A single bell was tolling. Hilde glancing up at the church tower, after the corporal who’d ridden inside the van with her had given her a hand down. In leg-irons and handcuffs she’d hardly have managed without that help, but Gustav Koch hadn’t been thinking of providing any, was just standing there, watching her. There was a German army truck parked on the corner of the side road that led down to the Martens house, and this side of it a staff car, and the small green van in which Hilde remembered having been fetched from the manor for that second interview with Koch. Closer still, right outside the church, was a flat-topped cart, property of Jules Quillot, a market gardener who did this sort of thing as a sideline, and a motorcycle combination parked right on the pavement.
People were waving to her, and some women blew kisses. Dr Fressin, from Bavay, raised his black Homberg and gave her a little bow before resuming his conversation with Leroy the village gendarme. Just about all Taisnières was here, filling the street and pavements and thronging the courtyard entrance to the church – a paved yard behind railings which a long time ago had had silver paint on them and still showed traces of it – but leaving a clear space around a squad of helmeted Hun soldiers.
The corporal muttered and gestured to her, indicating that she should get moving – into the church, presumably. She began to – then stopped, shaking her head and holding up her manacled arms, looking down disgustedly at the leg-irons. A murmuring from the crowd grew louder and more positive: pointing, gesturing, their expressions and tones varying from mildly indignant to furious. Koch shouted to the corporal, ‘Get her inside!’
‘Jawohl—’
‘Hauptmann Koch!’
Von Bodenschatz: he must have been sitting waiting in the staff car – she’d heard a car door slam, hadn’t looked that way until now. The Bellignies commandant’s seamed grey face was taut with disapproval. Pointing with his swagger-cane: ‘Remove the iron-mongery, Koch. She’s attending her own mother’s funeral, man!’
‘If those are your orders, sir…’
‘Are you deaf, then?’
Koch beckoned to the corporal. ‘Here.’ A bunch of keys. ‘Remove the irons, lock them in the van, put them on her again when we continue to the cemetery.’
‘Sir.’
As he unlocked the cuffs, some of the villagers applauded. Hilde, massaging her wrists, looked down expressionlessly at the German as he took the leg-irons off. She wasn’t conventionally attired for church-going: a rather dreadful old brown leather coat, an oatmeal-coloured skirt showing under it and a vividly green silk scarf as head-covering.
Five or six minutes to ten, and the bell still tolling. She’d nodded her thanks to von Bodenschatz, but he’d turned away, ignoring it, and hearing – also seeing, now – the approach of the Manoir Hergies pony-trap. Hilde had also heard and seen it, faced it now with longing in her expression. The crowd was dividing left and right to let it through. Old Jeannot at the reins, in a black cap and overcoat, Elise de Semeillions elegant in black, Madeleine Vicot elephantine in hers; and – clearly to Hilde’s delight – Marie Fonquereuil, waving happily but discreetly to her. Jeannot was having to pull up abreast the hearse on account of the black van and other vehicles filling the kerb-space beyond it.
Elise reached Hilde first: both were in tears as they embraced, Hilde gasping, ‘How sweet of you to bring Marie!’ and Elise then, ‘I have a lot to tell you, but first I have to speak to von Bodenschatz. I’ll be right back. Meanwhile…’
Meanwhile Hilde was embracing Marie and Madeleine. Jeannot raised his hat: he was at Hercule’s head, turning the trap in the narrow and congested roadway.
Elise, dabbing at her eyes, asked von Bodenschatz, ‘Might I have a word, mon commandant?’
‘But of course, Madame.’
Koch was watching, and no doubt straining his ears. Elise turned her back on him. ‘Mon commandant – you can imagine how I and my household feel about poor Hilde?’
‘I can indeed, Madame. And I regret – can only hope that the investigation will prove her innocence.’
‘I’m sure it must. And may I ask you – beg you – because this is so short a time for us to – oh, to share her grief and be with her, perhaps comfort her a little – you see, for me especially, she could be my daughter, the way I feel for her. And that young girl there – Marie Fonquereuil – they grew up together…’
‘Yes. Yes. I’m sure. Unfortunately it’s not in my own field of responsibility – as I hope you understand, Madame.’
