He’d remembered the name – Semlions – and that she lived in a manor house beyond Hergies – pronounced ‘Airjee’ – name of house, Manoir Hergies. Recalling this in one fell swoop while getting to his feet, throwing a last sad look at the old bird in the coffin and gesturing goodbye to the rest of them. Then he was out, leaving a murmur like pigeons cooing behind him, pulling the door shut and seeing his bike was still there, thank heavens. Reversing it, wheeling it up the narrow passageway – and a new sound now, commotion in the street, men’s voices – French – one hectoring and one defensive. Couldn’t afford to wait, anyway; with luck, while that was going on, might slip away unnoticed – duck away to the left, mount, and away like greased lightning. Ten-thirty now: four miles roughly to the manor – with some twists and turns, as he remembered it – McLachlan’s forefinger tracing the road through Hon-Hergies then Hergies. Make that distance in twenty or thirty minutes, say, hope to God to find the Semlion woman there and that she’d have Hilde with her.
Going by what McLachlan had said about her, very likely would have her there: mama having pegged out, Hilde in need of company and comforting.
Clatter of a horse’s hooves – within yards of him. Horse not on the move, just fidgeting, and squarely across the end of this passageway, in the shafts of some cart. Or trap – pony-trap – and the old boy who’d been in the house had just that basket up into it, turning towards those others in the spill of light, spreading his arms in what looked like exasperation, shouting – astonishingly – ‘Manoir Airjee! Madame de Semeillions – hunh?’
Addressing the gendarme?
Charlie had stopped. Wouldn’t be visible to the old man here, even if he had reason to look down this way. Which he hadn’t: was hauling himself up into the trap and picking up the reins, while the gendarme called back to him in a mocking tone that made a German laugh – still laughing as he translated it to his friends. The old man flipped the reins, grunted to the pony, was moving off. Charlie waiting, still. That bunch would be looking this way, past the end of this passage, watching the trap go. Charlie’s initial surprise at the old fellow shouting out those names blossoming into certainty that Hilde would be there, at the manor, Madame de Semlion having sent the trap here to collect her things. Sales Boches or no sales Boches, it made perfectly good sense, he thought – and sales Boches did come into it: here they were, with the gendarme assisting for linguistic purposes and/or local knowledge. Whatever the detail of that, it would fit in, all right. So – back to the timing: if one got to the manor by about eleven, left with Hilde by eleven-thirty, say – get her to the ship by midnight?
Manage that, wouldn’t have done badly, all things considered.
Clip-clopping of hooves plus iron-shod wheels on cobbles gradually fading. Quiet exchanges resuming, mainly in German, up to the right. If they’d parked themselves there after following the old man in the trap – which was conceivable, might explain their having been here in the first place – now that he’d gone mightn’t they shove off too?
On the other hand, the gendarme might come down here to the back door before leaving. Might. To check on who was here and who wasn’t – and who he, Charlie, might be. Which would be distinctly awkward. Chance it, therefore, sneak off now. As quietly as possible, up to the end of this passage: pausing, craning head round to the right. Couldn’t in fact see much, but he thought they were clustered at the rear end of the van. Might even be inside it, some of them. The going might be as good as it would ever be.
Out and to the left, staying close to the dark house fronts, on this narrow pavement with the bike’s wheels in the gutter, smoother and quieter than on cobbles. New bike anyway, well oiled by Stavely and having as yet no squeaks or rattles. Pausing now and mounting – one shove on the pedals, then free-wheeling. Not so bad – a feeling of having got away with it. This far, got away with it. With what, precisely, wasn’t clear, having no idea what that team with the van might have been there for anyway; whatever, if one had not got away with it one might by now have been inside the van oneself, being interrogated – and they’d have found a loaded pistol, which wouldn’t have helped, exactly.
He was on the banked-up part of the road now, swinging right: 200 yards to the next corner, where he’d go left. Aware that he might run into a problem when in a few minutes’ time he reached the long road he’d come down to start with, where there was a bridge over the Vanne before the turn to Hon-Hergies, where there’d been that motor blocking a truck and he’d turned short of it and felt pleased with himself getting away with that. The blockage might still be there, might not. If it was – well, turn right instead of left and then take any of the turn-offs leading north or northwestward. If they continued as they started, didn’t turn back on themselves as country lanes so often did, you’d be heading parallel to the Hon-Hergies road; might even be better, by-passing the village.
