‘And if they haven’t?’
Devlin laughed. ‘Then I’ll beg, borrow or steal one. Jesus, General, you worry too much.’
Shaw saw a rabbit, flung his shotgun up to his shoulder already too late and missed. He cursed, took a flask from his pocket and drank. Nell whined, gazing up at him anxiously. The reeds here were as high as a man, water gurgling in the creeks, running towards the sea. It was a scene of complete desolation, the sky black, swollen with rain. As it started to fall, Lavinia appeared on horseback, galloping along a dyke towards him.
She reined in. ‘Hello, my darling. I heard your shot.’
‘Can’t hit a brick wall these days, old girl.’ He put the flask to his lips then gestured dramatically. ‘Look at it _ a dead world, Lavinia, everything bloody dead, including me. If only something would happen – anything,’ and he raised the flask to his lips again.
Asa Vaughan closed the file and looked up. Schellenberg leaned across the desk and offered him a cigarette. ‘What do you think?’
‘Whjrme?’
‘Because they tell me you’re a great pilot who can fly anything.’
‘Flattery usually gets you everywhere, General, but let’s examine this. When I was, shall we say, inducted into the SS, the deal was that I only operated against the Russians. It was made clear to me that I wouldn’t have to take part in any act detrimental to my country’s cause.’
Devlin, sitting by the window, laughed harshly. ‘What a load of old bollocks, son. If you believed that, then you’d believe any old thing. They had you by your short and curlies the minute they got you into that uniform.’
‘I’m afraid he’s right, Captain,’ Schellenberg said. ‘You wouldn’t get very far with the ReichsFuhrer with that argument.’
‘I can imagine,’ Asa said, and an expression of gloom settled on his face.
‘What’s your problem?’ Devlin demanded. ‘Where would you rather be? Back on the Eastern Front or here? And you’ve no choice. Say no and that old sod Himmler will have you in a concentration camp.’
‘Sounds like no contest, except for one small point,’ Asa told him. ‘I end up getting caught in England in this uniform, I’ll get the fastest court martial in American history and a firing squad.’
‘No you won’t, my old son,’ Devlin said. ‘They’ll hang you. Now the flight. Do you reckon you could make it in?’
‘No reason why not. If I am going to do it, I’d need to know the English Channel approach backwards. From what I can see I’d stay over the water for almost the whole trip. Turn inland for the last few miles.’
‘Exactly,’ Schellenberg said.
This house, Shaw Place. It would mean a night landing. Even with a moon I’d need some sort of guidance.’ He nodded, thinking about it. ‘When I was a kid in California my flying instructor was a guy who had flown with the Lafayette Escadrille in
France. I remember him telling me how in those days, things being more primitive, they often used a few cycle lamps arranged in an inverted L-shape with the crossbar at the upwind end.’
‘Simple enough,’ Devlin said.
‘And the plane. It would have to be small. Something like a Fieseler Stork.’
‘Yes well, I’m hoping that’s taken care of,’ Schellenberg said. ‘I’ve spoken to the officer in command of the Enemy Aircraft Flight. They are at Hildorf. It’s a couple of hours’ drive from Berlin, and they’re expecting us in the morning. He thinks he’s found us a suitable plane.’
‘Guess that’s it.’ Asa got up. ‘What happens now?’
‘We eat, son,’ Devlin told him. ‘The best the black market can offer. Then you come back to Frau Huber’s apartment with me where we’ll share the spare room. Don’t worry, it’s got twin beds.’
The chapel at St Mary’s Priory of the Little Sisters of Pity was cold and damp and smelled of candlegrease and incense. In the confession box, Father Frank Martin waited until the sister whose confession he had heard was gone. He switched off the lights and went out.
He was priest in charge at St Patrick’s two streets away and with St Patrick’s came the job of father confessor to the Priory. He was seventy-six, a small, frail man with very white hair. If it hadn’t been for the war, they’d have retired him, but it was like everything else these days, all hands to the pumps.