Reinhardt let out a long sigh, then smiled. It felt right to smile, but it felt heavy, as well, like another sign that whatever journey he had been on these past few days, it was over. ‘We know each other. How are you, Doctor?’
‘I’m well, Captain.’ He smiled back. ‘You have been out for the best part of a day. Your knee is quite bad. You won’t be doing much with it for some time.’
‘Doctor, I was with someone. A sergeant, who was wounded, but I don’t see him.’
‘Your sergeant is dead, Captain. Of his wounds.’
Reinhardt looked away, his mouth tight.
‘Friend of yours, this sergeant?’ asked the British officer. Reinhardt nodded. ‘Sorry, we’ve not been properly introduced,’ he continued, extending his hand. ‘Major Brian Sanburne, Rifle Brigade.’
Reinhardt shook the proffered hand. ‘Captain Gregor Reinhardt.’
He took Reinhardt’s papers from a pocket. ‘I know. Not often a captain of the Abwehr falls into our hands,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eyes.
‘Am I your prisoner, or theirs?’ asked Reinhardt, motioning to Begovic.
‘Both, really,’ said Sanburne. ‘They found you, but they’re not sure what to do with you.’
‘There is some reluctance to take prisoners, as you might understand, Captain,’ said Begovic. Up here, in the mountains, he seemed subtly different to Reinhardt. Harder, more purposeful. Like a man in his element. ‘Prisoners slow us down, and you have not exactly been particularly caring of those of us who have fallen into your hands.’
‘Yes, well, no one’s talking about abandoning you, or having you shot,’ said Sanburne, wryly. ‘At least not yet.’
‘Captain, I personally am glad you are well, but your countrymen are making our lives very difficult. Major Sanburne has offered to take you off our hands for now, and that has been agreed to. I have many other duties to attend to, so…’ He rose to his feet. ‘I’ll leave the two of you alone. Perhaps later, Captain.’
‘Doctor, before you leave… Do you have news of that young man in Sarajevo?’
‘Jelic? We have him.’ Reinhardt felt a rush of relief. ‘That was clever, using that drop-off to leave a message.’
‘The days of the Shadow are over, then?’ said Reinhardt, watching Begovic carefully.
The doctor looked back at him, then grinned, a sparkle in his eyes. He nodded at Sanburne, then left, back to his wounded.
‘So, Captain… we’ve a bit of time before we have to move on. I thought we’d have a chat? Something to drink? Tea?’
‘Tea,’ said Reinhardt.
‘Sarn’t Major, two cups of that tea you made earlier, if you please,’ Sanburne called out in English. He turned back to Reinhardt. ‘Been a bit of trouble getting the tea made. In the desert, we’d just pour petrol over a can of sand, and voila, practically smokeless fire.’
‘You were in North Africa?’
‘Long-range desert group. Odds are we might almost have crossed paths a few times, eh?’ Reinhardt took a tin mug of tea from a sergeant with the heavy features of a boxer. ‘Cigarette?’ asked the major, proffering a silver case. ‘Turkish, here, or English…’
Reinhardt took a Woodbine, which Sanburne lit for him. ‘What are you doing here, Major?’ he asked, drawing the tobacco deep. He coughed, not used to such strong blends anymore.
‘Liaison group. One of several.’ Sanburne’s eyes were steady on him as he lit his own cigarette. ‘The Cetniks are a dead loss. Not to mention practically German auxiliaries as well. We’re putting our weight behind the Partisans. Official policy now.’
Reinhardt breathed out, nodded. ‘We thought so.’
‘You with that general?’ Sanburne asked suddenly, mug held in two hands.
‘What?’
‘Begovic told me you were after a general. One got himself killed yesterday. Chap by the name of Verhein. There was a devil of a fight, but his death threw your chaps off quite a bit and allowed a couple of Partisan brigades to break through. You had anything to do with that?’
