to put his head on the block at this stage in the war, would he?’
I laughed out loud – I couldn’t help it. ‘Your sense of irony always was one of your most endearing traits, Henry.’
‘Good, it’s nice to see you smiling again.’ He stood up and rubbed his hands together. ‘And now for a spot of the excellent lunch Mrs Barton and your daily were preparing when I was up there. She gave us forty minutes.’
‘Not me.’ I shook my head, ‘I’ll stay down here for a while, I want to think. One thing you can do – send down Joe St Martin. I might as well get that side of it over. He was never one of my favourite people.’
‘All right, Owen.’ He appeared to hesitate and had the grace to look ever so slightly ashamed as he took another buff envelope from his pocket. ‘You might as well have your D-Section Operation Order.’
I took it from him. ‘Made out in advance I see.’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Enjoy your dinner, Henry.’ I watched him go up the track and disappear over the brow of the hill before opening the envelope. Inside was a typical D-Section Operation Order, the entire business reduced to sparse Civil Service English.
Operation Instruction No D 103
For Lieutenant-Colonel Owen Morgan.
Operation: GRAND PIERRE
Field Name: Not necessary.
INFORMATION – Phase 1.
We have discussed with you the possibility of your landing on the island of St Pierre in the Channel Islands to obtain as much information as possible regarding the scope of the enemy project noted in files as NIGGER. You have made it clear that in your view, nothing prevents you from returning to this island which was originally your home.
We feel that information provided by Joseph St Martin should make it relatively easy for you to get in touch with sources on the island from which the information you seek may be readily available.
INFORMATION – Phase 2.
During the time that you are on the island, Major Edward Fitzgerald, Master Sergeant Grant, Sergeant Hagen, Corporals Wallace, Stevens and Lovat, will enter the main harbour at Charlottestown in three Rob Roy canoes with the intention of fixing limpet mines to any vessels they can find. This is the sole purpose of their mission and they must NOT repeat NOT attempt to land or provoke any incidents of a kind liable to alert the enemy to their presence.
In any circumstances calling for a drastic re-appraisal of the situation you, as senior officer, are considered to be in command.
METHOD
It is our information that under the provisions of Hitler’s Kommandobefehl, special service troops falling into enemy hands are still being executed, but we also know of instances where they have simply been put to work in chains. On balance, therefore, if captured, there is a better chance for survival as a soldier than as a spy. For this reason we have decided, in this instance, not to give you a cover story. You will use your own name and rank and identity discs will be provided.
You will be taken to St Pierre on the night of the 25th on MGB 109LT and off-loaded by surf boat at approx. 22.30 hours. Major Fitzgerald and party will be off-loaded half a mile off the harbour entrance at 23.00 hours.
You MUST repeat MUST be picked up first at approximately 02.00 hours and the other party will rendezvous as soon as may be with the MGB after that.
INTERCOMMUNICATIONS
There will be no W/T communication whatsoever. Hand-lamp signals only to be used during pick-up.
WEAPONS
At your discretion, but only that which you consider essential for hand-to-hand combat.
CONCLUSION
You have been sufficiently familiarized with the situation to realize the importance of this mission. Nothing should be allowed to prevent you from obtaining the information you are seeking and if the situation should warrant it, your own mission MUST repeat MUST take precedence over that of Major Fitzgerald’s to the extent of abandoning him and his men if necessary.
NOW DESTROY … NOW DESTROY … NOW DESTROY …
NOW DESTROY.
I struck a match, held it to one corner of the sheet and let it burn. It drifted to the ground and I stamped it to ashes, grinding it into the grass with my heel, then I went back down the track to the beach.
It was plain enough, including the juicy item about the Kommandobefehl, not that it bothered me particularly. My only question for the past five years had not been would they kill me when they got their hands on me, but how. For a memorable two days at Gestapo headquarters at II rue de Saussaies at the back of the Ministry of the Interior in Paris, I had thought my time was up but I’d played small fish and they’d fallen for it. Two days later, I’d jumped from a train taking me to Poland to labour for the Todt Organization along with thousands of other poor wretches.
I went down through the wire and walked along the sand to the water’s edge, thinking about it all, but mainly about Simone out there across the sea, alone in the old house in the hollow among the beech trees lonely from the beginning of time until now.
The line circled in my brain, no end to it. Lonely from the beginning of time until now. It was from a poem she was particularly fond of. Chinese originally and translated by Ezra Pound. By the North gate the wind blows full of sand. I stared out to sea, my heart and brain filled with memories of her and someone called out behind me.
Joe St Martin stood on the far side of the wire and waited and I called to him, ‘You’ve nothing to worry about – come on.’
He came reluctantly, treading on eggs for the first few yards, then seemed to get his confidence back all at once and came on at a quickened pace. He had five years on me, which would make him thirty-one or -two now, a big, boastful ox of a man. I’d disliked him all my life and he, in his turn, had always had a strange kind of contempt for me. Little Owen – little Owen Morgan, that’s what he had called me, his fingers twisted into my hair. Dance for us, then, little black pig. The Welsh side of him coming out in the famous old song.
And then, when I was fourteen, I caught him up on the top meadow, rolling in the hay with Simone who was doing her level best to put his eyes out. I hit him with everything I had and got a broken nose for my pains. Not a very gallant showing, but when he had gone, she cried over me and kissed me for the first time, which seemed to make up for everything. She was seventeen then, two years older than me and at that age it can seem an insurmountable gap normally, but from then on there was no one else in the world for either of us.
He was wearing a blue serge suit a size too large, a white polo neck sweater and army boots and the combination somehow made him seem clumsy and uncouth. He was frowning uncertainly and paused about five yards away. ‘Owen, is that you?’ I didn’t say a word and he shook his head in a kind of wonder. ‘A colonel they tell me you are.’
‘That’s right,’ I said.
He grinned suddenly, the same old familiar leering
