Night of the Fox

‘That the whole thing has been a deliberate ploy so that I can make a snap inspection of the military situation in the island and its defenses.’

‘That’s really rather clever,’ Hofer said.

‘Yes, I think it is.’ Rommel started to unbutton his tunic. ‘In the meantime, I’ll meet with Falkenhausen and Stulpnagel at some quiet spot and get on with it.’ He yawned. ‘I think I’ll go to bed. See that signal goes to von Schmettow in Guernsey tomorrow. Oh, and speak to Colonel Halder first thing in the morning. Tell him I’m much taken with Corporal Berger and want to borrow him for a while. I don’t think he’ll make any difficulties.’

‘I doubt it, Herr Field Marshal,’ Hofer said. ‘Sleep well,’ and he went out.

Dougal Munro slept on a small military bed in the corner of his office at Baker Street that night. It was about three o’clock in the morning when Jack Carter shook him gently awake. Munro opened his eyes instantly and sat up. ‘What is it?’

‘Latest lists from Slapton, sir. You asked to see them. Still over a hundred bodies missing.’

‘And no sign of Kelso?’

‘I’m afraid not. General Montgomery isn’t too happy, but he has had an assurance from the Navy that the E-boats couldn’t have picked survivors up. They were too far away.’

‘The trouble with life, Jack, is that the moment someone tells you something is impossible, someone else promptly proves that it isn’t. What time is first light?’

‘Just before six. That should make a big difference to the final search.’

‘Order a car for eight o’clock. We’ll take a run down to Slapton and see for ourselves.’

‘Very well, sir. Are you going back to sleep?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ Munro stood up and stretched. ‘Think I’ll catch up on some paperwork. No peace for the wicked in this life, Jack.’

At six o’clock on that same morning, Kelso came awake from a strange dream in which some primeval creature was calling to him from a great distance. He was very, very cold, feet and hands numb, and yet his face burned and there was sweat on his forehead.

He unzipped the flap and peered out into the gray light of dawn, not that there was anything much to see for he was shrouded in a sea fog of considerable density. Somewhere in the distance, the beast called again, only now he recognized it for what it was – a foghorn. Although he didn’t know it, it was the Corbiere Light on the tip of the southernmost coast of Jersey, already behind him as the current swept him along. He sensed land, could almost smell it and, for a little while, came back to life again.

He could hear waves breaking on an unseen shore, and then the wind tore a hole in the curtain and he glimpsed cliffs, concrete gun emplacements on top. The place, although it meant nothing to Kelso, was Noirmont Point, and as the sea fog dropped back into place, the current carried him into St Aubin’s Bay, close inshore.

There were waves taking him in, strange, twisting currents carrying him round. At one side, a wave broke sending spray high in the air, and all around him was white foam, rocks showing through. And then there was a voice, high and clear, and the fog rolled away to reveal a small beach, rocks climbing steeply to a pine wood above. There was someone there, a man running along the shore, in woolen cap, heavy reefer coat and rubber boots.

The life raft slewed broadside in the surf, lifted high and smashed against rocks, pitching Kelso headfirst through the flap into the water. He tried to stand up, his scream as his right leg collapsed under him drowned by the roaring of the surf, and then the man was knee-deep in water, holding him. It was only then that he realized it was a woman.

‘All right, I’ve got you. Just hang on.’

‘Leg,’ he mumbled. ‘Leg broken.’

He wasn’t sure what happened after that, and he came to in the shelter of some rocks. The woman was dragging the landing craft out of the water. When he tried to sit up, she turned and came toward him. Kelso said as she knelt down, ‘Where am I, France?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Jersey.’

He closed his eyes for a moment and shivered. ‘You’re British, then?’

‘I should hope so. The last I heard of my husband, he was a major in the Tanks Corps serving in the Western Desert. My name’s Helen de Ville.’

‘Colonel Hugh Kelso.’

‘American Air Force, I suppose? Where did your plane come down?’

‘It didn’t. I’m an army officer.’

