metal touched his hot sweating skin. Then, grabbing the handle of the ZB26, he tossed the backpack head-high and out into the open, moving as soon as the first shots began to rip it to shreds, thankful he was not facing any kind of automatic weapon; the worst he could suffer was a second bullet from a bolt-action rifle and it took a moment to work that, even for a professional soldier.
Also he hoped for an element of surprise, which is not conducive to good aiming, especially in the untrained. There was no time to go round the parapet and no thought of hurt as he dived over it, landing on his shoulder and immediately hauling himself up, ignoring the scrapes to skin and the painful jarring of bone. He rested the muzzle on the top of the stones and put half a dozen bullets into the wheat field as a warning for his opponents to stay still.
Crouched down he counted to ten, then raised himself again to fire off another short burst to create the impression he was going to hold this new position. In reality he was crawling away within a second, using his knees and elbows, not easy with the ZB26 as well, to get to a spot where the tree cover was thick enough for him to stand up and run.
Peter Lanchester was beside the idling Simca and the passenger door was open. Within seconds both men were inside and the car was moving, Cal holding the light machine gun upright between his knees and breathing as if he had just finished an Olympic marathon while simultaneously reloading.
‘Left-hand fork, Peter,’ he gasped.
‘You sure? The lorry went right.’
‘Yes.’
The car swung round the bend and took only seconds to cover the hundred yards or so Cal Jardine wanted, during which time he had wound down the car window and manoeuvred the muzzle out, forced to lean back so it was resting on the sill. With trees on both sides of the canal and the still-billowing smoke, what he was looking for was not fully visible until he was right abreast the main target at the front.
Slowly and deliberately he put several bullets into the front wheel of the Hispano-Suiza roadster, shredding the tyre in the process, before shifting to blast the cars lined up behind, this as Peter, unbidden, drove the car at low speed so all Cal had to do was work the trigger.
His last bullets he saved for the rear vehicle of the Jeunesses ’s convoy, a low-slung cream and black Citroen. This he shredded from one end to the other, tyres included, and, as soon as the magazine emptied, Peter pressed the accelerator to the floor, with Cal dropping back into the seat exhausted.
It took a second or two to get his breathing back to something like normal, but soon he was pointing out to his companion that, narrow and empty as it was, he was driving dangerously by going too fast as well as being on the wrong side of the road — just as well, as, before ten minutes had passed, they were forced to pull very hard to the side to let past one rushing police car, soon followed by two more.
The fellow driving the lorry had been told to take himself and his companions home using back roads and to find a way to hide the vehicle. The Simca presented another problem; it was not a model of which there were many about, being a new design and fresh off the production line.
So it was too obvious, given its colour and the fact that it would likely be reported to the authorities, number plate included. They had taken the route that led north to the main highway, then followed that west to the outskirts of town where they stopped to both breathe and consider.
‘I take it,’ Peter asked, ‘that I am sitting in what was your way out?’
‘I was going to drive back to Paris once the cargo was loaded, sell it, and then head home by train.’
‘And now?’
‘Too risky, given we have no idea of the depth of what we are fighting. I’ll have to get rid of it and think of something else. You?’
‘I told you, Cal, I’m sticking like-’
‘I got it the first time.’
‘And you still intend to oversee the loading of the weapons?’
‘That is what I am contracted to do.’
Peter nodded, he had expected no less; in a game fraught with danger, the possibility of dying in the act was a given — in fact, no different to being a serving soldier. Then there was the problem of reputation, quite apart from any sentiment to the republican cause; running guns was as much Callum Jardine’s profession as intelligence gathering was that of Peter Lanchester. You just did not quit when the going got hard if you wanted to stay in the game.
Getting back into La Rochelle, Cal explained, presented little difficulty; they could walk into the suburbs and catch the bus. First the car had to be put behind some trees and then, while they were out of sight of the road, they had to clean themselves up using saliva, a handkerchief and the car’s mirror, though they could do nothing about the foul after-combat taste in their mouths.
Personal clean-ups completed, Peter went to work on the car in the same way he had on that La Rochelle apartment, wiping the steering wheel, door handles and all of the instruments and switches, removing all traces of their fingerprints, Cal watching him silently and in doing so was gifted a sudden realisation, brought about by what was happening now, added to the feeling of curiosity he had experienced prior to abandoning Peter’s apartment that morning.
Peter’s blazer was marked from where he had rolled across the road into the ditch, but apart from that he was more or less all right and a bit of hand brushing removed most of the dried muck. Cal was more scratched and bruised and his shoulder ached, while his shirt, quite apart from the stains, was ripped both at the elbows and the front, which left his companion unhappily lending him one of his spares.
‘Jermyn Street for you, old chum,’ Peter insisted, ‘the minute we get back to Blighty. I’ll be having a few items in replacement on your Turnbull amp; Asser account.’
Cal was not listening; he was crouched down breaking up the ZB26, laying the parts on the shirt he had just removed. ‘This will have to go in your case, Peter, I’m afraid.’
‘What!’ Peter demanded, looking over his shoulder from the tree against which he was pissing away the last of his two beers.
‘You don’t expect me to just leave it.’
‘Might I point out to you, old chum, that it is somewhat oily, and that shirt of yours is not going to stop it damaging the rest of my kit, not least my cream linen suit.’
‘Still got that knife of yours?’
‘I have.’
Passed over, Cal used it to cut out the upholstery from the back seat of the car, wrapping his broken-up weapon in that before closing the case and handing it over.
‘There you are, Peter, satisfied? Best I carry it, given what it contains. Now let’s get back onto the road and get walking till we find a bus stop.’
‘I’m curious as to how you are going to reconnect with your barge.’
‘So am I.’
The walk was not far, though in still-flat open country at once fraught with the fear that some of their recent opponents might appear. Once in a built-up area it became easier, and having found a stop, they took a hot and crowded bus marked Centre Ville into town.
There was a definite frisson in the air when they got there, people talking and gesticulating, a lot of gendarmes around and the ringing of the traffic-clearing bells of police cars, which forced them into the backstreets and a welcome drink in the dark recesses of a small, dingy and far-from-clean workers’ bar.
‘And to think I always equated you with luxurious living.’
‘We don’t know what connections these sods have, Peter, or yet how they got onto us.’
‘On to you, Cal,’ he replied, pedantically.
‘And I thought you wanted to be part of my gang.’ Cal joked, even if, deep down, he felt Peter to have been the cause of the problem.
‘Can’t afford the laundry bill, old chap, or the seamstress to repair the kit, and that says nothing for the catering.’
‘HMG doesn’t pay you enough.’
‘Understatement, Cal, they pay a pittance.’
