Chapter Five

IN THE VILLAGE of La Calle, Lieutenant Elissa Landsberg was speaking to the one person visible, a little girl who, while playing, had looked up at a big black car with shining brass lamps a few hours ago. Major Kirsten remained in his staff car, leaving Elissa to do the talking. Little girls might not like answering questions from a man with a puckering scar that gave his right eye a slightly villainous look.

‘Yes, madame, yes,’ the little girl was saying. She was fascinated by the gentle-faced lady in a grey-green military greatcoat. She was not old enough to think about what the greatcoat represented.

‘A big black car?’ smiled Elissa, her French softly accented.

The little girl spread her arms wide.

‘Big, yes, like that.’

‘And a lady and gentleman were in it?’

‘Yes, madame,’ said the child.

A house door opened and a woman emerged. She hastened up to the child, took her by the hand and said, without looking at Elissa, ‘Come, Marie, your face must be washed.’ And she walked the little girl briskly into the house, shutting the door positively. Elissa smiled wryly. The French were still unfriendly.

She returned to the car.

‘I saw the innocent snatched from your claws,’ said Major Kirsten, as she slipped into the driving seat. ‘Did it distress you?’

‘It discomfited me a little. She was so sweet.’

‘What did she say that was sweet?’

‘She said, Major, that the car came through here two or three hours ago, and that it contained a man and a woman.’

‘Good.’ Major Kirsten seemed rejuvenated. ‘Go on, Lieutenant. Stop whenever we see a French citizen who looks talkative.’

‘Talkative?’ Elissa, a less experienced driver than Sophia, was so intrigued by events that she drove out of the village in the wrong gear. The engine laboured somewhat. Elissa, sensitive about her mistake, made a hurried adjustment. The gears ground noisily.

Major Kirsten, considerately declining to comment, said, ‘Talkative citizens might also be informative.’

‘Major, we shall be lucky to get information out of the French.’

‘I shall leave it to you to unlock their tongues. Your French is superior to mine, and your manner far more charming.’

‘Major, I’m painfully reserved, especially with strangers.’

Major Kirsten spared a few moments from his survey of the rolling countryside to turn his sound eye on the trim Lieutenant Landsberg. She sat correctly upright at the wheel, with not an eyelash out of place or a button unpolished. She was handling the staff car with the precision of a young woman who had paid keen and conscientious attention to her instructor. One would have thought that by now any of the eligible staff officers would have been courting her, for she did not lack physical appeal. Her features were attractive, her figure feminine, and with the skirts of her coat parted to give freedom to her legs while driving, her shapely calves presented the prettiest picture.

‘I was shy myself as a boy,’ he said, eyes on the road again, ‘and was cured in an entirely practical way by being thrown in at the deep end, as it were. A cadets’ school. Well, whatever our feelings, we’re now in pursuit of a man who appears to be singularly reckless and dangerous. We need some help, and I’ve no doubt you may be able to charm a few answers out of likely informants. If we come up against objectionable characters and you suspect them to be deliberately withholding information, make it clear to such people that I’ll shoot them.’

‘Shoot them?’ Elissa was shocked. ‘You aren’t serious, Major?’

‘Indeed I am. Don’t you know this is expected of us?’ Major Kirsten was ironic. ‘You must have heard that we roast babies and outrage widows.’

‘That’s just dreadful, obscene Allied propaganda.’

‘To you and to me, yes,’ said Major Kirsten, peaked cap shading his searching eyes, ‘but not to the British and French. So, naturally, if you tell a French citizen I’ll shoot him unless he speaks up, he’ll believe you.’

‘Major,’ said Elissa, gloved hands firm on the wheel as she took a bend with care, ‘I’m quite incapable of telling anyone that, and I really can’t believe you expect me to.’

‘Treat it as a means to an end,’ said Major Kirsten. ‘Let’s accept that General von Feldermann’s daughter is in the hands of an aggressive lunatic – an English airman shot down by von Richtofen this morning. He may be using Sophia in order to secure some kind of immunity for himself. We have to find them. This is quite the wrong time for General von Feldermann to be burdened with the more unpalatable facts. Ludendorff has given him worries enough without him being told his daughter has been abducted. We must find her, and before she’s lost her honour to a young German pilot who thinks he’s the only man facing a hero’s death. Such young men consider themselves entitled to enjoy forbidden fruits on their way to Valhalla.’

