Charlie woke out of a nightmare in which it had been Amanda in that coffin; those four old women had been hammering the lid down over her while she’d screamed and he’d watched in impotence, unable to speak or move a muscle. It hadn’t been the old witches’ hammering that had woken him – he already knew he’d dreamt that part – but Amanda’s frantic knocking from inside.
Bollocks. He was lying bewildered and still shaken in the dark, between sheets and under blankets, dismissing all of that while facing up to an entirely different nightmare, which though real was almost more difficult to believe in: the fact he’d agreed to take part in this – Christ, this…
Charade.
Bloody dangerous. And leaving the others out on a limb, in that wood, knowing not a damn thing of what was going on. What was more – one’s own personal decision, all this.
Needing the French for ‘Come in’, he’d managed a loud ‘Huh?’, and the big woman – Madeleine, officially the cook, but seemed to do everything except drive the trap – and really was big, from the waist down gargantuan – was setting a candle on the chest of drawers and telling him it was five am. That had to be what she was saying, because (a) it did happen to be five, and (b) it was what had been agreed – or at any rate stipulated by Elise de Semeillions. Early start because of certain essential preparations for the funeral operation: a funeral which Charlie himself would not be attending, instead would be hiding-out in some farmstead in which he was to install himself before daylight – and staying out of sight until it worked or – more than likely – blew up in their faces. Especially, he thought, in Elise’s face. The part he was to play was hardly even a walk-on, was in fact the only part that had an escape mechanism more or less built into it.
It had been getting on for one am when they’d finished ironing out the detail and Elise had shown him to this bedroom, and to where there was a WC with a hand-basin in it, just along the passage, then gone on up to the top floor to wake Madeleine, give her these orders for the morning: all up at five, breakfast at a quarter past, the groom Jeannot to have Hercule and the trap ready for the road by six. Jeannot lived over the stables, apparently. He’d be dropping Charlie off at this farmstead about a kilometre north of the cemetery, then turning back into Hon-Hergies to pick up a young woman by name of Marie something-or-other and bringing her back to the manor.
Out of bed now: in vest and long-johns, picking up a towel and the candle on its enamel saucer. Madeleine had lit it from her own candle while ensuring by means of continuous loud French chatter that he’d stay awake, not drop off again when she left him. He was heading for the WC now, in vest and pants: cold, but decent enough. Anyway, Elise’s room was in another wing, probably about a hundred yards away. It was an enormous house. And she was a truly remarkable woman, he thought. Remembering her long, silent perusals of the maps, and the way she’d gazed at him for minutes on end across the table – not seeing him, only using him as a point of focus for those very wide-awake blue eyes. Breaking off at one, stage to ask, ‘Tell me where exactly is your ballon?’
‘You mean airship.’
‘Ah, yes – airship.’
Like air sheep… He’d shown her, on McLachlan’s map. ‘Here.’ Turning the map her way.
She’d studied it, murmured, ‘Trieu du Bois. Blaregnies. Well, that’s convenient enough.’ Glancing up at him: ‘They are felling some thousands of trees there, uh?’
‘Have been, yes.’ A disturbing thought then: ‘Might be at it again tomorrow?’
‘Sunday? No – not on Sundays. And this time of year, no picnics or mushroom-hunting, either. Especially with snow expected.’
‘Is it?’
‘So one is told.’ A shrug. ‘The village weather experts, you know.’
‘What are they saying about gale-force winds?’
‘Nothing that I’ve heard.’ A shake of the head, and concentrating again. The focus of her attention seemed to be on the area northwest of Hon-Hergies marked Entre Deux, where the cemetery was shown. He’d passed through that tangle of lanes on his way here, he realised: not on the erratically looping bit that gave access to the cemetery, but via the lower one – where he’d forked, would have turned off on the other but had missed it.
She’d told him eventually – after rather more than the agreed hour – ‘There is a way it might be done.’
‘Just might, or—’
‘A lot will depend on Ulrich von Bodenschatz. But I believe I will prevail. Prevail, that is, over the disgusting Koch. I’ll be begging, absolutely begging von Bodenschatz to allow me to bring Hilde with me in the trap from Taisnières to Entre Deux. Here.’
‘To the cemetery.’
‘On the face of it, yes. Not quite that far, in fact, but – anyway, you, Lieutenant, will be here – at this farm.’ Pencil-tip touching it. ‘Jeannot will bring you here in the trap, before sunrise.’
‘Could go on my bike, if—’
‘Take it with you in the trap. You may need it later. I hope you will not, but – may. If it goes well with Hilde, I think better on foot, the pair of you.’
