Steiner tried the tower door and the sacristy, both of which appeared to be locked and looked behind the curtain at the foot of the tower where ropes soared through holes in the wooden floor thirty feet up to bells which hadn't rung since 1939.
He turned and walked up the aisle to face them. 'Well, all I can offer you is another fight.'
Preston said. 'It's a ludicrous situation. How can we fight? They've got the men, the equipment. We couldn't hold this place for ten minutes once they really start.'
'It's quite simple,' Steiner said. 'We don't have any other choice. As you heard, under the terms of the Geneva Convention we have put ourselves gravely at risk by wearing British uniforms.'
'We fought as German soldiers,' Preston insisted. 'In German uniforms. You said that yourself.'
'A neat point,' Steiner said. 'I'd hate to stake my life on it, even with a good lawyer. If it's to be a bullet, rather now than from a firing squad later.'
'I don't know what you're getting so worked up about anyway, Preston,' Ritter said, 'it's the Tower of London for you without a doubt. The English, I'm afraid, have never held traitors in particularly high regard. They'll hang you so high the crows won't be able to get at you.'
Preston sank down in a pew, head in hands.
The organ rumbled into life and Hans Altmann, sitting high above the choir stalls, called, 'A choral prelude of Johan Sebastian Bach, particularly appropriate to our situation as it is entitled For the Dying.'
His voice echoed up into the nave as the music swelled. Ach wie nichtig, ach wiefluchtig. O how cheating, O how fleeting are our days departing...
One of the clerestory windows high up in the nave smashed. A burst of automatic fire knocked Altmann off the seat into the choir stalls. Werner turned, crouching, firing his Sten. A Ranger pitched headlong through the window and landed between two pews. In the same moment, several more clerestory windows crashed in and heavy fire was poured down into the church. Werner was hit in the head as he ran along the south aisle and fell on his face without a cry. Someone was using a Thompson gun up there now, spraying it back and forth.
Steiner crawled to Werner, turned him over, then moved on, dodging up the chancel steps to check on Altmann. He returned by way of the south aisle, keeping down behind the pews as intermittent firing continued.
Devlin crawled to meet him. 'What's the situation up there?'
'Altmann and Briegel both gone.'
'It's a bloodbath,' the Irishman said. 'We don't stand a chance. Ritter's been hit in the legs and Jansen's dead.'
Steiner crawled back with him to the rear of the church and found Ritter on his back behind the pews binding a field dressing round one thigh. Preston and Corporal Becker crouched beside him.
'Are you all right, Ritter?' Steiner asked.
'They'll run out of wound badges, Herr Oberst.' Ritter grinned, but was obviously in great pain.
They were still firing from above and Steiner nodded towards the sacristy door, barely visible now in the shadows and said to Becker. 'See if you can shoot your way in through that door. We can't last long out here, that's for certain.'
Becker nodded and slipped through the shadows behind the font, keeping low. There was that strange metallic clicking of the bolt reciprocating as he fired the silenced Sten; he stamped against the sacristy door; it swung open.
All firing stopped and Garvey called from high above. 'You had enough yet, Colonel? This is like shooting fish in a barrel and I'd rather not, but we'll carry you out on a plank if we have to.'
Preston cracked then, jumped to his feet and ran out into the open by the font. 'Yes, I'll come! I've had enough!'
'Bastard!' Becker cried and he ran out of the shadows by the sacristy door and rammed the butt of his rifle against the side of Preston's skull. The Thompson gun rattled, a short burst only but it caught Becker full in the back, driving him headlong through the curtains at the base of the tower. He grabbed at the ropes in dying as if trying to hang on to life itself and somewhere overhead, a bell tolled sonorously for the first time in years.
There was silence again and Garvey called, 'Five minutes, Colonel.'
'We'd better got moving,' Steiner said to Devlin in a low voice. 'We'll do better inside that sacristy than out here.'
'How long for?' Devlin asked.
There was a slight eerie creaking and straining his eyes, Devlin saw that someone was standing in the entrance to the sacristy where the broken door swung crazily. A familiar voice whispered, 'Liam?'
'My God,' he said to Steiner. 'It's Molly. Where in the hell did she spring from?' He crawled across the floor to join her and was back in a moment. 'Come on!' he said, getting a hand under Ritter's left arm. 'The little darling's got a way out for us. Now let's have this one on his feet and get moving while those lads up on the leads are still waiting.'
They slipped through the shadows, Ritter between them, and moved into the sacristy. Molly waited by the secret panel. Once they were inside, she closed it and led the way down the stairs and along the tunnel.
It was very quiet when they came out into the hall at the presbytery. 'Now what?' Devlin said. 'We'll not get far with Ritter like this.'
'Father Vereker's car is in the yard at the back,' Molly said.
And Steiner, remembering, put a hand in his pocket. 'And I've got his keys.'
'Don't be silly,' Ritter told him. The moment you start the motor you'll have Rangers swarming all over you.'