‘I want only to ask – especially as you’ve been so kind in other matters – after this mass, let her come in the trap with us to Entre Deux?’
He was thinking about it. Frowning. A shrug, then. ‘I don’t see why not. No – I don’t. On your own responsibility, of course.’
‘Oh, thank you so very—’
‘Hauptmann Koch!’
The bell still tolling. And snow falling: not much, but enough for mourners to be turning their collars up. In fact most of them had gone inside by now. Marie and Madeleine surrendering Hilde to Elise but staying with them, the young girl and the huge woman close enough to ensure some degree of privacy from the villagers crowding round. Elise told her group quietly but triumphantly, ‘Hilde is being permitted to drive with us in the trap to Entre Deux.’
Madeleine crossed herself. ‘Thank God.’
Marie murmured, ‘That’s wonderful!’
Hilde began, ‘He’s more or less a human being, that one. I tell you, just before you arrived—’
‘Hilde, tell us later. Don’t show excitement at what I’m about to tell you now, don’t show anything. We’ll go into detail during the drive – it’s all planned. Hilde, your message did reach London. There’s an Englishman waiting for you at Voreux’s farm. Yes, it’s true, believe me, but show nothing – only grief for your dear mother. Whom in fact you will not see buried. Just think how happy she’d be for you if she could know this. Perhaps she does…’ The priest, a robust, bald man, had emerged from the church and was beckoning to them. Elise, with an arm around Hilde’s shoulders in that terrible old coat, assuring him, ‘Yes, Father, we’re coming…’
Ten o’clock, and the bell had fallen silent.
Ten twenty-eight: half an hour since that mournfully tolling bell had ceased. They’d be about coming out of church, Charlie guessed. And if the hearse travelled at say five kilometres per hour – Elise had told him it would be a horse and cart – well, they had to bring the coffin out and load it on, to start with, and pall-bearers usually didn’t exactly race about, so with two kilometres to cover it would take about half an hour.
The snow hadn’t amounted to much, as yet, but this was the second shower and it was heavier than the first had been; and Elise had said it was expected. Quite likely therefore would set in, and snow plus high winds equalled blizzard. Best not even think of that: the possible inevitability of spending another whole night and day on the ground – with Hilde, if this business had come off, in which case you’d have troops all over the place, even maybe reconnaissance aircraft over. You’d be starving, too, and in that length of time the leakage of gas might well become significant.
Don’t think about it. Take it as it comes. May not be that disastrous…
Ten thirty-five.
Vehicle of some kind approaching the cemetery. He slid forward – off the hay-bale he’d been sitting on – on to his knees, rested his elbows on the bale between himself and the hatch, focusing Voreux’s telescope first on the marble angel and then on the junction of those lanes. It was a truck, coming from the direction of the Manoir Hergies, or of Bellignies, perhaps. German army truck, that drab greenish-brown. It would be coming to the cemetery, he guessed, bringing a load of Huns. All right if they took up positions around the cemetery – for what purpose, God only knew – but very much less all right if they were used to patrol those lanes. Quick shift southward, to where the hearse and cortege might show up in about – ten-forty now, so probably not in the next ten minutes, more likely fifteen or twenty; and where the trap with Elise and company in it definitely would appear. It was the way they had to come – Elise’s plan hung on it absolutely, no matter what the rest of them did. Nothing was moving on that side now, anyway. Back to the truck, then – as it reached the intersection, might even have turned up this way.
Hadn’t. Was going straight over, heading for that end of the cemetery and passing out of one’s range of vision. If it wasn’t stopping there it would shortly reappear on the loop of lane running up the cemetery’s eastern side.
And had not. Therefore had stopped, and ten to one on, would be disembarking troops. Brought here from Bellignies, he guessed – wouldn’t have come from that direction if they’d been transferees from Taisnières. But they – meaning Koch – almost certainly would have troops deployed at Taisnières, and one might guess they’d come on here with the funeral cortege. Which would mean this place being fairly lousy with them by the time the action started.
