‘Let’s try here,’ Schellenberg said and Asa turned off the road.
The men in the farmyard were all Fallschirmjager, hard young men, old before their time with cropped hair. Most of them wore camouflaged smocks and jump boots. A number sat on benches against the wall, cleaning weapons. A couple worked on the engine of a troop carrier. They glanced up curiously as the Kubelwagen arrived, rising to their feet when they saw Schellenberg’s uniform.
‘That’s all right, carry on with what you’re doing,’ he said.
A young captain emerged from the farmhouse. He had the Iron Cross First and Second Class, the cuff-titles for Crete and the Afrika Korps. He also had a Winter War ribbon, a tough, hard-faced young man.
‘You are in charge here?’ Schellenberg asked.
‘Yes, General. Hauptmann Erich Kramer. In what way may I help you?’
‘We’re looking for a place trailed Chateau de Belle Ile,’ Schellenberg told him. ‘Do you know it?’
‘Very well. About ten miles east of here on the coast. Let me show you on my area map.’
They followed him into the farmhouse. The living room was fitted as a command post with radio and large-scale maps on the wall. The back road to Belle Ile was plain enough.
‘Excellent,’ Schellenberg said. ‘Tell me something. What’s your unit’s purpose here?’
‘Security duties, General. We patrol the area, try to keep the French Resistance in place.’
‘Do you get much trouble from them?’
‘Not really,’ Kramer laughed. ‘I only have thirty-five men left in this unit. We were lucky to get out of Stalingrad. This is a rest cure for us.’
They went outside and as they got back into the Kubelwagen Devlin said, ‘Crete and the Afrika Korps, I see, and Stalingrad. Did you know Steiner?’
Even the men cleaning their weapons looked up at the mention of the name. Kramer said, ‘Oberst Kurt Steiner? Who doesn’t in our line of work. A legend in the Parachute Regiment.’
‘You’ve met him then?’
‘Several times. You know him?’
‘You could say that.’
Kramer said, ‘We heard a rumour he was dead.’
‘Ah, well, you mustn’t believe everything you hear,’ Devlin told him.
‘Captain.’ Schellenberg returned his salute as Asa drove away.
‘Dear God,’ Devlin said, ‘I sometimes wonder why Steiner doesn’t make his own way back across the Channel, walking on water.’
Belle Ile was quite spectacular, a castle crowning a hill beside the sea, a vast estuary stretching beyond it, sand where the tide had just retreated. Asa took the Kubelwagen up the single winding road. There was a narrow bridge across a gap that was more ravine than moat. Two great doors stood open in an arched entrance and they came out into a cobbled courtyard. Asa braked at the foot of broad steps leading up to the front entrance, walls and towers rising above them.
They got out and Schellenberg led the way. The door was of oak, buckled with age and studded with rusting iron bolts and bands of steel. There was a bell hanging from the wall beside it. Schellenberg pulled the chain and the jangling echoed around the courtyard, bouncing from the walls.
‘Jesus,’ Devlin said, ‘all we need is Quasimodo.’
A moment later the door creaked open and he appeared, or a fair facsimile, a very old man with grey hair down to his shoulders, a black dresscoat of velvet that had seen better days, a pair of very baggy corduroy trousers beneath of the type worn by peasants on the farm.
His face was wrinkled and he badly needed a shave. ‘Yes, messieurs?’ he said in French. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘You are the caretaker?’ Schellenberg asked.
‘Yes, monsieur. Pierre Dissard.’
‘You live here with your wife?’
‘When she is here, monsieur. At present she is with her niece in Cherbourg.’
Devlin said to Asa, ‘Are you getting all this?’
‘Not a word. I don’t speak French.’
‘I suppose you spent all your time playing football.
The General and I, on the other hand, being men of intellect and learning, can understand everything the old bugger is saying. I’ll translate freely when necessary.’
Schellenberg said, ‘I wish to inspect the premises.’
He walked past Dissard into a great entrance hall, flagged in granite, a carpet here and there. There was an enormous fireplace to one side and a staircase to the first floor wide enough to take a regiment.