‘I want to do a recce into Lemont on foot from here,’ Barnes told him. ‘Jacques has agreed to take me in so I’m leaving you and Reynolds with the tank. This is a better place than I thought we’d get to park Bert – the Germans are hardly likely to come poking around a place where there’s already been a dust-up and this stuff’s no use to them. It’s only a handful of bits and pieces, anyway.’
‘There’s more than a handful of these, Barnes. You know what they are, of course – detonators. There’s enough stuff here to blow up half Ottawa – including gun-cotton, a plunger, and God knows what else. This truck belonged to a demolition unit.’
‘For God’s sake mind what you’re doing, then… Sorry, I’d forgotten. Detonators are your business.’
Barnes sat down on an old wooden crate pushed against the wall and tried to think straight. His shoulder wound had been playing him up foully ever since he had crashed back into the tank transporter when he was trying to reach the deck from the cab. It was pounding like an iron hammer now and he wondered whether he had the energy to walk one step farther. Well, he’d have to walk quite a few steps farther if they were going to try and find out what the position was inside Lemont, and Jacques had blithely told him the best thing would be to try and reach his father. The fact that his father lived in a house in the main part of the village on top of a small hill overlooking some private airfield, and that this meant a long walk from where they were now, hadn’t seemed to worry Jacques. but it worried Barnes when he thought of them making their way through enemy-held streets. He made the effort and was walking out to give instructions to Reynolds when he stopped in the doorway in surprise. Colburn was whistling under his breath, a tuneless melody. Colburn was in his element as he explored more boxes.
‘Barnes, there’s wire here – there’s even some phosphorus. This goddamned truck is one huge potential bomb…’
‘Well, we shan’t be needing any bombs,’ Barnes replied, his voice edged with irritation.
‘Can’t understand the bastards leaving this lot unguarded.’
‘They haven’t got enough men to guard their own stuff according to Jacques.’
‘This I could really do something with, Barnes. I haven’t had my hands on such a hoard since I joined the RAF. If I’d bumped into this outfit instead of your own mob I could really have earned my daily bread. And say, look you here…’
Barnes wasn’t too interested in Colburn’s enthusiasms and the Canadian’s burst of energy seemed to underline his own state of desperate fatigue to an extent which made him feel more irritable than ever. He spoke quickly.
‘I’m off with Jacques now. Reynolds is staying with Bert next door so you’ll have someone to chat to.’
Tm quite happy here. You’re going to Jacques’ father’s place?,’
‘I doubt if we’ll get that far.’
‘The old boy might know what’s what. And watch yourself – we don’t want any nasty accidents now we’re at the end of the line.’
‘That’s right. So for Pete’s sake, Colburn, don’t drop one of those detonators.’
Barnes checked his watch, Penn’s watch. 2.25 am. Ninety minutes to dawn. The recce was. completed and they were almost home, if you could call ‘home’ three outbuildings they had never known before, one of them stuffed with high-explosive. He looked back along the silent street and saw Jacques a long way behind him – Jacques who was still a problem because the village of Lemont was abandoned, all the inhabitants either evacuated or driven away by the Germans when the tide of war had rolled this way. The lad waved a hand and pointed ahead, an unnecessary precaution because Barnes was already trying to locate the German sentry they had skirted on their way in. He had been standing on guard outside a small single-storey house where light had shown round the edges of drawn blinds. On the outskirts of Lemont all the houses were single storey and this was the only house which had shown any sign of life in the deserted tree-lined street. Who was hidden behind those drawn blinds? And where was that damned sentry now? The empty motor-cycle and side-car was still parked in front of the house.
He took several cautious steps forward again and halted. He could still see the light round the blinds but the sentry had vanished. It worried Barnes and he glanced back again to make sure that the lad was still behind him. Jacques opened his hands to express puzzlement and Barnes knew that he also had spotted the sentry’s absence. The only thing to do was to go round the back way as they had before, but cautiously. He held up a warning hand to indicate to Jacques that he should stay well back and then he crept forward, turning down a path which led between the houses.
His nerves were keyed up tautly, his mind oscillating between two impulses – the need for caution on the last lap and the need to move quickly because they were running out of time just when he had found his supreme objective. The path was bordered with shoulder-high stone walls and he knew that when the path turned at the bottom the walls continued along the backs of the houses. Keeping his head down, his revolver in bis hand, he crept past a closed gate let into the wall. He was concentrating on placing his feet carefully because he remembered that there was a deep ditch on the left. Perhaps he heard something at the last moment. He might even have started to turn his head, but he could never remember the details afterwards. A rifle butt struck his head with such vicious force that he lost consciousness immediately…
When he woke up he knew that he was going to be sick, but he forced it down into the churning pit of his stomach. His wound ached abominably but now the pounding hammer was at work inside his head, and because it felt hollow he seemed to receive each blow twice as the blows echoed. Get a grip on yourself, man. With an immense effort he forced open eyelids which felt to be made of lead. A blinding light hit him, so he closed them quickly. A voice spoke gutturally. In English.
‘So pleased you are recovering, Sergeant Barnes.’
Barnes jerked his eyes open a fraction and peered through slitted lids. From behind the lamp a uniformed arm appeared and lowered the light cone so that it shone on to the desk. The arm belonged to a thin-faced man of about thirty who wore the uniform of a German officer. Glancing round the darkened room Barnes could see no sign of Jacques; the French lad must have escaped into the village during the ambush.
‘Tell me when you are ready to speak,’ the German suggested.
Barnes swore inwardly. He was seated in a high-backed wooden chair and his wrists were bound with wire to the arms. When he tried to shift his body surreptitiously he felt a broad band strapped round his waist; only his legs were still free. They had sewed him up nicely. Another uniformed officer appeared from behind his chair and like his colleague behind the desk he was wearing bis peaked cap. He spread pine needles along the desk under the cone of light, arranging them carefully in varying lengths, apparently taking no notice of Barnes while he completed his little display. Barnes gritted his teeth, wondering whether the prelude to torture was a bluff to sap his nerves. The officer behind the desk spoke.
‘I am Major Berg. You, of course, are Sergeant Barnes.’ He lifted a British Army pay-book off the desk and waved it. ‘And if you are wondering why I speak such good English it is since I was military attache in London before the war.’ His voice changed and he spoke rapidly, his manner bleak. ‘Barnes, where is your unit and from where will the British be attacking us in the rear?’