had certainly guessed he had betrayed him to them. He was afraid of McBride, even after he learned from Menschler that the three people they'd picked up had to be McBride, his wife, and Gilliatt.
Now, what had seemed so long ago, so unconnected with himself as the war progressed then peace followed and he was promoted, be-medalled, retired, grew prosperous — now, it was so omnipresent and so inescapable.
He increased his pace, as if thereby he might leave the past whispering like a group of guests he could abandon, there on the paved path by the sticks of the pruned hydrangeas. Nevertheless, the past pursued him, because Claire waited for him in the most shadowy parts of the garden and he could not bring himself to face her. What was she doing to McBride, just at that moment—?
He felt himself breathing shallowly and rapidly, but the noise was amplified in his ears, an aged roaring of protest at effort and emotional state. He turned back from the dark hedge at the bottom of the garden, ducking under the lowest branches of the apple trees he had planted soon after the death of his wife — the brief quiet guest in the house who had left him his daughter in his own image and then subsided into a harmless non-being — and feeling his old heart strain at that slight evocation of physical health and suppleness. When he straightened, the white house shimmered in the gloom and seemed very distant. He began to hurry towards it, feeling his chest constrict like an iron band about his lungs, and the old heart bump and shudder.
He looked around him, turning to and fro as if in a strange place, and the darkness of the garden pressed upon him, sidling closer, embracing him. His foot slipped on the edge of the paved path and his heel sank into soft dark earth. He even registered the crushing of next year's bulbs beneath the soil. Then his heart seemed to tear open, then collapse on itself like a dwarf star, drawing him into blackness. He teetered off-balance and slid sideways to the ground, his hands clutching air as if fighting off the approach of night.
The Oberst had had them removed to a barn on the edge of Lickowen and placed under guard — the Bavarian sergeant and the young Schutze who had first spotted them at the crossroads — while he contacted Menschler at Crosswinds Farm, his co-ordination HQ. The colonel seemed at a loss as to what to do with, or to them. He was a soldier, and when Menschler ordered him to interrogate the prisoners he felt a reluctance and incompetence grow in him all the way back to the shadowy barn in the misty drizzle. He felt cold and wet and full of forebodings.
Gilliatt watched the Oberst return and made an effort to smoke his cigarette in an unconcerned manner. The German parachute colonel seemed uncertain of himself or his task, and Gilliatt drew a quiet, sedative strength from the way in which the German approached him, adopted a swagger, tried to enforce himself upon his prisoner. He ignored McBride and Maureen, sitting side by side on a hay-bale a little apart from Gilliatt.
'How much do you know about our operations?' the Oberst asked.
Gilliatt smiled. 'A great deal, Colonel.' He spoke deliberately in German. 'The British government and the Admiralty have known about Emerald Necklace for some time. I myself was aboard one of the minesweepers when your channel was detected. We knew immediately what it was, what was intended—'
'So, where are your troops, where is the Irish army?' the colonel asked, regaining confidence.
Gilliatt shrugged. 'I'm not the military planner for this operation.'
'Who are you?'
'Lt Peter Gilliatt, Royal Naval Reserve.' The colonel seemed puzzled. 'Who are you, Colonel?'
'Why is a sailor here, dressed in civilian clothes?'
'Fishing holiday.' Gilliatt was amazed at his own confidence, born entirely out of their exchange. The Oberst struck him across the face, and Gilliatt's confidence crumbled because he had been too clever and the German officer was getting angry at his own impotence. Blood was warm and salty in his mouth. He wiped his lips, spat out the blood and saliva. The colonel seemed satisfied with the badge of his hurt.
'Don't be stupid. You're spying on us, mm? Who are these others?'
'Irish citizens — friends of mine.
'Spies?'
