Gunner Kelly

this is a gun I have in my hand, an‘ although it’s even smaller, it will serve for you and me . . . an’ especially for you, because dummy1

you’re the target—aye, an‘ do you know what sort of target, now?”

He paused only for effect, not for a reply. “A ’Mike Target‘ is what ye are.”

It was half in Benedikt’s mind to dismiss the man as a garrulous old fool—were not Irishmen all notoriously garrulous? But there was nothing foolish about a 9-millimetre Luger, no matter in whose hands.

“A ‘Mike Target’,” Kelly repeated the words, savouring them.

“Named after me, it was . . . but that’s another story . . . ‘Mike Target’ was a regimental target—something really worth having—

twenty-four guns on one target . . . three batteries of eight guns, each of two troops of four guns, out of sight of one another . . .

aaargh, but it was a sort of democratic form of gunnery, would ye know . . . The Germans—that’s your lot, begod, an‘ a smart lot of fellas they were— they had the best gun of the war that I saw, that we called ’the eighty-eight‘, an’ a terrible murderous weapon it was . . . But we had the best regiments of guns—an‘ the Squire’s the best of them, no question—for he invented ways of control and command, and different ways of applying fire ... I thank my stars I was on the English side, an’ not facing regiments like his, begod!”

Benedikt tried to make sense of what the man was driving at, but could only think irrelevantly wouldn’t Papa like to be here, instead of me, because those were his guns, those terrible murderous weapons!

“Aaargh! No twenty-four guns have I—just this one little gun—”

The Irishman caressed the Luger “—but a Mike Target ye are all the same, the best I’ve had in range for many a year!” He nodded dummy1

at Benedikt, like a friendly enemy. “So I’ll not be asking you again why you were trespassin‘ on the lady’s land, for you’d only tell me black lies that you’d got all ready for me—later, maybe, but not now . . .”

There was something wrong, alarm bells in his mind warned Benedikt: if Kelly no longer rated why as of the first importance, what could be coming next, instead?

The Irishman’s free hand released the Luger barrel and plunged into his coat-pocket.

“See here.” He brandished Thomas Wiesehofer’s spectacle case.

“And don’t say ye don’t see, for ye recognised my young mistress upon the terrace, with her under the leaves in the shadow, an‘

what’s in my hand is plain enough, as I can see plain enough for meself, surely.”

A frisson of triumph excited Benedikt. They had been clever—how they had been so clever, he didn’t know, but they had been clever, nevertheless. Only, they had not been clever enough.

“It is ... the case for my spectacles . . . which you took from me—”

He feigned incomprehension.

“So it is! And thick as pebbles are your lenses—blind as a bat in sunlight, ye are, ye have said as much to the children ... So how is it that ye see me now so clearly, with these in my hand, and no spectacles on your nose? Would you tell me that?”

More incomprehension. Frown, and shake your head, Herr Wiesehofer!

“I do not understand.” He spread his hands. “I am wearing my dummy1

contact lenses . . . Do you not have contact lenses in England?” He had the man now.

“F-what?” For the first time Kelly was taken aback, and Benedikt blessed the ultimate insistence on detail—the final rule which he had obeyed automatically because it was laid down to be obeyed.

Benedikt pointed at his eyes, confident of the tiny plain lenses which only an expert could differentiate from the real thing, and which had once helped him to accustom himself to the false ones.

“I wear my spectacles . . . sometimes . . . and my lenses sometimes . . . If you wish to see them, I can oblige you. But. . . I do not understand—I do not understand anything that you are saying—or doing!” he looked at Miss Becky despairingly. “—

Fraulein, if you would tell me, please, what is happening?”

Miss Becky looked at Kelly. “Michael—?”

Perhaps it was time for the rotten excuse at last, thought Benedikt.

Kelly frowned at him, the lines round his mouth working deeper.

“We still don’t know why he was in the spinney, Miss Becky.”

It was time. “I was walking on the hills ... I left my car at a village

—I do not remember ... it is Rockbourne, perhaps—or Wimbourne ... or Wimbury or Rockbury, or Rockbury St Martin—

I do not remember . . . But I walked upon the hills, and it grew dark, and I lost my way.” With the contact lenses in support, the rotten excuse wasn’t so bad: they weren’t the border police, and he wasn’t behind the line on the Other Side, after all. “I saw the light in the valley—”

There was a dull boom—the sound of a heavy door closing dummy1