Eye Of The Needle

Chapter 16

  "Nevertheless, you have not only resisted van Geyr's suggestion, but have in fact moved the 21st right up to the Atlantic coast. "

  "And the other three must be moved to the coast as soon as possible," Rommel burst out. "When will you people learn? The Allies control the air. Once the invasion is launched there will be no further major movements of armour. Mobile operations are no longer possible. If your precious panzers are in Paris when the Allies land on the coast, they will stay in Paris pinned down by the RAF until the Allies march along the Boulevard St-Michel. I know-they've done it to me. Twice. " He paused to draw breath. "To group our armour as a mobile reserve is to make it useless. There will be no counterattack. The invasion must be met on the beaches, when it is most vulnerable, and pushed back into the sea. "

  The flush receded from his face as he began to expound his own defensive strategy. "I have created underwater obstacles, strengthened the Atlantic Wall, laid minefields, and driven stakes into every meadow that might be used to land aircraft behind our lines. All my troops are engaged in digging defences whenever they're not actually training.

  "My armoured divisions must be moved to the coast. The OKW reserve should be redeployed in France. The Ninth and Tenth SS divisions have to be brought back from the Eastern Front. Our whole strategy must be to prevent the Allies from securing a beachhead, because once they achieve that, the battle is lost. . . perhaps even the war. "

  Guderian leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in that infuriating half-grin.

  "You want us to defend the European coastline from Tromso in Norway and around the Iberian peninsula to Rome. Where shall we get the armies from?"

  "That question should have been asked in 1938," Rommel muttered.

  There was an embarrassed silence after this remark, which was all the more shocking coming from the notoriously apolitical Rommel.

  Von Geyr broke the tension. "Where do you believe the attack will come from, Field Marshal?"

  Rommel had been waiting for this. "Until recently I was convinced of the Pas de Calais theory. However, last time I was with the Fuehrer I was impressed by his arguments in favour of Normandy. I am also impressed by his instinct, and even more by its record of accuracy. Therefore I believe our panzers should be deployed primarily along the Normandy coast, with perhaps one division at the mouth of the Somme, this last supported by forces outside my group. "

  Guderian shook his head. "No, no, no. It's far too risky. "

  "I'm prepared to take this argument to Hitler," Rommel threatened.

  "Then that's what you will have to do," Guderian said, "because I won't go along with your plan unless. . . "

  "Well?" Rommel was surprised that the general's position might be qualified.

  Guderian shifted in his seat, reluctant to give a concession to so stubborn an antagonist as Rommel. "You may know that the Fuehrer is waiting for a report from an unusually effective agent in England. "

  "I remember. " Rommel nodded. "Die Nadel. "

  "Yes. He has been assigned to assess the strength of the First United States Army Group under Patton's command in the eastern part of England.

  "If he finds-as I am certain he will-that that army is large, strong, and ready to move, then I shall continue to oppose you. However, if he finds that FUSAG is somehow a bluff-a small army masquerading as an invasion force-then I shall concede that you are right, and you shall have your panzers. Will you accept that compromise?"

  Rommel nodded his large head in assent. "It depends on Die Nadel, then. "

  PART FIVE

  The cottage was terribly small, Lucy realised quite suddenly. As she went about her morning chores lighting the stove, making porridge, tidying up, dressing Jo, the walls seemed to press in on her. After all, it was only four rooms linked by a little passage with a staircase; you couldn't move without bumping into someone else. If you stood still and listened you could hear what everyone was doing: Henry was running water into the washbasin, David sliding down the stairs, Jo chastising his teddy bear in the living room. Lucy would have liked some time on her own before meeting people; time to let the events of the night settle into her memory, recede from the forefront of her thoughts so that she could act normally without a conscious effort.

  She guessed she was not going to be good at deception. It did not come naturally to her. She had no experience at it. She tried to think of another occasion in her life when she had deceived someone close to her, and she could not. It was not that she lived by such lofty principles; the thought of lying did not trouble her so much. It was mostly that she had just never had reason for dishonesty.

  David and Jo sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat. David was silent, Jo talked non-stop just for the pleasure of making words. Lucy did not want food.

  "Aren't you eating?" David asked casually.

  "I've had some. " There, her first lie. It wasn't so bad.

  The storm made the claustrophobia worse. The rain was so heavy that Lucy could hardly see the barn from the kitchen window. One felt even more shut in when to open a door or window was a major operation. The low, steel-grey sky and the wisps of mist created a permanent twilight. In the garden the rain ran in rivers between the rows of potato plants, and the herb patch was a shallow pond. The sparrow's nest under the disused outhouse roof had been washed away and the birds flitted in and out of the eaves, panicking.

