Night of the Fox

5

Gallagher parked the van at the weighbridge and walked along the Albert Pier, going up the steps to the top section. He paused to light one of his French cigarettes and looked out across the bay. The fog had thinned just a little and Elizabeth Castle, on its island, looked strange and mysterious, like something out of a fairy story. Walter Raleigh had once ruled there as governor. Now Germans with concrete fortifications and gun emplacements up on top.

He looked down into the harbor. As always it was a hive of activity. The Germans used Rhine barges, among other vessels, to carry supplies to the Channel Islands. There were several moored on the far side at the New North Quay. There were a number of craft of various kinds from the 2 Vorpostenbootsflotille and two M40 Klasse minesweepers from the 24th Minesweeper Flotilla. Several cargo vessels, mostly coasters, among them the SS Victor Hugo, were moored against the Albert Pier.

Built in 1920 by Ferguson Brothers in Glasgow for a French firm engaged in the coastal trade, she had definitely seen better days. Her single smokestack was punctured in several places by cannon shell from RAF Beaufighters in an attack on one of the night convoys from Granville two weeks previously. Savary was the master with a crew of ten Frenchmen. The anti-aircraft defenses consisted of two machine guns and a Bofors gun, manned by seven German naval ratings commanded by Guido Orsini.

Gallagher could see him now on the bridge, leaning on the rail, and called in English, ‘Heh, Guido? Is Savary about?’

Guido cupped his hands. ‘In the café.’

The hut farther along the pier which served as a café was not busy, four French seamen playing cards at one table, three German sailors at another. Robert Savary, a large, bearded man in a reefer coat and cloth cap, a greasy scarf knotted at his neck, sat on his own at a table next to the window, smoking a cigarette, a bowl of coffee in front of him.

‘Robert, how goes it?’ Gallagher demanded in French and sat down.

‘Unusual to see you down here, Mon General, which means you want something.’

‘Ah, you cunning old peasant.’ Gallagher passed an envelope under the table. ‘There, have you got that?’

‘What is it?’

‘Just put it in your pocket and don’t ask questions. When you get to Granville, there’s a café in the walled city called Sophie’s. You know it?’

Savary was already beginning to turn pale. ‘Yes, of course I do.’

‘You know the good Sophie Cresson well and her husband Gerard?’

‘I’ve met them.’ Savary tried to give him the envelope back under the table.

‘Then you’ll know that their business is terrorism carried to as extreme a degree as possible. They not only shoot the Boche, they also like to make an example of collaborators, isn’t that the colorful phrase? So if I were you, I’d be sensible. Take the letter. Needless to say, don’t read it. If you do, you’ll probably never sleep again. Just give it to Sophie with my love. I’m sure she’ll have a message for me, which you’ll let me have as soon as you’re back.’

‘Damn you, General,’ Savary muttered and put the envelope in his pocket.

‘The Devil took care of that long ago. Don’t worry. You’ve nothing to worry about. Guido Orsini’s a good lad.’

‘The Count?’ Savary shrugged. ‘Flashy Italian pimp. I hate aristocrats.’

‘No Fascist, that one, and he’s probably got less time for Hitler than you have. Have you any decent cigarettes in your bag? I’m going crazy smoking that filthy tobacco they’ve been importing for the official ration lately.’

Savary looked cunning. ‘Not really. Only a few Gitanes.’

‘Only, the man says.’ Gallagher groaned aloud. ‘All right, I’ll take two hundred.’

‘And what do I get?’

Gallagher opened the bag Chevalier had given him. ‘Leg of pork?’

Savary’s jaw dropped. ‘My God, my tongue’s hanging out already. Give me.’

Gallagher passed it under the table and took the carton of cigarettes in return. ‘You know my telephone number at the cottage. Ring me as soon as you get back.’

‘All right.’

Savary got up and they went outside. Gallagher, unwilling to wait, got a packet of Gitanes out, opened it and lit one. ‘Jesus, that’s wonderful.’

‘I’ll be off then.’ Savary made a move to walk toward the gangway of the Victor Hugo.

Gallagher said softly, ‘Let me down on this one and I’ll kill you, my friend. Understand?’

Savary turned, mouth open in astonishment as Gallagher smiled cheerfully and walked away along the pier.

George Hamilton was a tall, angular man whose old Harris tweed suit looked a size too large. A distinguished physician in his day, at one time professor of pharmacology at the University of London and a consultant of Guy’s Hospital, he had retired to a cottage in Jersey just before the outbreak of war. In 1940, with the Germans expected at any day, many people had left the island, a number of doctors among them, which explained why Hamilton, an M.D. and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, was working as a general practitioner at the age of seventy.

