by John Creasey
‘You’ll never come back,’ she said, bleakly.
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that—odder things have happened. And we’re not unprepared,’ he added, his eyes hard. ‘I’m sending you back, Gay, and I want you to tell Craigie everything you’ve told me. You’ve told me more than you think,’ he added, and she knew that he was serious. ‘Craigie will do everything he can to help you and your brother.’
‘But can’t I——’
‘There are no buts,’ said Loftus. ‘You’ll go back with the crew, and they’ll have instructions to see you safely to my flat. You’ll be able to get in touch with Craigie there. All set?’ He smiled—that utterly transforming smile she had seen only once before. There was silence for a moment; then she nodded, and tried to smile back.
‘All set,’ she echoed.
‘Good girl!’
Loftus bent forward to give instructions to the pilot, who confirmed that he understood them, then added casually:
‘You’re not going to get any help from fog or mist, old chap. It’ll be pretty bright when we get there.’
‘Then we’ll make our own smoke,’ said Loftus.
‘Roger. I’ll send word.’
He sent a radio message to the other pilots, and the machines started to climb. Fifteen thousand feet. . . . Sixteen. . . . Seventeen. . . . They reached eighteen thousand, and flattened out.
Loftus, meanwhile, had scrambled into his anti-gas suit and strapped about himself the bulky rucksack of equipment all the men were now fastening securely about them, below their parachutes.
‘Look there!’ Loftus called.
High as they were, it was possible to see the Island of Gruntz, dark against the blue-grey sea around it. Almost due east was the mainland: a drab stretch of deeper grey. There was as yet no sun, but it would be up before long.
‘Watch,’ Loftus told Gay, seating himself awkwardly beside her again.
He nodded towards an observation panel in the floor of the cabin, and suddenly she saw a puff of thick, dark smoke which spread with lightning-like rapidity to thicken about the island and the surrounding sea. A dozen puffs or more followed it, each swelling the billowing clouds, until the island and the sea itself was completely hidden for miles around.
‘Artificial fog,’ Loftus explained. ‘And whoever thought that Hitler had everything, was wrong. We’ll get down, in that, and then——’ He shrugged.
‘I wish,’ she began, then broke off as the ‘plane went into a dive. Within moments, they were actually flying through the topmost layer of the smoke screen, and the pilot turned his head to grin at them:
‘Who’s going first?’
‘I am,’ said Loftus.
‘You’re about right, now—a thousand feet.’
‘Right.’
‘Mind the door,’ said the pilot, laconically, and pulled a lever. Part of one side of the cabin opened and the wind cut in, piercingly cold.
As Loftus rose, Gay Parnell gripped him by the hand, lost for words. He smiled and returned the pressure, then stepped across to the jumping-bay. He was completely covered in rubber, now, and his gas-mask was within easy reach. He put a hand to the control-lever of the parachute, waved to the others—and jumped.
For a moment, he was a vague figure in the billowing darkness; then he disappeared completely, dropping like a stone. The others followed in quick succession, each likely to land a hundred yards or more away from the last.
Gay watched them in fearful fascination: men jumping, falling, momentarily ghostly in that artificial fog, then like Loftus, disappearing completely.
The last one jumped, and she knew that it was over, for her. She did not expect to see any one of them again, and huddled there in dumb misery, tears welling in her eyes, and a heaviness in her breast that she was sure would never go.
The pilot called:
‘Off we go, then! We—oh, blast them!’
For as he closed the sliding door, there was the flash of an A.A. shellburst overhead. Another, a third—a fourth. Gay could hear the distant booming of the guns, but she was oblivious of danger to herself. She could think of nothing but the men who had dropped into that darkness. There was no chance, now, that their arrival would go unnoticed: the enemy defences were clearly on the alert.
Thirty men, she thought.
Thirty men—on that island of peril!
————
The filmy canopy of the parachute opened as Loftus pulled the cord, some five hundred feet from the ground. There was no way of knowing where he would land, but his first task would be to locate Labiche.
