“Who left the bleeding door open?” The voice was loud enough to still be heard, even though he was several steps past. “Riff-raff out in the hall — oh, sorry, sergeant. Didn’t know it was you.”
Faust turned as Tanyon reached out and closed the door on the explosion of laughter.
Maybe humor would help. “I think soldiers are the same the world over, no matter what language they speak.”
Behind him, Tanyon’s sniff was loud. “Ours aren’t murderers.”
After France, it stung. Faust walked in hot silence to the next door on the right, also open. The room beyond, painted hospital white, tugged at his memories. He paused in the doorway.
“You’ve suddenly got a real attitude, sergeant. What have I done to you?”
The Webley was level at waist height. Tanyon fingered the trigger. “Go on, inside.”
Something had definitely happened, causing smoldering anger deep in Tanyon’s eyes. The sergeant hadn’t behaved like this before. He’d been rude, yes, but otherwise capable and quiet to the point of invisibility. Now he seemed to be itching for a fight.
Well, Tanyon would find he wasn’t shy when the time came. But they’d have to wait for it, at least until Faust knew what was wrong with his arm and side. He eased through the doorway, hearing Tanyon close, but not too close, behind. Yep, he’d wasted an opportunity.
His sweeping glance over the infirmary stopped at the windows, wide open and quite without bars. Yearning stirred within him. The second floor wasn’t so high; he could jump from a window without killing himself. The wall, though; escaping was going to boil down to the wall, and how he’d get over it with one arm, he didn’t know.
A small, wiry young man, wearing a white smock unbuttoned over British Army Medical Corps khaki, glanced up from the instrument table in the corner, where he was packing a black bag. It was the kind nurse who had bandaged his wounds Sunday morning.
“Good morning,” Faust said. “I remember you, sort of.”
“Hello to you, too.” The nurse raised his voice. “Dr. Harris!”
A tall man of about forty pushed through an inner door and stopped short. His brown hair was already greying, concentration lines clustering at the corners of his green eyes, and his unbuttoned white smock covered a rumpled brown flannel suit. His movements were swift and intense, and his mouth was pinched tight.
“Right, good to see you awake. Cavanaugh, we’ll do this one first.” Dr. Harris ducked back through the door.
Cavanaugh left the bag open on the instrument table and led Faust to the examination table before those wonderful windows. Tanyon stayed near the entry.
“We’re in a bit of a hurry here.” Cavanaugh’s voice was apologetic. “Can you manage those buttons alone?”
“In the interest of speed, no.” He let Cavanaugh open his tunic and slide it down his arms behind him, although twisting his right arm back made him gasp.
“I suppose that wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had,” Cavanaugh said. “The shirt and undervest, too.”
Those had to be peeled off, stiff with dried blood, and it stung.
“I thought it bled this morning,” Faust said.
“You’ve been using the arm.” Cavanaugh unwound the bandage. “Doctor?”
Dr. Harris was suddenly beside them. “You’ve torn the stitches.”
“I didn’t remember where I was this morning until I tried to sit up.” The breeze sighing through the casement windows caressed his bare skin — O happy dames, that may embrace the fruit of your delight, Surrey again — but when he peered down, his side and arm were splotched with oceans of black bruises, the continents between swollen and red. He looked back out the window.
“Bet that hurt.” The touch of the doctor’s fingers on the back of his arm was light as the breeze. “Can you lift the elbow at all?”
“Not really.” He tried; his arm shuddered, collapsed against his side, and the pain flashed like a flame. He managed to keep his voice level. “Ouch.”
“How about this inflamed spot beneath your arm?”
“It burns.”
“Badly?”
“Fairly. And consistently.”
“Right,” Dr. Harris said again. “We missed some shrapnel. Cavanaugh, tighten the stitches, clean him up, rebandage using acriflavine and zinc ointment. Then get on the horn to Patchbourne hospital and make an appointment with the X-ray machine for this afternoon. I’ll want anterior and lateral views of the chest.” He paused. “Then meet me on the scene. Is the bag ready?”
