Spook's Gold (37 page)

Chapter Thirty Nine

The following day they left the environs of Rennes behind and the number of villages and dwellings that they were forced to skirt around diminished. Loic suggested that now that they were into less populated countryside and therefore at less risk of running into German patrols, they could pick up the pace. Lemele readily agreed to this and before Marner could question what this actually meant Loic took off at a trot.  Lemele followed and Marner was startled to find that Le Votre did the same with no input or command from him, just as Loic had promised that she would.

If he had found the walking rhythm hard to master, trotting entirely confounded him. Now he found that it was an up-and-down motion. As Le Votre’ haunches rose up with each stride they were bumping him up and out of the saddle, his already-sore bottom not appreciating this additional abuse.

His immediate remedy was to stand up in the stirrups, the drawback to this being that he could no longer grip the saddle with his thighs for stability and thus was forced to hunch forward and grip the front edge of the saddle with his hands to hang on. From watching Lemele he could see that trotting required a new motion from the rider, one which entailed rising up and down in the saddle in cadence with the rise and fall of the horse. When he tried it he was unable to maintain synchronisation with Le Votre and within less than a minute would find that he was descending to the saddle at the same time that it was rising up at him, the result being that it was actually threatening to launch him up and off of the horse entirely. He made the decision to settle into an alternating mix of being bounced and jiggled in the saddle, and semi-standing up in the stirrups, although this latter could not be endured for long due to the strain on his aching thigh muscles.

Fortunately for Marner, trotting was not maintained for any length of time. After just a few minutes they would return to a walking pace to give the horses a rest. He was also becoming increasingly frustrated with Le Votre. Whilst she was docile enough and followed the direction and change of pace of the others with no thought or effort from him, she would repeatedly lunge at any bush or low hanging branch that they were passing to rip off leaves or even entire small branches to munch. This required him to keep yanking on the reins to coax her out of the shrubbery, which was causing his arms and shoulders to ache and the rough leather reins to chafe his hands.

During one such wrestling match, Le Votre’ unyielding teeth clamped onto a thick branch that it refused to release despite the fact that the branch was too sturdy to break off, Loic came trotting back to advise him. “Let the horse take them. Whilst we are keeping up this pace all day, the leaves will give it moisture and nourishment. Just be patient; let her take a mouthful and then move her back into line.”

Thus Marner conceded his last battle of wills with Le Votre.

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His first and only fall came on the second day, although he could claim that he was entirely free of blame and that even an expert rider would have been thrown.

Alerted by shrill cries from the sky above, Marner had looked up and located the source: a brace of newly-fledged buzzards was playing, stooping and diving on one another whilst their mother glided in lazy circles, scanning the earth below for carrion. After each entanglement one of the siblings would free-fall away, seemingly injured such that it could no longer fly, and then suddenly spread open its wings and soar back up to regain altitude for the next bout.

Distracted, Marner had not been aware that Loic and Lemele had stopped until Le Votre suddenly halted. The track was blocked by the riders in front; Loic’s horse had stopped and would not budge. He urged it on but Vesuvio refused to move forward, stamping and shaking its huge head. Instead of battling with the horse as Marner had become accustomed to seeing, Loic instead reached forward to pat and calm the animal whilst he scanned the dense undergrowth and trees lining the track for the source of Vesuvio’s alarm.

Lemele and Marner’s horses, now close up behind Vesuvio, were also both flicking and rotating their ears, nostrils flared. Marner was reaching to un-holster his pistol when two jet-black deer exploded from a bush ten metres ahead. One darted low whilst the other simultaneously launched gracefully through the air above it in a high arc and then landed and sprinted after its companion into the undergrowth. Vesuvio and Le Votre both whirled in panic at this fright, Loic nearly thrown by his mount that was leaping almost vertically into the air with great kicks of its hind quarters. Only Polenzara remained calm, but Lemele had to turn and spur her quickly aside to avoid the panicked cavorting of Vesuvio.