There's a gate at the back,' Molly said. 'A track over the fields beside the hedge. We can push that little Morris Eight of his between us for a couple of hundred yards. Nothing to it.'
They were at the bottom of the first meadow and a hundred and fifty yards away, when shooting began again at the church. Only then did Steiner start the engine and drive away, following Molly's directions, sticking to farm tracks across the fields, all the way down to the coast road.
.
After the tiny click of the panel door in the sacristy closing, there was a stirring in the Lady Chapel and Arthur Seymour stood up, hands free. He padded down the north aisle without a sound, holding in his left hand the coil of rope with which Preston had bound his feet.
It was totally dark now, the only light the candles at the altar and the sanctuary lamp. He leaned down to satisfy himself that Preston was still breathing, picked him up and slung him over one massive shoulder. Then he turned and walked straight up the centre aisle towards the altar.
On the leads, Garvey was beginning to worry. It was so dark down there that you couldn't see a damn thing. He snapped his fingers for the field telephone and spoke to Kane who was at the gate with the White Scout Car. 'Silent as the grave in here, Major. I don't like it.'
'Try a burst. See what happens,' Kane told him.
Garvey pushed the barrel of his Thompson through the clerestory window and fired. There was no response and then the man on his right grabbed his arm. 'Down there, Sergeant, near the pulpit. Isn't someone moving?'
Garvey took a chance and flashed his torch. The young private on his right gave a cry of horror. Garvey ran the torch quickly along the south aisle, then said into the field phone, 'I don't know what's happening, Major, but you'd better get in there.'
A moment later, a burst from a Thompson gun shattered the lock on the main door, it crashed back and Harry Kane and a dozen Rangers moved in fast, ready for action. But there was no Steiner and no Devlin. Only Arthur Seymour kneeling in the front pew in the guttering candlelight, staring up into the hideously swollen face of Harvey Preston hanging by his neck from the centre pole of the rood screen.
19
The Prime Minister had taken the library overlooking the rear terrace at Meltham House for his personal use. When Harry Kane came out at seven-thirty Corcoran was waiting. 'How was he?'
'Very interested,' Kane said. 'Wanted chapter and verse on the whole battle. He seems fascinated by Steiner.'
'Aren't we all. What I'd like to know is where the damn man is now and that I
rish scoundrel.'
'Nowhere near the cottage he's been living in, that's for sure. I had a report over the radio from Garvey just before I went in. It seems that when they went to check out this cottage of Devlin's, they found two inspectors from Special Branch waiting for him.'
'Good God,' Corcoran said. 'How on earth did they get on to him?'
'Some police investigation or other. Anyway, he's highly unlikely to turn up there now. Garvey is staying in the area and setting up a couple of road blocks on the coast road, but we can't do much more till we get more men.'
'They're coming in, my boy, believe me.' Corcoran said. 'Since your chaps got the telephones working again, I've had several lengthy discussions with London. Another couple of hours should see the whole of North Norfolk sealed up tight. By morning most of this area will be, to all intents and purposes, under martial law. And it will certainly stay that way until Steiner is caught.'
Kane nodded. 'There's no question that he could get anywhere near the Prime Minister. I've got men on his door, on the terrace outside and at least two dozen prowling out there in the garden, with blackened faces and Thompson guns. I've given it to them straight. They shoot first. Accidents we can argue about afterwards.
The door opened and a young corporal entered, a couple of typewritten sheets in his hand. 'I've got the final lists if you'd like to see them. Major.'
He went out and Kane looked at the first sheet. 'They've had Father Vereker and some of the villagers look at the German bodies.'
'How is he?' Corcoran asked.
'Concussed, but otherwise he seems okay. From what they say everyone is accounted for except for Steiner, his second in command, Neumann, and the Irishman, of course. The other fourteen are all dead.'
'But how in the hell did they get away, that's what I'd like to know?'
'Well, they blasted their way into the sacristy to get out of the line of fire from Garvey and his men up on the leads. My theory is that when Pamela and the Prior girl got out through this priest's tunnel, they were in such a hurry they didn't close the secret door properly.'
Corcoran said, 'I understand the young Prior girl was rather sweet on this scoundrel Devlin. You don't think she could be involved in any way?'
'I wouldn't have thought so. According to Pamela the kid was really bitter and about the whole thing.'
'I suppose so,' Corcoran said. 'Anyway, what about casualties on your side?'
Kane glanced at the second list. 'Including Shafto and Captain Mallory, twenty-one dead, eight wounded.' He shook his head. 'Out of forty. There's going to be one God Almighty rumpus when this gets out.'
'If it gets out.'
'What do you mean?'
'London is already making it clear they want a very low profile on this one. They don't want to alarm the people for one thing. I ask you, German Fallschirmjager dropping into Norfolk to seize the Prime Minister. And coming too damn close for comfort. And what about this British Free Corps? Englishmen in the SS. Can you imagine how that would look in the papers?' He shuddered. 'I'd have hung the damn man myself.'
'I see what you mean.'