“Yes, I think so.”
Dr. Harris poked among the black bag’s innards then closed it and swiveled back to Faust. “We’ll have to get the shrapnel out of you fast or it will become infected. In that location, we could kiss you goodbye.”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Faust said.
Dr. Harris stared at him. After a moment, his chin drooped.
“Nothing personal, but you’re just not my type.”
“Yes, well, I’ll try to restrain myself. And I’m not willing to operate blind.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ve got lungs in there,” Dr. Harris said bluntly, “and I’d rather not meet them on a first-name basis. I’m only a country doctor, you know. Later, Cavanaugh.” He shot a last glance at Faust then pushed past Tanyon and was gone.
After ten agonizing minutes, Cavanaugh let him refasten his own tunic and was lifting the telephone receiver as Faust turned to Tanyon.
“Thank you for your patience, sergeant.”
Without answering, Tanyon stepped into the corridor and moved to block the western end of it. “Back to the stairs and down.”
Faust rolled his eyes and obeyed, again cradling his right arm in his left.
The implied advice from both Cavanaugh and Dr. Harris was not to use the arm or the stitches would tear again. The pain was bad enough for him to believe the worst, especially now the wounds had been well handled, and neither man had offered so much as an aspirin. Not for a prisoner?
He sighed. Whatever means he used to escape — through the window, on horseback, over the wall, down the toilet — he’d need two arms. He imagined swimming the Strait of Dover with one arm, salt water soaking through the bandages. He quailed. A small boat couldn’t be all that difficult to manage. After all, he’d survived his first parachute jump.
Which meant he had no business pushing his lousy luck any further. Stowing away was sounding more attractive by the moment. There was still commerce between neutral countries and England, and he’d always wanted to visit Spain and Portugal.
Downstairs in the grand ballroom, only the middle-aged wispy clerk still slumped over his typewriter. His face was buried in his hands and he was so still, Faust wondered if he slept where he sat.
The console radio, like the typewriters, was silent. The soldier who had listened to the gardening show in the morning now stood at Stoner’s closed door. As Faust and Tanyon approached, he knocked and stuck his head within.
“He’s here, sir.”
Stoner’s voice carried despite its softness. “Thank you, Corporal Pym.”
Lance corporal, Faust thought, glad for a distraction from the throbbing pain and noting the single chevron on this youngster’s sleeve. This, then, was Tanyon’s assistant, although a quick glance showed no obvious superiority. Pym seemed no older, no smarter, no more experienced than Ellington or Carmichael, although his mouth was at least closed and his haircut didn’t make his head look lopsided. There was some difference, then, which couldn’t be seen with the naked eye and this would be the other man to watch.
He at least met Faust’s stare without flinching, grey eyes level beneath thick blond hair, as he pushed Stoner’s door open and stood aside.
Chapter Thirteen
the same morning
Margeaux Hall
Halfway through the door, Faust checked on his heel. Stoner looked terrible. He stood behind his tidy desk with only the same small sheaf of papers before him,
and he seemed old and tired and worn. Earlier, everything about him had been raised — his eyebrows, his chin, the corners of his mouth. But now he drooped, as if claimed by gravity. Only his eyes, although tired, still showed the morning’s determination, and his keen stare fastened onto Faust as he crossed the wide room as if to read his soul through his skull.
At the secretarial desk between the French windows, Bruckmann seemed tense, his lean face taut and pulled back by the ears. He shot quick keen glances at his boss but otherwise kept his head down. His pencil was ready in his hand.
Without thinking, Faust again brought his heels together in an audible click. Irritation at himself flashed then as quickly vanished. Showing respect for an old man, enemy or no, was not weakness.
“Mr. Stoner,” he said, “are you all right?”
Stoner just stared at him. The ice in his scrutiny solidified into steel. The difference, Faust realized, was rage. A cold hollow sensation began in his chest and spread to his fingertips, leaving them tingling. The missing granddaughter. She hadn’t been hurt in that ruddy bombing raid; she’d been killed. And he was the closest available German target.
