‘I won’t. I won’t because I don’t go around telling lies. I think you may be the bravest girl I ever met.’
‘After that performance!’
‘Especially after that performance.’
She was still clinging to him, clearly still not trusting her balance, was silent for a few moments, then said ‘I think you may be the kindest man I’ve ever met.’
‘Good God!’ He was genuinely astonished. The strain has been too much. After all you’ve said about me!’
‘Especially after everything I said about you.’
She was still holding him, although now only tentatively, when they heard the sound of a heavy fist banging on a wooden door and George’s booming voice saying: ‘Open up, in the name of the law or common humanity or whatever. We have crossed the burning sands and are dying of thirst.’
The door opened almost immediately and a tall, thin figure appeared, framed in the rectangle of light. He came down the two steps and thrust out a hand.
‘It cannot be …” He had an excruciatingly languid Oxbridge accent.
‘It is.’ George took his hand. ‘Enough of the formalities. At stake there is nothing less than the sacred name of British hospitality.’
‘Goodness gracious!’ The man screwed a monocle, an oddly-shaped oval one, into his right eye, advanced towards Lorraine, took her hand, swept it up in a gesture of exquisite gallantry and kissed it. ‘Goodness gracious me. Lorraine Chamberlain t* He seemed about to embark upon a speech of some length, caught sight of Petersen and went to meet him. ‘Peter, my boy. Once again all those dreadful trials and tribulations lie behind you. My word, I can’t tell you how dull and depressing it’s been here during the two weeks you’ve been gone. Dreadful, I tell you. Utterly dreadful.’
Petersen smiled. ‘Hello, Jamie. Good to see you again. Things should improve now. George, quite illicitly, of course, has brought you some presents – quite a lot of presents, they almost broke the back of one of the ponies coming up here. Presents that go clink.’ He turned to Sarina. ‘May I introduce Captain Harrison. Captain Harrison,’ he added with a straight face, ‘is English. Jamie, this is Sarina von Kara Jan.’
Harrison shook her hand enthusiastically. ‘Delighted, delighted. If only you knew how we miss even the commonest amenities of civilization in these benighted parts. Not, of course,’ he added hastily, ‘that there’s anything common about you. My goodness, I should say not.’ He looked at Petersen. The Harrisons’ ill luck runs true to form again. We were born under an evil and accursed star. Do you mean to tell me that you have had the great fortune, the honour, the pleasure of escorting those two lovely ladies all the way from Italy?’
‘Neither of them think there was any fortune, honour or pleasure about it. I didn’t know you had the pleasure of knowing Lorraine before.’ Giacomo had a sudden but very brief paroxysm of coughing which Petersen ignored.
‘Oh, my goodness, yes, indeed. Old friends, very old. Worked together once, don’t you know? Tell you some time. Your other new friends?’ Petersen introduced Giacomo and Michael whom Harrison welcomed in what was his clearly customary effusive fashion, then said: ‘Well, inside, inside. Can’t have you all freezing to death in this abominable weather. I’ll have your goods and chattels taken in. Inside, inside.’
“Inside” was surprisingly roomy, warm, well-lit and, by guerrilla standards, almost comfortable. There were three bunks running the length of each side of the room, some tall articles of furniture that could have been either cupboards or wardrobes, a deal table, half a dozen pine chairs, the unheard luxury of a couple of rather scruffy arm-chairs and even two strips of worn and faded carpet. At either end of the room were two doors that led, presumably, to further accommodation. Harrison closed the outside door behind him.
‘Have a seat, have a seat.’ The Captain was much given to repeating himself. ‘George, if I may suggest – ah, foolish of me, I might have known that any such suggestion was superfluous.’ George had, indeed, lost no time in doubling in his spare-time role of barman. Harrison looked around him with an air of proprietorial pride. ‘Not bad, although I say it myself, not bad at all. You won’t find many such havens in this strife-torn land. I regret to say that we live in accommodation such as this all too infrequently, but when we do we make the best of it. Electric light, if you please – you can’t hear it but we have the only generator in the base apart from the commander. Need it for our big radios.’ He pointed to two six-inch diameter pipes angling diagonally upwards along either wall to disappear through the roof. ‘Central heating, of course. Actually, they’re only the stove-pipes from our coke and wood stove outside. Would have it inside but we’d all be asphyxiated in minutes. And what do we have here, George?’ He inspected the contents of a glass George had just handed him.
