Wrath of the Lion. Jack Higgins

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СКАЧАТЬ of your passengers, Pierre Bouvier. I understand he is travelling with you as far as Madeira?’

      Duclos’s rage, hardly contained, flooded out in a roar of anger. ‘By God, I’ll see you in hell first! I’m still captain of this ship.’

      Still leaning comfortably against the rail, Jacaud pulled the Lüger from his pocket and shot him neatly through the left leg. Duclos screamed as the heavy slug splintered his knee-cap and rolled over on the deck, face twisted in agony.

      ‘To encourage the rest of you,’ Jacaud said calmly. ‘Now get Bouvier up here.’

      As Janvier turned, a quiet voice said: ‘No need, monsieur. He is here.’

      The man who stepped out of the saloon companionway was well past middle age. Tall and thin with stooping shoulders, he had the angular bony face of the ascetic and thinning grey hair. He wore a raincoat over pyjamas and a small grey-haired woman clutched his arm fearfully. Behind them, two other passengers, clothes hastily pulled on, hesitated in the doorway.

      ‘You are Pierre Bouvier?’ Fenelon demanded.

      ‘That is correct.’

      Jacaud nodded to one of the sailors. ‘Bring him over here.’

      The woman’s voice lifted at once, but Bouvier quietened her and allowed himself to be led forward. The sailor placed him with his back to the rail and went and stood beside Jacaud.

      ‘What do you want with me?’ Bouvier said.

      ‘A month ago at Fort-Neuf you were public prosecutor at a trial,’ Fenelon said. ‘A trial at which six good friends of ours received the death sentence.’

      ‘So, the O.A.S. is in this?’ Bouvier shrugged. ‘I did my duty as I saw it. No man can do more.’

      ‘You will, I am sure, allow us the same privilege, monsieur.’ Fenelon produced a document from his pocket, unfolded it and read rapidly. ‘“Pierre Bouvier, I must inform you that you have been tried in your absence and found guilty of the crime of treason against the Republic by a military tribunal of the Council of National Resistance.”’

      He paused and Bouvier cut in gently, ‘And the sentence of the court is death?’

      ‘Naturally,’ Fenelon said. ‘Have you anything to say?’

      Bouvier shrugged and an expression of contempt crossed his face. ‘Say? Say what? There is no charge to answer. I know it and you know it. Frenchmen everywhere will –’

      Jacaud plucked the sub-machine-gun from the hands of the sailor standing next to him, aimed quickly and fired a long burst that drove Bouvier back against the rail. He spun round, the material of his raincoat bursting into flame as bullets hammered across his back, and fell to the deck.

      His wife cried his name once, took a single step forward and fainted, one of the passengers catching her as she fell backwards.

      From the well-deck there was a strange, muted sigh from the crew and then there was only silence. Jacaud tossed the machine-gun to the sailor he had taken it from and went down the ladder without a backward glance. Fenelon looked as if he might be sick at any moment. He nodded to his men and hurriedly followed the big man, missing a step halfway down and almost falling to the deck.

      They went over the side one by one and from the conning tower of the submarine the heavy machine-gun covered them menacingly. When they were all in the dinghy the sailors standing by the forward hatch hauled on the line quickly.

      They left the dinghy to drift and everyone scrambled down through the hatch except Fenelon, who walked along the hull and climbed the ladder to the conning tower. He stood looking up at the freighter for a moment as the two vessels drifted apart, and on the Kontoro there was a strange, uncanny silence.

      The two sailors dismounted the machine-gun and disappeared. Fenelon remained only a moment or two longer before following. The conning-tower hatch clanged shut, the sound echoing flatly across the water.

      On the Kontoro it was as if a spell had been broken and everyone surged forward to the rail. Janvier had never felt quite so helpless in his life before and for some unaccountable reason was strangely close to tears.

      In the distance the wind was already beginning to lift the waves into whitecaps and he remembered the gale warning. L’Alouette sank beneath the waves like a grey ghost, the tricolour waved bravely, then that too disappeared and there was only the sea.

       2

       To Sup with the Devil

      A thin sea fog rolled in from Southampton Water as the taxi turned the corner and pulled into the kerb. Anne Grant peered out through the window at the dim bulk of the building rearing into the night.

      The original structure had been Georgian, so much was obvious, but the years had left their mark. A line of uneven steps lifted to the door, the paint cracked and peeling in the diffused yellow light of a street-lamp. Above it a small glass sign said Regent Hotel.

      She tapped on the partition and the driver opened it. ‘Are you sure this is the place?’

      ‘Regent Hotel, Farthing Lane. That’s what you said and that’s where I’ve brought you,’ the man replied. ‘It’s only a doss-house, lady. The sort of place sailors come to for a kip on their first night ashore. What did you expect – the Ritz?’

      She opened the door and got out, hesitating for a moment as she gazed up at the damp, crumbling façade of the hotel. Except for the lapping of water against the wharf pilings on the other side of the street, it was completely quiet. When a café door was opened somewhere in the middle distance the music and laughter might have been coming from another planet. She gave the driver ten shillings, told him to wait and went up the steps.

      The corridor was dimly lit, a flight of stairs rising into the shadows at the far end. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the stale smell compounded of cooking odours and urine and moved forward.

      There was a door to the left, the legend Bar etched in acid on its frosted-glass panel. When she opened it she found herself in a long, narrow room, the far end shrouded in darkness. An old marble-topped bar fronted one wall, a cracked mirror behind it, and a man leaned beside the beer pumps reading a newspaper.

      In one corner a drunk sprawled across a table face-down, his breath whistling uneasily through the stillness. Two men sat beside a small coal fire talking softly as they played cards. They turned to look at her and she closed the door and walked past them.

      The barman was old and balding, with the sagging, disillusioned face of a man who had got past being surprised at anything. He folded his paper neatly and pushed it under the bar.

      ‘What can I do for you?’

      ‘I’m looking for a Mr Van Sondergard,’ she said. ‘I understand he’s staying here.’

      Beyond the barman the two men СКАЧАТЬ