If he landed safely.
His lips twisted wryly, as he floated gently downwards. If he fell too heavily, he would be blown to smithereens: he was carrying enough nitro-glycerine to smash a destroyer. But it was a chance that had needed to be taken, and the stuff was packed as carefully as ingenuity could devise.
He was no more than ten feet away when he first saw the barren rocks, and as his feet touched down he bent his knees to take the impact. He need not have worried. The force of it was negligible and for a second he was lifted into the air again, only to drop even more lightly. The parachute crumpled slowly overhead; what little wind there was, was not sufficient even to drag him off his feet.
He could hear the A.A. guns—one battery no more than a quarter of a mile away, at a guess. The fog baffled sound as well as vision, but he could see for some twenty yards about him.
The droning of the ’planes was fading, but the gunfire did not diminish. The defenders were clearly taking no chances, and grateful for the covering noise, he put a small whistle to his lips. It emitted a shrill, far-reaching sound that would be difficult to identify.
An answering call came promptly from nearby.
He went slowly towards the sound, picking his way carefully over the rocky but flattish stretch of hillside. In less than two minutes he saw the vague figure of another parachutist: and seconds later recognised Labiche. The Frenchman was drawing on his gas-mask, and Loftus followed suit.
Then they waited: it was hopeless to try to find their way about while the smoke pall hung so densely all about them. As they waited, they twice heard the tramp of feet in the gloom and when the danger had passed, Labiche whispered:
‘It is the coast patrol.’ His voice was distorted, but audible enough. ‘They are on the path which circles the island, cut into the rock.’
Loftus grunted understanding: Labiche had marked it well on the map.
Slowly, the fog lifted. Then a sudden gust of wind cleared a space for nearly a hundred feet, and Loftus saw the lazy waves hitting against the shore.
‘We were lucky,’ he murmured.
‘Yes—quiet!’ whispered Labiche.
Loftus saw why.
They were on a rise, and now they could clearly see the hewn rock path—a path impossible to detect from sea or air. Two men clad in rubber suits not unlike their own were walking slowly along it, their rifles in their hands, ready for instant use.
Loftus drew from his pocket a long-barrelled automatic fitted with a silencer. He fired twice, and he did not err. Hoarse, barely audible cries came fast upon the zutts of the two shots, and both men staggered and fell backwards, then did not move.
Labiche and Loftus reached them in moments.
They worked fast, exchanging their own suits for the Germans’, and shouldering their weapons. Their packs contained solution for mending the bullet-holes, and they used it swiftly, without bothering to clean the blood from inside the German suits. Then they opened their own rucksacks, extracted the contents, and re-packed them in the large haversacks of rubber which the guards had fortunately carried.
They had been lucky, of course.
But of the thirty men who had dropped, others were bound to be lucky, too, thought Loftus. And the first step of the attack plan was simple: they were to try to overpower guards and take their uniforms. Labiche had told them the change-of-guard procedure, and they knew their objectives—an
y one of the five laboratories, or the ten store-tunnels.
Any—or all.
Labiche said softly:
‘We are all right for a quarter of an hour, Loftus, and we are near the Number 4 Guardhouse. From there, we should be able to reach the main laboratory with no trouble. I will lead, yes?’
‘That’s where the offices are?’ Loftus checked.
‘The Kommandant is there,’ said Labiche, ‘and all who matter. It is the nerve-centre, Loftus—your task and mine. We go.’
The gunfire had ceased, the alarm over.
The sudden, eerie silence was unbroken as they moved, for their rubber boots deadened all sound of their progress. Even the lapping of the waves merged in the general hush.
Loftus was aware of a strange exhilaration: the seemingly impossible had already happened.
They were on Gruntz, and they had with them enough explosive to wreck the island. That they would almost certainly wreck themselves at the same time, did not matter. He had not seriously thought there was a chance of escape when he had said goodbye to Gay Parnell. Certainly, he could see none now.
