Cold Harbour. Jack Higgins

Heard the shooting and saw you running up the hill.’

      ‘Good thing for me,’ Osbourne told her.

      ‘Yes, considering this effort wasn’t really any of my business. Anyway, René said you were bound to come this way.’

      She lit a cigarette and crossed one silken knee over the other, elegant as always in a black suit, a diamond brooch at the neck of the white silk blouse. The black hair was cut in a fringe across her forehead and curved under on each side, framing high cheekbones and pointed chin.

      ‘What are you staring at?’ she demanded petulantly.

      ‘You,’ he said. ‘Too much lipstick as usual, but otherwise, bloody marvellous.’

      ‘Oh, get under the seat and shut up,’ she told him.

      She turned her legs to one side as Craig pulled down a flap revealing space beneath the seat. He crawled inside and she pushed the flap back into position. A moment later, they went round a corner and discovered a Kubelwagen across the road, half-a-dozen SS waiting.

      ‘Nice and slow, René,’ she said.

      ‘Trouble?’ Craig Osbourne asked, his voice muffled.

      ‘Not with any luck,’ she said softly. ‘I know the officer. He was stationed at the Château for a while.’

      René stopped the Rolls and a young SS Lieutenant walked forward, pistol in hand. His face cleared and he holstered his weapon. ‘Mademoiselle Trevaunce. What an unexpected pleasure.’

      ‘Lieutenant Schultz.’ She opened the door and held out her hand which he kissed gallantly. ‘What’s all this?’

      ‘A wretched business. A terrorist has just shot General Dietrich in St Maurice.’

      ‘I thought I heard some shooting back there,’ she said. ‘And how is the General?’

      ‘Dead, Mademoiselle,’ Schultz told her. ‘I saw the body myself. A terrible thing. Murdered in the church during confession.’ He shook his head. ‘That there are such people in this world passes belief.’

      ‘I’m so sorry.’ She pressed his hand in sympathy. ‘You must come and see us again soon. The Countess had rather a fondness for you. We were sorry to see you go.’

      Schultz actually blushed. ‘Please convey my felicitations, but now I must delay you no longer.’

      He shouted an order and one of his men reversed the Kubelwagen. Schultz saluted and René drove away.

      ‘As always Mamselle has the luck of the Devil,’ he observed.

      Anne-Marie Trevaunce lit another cigarette and Craig Osbourne said softly, ‘Wrong, René, my friend. She is the Devil.’

      At the farm, they parked the Rolls-Royce in the barn while René went in search of information. Osbourne removed his tunic and ripped away the blood-soaked sleeve of his shirt.

      Anne-Marie examined the wound. ‘Not too bad. It hasn’t gone through, simply ploughed a furrow. Nasty, mind you.’

      René returned with a bundle of cloths and a piece of white sheeting which he proceeded to tear into strips.

      ‘Bandage him with this.’

      Anne-Marie set about the task at once and Osbourne said, ‘What’s the score?’

      ‘Only old Jules here and he wants us out fast,’ René said. ‘Change into this lot and he’ll put the uniform in his charcoal burner. There’s a message from Grand Pierre. They’ve been on the radio to London. They’re going to pick you up by torpedo boat off Leon tonight. Grand Pierre can’t make it himself, but one of his men will be there – Bleriot. I know him well. A good man.’

      Osbourne went round to the other side of the Rolls and changed. He returned wearing a tweed cap, corduroy jacket and trousers, both of which had seen better days, and broken boots. He put the Walther in his pocket and gave the uniform to René who went out.

      ‘Will I do?’ he asked Anne-Marie.

      She laughed out loud, ‘With three days growth on your chin perhaps, but to be honest, you still look like a Yale man to me.’

      ‘That’s really very comforting.’

      René returned and got behind the wheel. ‘We’d better get moving, Mamselle. It’ll take us an hour to get there.’

      She pulled down the flap under the seat. ‘In you go like a good boy.’

      Craig did as he was told and peered out at her. ‘I’m the one who’s going to have the last laugh. Dinner at the Savoy tomorrow night. The Orpheans playing, Carroll Gibbons singing, dancing, girls.’

      She slammed the flap shut, climbed in and René drove away.

      Leon was a fishing village so small that it didn’t even have a pier, most of the boats being drawn up on the beach. There was the sound of accordion music from a small bar, the only sign of life, and they drove on, following a rough track past a disused lighthouse to a tiny bay. A heavy mist rolled in from the sea and somewhere in the distance a foghorn sounded forlornly. René led the way down to the beach, a flashlight in his hand.

      Craig said to Anne-Marie, ‘You don’t want to go down there. You’ll only spoil your shoes. Stay with the car.’

      She took off her shoes and turned, tossing them into the back of the Rolls. ‘Quite right, darling. However, thanks to my Nazi friends, I do have an inexhaustible supply of silk stockings. I can afford to ruin one pair for the sake of friendship.’

      She took his arm and they went after René. ‘Friendship?’ Craig said. ‘As I recall, in Paris in the old days it was rather more than that?’

      ‘Ancient history, darling. Best forgotten.’

      She held his arm tight and Osbourne caught his breath sharply, aware that his wound was really hurting now. Anne-Marie turned her head and looked at him. ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘Damned arm hurting a bit, that’s all.’

      There was a murmur of voices as they approached and found René and another man standing beside a small dinghy, an outboard motor tilted over on its stern.

      ‘This is Bleriot,’ René said.

      ‘Mamselle.’ Bleriot touched his cap, acknowledging Anne-Marie.

      ‘This is the boat, I presume?’ Craig demanded. ‘And what exactly am I supposed to do with it?’

      ‘Around the point and you will see the Grosnez light, Monsieur.’

      ‘In this fog?’

      ‘It’s very low lying.’ Bleriot shrugged. ‘I’ve put a signalling lamp in and there’s this.’ He took a luminous signal ball from his pocket. ‘SOE supply these. They work very well in the water.’

      ‘Which is where I’m likely to end up from the look of the weather,’ Craig said as waves lapped in hungrily across the beach.

      Bleriot took a lifejacket from the boat and helped him into it. ‘You have no choice, Monsieur, you must go. Grand Pierre says they are turning the whole of Brittany upside down in their search for you.’

      Craig allowed him to fasten the straps of the lifejacket. ‘Have they taken hostages yet?’

      ‘Of course. Ten from St Maurice, including the Mayor and Father Paul. Ten more from farms in the surrounding area.’

      ‘My God!’ Craig said softly.

      Anne-Marie lit a Gitane and passed it to him. ‘The name of the game, lover, you and I both know that. Not your affair.’

      ‘I wish I could believe you,’ he told her as René and Bleriot ran the dinghy down into the water. Bleriot got in and started the outboard. He got out again.

      Anne-Marie