A Game for Heroes

Joe St Martin got to his feet and leaned heavily on the table, his eyes wild. ‘I hope they get you, Owen Morgan. I hope they leave you hanging on the wire for the gulls to finish off.’

‘It’s certainly a thought,’ I said and went back into the house, taking the maps with me.

I could hear voices as I approached the parlour, the door being ajar. Grant was speaking in the kind of voice senior NCO’s in the Guards Brigade keep for those few occasions when they find themselves on some kind of social footing with one of their own senior officers. Good hearty man-to-man stuff with just the right touch of deference from someone who knows his place.

‘Funny kind of set-up, sir,’ he was saying. ‘Colonel Morgan.’ There was just the right small laugh, nicely judged. ‘Well, sir, not like the old days when I was in the Scots Guards, I can tell you. He wouldn’t have fitted in at all.’

He had made a very bad mistake. Fitzgerald’s voice was like ice-water. ‘Grant, if I ever hear you discuss Colonel Morgan or any other officer in those terms again in my hearing, I’ll break you, understand? Now get out of here and wait for me in the car.’

‘Sir!’ Grant’s voice rebounded from the walls and I could picture the salute as his foot stamped in hard. He came through the door, swerved to one side and saluted me on the way past. It was all very un-American.

Fitzgerald was standing at the window, and turned as I entered. ‘Did you find the Scotch all right?’ I asked as I spread the maps on the table.

‘Indeed I did, sir.’ He came forward, his swagger stick under one arm, hands behind his back.

I went to the sideboard and opened a bottle. ‘Care for another?’

‘No thank you.’

‘Suit yourself. How does a Highland Scot come to be in the American Army?’

‘Grant?’ He shrugged. ‘He was a regular soldier in your own Army for a while – Scots Guards. Bought himself out and turned prizefighter. Took out American nationality just before the war.’

‘Is he any good?’

It was as if I’d made an improper suggestion. ‘A first-rate fighting man,’ he said, a touch of indignation in his voice.

‘All right, no need to get emotional about it.’ I half-filled a tumbler and carried it over to the table as Henry appeared. ‘Right, let’s get down to it! I’ll have a look at your orders now, Major.’

He produced them without a murmur and I read them through briefly. They closely resembled my own and particularly stressed the really important things. That my mission was to take precedence over his, that on no account was he to land or look for unnecessary trouble and that in any extreme situation he was to turn to me for orders.

‘You’ve read this thoroughly and understand it?’

He nodded. ‘Perfectly.’

I dropped it into the fire and returned to chart and the map. ‘I know these waters like the back of my hand, Major, which is rather important because they’re a death trap and the orders you’ve been given would have very probably been the end of you and your men.’

Henry stared at me in astonishment, but Fitzgerald took it rather well and waited patiently for me to continue. ‘On completion of your mission, you’re supposed to leave the harbour, paddle due east one mile and signal for the pick-up.’

‘That’s right.’

I shook my head. ‘If you do, they’ll wait all night and never see you.’ I ran my finger along the water off the northern edge of the island. ‘See that, Major, Le Coursier – The Mill-Race. A hell of a place at the best of times, but when the tide starts to ebb, you’ll get a ten knot current that’ll take your light canoes in its grip and never let go until it smashes you to a pulp against the cliffs on the east coast!’

‘I see,’ He nodded gravely. ‘What would you suggest as an alternative?’

‘Once out of harbour, turn south round Fort Windsor, then follow the coastline till you come to here.’ I tapped the spot with my finger. ‘Which is where I’m being picked up.’

Fitzgerald examined the map for a moment. ‘I’d say it’s an improvement. We’ll save time on the pick-up all round.’

‘That’s settled then.’ I folded the maps and gave them to Henry. ‘All yours, Henry. When do you want me to come up to town?’

‘No need for that, Owen. Falmouth tomorrow night. I’ll send a car. You’ll leave at noon the following day.’

‘That suits me. The sooner the better now that we know what we’re doing.’

‘Good, I think that’s everything.’ Henry put the maps into his brief-case. ‘We’ll be off. I’ll just make my farewells to Mrs Barton.’

He moved out and Fitzgerald started to follow, then hesitated, strangely awkward. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but the painting above the fireplace there. It really is quite extraordinary, but I couldn’t make a great deal of sense out of the signature.’

‘You wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘It’s in Welsh. An affectation of the painter.’

‘I see. It’s remarkable – quite remarkable. If there was ever any chance that you were considering selling …’

I looked up into the steady grey eyes of the woman in the picture and she seemed to be about to speak to me as she always did. I shook my head. ‘I hardly think so. I’m glad you like it though. It’s a painting of my mother done the month before my father was killed. The best thing he ever did which is saying a great deal, Major Fitzgerald.’

There was a silence that for some reason, grated on me. It occurred to me that he was perhaps attempting to make some kind of gesture. I know now that I misjudged him badly.

‘Just one thing before you go,’ I said. ‘No boy scout stuff on this one, no fancy heroics. You’ve got all the medals you’ll ever need to impress them back home.’

His face went very pale for a moment, there was something like pain in his eyes. He took a deep breath, adjusted his forage cap and saluted formally.

‘May I have the colonel’s permission to leave?’

‘Oh, go on, damn you, get out of it!’ I said sourly and he saluted again, face grave and left.

I could imagine now how Burgoyne must have felt at Saratoga.

I was in no mood to face Mary after that and went out quietly through the garden. I spent the afternoon walking rather aimlessly along the cliffs, thinking about it all and didn’t return to the house till early evening.

There was no sign of her and I went out to the verandah. The sky was every shade of flame, orange and purple, the sun dropping vast beyond the rim of the world and there was silence as dusk fell, everything black, etched against flame.

Ravens, seven of them perched on the roof of the old summer-house. A sign, surely, a portent, but of what, I could not be sure. That was the writer in me, the part of me that wanted things to happen for a reason, to have a sequence to them, some meaning.

There was a stirring in the darkness and Mary said, ‘Can you tell me about it?’