In spite of his anger, Davies looked relieved. He threw a glance at Barrett, who nodded and said gruffly: “I’m afraid my sympathies are with Roy, sir. It will be pretty near suicide for the boys as things are.” As he paused Barrett was dully aware of the irony. Here was a real chance for him to fly on operations again, and he didn’t want to go—not on this job.
“I’ll take ’em out,” he said, nevertheless. “I’ll scratch up all the kites I can and give it a bang.”
Hope stirred on the Brigadier’s face, but Davies shook his head regretfully.
“No, Barrett. It isn’t everyone’s kind of job. Grenville is one of the few men I know who might have pulled it off. That’s the trouble....”
“You’ve nothing to lose,” Barrett argued, crushing down his relief. “Let me have a crack at it.”
Desperate though the situation was, Davies knew this was no remedy. “Sorry,” he said, trying not to wound too deeply. “You and I are a bit past this sort of thing. It wouldn’t work out.”
Barrett sat silent a moment, then reached for his cap. “Then let me go and talk to Roy. We’ve been together a long time. He might listen to me.”
Davies hesitated, but the Brigadier gave an eager nod. “Yes. Let him go, please.”
Barrett paused at the door. “You know, Grenville’s a queer devil. Can I handle him my own way?”
“You mean tell him?” Davies asked, startled.
Barrett nodded. Davies turned inquiringly towards the Brigadier. The silence lasted perhaps five seconds —seconds which beat on the temples of the breathless Adams like leaden hammers. Then the Brigadier nodded slowly.
“All right. Do what you think best.”
Barrett nodded. The door closed and he was gone.
19
“Now relax a minute and listen to me.”
There was nothing subtle about Barrett, which in the circumstances was probably as well. He pushed Grenville back into his chair and lowered his own heavy body down on the bed, ignoring the spring that twanged its protest. This wasn’t going to be a pleasant job, but if it wasn’t done Grenville might easily get himself arrested. To prevent that happening, Barrett was prepared to go a long way....
“Roy,” he said bluntly, “you’ve got to take ’em back in the morning.”
“You’re wasting your time, Don. I meant what I said back there.”
Barrett nodded absent-mindedly. He took a match from his pocket and began picking at a tooth with it. After the operation he paid detaăed attention to his moustache before eyeing Grenville again.
“Roy,” he said, “do you remember Charley, that big collie I had last year?”
Grenville stared at him as if he had gone crazy.
“Well, do you?”
“Of course I do.”
Barrett nodded reflectively. “That was a fine dog—I liked him. I’ve got a soft spot for dogs—most of the time I prefer ’em to people. I did Charley. You remember what happened to him?”
“He was run over by a truck, wasn’t he?”
“That’s right. I thought at first he’d get over it, but he was in pain, Roy—something was bust in his back.
I tried for a couple of weeks to fix him but he got worse and worse. I used to lie awake at nights listening to him whimpering, poor devil. I stuck it as long as I could, and then one morning I shot him. And I’ll tell you this, Roy—I couldn’t have felt it more if he’d been one of us.”
Grenville’s face was sullen, impatient. “What are you telling me this for?”
Barrett sat up a little straighter on the bed. “I’m trying to say that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. That sometimes you have to kill something you like to put it out of its misery.”
“We all know that, don’t we? What’s the point?”
Barrett shook his head. “No, we don’t. We know it applies to animals, but we don’t think of it applying to people. It doesn’t apply in peace-time, of course, except when there are doctors around. I’ve heard it said they sometimes do it—on the quiet, naturally. ..
Grenville’s voice was tight. “What in hell are you trying to say?”
Barrett took a deep breath. “You know what the Gestapo are like, don’t you, Roy? You know what they do to anyone who has information they want. Well, supposing a friend of yours was caught by them, and in pain, and you couldn’t rescue him—what would you do, Roy? What would you do if you had a plane and some bombs to drop?”
Under the smudges of oil Grenville’s face was chalk-white now. “For God’s sake come out with it straight, Don. What has happened?”
