The 5th Schnellboote Flotilla, as was common with all German Navy E-boat units, was used to living on the move. On returning to their Cherbourg base after the Slapton Sands affair, three boats had been ordered to Guernsey for temporary duty as convoy escorts. One of them, S92, was tied up at the quay at Granville now.
Darkness was already falling and the harbor was a scene of frenzied activity as the convoy got ready to leave. Chief Petty Officer Hans Richter, checking the 40-mm Bofors gun in the stem, paused to watch dockers working on the Victor Hugo which was moored next to them. Now that her holds were crammed full, they were dumping sacks of coal and bales of hay on her decks so that there was hardly room to move.
The Hugo’s antiaircraft defenses were 7.92-mm machine guns and a Bofors gun – not too much use when the Tommies swept in from the darkness in those damned Beaufighters with their searchlights on, but that’s the way things were these days, and the Luftwaffe didn’t seem to be able to do much about it. Richter could see the master of the Hugo, Savary, on the bridge talking to the officer in command of the gun crew, the Italian lieutenant, Orsini. Flamboyant as usual with the white top to his cap and the scarf at his neck. A good seaman for all that. They said he’d sunk a British destroyer off Taranto before being seconded to the 5th Schnellboote as an E-boat commander. They were only using him on secondary duties these days because nobody trusted the Italians anymore. After all, most of them were fighting for the Allies now.
As Richter watched, Guido Orsini went down the ladder and then the gangway to the quay and walked toward the port officer’s hut. Richter turned back to the gun and a voice called ‘Petty Officer!’
Richter looked over the rail. Standing a few feet away was an SS officer, a black leather trenchcoat over his uniform, the silver death’s-head on the cap gleaming dully in the evening light. When Richter saw the oak leaf collar patches of a full colonel his heart sank.
He got his heels together quickly. ‘Standartenführer. What can I do for you?’
The young woman standing at the colonel’s shoulder was pretty in her little black beret and belted raincoat, the hair very fair, just like his daughter’s back home in Hamburg. Too young for an SS bastard like this, Richter thought.
‘Your commanding officer, Kapitanleutnant Dietrich, commands the convoy, I understand?’ Martineau said. ‘Is he on board?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Port officer’s hut. The green one over there, Standartenführer.’
‘Good. I’ll have a word with him.’ Martineau gestured to the two suitcases. ‘See these go on board. We’ll be traveling with you as far as Jersey.’
Which was a turnup for the book. Richter watched them walk away, then nodded to a young seaman who’d been listening with interest. ‘You heard the man. Get those cases.’
‘He was SD,’ the sailor said. ‘Did you notice?’
‘Yes,’ Richter said. ‘As it happens I did. Now get on with it.’
Erich Dietrich was thirty years of age, a young architect in Hamburg before the war who had discovered his true vocation. He had never been happier than when he was at sea and in command, especially in E-boats. He did not want the war to end. It had taken its toll, of course, on him as much as anyone. Just now, leaning over the chart table with the port officer, Lieutenant Schroeder, and Guido Orsini, he was in the best of humors.
‘Winds three to four at the most with rain squalls. Could be worse.’
Schroeder said, ‘Intelligence is expecting big raids on the Ruhr again tonight, so things should be reasonably clear for us down here as regards the RAF.’
‘If you believe that, you’ll believe anything,’ Orsini said.
‘You’re a pessimist, Guido,’ Erich Dietrich told him. ‘Expect good things and they’ll always fall into your lap. That’s what my old mother used to say.’
The door opened behind him, Schroeder’s face dropped and Guido stopped smiling. Dietrich turned and found Martineau standing there, Sarah at his shoulder.
‘Kapitanleutnant Dietrich? My name is Vogel.’ Martineau produced his SD identity card and passed it across, then he took Himmler’s letter from its envelope. ‘If you would be kind enough to read this also.’
Sarah couldn’t understand a word. He sounded like someone else, held himself like another person, the voice cold and dry. Dietrich read the letter, and Guido and Schroeder peered over his shoulder. The Italian made a face and Dietrich handed the document back.
