Cold Harbour

The priest backed into the sacristy, bewildered. ‘Who are you?’

Osbourne pushed him down on the wooden chair by the desk, took a length of cord from his greatcoat pocket. ‘The less you know, the better, Father. Let’s just say all is not what it seems. Now hands behind your back.’ He tied the old man’s wrists firmly. ‘You see, Father, I’m granting you absolution. No connection with what happens here. A clean bill of health with our German friends.’

He took out a handkerchief. The old priest said, ‘My son, I don’t know what you plan, but this is God’s house.’

‘Yes, well I like to think I’m on God’s business,’ Craig Osbourne said and gagged him with the handkerchief.

He left the old man there, closed the sacristy door and crossed to the confessional boxes, switched on the tiny light above the door of the first one and stepped inside. He took out his Walther, screwed a silencer on the barrel and watched, the door open a crack so that he could see down to the entrance.

After a while, Dietrich entered from the porch with a young SS Captain. They stood talking for a moment, the Captain went back outside and Dietrich walked along the aisle between the pews, unbuttoning his greatcoat. He paused, took off his cap and entered the other confessional box and sat down. Osbourne flicked the switch, turned on the small bulb that illuminated the German on the other side of the grille, remaining in darkness himself.

‘Good morning, Father,’ Dietrich said in bad French. ‘Bless me for I have sinned.’

‘You certainly have, you bastard,’ Craig Osbourne told him, pushed the silenced Walther through the flimsy grille and shot him between the eyes.

Osbourne stepped out of the confessional box and at the same moment the young SS Captain opened the church door and peered in. He saw the General on his face, the back of his skull a sodden mass of blood and brain, Osbourne standing over him. The young officer drew his pistol and fired twice wildly, the sound of the shots deafening between the old walls. Osbourne returned the fire, catching him in the chest, knocking him back over one of the pews, then ran to the door.

He peered out and saw Dietrich’s car parked at the gate, his own Kubelwagen beyond. Too late to reach it now for already a squad of SS, rifles at the ready, were running towards the church, attracted by the sound of firing.

Osbourne turned, ran along the aisle and left from the back door by the sacristy, racing through the gravestones of the cemetery at the rear of the church, vaulting the low stone wall, and started up the hill to the wood above.

They began shooting when he was half way up and he ran, zigzagging wildly, was almost there when a bullet plucked at his left sleeve sending him sideways to fall on one knee. He was up again in a second and sprinted over the brow of the hill. A moment later he was into the trees.

He ran on wildly, both arms up to cover his face against the flailing branches and where in the hell was he supposed to be running to? No transport and no way of reaching his rendezvous with that Lysander now. At least Dietrich was dead, but, as they used to say in SOE in the old days, a proper cock-up.

There was a road in the valley below, more woods on the other side. He went sliding down through the trees, landing in a ditch, picked himself up and started to cross and then to his total astonishment, the Rolls-Royce limousine came round the corner and braked to a halt.

René Dissard of the black eye-patch was at the wheel in his chauffeur’s uniform. The rear door was opened and Anne-Marie looked out. ‘Playing heroes again, Craig? You never change, do you? Come on, get in, for heaven’s sake and let’s get out of here.’

As the Rolls moved off, she nodded at the blood-soaked sleeve of his uniform. ‘Bad?’

‘I don’t think so.’ Osbourne stuffed a handkerchief inside. ‘What in the hell are you doing here?’

‘Grand Pierre was in touch. As usual, just a voice on the phone. I still haven’t met the man.’

‘I have,’ Craig told her. ‘You’re in for a shock when you do.’

‘Really? He says that Lysander pick-up isn’t on. Heavy fog and rain moving in from the Atlantic according to the Met. boys. I was supposed to wait for you at the farm and tell you, but I always had a bad feeling about this one. Decided to come along and see the action. We were on the other side of the village by the station. Heard the shooting and saw you running up the hill.’

‘Good thing for me,’ Osbourne told her.

‘Yes, considering this effort wasn’t really any of my business. Anyway, René said you were bound to come this way.’

She lit a cigarette and crossed one silken knee over the other, elegant as always in a black suit, a diamond brooch at the neck of the white silk blouse. The black hair was cut in a fringe across her forehead and curved under on each side, framing high cheekbones and pointed chin.

‘What are you staring at?’ she demanded petulantly.

‘You,’ he said. ‘Too much lipstick as usual, but otherwise, bloody marvellous.’

‘Oh, get under the seat and shut up,’ she told him.

She turned her legs to one side as Craig pulled down a flap revealing space beneath the seat. He crawled inside and she pushed the flap back into position. A moment later, they went round a corner and discovered a Kubelwagen across the road, half-a-dozen SS waiting.

‘Nice and slow, René,’ she said.

‘Trouble?’ Craig Osbourne asked, his voice muffled.

‘Not with any luck,’ she said softly. ‘I know the officer. He was stationed at the Château for a while.’

René stopped the Rolls and a young SS Lieutenant walked forward, pistol in hand. His face cleared and he holstered his weapon. ‘Mademoiselle Trevaunce. What an unexpected pleasure.’

‘Lieutenant Schultz.’ She opened the door and held out her hand which he kissed gallantly. ‘What’s all this?’

‘A wretched business. A terrorist has just shot General Dietrich in St Maurice.’

‘I thought I heard some shooting back there,’ she said. ‘And how is the General?’

‘Dead, Mademoiselle,’ Schultz told her. ‘I saw the body myself. A terrible thing. Murdered in the church during confession.’ He shook his head. ‘That there are such people in this world passes belief.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ She pressed his hand in sympathy. ‘You must come and see us again soon. The Countess had rather a fondness for you. We were sorry to see you go.’

Schultz actually blushed. ‘Please convey my felicitations, but now I must delay you no longer.’

He shouted an order and one of his men reversed the Kubelwagen. Schultz saluted and René drove away.

‘As always Mamselle has the luck of the Devil,’ he observed.

Anne-Marie Trevaunce lit another cigarette and Craig Osbourne said softly, ‘Wrong, René, my friend. She is the Devil.’

At the farm, they parked the Rolls-Royce in the barn while René went in search of information. Osbourne removed his tunic and ripped away the blood-soaked sleeve of his shirt.

Anne-Marie examined the wound. ‘Not too bad. It hasn’t gone through, simply ploughed a furrow. Nasty, mind you.’

René returned with a bundle of cloths and a piece of white sheeting which he proceeded to tear into strips.

‘Bandage him with this.’

Anne-Marie set about the task at once and Osbourne said, ‘What’s the score?’

‘Only old Jules here and he wants us out fast,’ René said. ‘Change into this lot and he’ll put the uniform in his charcoal burner. There’s a message from Grand Pierre. They’ve been on the radio to London. They’re going to pick you up by torpedo boat off Leon tonight. Grand Pierre can’t make it himself, but one of his men will be there – Bleriot. I know him well. A good man.’

Osbourne went round to the other side of the Rolls and changed. He returned wearing a tweed cap, corduroy jacket and trousers, both of which had seen better days, and broken boots. He put the Walther in his pocket and gave the uniform to René who went out.

‘Will I do?’ he asked Anne-Marie.

She laughed out loud, ‘With three days growth on your chin perhaps, but to be honest, you still look like a Yale man to me.’

‘That’s really very comforting.’