But whatever had been going on there would probably have packed up by now. Hun motorcar having waylaid a lorry – as well as he’d been able to see it – and unless they were spending the night there, stopping everything…
They weren’t. Seemed to have gone. No lights showing, anyway, from this other intersection, the Taisnières turn. He swung left, rode over the hump of bridge and then right, and – all clear. Hon-Hergies maybe 300 yards ahead, with this major road passing through the village and circling left.
Picturing this as it was in McLachlan’s map, main thoroughfares shown with double lines, smaller roads with single ones: as one followed that curve round to the left, either of two offshoots to the right would take one in the right direction. All right, with a few twists and turns, but still be the most direct route to Hergies, whereas staying on this road you’d be making a wide sweep west before turning north – adding at least a mile or two and surely taking longer.
In Hon-Hergies now at – ten-forty. Smaller place than Taisnières. Nothing moving, not a sound other than one’s own hard breathing and the hum of the bike’s tyres – not a glimmer of light anywhere. If there was any ambush, roadblock, admittedly you’d be riding straight into it, there’d be no warning that you’d see; the same would apply anywhere along this route though, and time mattered – one couldn’t bloody dawdle. Ten-forty meant one had left the others at the ship an hour and ten minutes ago, which admittedly wasn’t bad, although it felt like much longer – but one hadn’t got to her yet, hadn’t found her, couldn’t guess how long it might take. Hold-ups could occur – like the waste of time on one’s knees on a stone floor… All right, if she was at the manor and this rate of progress could be maintained, i.e. no real setbacks – and a bonus would be if she had a bike of her own there – that would be really capital…
Into the long bend to the left now. One turn-off at the top of the curve – he’d missed that, somehow. Slowing, looking more carefully for the next.
Here – almost at once, and easy, less turn than fork. On to what felt like a hard dirt or dirt-and-gravel surface. Maybe should have gone for the longer way round, although that way you’d have been missing out Hergies altogether, whereas on this route – map in visual memory again – when you came to it you’d know you had about two kilometres to go, after a right turn into Hergies’ main street, and then a ninety-degree turn left.
Seemed to be taking him on a never-ending circle, this track. When at last it did end, at a ‘T’, giving him the choice of right or left, he had to pull up and check by compass. The answer was left, and 500 yards from there, right. Slowing down, not wanting to miss any of these small turns – especially as this was an embanked route – shine of water back there on both sides.
Now a guess – left? Good guess – he was back on tar and picking up speed again. Yet another feat of memory or divination telling him that within a couple of hundred yards a right turn would take him into Hergies. A T-junction again, as he pictured it.
Correctly, as it happened. A jumble of houses crowding around the junction where he turned right and found he was already in the village – in as much of it as there was. Houses thinning out after only about 50 yards from the turn, then none for 100, 200 yards. Pasture-land or bog, whatever, on both sides, although after the turn to the left which he’d be taking very shortly there’d be more houses – or farmsteads, whatever – black shadings on the map. Meanwhile a dead-straight stretch of smooth-surfaced road. Pedalling hard again now, bike fairly flying.
Car coming, though – very audibly. Seeing it then – lights coming up to the turn he was making for. No cover here, no turn-off or even gateway, only the open, empty roadway he’d been – was – pelting down. He swung sharply to the right, hurtling over the grass verge and into hedgerow. Bike over on its side in long-ish coarse grass: he’d simply let it go and flung himself flat – no ditch, it seemed, but a hump, hedge trailing all over it, black thorny mass of it above him and the hump forming – leaving – a ditch of sorts, a depression into which he’d now rolled. Hearing the car coming as if its driver had already spotted him and was putting his foot down to get here fast – thinking anyway of the bike’s metallic shine showing up even in the weakly diffuse beams of masked headlights – too late to do anything about it now. Or anything much. Flat on his face, hands under him unbuckling the revolver belt, knowing they’d see the bike – if they hadn’t already seen him.
Second thought then: if there weren’t many of them – just one or two, say – take them on, make a fight of it?
Now – judging by the sound – they’d see the bike. He had the pistol in his hand. Car still coming on though, as if passing…
Had not seen anything. Noise had peaked, passing close, was falling as it rushed on by. Not particularly looking for anything or anyone, perhaps, only travelling from A to B. And gone. Charlie half up, in brambles as well as grass, in time to see it turn left, as for Hon-Hergies. He put the pistol down while refastening the belt, then reholstered it and went to recover the bike – which seemed not to have suffered.