‘You noticed, of course, that the Führer himself was kind enough to countersign my orders?’
‘Your credentials are without doubt the most remarkable I’ve ever seen, Standartenführer,’ Dietrich said. ‘In what way can we serve you?’
‘I need passage for myself and Mademoiselle Latour to Jersey. As you are convoy commander I shall naturally travel with you. I’ve already told your petty officer to take our cases on board.’
Which would have been enough to reduce Erich Dietrich to speechless rage at the best of times, but there was another factor here. The Kriegsmarine had always been notoriously the least Nazi of all the German armed forces. Dietrich personally had never cared for the Party one little bit, which hardly disposed him in Standartenführer Max Vogel’s favor. There were limits, of course, to what he could do, but he still had one possible objection on his side.
‘Happy to oblige, Standartenführer,’ he said smoothly. ‘There is one problem, however. Naval regulations forbid the carrying of civilians on a fighting ship at sea. I can accommodate you, but not, alas, this charming young lady.’
It was difficult to argue with him because he was right. Martineau tried to handle it as a man like Vogel would have done, arrogant, demanding, determined not to be put down. ‘What would you suggest?’
‘One of the convoy ships, perhaps. Lieutenant Orsini here is in command of the gun crew on the SS Victor Hugo, whose cargo is destined for the port of St Helier on Jersey. You could go with him.’
But Vogel would not have allowed himself to lose face completely. ‘No,’ he said calmly. ‘It is good that I should see something of your work, Kapitanleutnant. I shall travel with you. Mademoiselle Latour, on the other hand, can proceed on the Victor Hugo if Lieutenant Orsini has no objections.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Guido who had hardly been able to take his eyes off her. ‘A distinct pleasure.’
‘Unfortunately Mademoiselle Latour speaks no German.’ Martineau turned to her and carried on in French. ‘We must separate for the journey across, my dear. A matter of regulations. I’ll keep your luggage with me, so don’t worry about that. This young officer will take care of you.’
‘Guido Orsini, at your service, signorina,’ he said gallantly and saluted. ‘If you come with me I’ll see you safely on board. We sail in thirty minutes.’
She turned to Martineau. ‘I’ll see you later then, Max.’
‘In Jersey.’ He nodded calmly.
She went out, Orsini holding the door open for her. Dietrich said, ‘A charming girl.’
‘I think so.’ Martineau leaned over the chart table. ‘Are we to enjoy an uneventful run tonight? I understand your convoys are often attacked by RAF night fighters.’
‘Frequently, Standartenführer,’ Schroeder told him. ‘But the RAF will be busy elsewhere tonight.’
‘Terror bombing the civilian population of our major cities as usual,’ Martineau said because it was the kind of thing they would expect a Party fanatic like him to say. ‘And the British Royal Navy?’
‘Yes, their MTBs are often active in the area,’ Dietrich admitted and tapped the map. ‘From bases at Falmouth and Devonport.’
‘And this doesn’t worry you?’
‘Standartenführer, there are more of them these days, but our E-boats are still the fastest thing of their kind afloat, as I will certainly have the chance to show you tonight.’ He gathered up his charts. ‘Now, if you will follow me, we’ll go on board.’
The convoy left just after ten o’clock, eleven ships in all, including the barges. S92 led the way out of harbor, then swung hard to port. There was a light rain falling, and Dietrich stood on the bridge, probing into the darkness with his Zeiss night glasses. Martineau was at his right shoulder. Below them the wheelhouse was even more cramped with the helmsman and engine room telegraphist in there and the navigating officer at his small table behind. The wireless room was down a passage farther on.
‘Not much room on these things,’ Martineau commented.
‘All engines, that’s what we say,’ Dietrich told him.
‘And armaments?’
‘The torpedoes. Bofors gun aft, twenty-millimeter cannon in the forward well deck. Eight machine guns. We manage.’
‘And radar, of course?’
