Eye of the Needle (26 page)

“Okay, that makes sense.”

“What’s the weather like up there?”

“No change.”

“Could you get to the island, do you think, in a big ship?”

“I suppose you can ride any storm if your ship’s big enough. But this island won’t have much of a dock, will it?”

“You’d better find out, but I expect you’re right. Now listen…there’s an RAF fighter base near Edinburgh. By the time you get there I’ll have an amphibious plane standing by. You take off the minute the storm begins to clear. Have the local Coastguard ready to move at moment’s notice too—I’m not sure who’ll get there first.”

“But if the U-boat is also waiting for the storm to clear, it will get there first,” Bloggs said.

“You’re right.” Godliman lit a cigarette, fumbling for inspiration. “Well, we can get a Navy corvette to circle the island and listen for Faber’s radio signal. When the storm clears it can land a boat on the island.”

“What about some fighters?”

“Yes. Except like you, they’ll have to wait until the weather breaks.”

“It can’t go on much longer.”

“What do the Scottish meteorologists say?”

“Another day of it, at least. But remember, all the time we’re grounded he’s bottled up too.”

“If he’s there.”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Godliman said. “We’ll have a corvette, the Coastguard, some fighters and an amphibian. You’d better get on your way. Call me from Rosyth. Take care.”

“Will do.”

Godliman hung up. His cigarette, neglected in the ashtray, had burned down to a tiny stub.

29

L
YING ON ITS SIDE, THE JEEP LOOKED POWERFUL BUT
helpless, like a wounded elephant. The engine had stalled. Faber gave it a hefty push and it toppled majestically onto all four wheels. It had survived the fight relatively undamaged. The canvas roof was destroyed, of course; the rip Faber’s knife had made had become a long tear running from one side to the other. The offside front fender, which had ploughed into the earth and stopped the vehicle, was crumpled. The headlight on that side had smashed. The window on the same side had been broken by the shot from the gun. The windshield was miraculously intact.

Faber climbed into the driver’s seat, put the gearshift into neutral and tried the starter. It kicked over and died. He tried again, and the engine fired. He was grateful for that, he could not have faced a long walk.

He sat in the car for a while, inventorying his wounds. He gingerly touched his right ankle; it was swelling massively. Perhaps he had cracked a bone. It was as well that the jeep was designed to be driven by a man with no legs, Faber could not have pressed a brake pedal. The lump on the back of his head felt huge, at least the size of a golf ball; when he touched it his hand came away sticky with blood. He examined his face in the rear-view mirror. It was a mass of small cuts and big bruises, like the face of the loser at the end of a boxing match.

He had abandoned his oilskin back at the cottage, so his jacket and overalls were soggy with rain and smeared with mud. He needed to get warm and dry very soon.

He gripped the steering wheel—a burning pain shot through his hand; he had forgotten the torn fingernail. He looked at it. It was the nastiest of his injuries. He would have to drive with one hand.

He pulled away slowly and found what he guessed was the road. There was no danger of getting lost on this island—all he had to do was follow the cliff edge until he came to Lucy’s cottage.

He needed to invent a lie to explain to Lucy what had become of her husband. She wouldn’t have heard the shotgun so far away, he knew. He might, of course, tell her the truth; there was nothing she could do about it. However, if she became difficult he might have to kill her, and he had an aversion to that. Driving slowly along the cliff top through the pouring rain and howling wind, he marveled at this new thing inside him, this scruple. It was the first time he had ever felt reluctance to kill. It was not that he was amoral—to the contrary. He had made up his mind that the killing he did was on the same moral level as death on the battlefield, and his emotions followed his intellect. He always had the physical reaction, the vomiting, after he killed, but that was something incomprehensible that he ignored.

So why did he not want to kill Lucy?

The feeling was on a par, he decided, with the affection that drove him to send the Luftwaffe erroneous directions to St. Paul’s Cathedral: a compulsion to protect a thing of beauty. She was a remarkable creation, as full of loveliness and subtlety as any work of art. Faber could live with himself as a killer, but not as an iconoclast. It was, he recognized as soon as the thought occurred to him, a peculiar way to be. But then, spies were peculiar people.

He thought of some of the spies who had been recruited by the Abwehr at the same time he had been: Otto, the Nordic giant who made delicate paper sculptures in the Japanese fashion and hated women; Friedrich, the sly little mathematical genius who jumped at shadows and went into a five-day depression if he lost a game of chess; Helmut, who liked to read books about slavery in America and had soon joined the SS…all different, all peculiar. If they had anything more specific in common, he did not know what it was.

He seemed to be driving more and more slowly, and the rain and mist became more impenetrable. He began to worry about the cliff edge on his left-hand side. He felt very hot, but suffered spasms of shivering. He realized he had been speaking aloud about Otto and Friedrich and Helmut, and he recognized the signs of delirium. He made an effort to think of nothing but the problem of keeping the jeep on a straight course. The noise of the wind took on some kind of rhythm, becoming hypnotic. Once he found himself stationary, staring out over the sea, and had no idea how long ago he had stopped.

