'What else can we do?'
'We can't win.'
Radl's good hand was clenched into a fist, he was filled with nervous excitement. 'But we can force them to change their views. See that some sort of settlement is better than this continual slaughter.'
'And knocking off Churchill would help?' Steiner said with obvious scepticism.
'It would show them we still have teeth. Look at the furore when Skorzeny lifted Mussolini off the Gran Sasso. A sensation all over the world.'
Steiner said, 'As I heard it, General Student and a few paratroopers had a hand in that as well.'
'For God's sake,' Radl said impatiently. 'Imagine how it would look. German troops dropping into England for one thing, but with such a target. Of course, perhaps you don't think it could be done.'
'I don't see why not,' Steiner said calmly. 'If those papers I've just looked at are accurate and if you've done your homework correctly, the whole thing could go like a Swiss watch. We could really catch the Tommis with their pants down. In and out again before they know what's hit them, but that isn't the point.'
'What is?' demanded Radl. completely exasperated. 'Is thumbing your nose at the Fuhrer more important because of your court martial? Because you're here? Steiner, you and your men are dead men if you stay here. Thirty-one of you eight weeks ago. How many left - fifteen? You owe it to your men, to yourself, to take this last chance to live.'
'Or die in England instead.'
Radl shrugged. 'Straight in, straight out, that's the way it could go. Just like a Swiss watch, you said that yourself.'
'And the terrible thing about those is that if anything goes wrong with even the tiniest part, the whole damn thing stops working,' Devlin put in.
Steiner said, 'Well put, Mr Devlin. Tell me something. Why are you going?'
'Simple,' Devlin said. 'Because it's there. I'm the last of the great adventurers.'
'Excellent,' Steiner laughed delightedly. 'Now that, I can accept. To play the game. The greatest game of all. But it doesn't help, you see,' he went on. 'Colonel Radl here tells me that I owe it to my men to do the thing because it is a way out from certain death here. Now, to be perfectly frank with you, I don't think I owe anything to anybody.'
'Not even your father?' Radl said.
There was a silence, only the sea washing over the rocks below. Steiner's face turned pale, the skin stretched tight on the cheekbones, eyes dark. 'All right, tell me.'
'The Gestapo have him at Prinz Albrechstrasse. Suspicion of treason.'
And Steiner, remembering the week he had spent at his father's headquarters in France in 'forty-two, remembering what the old man had said, knew instantly that it was true.
'Ah, I see now,' he said softly. 'If I'm a good boy and do as I'm told, it would help his case.' Suddenly his face changed and he looked about as dangerous as any man could and when he reached for Radl, it was in a kind of slow motion. 'You bastard. All of you, bastards.'
He had Radl by the throat. Devlin moved in fast and found that it took all his considerable strength to pull him off. 'Not him, you fool. He's under the boot as much as you. You want to shoot somebody, shoot Himmler. He's the man you want.'
Radl fought to get his breath and leaned against the parapet, looking very ill. 'I'm sorry,' Steiner put a hand on his shoulder in genuine concern. 'I should have known.'
Radl raised his dead hand. 'See this, Steiner, and the eye? And other damage that you can't see. Two years if I'm lucky, that's what they tell me. Not for me. For my wife and daughters because I wake up at night sweating at the thought of what might happen to them. That's why I'm here.'
Steiner nodded slowly. 'Yes, of course, I understand. We're all up the same dark alley looking for a way out.' He took a deep breath. 'All right, we'll go back. I'll put it to the lads.'
'Not the target,' Radl said. 'Not at this stage.'
'The destination then. They're entitled to know that. As for the rest - I'll only discuss it with Neumann for the moment.'
He started to walk away and Radl said, 'Steiner, I must be honest with you.' Steiner turned to face him. 'In spite of everything I've said, I also think it's worth a try, this thing. All right, as Devlin says, getting Churchill, alive or dead, isn't going to win us the war, but perhaps it will give them a shake. Make them think again about a negotiated peace.'
Steiner said, 'My dear Radl, if you believe that you'll believe anything. I'll tell you what this affair, even if it's successful, will buy you from the British. Damn all!'
He turned and walked away along the jetty.
.
The saloon bar was full of smoke. Hans Altmann was playing the piano and the rest of the men were crowded round Ilse, who was sitting at the bar, a glass of gin in one hand, recounting a slightly unsavoury story current in high society and relevant only to Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering's love life, such as it was. There was a burst of laughter as Steiner entered the room followed by Radl and Devlin. Steiner surveyed the scene in astonishment, particularly the array of bottles on the bar counter. 'What the hell's going on here?'
The men eased away from the bar, Ritter Neumann, who was standing behind it with Brandt said, 'Altmann found a trap door under that old rush mat behind the bar this morning, sir, and a cellar below that we didn't know about. Two parcels of cigarettes not even unwrapped. Five thousand in each.' He waved a hand along the counter. 'Gordon's gin, Beefeater, White Horse Scotch Whisky, Haig and Haig.' He picked up a bottle and spelled out the English with difficulty. 'Bushmills Irish Whiskey, Pot distilled.'
Liam Devlin gave a howl of delight and grabbed it from him. 'I'll shoot the first man that touches a drop,' he declared. 'I swear it. It's all for me.'
There was a general laugh and Steiner calmed them with a raised hand. 'Steady down, there's something to discuss. Business.' He turned to Ilse Neuhoff. 'Sorry, my love, but this is top security.'
She was enough of a soldier's wife not to argue. 'I'll wait outside. But I refuse to let that gin out of my sight.' She exited, the bottle of Beefeater in one hand, her glass in the other.
There was silence, now, in the saloon bar, everyone suddenly sober, waiting to hear what he had to say. 'It's simple,' Steiner told them. 'There's a chance to get out of here. A special mission.'
