Now, he wanted Menschler out of the way so that he could contact London.
Drummond felt himself diminished by his anxiety, by a pressing, enlarging sense of his duplicity. He was aware of it making the skin he was interested in saving crawl as Menschler, sitting opposite him in the study of the farmhouse, continued to discuss the movement of the airborne troops to the coast, and the possibility of counter-measures by the Irish government or Churchill. He knew now that he did not possess the commitment, that he did not wish to cast aside his mask, declare his hand. Drummond wanted to insure himself by warning the Admiralty of the landings. He assumed that the twenty-four hours before the seaborne landings was insufficient time for the British to mount any effective counter-attack — the Irish would not move, he was certain, as was the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht in Berlin — but if he reported the parachute landings he would retain the appearance of still working for the Admiralty. Then, in the event of some disaster, he would be in the clear—
And he had a great desire to be in the clear. There was this growing sense of being alone, of being in personal danger, that could not be alleviated by news of the success of the parachute landings or the suggested might of the Wehrmacht, even the genius of the Führer. McBride worked at the corner of his mind like an irritating mote. Him, or someone like him — one to one — was all that was needed, and he would be dead. The craven surrender to a sense of personal danger disappointed him, but he could not any longer ignore it.
"Very well, Drummond, now I will talk to the company commanders, then we will make our little tour, yes?" Menschler stood up with a nod, dismissive and superior, and went out of the room. Drummond, appalled at himself, strained to hear the closing of the door, even the footsteps across the yard to the barn where Menschler's staff had set up their HQ. Then, when only the wind's sound reached him from outside, he scurried to the kitchen and the cellar door, heading for the radio equipment by means of which he would warn the Admiralty of the reported landings of German parachutists in County Cork. A simple message that he was now certain would save his life.
Churchill paced the tiny, cigar-fouled office, the file labelled Emerald open on the desk between him and Walsingham, sitting silent and stiff on a hard upright chair. Even as he had sat there, Drummond's message from Kilbrittain had been conveyed to Churchill, interrupting their conversation. Churchill now seemed possessed of almost demonic energy, none of which he could satisfy or express or exude. It remained within him, galvanizing and bullying his frame like a seizure.
The dawn outside the one window combined with the overhead light to create starkness, even the sordid. A time for quarrels and for machinations.
Churchill picked up the telephone and in clipped, precise tones that still would not allow the captive energy to escape, ordered an emergency meeting of the Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff for nine that morning. When he put down the receiver again, he was staring at Walsingham with glowing eyes.
"So, it's begun, young man?" he said, hands on his wide hips, belly protruding from his unbuttoned waistcoat, hardly contained by the thin gold chain of his pocket watch. Then the big cigar was waving at him, pressed between two fat fingers. "What d" you think the Irish PM will do about it?"
"I–I don't know, Prime Minister."
"My bet is he'll do nothing, crafty as he is, and not without courage." Churchill's eyes misted for a moment. "Fait accompli, I think about covers it, don't you? Oh, they might join in if we did something—" He looked down at his desk. "This scheme of yours. I think it's time to put the first stages of it into operation, don't you?"
Churchill picked up the telephone, and was connected almost at once with the First Sea Lord. He ordered the two minelayers to put to sea, and to relay the breached channel in the St George's Channel field. Then, he put down the telephone. Walsingham was breathless with the ease with which part of Emerald had become reality, and with the responsibility suddenly thrust upon him. Emerald was his scheme. It was now his Siamese twin, indivisible from him for the remainder of his life. He almost wanted to tear up the last few pages of the file. Churchill seemed to guess his feelings.
"Nervous, Commander?" he asked, almost slyly.
"I—"
"You wonder how much of Emerald will be put into effect, eh?" Walsingham, with a dry throat, merely nodded. "Not your concern, young man. Thank you for coming."
Walsingham, summarily dismissed, obediently made his way to the door. As he glanced back, he saw that Churchill was idly flicking over the pages of the Emerald file.
Lt Commander David Guthrie watched the slow dawn crawling across the sound and the low hills behind Milford Haven, innocent and with the promise of a fine day. Yet a greyness not entirely created by the seeping of the day into the landscape lingered across the waters of the sound, and the two minelayers, his own Palmerston and HMS Gladstone to port, seemed to be sailing towards the night which lingered out beyond St Anne's Head. He had opened the sealed envelope delivered the previous night by Admiralty guard, and pondered his orders to undo the work of the minesweeping flotilla the previous week.
The thoughtfulness, the guesswork had now, for some inexplicable reason, become foreboding. Perhaps only for the convoy which would now be rerouted through the much more dangerous North Channel to the Mersey—
Yet that seemed insufficient to account for his chilliness, for the persistent greyness of the dawn, for the sense of quiet almost unbroken by gulls" cries that seemed to hang over the sound as heavily as a blanket.
Through the remainder of the night and the early morning — which came with a grey clinging mist full of winter and a seeping drizzle that soaked them — they moved at first east until they skirted the tiny hamlet of Liss Ard, then McBride took them south, into the hills and towards the coast at Toe Head, where he had now decided they must acquire a boat of some kind. His thinking was imprecise, instinctive. Dominating everything was his betrayal by Drummond — he studiously ignored all Gilliatt's doubts and hesitations on the matter — and the need now to stay free long enough to get back to Crosswinds Farm in Kilbrittain. Both Maureen and Gilliatt receded in importance to him, considered only as encumbrances. Whenever a cooler perception of himself arose from looking at his wife, or from the workings of memory aroused by the familiar landscape, he crushed it beneath his hatred of Drummond. He was on a pinnacle of egocentricity.
The hills were draped in thick mist and Gilliatt and Maureen were tired and dispirited with little or nothing to drive them. Gilliatt, like McBride, assumed that the Germans could not have landed without attracting the attention of agents — British or Irish — and the Admiralty would know within hours. Gilliatt worried about the outcome of events, but accepted his powerlessness in the face of them. More and more, he fell into step and feeling with Maureen.
They came down from the hills, where there was no sign of German troops. McBride moved through the landscape like an angry dreamer, as if he exuded the mist that blotted it out, while Maureen leaned against Gilliatt with chill and weariness. Gilliatt felt diminished by his role, and angry with McBride, yet he felt the growth of some obscure responsibility for the woman, even as he recognized that his image of her and her marriage was based on the briefest acquaintance and was probably worthless. She seemed to accept and use him like a coat or a fire.