‘Hilde makes a run for it at some point, joins me at this farm?’
She nodded approvingly. ‘First things first, though.’
‘Only it sounds – well, rather simple. Place alive with Huns, and she just jumps out and runs for it?’
‘It is simple, yes. Simple I think is best, Lieutenant. Affairs of this type that become compliqués – complicated – can so easily go wrong. See here – she runs, yes – supposedly in one direction, actually in another, and with these – would the word for them be “dykes”?’
‘You mean the embanked roads?’
‘Very well. Embanked roads. Using them as I’ll explain to her, she is never in sight from – from anywhere – not from this side where they’re coming from Taisnières, nor from the cemetery itself. Not even from these embanked roads here – as you might imagine if you are going only by the map. Since the map does not show the ups and downs, uh? I happen to know the district very well – Hilde also, having travelled between this house and her mother’s every single day. And the embanked roads there are higher, you see. What’s more – much more – the Boches and whoever else is in the cortège behind us – we’ll be following the coffin, Hilde being the chief mourner, naturally – all will be looking – searching – this way. Huh?’
‘When they find she didn’t go that way, won’t you be held responsible?’
‘I think not. I and the girl who’ll be with me – whom I want with me partly for a witness – as well as Madeleine and Jeannot, of course – we’ll all four have seen her go that way, then somehow vanish. We don’t have the least idea how – except there are a lot of the embanked roads around here, and she knows her way around so well – then for heaven’s sake she’s in Hergies almost, although it’s anyone’s guess which way she went! All right, they’ll have to search the village – every house, eh, how long will that take? Please God, she’s with you long before it’s over. Nobody in either Hergies or Hon-Hergies knowing anything of what’s happened, incidentally – it’s the plain truth – they don’t and they won’t!’
‘Yes, that’s good. The fewer who know anything, the better.’ Charlie nodded. ‘But again – if you’ve persuaded von Bodenschatz to let her ride with you, surely against the advice of his security officer—’
‘He – von Bodenschatz – will be held responsible. I’m sorry for it, but I can’t help that. She would not escape if she remained in Koch’s hands, so it’s poor old Ulrich who’s taken the risk and lost her. If he does, mind you – everything depends on that. He might not want to have a real showdown with Koch, for instance. Rank isn’t everything, is it, especially in matters of security, so forth? Against that, I do have – well, some persuasive powers, and the best of motives for wanting her with me up to the last moment: she’s been like a foster daughter to me, I’m terrified by what’s going to happen to her – I am, that’s true – and she’s also a close friend of the young girl who’ll be with us, who’ll be in tears, absolute desperation!’
‘Do you really need the girl, though? Seeing as you have Madeleine and the groom anyway?’
‘Yes. I think her participation will help us a lot.’
‘Only thinking of what we just said – the fewer in the know the better?’
A shake of the glossy head. ‘Never mind…’
‘But you’re terrified, you say – for Hilde’s chances.’
She’d shrugged. ‘I exaggerated. A little nervous – yes.’
‘You do realise, then, it’s a very risky business.’
‘A small piece of bad luck could wreck it, certainly. But, Lieutenant, nothing of this kind can be certain or risk-free, I admit. If for instance she was seen as she crossed this piece of road between the embanked sections here and here – just in those few seconds some Boche turning his head… No reason it should turn out that way, however, and recognising that it could would not justify screaming, Oh no, it’s too dangerous, I dare not! Eh?’
He let that go. Wondering whether she understood that the risk was going to be mainly hers. But McLachlan’s and Stavely’s too, stuck out there… He was peering more closely at the map: ‘At that point she’d be only about five hundred metres from the farm where I’m waiting for her. She’s going to have to run like a hare, isn’t she? Quite short distances, but—’
‘She quite likely could out-run a hare. But no reason any of them should be taking any interest – at that time, in that direction. Maybe you cannot see it, Lieutenant, but I can. And see here, now. You are in the farmstead, and all this will take place between let’s say eleven and eleven-thirty. By that time – eleven-thirty at the latest – she should be with you, and it’s then up to you whether to clear out immediately, or wait some little while.’
‘Depending on how things look. If there’s a great hue and cry—’
‘Might be best to wait for darkness. But what I’m saying – if we have not succeeded, if Hilde does not join you – well, you have your bicycle. You would wait for dark I suppose, and then – adieu, mon lieutenant.’
‘Leaving you to face the music.’
