Emerald Decision

'Move,' the Unterfeldwebel snapped, pointing with the gun. McBride hesitated, knowing that the direction they now took meant everything. The enormous consequences of going on towards the blockhouse, of the arrest of Perros, Gilliatt and the crew which would follow, the investigation of their papers, the questions — all trying to break through the mental barriers erected to help him operate on the thin surface of these successive moments. He shrugged. The Unterfeldwebel poked the barrel of the gun in his stomach, then turned him round with a slap from the machine-pistol against his side. They were going to look at the fishing smack.

'What do you think?' the Pioner asked in German as the two soldiers walked behind him, a couple of feet back, hunching into the suddenly stronger wind.

'Who knows? He doesn't look like much, does he?'

'I'll look at the engine,' the Pioner said confidently, and McBride prayed that Perros's cousin below decks would be able to bluff it out.

'Jean! Jean!' McBride called out, waving his arms as he caught sight of the ropes and the smack bobbing slowly, grindingly against the breakwater.

'Shut up, you!' the Unterfeldwebel snapped.

McBride saw Gilliatt in the stern, his face white and watchful — too watchful and not frightened enough, McBride told himself. Claude was with him, the others not in sight. Claude crossed to the hatch, and yelled down it to his father. By the time the two Germans were standing on the edge of the wall, looking down, Perros was emerging through the hatch, wiping oily hands on a filthy rag and smoking the last inch of a cigarette. McBride was grateful for his nonchalance. Gilliatt kept on watching the two soldiers, one hand close to his pocket where the gun nestled. McBride realized he did not know whether Gilliatt could bluff it out, or would panic and start firing.

'You there, you the captain of this tub?'

'It is my family's boat,' Perros replied, riding with the awkward swell, bobbing up towards them and away. He kept rubbing his hands.

'What's wrong with your engine? Why are you fishing at this time of day?'

Perros shrugged. 'We're not fishing, sergeant. We came out to test the engine, and — phut!' Perros raised his arms in the air, dissipating the engine's power. 'We tied up — I sent Henri there to inform you. Don't want trouble—' He grinned.

'We'll go down,' the Unterfeldwebel said, nudging McBride with the machine-pistol. Then he raised his voice. 'We're coming aboard.' Perros shrugged.

They went down the steps, and McBride sensed the two Germans were suddenly hesitant, whether because of the water or the fact they were outnumbered on the boat he could not tell. They prodded McBride to jump first. He waited until the smack's bow swung up towards him, then jumped the gap of grey water, skidding on the wet deck, then standing upright.

One of the Germans, the Pioner, stumbled badly, but recovered, but the sergeant landed easily and confidently. The guns were immediately emphatic, dominant as soon as they were sure of their footing.

'Show him the engine,' the sergeant ordered Perros when they had moved to the stern of the smack. Again, Perros shrugged. The sapper ducked his head, disappearing behind Perros into the tiny engine-room. 'You — papers!'

McBride reached in his pocket, pulled out his forged ID card, radon book, worker-registration document and his demobilization docket. The Unterfeldwebel studied them. McBride watched Gilliatt carefully, trying to assess his mood. His face was very pale, his hand closer to his pocket. The sergeant handed back McBride's papers, then held out his hand to Gilliatt. McBride watched, saw the flicker of one eyelid, the grimace of Gilliatt's mouth — then he was handing his papers to the German.

Then Claude's papers were checked. The sergeant seemed frustrated, but perhaps he was only angry with them for wasting his time, making him cold. Suddenly, the engine coughed into life. Claude cheered. The Pioner emerged, wiping his hands on Perros's rag, a smear of oil on his cheek.

'The bloody French don't understand engines,' he said in German. 'Filthy. Fuel-feed was blocked with muck!' He slapped the rag into Perros's hand, who had followed him up from the engine-room. He tossed his head in mock-disgust.

'Thank you,' Perros said. The engine was running smoothly. 'May we cast off now?'

'Very well, and keep clear in future.'

'Henri—' Perros indicated, and McBride went forward again with the two soldiers. They jumped clumsily, but safely, to the steps, and McBride followed them up onto the breakwater. Here, they left him immediately, as if he might ask them to assist him.

He cast off the ropes, trotted down the steps, and jumped again for the deck. As he landed, he felt his legs go, and he sat down heavily. He was unable to move for a while, and Gilliatt came forward to check on him.

'You all right?' McBride nodded. The two Germans were thirty yards along the breakwater, watching the smack chug away towards the point.' Thank God for that!' All Gilliatt's suppressed fears were in the words.

'It's all right, Peter. OK.'

'What?'

'The U-boats are there — and those guards are from elite units, guarding them.' McBride grinned. 'We know now. It's on, and it's soon—'

'How long?'

'Two or three days, I estimate.'

'My God—'

'Ask Him to keep the weather bad — it might slow them down, or make the U-boats travel below the surface.'

'You're sure, aren't you?' McBride nodded. 'Hell.'

'You might be right there — give me a hand up.' Gilliatt pulled McBride to his feet. 'What worries me is the Fallschirmjaeger. What the hell is their timetable?'

October 198-

Sansom Street was old, narrow and dark. It lurked off the Farringdon Road in Clerkenwell. McBride had taken a taxi from the Portman Hotel after collecting his cassette-recorder. Claire Drummond had not been in her room, and he was almost thankful not to be further delayed by talking to her, explaining why he was going out again. He booked a table for eight-thirty in the hotel restaurant, scribbled her a note, and left. It was seven-thirty now, and the weather was damply chill, misty around the streetlamps. McBride paid off the taxi, and studied the house that was number twenty-two.

He felt the faint tremor of a tube train passing beneath the street on the Piccadilly Line. The house had three steps up to a dilapidated porch, rusty iron railings protecting scrubby remnants of grass and a few overgrown plant-pots. It looked singularly uninviting, and McBride checked Hoskins' card again, nodding reluctantly to himself to confirm the address. Sansom Street was a narrow cut-through to Saffron Hill, something to be driven through as a shortcut or used as a car park. McBride went up to the steps.

Three apartments — flats, he corrected himself. Probably no larger than what the British called bed-sits. He studied the names inserted on weathered card no longer white — Hoskins, the Mister placed assertively before it. Initials, I.T. The other cards bore only surnames, one of them written in by the present tenant over the deleted name of a former occupier — Paid. He could smell the curry through the door. He rang Hoskins' bell.

McBride felt that sadness that assails the well-off or the successful when confronted with the complete and utter ordinariness of other people's lives. Tears pricked behind his eyes at the seediness of Sansom Street, the darkness behind the cracked, dirty ornamental glass in the front door, the quarry tiles of the porch, the dulled brass doorstep. He almost felt cold assailing him from the house's interior. He dismissed the emotion, knowing it was entirely patronizing, secretly self-congratulatory, and rang the bell again.

He was getting cold. He rang more impatiently, keeping his thumb on the bell, all his impatience now emerging as irritation with Hoskins.

Come on, come on—

A light on in the hallway, a shadow behind the glass. The door opened, and McBride was confronted by a short, thin Indian in shirt-sleeves and a patterned pullover. And a turban.

'Yes? Mr Hoskins' bell, yes?' McBride nodded. 'Sita — my wife — she heard Mr Hoskins come in, with a