The hewn path was too narrow for them to walk abreast. Then it widened, and here it had a concrete surface.
‘Be careful,’ Labiche warned. ‘Do as I do, and do not speak.’
Loftus nodded.
His heart was thumping as he reached a small gateway cut, it seemed, in solid rock. And then he saw two guards, dressed in the same grotesque uniform as himself and Labiche. The men were pointing fixed bayonets towards them, and Labiche grunted in German:
‘We come to report.’
‘Ach, report.’ One of the men stood aside, and the cavity yawned about Loftus and Labiche; they were past the first guard as easily as that. It seemed fantastic, yet Loftus knew that the real guards could have done this—there was nothing as yet to make them suspect in any way. But despite his earlier optimism, anxiety for the rest of his party grew by the moment as he followed the Frenchman down a narrow, sloping tunnel to a large lift by which two guards were standing.
A mutter of voices followed, Labiche talking in the same curt way as the Nazi guards, and the lift gates were opened. They stepped through, the gates clanged behind them, and the descent started—more abruptly than Loftus had expected. They dropped in darkness past the first line of defences—on the way to the nerve-centre of this island of terror.
Would they reach it?
And if they did, would they be the only men of the Department to reach their objective?
20
Richoffen
It was impossible to judge the depth of the lift-shaft, but Labiche had told him it extended for at least five hundred feet beneath sea-level. It was almost pitch dark, although a faint glow of light from above and below enabled each to see the grotesque outline of the other. Like denizens of a lower world, Loftus thought dryly, descending to where they belonged.
The lift slowed down, then stopped abruptly.
As it stopped, the light that came on suddenly was so brilliant that it dazzled Loftus even behind the thick safety-glass of his mask. Blindly he followed Labiche, and when he was able to see again, they had stopped in a wide, square lobby and a harsh voice was demanding their business.
‘We come to report,’ Labiche repeated.
‘Of what?’ A man in a queer looking suit was interrogating them. His trousers were tucked into rubber boots and his coat sleeves into rubber gloves. A respirator hung ready for use beneath his chin, but his whole head was also covered with a thick film of what looked like transparent rubber. It did not prevent his voice being clearly heard.
‘Of the aeroplanes above,’ Labiche answered.
‘They have gone.’
‘We wish personally to report a matter of importance,’ Labiche said stubbornly. This was the formula for those who wished to report to the supreme authority alone: only the paid informers dared use it, and the officers feared offending them as much as anyone else on the island.
The man glared as if he would gladly have wrung the information from Labiche’s lips. But he turned abruptly on his heel and snapped a command, and four men dressed exactly as themselves came from each side, their guns at the ready.
‘Take them to the Herr Kommandant!’
‘Ja wohl, Herr Kapitan.’ The four saluted, then stationed themselves about Loftus and Labiche and escorted them forward.
The lobby which held only one small desk and the glass-enclosed cubicle to which their interrogator retired, narrowed abruptly to a passage just wide enough for four men to pass, with walls that stretched little higher than Loftus’s head. The height was deceptive and once he almost stooped, afraid he would touch the ceiling. But he saw in time that two of the guards of a height with him were goose-stepping forward unconcerned: to have ducked, would have been to show his unfamiliarity with the place. Thankfully, he goose-stepped along with them.
They had covered some five hundred yards when they reached another, far larger lobby. Loftus could see eight similar passages leading off it on the near side alone, and there must obviously be others beyond the huge, glass-walled chamber in the middle of the vast hall. It was circular in shape and, he judged, at least two hundred feet in diameter. Guards patrolled the passage which ran right round inside the glazed exterior, and the inner walls of that passage were not of glass.
A lieutenant came, asked questions, and told them to wait.
