“Now,” she said.
Gallagher and Guido linked arms again and hurried out, Hugh Kelso between them. The back stairs were wider and easier to negotiate, and they were in the kitchen within a couple of minutes. They sat Kelso down and Helen closed the door to the stairs, turning the key.
“So far so good,” Gallagher said. “Are you all right, Colonel?”
The American looked strained, but nodded eagerly. “I’m feeling great just to be moving again.”
“Fine. We’ll take the path through the woods to my place. Ten minutes, that’s all.”
Helen motioned him to silence. “I think I hear a car.”
They waited and Sarah hurriedly turned down the lamp, went to the window and drew the curtains as a vehicle entered the yard outside. “It’s Harry,” she said.
Helen turned up the lamp again and Sarah unbolted the back door for him. He slipped in and closed the door behind him. After events at Mont de la Rocque he was on a high, full of energy, and the excitement was plain to see on the pale face shadowed by the SS cap.
“What is it, Harry?” Sarah demanded. “Has something happened?”
“I think you could definitely say that, but it can wait until later. Ready to go, are we?”
“As ever was,” Kelso said.
“Let’s get it done then.”
“Sarah and I will go on ahead to make sure everything’s ready for you,” Helen said as she took a couple of old macs down from a peg, gave one to the girl and put the other one on herself.
She turned the lamp down again, opened the door and she and Sarah hurried across the yard. Gallagher and Guido linked hands and Kelso put his arms around their necks.
“Right,” Martineau said. “Here we go. I’ll lead the way. If anyone wants a rest, just say so.”
He stood to one side to let them go out, closed the door behind him and they started across the courtyard.
The pale moonlight filtered through the trees, and the track was clear before them, the night perfumed with the scent of flowers again. Sarah took Helen’s arm. For a moment, there was an intimacy between them, and she was very aware of that warm, safe feeling she had known in the time following her mother’s death when Helen had been not only a strong right arm but the breath of life to her.
“What happens afterward?” Helen said. “When you get back?”
“Assuming that we do.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s going to work. If ever I met a man who knows what he’s doing it’s Harry Martineau. So, what happens on your return? Back to nursing?”
“God knows,” Sarah told her. “Nursing was always only a stopgap. It was medicine I was interested in.”
“I remember.”
“But after this, who knows?” Sarah said. “The whole thing’s been like a mad dream. IVe never known a man like Harry, never known such excitement.”
“Temporary madness, Sarah, just like the war. Not real life. Neither is Harry Martineau. He’s not for you, Sarah. God help him, he’s not even for himself.”
They paused on the edge of the clearing, the cottage a few yards away, bathed in the moonlight. “It’s nothing to do with me,” Sarah said. “It never was. I had no control over what happened. It’s beyond reason.”
In the cottage, sitting at the window, Kleist had seen them the moment they had emerged from the wood, and it was the intimacy that struck him at once. There was something wrong here, and he got up, moved to the door and opened it a little. It was then, of course, as they approached, that he realized they were speaking together in English.
Helen said, “Loving someone is different from being in love, darling. Being in love is a state of heat and that passes, believe me. Still, let’s get inside. The others will be here in a moment.” She put a hand to the door and it moved. “It seems to be open.”
And then the door swung, a hand had her by the front of her coat, and Kleist tapped the muzzle of the Mauser against her cheek. “Inside, Frau de Ville,” he said roughly. “And let us discuss the curious fact that this little French bitch not only speaks the most excellent English, but would appear to be a friend of yours.”