‘An army officer? But that doesn’t make sense. Where on earth have you come from?’

‘England. I’m a survivor of a ship that was torpedoed in Lyme Bay.’ He groaned suddenly as pain knifed through his leg and almost lost his senses.

She opened his torn trouser leg and frowned. ‘That’s terrible. You’ll have to go to hospital.’

‘Will that mean Germans?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

He clutched at the front of her reefer coat. ‘No – no Germans.’

She eased him back down. ‘Just lie still. I’m going to leave you for a little while. I’m going to need a cart.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But no Germans. They mustn’t get their hands on me. You must promise. If you can’t do that, then you must kill me. See, there’s a Browning pistol here.’

He plucked at it and she leaned over him, face set, and took the pistol from its holster on his left thigh. ‘You’re not going to die and the Jerries aren’t going to have you either – that’s the only promise I’m prepared to give. Now wait for me.’

She slipped the pistol into her pocket, turned and hurried away. He lay there on that fog-shrouded shore, trying to get his bearings, and then the leg started to hurt again and he remembered the morphine in the emergency kit. He began to crawl toward the life raft. That, of course, was very definitely the final straw, and he plunged into darkness.

4 (#ulink_f2fb788b-a15d-5d4d-93c6-7da1690e9d16)

Helen de Ville left the cart track which was the usual way down to the beach and took a shortcut, scrambling up the steep hillside through the pine trees. She was strong and wiry, not surprising after four years of enemy occupation and the food restrictions that had caused her to lose nearly thirty pounds in weight. She often joked that it had given her back the figure she’d enjoyed at eighteen, an unlooked-for bonus at forty-two. And like most people, the lack of a car and a public transport system meant she was used to walking many miles each week.

She stood at the edge of the trees and looked across at the house. De Ville Place was not one of the largest manors on the island. It had been once in days of family glory, but a disastrous fire at the end of the nineteenth century had destroyed one entire wing. It was very old, constructed of Jersey granite weathered by the years. There were rows of French windows at the front on either side of the entrance, a granite wall dividing the house from a courtyard at one side.

She paused, taking her time, for there was an old Morris sedan parked in the courtyard, one of those requisitioned by the enemy. For two years now she’d had German naval officers billeted on her. They came and went, of course, sometimes staying only a night or two when E-boats of the 5th Schnellboote Flotilla came over from Guernsey.

Mostly they were regulars, young officers serving with various naval units based in Jersey. The war took its toll. There were often engagements with British MTBs in the area of the Channel Islands, and the RAF frequently attacked convoys to Granville, St Malo and Cherbourg, even when they made a night run. Men died, but some survived. As she started across the lawn, the door opened and one of them came out.

He wore a white sweater, old reefer coat and seaboots and carried a duffel bag in one hand. The face beneath the salt-stained naval cap was good-humored and recklessly handsome. A bravo, this one, straight out of the sixteenth century, who wore a white top to his cap, usually an affectation of German U-boat commanders, but then Lieutenant Guido Orsini was a law unto himself, an Italian on secondment to the German Navy, trapped in the wrong place at entirely the wrong time when the Italian government had capitulated. Helen de Ville had long since given up pretending that she felt anything but considerable affection for him.

‘Morning, Guido.’

‘Helen, cara mia.’ He blew her a kiss. ‘I’m the last, as usual.’

‘Where to today?’

‘Granville. Should be fun in this fog. On the other hand, it keeps the Tommies at home. Back tomorrow. Do you want to go into St Helier? Can I give you a lift?’

‘No thanks. I’m looking for Sean.’

‘I saw the good General not ten minutes ago coming out of the south barn with a felling axe and walking down toward his cottage. See you tomorrow. I must fly. Ciao, cara.’

He went through the small gate to the courtyard. A moment later, she heard the Morris start up and drive away. She crossed the courtyard herself, went through a field gate and ran along the track through trees. Sean Gallagher’s cottage stood by a stream in a hollow. She could see him now in old corduroy pants and riding boots, the sleeves of the checked shirt rolled up above muscular arms as he split logs.