The coffin was on the hearse with a few wreaths on it, and Quillot was up on the driver’s seat with two pall-bearers beside him. The horse, a grey, was looking round at Hercule as Jeannot led him and the trap up to the position it had occupied before – abreast the hearse, but leaving Quillot room to pull out when he was ready to. Quillot pointing with his whip, telling Jeannot, ‘We’ll go this way – down there and to the right, right again at the bottom.’
‘Didn’t think you’d be going through Bavay.’
Sarcasm. All Quillot had meant was that he wasn’t thinking of trying to turn in order to leave by way of the main street. Which was thronged again as the church emptied. Jeannot removing his cap briefly as Elise arrived with an arm round Hilde: both were composed now but pale and tear-stained. Madeleine and Marie were close behind them. Snow was falling again, and Jeannot had been quick to cover his bald head; he told Elise as he gave her a hand up, ‘Hercule’s playing up. Likes the looks of that nag of Quillot’s, the old devil.’
‘Too much oats, Jeannot. You spoil that animal.’ She pulled Hilde down on her right where the seat curved around and up that side, and Marie on her left; Madeleine crammed herself in then, and Jeannot clambered up. Elise said, ‘It was a simple but very moving service, I thought.’ Raising a gloved hand in response to von Bodenschatz’s inclination of the head: he was at his car then, his sergeant-driver opening the rear right-hand door for him. Elise saw Koch climbing into the front of the black van.
‘Jeannot. When Quillot gets going, follow close behind him and stop level with the van so it’s shut in and Major von Bodenschatz’s car will be the next behind us. Understand me?’
‘Understood, Madame.’
‘I’ll explain this as we go along, Hilde. The others know what they have to do, but – please, everyone, listen carefully and raise any questions you like – let’s make absolutely sure of it.’
Hearse pulling out now: Jeannot flipped his reins, got Hercule moving. At the corner, soldiers were embarking in the truck. Hilde asked Elise, ‘Tell me about the Englishman?’
‘Well. The first thing is he doesn’t understand a word of French.’
‘Doesn’t? But that’s—’
‘Crazy – yes, that’s what I thought. But he’s a pilot, flies a dirigible – they call it an air ship – and at present it’s on the edge of the forest at Blaregnies. Trieu du Bois, know where I mean?’
‘Of course!’
‘He brought with him another person who does speak French but broke his leg or something when they landed, so this pilot – naval pilot, a lieutenant – took the injured one’s place. He went to your house, where he learnt of your mother’s death, and came to me then at the manor. On a bicycle, would you believe it. We sat up until the small hours devising this scheme – which I admit is not without its risks and dangers, Hilde dear.’
‘I’m up to the neck in those already – but what about you, Madame?’
‘Don’t worry about me.’ She looked back. ‘Jeannot, the major’s driver is wanting to pull out. Go on, but not too fast, eh?’
‘Eh – Hercule…’
They’d been blocking the black van in. Now its driver could hardly force his way out ahead of von Bodenschatz’s staff car, had to display good manners and respect for a senior officer, let them precede him. Elise was glad to see that the van’s wind-screen was misted up: wipers hard at it and the rest of it snow-streaked. The snow seemed to have settled in for a long stay this time. She told Jeannot, ‘You did that very well.’
‘Catch up on Quillot, shall I?’
‘No. Let’s stay as we are. Then von Bodenschatz may keep his distance. It leaves the danger of Koch pushing up between us – I guess he may be quite angry now – but the only way to prevent that – well, there’s no way – any gap at all, he could do that. And it would be very bad for us.’ She spread her hands. ‘Many dangers, Hilde. But now listen—’
Hilde tried again: ‘If I get away, what happens to you?’
‘I shall be utterly distraite. I would never have dreamt you’d so take advantage of my affection for you. I’ll be stunned with surprise and chagrin.’