Labiche, with his knowledge of the formalities essential to such access, was giving Loftus the chance to get through—to succeed in this, the most vital portion of his plan, at least. But Loftus was still thinking of the others—knowing how slim their chances were, and praying for the fuller miracle. They could get here, he pleaded silently—here, or the other key-points shown on their maps. He wanted so much that they, too, should succeed; that they should have the satisfaction of knowing, before the end, that at least their sacrifices were not in vain.
Five minutes passed. Six. Seven. . . .
At the end of the tenth, another lieutenant appeared—in rubber uniform, but not masked. The guards stood back and the two men followed him. Loftus had heard the man’s words, but could hardly credit the truth. The trick had worked—and they were still safe! His mood of exultation returned.
Inside the glass-walled passage, they followed the man for some fifty yards before he stopped at a sign on the otherwise blank wall and pressed a switch. A massive steel door slid open and they followed him through.
They were in a large, square room with opaque glass walls: a room where a hundred men, working at desks, did not even look up as they passed. At the far side, the lieutenant pressed a button, twice, on a door that was not marked; and after a moment, it swung open.
Loftus entered the room, his heart hammering.
He was actually here, in the Command Headquarters of the Island of Gruntz. There were four men inside: five, with the Kommandant. They were in uniform, but not masked. There were no apparent protections here against gas, and Loftus recalled that Labiche had reported that the room itself was gas-proof.
He was conscious of his own tension.
As Labiche had drummed into him so thoroughly, they had only to take control of this room, to control the whole island. From here, instructions could be issued: the work of destruction could commence. And it seemed as if there was nothing to stop them.
A short, thick-set, bull-necked Prussian sat at a vast desk. Beside him, a subordinate bent from the waist in an absurd attitude of obeisance. The Prussian was growling orders—and Loftus hardly breathed as he realised: they concerned reports for Berlin about the raid that morning.
‘Four parachutists have been caught,’ the General went on, and Loftus stiffened. ‘They are British. Are they to be shot? Are they to be sent to Berlin?’ He waved the other away: ‘At once, with that!’
The lieutenant clicked his heels, shot out his hand in the Nazi salute, and backed towards a door behind him. But it opened before he reached it, and a man in civilian dre
ss came through. He looked old because his hair was grey and his skin lined, but his movements were those of a young man.
And behind him was a woman.
The Kommandant looked up, glaring—and then sprang to his feet.
‘Richoffen—you!’ he shouted.
But Loftus hardly heard him. Loftus was looking at the woman and wondering whether she had been followed, as he had instructed: wondered whether the Errols had succeeded in following her—to the Island of Gruntz.
For it was Yvonne de Montmaront, and he was not surprised to see her here.
————
Richoffen talked swiftly, ignoring the two masked guards, the waiting lieutenant, the gaping underlings who stood by the now closed doors. Richoffen had been able to enter because the door was opening. But Loftus knew—through Labiche—that there was a control-panel to the Kommandant’s right, and unless that was used the doors could not be opened.
Labiche’s task was to get control of that panel, if the chance arrived.
He glanced now at Loftus, who nodded almost imperceptibly without relaxing his attention to Richoffen’s spate of words. It was comprehensive, in all conscience. How the English had discovered the secret of the island, how some attack was undoubtedly contemplated by sea and air, and—said Richoffen—losses would not be allowed to stand in the way of occupation. There would be an advance guard, perhaps as many as forty or fifty of the men of whom the Kommandant had heard so much—the men of Department Z. The leakage of information had been through the Alsatian, Labiche, who had escaped from the island some time before. Confirmation of what the English knew had come from Fraulein de Montmaront, for many years a loyal servant of the Reich, and a leading worker for the changing of the French constitution. She had operated with the French espionage service, as the Herr Kommandant knew. There was no doubt of the coming attack: it was vital that all defences should be put into operation immediately.
Yvonne, dishevelled and with her coat torn at one shoulder, was breathing hard as she listened. Twice her eyes moved towards Loftus, but the heavy mask and the grotesque uniform disguised him well.