It seemed hours later that Lucy’s cottage came into view. He steered toward it, thinking, I must remember to put the brake on before I hit the wall. There was a figure standing in the doorway, looking out at him through the rain. He had to stay in control of himself long enough to tell her the lie. He had to remember, had to remember…

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON
by the time the jeep came back. Lucy was worried about what had happened to the men, and at the same time angry with them for not coming home for the lunch she had prepared. As the day waned she had spent more and more time at the windows, looking out for them.

When the jeep came down the slight slope to the cottage it was clear something was wrong. It was moving terribly slowly, on a zigzag course, and there was only one person in it. It came closer, and she saw that the front was dented and the headlight smashed.

“Oh, God.”

The vehicle shuddered to a halt in front of the cottage, and she saw that the figure inside was Henry. He made no move to get out. Lucy ran out into the rain and opened the driver’s door.

He sat there with his head back and his eyes half-closed. His hand was on the brake. His face was bloody and bruised.

“What happened?
What happened?
”

His hand slipped off the brake, and the jeep moved forward. Lucy leaned across him and slipped the gearshift into neutral.

“Left David at Tom’s cottage…had crash on way back…” The words seemed to cost him a great effort.

Now that she knew what had happened, Lucy’s panic subsided. “Come inside,” she said sharply. The urgency in her voice got through to him. He turned toward her, put his foot on the running board to step down, and promptly fell to the ground. Lucy saw that his ankle was swollen like a balloon.

She got her hands under his shoulders and pulled him upright. “Put your weight on the other foot and lean on me.” She got his right arm around her neck and half-carried him inside.

Jo watched wide-eyed as she helped Henry into the living room and got him onto the sofa. He lay back with his eyes shut. His clothes were soaked and muddy.

Lucy said, “Jo, go upstairs and get your pajamas on, please.”

“But I haven’t had my story. Is he dead?”

“He’s not dead, he’s had a car crash and you can’t have a story tonight. Go
on
.”

The child made a complaining sound, and Lucy looked threateningly at him. He went.

Lucy got the big scissors out of her sewing basket and cut Henry’s clothes away: first the jacket, then the overalls, then the shirt. She frowned in puzzlement when she saw the knife in its sheath strapped to his left forearm; she guessed it was a special implement for cleaning fish or something. When she tried to take it off, he pushed her hand away. She shrugged and turned to her attention to his boots. The left one came off easily, and its sock; but he cried out in pain when she touched the right.

“It must come off,” she told him. “You’ll have to be brave.”

A funny kind of smile came over his face, then, and he nodded. She cut the laces, took the shoe gently but firmly in both hands and pulled it off. This time he made no sound. She cut the elastic in the sock and pulled that off too.

Jo came in. “He’s in his pants!”

“His clothes are all wet.” She kissed the boy good night. “Put yourself to bed, darling. I’ll tuck you up later.”

“Kiss teddy, then.”

“Good night, teddy.”

Jo went out. Lucy looked back to Henry. His eyes were open, and he was smiling. He said, “Kiss Henry, then.”

She leaned over him and kissed his battered face. Then carefully she cut away his underpants.

The heat from the fire would quickly dry his naked skin. She went into the kitchen and filled a bowl with warm water and a little antiseptic to bathe his wounds. She found a roll of absorbent cotton and returned to the living room.

“This is the second time you’ve turned up on the doorstep half dead,” she said as she set about her task.

“The usual signal,” Henry said. The words came abruptly.

“What?”

“Waiting-at-Calais-for-a-phantom-army…”

“Henry, what are you talking about?”

“Every-Friday-and-Monday…”

She finally realized he was delirious. “Don’t try to talk,” she said. She lifted his head slightly to clean away the dried blood from around the bump.

Suddenly he sat upright, looked fiercely at her, and said, “What day is it? What
day
is it?”

“It’s Sunday, relax.”

“Okay.”

He was quiet after that, and he let her remove the knife. She bathed his face, bandaged his finger where he had lost the nail and put a dressing on his ankle. When she had finished she stood looking at him for a while. He seemed to be sleeping. She touched the long scar on his chest, and the star-shaped mark on his hip. The star was a birthmark, she decided.

She went through his pockets before throwing the lacerated clothes away. There wasn’t much: some money, his papers, a leather wallet and a film can. She put them all in a little pile on the mantelpiece beside his fish knife. He would have to have some of David’s clothes.

She left him and went upstairs to see to Jo. The boy was asleep, lying on his teddy bear with his arms outflung. She kissed his soft cheek and tucked him in. She went outside and put the jeep in the barn.