‘You really think Koch won’t realise…’
‘Won’t be able to prove it. And I have von Bodenschatz on my side. Now just listen…
Snowing quite steadily; beginning to settle, too. Slanting down from the northwest, which meant the ship wouldn’t be as well sheltered as she had been. He’d realised this earlier – much earlier – when he’d made his messy landing and he and Stavely had secured her there, having that forecast very much in mind but no way to do anything much about it except secure her with all four handling guys plus the trail-rope and head-rope. She’d still be in partial shelter, from that top right-hand (i.e. northeastern) corner of the Trieu du Bois. Whatever Trieu du Bois might mean. Thinking of them there, though, and of their likely state of mind: acute anxiety, obviously, but wouldn’t be giving up hope quite yet – would certainly hang on until dark. Until the pre-dawn hours of Monday, probably: they’d be telling themselves, ‘Hang on, hang on…’ And even then…
They’d have two options. No, they wouldn’t. With McLachlan’s leg out of action the only chance they’d have would be for Stavely to try to get the ship up on his own. Which he might manage, if he had luck. He’d know the odds were against him, in various ways – especially of course when the wind got up, which it was pretty well bound to do some time this evening or tonight. Nicer to tell oneself it might not, but – forget it anyway. Sufficient unto the day… Stavely’s chances, though – McLachlan’s preference would be to wait, continue hoping against hope, although there’d be nothing to eat or drink – they’d have eaten all the sandwiches and drunk the coffee by this time – and they’d be very, very cold.
And that leg of his…
He’d be glad he’d written that letter to his son, Charlie thought.
Get to them this evening, anyway. With Hilde or without her. Preferably with – obviously – but otherwise cut one’s losses, save their lives and one’s own and get the ship away.
The Hun soldiers who’d come in that truck were inside the cemetery, their helmets and shouldered rifles occasionally visible above the end wall. The good side of it was that they were keeping the angels company, not disporting themselves on the approach roads. At least he’d seen nothing moving on any of those lanes or in the stretches of them that he could see. The intersections especially one would have thought they might have picketed – three intersections at this top end, as well as his own particular interest now – at ten fifty-five – the lower, circular road which started in Hon-Hergies at the right fork he’d taken last night, then circled right-handed to the point where he’d rather lost his bearings.
Forget the cemetery now, in fact. Concentrate on that lower road. Or on as much as one could see through the falling snow.
Which, come to think of it, might improve Hilde’s chances.
If she’d been allowed to ride with them in the trap. That was the crucial thing; for all he knew she might not have been, in which case this whole business was a washout.
Less than a fortnight: only that long since McLachlan, then a total stranger, had told him in old Peeling’s office: ‘Need someone to fly an airship on a special mission. What d’you say, Holt?’
Checking the time again – close on eleven. Should have remembered the old training-ship principle, never volunteer for anything. He’d been rather floating on air though, at that time – on the excitement of Amanda. Distraction more than excitement now. He put the telescope up again…
Hercule going strong and steady, hauling them through Hon-Hergies. Church-goers in Sunday best pausing here and there to watch them pass. An encouraging factor only minutes ago had been that the last vehicle in the cortege, the truckload of soldiers, was no longer with them, had gone straight on – towards Bavay – at the last turning; Bavay was most likely where they’d come from. Cortege consisting now therefore of the hearse, this trap, von Bodenschatz’s staff-car, the black van with Koch in it, the smaller, green van and the motorbike – which was the priest’s. Elise and Hilde had known this and had been surprised the others hadn’t.
‘See—’ Elise with her map, showing Marie – ‘if she’d gone this way, between the lakes there, then over to the Hergies side of this embanked roadway, and gone either right or left, you wouldn’t know which way or where the devil – and see, all these farms and cottages she could be in?’
‘Should I chase that far, then?’
‘Wouldn’t you? Once you’d started?’
Madeleine warned, twisting her large frame half round, ‘The motorcycle is trying to pass the black van. It’s good we’ve lost the soldiers, eh?’
‘It’s excellent.’ Elise persisted, ‘Marie, look. My bet is that if this works as I’m convinced it will, when Koch finds himself stopped and sees you marking Hilde’s trail for him, he’ll try to cut her off by getting back on to the main road – this way, Pont des Bergers and to the right here. You’d better be ready for that – it’s you he’ll catch up with – don’t let him think you’re scared of him, only be frantic for her, saying how she must have panicked, simply not known what she was doing, and your aim in trying to catch her is to persuade her to come back. All right?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Just convince yourself that you’re chasing after her for her own sake and that she’s vanished – you want him to understand she’s not ill-intentioned, only under terrific strain – that kind of thing. And good luck, my dear.’