Humiliating, rather. Feeling of having panicked – instinctively trying to get rid of one’s only weapon. Why carry the bloody thing, then? But if he hadn’t thrown himself off – had been caught – which undoubtedly he would have been, and with the gun – while trying to explain himself, in English?
Now – two kilometres. Might be slightly less. Thinking back to McLachlan’s directions, remembering that this road would bring one eventually to the highway that came all the way up from Bavay and continued over the Belgian frontier to – oh, wherever – and that the manor was some distance off to the east – this side – of that road. Before one got to it, therefore, there had to be a fork or turning to the right, with the manor set back to the left of that minor minor road; and when looking at the map while listening to McLachlan he’d thought the distance from Hergies might be nearer a kilometre and a half than two.
Turning coming up now. Sort of an apex at the top of a bend in this untarred roadway, a narrower one leading out of that. So – slowly now, although a very large manor in fairly empty countryside shouldn’t be difficult to find. As indeed it wasn’t. At least its surrounding wall wasn’t. And he found the entrance gates before he saw anything of the house, having followed this stone wall from a junction of two lanes half a mile back, and coming now to stone pillars flanking tall iron gates, drive curving away left and right inside, and an edging of rough grass beyond it. Some sort of heraldic figure on top of this nearer pillar – probably on the other, too. Gates were bolted and – feeling for it, on the inside of the bars – locked. Also taller in the middle here, with curved, spiked tops. If one was going to climb them it would be easiest at one side or the other, using the hinges as footholds.
Distant-looking smear of light. A curtain not fully closed, maybe. Distant-looking but could be at any range from fifty to a few hundred yards. Might also, though, be another entrance – stable entrance, where that old man would have driven the trap in about a quarter of an hour ago, he guessed. Unless he’d used this entrance. Take a quick look along there anyway: could be another gateway standing open. Otherwise, come back and climb over here. Wouldn’t be difficult – unlike the wall, which was smooth to the touch and seamless, with no foot- or hand-holds. Prospect a bit further round in any case; if the house was where that light was showing, one would imagine that the stable-yard would be behind it, so any stable entrance would be along there somewhere. He started off again – walking, pushing the bike, following the wall which curved away to surround the house fairly closely on this side, the main acreage of walled demesne being on its western side – the way one had come, following that considerable length of wall.
Here, now. Timber gateway, this one. As wide as the main entrance, and – groping around, exploring by feel – with a keyhole, but no key. No handle either, just a keyhole big enough to stick your thumb in. Splintery timber – but surmountable all right, and easier than the main entrance gates.
Leave the bike here – other side of the lane, pushed well into the hedge. He’d crossed over, found there was a ditch and that the hedge was penetrable enough to hide the machine in, when he heard the trap coming – trotting hooves on hard mud and the rumbling of wheels. A trap anyway, and odds-on that it was the trap – if the old man had taken the long way round, as he might well have done.
Prone again, in the ditch. Bike in the hedge, well hidden. Trap’s approach slowing, trot changing to a walk, pony snorting and chomping at its bit, gruff old voice intoning, ‘Heh, Hercule… Heh, Hercule…’
He’d get out and open the gate now, then lead the pony through. Charlie getting himself into position to move quickly when the moment came. Slip in and get out of sight – in whatever cover there might be on that side of the wall – or leg it for the front of the house. The trap had stopped and the old boy was climbing down, grunting to himself. He had to be a Semlion employee, but as he’d seemed not to like the cut of one’s jib when one had been on one’s knees beside the coffin, best avoid further confrontation here. Even for his sake – in case it brought on a heart-attack. Crouching at the roadside, hearing the pony’s hard, puffing breaths, old man at the timber doors, clink of heavy keys, big old lock scraping over.
Pushing the doors open, then he was back at the pony’s head.
