Emerald Decision

'No. No accident. Drummond wants us dead.' Again the accent. Gilliatt wanted to side with Drummond, a man he had never met but who was a naval officer working undercover in that alien country. Hatred. It chilled him.

'Let's get out of here. Which way — to where?' Gilliatt felt alone, exposed and vulnerable as if he had walked into some disputed territory.

'Drummond—'

'No, God damn you! Your place — how far is it from here?'

'Twenty miles.'

Gilliatt looked out to sea, towards the direction in which the ML had disappeared. Vulnerability soughed against him like the chilly wind, and McBride's shaking transmitted itself like fear.

'We'll have to make it, then, won't we?' he said abruptly.

McBride studied his hanging arm. He could feel, through the pain, the binding Gilliatt had applied, realizing at the same moment that it was part of his shirt. He touched his head, felt the blood congealing at the hairline, then dismissed the wound.

'OK, skipper. My place—' He broke off, distracted, then he murmured: 'Maureen—'

'What did you say?'

'My wife.'

'You think she's—?'

'Drummond's not such a fool. Waste of effort. Come on, then.' McBride had dismissed any fears on behalf of his wife, but he could not disguise the determination that fear had lent him. Gilliatt let go of his arm. 'We're going to be running from this moment, Peter.'

Gilliatt hesitated, as if the first step might be the most dangerous.

'What do you mean?'

'I mean you can forget the job we're supposed to do, forget the mission—' He almost spat out the word. 'Forget anything except staying alive.'

'Don't be hysterical.'

'Hysterical?' McBride moved the couple of paces that separated them. 'Drummond must have been helping our friends across the Channel for a long time. If he had — and he has — then he's in with the IRA as well. Don't you understand? Drummond set up this ambush. Where is he, eh? Waiting at his bloody farm for news of our tragic demise, Peter! He'll want to finish us off now not because of the Germans, but because we know about him. He's been sitting in Ireland for the last few years with plenty of time to despise Chamberlain and plenty of time to be impressed by the Fuhrer. Perhaps you can't live in this God-forsaken country without hating the British! Look, I know Drummond wants us dead. If you don't believe it, then just act as if you do. It might save your life. What's that?'

'A car?'

Both men strained to listen. The wind whipped the sound away from them, then lulled so that they could hear the almost-silence of a car engine just turning over, then being switched off.

The silence menaced them.

'The track is over there,' McBride whispered, pointing north to a line of pencilled blackness. A hedge, Gilliatt supposed. The moon disappeared behind more blown cloud. 'Cut across this way.'

McBride moved off the path they had been following up from the beach, climbing heavily into then out of the ditch, breathing stertorously. Gilliatt jumped the ditch, caught up with him. McBride dragged himself stubbornly, angrily through a gap in the thorny hedge, and Gilliatt followed him more cautiously, snagging his coat and hands. Then they heard Drummond's call from no more than thirty yards away.

'Michael? Michael, are you all right?'

Gilliatt was about to comment when McBride pulled him roughly down beside him into the shadow of the hedge.

'Shut up!' McBride whispered savagely, glaring into Gilliatt's face.

'But—'

'Shut up, damn you!'

Again, Gilliatt sensed the distance between them like an uncrossable gulf, aware of nationalities which dictated their individuality, governed it. Drummond's English tones again, then, a further assertion that Gilliatt was somehow on the wrong side in a war not of his choosing.

'Michael?' They could hear his footsteps now, coming down the track to the beach. 'Michael — where are you?' There was no hesitation and no fear in the footsteps. Gilliatt saw Drummond's form through the hedge, passing them. He listened until the footsteps stopped by the dead body. A low whistle of surprise, a grunt as Drummond got to his feet again. 'Michael?'

Gilliatt realized that McBride had his revolver in his good hand, saw his implacable face.

Gilliatt grabbed McBride's gun hand, and the Irishman looked at him with unconcealed hatred in his eyes. Gilliatt looked back at Drummond, who was casting about for any sign of them. He wanted to stand up, call out to Drummond and disprove McBride's wild suspicions. But he felt the quiver of hate running through McBride's frame, and Drummond was little more than a dark upright shadow and there was a dead IRA man on the ground only yards from them, and the impression of danger was so omnipresent that he remained silent.

Drummond hurried away, back up the track. McBride immediately got to his feet, as if to pursue him. Gilliatt stood up.

'Are we going after him?'

McBride seemed to debate the matter, then shook his head. 'No. Not yet. He's got too many helpers.'

Drummond's treachery seemed improbable, McBride's suspicions delirious. 'What do we do, then?'

'No night for us to be walking the countryside,' McBride said, grinning, leaning into Gilliatt's face. 'We'll try the beach. The tide's out, we can cross the inlet to Harbour View, maybe walk all the way to Timoleague before we join the Clonakilty road.'

'Can you make it?' Gilliatt already knew the answer.

'Oh, don't worry about me. I'm not going to die just yet. I have to see a man about a coffin and a funeral service. Come on, let's get back down to the beach before the moon comes out again.'

McBride squeezed roughly back through the hedge, and Gilliatt hesitated for a moment, in the grip of a momentous, undeniable reluctance. Then fear came with a sudden chill blast of wind, and he hurried after McBride.

* * *

The First Sea Lord Turned from the tall window of his spacious office in the Admiralty, hands still behind his back. He had been looking across St James's Park to a smudge on the grey horizon which was the last sky-writing of the previous evening's Luftwaffe raid. The smoke over Battersea worked powerfully upon his imagination, suggesting the necessity of the man Walsingham's proposal, Emerald, while it also seemed some kind of prophetic warning, a commandment rather than a sign to follow. He unclenched his hands, then attended to March and Walsingham, who sat on the other side of his massive desk. The long room that was his office seemed to press around him once he turned from the window, almost threatening in the dull gleam of morning light from the polished dark wood and the book-shelves. The high light ceiling seemed lower. Conspiracy had entered the room. The ranks of portraits on the walls seemed to frown with disturbing unanimity. The First Sea Lord consciously did not glance in the direction of Nelson's portrait, above the fireplace.

'Commander Walsingham, while I accept the evidence you have so assiduously amassed, and believe that the Germans plan to mount an invasion of the Irish Republic—' He glanced swiftly and keenly at Walsingham, seeing the quick passage of emotion on the man's face before he gained control of his features and they reassumed their non-committal tightness. Then his eyes, as he continued speaking, wandered again over the dark wood in the room. The light often made the wood translucent and alive, but now only depths were suggested, the absorption of light. 'But I cannot recommend to the War Cabinet the suggestion contained in your Emerald file. I shall, however, request a meeting with the Prime Minister later today, and I am certain the evidence you have presented will be discussed in full Cabinet either today or tomorrow.'

The hour-long meeting was suddenly over. The First Sea Lord felt no relief, for immediately he finished speaking the full weight of Walsingham's evidence seemed to settle on his shoulders. The man's solution was unthinkable—