“Great Scott, yes.”
“Why?” He breathed the word as quietly as a prayer.
“Why, sir?” Bruckmann paused. “I believe he’s serious because he shows determination and — ”
“No, Jack, that’s not my question. Why should he escape?”
Bruckmann shifted. “Is this a rhetorical question?”
“Escape is a dangerous game. I’ve played it myself and I’ve known men who died playing it. Faust could have broken his neck in the ravine, Major Kettering’s warning shot might have hit him — ” he threw out his hands “ — Jerome Owen could have taken a pitchfork to him. It’s happened.”
“But it’s his duty.”
“His greater duty is to return his services — intact — to his unit. And to accomplish this, all he must do is sit tight and wait for the invasion.” Stoner paced two steps, but the energy had transferred itself from his heels to his head. He halted and let his thoughts fly. “And he’d be safer in a cell than out wandering when the Wehrmacht marches into town. They won’t know him from Adam and his German uniform might not protect him.”
“You’re thinking — ” Bruckmann broke off. “I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
“He knows the very day. Otherwise he would have reacted to our little ruse.”
Bruckmann’s eyes threatened to pop from his head. “Then why is he so determined to escape?”
“My first guess is the invasion isn’t until next spring. If that’s true, then he has every reason to remove himself from our tender mercies. He’s an intelligent man and he knows he cannot predict the exact moment his nerve will give way.” He crossed the room to his desk. “And he doesn’t want to hang any more than the next man. It’s time to call in the big guns. You said Captain Clarke is stationed at Brighton? I want him here tomorrow.”
Bruckmann didn’t budge. “Sir, why hasn’t Faust told us about that incident?”
“You mean, he’s been nice to the dragon, so the dragon should be nice to him in return?” Stoner sat down and dragged a notepad from his desk. His thoughts were flying too fast for dictation; Jennifer would have to decipher his handwriting again, poor lass. “I’ll mention your suggestion to Jack Lewis at Magdalen; it’s the sort of incident he likes to put into children’s stories. Captain Clarke, Jack. Tomorrow.”
Chapter Forty-Four
mid afternoon
Margeaux Hall
Although afternoon had not yet surrendered to evening, the sky outside the guardroom window darkened fast, a pearly nacre shadowing into gun-metal grey. The air in the cell chilled Faust’s naked limbs and was charged, as if with electricity. He shrugged into his blanket and watched Tanyon put the rifles and ammunition away, checking each box of cartridges, chamber, and magazine before locking them into the storage bin.
“False alarm?”
Tanyon grunted. “Major Kettering. Just wish he’d give the rest of us some warning.”
“Thanks for the cigarette, in any case.”
The look Tanyon gave him was downright evil. “What you said about the parachutes — was it true?”
Faust shrugged. “If I tell a lie, you’ll know it.”
Tanyon shrugged in turn. “That’s true enough.”
Faust gave the sergeant his own version of an evil look. “It should have been worth more than one cigarette.”
“It wasn’t worth one.”
At the radio, Pym glanced over his shoulder with a grin. The sight reminded Faust of the afternoon’s entertainment.
“So when does Herr Professor Best put on his show?”
Tanyon glanced at the clock. “Twenty minutes.”
It hurt like acid, worse than all his aches and pains combined. But Faust gritted his teeth and said it. “May I please wear my uniform?”
Tanyon didn’t even look at him, but pulled a web belt from the storage cabinet and put it on. “You have to ask the old man.”
“When do I see him again?”
“Maybe this evening.” A Webley .455 revolver appeared next. Tanyon flipped open the cylinder, slid a moon clip of six rounds into the action, closed and locked the cylinder in place, and dropped the revolver into his holster. The catch snapped.
“That won’t do me much good in twenty minutes.”
“You should have asked when you had the chance.” Tanyon loaded a second revolver and slid it into another holster.
Faust leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the bars and thought about pounding his head to a pulp. But it would hurt worse to give the sergeant such satisfaction.