He pushed a shock of white hair back from his forehead and stood up, looking down at Kelso on the couch. ‘Not good. He should be in hospital. I really need an x-ray to be sure, but I’d say at least two fractures of the tibia. Possibly three.’

‘No hospital,’ Kelso said faintly.

Hamilton made a sign to Helen and Gallagher, and they followed him into the kitchen. ‘If the fractures were compound – in other, words, if there was any kind of open wound, bone sticking through, then we wouldn’t have any choice. The possibility of infection, especially after all he’s been through, would be very great. The only way of saving the leg would be a hospital bed and traction.’

‘What exactly are you saying, George?’ Gallagher asked.

‘Well, as you can see, the skin isn’t broken. The fractures are what we term comminuted. It might be possible to set the leg and plaster it.’

‘Can you handle that?’ Helen demanded.

‘I could try, but I need the right conditions. I certainly wouldn’t dream of proceeding without an x-ray.’ He hesitated. ‘There is one possibility.’

‘What’s that?’ Gallagher asked.

‘Pine Trees. It’s a little nursing home in St Lawrence run by Catholic Sisters of Mercy. Irish and French mostly. They have x-ray facilities there and a decent operating theater. Sister Maria Teresa, who’s in charge, is a good friend. I could give her a ring.’

‘Do the Germans use it?’ Helen asked.

‘Now and then. Usually young women with prenatal problems, which is a polite way of saying they’re in for an abortion. The nuns, as you may imagine, don’t like that one little bit, but there isn’t anything they can do about it.’

‘Would he be able to stay there?’

‘I doubt it. They’ve very few beds and surely it would be too dangerous. The most we could do is patch him up and bring him back here.’

Gallagher said, ‘You’re taking a hell of a risk helping us like this, George.’

‘I’d say we all are,’ Hamilton told him dryly.

‘It’s vitally important that Colonel Kelso stay out of the hands of the enemy,’ Helen began.

Hamilton shook his head. ‘I don’t want to know, Helen, so don’t try to tell me, and I don’t want the nuns to be involved either. As far as Sister Maria Teresa is concerned, our friend must be a local man who’s had a suitable accident. It would help if we had an identity card for him, just in case.’

Helen turned on Gallagher. ‘Can you do anything? You managed a card for that Spanish Communist last year when he escaped from the working party at those tunnels they’ve been constructing in St Peter.’

Gallagher went to the old eighteenth-century pine desk in the corner of the kitchen, pulled out the front drawer, then reached inside and produced a small box drawer of the kind people had once used to hide valuables. There were several blank identity cards in there, signed and stamped with the Nazi eagle.

‘Where on earth did you get those?’ Hamilton asked in astonishment.

‘An Irishman I know, barman in one of the town hotels, has a German boyfriend, if you follow me. A clerk at the Feldkommandatur. I did him a big favor last year. He gave me these in exchange. I’ll fill in Kelso’s details and we’ll give him a good Jersey name. How about Le Marquand?’ He took out pen and ink and sat at the kitchen table. ‘Henry Ralph Le Marquand. Residence?’

He looked up at Helen. ‘Home Farm, de Ville Place,’ she said.

‘Fair enough. I’ll go and get the color of his eyes, hair and so on while you phone Pine Trees.’ He paused at the door. ‘I’ll enter his occupation as fisherman. That way we can say it was a boating accident. And one more thing, George.’

‘What’s that?’ Hamilton asked as he lifted the phone.

‘I’m going with you. We’ll take him up in the van. No arguments. We must all hang together, or all hang separately.’ He smiled wryly and went out.

Pine Trees was an ugly house, obviously late Victorian in origin. At some time, the walls had been faced in cement which had cracked in many places, here and there, large pieces having flaked away altogether. Gallagher drove the van into the front courtyard, Hamilton sitting beside him. As they got out, the front door opened and Sister Maria Teresa came down the sloping concrete ramp to meet them. She wore a simple black habit, a small woman with calm eyes and not a wrinkle to be seen on her face though she was in her sixties.

‘Dr Hamilton.’ Her English was good, but with a pronounced French accent.

‘This is General Gallagher. He manages de Ville Place where the patient is employed.’

‘We’ll need a trolley,’ Gallagher said.

‘There’s one just inside the door.’

He got it and brought it to the back of the van. He opened the doors, revealing Kelso lying on an old mattress, and they eased him out onto the trolley.

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