Cold Harbour. Jack Higgins
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circumstances, your Navy has decided to promote you.’
‘To full Commander?’ Hare said in astonishment.
‘No, to Fregattenkapitän actually,’ Munro told him, hitched the blanket over his shoulders and went to sleep.
2
As Craig Osbourne reached the edge of St Maurice, there was a volley of rifle fire and rooks in the beech trees outside the village church lifted into the air in a dark cloud, calling to each other angrily. He was driving a Kubelwagen, the German Army’s equivalent of the jeep, a general purpose vehicle that would go anywhere. He parked it by the lych-gate that gave entrance to the cemetery and got out, immaculate in the grey field uniform of a Standartenführer in the Waffen-SS.
It was raining softly and he took a greatcoat of black leather from the rear seat, slipped it over his shoulders and went forward to where a gendarme stood watching events in the square. There were a handful of villagers down there, no more than that, an SS firing squad and two prisoners waiting hopelessly, hands manacled behind their backs. A third lay face down on the cobbles by the wall. As Osbourne watched, an elderly officer appeared, wearing a long greatcoat with the silver grey lapel facings affected by officers of general rank in the SS. He took a pistol from his holster, leaned down and shot the man on the ground in the back of the head.
‘General Dietrich, I suppose?’ Osbourne asked in perfect French.
The gendarme, who had not noticed his approach, answered automatically. ‘Yes, he likes to finish them off himself, that one.’ He half turned, became aware of the uniform and jumped to attention. ‘Excuse me, Colonel, I meant no offence.’
‘None taken. We are, after all, fellow countrymen.’ Craig raised his left sleeve and the gendarme saw at once that he wore the cuff title of the French Charlemagne Brigade of the Waffen-SS. ‘Have a cigarette.’
He held out a silver case. The gendarme took one. Whatever his private thoughts concerning a countryman serving the enemy, he kept them to himself, face blank.
‘This happens often?’ Osbourne asked, giving him a light. The gendarme hesitated and Osbourne nodded encouragingly. ‘Go on, man, speak your mind. You may not approve of me, but we’re both Frenchmen.’
It surfaced then, the anger, the frustration. ‘Two or three times a week and in other places. A butcher, this one.’
One of the two men waiting was positioned against the wall; there was a shouted command, another volley. ‘And he denies them the last rites. You see that, Colonel? No priest and yet when it’s all over, he comes up here like a good Catholic to confess to Father Paul and then has a hearty lunch in the café across the square.’
‘Yes, so I’ve heard,’ Osbourne told him.
He turned away and walked back towards the church. The gendarme watched him go, wondering, then turned to observe events in the square as Dietrich went forward again, pistol in hand.
Craig Osbourne went up the path through the graveyard, opened the great oak door of the church and went inside. It was dark in there, a little light filtering down through ancient windows of stained glass. There was a smell of incense, candles flickering by the altar. As Osbourne approached, the door of the sacristy opened and an old white-haired priest emerged. He wore an alb, a violet stole over his shoulder. He paused, surprise on his face.
‘May I help you?’
‘Perhaps. Back in the sacristy, Father.’
The old priest frowned. ‘Not now, Colonel, now I must hear confession.’
Osbourne glanced across the empty church to the confessional boxes. ‘Not much custom, Father, but then there wouldn’t be, not with that butcher Dietrich expected.’ He put a hand on the priest’s chest firmly. ‘Inside, please.’
The priest backed into the sacristy, bewildered. ‘Who are you?’
Osbourne pushed him down on the wooden chair by the desk, took a length of cord from his greatcoat pocket. ‘The less you know, the better, Father. Let’s just say all is not what it seems. Now hands behind your back.’ He tied the old man’s wrists firmly. ‘You see, Father, I’m granting you absolution. No connection with what happens here. A clean bill of health with our German friends.’
He took out a handkerchief. The old priest said, ‘My son, I don’t know what you plan, but this is God’s house.’
‘Yes, well I like to think I’m on God’s business,’ Craig Osbourne said and gagged him with the handkerchief.
He left the old man there, closed the sacristy door and crossed to the confessional boxes, switched on the tiny light above the door of the first one and stepped inside. He took out his Walther, screwed a silencer on the barrel and watched, the door open a crack so that he could see down to the entrance.
After a while, Dietrich entered from the porch with a young SS Captain. They stood talking for a moment, the Captain went back outside and Dietrich walked along the aisle between the pews, unbuttoning his greatcoat. He paused, took off his cap and entered the other confessional box and sat down. Osbourne flicked the switch, turned on the small bulb that illuminated the German on the other side of the grille, remaining in darkness himself.
‘Good morning, Father,’ Dietrich said in bad French. ‘Bless me for I have sinned.’
‘You certainly have, you bastard,’ Craig Osbourne told him, pushed the silenced Walther through the flimsy grille and shot him between the eyes.
Osbourne stepped out of the confessional box and at the same moment the young SS Captain opened the church door and peered in. He saw the General on his face, the back of his skull a sodden mass of blood and brain, Osbourne standing over him. The young officer drew his pistol and fired twice wildly, the sound of the shots deafening between the old walls. Osbourne returned the fire, catching him in the chest, knocking him back over one of the pews, then ran to the door.
He peered out and saw Dietrich’s car parked at the gate, his own Kubelwagen beyond. Too late to reach it now for already a squad of SS, rifles at the ready, were running towards the church, attracted by the sound of firing.
Osbourne turned, ran along the aisle and left from the back door by the sacristy, racing through the gravestones of the cemetery at the rear of the church, vaulting the low stone wall, and started up the hill to the wood above.
They began shooting when he was half way up and he ran, zigzagging wildly, was almost there when a bullet plucked at his left sleeve sending him sideways to fall on one knee. He was up again in a second and sprinted over the brow of the hill. A moment later he was into the trees.
He ran on wildly, both arms up to cover his face against the flailing branches and where in the hell was he supposed to be running to? No transport and no way of reaching his rendezvous with that Lysander now. At least Dietrich was dead, but, as they used to say in SOE in the old days, a proper cock-up.
There was a road in the valley below, more woods on the other side. He went sliding down through the trees, landing in a ditch, picked himself up and started to cross and then to his total astonishment, the Rolls-Royce limousine came round the corner and braked to a halt.
René Dissard of the black eye-patch was at the wheel in his chauffeur’s uniform. The rear door was opened and Anne-Marie looked out. ‘Playing heroes again, Craig? You never change, do you? Come on, get in, for heaven’s sake and let’s get out of here.’
As the Rolls moved off, she nodded at the blood-soaked sleeve of his uniform. ‘Bad?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Osbourne stuffed a handkerchief inside. ‘What in the hell are you doing here?’
‘Grand Pierre was in touch. As usual, just a voice on the phone. I still haven’t met the man.’
‘I have,’ Craig told her. ‘You’re in for a shock when you do.’
‘Really? He says that Lysander