'And look at it from the Pentagon's point of view. A crack American unit, the elite of the elite, takes on a handful of German paratroopers and sustains a seventy per cent casualty rate.'
'I don't know,' Kane shook his head. 'It's expecting a hell of a lot of people to keep quiet.'
'There's a war on, Kane,' Corcoran said. 'And in wartime, people can be made to do as they are told, it's as simple as that.'
The door opened, the young corporal looked in. 'London on the phone again, Colonel.'
Corcoran went out in a hurry, and Kane followed. He lit a cigarette which he held in the palm of his hand when he went out of the front door and down the steps past the sentries. It was raining hard and very dark, but he could smell fog on the air as he walked across the front terrace, Maybe Corcoran was right? It could happen that way. A world at war was crazy enough for anything to be believable.
He went down the steps and in a moment had an arm about his throat, a knee in his back. A knife gleamed dully. Someone said, 'Identify yourself.'
'Major Kane.'
A torch nicked on and off. 'Sorry, sir. Corporal Bleeker.'
'You should be in bed. Bleeker. How's that eye?'
'Five stitches in it, Major, but it's going to be fine. I'll move on now, sir, with your permission.'
He faded away and Kane stared into the darkness. 'I will never,' he said softly, 'to the end of my days even begin to understand my fellow human beings.'
.
In the North Sea area generally, as the weather report had if, the winds were three to four with rain squalls and some sea fog persisting till morning. The E-Boat had made good time and by eight o'clock they were through the minefields and into the main coastal shipping lane.
Muller was at the wheel and Koenig looked up from the chart table where he had been laying off their final course with great care. 'Ten miles due east of Blakeney Point, Erich.'
Muller nodded, straining his eyes into the murk ahead. 'This fog isn't helping.'
'Oh. I don't know,' Koenig said. 'You might be glad of it before we're through.'
The door banged open and Teusen, the leading telegraphist, entered. He held out a signal flimsy. 'Message from Landsvoort, Herr Leutnant.'
He held out the flimsy, Koenig took it from him and read it in the light of the chart table. He looked down at it for a long moment, then crumpled it into a ball in his right hand.
'What is it?' Muller asked.
'The Eagle is blown. The rest is just words.'
There was a short pause. Rain pattered against the window. Muller said, 'And our orders?'
'To proceed as I see fit.' Koenig shook his head. 'Just think of it. Colonel Steiner, Ritter Neumann - all those fine men.'
For the first time since childhood he felt like crying. He opened the door and stared out into the darkness, rain beating against his face. Muller said carefully, 'Of course, it's always possible some of them might make it. Just one or two. You know how these things go?'
Koenig slammed the door. 'You mean you'd still be willing to go in there?' Muller didn't bother to reply and Koenig turned to Teusen. 'You, too?'
Teusen said, 'We've been together a long time, Herr Leutnant. I've never asked where we were going before.'
Koenig was filled with a wild elation. He slapped him on the
back. 'All right, then send this signal.'
.
Radl's condition had deteriorated steadily during the late afternoon and evening, but he had refused to remain in bed in spite of Witt's pleadings. Since Joanna Grey's final message he had insisted on staying in the radio room, lying back in an old armchair Witt had brought in while the operator tried to raise Koenig. The pain in his chest was not only worse, but had spread to his left arm. He was no fool. He knew what that meant. Not that it mattered. Not that anything mattered now.
At five minutes to eight, the operator turned, a smile of triumph on his face. 'I've got them, Herr Oberst. Message received and understood.'
'Thank God,' Radl said and fumbled to open his cigarette case, but suddenly his fingers seemed too stiff and Witt had to do it for him.
'Only one left, Herr Oberst,' he said as he took out the distinctive Russian cigarette and put it in Radl's mouth.
The operator was writing feverishly on his pad. He, tore off the sheet and turned, 'Reply, Herr Oberst.'
Radl felt strangely dizzy and his vision wasn't good. He said, 'Read it, Witt.'
'Will still visit nest. Some fledglings may need assistance. Good luck.' Witt looked bewildered. 'Why does he add that, Herr Oberst?'
'Because he is a very perceptive young man who suspects I'm going to need it as much as he does.' He shook his head slowly. 'Where do we get them from, these boys? To dare so much, sacrifice everything and for what?'
Witt looked troubled. 'Herr Oberst, please.'
Radl smiled. 'Like this last of m
y Russian cigarettes, my friend, all good things come to an end sooner or later.' He turned to the radio operator and braced himself to do what should have been done at least two hours earlier. 'Now you can get me Berlin.'
.
There was a decaying farm cottage on the eastern boundary of Prior Farm, at the back of the wood on the opposite side of the main road above Hobs End. It provided some sort of shelter for the Morris.
It was seven-fifteen when Devlin and Steiner left Molly to look after Ritter and went down through the trees to make a cautious reconnaisance. They were just in time to see Garvey and his men go up the dyke road to the cottage. They retreated through the trees and crouched in the lee of a wall to consider the situation.
Jack Higgins - Eagle Has Landed Page 39