‘You too, Madame.’
‘Hilde, I don’t have to say it, but one day…’
‘I’ll pray for that day, Madame.’
Madeleine said, ‘Here he comes, your curé!’
The motorcycle combination: the priest with his head down, eyes slitted and teeth gritted against the snow, soutane flying in the wind; that was probably one of his altar-boys in the side-car, along for the ride. He wasn’t overtaking the trap though, was veering away to the right, on to the narrower but – despite the way it looped around – shorter route to the cemetery. Wanting to get there before the hearse did, one supposed, be there to meet it. Elise chuckling, ‘Fine fellow, Father Deschamps. They’re lucky to have him in Taisnières. I’d like to steal him for Hergies. Bat out of hell, eh?’ The bike’s high-pitched racket fading as Hercule hauled them at a gentle trot past that first turning. Jeannot had had a word with Quillot and they’d agreed to come this way; Jeannot would have anyway, but it was helpful to have the hearse to follow, rather than diverting from it in a way that might arouse suspicion and would certainly have called for later explanation – Jeannot’s eccentricity, the explanation would have been. He was steering Hercule into the right fork now, with about 300 metres to go to the intersection on the north side of the small round étang, only a few seconds after which…
Well – action stations. Proof of the pudding. Actually, terrifying. Elise was holding hands with both the girls. Nothing more needing to be said – except silently, in prayer – but Madeleine reported, ‘The commandant and the black van are still with us. I think the small van went by the other road. Can’t see it, anyway.’ Nobody was seeing any great distance through the steadily falling snow; even the hearse was barely visible as it approached the continuing curve of road ahead of them. Jeannot had his eyes on some barns just along there on the right; he growled now without looking round, ‘God be with you, mam’selle.’ He didn’t know Marie very well. But it might have been Hilde he’d addressed, although he and she had never got on like a house on fire.
Elise called sharply, ‘Now, Jeannot!’ Hercule checking in mid-stride, tossing his head in reaction to a cruel snatching and sawing at his mouth, and swerving to the left side of the lane. Madeleine on her feet, vast and swaying dangerously while screaming at whatever she was looking at out to the left. Marie going out that way in a flying leap, hitting the roadside running – pointing, waving, yelling at someone to stop, come back! Madeleine by now hysterical, Elise half up off the seat but collapsing and grabbing hold again as the trap slewed diagonally across the lane, rocking violently on its springs. Hilde was crouching on the floor, Hercule obviously panicked out of his wits doing his little dance as Jeannot struggled to get him straightened out, further ill-treating him in the process and the dance carrying him and the trap over to the right-hand side now, up close to the huddle of barns, trap’s left side now presented to von Bodenschatz – and to Koch and von Bodenschatz’s sergeant-driver too. From its blind side Hilde slipped out and into cover. Madeleine still howling, ‘Marie, Marie!’, Marie being still in everyone’s sight, approaching higher ground where a farm track passed between two lakes. She’d stopped now, though, arms spread helplessly, pivoting to gaze in all directions.
Elise was out of the trap – unsteady, and calling to von Bodenschatz, ‘It’s not possible! Not possible! She simply wouldn’t!’ Von Bodenschatz perhaps not yet quite grasping what had happened, looking round at Koch, who’d shouted something in German and was doubling back to the van, yelling orders at its driver – to back up, of course, get down to the main road to cut Hilde off.
