'You're sure?' Devlin said.
'Absolutely.'
He grinned crookedly. 'I'm a Catholic, remember that if it goes wrong.'
They all are here. I'll see you're put down properly.'
He stepped over the coils of wire, paused on the edge of the sand, and walked forward. He paused again, then started to run, leaving wet footprints for the tide had no long ebbed. He turned, ran back and once again negotiated the wire.
He was immensely cheerful and put an arm around her shoulders. 'You were right - from the beginning. It's going to work, this thing. You'll see.' He looked out to sea across the creeks and the sandbanks, through the mist towards the Point. 'Beautiful. The thought of leaving all this must break your heart.'
'Leave?' She looked up at him blankly. 'What do you mean?'
'But you can't stay,' he said. 'Not afterwards. Surely you must see that?'
She looked out to the Point as if for the last time. Strange, but it had never occurred to her that she would have to leave. She shivered as the wind drove rain in hard off the sea.
.
It was raining at Landsvoort, too, as Steiner and Ritter Neumann made their first tour of inspection of the general area surrounding the airstrip. They had arrived an hour previously by truck after a flight in a Ju 52 transport from Cherbourg to Amsterdam, and Steiner had left the immediate problem of settling the men in the capable hands of Sergeant-Major Brandt.
He and Ritter followed a track which led from the farmhouse to the shore perhaps a quarter of a mile away. It was an incredibly desolate landscape, flat and barren. There was little shelter anywhere.
Neumann said, 'What a dump. It's going to be a long three weeks.'
'It needn't be if you and Brandt organize it properly,' Steiner said. 'A good hard schedule and lots of ground-jump training practice. Most of them could do with that. We haven't jumped for some time, remember. Then there are the British weapons to come to terms with. Target briefing and so on. I think the three weeks should be filled rather well.'
'When are you going to tell them; about the target, I mean? Will you leave it till the last possible moment?'
'I don't think so. About a week before we go would be a good time. That would sharpen them up for the last few days. You know how men get when they're kept under strict security for an operation like this.'
'You don't need to rub it in,' Neumann said. 'Remember what things were like at Hildesheim airbase at the beginning of the war when we were preparing for the Eben Emael assault and the Albert Canal bridges? How long did they keep us in quarantine for that one? Six months?'
'But it paid off, remember. It worked to perfection, right down to the last detail.' Steiner sighed. 'A long time ago, Ritter. Like something out of an old story. A different war.'
The track snaked between dunes of pure white sand, tufts of grass sticking through here and there, a barrier between the land and the sea. There was an inlet on the other side, deep water and a broken concrete pier.
'What was it used for?' Neumann asked.
'Barges came up the coast from the Hague and Rotterdam to fill up. with sand,' Steiner told him. 'It should suit young Koenig admirably.'
'When does he arrive?'
'Radl wasn't sure when he spoke to me on the telephone. Certainly within the next week. The thing is, Koenig may find it better to come up with one of the coastal convoys than on his own.'
Their footsteps boomed hollowly on the boardwalk along the centre of the pier. There was the heavy salt smell of the sea, the murmur of the waves as they swirled between the concrete piles below. Steiner stood at the very end and looked out into the curtain of grey mist and rain. 'There it is, Ritter, waiting for us. A hundred and sixty miles due west, that's all.'
'And will this work to perfection, too, Herr Oberst?' Ritter Neumann said. 'Like Eben Emael, right down to the last detail?'
'It worked for Skorzeny at Gran Sasso.'
That isn't what I asked.'
'All right, let's see if I can do any better.' Steiner took his time over lighting-a cigarette and flicked the match out into space. 'Men generally die in war when they cannot help it and are defeated by a disadvantageous situation.'
'And what in the hell is that supposed to mean?'
'That you need luck, Ritter, always that, because no matter how well you plan there remains the unexpected. The one thing you hadn't looked for. The stupid, silly, unimportant items that can destroy you.' He smiled. 'Having made that point, it is a fact that with any kind of luck this whole thing could go beautifully. We could be in and out so fast that they won't know we've been till we've gone.'
'And if it doesn't go like that?'
Then all your problems will be over and you won't have a thing to worry about.' Steiner smiled slightly. 'And now, I think we'd better get back.' He turned and walked away along the pier.
.
At twenty to eight that evening Max Radl, in his office at the Tirpitz Ufer, decided he'd had enough for the day. He'd not felt well since his return from Brittany and the doctor he'd gone to see had been horrified at his condition.
'If you carry on like this, Herr Oberst, you will kill yourself,' he had declared firmly. 'I think I can promise you that.'
Radl had paid his fee and taken the pills - three different kinds - which with any kind of luck might keep him going. As long as he could stay out of the hands of the Army medics he had a chance, but one more physical check-up with that lot and he was finished. They'd have him into a civilian suit before he knew where he was.
He opened a drawer, took out one of the pill bottles and popped two into his mouth. They were supposed to be pain killers, but just to make sure, he half-filled a tumbler with Courvoisier to wash them down. There was a knock on the door and Hofer entered. His normally composed face was full of emotion and his eyes were bright.
'What is it, Karl, what's happened ?' Radl demanded.
Hofer pushed a signal flimsy across the desk. 'It's just in, Herr Oberst. From Starling - Mrs. Grey. He's arrived safely. He's with her now.'
Radl looked down at the flimsy in a kind of awe. 'My God, Devlin,' he whispered. 'You brought it off. It worked.'
A sense of physical release surged through him. He reached inside his bottom drawer and found another glass. 'Karl, this very definitely calls for a drink.'