  Lucy heard Henry coming down the stairs, and she felt better. For some reason, she was quite sure that he was very good at deception.

  "Good morning!" Faber said heartily. David, sitting at the table in his wheelchair, looked up and nodded pleasantly. Lucy busied herself at the stove. There was guilt written all over her face, Faber noted, and he groaned inwardly. But David did not seem to notice his wife's expression.

  Faber began to think that David was rather obtuse. . . at least about his wife. . .

  Lucy said, "Sit down and have some breakfast. "

  "Thank you very much. "

  David said, "Can't offer to take you to church, I'm afraid. Hymn-singing on the wireless is the best we can do. "

  Faber realised it was Sunday. "Are you church-going people?"

  "No," David said. "You?"

  "No. "

  "Sunday is much the same as any other day for farmers," David continued. "I'll be driving over to the other end of the island to see my shepherd. You could come, if you feel up to it. "

  "I'd like to," Faber told him. It would give him a chance to reconnoitre. He would need to know the way to the cottage where the transmitter was.

  "Would you like me to drive you?"

  David looked at him sharply. "I can manage quite well. " There was a strained moment of silence. "In this weather, the road is just a memory. We'll be a lot safer with me at the wheel. "

  "Of course. " Faber began to eat.

  "It makes no difference to me," David persisted. "I don't want you to come if you think it would be too much-"

  "Really, I'd be glad to. "

  "Did you sleep all right? It didn't occur to me you might still be tired. I hope Lucy didn't keep you up too late. "

  Farber willed himself not to look at Lucy, but out of the corner of his eye he could see that she was suddenly flushed. "I slept all day yesterday," he said, trying to fix David's eyes with his own.

  It was no use. David was looking at his wife. He knew. She turned her back.

  David would be hostile now, and antagonism was part way to suspicion. It was not, as he'd decided before, dangerous, but it might be annoying.

  David seemed to recover his composure quickly. He pushed his chair away from the table and wheeled himself to the back door. "I'll get the jeep out of the barn," he said, mostly to himself. He took an oilskin off a hook and put it over his head, then opened the door and rolled out.

  In the few moments the door was open, the storm blew into the little kitchen, leaving the floor wet. When it shut, Lucy shivered and
began to mop the water from the tiles. Faber reached out and touched her arm. "Don't," she said, nodding her head toward Jo.

  "You're being silly," Faber told her.

  "I think he knows," she said.

  "But, if you reflect for a minute, you don't really care whether he knows or not, do you?"

  "I'm supposed to. "

  Faber shrugged. The jeep's horn sounded impatiently outside. Lucy handed him an oilskin and a pair of Wellington boots. "Don't talk about me," she said.

  Faber put on the waterproof clothes and went to the front door. Lucy followed him, closing the kitchen door on Jo.

  With his hand on the latch, Faber turned and kissed her, and she did what she wanted, she kissed him back, hard, then turned and went into the kitchen. Faber ran through the rain, across a sea of mud, and jumped into the jeep beside David, who pulled away immediately.

  The vehicle had been specially adapted for the legless man to drive. It had a hand throttle, automatic gearshift, and a handle on the rim of the wheel to enable the driver to steer one-handed. The folded-up wheelchair slid into a special compartment behind the driver's seat. There was a shotgun in a rack above the windscreen.

  David drove competently. He had been right about the road; it was no more than a strip of heath worn bare by the jeep's tires. The rain pooled in the deep ruts. The car slithered about in the mud. David seemed to enjoy it. There was a cigarette between his lips, and he wore an incongruous air of bravado. Perhaps, Faber thought, this was his substitute for flying.

  "What do you do when you're not fishing?" he said around the cigarette.

  "Civil servant," Faber told him.

  "What sort of work?"

  "Finance. I'm just a cog in the machine. "

  "Treasury?"

  "Mainly. "

  "Interesting work?" he persisted.

  "Fairly. " Faber summoned up the energy to invent a story. "I know a bit about how much a given piece of engineering ought to cost, and I spend most of my time making sure the taxpayer isn't being overcharged. "

  "Any particular sort of engineering?"

  "Everything from paper clips to aircraft engines. "

  "Ah, well. We all contribute to the war effort in our own way. "

  It was, of course, an intentionally snide remark, and David would naturally have no idea why Faber did not resent it. "I'm too old to fight," Faber said mildly.