‘If there were to be such music – Wagnerian, eh? – your continued presence would be no help to any of us. In fact far from it.’ She reached over, patted his hand. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
Breakfast was porridge and coffee, served in an annexe to the kitchen. It was quicker, warmer and more convenient, Elise explained. She and Madeleine were already draped in black; and while drinking her coffee she wrote two notes – one for Charlie to give the farmer to whom Jeannot would be introducing him, and the other for the girl – Marie – in Hon-Hergies.
‘The farmer’s name is Emile Voreaux. He is one of us, he will help all he can. The only thing is, to take no chances that might compromise him. Don’t risk allowing yourself to be seen – not only by Boches but by anyone, huh?’
‘One of us’ didn’t need to be elucidated – the implication was clear enough. She gave him the note, he pocketed it and she called to Madeleine, ‘Has Jeannot been in for breakfast yet?’ He had, apparently, was now seeing to Hercule and the trap. Elise told her, ‘Ask him to come in for a word with me.’ In the cook’s absence then she told Charlie while still scribbling her second note, ‘He’s a grumpy little man but his heart’s in the right place. He was a trooper in my husband’s regiment of chasseurs, retired through some injury to his back a long time ago and has been with us – oh, an age.’ A movement of the head: ‘Here he is.’
Madeleine came through. ‘Jeannot to see you, Madame.’
‘Ask him to come in.’
The man himself – cap in hand. Focusing on Charlie then, and mouth dropping open: it didn’t have many teeth in it. Elise told Charlie, ‘This is Jeannot Brefort, Lieutenant.’ Then a longish burst of French to Jeannot: Charlie heard his own name and rank, the word Britannique, and what he guessed might have been something along the lines of: ‘You’ve seen each other before – he’s told me. He’s here with a way of getting Hilde Martens away to England – in which we’ll help all we can, uh?’
Jeannot nodding, muttering, ‘Bien sûr. Bien sûr.’ Still looking at Charlie as if he thought he might not be real.
Charlie suggested, ‘Best not to tell him I sneaked in behind the trap. Might have left the bike in the hedge and climbed that gate.’ Getting up from the table as he spoke, he went around it and offered the old man his hand: ‘Jeannot.’
‘Grand honneur, mon lieutenant!’
Elise looked pleased. ‘Jeannot, sit down for a moment. Madeleine, bring another cup. Now listen, Jeannot…’
She was really something special, Charlie thought. If one had been – well, ten years older, and with origins of a somewhat different kind… Anyway, she had a husband – and children, two girls apparently, at some convent but coming home this next week for holidays. Hardly the best of times to be risking all she was risking, he thought. She might have made a perfect wife for McLachlan, though: you could imagine the two of them ordering each other around, McLachlan being at home in French – and almost certainly a horseman.
Feeling fairly desperate too, by this time, one might guess. Watching for the first streaks of dawn to lighten the clouded sky, knowing that unless he, Charlie, turned up with or without Hilde in the course of the next hour, they’d have a whole day to see through – with the wind getting up. Force 5 by noon, for God’s sake. They’d be guessing at a more drastic scenario than that, too, he imagined: at his having been shot to death somewhere – as McLachlan had half-jokingly envisaged for himself – but shot, or caught, the question then being what should he and Stavely do?
If they weren’t somehow discovered, didn’t find themselves surrounded suddenly by Huns…
Start walking?
Forget them, though. Stop worrying about the wind, too. How it would be at dusk, that mattered – and touch wood, you’d be with them by that time. Which was a good thought, finally, better than all those others.
He’d been about his own business, now arrived back in the kitchen where they were waiting for him.
‘Sorry…’
‘Hercule and the trap await you, Lieutenant. I have explained to Jeannot that there is a bicycle to pick up outside the gates, and suggested that you should sit on the floor of the trap, try not to be seen. A rug over your head, even. Although it’s dark, if you were to meet a patrol…’
‘Yes – all right. And – Madame, thank you so very much—’
‘For nothing. Listen – if it goes as it should, you’ll be leaving the bicycle, won’t you? Tell Voreux it’s his, but if there’s speculation or rumour going around he should keep it out of sight for the time being.’
‘Good thinking.’
A smile: ‘Good luck.’
‘Good luck to you.’ He was holding both her hands by this time, and on a sudden impulse kissed her cheek – lightly, since he hadn’t shaved. ‘I think you’re stupendous.’
‘That’s very nice. Thank you. When the war’s finished, come back and see us. My husband would be very happy and our daughters would be thrilled to bits.’