Barrett rose from the bed and put a big, rough hand on Grenville’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Roy, because I know you and he became good friends. But that building in Bergen is occupied by the Gestapo and they’ve got Bergman and another poor devil inside it. They took Bergman in early this morning...
* * *
It was nearly seven o’clock and quite dark outside when Adams heard footsteps approaching his office. He was alone, sitting in the same chair he had occupied when Davies and the Brigadier had left him. half-an-hour earlier. An ashtray, half full of cigarette butts, was at his side, and he had a freshly lit cigarette in his hand. He was staring into the haze of smoke before him, utterly lost in his thoughts when he heard the footsteps. Instantly a thrill of nervousness ran through him, and he felt his heart pounding in his throat and temples. A second later the curtain across the door was flung aside.
It was Grenville, alone. He was still in his flying clothes, still grimy and reeking from the smoke of battle. He stood a moment at the door, and Adams could not find the courage to meet his eyes.
The silence, full of mute, tortured emotions, frightened Adams. He wanted to speak but could think of nothing to say. Panic swept over him: he wanted to jump up and run. He cleared his throat, agonizingly conscious of the inanity of his words.
“Helly, Roy. What can I do for you?”
The sound of his voice, cracked through it was, gave him back some of his moral courage. He lifted his eyes to Grenville’s face and shuddered at what he saw. A man on the rack could have looked this way at his torturers. ...
“Barrett has told you,” he muttered, knowing the answer as he asked the question.
Grenville came forward like an automaton, reached the edge of the table, and stood looking down. His voice was like the snarl of an animal.
“Damn you, yes. The one honest man among the lot of you.”
Adams made no attempt to excuse himself. “What are you going to do?” he muttered. “Are you going to take them out again?”
Grenville’s swollen eyes blazed with fury. “By God; I’m not. I wouldn’t take them now if they were a hundred per cent fit and had two serviceable kites apiece. There’s a limit to filth, Adams, even in this war.”
Adams wondered afterwards how he found the courage to argue. “This is an act of mercy, Roy. That’s how we all see it.”
Grenville’s reply was vicious and unprintable. Adams hesitated, then asked the question that was puzzling him.
“If you’re not going, Roy, then what have you come for?”
Grenville’s hands were resting on the table in front of the Intelligence Officer. Adams watched them in fascination as they bunched up into tight fists, the knuck- les standing out above the oil-blackened skin like white rocks. Grenville’s reply came down on him like a whip.
“I never said I wasn’t going, Adams. I’ve come to look over the photographs and maps again. I’m taking off at 0415 hours.”
Adams looked up aghast, “Not alone?”
Grenville sneered. “How can I take someone along now that I know what the job is? Tell me that, Adams.” Adams knew what he meant. He sat silent.
“Come on, Adams. You all want the job doing. Get those maps and photographs out. I want to run over it all again. I want to do a good job—a nice, efficient execution.”
The nightmare began. Adams opened a drawer and took out the relevant material. Grenville pu
lled one of the photographs from him and pointed at it. “That’s the building, isn’t it?”
Adams nodded. “Yes; it’s a sort of annexe to the main Gestapo Headquarters. As you can see, this building is on a piece of waste land quite near the railway station. You can pinpoint it on your way in from the docks by using the Nautical School in the Nordnes Parken as a marker. Straight on you come to the National Theatre, which is almost alongside the main Gestapo Headquarters at the top end of the Ole Bulls Plasse, a wide avenue with flower-beds and trees down the centre. At the other end of the Plasse is a tiny park, and then a small octagonal lake.” He unfolded a large-scale map. “Here it is, the Lille Lungegardsvann. Right behind it is the waste land with the building, and beyond that is a lake or fjord called the Store Lungegardsvann. You’ll have to be careful over there. Jerry has plenty of flak both alongside the station and over near this bridge, the Strombro. . . . Here are photographs of the Nautical School and the theatre....” Grenville studied the photographs a moment, then threw them aside. “I’m not planning to come in from the docks. They’ll be guarding their approaches. I want a route in from the north.” He pointed at the map. “What’s this valley here, behind the city?”