She made herself a drink in the kitchen, then sat watching Henry, wishing he would wake up and make love to her again.

IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT
when he woke. He opened his eyes, and his face showed the series of expressions that were now familiar to her: first the fear, then the wary survey of the room, then the relaxation. On impulse, she asked him, “What are you afraid of, Henry?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You always look frightened when you wake up.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, and the movement seemed to hurt. “God, I’m battered.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“Yes, if you’ll give me a drink of brandy.”

She got the brandy out of the cupboard. “You can have some of David’s clothes.”

“In a minute…unless you’re embarrassed.”

She handed him the glass, smiling. “I’m afraid I’m enjoying it.”

“What happened to my clothes?”

“I had to cut them off you. I’ve thrown them away.”

“Not my papers, I hope.” He smiled, but there was some other emotion just below the surface.

“On the mantelpiece.” She pointed. “Is the knife for cleaning fish or something?”

His right hand went to his left forearm, where the sheath had been. “Something like that,” he said. He seemed uneasy for a moment, then relaxed with an effort and sipped his drink. “That’s good.”

After a moment she said, “Well?”

“What?”

“How did you manage to lose my husband and crash my jeep?”

“David decided to stay over at Tom’s for the night. Some of the sheep got into trouble in a place they call The Gully—”

“I know it.”

“—and six or seven of them were injured. They’re all in Tom’s kitchen being bandaged up and making a terrible row. Anyway, David suggested I come back to tell you he would be staying. I don’t really know how I managed to crash. The car is unfamiliar, there’s no real road, I hit something and went into a skid and the jeep ended up on its side. The details…” He shrugged.

“You must have been going quite fast—you were in an awful mess when you got here.”

“I suppose I rattled around inside the jeep a bit. Banged my head, twisted my ankle…”

“Lost a fingernail, bashed your face, and almost caught pneumonia. You must be accident-prone.”

He swung his legs to the floor, stood up and went to the mantelpiece.

“Your powers of recuperation are incredible,” she said.

He was strapping the knife to his arm. “We fishermen are very healthy. What about those clothes?”

She got up and stood close to him. “What do you need clothes for? It’s bedtime.”

He drew her to him, pressing her against his naked body, and kissed her hard. She stroked his thighs.

After a while he broke away from her. He picked up his things from the mantelpiece, took her hand, then, hobbling, he led her upstairs to bed.

30

T
HE WIDE WHITE AUTOBAHN SNAKED THROUGH THE
Bavarian valley up into the mountains. In the leather rear seat of the staff Mercedes, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was still and weary. Aged sixty-nine, he knew he was too fond of champagne and not fond enough of Hitler. His thin, lugubrious face reflected a career longer and more erratic than that of any of Hitler’s other officers: he had been dismissed in disgrace more times than he could remember, but the Fuehrer always asked him to come back.

As the car passed through the sixteenth-century village of Berchtesgaden he wondered why he always returned to his command when Hitler forgave him. Money meant nothing to him; he had already achieved the highest possible rank; decorations were valueless in the Third Reich; and he believed that it was not possible to win honor in this war.

It was Rundstedt who had first called Hitler “the Bohemian corporal.” The little man knew nothing of the German military tradition, nor—despite his flashes of inspiration—of military strategy. If he had, he would not have started this war, which was unwinnable. Rundstedt was Germany’s finest soldier, and he had proved it in Poland, France and Russia; but he had no hope of victory.

All the same, he would have nothing to do with the small group of generals who—he knew—were plotting to overthrow Hitler. He turned a blind eye to them, but the
Fahneneid
, the blood oath of the German warrior, was too strong in him to permit him to join the conspiracy. And that, he supposed, was why he continued to serve the Third Reich. Right or wrong, his country was in danger, and he had no option but to protect it. I’m like an old cavalry horse, he thought; if I stayed at home I would feel ashamed.

He commanded five armies on the western front now. A million and a half men were under his command. They were not as strong as they might be—some divisions were little better than rest homes for invalids from the Russian front, there was a shortage of armor and there were many non-German conscripts among the other ranks—but Rundstedt could still keep the Allies out of France if he deployed his forces shrewdly.

It was that deployment that he must now discuss with Hitler.

The car climbed the Kehlsteinstrasse until the road ended at a vast bronze door in the side of the Kehlstein Mountain. An SS guard touched a button, the door hummed open, and the car entered a long marble tunnel lit by bronze lanterns. At the far end of the tunnel the driver stopped the car, and Rundstedt walked to the elevator and sat in one of its leather seats for the four-hundred-foot ascent to the Adlerhorst, the Eagle’s Nest.

In the anteroom Rattenhuber took his pistol and left him to wait. He stared unappreciatively at Hitler’s porcelain and went over in his mind the words he would say.

A few moments later the blond bodyguard returned to usher him into the conference room.