“You do this to me and I will never forgive you.” It sounded weak even to him.
Tanyon scoffed. “Hope I’m not supposed to be impressed.” He grabbed the second holster and strode from the guardroom.
Behind the radio, Pym rolled his lips together. But he didn’t hide his eyes and they were laughing.
Rather than look at that depressing sight, Faust turned and leaned his back against the bars, wrapping the blanket more closely about his shoulders. He’d lost every argument he undertook, which meant it was time to go on the offensive, which meant he needed his boots, which meant Hackney had better hurry up with them.
Could he trust Stoner? Faust’s original assumption — that Stoner was playing him for a sucker — still seemed plausible. But the cold certainty of the previous night had vanished and he no longer knew what was real.
He paced the cell. He’d been so certain he was right, that Stoner had fooled him and the so-called investigation was actually an in-depth interrogation. And once the idea occurred to him, he hadn’t thought about it a second time. But Stoner’s rebuttal had been more of an eye-opener than Irish coffee the morning after. Maybe the old man spoke the truth after all.
And he’d come so close to establishing a true rapport with Stoner. The bitter disappointment lingered like an ugly aftertaste. He knew he’d touched the old man with his story, the same way Stoner had touched him with his tale of the attack at Neuve Chapelle. But he’d hesitated, rather than blurt out Erhard’s perfidy, and now he’d be second-guessing that, too. Faust let the blanket fall to the floor and stretched as he paced, twisting at the waist to work out the kinks. His side barely hurt any more, unlike his tortured thoughts. Maybe the English had driven him crazy. If his thoughts kept going on this particular carousel, there’d be no maybe about it.
Nor, from the quiet of the cell, could he work up much outrage over the investigation of Barrington and Munting. They were good officers and would stand up to any scrutiny. Besides, after Dunkirk, the English needed all the competent officers they could find and couldn’t afford to prosecute two promising ones unless they were certain of duplicity. Since no duplicity existed, if Stoner and his superiors did decide to press charges against Faust, he’d face them alone, not with Barrington and Munting beside him.
But that signal flimsy was a different matter. Faust picked up the blanket on his return trip and slung it across his shoulders with a by-now practiced motion, dropping a few deep knee bends while he settled it into place. The signal flimsy scared him and he knew why all too well.
He still wasn’t sure he could believe it, which made his fear seem almost as irrational as his circular reasoning. But if it was a forgery, as he’d told Stoner, it was well done, and he found it easier to picture Oberst von Maacht dictating that message and alerting the Gestapo in Paris than picturing himself swinging at the end of an English rope.
Logically, the argument could be stripped down to two sentences: The English had no verifiable reason to press charges against him. But the Gestapo did.
Unbidden and unwanted, Clarke’s face surfaced in his memory: a round face that promised to go florid later in life, like — Faust could think of no more apt expression — like a ripening cabbage with a brushed mustache and fierce dark eyes. He’d last seen that face scruffy with beard and dirt and sweat, a cigarette dangling from the corner of its mouth, defiant beneath it all as if being shot and buried by the Waffen SS wouldn’t
be enough to stop its owner.
After the incident at the Aa Canal, Faust had wormed his way into the First Panzer Division’s investigation. He’d questioned the German survivors; there’d been no British ones hanging about. He’d examined each dead face, whether it wore British Army khaki or Wehrmacht field grey. Clarke’s face had not been there, nor Brownell’s.
Nor, for that matter, was Greis’s. At the time Faust assumed Clarke had hauled the Waffen SS commander into the forest for a bit of private vengeance and his body might never be found. Now he couldn’t be certain.
Several Lee Enfield rifles scattered about the encampment had convinced the investigators this had been a British raid to rescue the prisoners. The question of how the British knew the prisoners’ location never arose. After all, Rommel had punched through France like an express train. He’d left so many British and French soldiers in his wake, still fighting inside the German rear lines, it had been assumed some of those rallied and carried off the raid. Faust had signed off on the report without a qualm.