'Doing what, Herr Oberst?' Sergeant Altmann asked.
'Your old trade. What you were trained to do.'
There was an instant reaction, a buzz of excitement. Someone whispered, 'Does that mean we'll be jumping again?'
'That's exactly what I mean,' Steiner said. 'But it's volunteers only. A personal decision for every man here.'
'Russia, Herr Oberst?' Brandt asked.
Steiner shook his head. 'Somewhere no German solider has ever fought.' The faces were full of curiosity, tight, expectant as he looked from one to the other. 'How many of you speak English?' he asked softly.
There was a stunned silence and Ritter Neumann so far forgot himself as to say in a hoarse voice. 'For God's sake, Kurt, you've got to be joking.'
Steiner shook his head. 'I've never been more serious. What I tell you now is top secret, naturally. To be brief, in approximately five weeks we'd be expected to do a night drop over a very isolated part of the English coast across the North Sea from Holland. If everything went according to plan we'd be taken off again the following night.'
'And if not?' Neumann said.
'You'd be dead, naturally, so it wouldn't matter.' He looked around the room. 'Anything else?'
'Can we be told the purpose of the mission, Herr Oberst?' Altmann asked.
'The same sort of thing Skorzeny and those lads of the Paratroop School Battalion pulled at Gran Sasso. That's all I can say.'
'Well, it's enough for me.' Brandt glared around the room. 'If we go, we might die, if we stay here we die for certain. If you go - we go.'
'I agree,' Ritter Neumann echoed and snapped to attention.
Every man in the room followed suit. Steiner stood there for a long moment, staring into some dark secret place in his own mind and then he nodded. 'So be it. Did I hear someone mention White Horse Whisky?'
The group broke for the bar and Altmann sat down and started to play We march against England on the piano. Someone threw his cap at him and Sturm called, 'You can stick that load of old crap. Let's have something worth listening to.'
The door opened and Ilse Neuhoff appeared. 'Can I come in now?'
There was a roar from the whole group. In a moment she was lifted up on to the bar. 'A song!' they chorused.
'All right,' she said, laughing. 'What do you want?'
Steiner got in before everyone, his voice sharp and quick. 'Alles ist verruckt.'
There was a sudden silence. She looked down at him, face pale. "You're sure?'
'Highly appropriate,' he said. 'Believe me.'
Hans Altmann moved into the opening chords, giving it everything he had and Ilse paraded slowly up and down the bar, her hands on her hips, as she sang that strange melancholy song known to every man who had served in the Winter War.
What are we doing here? What is it all about? Alles ist verruckt. Everything's crazy. Everything's gone to hell.
There were tears in her eyes now. She spread her arms wide as if she would embrace them all and suddenly everyone was singing, slow and deep, looking up at her, Steiner, Ritter, all of them - even Radl.
Devlin looked from one face to the other in bewilderment then turned, pulled open the door and lurched outside. 'Am I crazy or are they?' he whispered.
.
It was dark on the terrace because of the blackout, but Radl and Steiner went out there to smoke a cigar after dinner, more for privacy than anything else. Through the thick curtains that covered the French windows they could hear Liam Devlin's voice. Ilse Neuhoff and her husband laughing gaily.
'A man of considerable charm,' Steiner said.
Radl nodded. 'He has other qualities also. Many more like him and the British would have thankfully got out of Ireland years ago. You had a mutually profitable meeting after I left you this afternoon, I trust?'
'I think that you could say that we understand each other,' Steiner said, 'and we examined the map together very closely. It will be of great assistance to have him as an advance party, believe me.'
'Anything else I should know?'
'Yes, young Werner Briegel's actually been to that area.'
'Briegel?' Radl said. 'Who's he?'
'Lance-corporal. Twenty-one. Three years service. Comes from a place called Barth on the Baltic. He says some of that coastline is rather similar to Norfolk. Enormous lonely beaches, sand dunes and lots of birds.'
'Birds?' Radl said.
Steiner smiled through the darkness. 'I should explain that birds are the passion of young Werner's life. Once, near Leningrad, we were saved from a partisan ambush because they disturbed a huge flock of starlings. Werner and I were temporarily caught in the open, under fire and flat on our faces in the mud. He filled in the time by giving me chapter and verse on how the starlings were probably migrating to England for the winter.'
'Fascinating,' Radl said ironically.
'Oh, you may laugh, but it passed a nasty thirty minutes rather quickly for us. That's what took him and his father to North Norfolk in nineteen-thirty-seven, by the way. The birds. Apparently the whole coast is famous for them.'
'Ah, well,' Radl said. 'Each one to his own taste. What about this question of who speaks English? Did you get that sorted out?'
'Lieutenant Neumann. Sergeant Altmann and young Briegel all speak good English, but with accents, naturally. No hope of passing for natives. Of the rest, Brandt and Klugel both speak the broken variety. Enough to get by. Brandt, by the way, was a deck hand on cargo boats as a youngster, Hamburg to Hull.'
Radl nodded. 'It could be worse. Tell me, has Neuhoff questioned you at all?'
'No, but he's obviously very curious. And poor Ilse is beside herself with worry. I'll have to make sure she doesn't try to take the whole thing up with Ribbentrop in a misguided attempt to save me from what she knows not what.'
'Good,' Radl said. 'You sit tight then and wait. You'll have movement orders within a week to ten days, depending on how quickly I can find a suitable base in Holland. Devlin, as you know, will probably go over in about a week. I think we'd better go in now.'
Steiner put a hand on his arm. 'And my father?'
Radl said, 'I would be dishonest if I led you to believe I have any influence in the matter. Himmler is personally responsible. All that I can do - and I will certainly do this - is make it plain to him how co-operative you are being.'