'In their own country — don't be stupid.' The colonel struck Gilliatt again, snapping his head up, tipping him backwards against stacked bales of hay where he lay drunkenly looking up at the German colonel. One of his back teeth felt loose, amid the blood from inside his cheek and from the dulled impressions of his bitten, swollen tongue. It angered him unreasoningly. The whole scene was a farce, anyway, comic-book Hun interrogating a prisoner, lots of master-race face-slapping — a charade whose reality he could not accept. He was telling the stupid Kraut everything — it was the reverse of the usual prisoner-interrogator scene anyway — and the silly man wanted to beat him up because his nice secret plan was up the spout. Gilliatt sat up, nursing his cheek and mouth.
'Listen, you stupid bloody Hun! I'm telling you what you want to know, can't you understand that? You've been rumbled, your lovely secret plan isn't a secret any more. I don't know what the British government is doing about it, but by now you can be sure they know you've landed. So, I should get down to the beaches and wait for tonight and see what turns up!'
He fell back against the bales, exhausted by his outburst. The parachute colonel stood in front of him, mouth agape and hands at his sides, for a long time. Then he turned on his heel and stamped out of the barn. Gilliatt shook his head, probing at the back tooth. Definitely loose. Damn. He looked up, to find the Bavarian sergeant laughing. When Gilliatt looked at him, he closed up his face again.
Maureen moved across to him, touching his face gently, staring into his eyes regretfully and with admonition behind that. In a moment, she might be scolding him like a child.
'I'm all right,' he said thickly, turning his head aside to spit out more blood.
'Open your mouth,' she ordered. He did so. She inspected it, then nodded. 'You'll live.' Her eyes, however, were more tender than her voice. McBride stood behind her.
'How am I doing?' Gilliatt asked softly.
'Brilliantly, if you want to get us all shot,' McBride replied. Gilliatt smiled painfully. His lips were puffing out now from the colonel's blows. 'I can see your point, but will it do any good?'
'It might. Have you any ideas?' Gilliatt watched the Bavarian sergeant, moving slowly closer now that their voices were quiet and they were speaking in English.
'I'm going to get out of here, fairly soon. Tonight at the latest,' McBride remarked, squatting next to his wife and staring abstractedly at the strewn, crushed hay between his feet. Maureen looked viperously at him.
'You're mad, the pair of you,' she breathed angrily. 'You'll get yourselves killed, why not accept it? You are out of the stupid, dangerous game.' She stood up, looking the Bavarian sergeant up and down. 'Men!' she snorted contemptuously. 'Little boys playing soldiers!'
The German was nonplussed. She walked away from him, arms folded across her breasts, her steps strutting and angry. Gilliatt watched her, grateful for her angry solicitousness. When he looked into McBride's eyes, there was a recognition between them. McBride's face narrowed in anger.
'You want Drummond, don't you? That's all you want, isn't it?' McBride grinned savagely, and nodded. 'You don't even know he had anything to do with the Germans, dammit! What's the matter with you?'
McBride seemed compelled to consider the question that was only intended as an insult. After a moment, he said, 'I don't know. I wonder at what I'm finding out about myself — you know that? I'm not too fond of it.'
'Stop it, then.'
McBride shook his head. 'No, I won't do that, Peter. I find it strangely satisfying.' He saw Gilliatt looking beyond him, at Maureen. 'Strange,' he said, as if he had been asked another question. 'I don't even regret Maureen all that much. I feel — under the anaesthetic, maybe.'
Gilliatt was puzzled, and appalled. Then the mood was broken by the sound of a small car approaching the barn. They listened, McBride's face contracting and expanding almost as if the muscles beneath the skin were breathing heavily. Gilliatt looked up as the car door slammed and there were footsteps across the yard outside. McBride evidently expected Drummond.
The man who stepped through the door had the raincoat and cap of one of their pursuers. It might have been another man, but he was certainly Irish. IRA. He grinned as McBride turned and looked at him. The two men recognized each other.
When McBride turned away again, Gilliatt said, 'Who is he?'
'Riordan — he runs the Ross Carbery and district chapter. He probably shot Maureen's Da, or had him shot. If he's left to guard us, then God help him.' McBride's hands clenched and unclenched. Gilliatt felt distanced from