‘Yes, but that’s a difficult one in these waters. Lots of reefs, rocks, small islands. It makes for a lot of clutter on the screen. When the Tommies come down here they do exactly what I do when I’m operating out of Cherbourg and hitting their convoys.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Turn off our radar so they can’t find us with their location equipment and maintain radio silence.’
Martineau nodded and looked astern at the other ships bulking in the dark. ‘What speed will the convoy maintain?’
‘Six knots.’
‘You must feel like a racing horse pulling a cart sometimes.’
Dietrich laughed. ‘Yes, but I’ve got two thousand horses under me.’ He slapped the rail. ‘Nice to know just how fast they can get up and go when I ask them to.’
On the bridge of the Victor Hugo it was like being in a safe and enclosed world, rain and spray drifting against the glass. Savary stood beside the helmsman, and Sarah and Guido Orsini leaned over the chart table.
‘This is the convoy route, what the Navy call Weg Ida from Granville, east of the Chausey Isles.’
She liked him a lot, had from the moment he’d turned to look at her in the hut on the quay. He was certainly good-looking. Too handsome, really, in a way that Latins could be sometimes, but there was strength there too, and when he smiled …
His shoulder was touching hers. He said, ‘Come to the saloon. I’ll get you a coffee and you can use my cabin if you’d like to lie down.’
Savary turned. ‘Not just now, Count. I want to check the engine room. You’ll have to take the bridge.’
He went out. Sarah said, ‘Count?’
‘Lots of counts in Italy. Don’t let it worry you.’
He offered her a cigarette and they smoked in companionable silence, looking out into the night, the noise of the engines a muted throbbing. ‘I thought Italy capitulated last year?’ she said.
‘Oh, it did, except for those Fascist fanatics who decided to fight on under the Germans, especially when Otto Skorzeny hoisted Mussolini off that mountaintop and flew him to Berlin to continue the holy struggle.’
‘Are you a Fascist?’
He looked down into that appealing young face, aware of a tenderness that he had never experienced with any woman in his life before. It was perhaps because of that fact that he found himself speaking so frankly.
‘To be honest, I’m not anything. I loathe politics. It reminds me of the senator in Rome who’s supposed to have said: “Don’t tell my mother I’m in politics. She thinks I play the piano in a brothel.”’
She laughed. ‘I like that.’
‘Most of my former comrades are now working with the British and American Navies. I, on the other hand, was seconded on special duties to serve with the Fifth Schnellboote Flotilla in Cherbourg. When Italy decided to sue for peace, there wasn’t a great deal I could do about it, and I didn’t fancy a prison camp. Of course, they don’t trust me enough to allow me to command an E-boat anymore. I suppose they think I might roar across to England.’
‘Would you?’
Savary returned to the bridge at that moment, and the Italian said, ‘Right, let’s go below now and get that coffee.’
She moved ahead of him. As he watched her descend the companionway he was conscious of a curious excitement. He’d known many women, and many who were more beautiful than Anne-Marie Latour with her ridiculous dyed hair. Certainly more sophisticated. And there was something about her that was not quite right. The image was one thing, but the girl herself, when he spoke to her, was something else again.
‘Mother of God, Guido, what’s happening to you?’ he asked softly as he went down the companionway after her.
Captain Karl Muller, the officer in command of the Secret Field Police in Jersey, sat at his desk in the Silvertide Hotel at Havre des Pas and worked his way though a bulky file. It was wholly devoted to anonymous letters, the tip-offs that led to whatever success his unit enjoyed. The crimes were varied. Anything from possession of an illegal radio to helping a Russian slave worker on the run or involvement in the black market. Muller always insisted on his men tracking down the writers of anonymous letters. Once uncovered, they could be used in many ways because of his threat to expose them to friends and neighbors.