“Be seated,” Stoner finally said.
He eased into the same wing chair as before, not watching as Tanyon took up his post. Listening to Stoner’s silence, bearing the weight of his fury, was intolerable after the not unpleasant morning they’d spent together, the freedom he’d started to feel within this imprisoned relationship. “Look, if your granddaughter was hurt, I’m sorry.”
Unfortunately his attempt at frankness struck a raw nerve. Stoner straightened as if bitten and his glare flashed. “Is this a confession?”
“What?” He shook his head. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
The grey lips thinned and paled further. “And I do not understand you. Explain yourself.”
Those were the words and tone of an irritated professor. But the rage was much deeper and more personal. He should take offense. But what Faust had mistaken for tiredness in Stoner’s eyes he now knew was pain, and resentment for his own dignity was a non-starter.
“I’m sorry.” Words tumbled from him; caught between confusion and some crazy version of insecurity, he didn’t know what to say first. “I assumed — I mean, everyone is angry. Seems to be angry. At me. You said earlier your granddaughter was missing. I assumed she’d been hurt in the air raid.” He paused. “For what it’s worth, I don’t believe in bombing civilians.”
Bruckmann glanced his way for the first time, expression cynical, then returned to his shorthand.
Stoner stared at him, as if measuring the depth of his apology. Faust forced himself to hold that stare, although he thought the weight of it would flatten him. But if he was going to talk his way out of trouble with the British government, he needed the old man, if not on his side, then at least not antagonistic. He forced himself not to look away. At least his face, as usual, would betray his honesty.
Stoner finally broke their stare, lowering his gaze to his notes. But his shoulders, usually so straight, bowed over the desk.
“Then we shall continue where we left off.” He tidied the already tidy papers. “Please tell me again the events leading to your presence here, with considerably more detail than you gave the first time.”
Faust hesitated. They were past the first round of anger. But it hadn’t dissipated. It still lurked in the corners of the room, beneath the furniture, up the chimney, in the background of Stoner’s iron control. He wouldn’t be surprised if it leaked forth later and assaulted him again. Grief was like that, and Stoner had said nothing to indicate whether the anger was directed at him personally or merely at Germans in general.
Stoner stirred. Faust’s stomach tightened. He didn’t want to seem truculent and spur that anger accidentally.
“It’s okay, Mr. Stoner, you’ve established your credibility. I’m just trying to decide where to begin, and please don’t tell me at the beginning.”
“It would appear to be the logical starting point.” Stoner’s voice was dry and brittle. But his color seemed better.
Faust leaned back and closed his eyes. When he quit tracking Stoner’s anger and sat still, he realized the pain in his arm was getting worse. Sharp stabs in his side reduced his breathing to quick shallow panting, just like Saturday night, and his head was starting to spin. He cradled his arm more closely and wondered if he could spare a cigarette from his precious pack; the nicotine would soothe him. He had to be careful. In this condition, it would be easy for Stoner to trick him into saying more than he’d intended.
Whether he liked it or not, he had to explain the reason he’d accepted Erhard’s invitation. For it to make sense, he had to put the story in context, which meant he had to start in Paris. If he left the details out, words like Paris and Army Corps, then not even Stoner could divine he was a staff officer and maybe he could continue to keep that secret to himself. The only location Stoner needed to know was the one he already had — Le Havre.
“In the Army, I haven’t been in my current assignment long.” He opened his eyes and found Stoner’s stare, still measuring him to an indecent degree, right where he’d left it. “I’ve held similar positions in the recent past, but not at such a high level.” He caught himself; he was getting too close to the full truth. “It’s been a sort of apprenticeship, an intended learning experience, and I frankly don’t believe I’ve been all that successful although I’ve worked hard and learned a lot.”
“This is clear.”