Jeannot unlocked the timber gateway; Charlie went through, found his bike and extracted it from the hedge, loaded it into the trap while the gates were being shut and locked again. He climbed in after it and sat on the floor while the old boy threw a carriage rug over him. All of that took about a minute, and the trap was already rolling – still a few minutes short of six am. One and three-quarter kilometres to Hergies, to the right turn where that car had damn near stopped this business in its tracks. That near-disaster stuck rather in his mind: it was unquestionable that if he had not flung himself off as he had, (a) he’d have been in some lock-up since then, and (b) after the funeral this morning Hilde would have been on her way to Brussels.
As she might still be. It was still hellish chancy. And he thought Elise might be under-estimating the danger to herself. If it came off, the Germans would no doubt hold von Bodenschatz responsible – but only for agreeing to what she’d have proposed, begged for. Koch, whom she’d described as a fanatic, wasn’t likely to let that go.
At Voreux’s farm – six-twenty, and still dark – Jeannot turned into a cobbled yard and leaned over to pull the rug off his passenger. Elise had been insistent that he should waste no time in getting back on to the road into Hon-Hergies; his visit to the girl Marie was perfectly legitimate and explainable, but it was important that no Hun interest should be directed this way, either now or retrospectively. If stopped and asked to explain his visit here the old man would say he’d come to ask Voreux whether he had a dozen bales of straw to spare, could maybe deliver them to the manor in the next few days. All right, it wasn’t a matter of such urgency that you’d normally set out about it before dawn, just happened he’d this other business to see to in the village – Madame de Semeillions’ need of a replacement for Hilde in her household, which was of a certain urgency, Madeleine Vicot having heard that the girl – Marie Fonquereuil – was thinking of moving to other employment in Bavay. Elise had laughed, told him, ‘It’s an art – not just of telling lies: you can bore them to tears with such explanations, they lose all interest. You should bear it in mind, Lieutenant: when you find that some young lady is going out of her way apparently to bore you…’
He’d thought – Amanda?
Well. Might bear it in mind. If and when…
At least one oil-lamp was burning in the farmhouse, and at the sound of Hercule’s hooves and the trap’s wheels on cobbles, a man came out of an outhouse and advanced slowly towards the trap as Jeannot reined-in. ‘Eh, Hercule…’
‘What’s up, Brefort?’
‘Anyone wants to know, called by to ask d’you have any straw you’d sell us. Truth, though, brought you a visitor. You’ll see, he has a letter for you.’ The old soldier got down, Charlie passed the bike down to him and then followed. Jeannot adding to the farmer, ‘Letter from Madame de Semeillions. Private business. A dozen bales, if you could spare ’em?’
Charlie said, shaking Voreux’s thick hand, ‘Holt. Onglais. Je ne parle pas Fronsy.’ Elise had taught him that. He gave Voreux her note, and the man went back into the half-lit shed to read it.
Jeannot, already back in the trap, called down to Charlie, ‘Bien, alors?’
Going by his tone, something like, ‘All right, then?’ Searching his brain, Charlie came up with, ‘Merci, Jeannot!’
‘Adieu. Bonne chance.’ Flip of the reins. ‘Eh, Hercule…’
Elise de Semeillions asked Marie Fonquereuil, in the morning-room at about eight o’clock, ‘Is that satisfactory, Marie?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Rapid blinking. A well-built girl – brown-haired, brown-eyed, blob of a nose. ‘Entirely, Madame!’
‘It’s not as much as I was paying Hilde, but when we’ve got to know each other and you’ve proved your worth, we’ll think again. To be frank with you, Hilde’s a smart, clever girl and a very hard worker – that’s what you have to try to measure up to. She told me, incidentally, that you’d have liked to work here: you could say it’s on her recommendation that I’m making you this offer.’
‘Well. We’re like sisters.’ Face crumpling: ‘It’s terrible, what—’
‘I do know that you and she were friends in your schooldays – and you helped her with her mother at one time?’
‘When she herself was unwell. And you were away, looking after some relative near Lille.’
‘And you wouldn’t take payment for it.’
‘From Hilde, or that dear old lady?’
Elise smiled. ‘Change of subject now. Tell me – how do you feel about the Boches, Marie?’
‘Sacres Boches…’
‘Exactly. Primarily it’s Hilde I’m thinking of when I ask that question. What they’re doing to her, and what they did to Madame Cavell. Tell me, though – this is a personal question, forgive me, but I’d like to know – do you have any friends amongst them?’
‘Amongst the Boches, Madame?’