It was all very small beer, of course. Nothing like it had been at Gestapo Headquarters at Rue des Saussaies in Paris. Muller was not SS, but he was a Party member, a onetime Chief Inspector of Police in the Hamburg Criminal Investigation Department. Unfortunately, a young French-woman in his hands for interrogation had died without disclosing the names of her associates. As she had been involved with the principal Resistance circuit in Paris, it had been a matter of some importance. To his superiors he’d botched things badly by being too eager. The posting to this island backwater had followed. So now, he was a man in a hurry, seeking any way he could to get back into the mainstream of things.
He stood up, a shade under six feet, with hair that was still dark brown in spite of the fact that he was in his fiftieth year. He stretched, started to the window to look out at the weather, and the phone rang.
He picked it up. ‘Yes.’
It wasn’t a local call, he could tell by the crackling. ‘Captain Muller? This is Schroeder, port officer at Granville.’
Ten minutes later he was standing at the window, staring out into the dark, when there was a knock at the door. He turned and went to his desk and sat down.
The two men who entered were, like Muller, in civilian clothes. The GFP never wore uniform if they could help it. The one who led the way was broad and squat with a Slavic face and hard gray eyes. This was Inspector Willi Kleist, Muller’s second-in-command, also seconded from the Gestapo and, like Muller, a former detective with the Hamburg police. They had known each other for years. The man with him was much younger with fair hair, blue eyes and a weak mouth. A suggestion of perverse cruelty there, but when confronted with Muller, so eager to please that it showed. This was Sergeant Ernst Greiser, who had been transferred from the Army’s Field Police to the GFP six months earlier.
‘An interesting development,’ Muller told them. ‘I’ve had Schroeder on the phone from Granville. Apparently an SD Standartenführer Vogel presented himself on the quay with a young French woman and demanded passage to Jersey. They put the woman on the Victor Hugo. He comes on the S92 with Dietrich.’
‘But why, Herr Captain?’ Kleist asked. ‘We’ve had no notification. Why would he be coming?’
‘The bad news,’ Muller said, ‘is that he’s traveling under a special warrant from Reichsführer Himmler. According to Schroeder it’s countersigned by the Führer.’
‘My God!’ Greiser said.
‘So, my friends, we must be ready for him. You were going to take care of the passenger checks when the convoy ships get into St Helier, isn’t that so, Ernst?’ he inquired of Greiser.
‘Yes, Herr Captain.’
‘Inspector Kleist and I will join you. Whatever his reason for being here, I want to be in on the action. I’ll see you later.’
They went out. He lit a cigarette and went to the window, more excited than he had been in months.
It was just after eleven when Helen de Ville took the tray to her room, using the back stairs that led straight up from the kitchen. None of the officers ever used it, keeping strictly to their own end of the house. In any case, she was careful. Only one cup on the tray. Everything for one. If she chose to have late supper in her room, that was her affair.
She went into the bedroom, locking the door behind her, crossed to the bookshelves, opened the secret entrance and moved inside, closing it before going up the narrow stairway. Kelso was sitting up in bed, propped against pillows, reading by the light of an oil lamp. The wooden shutters in the gable window were closed, a heavy curtain drawn across.
He looked up and smiled. ‘What have we got here?’
‘Not much. Tea, but at least it’s the real stuff, and a cheese sandwich. I make my own cheese these days, so you’d better like it. What are you reading?’
‘One of the books you brought up. Eliot. The Four Quartets.’
‘Poetry and you an engineer?’ She sat on the end of the bed and lit one of the Gitanes Gallagher had given her.
‘I certainly wasn’t interested in that kind of thing in the old days, but this war.’ He shrugged. ‘Like a lot of people I want answers, I suppose. In my end is my beginning, that’s what the man says. But what comes in between? What’s it all mean?’
‘Well, if you find out, don’t forget to let me know.’ She noticed the snap of his wife and daughters on the bedside locker and picked it up. ‘Do you think of them often?’
‘All the time. They mean everything. My marriage really worked. It was as simple as that. I never wanted anything else, and then the war came along and messed things up.’
‘Yes, it has a bad habit of doing that.’