He found himself staring at the battleship-grey wall of the cell. No telling how long he’d stood there lost in thought. He tried a one-handed push-off against the surface, feeling the exertion in his pectorals and arm muscles, but only a touch of pain in his side. It felt good. He did another then reached for a rhythm, remembering the exultation he’d found running across the turnip field. For a few moments he lost himself in the relaxing toil of the workout. Then Pym turned a page. Reality intruded with the rustle. Faust touched his forehead to the wall, pushed off one last time, and resumed pacing.
If Greis had survived the raid but had not stepped forward for the investigation — unconscious from serious injuries, or hiding from Faust, or whatever the reason — then there could be some serious meat behind the signal flimsy. As Stoner had implied, he’d have to be ten kinds of fool to return to Germany and face the resulting hornet’s nest.
But if he didn’t return to Germany, he’d be stuck in England. He’d have to face Stoner’s version of reality, true or not. He shuddered, clutching the blanket closer. He’d have to make some sort of deal with the English devil.
Voices spoke in the hall. A swift glance at the clock showed his twenty minutes were up. Faust cursed the sergeant, his ancestry, morality, and face, and scrambled to the cot, in the darkest corner of the cell. The grey blanket, darker than the walls, would do for camouflage. He draped it about his body as closely as he could until only his face showed. Maybe Best wouldn’t notice him; if he did, no reason to advertise his skimpy attire.
Thunder rumbled in the distance as Bruckmann entered the guardroom, a holstered Webley dangling from his Sam Browne belt. Best strutted behind him and the sergeant brought up the rear.
Maybe he shifted on the cot or made some small sound. But suddenly Best halted and twisted to face the cell. Their gazes crossed. The intervening decade fell away and Faust found himself again in the university lecture hall, watching the arrogant pig strut before the lectern like some intellectual parody of Hitler, parroting the same outrageous phrases in the same hoarse chanting voice. He tasted bile. He’d been wrong. Best’s venom had not been drawn. Beneath the starveling look remained the same hauteur, and as he tasted its silent lash Faust’s skin prickled with heat. At least the guardroom had darkened from the approaching storm, his first bit of luck.
“Perhaps my lectures bore some fruit after all.” Best tilted his chin. “But then, you are here, in this home for unwedded traitors. Perhaps not much fruit?”
It was just like Best to ridicule Stoner’s mannerisms, when Stoner was twice the man Best would ever be. “To what are you wedded? Not the Fatherland you swore to serve, obviously.”
Best darkened as thunder rumbled, closer this time. “You will address me properly and with due respect.”
“You will suck a lemon.” He wished he had a cigarette to spare, or pockets in which to slide his hands, or some other means of emphasizing his disrespect, preferably in the most Germanic manner possible.
Pym choked. At Bruckmann’s glance, he swung back to the radio console.
Bruckmann set a typewritten sheet on the table before the radio and dragged out a chair, dropping his other hand to the holstered Webley at his side. “Herr Best, we’re ready.”
Best turned his back on Faust and sat, sliding the headphones over his ears. He massaged his fingers then began tapping the key. Pym, wearing a second set of headphones, took notes beside him.
The first few letters Best tapped out would be the call-up sign; Faust remembered that much from his signals training. And by careful listening, he realized Best repeated those three or four letters several times, pausing between repetitions. Suddenly both Best and Pym leaned over their notepads and began transcribing, which meant someone on the other end was responding. Once they’d completed the call-up ritual, Best began tapping the transmit key in earnest.
As an officer cadet, Faust had learned Morse code. But he’d never used or practiced it and found he could only discern an occasional letter during Best’s long transmission. Of course, the message would be coded; perhaps Best himself didn’t know what disinformation it contained; and even if Faust could sort out the letters, he wouldn’t understand the message.
As a test of Best’s loyalty, then, this was a washout. Just watching him tap out Morse code proved nothing; the man could be transmitting a weather report to Berlin, or London, for that matter, as it was impossible to tell who received the communication.
