‘You’re not going to stand, Michael.’ George had come up behind Michael and laid his hands on his shoulders. ‘You’re going to sit.’ Michael sat. ‘If you can’t keep quiet I’ll have to tie and gag you. Major Petersen is asking questions.’
‘Good Lord!’ Harrison was or seemed outraged. ‘This is a bit thick, George. A bit high-handed, I must say. Peter, I don’t think you’re any longer in a position to -‘
‘And if you don’t keep quiet,’ George said with a trace of weariness in his voice, ‘I’ll do the same thing to you.’
‘To me!’ No question, this time the outrage was genuine. ‘Me? An officer? A Captain in the British Army! By God! Giacomo, you’re an Englishman. I appeal to you -‘
‘Appeal is denied. I wouldn’t hurt an officer’s feelings by telling him to shut up, but I think the Major is trying to establish something. You may not like his military philosophy but at least you should keep an open mind. And I think Sarina should too. I think you’re both being foolish.’
Harrison muttered ‘My God’ twice and subsided.
Petersen said: Thanks, Giacomo. Sarina, if you think I’m trying to hurt you or harm you then you are, as Giacomo says, being foolish. I couldn’t and wouldn’t. I want to help. Did you and the Colonel have or not have a private conversation?”
‘We talked, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Of course you talked. If I sound a bit exasperated, it’s pardonable. What did you talk about? Me?’
‘No. Yes. I mean, among other things.’
‘Among other things,’ he mimicked. ‘What other things?’
‘Just other things. Just generally.’
‘That’s a lie. You talked just about me and, maybe, a bit about Colonel Lunz. Remember, walls can have both ears and eyes. And you can’t remember what you said when you sold me down the river which is where I am now. How many pieces of silver did the good Colonel give you?’
‘I never did!’ She was breathing quickly now and there were patches of red high up on her cheeks. ‘I didn’t betray you. I didn’t! I didn’t!’
‘And all for a little piece of paper. I hope you got your due. You earned your thirty pieces. You didn’t know that I’d picked up the paper later, did you?’ He brought a piece of paper out from his tunic and unfolded it. ‘This one.’
She stared at it dully, looked at him equally dully, put her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands. ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’ Her voice was muffled. ‘I don’t know any more. I know you’re a bad man, a wicked man, but I didn’t betray you.’
‘I know you didn’t.’ He reached out a gentle hand and touched her shoulder. ‘But I know what’s going on. I have done all along. I’m sorry if I hurt you but I had to get you to say it. Why couldn’t you have admitted it in the first place? Or have you forgotten what I said only yesterday morning?’
‘Forgotten what?’ She took her hands from her face and looked at him. It was difficult to say if the hazel eyes were still dull for there were tears in them.
‘That you’re far too nice and too transparently honest to do anything underhand. There were three pieces of paper. The one I gave to the Colonel, this one I’d made out before leaving Rome -1 never picked anything up after your talk with him -and the one Colonel Lunz had given to you.’
‘You are clever, aren’t you?’ She’d wiped the tears from her eyes and they weren’t dull any more, just mad.
‘Cleverer than you are, anyway,’ Petersen said cheerfully for some inexplicable reason Lunz thought that I might be some kind of spy or double agent and change the message, forge a different set of orders. But I didn’t, did I? The message I gave the Colonel was the one I received and it checked with the copy Lunz had given you. Paradoxically, of course – you being a woman – this annoyed you. If I had been a spy, a sort of reconverted renegade who had gone over to the other side, you would have been no end pleased, wouldn’t you? You might have respected me, even liked me a little. Well, I remained an unreconstructed Cetnik. You Were aware, of course, that if I had changed the orders that Mihajlovic would have had me executed?’
A little colour drained from her face and she touched her hand to her lips.
‘Of course you were unaware. Not only are you incapable of double-dealing, not only are you incapable of thinking along double-dealing lines, you’re not even capable of thinking of the consequences to the double-dealer who has overplayed his hand. How an otherwise intelligent girl – well, never mind. As I’ve said before, in this nasty espionage world, leave the thinking to those who are capable of it. Why did you do it, Sarina?’
‘Why did I do what?’ All of a sudden she seemed quite defenceless. She said, almost in a monotone: ‘What am I going to be accused of now?’
‘Nothing, my dear. I promise you. Nothing. I was just wondering, although I’m sure I know why, how it came about that you went along with this underground deal with Colonel Lunz, something so completely alien to your nature. It was because it was your only way into Yugoslavia. If you had refused, he’d have refused you entrance. So I’ve answered my own question.’ Petersen rose. ‘Wine, George, wine. All this talk is thirsty work.’
‘What is not common knowledge,’ George said, ‘is that listening is even thirstier work.’
Petersen lifted his replenished glass and turned towards Harrison. ‘To your health, Jamie. As a British officer, of course.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Clutching his glass Harrison Struggled to his feet. ‘Of course. Your health. Ah. Well. Extenuating circumstances, old boy. How was I -‘
‘And a gentleman.’
‘Of course, of course.’ He was still confused. ‘A gentleman.’
‘Were you being a gentleman, Jamie, when you called her a gullible liar, and an aider and comforter to us miserable lot? This lovely and charming lady is not only not that, she’s something you’ve been looking for, something to gladden your patriotic heart, a true blue loyalist and not a true blue Royalist, a patriot in your best sense of the word, what you would call a Yugoslav. As dedicated a Partisan as one can be who has never seen a Partisan in her life. That’s why she and her brother came back to this country the hard way, to give -as you would put it in your customary stirring language, Jamie – their services to their country, i.e., the Partisans.’
Harrison put down his glass, crossed to where Sarina was sitting, stooped low, lifted the back of her hand and kissed it. ‘Your servant, ma’am.’
‘That’s an apology?’ George said.
‘For an English officer,’ Petersen said, ‘that is – as an English officer would say – a jolly handsome apology.’
‘He’s not the only one who’s due to make an apology.’ Michael wasn’t actually shuffling his feet but he looked as if he would have liked to. ‘Major Petersen, I have -‘
‘No apology, Michael,’ Petersen said hastily. ‘No apology. If I’d a sister like that, I wouldn’t even talk to her tormentor, in this case, me. I’d clobber him over the head with a two by four. So if I don’t apologise to your sister for what I’ve done to her, don’t you apologize to me.’
‘Thank you very much, sir.’ He hesitated. ‘May I ask how long you’ve known that Sarina and I were – well, what you say we are.’
‘From the first time I saw you. Rather, let me say I suspected something was far wrong when I met you in that Rome apartment. You were both stiff, awkward, ill at ease, reserved, even truculent. No smile on the lips, no song in the heart, none of the eagerness, the youthful enthusiasm of those marching off into a glorious future. Ultra-cautious, ultra-suspicious. Wrong attitude altogether. If you’d been flying red flags you couldn’t have indicated more clearly that something was weighing heavily on your minds. Your pasts were so blameless, so your concern was obviously with future problems such – as became evident quite soon – how you were going to transfer yourselves to the Partisan camp after you had arrived at our HQ. Your sister lost little time in giving you away – it was in the mountain inn when she tried to convince me of her Royalist sympathies. Told me she was a pal of King Peter’s – prince, as he was then.’
‘I never did!’ Her indignation was unconvincing. ‘I just met him a few times.’
‘Sarina.’ The tone, was mildly reproving.
She said nothing.
‘How often must I tell you -‘
‘Oh, all right,’ she said.