Charlie had seen a motorbike and side-car come racketing up the straight from Hon-Hergies and into the loop of road east of the cemetery. Losing sight of it there and shifting back to where it had come from – a car, now. No – a small van. Would not, surely, be preceding the hearse? Had guessed correctly – bike and van taking a short-cut; hearse now on the lower road, hearse being a dray with a coffin on it and several men on its high driving-seat – one in a top hat, for God’s sake – and one powerful-looking dray-horse – a grey, he thought, but the snow and the range of it from here made it seem rather like looking through a tattered bed-sheet. What about tracks, he wondered, when Hilde makes her break for it? Probably not deep enough yet to hold them – especially on the steepish sides of the embankments, which was how she’d go. He had the trap in his telescope’s single and slightly murky eye: forty yards maybe behind the hearse, and a car now about the same distance astern of the trap, which was approaching that rather hairpin turn-off – sharp turn back to the left – where he knew there was a small lake but couldn’t see it from this angle. The trap looked overcrowded: he guessed Hilde was in it. It had passed that turning, with the car – von Whatnot’s, he supposed – maintaining its distance, and some way astern of that now a van. Prison van, probably – Hilde’s, but touch wood Hilde not in it now. Trap coming up towards those barns – moment of life or death for Hilde coming up; maybe for others, too. For Elise especially. Out of his sight now, though – the barns in his line of sight, he could only imagine it as it would be happening beyond them. Was, too – had to be – van and staff-car crowding up together, maybe skidding, the car having braked first and the van slewed up behind it. Hilde would – please God – be in one of those sheds by now, but he couldn’t see Marie on her cross-country sprint either, on account of the top end of that half-circle of lane being banked higher than the rest, so that farther along it was dead ground, from this perspective. He’d see her – probably – when she got to the region of the lakes – snowfall permitting, at that range. The trap was in sight again now anyway – between some of those structures – Hercule seemingly back under control but the Germans apparently confused: one of them had turned and was running back…
Envisaging Hilde crouching in that barn. Moving from one of them to another when she could see the coast was clear. Elise had made some remark about her out-running a hare, so she had to be reasonably athletic… The van was reversing at high speed now to where the embanked side road led down to the main road and to where a right turn would take it towards Hergies. Van-driver’s aim being to cut off Hilde’s supposed line of escape to the village, where no doubt she’d have friends who’d hide her. One of Elise’s great hopes, this had been – that it would take the pursuit and direct all the Huns’ thinking in that direction. Possible snag – duly foreseen by Elise – was that having got there and not seen hair or hide of her they might conclude – well, might smell a rat. But Marie would be there, to swear blind she had gone that way; and it wasn’t all open ground – there were not only embanked roadways, there were buildings of various kinds: a marble quarry, with dwellings and workshops around it, for one thing… Back to the trap though, and those barns. Trap still there, and the two Germans from the staff-car, doubtless questioning Elise, Madeleine and Jeannot, maybe waiting for the van to return with Hilde inside it. Whereas she just might, Charlie guessed, be moving – by stages, cautiously and as far as was possible under cover – from barn to shed to barn, then when the coast was really clear, along the bottom of the embankment.
But not while anyone might be watching from the south end of the cemetery. She’d be wise to that danger, he hoped. Couldn’t see that end of the cemetery from here, but the troops in there surely would have been alerted by this time. Thinking of Hilde’s view of it though, since it was one thing to make plans on a map, quite another actually to—
Now what’s this…
Motorbike on the road again. He’d refocused the ’scope on the marble angel and then shifted to the right, to the intersection where eventually Hilde would have to cross, and it had shot suddenly into view. Dark figure crouching over its handlebars, careering into the crossing and then off to the left – someone in some sort of robe or vestments – padre, therefore? – on his way to find out what was holding them all up. And then – unbelievably – a figure running crouched, baboon-like, tearing across the lane only yards behind the bike. Charlie still hardly believing he’d seen it, but realising that in a brilliant way she’d actually used the bike, its movement and noise, for cover, and was now in cover again down on the northwest side of that embankment, which was steep and high. She could now crawl along the base of it to the west side of the intersection and pick her moment to take an even more wildly dangerous chance, after which – as he’d observed to Elise at some stage – she’d have only about another 500 metres to – he’d crossed his fingers – to crawl, run on all fours, or whatever, to get here.
The two Germans were returning to the staff-car and the trap was coming out from behind the screen of barns. Motorbike swerving dangerously around the trap, Jeannot having to rein-in just as he was getting started. Some padre, that… But all heading for the cemetery now – where one might guess that despite Hilde’s and Marie’s absence they’d get on with the interment.
If you’re at that crossing, Hilde – stay there.