The violent semi-turn executed by Le Votre left the unprepared Marner hanging in mid-air where his horse and saddle had been only moments before and he crashed heavily to the ground, jarring his shoulder. He rapidly scrambled up, aware that he was hurt but focussed on moving smartly to the safety of the trees to avoid being trampled. Just in time. Loic allowed Vesuvio to launch into a gallop back along the track that they had just followed, directly over the ground where Marner had been sprawled. Marner watched the departing back of Loic; he could see that the man was in control, was simply letting the beast vent its panic in controlled motion. Le Votre made a few steps as if to follow Vesuvio but was quickly headed off by Lemele; she moved Polenzara to intercept and leaned agilely down from her saddle to scoop up the trailing reins.

From this episode Marner learned a new respect for the animals. He now alternated his attention between using his own senses to monitor their surroundings and watching Le Votre’ head. Whereas he had assumed that the constant rotation of the horse’s ears was caused by irritation from the flies, he now recognised that her finely attuned hearing and sense of smell would detect any hidden animals and threats, humans included, long before he did. Thus from then on his attention was usually focussed in whatever direction Le Votre had swivelled her ears.

His new found respect for Le Votre did not overcome his fear of her huge yellow teeth. Polenzara was a different case entirely. She was far more docile and amenable and, able to approach and inspect this calm animal without fear of a painful nip, Marner fell into the habit of spending a few minutes caressing her at the end of each day’s ride. Initially wary of her mouth, he came to realise that she would only flap at his clothing with her lips, testing and tasting. Her nose was bare pink skin with flaring soft nostrils. He particularly enjoyed stroking her broad forehead, sliding his hand up under the coarse fringe of mane tumbling down between her ears, the soft fur there hot under his palm. She clearly liked this and he would watch her eyes gradually droop. Once, looping his arm gently under her head whilst he caressed her forehead, he felt her head grow increasingly heavy as she drifted off to sleep. He inadvertently broke the spell by trying to stroke her ears; she would not permit this and shook her head causing him to step back to avoid being bumped.

Marner left the care of the horses to Loic and Lemele. He had initially tried to help with the more basic chores such as checking the hooves for stones. Lemele had shown him how to bend down and tug on the long hair sprouting from the back of the hoof, whilst using her shoulder to give the horse a bump on the corresponding haunch or hind-quarter. Even the indomitably stubborn Le Votre would render up her feet for inspection under Lemele’s technique. All that Marner ever managed to achieve was a vicious back-kick that he had to nimbly side-step. In the end he gave up and assuaged his conscience with the thought that he was paying handsomely for Loic’s services; let the man do the work.

Chapter Forty

Although Marner had become dismayed by Loic’s constant air of animosity towards him, he would later reflect that the man earned his fee as guide. He worked hard and took full care of the horses and the catering, asking for no help although Lemele would always assist with the horses. Most importantly for the two fugitives, he kept them away from humans and especially Germans, although it was almost inevitable that they would cross them sooner or later.

On the third day of the trek they were walking alongside a shallow, narrow river that marked the perimeter of a dense wood. As Lemele turned the corner in the track Marner saw her jerk upright in the saddle and she instantly reined Polenzara to a halt. He was twenty metres behind and whatever had caused her alarm was hidden to his view by the thick poplars on the corner. The mystery was solved a moment later when he heard a gruff male voice, speaking in French but with an unmistakeable German accent, tell her to halt and raise her hands.

Marner concluded that it could only be a German military patrol or checkpoint. He hesitated. Having not yet been seen himself, there was still the option to turn Le Votre and beat a retreat, or even jump down and wade across the river to flee into the trees. He was genuinely torn, not by any remaining desire to catch Graf, which had almost been erased by deep fatigue anyway, but by the most simplistic primal instinct: to evade capture.

Lemele raised her hands and swivelled her head to look back at him. Which meant that whoever was around the corner would know that someone else was following behind her. He cursed her for a moment for taking away his choice, but could not blame her for expecting him to rescue the situation.