Elissa, who had already been apprised by the major of everything concerning Sophia, said, ‘Perhaps they are entitled.’

‘Perhaps, but not at the expense of the general’s daughter. Sophia is a delightful young lady, and worth saving from her misguided impulses.’

‘Yes, Major,’ said Elissa, wondering if his affection for Sophia was the motivating force of this venture.

The vistas were bathed in light. Rolling fields and pastures offered only the inoffensive promise of nature’s bounty. Smoke rose from the chimneys of distant farmhouses. Two elderly French peasants bent to their work of pulling winter root crops in a far field. Narrow lanes showed no trace of traffic. Everything was as quiet as if the war had permanently retreated.

‘I wonder now,’ mused Major Kirsten. ‘Where would our British lunatic head for? He’ll keep off the main roads until dark, that’s certain – unless he’s completely mad. But where is he now, and what dark design does he have in mind concerning Sophia? Is he holed up somewhere? In a wood? In a farmhouse? Men on the run favour farmhouses, which provide dark little corners in which to hide. But he’ll also need to hide the car and to drag Sophia into any shelter with him. He must know he’s made himself a target of unusual importance. Colonel Hoffner’s men will be searching every farm and village. He’ll suspect that, because of Sophia. He’ll also know men from the Luftwaffe will be looking for him. He belongs to them, since it was Richtofen who brought him down.’

‘Do you think our participation unnecessary?’ asked Elissa, steering a cautious course over a road uncomfortably afflicted with muddy potholes. ‘Should we return to Headquarters and wait to hear?’

‘Certainly not.’ The major was in no mood to give up the stimulation of the chase. ‘What our man doesn’t know is that you and I are also after him. Colonel Hoffner’s men and the Luftwaffe search party are much more likely to advertise their manoeuvres than we are. You and I are going to proceed with care, not charge about like agitated giraffes. It’s very quiet. There’s not even one likely informant in sight. Nor any searching men. Stop a moment, Lieutenant, while I examine my map again.’

Elissa stopped. She looked around while Major Kirsten consulted the comprehensive large-scale map of an area bounded by Henin-Lietard in the north, Cambrai in the south, Arras in the west and Valenciennes in the east. Every road, byway and lane, every village and wood, and every river and canal, were clearly drawn.

Elissa thought how quiet it was, although Valenciennes was only sixty kilometres from the front, and she and Major Kirsten midway between. With the passing of the noon hour, it seemed that peace had descended on France. That reflection was interrupted by the murmurous drone of planes climbing into the sky. She looked up. She could just see them, two of them.

‘Rumplers,’ said Major Kirsten, ‘on reconnaissance for the Corps.’ He put his finger on the map. ‘We’ll try this place, the village of Lutargne. There’s a very useful wood close by. Our friend, the mad Englishman, will begin to need food and drink soon, and a place where he can get the car out of sight. That car is important to him. It gives him speed of flight. I’ve a feeling he’s trying to reach Douai. According to our information, Douai was the town he was closest to when he held up the two soldiers. Only in a town will he be able to lose himself and to find people willing to help him escape. I’m firing shots in the dark, I know. What we really need is the light of inspiration, for I’m worried about what he may do with Sophia once he decides she no longer offers him security for his safety. He won’t want to leave her free to inform on him.’

‘Major,’ said Elissa, startled, ‘we’re to assume he might kill her?’

‘It will do our nerves no good at all to assume he’s as mad as that. Let’s find our way to Lutargne. That’s a definite shot in the dark. I’ll read the map for you.’

‘Yes, Major. Thank you.’

He smiled. Elissa Landsberg was a very civilized young woman and quite the most engaging army officer it had been his pleasure to meet.

Elissa drove on. She looked admirably composed. He was not to know how warm and alive she felt, or how exhilarated.