Storm Force from Navarone. Sam Llewellyn

Jaime led them down a snowy path and into the trees above the village. There was another barn-like building in the trees.

      Jaime opened the door and said, ‘Wait in here.’

      Mallory said, ‘Where are you going?’

      ‘To find some friends.’ There was a fireplace. Jaime struck a match, lit the piled kindling, and threw on an armful of logs. ‘Be comfortable. Dry yourselves.’ His eyes were invisible in the shadows under his heavy eyebrows.

      Mallory’s eyes met Andrea’s. He did not like it. Nor, he could tell, did Andrea. But there was nothing he could do.

      Jaime disappeared into the night. Lisette sank down in front of the fire and began to pull her boots off.

      ‘Outside,’ said Mallory.

      She looked at him as if he was mad.

      ‘What if Jaime comes back with a German patrol?’

      ‘Mais non,’ said Thierry.

      ‘Jaime?’ said Lisette. ‘Never. He hates Germans.’

      Hugues’ face was pink and nervous. ‘How do you know?’ he said. ‘How does anyone know? The Germans arrived at the drop site within half an hour. Someone betrayed us-’

      ‘I told you what happened,’ said Lisette. ‘Now for God’s sake -’

      ‘Outside,’ said Hugues.

      Something happened to Lisette’s face. ‘Non,’ she said. ‘Non, non, non, non. I am staying.’

      ‘And I also,’ said Thierry, his big face the colour of lard under the straw hat.

      ‘Women,’ said Hugues.

      ‘I am not women! snapped Lisette. ‘I am someone who knows Jaime. And trusts him.’

      ‘Ah, ça!’ said Hugues. ‘Well-’

      ‘But perhaps you trust your friends more,’ said Lisette.

      And when Hugues looked round, he saw that where Mallory, Miller and Andrea had been standing were only wet footprints.

      Out in the woods Miller lay and shivered in a pile of sodden pine needles, and thought longingly of the warm firelight in the barn. He had watched Hugues storm out, heard the slam of the door. Then nothing, except the icy drip of rainwater on his neck, and the mouldy smell of pine needles under his nose.

      After half an hour, the rain stopped. There was silence, with dripping. And behind the dripping, the wheeze and clatter of an engine. Some sort of truck came round the corner, no lights. Miller sighted his Schmeisser on its cab. Three men got out. As far as Miller could see, the truck was small, and not German.

      A voice said, ‘L’Amiral Beaufort!’

      Another voice said, ‘Vive la France!’

      The barn door opened and closed.

      Mallory saw Hugues come out of the bush in which he had been hiding, and walk across to the barn. Hugues knew these men, it appeared. That was Hugues’ area of speciality. So Mallory got up himself, and went in.

      The men Jaime had brought wore sweeping moustaches and huge berets that flopped down over their eyes. They carried shotguns. Two of them were talking to Hugues in rapid French. Mallory thought they looked a damned sight too pleased with themselves.

      ‘There are no Germans in the village,’ said Jaime. ‘But there is a small problem. It seems that Jules has had an accident. A fatal accident, they tell me. He was shot at Jonzère, last night.’

      Mallory stared at him. ‘How?’ he said.

      ‘A matter of too much enthusiasm,’ said Jaime.

      Hugues ceased his conversation and turned to Mallory. He said, ‘Or to tell the truth, a mess.’

      Jaime shrugged. He said, The résistants heard we had landed. There was an idea that we were a regiment, maybe more, because there were only two survivors from the German patrol in the gorge. So Jules heard all this and went to Jonzère to stop these hotheads getting themselves killed. But he was too late. They were firing on the Germans, and the Germans were firing back, and they got themselves killed, all right. And Jules got himself killed with them.’

      Hugues blew air, expressing scorn. ‘It is not as it is in the north. These mountain people have too many feelings and too few brains.’

      It was Jules who had known the man who knew where the Werwolf pack were being repaired. Without Jules, the chain was broken.

      Mallory said, with a mildness he did not feel, ‘So how are we to continue with the operation?’

      ‘Ah,’ said Jaime. ‘Marcel has a surprise for you, in Colbis.’ He did not look as if he approved of surprises.

      ‘Marcel the baker?’ said Hugues.

      ‘That’s the one.’

      Hugues nodded approvingly. ‘A good man,’ he said.

      Mallory had the feeling that he was sitting in on gossip about people he did not know. He said, ‘I need information about the Werwolf pack, not bread.’

      ‘Voilà,’ said Jaime. ‘Marcel proposes breakfast in the … in his café. Then he will provide you with transport to where it is you wish to go. He has another Englishman there, you will be glad to hear, who may have information.’

      May, thought Mallory. Only may. He took a deep, resigned breath.

      ‘Oh, good,’ said Miller, edging towards the fire. ‘And the dancing girls?’

      ‘You may find some dancing girls.’

      ‘Breakfast would be fine,’ said Miller.

      Mallory beckoned Jaime over. The men with the berets followed him as if glued to his side. ‘Why are there no Germans in the village?’

      One of the men with the berets grinned, and spoke quickly. Jaime translated. ‘Because they are all in Jonzère. First, fighting. Now, trying to catch some bandits before they arrive in Spain.’ There was more talk in a language that was not French. Basque, Mallory guessed. ‘This man says there has been a battle. Many Germans have been killed. There may be reprisals. It is said there was an Allied army in the mountains. In the next valley.’

      Mallory raised his eyebrows. ‘An army,’ he said. From regiment to army, in the space of three minutes.

      ‘Yes,’ said Jaime, solemn-faced in the dim light of the torch. ‘And they say it is lucky that we were not involved, being so few, and one of us a woman.’

      Mallory looked at Jaime hard. Was that the ghost of a wink? Andrea’s face was impassive. He had seen it too. His great head moved, almost imperceptibly. Nodding. Suddenly, Mallory found himself perilously close to trusting Jaime.

      Mallory hardened his heart. ‘Now you listen,’ he said. ‘I am grateful for your offers of hospitality. But I don’t want to go into the village, breakfast or no breakfast. I want our transport out here, and I want to get up to the coast. The more time we spend in the mountains, the messier it’s going to get, the bigger the rumours. We want to do this quick and quiet. I don’t like rumours and reprisals, or battles. I want intelligence, and I want transport, and I want them before daylight. Tell these people to tell Marcel.’

      Jaime said, ‘I don’t know-’

      Mallory said, ‘And make it snappy.’

      Jaime looked at the steady burn of the deeply-sunken eyes over the long, unshaven jaw. Jaime thought of the cliff that nobody could climb, that this man had climbed; of three burned-out lorries in the pass; and the pursuit on a wild goose chase towards the Spanish border. This was not a man it was easy to disobey. Perhaps he had underestimated this man.

      ‘Bon,’ he said.

      ‘And