George shrugged and said diffidently: ‘Nothing really. Highland malt whisky.’
‘Highland malt whisky.’ Harrison reverently surveyed the amber liquid, sipped it delicately and smiled in rapture. ‘Where on earth did you get this, George?’
‘Friend of mine in Rome.’
‘God bless your Roman friends.’ This time assuming his beatific expression in advance, Harrison sipped again. ‘Well, that’s about all the mod cons. That door to the left leads to my radio room. Some nice stuff in there but unfortunately we can’t take most of it with us when we travel which, again unfortunately, is most of the time. The other door leads to what I rather splendidly call my sleeping quarters. It’s about the size of a couple of telephone boxes but it does have two cots.’ Harrison took another sip from his glass and went on gallantly: ‘Those quarters, naturally, I will gladly vacate for the night for the two young ladies.’
‘You are very kind,’ Sarina said doubtfully. ‘But I – we -were supposed to report to the Colonel.’
‘Nonsense. Not to be thought of. You are exhausted by your travels, your sufferings, your privations. One has only to look at you. I am sure the Colonel will gladly wait until the morning. Is that not so, Peter?’
‘Tomorrow will be time enough.’
‘Of course. Well, we castaways marooned on a mountain top are always eager for news of the outside world. What of the past fortnight, my friend?’
Petersen put down his untouched glass and rose. ‘George will tell you. He’s a much better raconteur than I am.’
‘Well, yes, you do rather lack his gift for dramatic embellishment. Duty calls?’ Petersen nodded.
‘Ah! The Colonel?’
‘Who else. I won’t be long.’
When Petersen returned, he was not alone. The two men accompanying him were, like himself, covered in a heavy coating of snow. While they were brushing this off, Harrison rose courteously and introduced them.
‘Good evening, gentlemen. We are honoured.’ He turned to the newcomers. ‘Let me introduce Major Rankovic, Major Metrovic, two of the Colonel’s senior commanders. You venture forth on a wild night, gentlemen.’
‘You mean, of course, why have we come?’ The speaker, Major Metrovic, was a man of medium height, dark, thickset and cheerful. ‘Curiosity, of course. Peter’s movements are always shrouded in mystery and heaven knows we see little enough of new faces from the outer world.’
‘Peter didn’t also mention that two of those new faces were young, female and -1 speak as a detached observer, of course – rather extraordinarily good-looking?’
‘He may have done, he may have done.’ Metrovic smiled again. ‘You know how it is with my colleague and myself. Our minds are invariably preoccupied with military matters. Isn’t that so, Marino?’
Marino – Major Rankovic – a tall, thin, dark-bearded and rather gloomy character, who looked as if he let Metrovic do all the smiling for both of them, didn’t say whether it was so or not. He seemed preoccupied and the source of his preoccupation was unquestionably Giacomo.
‘I asked them along,’ Petersen said. ‘I felt it was the least I could do to bring some relief into their cheerless lives.’
‘Well, welcome, welcome.’ Harrison looked at his watch. ‘Won’t be long, you said. What do you call short?’
‘I wanted to give George a chance to finish his story. Besides, I was detained. Much questioning. And I stopped by at my radio hut to see if you’d made off with anything during my absence. It seems not. Perhaps you mislaid the key.’
‘The radio hut?’ Sarina glanced at the door at the end of the room. ‘But we heard nothing. I mean -‘
‘My radio hut is fifty metres away. No mystery. There are three radios in the camp. One for the Colonel. One for Captain Harrison. One for me. You will be assigned to the Colonel. Lorraine comes here.’
‘You arranged that?’
‘I arranged nothing. I take orders, just like anyone else.