‘Viens, Hercule…’
Scrape of hooves, the trap’s forward lurch and absorption in the blackness between the pillars. Charlie at the right-hand pillar, then inside, around the open timber door and back to the inside of the wall, crouching there as the old man came plodding back to swing the doors shut and lock them. A moment later he was on board again, the trap grinding forward. Driveway angling to the right, Charlie moving left, over grass – looking for the leak of light he’d seen, but from this changed perspective only heading for where he guessed it might have been. Keeping the wall on his left though, couldn’t go far wrong. This was parkland: occasional tall trees, and the scent of pines. Distantly, a dog barking its head off. He saw the light then, the badly drawn ground-floor curtain, altered course towards it and a minute later stumbled into a curve of driveway which he then followed to the right – the front of the house. There was a wide flight of steps; the light was to the left of them, front door obviously central. Climbing – getting words straight in his mind – Madame Semlions, dee-ree-jarble… At the top then, feeling around the door – carved timber with iron studs in it – he found a bell-chain and tugged at it, expecting to hear a bell clang in the depths of the house, but – no such sound, no sound at all. Considerable depth of house, of course. Eleven now? At least that. Focusing on the luminous glow – for the moment resisting an urge to pull at the bell again – he saw it was twelve minutes past the hour. Thinking of McLachlan and Stavely again, the midnight deadline he still had in his own mind and they’d as likely as not have in theirs – at least would take lugubrious note of when it passed. Not that he’d promised anything – obviously could not have. Any more than McLachlan could have – remembering his response when asked at Boobers about his own hopes or expectations, his snapping in that peremptory tone of his, ‘Absolutely no way of guessing…’
A sound, at last. Withdrawal of a bolt. And another. Key rasping over. Not much less than the raising of a portcullis. Antique, no doubt, and all fairly massive. But – finally – door opening…
About two inches: had come up solidly against a chain. Long slot of yellow lamplight matching the stain of it on a stone window-sill along there to the left, and a voice then – female, strident, shrieking something like, ‘Who’s there and what d’you want, this time of bloody night?’
Charlie tried, ‘Madame Semlion, please?’ Then – with further squawking in there, a cry of what sounded like alarm and then a whole stream of it, much as he’d postulated to McLachlan – he tried again with, ‘Madame Semlions? My name, Holt. Lieutenant – Onglais – Marin Royal – no speak French unfortunately, but—’
‘Madeleine?’
New voice – female and French again, and expressing surprise but a lot more composed. Madame Semlion – he guessed and hoped – asking the first one what was going on, and getting a high jabber of, ‘Dit qu’il est Anglais, mais—’
‘Madame? My name Holt – lieutenant, Marin Royal Britannique – I’ve come for Hilde Martens, Madame!’ Continuing murmur in there now, and – thank God – she was taking the chain off. Charlie pulling his coat straight, making sure the revolver was out of sight.
Elise de Semeillions was tall, and quite a looker: dark-red hair, blue eyes, sharply intelligent-looking. Quite young, too – noticeably attractive figure in a pale green jersey smock affair that overhung a satiny off-white skirt. She spoke practically flawless English, too – which put him in the shade. She’d told the cook – an exceptionally large woman with greying hair in a bun – that she could go to bed, then changed that, asked her to make a jug of coffee first. ‘In the morning room, Madeleine.’
‘Because—’ switching into English – ‘there is a fire in here. The drawing-room is less cosy when one is on one’s own.’
It wasn’t all that small a room, though. Not all that comfortably furnished either, by English standards. But warm, all right. They sat on hard chairs at a round table; he told her his name and rank again and repeated that he’d come for Hilde, would like to take her with him as soon as she might find convenient. There’d been a message received in London—
‘I don’t wish to seem rude, Lieutenant, but – I’m to believe they’d send a man who speaks no French?’
Charlie explained: ‘I pilot an airship. Dee-ree-jarble? I said lieutenant, but actually flight lieutenant – Royal Naval Air Service. My ship’s in the woods a few miles away. I brought in a major of the Royal Marines who does speak French, but we had trouble landing and he’s done his leg in – can’t walk, can’t even stand.’
‘So you came in his place.’
Charlie nodded. ‘Is Hilde here?’
‘I’m afraid not. Why did you think she might be?’
He hesitated, seeing no reason she wouldn’t speak the truth, but – facing disappointment of a major kind, telling her in a tone that probably reflected this, ‘I went to her mother’s house in Taisnières – to collect her and her mother. That was what she’d asked for—’
‘I know. It was in this house that she made such a proposal. I was present – as was a person named Michel who I’m glad to know did after all get back to – to where he is based… But if you went to Hilde’s house, you must know her mother has died?’
‘Yes. There were Hun soldiers and a gendarme in the street outside, and—’
‘My groom with a pony-trap?’
‘Yes. Collecting stuff. I think they may have searched the basket he brought out – clothes, I think.’
‘Hilde’s things. Yes, probably they would have. I didn’t know they were watching the house – but that too…’ The cook then, bringing coffee.