“Last Sunday — no, the Sunday prior, my batman got drunk and overslept. I didn’t wake on my own, so I was late to the office Monday morning and the first assistant adjutant assigned me a week of typing duties as punishment.” Faust rubbed his neck. Oberst von Maacht had been delighted to reduce the holder of a university degree to a common clerk. “And the week went downhill from there. Something happened each day to make me look incompetent.
“The senior officers were working eighteen to twenty hours straight and I had to work with them. I can be a fast typist or an accurate one, but not both, so they must have considered me pretty useless. The smart plan would have been to put my head down, do my work, and keep my mouth shut, so of course that’s not what I did.”
“What did you do, Herr Major?” Stoner’s color was still improving, the grey melting into a more vibrant tone. Well, a recovery wouldn’t hurt anyone, not even Faust.
“On Thursday I tried to discuss the — the meaning of what I was typing with the first assistant adjutant. There were some points that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. I was trying to learn something and I thought that was the purpose of the assignment.” He couldn’t stifle a sigh even though it shot fire across his ribs. Von Maacht’s eyes had popped at such effrontery. “I was told I was there to learn how the work was done, not what or why, and I had to learn a heck of a lot more before I earned the right to ask such questions.”
“Your first assistant adjutant sounds a most unpleasant individual.”
“I don’t think I ever saw him smile without looking like a stalking predator.” The pain stabbed even deeper. He leaned back, shifted in the seat, pulled his right arm further into his lap, supported it above then below the elbow. Nothing eased the pounding. “Anyway, by Friday evening I was fed up and ready for a break. I managed to get out of the office at a decent hour, so I called my girlfriend and arranged to meet her at a nice restaurant.”
Stoner stirred again. “Tell me about her.”
“Ritzi Schröder is a nightclub singer.” When Stoner’s eyebrows shot to an alarming altitude, Faust expanded. “Maybe she’s not what you’d call suitable material for an officer’s wife. But she’s a beautiful woman, witty and sophisticated and a great dancer, and I loved doing the town with her. I’d connived the permits for her to come to France, because she has the perfect deep throaty voice for American swing music, which is banned at home. She’d been in France just over a week by then but hadn’t yet found a position,
so she agreed to meet me.”
“I see.” Stoner’s eyebrows hadn’t descended far. His color was almost back to normal, though, even if his stare had suddenly sharpened. “Please continue.”
“All I wanted was a relaxing evening. I had arranged for Saturday off duty but had to be back in the office on Sunday, thankfully no longer typing, so I intended to stay out late, drink a bit too much, and find some place romantic to walk with a gorgeous lady.” Faust rubbed his neck again. “She met me at the restaurant. As soon as she walked in, I knew I was in trouble.”
She had worn his favorite dress, black shimmery stuff draped off the shoulders, and her marcelled hair had gleamed golden about her neck in an invitation for his fingers. But her body had been so stiff with angry determination, even her hips hadn’t swayed when she stalked toward him, chin lowered ready for battle, and his heart sank again at the memory.
“It wasn’t much of a fight because I was tired, already angry, and not willing to play her game. It wasn’t about marriage or anything like it, but it was about something I wasn’t willing to do, not even for her, and I’d already told her my answer so I wasn’t patient when I repeated it. She raised her voice — I shushed her — she stood up — of course I rose, too — she threw her chardonnay in my face and all over my best uniform — then she walked out and everyone in the restaurant started laughing.”
Bruckmann shot him another look. But his pencil didn’t pause.
Stoner’s eyebrows had regained their former altitude. “Somewhat melodramatic.”
Faust remembered not to shrug in time. “That’s what you get, dating a singer. I paid the bill, left, and walked back to my billet. I was changing into civilian clothes to go out for a quiet dinner somewhere else when a messenger from headquarters arrived, so instead I put on my second-best uniform — ” he waved a sardonic hand to indicate he still wore it “ — and reported to the first assistant adjutant. It seems when Ritzi raised her voice, someone overheard our conversation, recognized me, and reported the incident.”
Deal with the Devil Page 11