  "Were you in the first lot?"

  "Too young. "

  "A lucky escape. "

  "Doubtless. "

  The track ran quite close to the cliff edge, but David did not slow down.

  It crossed Faber's mind that he might want to kill them both. He reached for a grab handle.

  "Am I going too fast for you?" David asked.

  "You seem to know the road. "

  "You look frightened. "

  Faber ignored that, and David slowed down a little, apparently satisfied that he had made some kind of point.

  The island was fairly flat and bare, Faber observed. The ground rose and fell slightly, but as yet he had seen no hills. The vegetation was mostly grass, with some ferns and bushes but few trees: there was little protection from the weather. David Rose's sheep must be hardy, Faber thought.

  "Are you married?" David asked suddenly.

  "No. "

  "Wise man. "

  "Oh, I don't know. "

  "I'll wager you do well for yourself in London. Not to mention-"

  Faber had never liked the nudging, contemptuous way some men talked about women. He interrupted sharply, "I should think you're extremely fortunate to have your wife. "

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. "

  "Nothing like variety, though, eh?"

  "I haven't had the opportunity to discover the merits of monogamy. " Faber decided to say no more, anything he said was fuel to the fire. No question, David was becoming annoying.

  "I must say, you don't look like a government accountant. Where's the rolled umbrella and the bowler hat?" Faber attempted a thin smile. "And you seem quite fit for a pen-pusher. "

  "I ride a bicycle. "

  "You must be quite tough, to have survived that wreck. "

  "Thank you. "

  "You don't look too old to be in the army either. "

  Faber turned to look at David. "What are you driving at?" he asked calmly.

  "We're there," David said.

  Faber looked out of the windscreen and saw a cottage very similar to Lucy's, with stone walls, a slate roof and small windows. It stood at the top of a hill, the only hill Faber had seen on the island, and not much of a hill at that. The house had a squat, resilient look about it. Climbing up to it, the jeep skirted a small stand of pine and fir trees. Faber wondered why the cottage had not been built in the shelter of the trees.

  Beside the house was a hawthorn tree in bedraggled blossom. David stopped the car. Faber watched him unfold the wheelchair and ease himself out of the driving seat into the chair; he would have resented an offer of help.

  They entered the house by a plank door with no lock. They were greeted in the hall by a black-and-white collie: a small broad-headed dog who wagged his tail but did not bark. The layout of the cottage was identical with that of Lucy's, but the atmosphere was different: this place was bare, cheerless and none too clean.

  David led the way into the kitchen, where old Tom, the shepherd, sat by an old-fashioned wood-burning kitchen range, warming his hands. He stood up.

  "This is Tom McAvity. " David said.

  "Pleased to meet you," Tom said formally.

  Faber shook his hand. Tom was a short man, and broad, with a face like an old tan suitcase. He was wearing a cloth cap and smoking a very large briar pipe with a lid. His grip was firm and the skin of his hand felt like sandpaper. He had a very big nose. Faber had to concentrate hard to understand what he was saying; his Scots accent was very broad.

  "I hope I'm not going to be in the way," Faber said. "I only came along for the ride. "

  David wheeled himself up to the table. "I don't suppose we'll do much this morning, Tom, just take a look around. "

  "Aye. We'll have some tay before we go, though. "

  Tom poured strong tea into three mugs and added a shot of whisky to each. The three men sat and sipped it in silence, David smoking a cigarette and Tom drawing gently at his huge pipe, and Faber felt certain that the other two spent a great deal of time together in this way, smoking and warming their hands and saying nothing.

  When they had finished their tea Tom put the mugs in the shallow stone sink and they went out to the jeep. Faber sat in the back. David drove slowly this time, and the dog, which was called Bob, loped alongside, keeping pace without apparent effort. It was obvious that David knew the terrain very well as he steered confidently across the open grassland without once getting bogged down in swampy ground. The sheep looked very sorry for themselves. With their fleece sopping wet, they huddled in hollows, or close to bramble bushes, or on the leeward slopes, too dispirited to graze. Even the lambs were subdued, hiding beneath their mothers. Faber was watching the dog when it stopped, listened for a moment, and then raced off at a tangent.

  Tom had been watching too. "Bob's found something," he said. The jeep followed the dog for a quarter of a mile. When they stopped Faber could hear the sea; they were close to the island's northern edge. The dog was standing at the brink of a small gully. When the men got out of the car they could hear what the dog had heard, the bleating of a sheep in distress, and they went to the edge of the gully and looked down. The animal lay on its side about twenty feet down, balanced precariously on the steeply sloping bank, one foreleg at an awkward angle. Tom went down to it, treading cautiously, and examined the leg. "Mutton tonight," he called.