‘With the general?’ Reinhardt nodded, thinking of Begovic’s bargain with him. I help you, I help my people. ‘In a way, yes.’
‘I’d like to hear about that a bit later. In the meantime…’ He brushed a lock of hair off his forehead, and Reinhardt was struck by how, behind that tan, and the deep lines around his eyes, and his rank, the major was a young man. ‘You’ve a decision to make.’
‘Oh?’ Reinhardt drew deeply on his cigarette.
‘I’ll be blunt, Captain. I’d like you to work for us.’
Reinhardt exhaled, narrowing his eyes around the smoke. ‘What makes you think I’d do that?’
‘Wild guess. A hunch. Something the good doctor might have let slip.’
‘Such as?’
‘Not being overly happy with your life.’
‘It’s a long way from not being happy with one’s life to becoming a traitor.’
‘Well, put it this way. It’s us, or them,’ he said, motioning to the Partisans. ‘I can afford to be slowed down even less than them. I’ve a job to do that doesn’t require me babysitting someone like you. So a yes gets you out to Alexandria, and a chance to make a difference in this war – I’m guessing a difference you’ve been wanting for quite some time – but a no sees you given back to them.’
Reinhardt was taken aback. ‘That sounds less than gentlemanly, Major.’
Sanburne grinned, his eyes suddenly very hard. ‘ “Gentlemanly”,’ he repeated. He stubbed his cigarette out on the ground. ‘I have always wondered why the English and that epithet seem to go hand in hand. Put it this way, Captain, and forgive the bombast. We didn’t build the biggest empire known to man by being gentlemen.’
‘I see,’ swallowed Reinhardt.
‘And before you throw “blackmail” at me, it’s not. If we weren’t here, you’d be theirs anyway.’
Reinhardt was silent a long while, sipping from his tea. It was milky and sweet, the way the British seemed to like it. It felt good going down. ‘There may be another way.’ Sanburne raised his eyebrows. ‘May I have a little time alone, Major? To think?’
Sanburne nodded. ‘Not much, though. We’ll be moving on come morning.’ He took something else from his pocket. ‘I think this is yours,’ he said, handing over the little leather package Meissner had given him and holding up the Williamson. ‘Must be a good story with this one. Perhaps you’ll tell it to me, one day.’ Reinhardt took it, a little too quickly, perhaps. Sanburne’s eyes widened, but he said shy;nothing.
‘Thank you,’ said Reinhardt.
‘Until later, then.’
Reinhardt finished his cigarette and lay back, feeling light-headed. He thought about Claussen, about his steady presence from the very first minute of the case. There had been a sense of kinship there, towards the end. It did not seem right for Reinhardt to have reached something like an ending, only to have Claussen lost behind him.
He closed his eyes and must have slept, for he opened them with the light deeper. He managed to get himself to one knee, then to his feet. He wobbled as his knee throbbed in pain, putting out a hand to hold himself against a tree. A Partisan with a rifle stepped forward, snapped something. Reinhardt mimed walking with his fingers, gestured at the forest. Mollified, the Partisan quieted. Reinhardt took a tentative step, then another, his knee hurting but not unbearably so. He looked around, spotted where it seemed a little lighter, and pointed. The guard nodded.
He limped through the trees to where they thinned, the guard following quietly. A file of Partisans marched past, one of them still a boy with an oversized cap tilted back on his ears walking with a man who had to be his father. The boy talked quietly, excitedly; the father looked at Reinhardt as he went past, face broad and dark and his hands massive where they held the strap of his rifle.
Limping to just inside the tree line, Reinhardt saw that they were camped high on the side of a mountain, its flanks dropping away before him into a steep-sided bowl of a valley. It was late in the day, and far away to the west a milky sun was setting where the mountains lay knuckled across the bottom of the sky. The valley below was sunk in shadow, and he could see no sign of the Drina. He took off his jacket and sat down gingerly, flexing his fingers, back against a tree, and looked towards the setting sun, thinking, letting his mind drift where it would.