‘Thank you, Madeleine. Sleep well, now, I’ve kept you up too long. Goodnight.’ Leaning over, pouring into outsize breakfast cups decorated with hunting scenes. Looking over at Charlie again then: ‘My groom, you say…’
‘He’s back. I was going to climb your gate when he drove up, and I nipped in while it was open. He didn’t see me – not here – did see me in Taisnières, inside the house. I made it faster on my bike than he did with the trap. But those Huns and the gendarme – when I arrived the gendarme called out and I asked did Amy Martens live there, but they didn’t stop me, weren’t taking any notice when I left, either.’
‘Aimée being dead, and the funeral taking place tomorrow, friends would visit, so…’
‘Why’d there be Huns there, though?’
‘I’ll tell you – as well as I can. The Boches have got Hilde at the château – Bellignies – where there is a new so-called security officer who is – what’s the word – persecuting her. He thinks she’s a spy, so he’s arrested her and they’re taking her to Brussels. They’ve found some person who’ll give evidence against her, apparently. But he believes – this man Koch – not only that she’s a spy, but that she must have some way to pass out such information as she has received – eh?’
‘He’s right, isn’t he? She does have – certain intelligence, which is why we’ve come for her.’
‘She never spied. And has no such contact. Except myself – and I have, certainly. But that’s what Koch would be looking for – an attempt by someone else to contact her. As it happens, a young German officer gave her information she never asked for, and wanting to get out – especially to get her mother out – well, she thought she’d – as you might say, use it. In fact it was quite largely my idea.’
‘Was it. Was it… But gone up in smoke now, eh?’ For Charlie, this was really only just sinking in. The whole effort having been for nothing. Rotten for the girl too, of course, but – shaking his head – ‘We’ve come too late.’
‘It would seem so, but…’
‘Only seem so? You mean there’s some chance still?’
‘There might be – as it happens – a very small one. Since you’ve come tonight and not tomorrow night. I’ll have to think this out – rack my brains. I can’t say there is a way, but…’
‘In any case, we have to take off before dawn. Sooner if possible, but for the ship to be still there in daylight would be – well, not on. Two reasons – three – bad weather coming, winds we couldn’t cope with – that on its own means we can’t hang around – second, if we were still here after sunrise and were spotted – well, that’d be that; and if we took off in daylight we’d be seen and they’d send fighters after us. We have no gun, no defences—’
‘Tomorrow night, then?’
‘You mean the ship sitting there all day?’ He shook his head. ‘Big thing, an airship. This one’s a hundred and forty feet long and more than thirty in diameter – the car we sit in hangs under that. She’s not in the forest – you can’t land or take off amongst trees – she’s out on the edge, in good shelter as things are now, but with the weather going the way it’s forecast—’
‘You are saying in effect that in order to ensure your own safety you will have to go without poor Hilde.’
He didn’t like that much. Realised she hadn’t intended him to like it. He paused, holding her hard stare, then changed the line of the discussion slightly.
‘You say they’ve got her in this château…’
A nod. ‘Some stabling has been made into cells. On the perimeter of the demesne, actually the outer wall – but metres thick, those walls, very – how d’you say – massif… It’s been done just recently; before this, Hilde was under what you might call house arrest. Then Koch or his colleagues got hold of some other witness – in Brussels – this is in connection with things she’s supposed to have done two years ago – and at the same time the young leutnant, who for some reason – well, he’d had too much to drink and was trying to impress her – blurted military secrets to her – now apparently he’s confessed it. He’s a weakling. I thought so when I met him, when he and others were billeted here. That was when—’
She checked the flow, shook her dark-red head. ‘It makes no difference, does it? Telling you all this.’
‘Would you explain what you meant when you said there might still be a chance? Get her out of the château somehow?’