  David got the gun from the jeep and slid it down to him. Tom put the sheep out of its misery.

  "Do you want to rope it up?" David called. "Aye-unless our vi
sitor here wants to come and give me a hand. "

  "Surely," Faber said. He picked his way down to where Tom stood. They took a leg each and dragged the dead animal back up the slope. Faber's oilskin caught on a thorny bush and he almost fell before he tugged the material free with a loud ripping sound.

  They threw the sheep into the jeep and drove on. Faber's shoulder felt very wet, and he realised he had torn away most of the back of the oilskin.

  "I'm afraid I've ruined this slicker," he said.

  "All in a good cause," Tom told him.

  Soon they returned to Tom's cottage. Faber took off the oilskin and his wet donkey jacket, and Tom put the jacket over the stove to dry. Faber sat close to it.

  Tom put the kettle on, then went upstairs for a new bottle of whisky. Faber and David warmed their wet hands.

  The gunshot made both men jump. Faber ran into the hall and up the stairs. David followed, stopping his wheelchair at the foot of the staircase.

  Faber found Tom in a small, bare room, leaning out of the window and shaking his fist at the sky. "Missed," Tom said.

  "Missed what?"

  "Eagle. "

  Downstairs, David laughed.

  Tom put the shotgun down beside a cardboard box. He took a new bottle of whisky from the box and led the way downstairs.

  David was already back in the kitchen, close to the heat. "She was the first animal we've lost this year," he said, his thoughts returning to the dead sheep. "Aye," Tom said.

  "We'll fence the gully this summer. "

  "Aye. "

  Faber sensed a change in the atmosphere: it was not the same as it had been earlier. They sat, drinking and smoking as before, but David seemed restless. Twice Faber caught the man staring at him.

  Eventually David said, "We'll leave you to butcher the ewe, Tom. "

  "Aye. "

  David and Faber left. Tom did not get up, but the dog saw them to the door.

  Before starting the jeep David took the shotgun from its rack above the windscreen, reloaded it, and put it back. On the way home he underwent another change of mood-a surprising one-and became chatty. "I used to fly Spitfires. Lovely kites. Four guns in each wing-American Brownings. Fired one thousand two hundred and sixty rounds a minute. The Jerries prefer cannon, of course. Their Me-l09s only have two machine guns. A cannon does more damage but our Brownings are faster, and more accurate. "

  "Really?" Faber said it politely.

  "They put cannon in the Hurricanes later, but it was the Spitfire that won the Battle of Britain. "

  Faber found his boastfulness irritating. "How many enemy aircraft did you shoot down?"

  "I lost my legs while I was training. "

  Faber glanced at his face: expressionless, but it seemed stretched as though the skin would break. "No, I haven't killed a single German, yet," David said.

  Faber became very alert. He had no idea what David might have deduced or discovered, but there now seemed little doubt that the man believed something was up, and not just Faber's night with his wife. Faber turned slightly sideways to face David, braced himself with his foot against the transmission tunnel on the floor, rested his right hand lightly on his left forearm. He waited.

  "Are you interested in aircraft?" David asked.

  "No. "

  "It's become a national pastime, I gather: aircraft spotting. Like bird-watching. People buy books on aircraft identification. Spend whole afternoons on their backs, looking at the sky through telescopes. I thought you might be an enthusiast. "

  "Why?"

  "Pardon?"

  "What made you think I might be an enthusiast?"

  "Oh, I don't know. " David stopped the jeep to light a cigarette. They were at the island's midpoint, five miles from Tom's cottage with another five miles to go to Lucy's. David dropped the match on the floor. "Perhaps it was the film I found in your jacket pocket-"

  As he spoke, he tossed the lighted cigarette at Faber's face and reached for the gun above the windscreen.

  Sid Cripps looked out of the window and cursed under his breath. The meadow was full of American tanks-at least eighty of them. He realised there was a war on, and all that, but if only they'd asked him he would have offered them another field, where the grass was not so lush. By now the caterpillar tracks would have chewed up his best grazing.

  He pulled on his boots and went out. There were some Yank soldiers in the field, and he wondered whether they had noticed the bull. When he got to the stile he stopped and scratched his head. There was something funny going on.

  The tanks had not chewed up his grass. They had left no tracks. But the American soldiers were making tank tracks with a tool something like a harrow.