Adams studied his notes. “That’s the Isdalen Pass . 164 between two of the surrounding mountains. There’s a lake in it called the Svartediket with a reservoir—it provides Bergen with its fresh water. The pass comes out into the Store Lungegardsvann.”
“It looks quite deep. How high are the mountains on either side?”
“Ulrikken on the east side is over 2,000 feet. The other one is about the same.”
“Where does this Isdalen Pass lead from?”
“It comes from the Ama district, up here.”
Grenville nodded, his eyes moving up the map, following the fjords out to the sea north of Bergen. “This is my way in,” he said at last, tracing a route with his finger. “If I keep on the deck I’ll have the islands or mountains covering me on both flanks most of the way. Wait a minute; where’s Herdla? That’s one of Jerry’s airfields, isn’t it?”
“You’re all right. Herdla’s farther south, down here....”
Grenville’s questions came for over twenty minutes. His final ones were about the building itself.
“You say it’s wooden?”
“Yes. Until the Gestapo took it over it was used as a warehouse. It’s three stories high and about fifty feet long—it shouldn’t be difficult to destroy if you get through all right.”
Grenville’s lips twisted. “No; it shouldn’t be a bit difficult to blow up a place like that.”
Adams cracked then. “Take someone with you, Roy. For God’s sake don’t do it alone.”
“Why not? I’ve a better chance of getting through that way.”
“It isn’t that. I know how things are between you and Hilde—I’m not blind. You’re never going to forgive yourself if you do it alone. The Brigadier told us this sort of thing has had to be done before, but never by one man. ... If you take a couple of planes with you, or even an observer, it won’t seem so personal.” Grenville’s eyes burned their contempt. “Share out the guilt a bit—is that it, Adams? No; let’s rather keep all the filth in one place.”
He looked down at his watch, and his tone sudden-165 ly changed. “Barrett said they took him inside early this morning. Is that what you heard?”
Adams nodded. “Yes; they were seen arriving with him just after dawn. They took in a second man called Ericson later in the day—the message about him came through when you were on the raid.”
“So he’s been in there all day. And I can’t do anything for him before dawn. Ten more hours, Frank. ... That’s a long time....”
His words and the agony in them came as a shock to Adams. He had to look away, his teeth sinking deeply into his lips. When he turned back, Grenville was standing at the door.
“Thanks for the gen, Frank,” he said curtly. “If all goes well I’ll drop in tomorrow and let you know how things have gone. Cheerio.”
“Cheerio, Roy,” Adams whispered. The door closed, and in the silence that followed Adams could hear the tick-tick of his watch as it whipped on the stumbling seconds.
* * *
Hilde came out of the sitting-room the instant Adams entered the hall. Although she smiled at him, he did not miss the deep disappointment in her eyes on recognizing him instead of Grenville. Her face was pale and there was a tremor of unsteadiness in her voice.
“We’ve all been wondering when someone would be coming over. What happened today, Frank? Are you able to tell me?”
Adams had hoped to avoid seeing her, and now her words sent a shock through him, stiffening his features. It was a few seconds before he realized she was talking about the squadron’s homecoming that afternoon—a tragedy he had almost forgotten in the events that had followed it.
“They had a special job to do,” he muttered. “Something went wrong and they ran into trouble. But Grenville’s all right—he’s quite safe. ... I’d forgotten— you’d see it all from here.”
Her eyes had closed thankfully on hearing of Grenville’s safety. As they opened again Adams saw in them the memory of that blood-drenched afternoon. “Yes,” she said unsteadily. “We saw both the planes crash.”
In spite of himself, his gaze was drawn to her face. She was lovely . . . lovely and young, too young to be mixed up in anything as hellish as this. Suddenly he felt trapped, felt her blue-grey eyes were getting right into his mind, reading the secret there. . . . The palms of his hands grew sticky. She mustn’t find out—it could turn her mind. He had to get away....
“Yes; I believe so.”