He nudged Le Votre on, taking a moment to shift more upright in the saddle and pull down his tunic to remove the worst of the creases. Plodding calmly past the stationary Lemele, her hands still in the air, Marner gave her a reassuring smile. He kept his hands relaxed and visible on the pommel of the saddle. The objective for him now was to exude superiority and authority, upon which the technique of bluff was ninety-nine percent based.

One hundred metres ahead was a gap between the wood that they had been skirting and another. The gap was bisected by a road and a Wehrmacht patrol had established a control point there. It was well positioned; the soldiers could secrete themselves in the trees and any traffic on the road or on the track would be almost upon them before the soldiers became visible. A perfect trap.

Marner kept moving, waiting until he was within fifty metres and thus his uniform and insignia clearly visible before he swivelled in the saddle to gesture Lemele to follow him. When he reached the road he could see that Loic had already been ordered to dismount and was standing with his hands on his head and a rifle pointed at his back. A Feldwebel was examining Loic’s papers, whilst another soldier was tenuously hanging onto Vesuvio’s reins. Marner ignored the soldiers who had now emerged from the trees to surround them and barked at the Feldwebel, “Release him! He is an official guide engaged on SS business.”  He urged Le Votre a few more steps towards the group, banking on the intimidating size of the beast up close to have an effect.

Although the Feldwebel was the most senior officer of this unit, he was inferior in rank to Marner. He shrugged, handed Loic his papers and waved the soldier to return Vesuvio to him. The soldier tugged on the reins but only succeeded in alarming the beast, which began back-stepping along the road and the frightened man was nearly pulled off of the ground as Vesuvio yanked his head up and back. Loic shuffled quickly along to relieve the private of the recalcitrant animal.

With the first objective secured, Marner turned to smile at the officer. He eased one leg up and over the saddle and prepared to slide down to the ground as he had seen Lemele and Loic do. There was a moment of panic and vertigo on realising how far down it was, but he was committed to the manoeuvre and managed to keep his feet as he hit the ground. Switching to charm and courtesy, Marner handed over his identity pass to the officer without being asked for it. He left the officer to examine it whilst he went and took Lemele’s papers from her, volunteering these also to the Feldwebel. They had no option but to use their own identities and names and he hoped that there was still no general alert out for them.

Whilst the officer examined Lemele’s police credentials, Marner racked his brain for a plausible story. In the end he decided to use his previous investigation, completed only three weeks ago. “We are part of a special squad that is hunting for an art thief named Dominic Lefebvre. He has stolen two priceless works of art that were being prepared for shipment from Paris to the Reichsmuseum. They were a personal gift from the Vichy Government of France to the Führer himself.”

The Feldwebel, who had introduced himself as Gluck stood silent and stunned, hearing a tale that went far beyond his simple limits of soldiering in this remote province. “But what are you all,” gesticulating with his arm at the horses and group, “doing wandering around out here?” asked the incredulous Gluck.

“We know that this Lefebvre has family and friends in this region and we believe that they are hiding him. My companions here are my local guide and this police inspector who has been provided by the French government to verify that the items are correctly recuperated.”

Gluck’s face conveyed alarm; he was out of his depth and Marner wondered whether he had made it too complicated, that Gluck would insist that they all returned to the local Wehrmacht casern for verification of the story. “But we have not been advised of any SS action or activity!”

Marner smiled and leaned in towards Gluck conspiratorially, “Ah. That is because it is all very need-to-know. Reichsminister Göring is rather embarrassed that his
Dienststelle Westen
people have let this happen.”  This was a reference to the group that had been established under the command of Göring in Paris to systematically loot and plunder artworks from museums and private collections. He was also banking on the use of the name of a senior Nazi politico to sway the Feldwebel. “So I and my fellow SD team, who are scattered somewhere out there in the countryside, are desperately trying to track these items down. Quietly!” he finished in a whisper and a wink. “We have been given explicit instructions: come back with Lefebvre and the paintings, or come back with warm socks.”