‘Oh, no. The château’s full of Boches, and Koch’s a fanatic – he’ll take no chances. I should explain, perhaps – my information comes, one might say guardedly, from Ulrich von Bodenschatz, the commandant at Bellignies, with whom you may be surprised to hear I am on good terms. He’s a sick man – can hardly breathe for asthma – but he was a cavalryman – as incidentally my husband is also – and horses are an interest we have in common. It’s through him, in fact, that I’ve been able to arrange for Hilde to attend the funeral of her mother. I went down on my knees, almost – purely and innocently for poor Hilde’s peace of mind – she’s so utterly devoted, it would be absolutely cruel—’
‘Funeral tomorrow…’
A nod. ‘And von Bodenschatz has insisted to Koch that Hilde must be allowed to attend it. Funeral mass at Taisnières – ten am, before the usual mass at eleven – then the interment at Entre Deux cemetery. As soon as it’s over Koch intends taking her straight to Brussels. Where one may assume she’ll get about as fair a trial as her beloved Nurse Edith Cavell was given. I imagine you know about Edith Cavell?’ Charlie nodded. Elise shrugged, finished with, ‘But, in any event, since you have to make your departure before dawn—’
Charlie cut into that with a recollection of the Edith Cavell business. ‘On the day the news came that the Huns had so-called “executed” Nurse Cavell, ten thousand of our men flocked to the recruiting offices. There was no conscription at that time, you see, joining up was voluntary. But that was the effect it had – ten thousand, in one day. She was a marvellous woman, wasn’t she?’
‘An extraordinary woman. Very small, very quiet, and the heart of a lioness. Hilde worshipped her, worships her memory.’
‘And they’re saying now that she worked with her, getting chaps out?’
‘That she had something to do with it – yes. I don’t believe she did. And she denies it. But they have all this new evidence, so they say…’
‘You’re saying – are you – that there might be some way of – what, spiriting her away from the funeral?’
‘There’s certainly no other hope for her. Or for you, therefore – what you want.’
The saving of a million lives. Against that, the risk to his own, Stavely’s and McLachlan’s, and possible loss of a blimp that cost about five thousand pounds to build and equip. Not such an enormous price.
‘If there was some way, and we – look, if the man I told you about agreed—’
‘The one with the broken leg?’
‘Damaged leg.’ Charlie nodded. ‘He’s – well, my commanding officer. If he agreed to chance it – if there was some way…’
‘There may be. As I said, I’d have to—’ tapping her forehead – ‘put my mind to it. If your people had thought to let us know you were coming… Well, they didn’t, so here we are with only a few hours. And Koch will be at the funeral – also guards at the church, you can be sure of that. But Lieutenant – you are hardly in a position to consult now with your injured colleague?’
‘My bicycle’s in the hedge outside your stable-yard entrance. I imagine I’d head about due east from here – half an hour each way, say. Anyway, I have a map, and—’
‘That would be very dangerous, very rash. You’re talking about cycling back to where your airship is hidden, consulting with this person then returning here?’
‘Surely not all that dangerous. I’ve been riding around all evening.’
‘Then you’ve been very lucky and I’d advise against counting on such luck again. Koch has patrols out – they may not know what they’re supposed to be looking for – maybe he doesn’t – he’s just throwing his weight around, making a show of it and I dare say hoping something might turn up – something like you, perhaps. If they caught you pedalling away into the woods, or coming back – that’s two chances you’d be giving them – wouldn’t that make his day! But think of this, now – it would also finish us, and put Hilde in front of a firing-squad, as a spy who they could then prove had contact with their enemy!’
Gazing at her. Nodding, then. ‘I admit I hadn’t thought of that. But – look, I don’t have to get caught, if I go carefully. At Taisnières, for instance—’
‘You were paying your last respects to a dead person. And when challenged, telling them her name. If you’d enquired for Hilde Martens – different, huh?’
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’
There was also, come to think of it, that near-squeak experience at Hergies. His own recognition then that he wouldn’t have had a hope in hell. In fact that embarking on this at all – his doing so, with his own personal limitations, linguistic especially – had been – well, at the least rash. Some might say practically lunatic.
Elise asked him quietly, ‘The information Hilde has offered you is of great significance, I would guess?’
‘Enormous.’ He leant forward, forearms on the table. ‘It could save us and you from losing the war before the Americans get their thousands of fresh young troops into the line.’
‘Is that actually in prospect?’
‘A possibility, I’m told. Then the Huns would have only the Americans to take on. What Ludendorff will be aiming for – with huge reinforcements from what was the Russian front.’
‘Can you spare one hour now, Lieutenant?’
‘An hour…’
Eleven-forty now.
‘Then either you go back to your airship and take off, or if by that time I’ve seen a way that looks good and you agree it does—’
‘Leave the ship there the rest of the night and all day tomorrow…’
‘Only if I can think of some way. And I would hope not all day. Oh, but you said you would not take off until dark in any case, so – yes, I beg your pardon, all day it would be.’ She spread her hands: ‘One hour – please? Then your decision?’