Adams had been given two hours off duty in preparation for the sleepless night ahead. His thoughts had tormented him, making him feel like a conspirator in a murder, and he had fled the airfield in an effort to escape them. Desperately needing solace, he had made instinctively for the inn; and had he been asked why he would have given the answer that his wife was there. Now he knew he had not come to see Valerie, particularly if she was in the lounge....
“Where’s the landlord?” he asked.
Hilde pointed at the kitchen door, which was closed. “The bar has been very quiet tonight as there have been no airmen over. I believe he is making tea.”
Adams thanked her and started down the hall. She made a fluttering motion of her hand, stopping him. “Please. Is the Canadian, Gillibrand, safe? Maisie has been worrying about him.”
A vision of Gillibrand’s frantic face came to Adams. He hesitated, then nodded. “Yes; he’s back all right. But he lost his observer today, so naturally he’s rather upset.”
A spasm of pain crossed the girl’s face. “Do you mean the young boy he called Jimmie?”
Adams nodded. “Gillie was pretty broken up about it when I saw him, so you might tip Maisie off. He might be a bit difficult to handle at first.”
“I understand and I will tell her,” the girl said. She hesitated, then went on quietly; “And Roy is all right? Nothing like that has happened to him?”
Adams felt trapped again. “No; he’s quite safe.”
“I thought he might have come over for a little 167 while. Do you know why he has not?” As soon as she had spoken, the girl flushed, then went pale.
“He’s had a bad day,” Adams muttered. “And he’s on duty tonight. Most of us are. I’ve only come over for an hour myself.”
He knew his voice was giving him away. He wanted to turn and run. She gave a helpless shake of her head.
“It is so difficult with Roy. He does not seem to realize how much one worries about him. And one is so helpless, sitting about here. Oh, denne fryktelige ventingen...
It was her breakdown into Norwegian that went through Adams’ guard. In some odd way it lent intense expression to her loneliness. Under the shaded bulb of the hall she looked very young and clean and vulnerable, and Adams could bear it no longer. He stumbled away, feeling blindly for the kitchen door.
“I’m so
rry. I must see ... the landlord. Excuse me.”
He lurched into the kitchen, closing the door to hide her from his sight. He remembered Grenville’s words. Filthy!—even the knowledge made one feel that. Unclean and tainted....
He tried to see round the kitchen. From a shapeless blur the familiar face of Kearns slowly took shape, eyeing him with concern.
“What’s the matter, Frank? What’s happened, lad?”
Adams tried to speak, but the sound that came from his throat alarmed him. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes tightly.
“Frank, lad; what is it? Here, sit down.”
Adams sat down, gripping the arms of the chair for support. He sat motionless for a full thirty seconds, breathing heavily. Then he looked up at the solicitious face of Kearns.
“You’re right, Joe. War is vile. Dear God, it is. Unspeakably vile.”
20
The last of the locals said good night to Maisie and closed the bar door. After the low hum of conversation the room seemed very silent. Maisie stared around it and suddenly shivered. She didn’t want to be alone—not after what Miss Bergman had told her .. .
She latched the door, and mechanically began collecting up the empty glasses. How could the kid be dead? Why, he’d been in here drinking beer only a couple of nights ago, looking better than she’d seen him looking before. And two weeks before that she’d kissed him up there in her room, and felt his tears soaking through her dress. ... He couldn’t be dead, cold and grey in the soil. People couldn’t go as quickly as that. It didn’t make sense.
The shock was wearing off now, and dullness giving way to both grief and panic. How was Gillie taking it? Mr. Adams had promised to try to get him to come over, but he might be holding it against her more than ever now. Surely not—surely he could see now how unimportant it had been. Beside men’s lives it was nothing ... But some men didn’t see it that way—not men like Gillie.
She put the empty glasses into the sink, turned on the cold water, and let it run over her hot wrists. She was worried about Gillie. He’d thought an awful lot about that boy—he might go right off the deep end if she didn’t get a chance to talk to him first. Why couldn’t he see she’d done it for him as well as for the kid? Why hadn’t he come over already? She was frightened....
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