‘Don’t feel insulted. Hilde as it happens did get to know one of them quite well – as I’m sure you must know. Also, it’s important to me that you don’t have any false impressions – I myself am on quite friendly terms with the commandant at Bellignies, Major von Bodenschatz. The background to this is a common interest in horses – hunting, and so forth, equestrian matters generally. Wait a minute, I’m about to explain why you have to hear all this. You’re coming with us to the funeral this morning?’
‘I’m so grateful – Jeannot did mention it. I have my black coat, and—’
‘The point is, Marie, Major von Bodenschatz will be there, and you’ll see me in conversation with him. He’s – quite old, and he has breathing difficulties – asthma. He was a cavalryman, but is unfit for active service now – it’s why he has that job. But at the church, as I say, you’ll see me talking with him. I intend – must – persuade him to allow Hilde to come with us in the trap from Taisnières to Entre Deux. We may never see her again – you realise? And if ever a young girl needed to be with friends – loses her mother, then the arrest… There’s a real pig of a German by name of Koch, a captain, actually some kind of policeman—’
‘We’ve all heard of him, Madame.’
‘He’s the one behind this. Major von Bodenschatz is of course his superior officer, but may still find it difficult to over-rule him – which he already has done, in fact, in allowing Hilde to attend her own mother’s funeral.’
‘I know.’
‘You understand, then. And the more – moral force, persuasion, the better chance we’ll have. You, as a lifelong friend of Hilde’s and of her mother – of course you’ll be overwrought – wanting Hilde with us. If necessary you’ll beg, and cry…’
‘I will. I will. Poor darling Hilde…’
‘But there’s more to it than that, Marie. In telling you this now – and asking for your help in it – I’m asking a lot, but also placing a great deal of trust in you – even my life – Hilde’s too – in your hands. It’s quite a lot of help we need from you. Listen, now…’
She asked Madeleine – in the kitchen, while Marie was in her room on the top floor, unpacking her trunk and changing her clothes, Jeannot grooming Hercule and washing down the trap – ‘You see the point, do you?’
‘Of having her with us?’
‘You might have questioned the wisdom of bringing her into it. An outsider, as she is.’
‘I’d say that is the point. I and Jeannot being – if I may presume as to say so – almost family—’
‘You are family. There’s no presumption in it. And people would say, “Oh, they would support her, swear to whatever she wanted to put across” – huh?’
‘Of course. And we would, too. But also to have more of a crowd in the trap might – confuse them?’
‘Let’s hope so. But primarily the business of chasing after her. Not quite your style, Madeleine?’
‘Chasing across those fields?’ Slapping one enormous hip. ‘Me? Who’d believe that?’ A shake of the head, then, ‘Would she chase after her, though? Hilde being her dear friend?’
‘Yes – and she’s happy with it. Not to catch Hilde, obviously, but – as it were – lead the hunt. In fact of course mislead it. She’ll be in panic – scared for Hilde – don’t you see?’
There’d been no noticeable increase in wind force yet, but it had veered to northeast, which regrettably tallied with the forecast. His view from the hatch in the end of Voreux’s hayloft was southward, and chimney-smoke rising from Hon-Hergies clearly had a left-to-right component in it. Blue-ish, rising and drifting, and even against the wind and from this distance – mile and a half maybe – identifiable by scent as woodsmoke.
Eight thirty-five. Plenty of time for the wind to come up to force 5 by noon. It might not – the forecast might turn out to be wrong, even by just a few hours. Not much to ask for – except that one was praying for a few other long-shot mercies as well as that one. For Elise’s slapdash scheme to work, for instance. For von Bodenschatz to allow Hilde to travel with her in the trap, to start with; then for the deception ploy at Entre Deux not to be the disaster it might be. Please, God, let Hilde get away and let Elise get away with getting her away. Hell of a lot to ask for, he thought, reaching for the heavy old telescope Voreux had been so kind as to leave with him. It worked well enough, although its prisms could have done with some spit and polish. Focusing again now – line of sight straight down the mostly embanked road to the junction at Entre Deux, cemetery slightly to the left of that. What he could see of the cemetery was its end wall, this northern end, and over it the upper parts of memorials, one especially tall marble angel standing out clearly in its whiteness. Nothing moving: grave-diggers either working nearer the other end, or had done their stuff already. The entrance, at that southern end, could be approached from either direction, depending on which road one took out of Hon-Hergies – the one he’d missed last night or the one he’d taken, which as it happened was the one the trap would be coming on in about two and a half hours’ time.