He stood up, full of fierce joy, aware that he had not felt like this in years, not since that incredible euphoria when racing for the French coast at the head of his men in the summer of 1940.
He raised his glass and said to Hofer, 'I give you a toast, Karl. To Liam Devlin and "Up the Republic".'
.
As a staff officer in the Lincoln Washington Brigade in Spain, Devlin had found a motor-cycle the most useful way of keeping contact between the scattered units of his command in difficult mountain country. Very different from Norfolk, but there was that same sense of freedom, of being off the leash, as he rode from Studley Grange through quiet country lanes towards the village.
He'd obtained a driving licence in Holt that morning along with his other documents, without the slightest difficulty. Wherever he'd gone, from the police station to the local labour exchange, his cover story of being an ex-infantryman, discharged because of wounds, had worked like a charm. The various officials had really put themselves out to push things through for him. It was true what they said. In wartime, everyone loved a soldier, and a wounded hero even more so.
The motor-cycle was pre-war, of course, and had seen better days. A 350 cc BSA, but when he took a chance and opened the throttle wide on the first straight, the needle swung up to sixty with no trouble at all. He throttled back quickly once he'd established that the power was there if needed. No sense in asking for trouble. There was no village policeman in Studley Constable, but Joanna Grey had warned him that one occasionally appeared from Holt on a motor-cycle.
He came down the steep hill into the village itself past the old mill with the waterwheel which didn't seem to be turning and slowed for a young girl in a pony and trap carrying three milk churns. She wore a blue beret and a very old, First World War trenchcoat at least two sizes too big for her. She had high cheekbones, large eyes, a mouth that was too wide and three of her fingers poked through holes in the woollen gloves she wore.
'Good day to you, a colleen.' he said cheerfully as he waited for her to cross his path to the bridge. 'God save the good work.'
Her eyes widened in a kind of astonishment, her mouth opened slightly. She seemed bereft of speech and clicked her tongue, urging the pony over the bridge and into a trot as they started up the hill past the church.
'A lovely, ugly little peasant,' he quoted softly, 'who turned my head not once, but twice.' He grinned. 'Oh, no, Liam, me old love. Not that. Not now.'
He swung the motor-cycle in towards the Studley Arms and became aware of a man standing in the window glaring at him. An enormous individual of thirty or so with a tangled black beard. He was wearing a tweed cap and an old reefer coat.
And what in the hell have I done to you, son? Devlin asked himself. The man's gaze travelled to the girl and the trap just breasting the hill beside the church and moved back again. It was enough. Devlin pushed the BSA up on to its stand, unstrapped the shotgun in its canvas bag which was hanging about his neck, tucked it under his arm and went inside.
There was no bar, just a large comfortable room with a low-beamed ceiling, several high-backed benches, a couple of wooden tables. A wood fire burned brightly on an open hearth.
There were only three people in the room. The man sitting beside the fire playing a mouth organ, the one with the black beard at the window and a short, stocky man in shirt sleeves who looked to be in his late twenties.
'God bless all here,' Devlin announced, playing the bog Irishman to the hilt.
He put the gun in its canvas bag on the table and the man in the shirt sleeves smiled and stuck out his hand. 'I'm George Wilde the publican here and you'll be Sir Henry's new warden down on the marshes. We've heard all about you.'
'What, already?' Devlin said.
'You know how it is in the country.'
'Or does he?' the big man at the window said harshly.
'Oh, I'm a farm boy from way back myself,' Devlin said.
Wilde looked troubled, but attempted the obvious introduction. 'Arthur Seymour and the old goat by the fire is Laker Armsby.'
As Devlin discovered later, Laker was in his late forties, but looked older. He was incredibly shabby, his tweed cap torn, his coat tied with string and his trousers and shoes were caked with mud.
'Would you gentlemen join me in a drink?' Devlin suggested.
'I wouldn't say no to that,' Laker Armsby told him. 'A pint of brown ale would suit me fine.'
Seymour drained his flagon and banged it down on the table. 'I buys my own.' He picked up the shotgun and hefted it in one hand. 'The Squire's really looking after you, isn't he? This and the bike. Now I wonder why you should rate that, an incomer like you, when there's those amongst us who've worked the estate for years and still must be content with less.'
'Sure and I can only put it down to my good looks,' Devlin told him.
Madness sparked in Seymour's eyes, the Devil looked out, hot and wild. He had Devlin by the front of the coat and pulled him close. 'Don't make fun of me, little man. Don't ever do that or I'll step on you as I'd step on a slug.'
Wilde grabbed his arm, 'Now come on, Arthur,' but Seymour pushed him away.
'You walk soft round here, you keep your place and we might get on. Understand me?'
Devlin smiled anxiously 'Sure and if I've given offence, I'm sorry.'
'That's better,' Seymour released his grip and patted his face 'That's much better Only in future, remember one thing. When I come in, you leave.'
He went out, the door banged behind him and Laker Armsby cackled wildly, 'He's a bad bastard is Arthur.'
George Wilde vanished into the back room and returned with a bottle of Scotch and some glasses. 'This stuffs hard to come by at the moment, but I reckon you've earned one on me Mr Devlin.'
'Liam,' Devlin said 'Call me Liam.' He accepted the glass of whisky 'Is he always like that?'
'Ever since I've known him.'
'There was a girl outside in a pony and trap as I came in. Does he have some special interest there?'
'Fancies his chances.' Laker Armsby chuckled 'Only she won't have any of it.'
'That's Molly Prior,' Wilde said 'She and her mother have a farm a couple of miles this side of Hobs End. Been running it between them since last year when her father died. Laker gives them a few hours when he isn't busy at the church.'