The place made him think of an eighteenth-century palace. The walls were covered with oil paintings and tapestries, and there was a bust of Wagner and a huge clock with a bronze eagle on its top. The view from the wide window was truly remarkable: one could see the hills of Salzburg and the peak of the Untersberg, the mountain where the body of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa waited, according to legend, to rise from the grave and save the Fatherland. Inside the room, seated in the peculiarly rustic chairs, were Hitler and just three of his staff: Admiral Theodor Krancke, the naval commander in the west: General Alfred Jodl, chief of staff; and Admiral Karl Jesko von Puttkamer, Hitler’s aide-decamp.

Rundstedt saluted and was motioned to a chair. A footman brought a plate of caviar sandwiches and a glass of champagne. Hitler stood at the large window, looking out, with his hands clasped behind his back. Without turning, he said abruptly—“Rundstedt has changed his mind. He now agrees with Rommel that the Allies will invade Normandy. This is what my instinct has all along told me. Krancke, however, still favors Calais. Rundstedt, tell Krancke how you arrived at your conclusion.”

Rundstedt swallowed a mouthful and coughed into his hand. “There are two things: one new piece of information and one new line of reasoning,” Rundstedt began. “First, the information. The latest summaries of Allied bombing in France show without doubt that their principal aim is to destroy every bridge across the river Seine. Now, if they land at Calais the Seine is irrelevant to the battle; but if they land in Normandy all our reserves have to cross the Seine to reach the zone of conflict.

“Second, the reasoning. I have given some thought to how I would invade France if I were commanding the Allied forces. My conclusion is that the first goal must be to establish a bridgehead through which men and supplies can be funneled at speed. The initial thrust must therefore come in the region of a large and capacious harbor. The natural choice is Cherbourg. Both the bombing pattern and the strategic requirements point to Normandy,” he finished. He picked up his glass and emptied it, and the footman came forward to refill it.

Jodl said, “All our intelligence points to Calais—”

“And we have just executed the head of the Abwehr as a traitor,” Hitler interrupted. “Krancke, are you convinced?”

“I am not,” the admiral said. “I too have considered how I would conduct the invasion if I were on the other side—but I have brought into the reasoning a number of factors of a nautical nature that our colleague Rundstedt may not have comprehended. I believe they will attack under cover of darkness, by moonlight, at full tide to sail over Rommel’s underwater obstacles, and away from cliffs, rocky waters, and strong currents. Normandy? Never.”

Hitler shook his head in disagreement.

Jodl then said, “There is another small piece of information I find significant. The Guards Armored Division has been transferred from the north of England to Hove, on the southeast coast, to join the First United States Army Group under General Patton. We learned this from wireless surveillance—there was a baggage mix-up en route, one unit had another’s silver cutlery, and the fools have been quarreling about it over the radio. This is a crack British division, very blue-blooded, commanded by General Sir Allen Henry Shafto Adair. I feel sure they will not be far from the center of the battle when it comes.”

Hitler’s hands moved nervously, and his face now twitched in indecision. “Generals!” he barked at them, “either I get conflicting advice, or no advice at all. I have to tell you everything—”

With characteristic boldness, Rundstedt plunged on. “My Fuehrer, you have four superb panzer divisions doing nothing here in Germany. If I am right, they will never get to Normandy in time to repel the invasion. I beg you, order them to France and put them under Rommel’s command. If we are wrong, and the invasion begins at Calais, they will at least be close enough to get into the battle at an early stage—”

“I don’t know—I don’t know!” Hitler’s eyes widened, and Rundstedt wondered if he had pushed too hard—again.

Puttkamer spoke now for the first time. “My Fuehrer, today is Sunday—”

“Well?”

“Tomorrow night the U-boat may pick up the spy. Die Nadel.”

“Ah, yes,
someone
I can trust.”

“Of course he can report by radio at any time, though that would be dangerous—”

Rundstedt said, “There isn’t time to postpone decisions. Both air attacks and sabotage activities have increased dramatically. The invasion may come any day.”

“I disagree,” Krancke said. “The weather conditions will not be right until early June—”

“Which is
not
very far away—”

“Enough,”
Hitler shouted. “I have made up my mind. My panzers stay in Germany—for now. On Tuesday, by which time we should have heard from Die Nadel, I will reconsider the disposition of these forces. If his information favors Normandy—as I believe it will—I will move the panzers.”

Rundstedt said quietly, “And if he does not report?”

“If he does not report, I shall reconsider just the same.”

Rundstedt nodded assent. “With your permission I will return to my command.”

“Granted.”

Rundstedt got to his feet, gave the military salute and went out. In the copper-lined elevator, falling four hundred feet to the underground garage, he felt his stomach turn over and wondered whether the sensation was caused by the speed of descent or by the thought that the destiny of his country lay in the hands of a single spy, whereabouts unknown.