Priest would want to be getting on with it. Very likely had other masses to attend. Sunday, after all… Charlie, watching the intersection, saw the bike hurtle into it and to the right, and then the trap, much more sedately. Only three people in it now instead of five. Madeleine’s figure twice the thickness of Elise’s.
Stay put, Hilde. Motor coming now…
Motor with noticeably large headlights, fine sweep of mudguard and unusually high wind-screen. Clear sight of it now as the trap swung right and out of sight. He’d seen that car before, he thought – the one that had stopped the lorry last night at the Hon-Hergies intersection. Making its turn now, and gone. Good riddance, too. He was holding the ’scope steady on the top of that high embankment, thinking that with the priest, trap and now that Hun car arriving at the cemetery, nobody’d have reason to pay attention to what was or might be happening – well, admittedly only about a hundred yards from them—
He caught his breath. Having made his second sighting of her. Something, anyway. Then – yes, her. In the next second or maybe second and a half, that same crouched figure launching itself up out of nowhere, streaking over…
Eleven-forty now. A few minutes ago troops from the cemetery had moved at the double up that road – via the intersection where Hilde had crossed about a minute earlier – to be deployed, Charlie guessed, in the direction Marie had taken. Ten or twelve of them, was all. Sent by von Bodenschatz, probably. Should from the Huns’ point of view have been moved out earlier, only thank God had not been. He’d put the telescope down, didn’t need it to watch this road. She’d get herself up close to the farm’s entrance before nipping over, obviously. From the cover of the embankment – and trees, on that side – straight over and into this place. There was an acre or so of trees – leafless, might be young oak, certainly didn’t look like beech – and a farm road encircling them and leading to Hergies.
Motorcar engine. Approaching…
Hilde heard it too. She’d been stopped, lying flat, face down, having an impression that the running soldiers hadn’t turned left but had gone straight on, in which case from that high road they’d have her directly in their field of sight – sights plural, rifle sights. And now the car she was hearing definitely was coming up this road. Soldiers watching from back there, motor doubtless with more Huns in it passing – about to pass – virtually within spitting distance. The farmstead entrance – Emile Voreux’s – was further along there, where the trees ended at a by-road known as La Queue du Chien, but she had some way to go before she’d be in their cover.
Car passing now. She began to squirm around, for a cautious look back to where the Germans might be. The car meanwhile braking, slowing right down. In order to turn into Voreux’s farm? If the English flyer person had shown himself, maybe…
No. Turning left. Into La Queue du Chien, which would take it either into Hergies or to the area of lakes south of Hergies, which Marie would have been making for. Pincer movement designed at trapping her, maybe. And – thank God – there were no soldiers in sight back there, must have gone the other way after all. So – move… Hearing men’s voices shouting in the distance. Soldiers having spotted Marie, maybe. What might happen to her now, poor kid? Maybe not much – they wouldn’t see her as important; a lot closer to the bone was what might happen to Elise de Semeillions. For all her insouciance – which she’d maintained even though her daughters were coming home this week…
Scaling the embankment slowly, carefully. The last metre or so even more slowly.
Nothing on the road – except a few centimetres of the white stuff, which one was going to have to look out for, in terms of leaving tracks. At least she guessed they would. And even now, just crossing it… She got up, sighted on the farm entrance and scuttled over.
Charlie had watched the green van slowly pass the farmstead and turn left beyond the trees. He’d moved back closer to his position beside the trap then to watch for the girl, and about half a minute later, sure enough, she’d come scooting over. He waited, not knowing whether she’d have been told to come up to the hayloft, but as it turned out she’d trotted across the yard and into the Voreuxs’ kitchen. She knew them, of course – probably even better than Elise did.
He climbed down the rough, splintery ladder, and to his surprise they met him at its foot: Voreux with his hand on the shoulder of this tall, quite attractive but scrawny, wild-looking girl: black hair, dark eyes, wide mouth, bruised cheekbone.
He put both his hands out to take hers: ‘Hilde?’
‘Si.’ A nod, and hard, fast pumping breaths. ‘Hilde Martens. Sank you zat you are coming.’
Voreux asked bluntly, ‘What time going?’