A Game for Heroes. Jack Higgins

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СКАЧАТЬ Roundhead, the kind of man who could cry on the Lord with fervour, pray out loud on his knees and in the same breath, cheerfully interpret the master’s word as burning young women alive for witches.

      He stayed in his seat, both hands on the desk. ‘Your name, rank and number.’

      His English was poor and I replied in German. He showed not the slightest surprise and continued in the same language. ‘You can prove this?’

      I fiddled about on the inside of my belt and produced my identity discs. I passed them across and waited as he examined them gravely. He put them down and snapped a finger at Brandt, not Steiner.

      ‘A chair for the colonel.’

      I shook my head. ‘I’ll stand. Let’s get it over with.’

      He didn’t attempt to argue, but got to his feet, I suppose because it offended his sense of what was fitting that two senior officers should not be on terms of perfect equality, even if he did intend to have me shot that same afternoon.

      He sat on the edge of the desk. ‘Owen Morgan? Now that I find interesting. Did you know that the lifeboat on this island bears that name?’

      There seemed no reason to hide the fact. ‘After my father, I was born and raised here.’

      ‘So?’ He nodded. ‘That explains a great deal. You were here to find out what you could about the Nigger project.’

      It was a statement of fact, well-timed and delivered in a perfectly normal conversational tone as he took a cigarette from a sandalwood box and lit it.

      I didn’t bite. ‘Was I?’

      ‘Four of your companions are alive and in our hands. Two more were recovered from the harbour. One of them spoke a little before he died and what he said was informative.’

      ‘I’m sure it was.’

      He carried straight on. ‘I presume you were landed separately somewhere on the south-east comer of the island, especially as two of my sentries have disappeared in that area. I am not asking, you notice, I am simply thinking aloud.’

      ‘Your privilege,’ I told him.

      ‘Allow me to continue, then. Your companions are in uniform, you are in civilian clothes from which I deduce that your task was to attempt to contact the local population for information.’ He almost smiled, which for him must have been quite a feat. ‘There are exactly five islanders left here, Colonel Morgan, and I happen to know that one way or another, they were all under surveillance last night. You wasted your time, your men made a mess of the business in the harbour and your gunboat, such a very British term, I always think, is at the bottom of the sea. Mission a failure.’ He said those words in English. ‘Isn’t that what they will stamp on the cover of the file?’

      ‘Something like that.’

      He straightened, placing his hands behind his back. ‘You are familiar with the Kommand- obefehl?’

      ‘Naturally.’

      ‘Then you will know that under its provisions, all members of the so-called commando units must be executed as soon after capture as may be.’

      ‘You’re certainly taking your time about it.’

      I didn’t even strike a spark. He nodded gravely. ‘As it happens this action is the responsibility of the commanding officer in the particular area and I am not he, Colonel Morgan. General Muller, the last governor, was killed by a mine four weeks ago.’

      ‘That was rather careless of him, wasn’t it?’

      ‘The new governor, Korvettenkapitän Karl Olbricht has not yet arrived.’

      ‘So you’re just filling in?’

      He permitted himself that wintry smile again. ‘Something like that.’

      ‘And I can expect to be shot only when the real governor flies in to sign the paper? What happens in the meantime?’

      ‘You forfeit all privileges of rank.’ It was at this point that he sat down. ‘You work, Colonel Morgan. There is plenty of work for you here. You work in chains with the rest of your companions.’

      There didn’t seem much point in quoting the Geneva Convention, but in any case, Steiner was speaking. ‘I must again stress the gallant nature of Colonel Morgan’s conduct this morning …’

      ‘Which is noted, Steiner,’ Radl said calmly. ‘You are dismissed now.’

      Steiner stayed where he was for a long moment while I prayed for him to get out of it. His face showed real emotion for the first time since I’d known him and he started to speak again.

      Radl cut in on him again and gently, perhaps because of that Knight’s Cross that hung from Steiner’s neck, the one medal for valour they all respected, the one that meant the wearer shouldn’t really be here.

      ‘You are dismissed, Steiner.’

      Steiner saluted, swung on heel and Radl said, ‘You may take Colonel Morgan to join the others now, Brandt.’

      ‘Hasn’t anybody bothered to tell you how the war’s going?’ I said. ‘In case they didn’t, it’s just about over and your side lost.’

      Punctilious to the last, he saluted me gravely. I laughed in his face and walked out.

      We drove up to Fort Edward on the point above Charlottestown. It was the largest of the four Victorian naval forts built in the eighteen-fifties during the period when the English government of the day was worried about its relations with France.

      There was a sentry at the gate beside a machine gun in a sand-bagged emplacement and he waved us through the granite archway with Victoria Regina and the date 1856 carved above it.

      Inside, grass grew between the cobbles which was nothing new, but several concrete gun emplacements were and there were trucks parked across the courtyard and a notice that indicated the presence of some kind of artillery unit. We got out of the field car and Brandt waved me on politely towards the wooden doors of the old blockhouse which stood open.

      One of his police corporals hurried ahead and when we went inside, he had the leg irons ready. Brandt turned, face pale, and said in English, ‘I am sorry, Colonel. A bad business, but a soldier’s duty is to obey orders.’

      ‘Get on with it, then,’ I told him.

      The corporal dropped to his knees and quickly snapped the steel collars around my ankles and tightened them with a screw key. The chain between them was a little over two feet in length which allowed me to shuffle along at quite a reasonable rate.

      ‘Where to now?’ I demanded.

      Brandt led the way without a word. We mounted the stone steps at the side of the blockhouse to the lower ramparts and walked towards the end of the point. As a boy of fourteen I had stood up there once a thousand years ago and watched the sea take my father. Now it was an artillery position and the walls were considerably knocked about, presumably by the naval bombardment СКАЧАТЬ