‘Still, I can’t complain. Comfortable bed, decent cooking, and the oil lamp gives things a nicely old-fashioned atmosphere.’
‘They cut off the electricity to this part of the island at nine o’clock sharp,’ she said. ‘I know people who would be glad of that oil lamp.’
‘Are things really as bad as that?’
‘Of course they are.’ There was a trace of anger in her voice. ‘What on earth would you expect? You’re lucky to have that cup of tea. Elsewhere in the island it could be a rather inferior substitute made from parsnips or blackberry leaves. Or you could try acorn coffee. Not one of life’s great experiences.’
‘And food?’
‘You just have to get used to getting by with a lot less of it, that’s all. The same with tobacco.’ She held up her cigarette. ‘This is real and very black market, but you can get anything if you have the right connections or plenty of cash. The rich here still do very well. The banks just operate in reichsmarks instead of pounds.’ She smiled. ‘Do you want to know what it’s really like being occupied in Jersey?’
‘It would be interesting.’
‘Boring.’ She plumped up his pillows. ‘I’m going to bed now.’
‘The big day tomorrow,’ he said.
‘If we’re to believe the message Savary brought.’ She picked up the tray. ‘Try and get some sleep.’
Orsini had given Sarah his cabin. It was very small indeed, with a cupboard and washstand and a single bunk. It was hot and stuffy, the porthole blacked over, and the noise of the engine churning below gave her a headache. She lay on the bunk and closed her eyes and tried to relax. The ship seemed to stagger. An illusion, of course. She sat up and there was an explosion.
Things seemed to happen in slow motion after that. The ship fell perfectly still, as if everything waited, and then there was another violent shock. The explosion this time caused the walls to tremble. She cried out and tried to stand up, and then the floor tilted and she fell against the door. Her handbag, thrown from the locker top, was on the floor beside her. She picked it up automatically and tried the door handle, but the door stuck fast. She shook the handle desperately and then the door opened so unexpectedly that she was hurled back against the opposite wall.
Orsini stood in the entrance, his face wild. ‘Move!’ he ordered. ‘Now! No time to lose.’
‘What is it?’ she demanded as he grabbed her hand and pulled her after him.
‘Torpedo attack. We’ve been hit twice. We’ve only got minutes. This old tub will go down like a stone.’
They went up the companionway to the saloon which was deserted. He took off his reefer coat and held it out to her. ‘Get this on.’ She hesitated, aware suddenly that she was still clutching her handbag, then did as she was told, stuffing the bag into one of the reefer coat’s ample pockets. He pulled her arms roughly through a life jacket and laced it up. Then he put one on himself as he led the way out onto the boat deck.
There was a scene of indescribable confusion as the crew tried to launch the boats and, above them, the machine-gun crews fired into the night. Fire arced toward them in return, raking the bridge above, where Savary shouted orders. He cried out in fear and jumped over the rail, bouncing off some bales of hay below. Cannon shell ripped into one of the lifeboats a few yards away, tearing great holes in it.
Orsini pushed Sarah down behind some sacks of coal. At the same moment there was another explosion, inside the ship this time, and a portion of the deck in the stern disintegrated, flames billowing into the night. The entire ship tilted sharply to port, and the deck cargo started to break free, sacks of coal, bales of hay, sliding down against the rail.
It had not been possible to launch a single boat, so rapidly had disaster struck, and men were already going over the rail, Savary leading the way. Orsini lost his balance and Sarah fell on her back, felt herself slide down the slippery deck, and then the rail dipped under and she was in the water.
The E-boat surged forward at speed within seconds of the first explosion, Dietrich scanning the darkness with his night glasses. Martineau almost lost his balance at the sudden burst of speed and hung on grimly.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Dietrich said, and then flames blossomed in the night five hundred yards away and he focused on the Victor Hugo. A dark shape flashed across that patch of light like a shadow and then another. ‘British MTBs. They’ve hit the Hugo.’