Finally Best sat back and removed the headphones. “I have finished, Lieutenant Bruckmann.”
Pym ripped the top sheet from his notepad and handed it to Bruckmann, who folded it together with Best’s page and slipped both into his breast pocket. “Let’s get you back to your quarters, then.”
“What’s in that message?” Faust asked.
Best didn’t even look at him, but rose and stood next to Bruckmann. Faust sniffed. Tanyon did the ignoring routine with more style.
“Answer the question.” Bruckmann dropped his right hand to the Webley on his belt.
Tough guy tactics. Faust nodded his approval. It wasn’t likely Best, an intellectual and never a soldier, would know how to respond. When the professor cringed away from Bruckmann, Faust allowed himself a small smile.
“I do not know.” But he still wouldn’t look toward the cell.
Faust glanced at Bruckmann. “Tell your boss I’m not impressed.”
Bruckmann’s lips narrowed. “Herr Best, you’ve lived and worked here for how long now?”
“I do not know.” Best stared at the far wall, a flush rising from his neck to cover his face. “I do not know today’s date. No one tells me such things.”
“True,” Bruckmann said. “But I’ve been assigned to Margeaux Hall for three months, and you were here first. So it’s been at least that long, right?”
“That is correct.”
“How often do you send messages for us?”
Best shrugged. His eyes flashed. “Every few days.”
Faust tingled. Courage remained beneath Best’s hypocrisy. Was Stoner aware of it? If not, he wasn’t sharing.
“And you send whatever we tell you to send?” Bruckmann said.
The flare of emotion died, leaving Best’s narrow ascetic face watchful and still. “Yes.”
Faust said something — anything — to hide his growing sense of wrongness. “And there’s a German on the other end receiving this transmission?”
Best’s glare packed hate. “As I am not on the other end, I do not know.”
“Logical.” Faust shrugged at Bruckmann. “I have to think about this.”
“Think all you want.” Bruckmann turned on his heel, hand still on the Webley. “Let’s go, Herr Best.”
As they left the guardroom, Best’s voice floated back. “Before you treated me with more respect.”
Bruckmann’s followed. “I was younger then.”
For just a moment, Faust pitied Best. Then the two years of
mandatory haranguing flooded into his soul, scraped raw by the unchanged arrogance. Let the Nazi swine stew.
Chapter Forty-Five
mid afternoon
the Abbey Arms and the road to Margeaux Hall
Not even a decent suppertime, and already Hackney dragged his feet. He’d taken statements from not quite half of the Patchley Abbey Home Guardsmen, and most gave satisfying alibis for Saturday night and Tuesday. But two of them … he sighed and opened the pub’s door, leaving the rising thunderstorm for the murky air within.
Inside the otherwise empty room, Arnussen sat at a table before the open casement windows, specs perched on his nose, subdued grey light spilling onto the papers piled high before him and the empty tankard weighing them down. He’d found an artist’s sketchpad somewhere and drawn a chart on the oversized sheet, ruled columns stretching across the page. He glanced up as Hackney settled across from him.
“How’d it go among the dragons?” he asked.
“Most of them were villagers.” Hackney set his notepad on the tabletop.
Arnussen treated him to a shrewd glance. “Meaning at least one might not be.”
“You know me too well.” He flipped over several pages. “Tom Burbank runs the general store. On Saturday night, he knew which men were about him, but the two I’ve spoken with couldn’t swear to him being there. Now, he’s a quiet sort and I did have to draw him out to get him talking. It’s possible, with all those goings-on, he just didn’t have much to say.”
“Or it’s possible he wasn’t in the search group after all, but off somewhere doing something else.” Arnussen sat back. “What about Tuesday?”
“It seems on Tuesday, just before noon, he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer and snuck home for a nap, leaving his wife to run both the store and her switchboard. Monday night his Civil Defense group taught a first aid lesson that lasted past his bedtime, and Tuesday night being Home Guard drill, he wanted to be sharp for it.”
Deal with the Devil Page 31
