florry the entire universe seemed to slip into another gear: a monstrous, strange slowness somehow overcame and then overwhelmed reality. More shooting began, rising in tempo from the occasional bang of a bullet to, several seconds later, what seemed like a crescendo of fire.

Julian ran toward the blockhouse just a few feet ahead, his automatic out. A bullet kicked up a puff of dust nearby and then another and then another. A few of the Germans were already down. From the blockhouse there came a noise that sounded like strong men ripping plywood apart, and Florry realized one of the German machine guns had begun to fire. Yet still he could make no sense of events: he could not see the guerrillas, and in fact could see nothing except some stirred dust down the road.

“In, in,” yelled Julian, and they ducked into the dark little entrance of the blockhouse, immediately finding themselves in subterranean blackness.

“Hold your fire, god damn it,” somebody was shouting in the closeness of the fortification. An electric light snapped on; Florry heard the snap and click of gunbolts being set and head the oily rattle of belts of ammunition being unlimbered. The officer with the half-dead face was shouting crisp orders, telling his gunner to prepare to engage targets at a range of about four hundred meters. Florry watched the gunners lift the weapons to their shoulders and move to adjust their positions against the firing slots. He recognized immediately that these weren’t heavy Maxim guns at all, but some frighteningly streamlined new weapon, supported at the muzzle by a bipod, yet with a pistol grip rather like a Luger’s and a rifle’s buttstock.

“Well, Herr Leutnant,” said the colonel, “you’re in luck and so are we. I was afraid our guests might not take the bait. But they’re right on schedule. You’ll get to see the new Model 34 in action against some Spanish guerrillas who think their horses are a match for hot steel. It should make an amusing few minutes.”

Julian shot him in the throat.

Florry got out his four-five-five.

Julian shot the gunner, then he shot one of the guards. Florry shot the other guard.

The pistol shots in the close space were painfully loud. There were six Germans left and Julian said very calmly, “Gentlemen, please drop your weapons or we shall kill all of you.”

Florry saw something in the eyes of one of the other gunners and he shot him in the arm. He went quickly to the machine carbine one of the guards had dropped and picked it up, swinging it about on the remaining men.

“If anybody so much as breathes heavily,” said Julian, “my nervous companion will shoot you all down. You stay absolutely still, do you hear? Absolutely still.”

They waited, almost frozen in the dicey intensity of the moment. Outside the firing seemed to rise, and then there was a banging at the iron door to the blockhouse.

“What’s going on, damn you? Fire, you bastards, get those machine guns spitting.”

“Easy lads,” said Julian. “Just hold it still as little mice and maybe you’ll see tomorrow.”

“English fucker,” said one of the Germans.

Julian shot him.

“Who’s next?” he said. “I’ll shoot each and every man here if I must.”

The firing outside had ceased. The pause seemed to last forever, and then there was a hoot or yelp of sheer giddy joy, and Florry heard the thunder of hooves as the air seemed to fill with dust. A few more shots sounded, until at last someone else pounded at the door.

“?Ingles! Dios te ame, ven aca!”

Julian went swiftly to the iron door and unlocked it. Portela, looking like some kind of buccaneer in a cape with crossed bandoliers on his chest and a long-barreled Mauser automatic, ducked in.

“Get these bastard out,” yelled Julian.

Florry backed off and let the Germans file past him. When the last man had vanished, he himself climbed out.

“Go on, run, you bastards,” yelled Julian in English, firing a shot in the air. The Germans began to flee across the bridge.

“God, Stink, look at them run!” yelled Julian joyfully. “Christ, old sport, we bloody pulled it off.”