He pressed the button on the battle stations alarm, and the ugly sound of the klaxon rose above the roaring of the Mercedes Benz engines winding up to top speed. Already the crew were moving to their stations. The Bofors gun and the well-deck cannon started to fire, lines of tracer curving into the night.
The only thing Martineau could think of was Sarah, and he grabbed Dietrich by the sleeve. ‘But the people on that ship. We must help them.’
‘Later!’ Dietrich shrugged him aside. ‘This is business. Now keep out of the way.’
Sarah kicked desperately to get as far from the ship as possible as the Victor Hugo continued to tilt. There was burning oil on the water toward the stern, men swimming hard to get away from it as it advanced relentlessly. One man was overtaken. She heard his screams as he disappeared.
She moved awkwardly because of the life jacket and the reefer coat was bulky, already saturated with water. She realized now why Orsini had given it to her as the cold started to eat at her legs. Where was he? She turned trying to make sense of the oil-stained faces. An MTB spun around the stern of the Victor Hugo, the violence of its wash hurling some of those in the sea up out of the water. There was a burst of machine-gun fire.
A hand grabbed at her life jacket from behind, and she turned and Orsini was there. ‘Over here, cara. Just do as I say.’
There was wreckage floating everywhere, the bales of hay from the deck cargo buoyant in the water. He towed her toward one of these and they hung onto its binding ropes.
‘Who were they?’ she gasped.
‘MTBs.’
‘British?’
‘Or French or Dutch. They all operate out of Falmouth.’
There was another mighty rushing sound in the night and machine-gun bullets churned the water as an MTB again carved its way through men and wreckage. A tracer flashed through the darkness in a great arc and a starshell burst. A moment later, a parachute flare illuminated the scene.
Some distance away two MTBs ran for cover, and the E-boat roared after them. ‘Go get the bastards, Erich!’ Orsini shouted.
She almost joined in. My God, she thought, what a way to go. My own people trying to kill me. She hung onto the rope and said, gasping, ‘Did they have to do that? Machine-gun men in the water?’
‘War, cara, is a nasty business. It makes everyone crazy. Are you managing?’
‘My arms are tired.’
A hatch drifted by and he swam to it and towed it toward her. ‘Let’s get you onto this.’
It was a struggle, but she finally managed it. ‘What about you?’
‘I’ll be fine hanging on.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve been in the water before. My luck is good, so stick with me.’
And then she remembered the spring fete and Gypsy Sara and her fire and water and she started to laugh shakily. ‘Are you all right?’ he demanded.
‘Lovely. Nothing like the Channel Islands for a holiday at this time of the year. Perfect for sea bathing,’ and then she realized, to her horror, that she’d spoken in English.
He floated there, staring up at her, and then said in excellent English, ‘Did I tell you I went to Winchester? My father felt that only an English public school could give me the backbone I needed.’ He laughed. ‘Oh, I do so like to be right, and I knew there was something different about you from the first moment, cara.’ He laughed again, excitedly this time. ‘Which means there’s something unusual about the good Standartenführer Vogel.’
‘Please,’ she said desperately.
‘Don’t worry, cara, I fell in love with you the moment you came through the door of that hut on the quay. I like you, I don’t like them – whoever they are. We Italians are a very simple people.’
He coughed, rubbing oil from his face, and she reached for his hand. ‘You saved my life, Guido.’
There was the sound of a throttled-down engine approaching. He glanced over his shoulder and saw an armed trawler, one of the escorts, approaching. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m pleased to say I probably did.’
A moment later, the trawler was looming above them, a net over the side. Two or three German sailors clambered down, reaching for Sarah, and pulled her up. Guido followed and collapsed on the deck beside her.
A young lieutenant came down the ladder from the bridge and hurried forward. ‘Guido, is that you?’ he said in German.
‘As ever, Bruno,’ Guido answered in the same language.
‘And you, fraulein, are you all right? We must get you to my cabin.’
‘Mademoiselle Latour, Bruno, and she speaks no German,’ Guido told him in French. He smiled at Sarah and helped her to her feet. ‘Now let’s take you below.’