“You speak,” Robert managed to say evenly, “as if it were in your pocket, not mine.”
“It soon will be, my friend. Or shall we share it amicably?”
“Never.”
Christophe sighed. “Your British SOE has given me excellent training in silent methods of killing. If you refuse to give it to me, I shall have practice as well as theory before they drop me into occupied France.”
Robert quickly debated his options. He was strong enough, and a trained soldier, but he was unarmed save for his tools, which would make uncertain weapons. If this Frenchie was right about his training, Robert would stand little chance against him, unless he could take him by surprise. He estimated they were about three yards apart, although it was hard to tell in the dark. If he could knock Christophe off balance he stood a chance of escaping with the Regale while the Frenchman recovered. The tower door was close, though not quite near enough to make a run for it without first distracting Christophe. But how to take him by surprise? Robert slid his hand into his pocket and realised there was only one way. It was a risky one, but with the aid of his torch it might be possible.
He inched the stone out of his pocket, making no sudden movement, and flung it straight at where Christophe’s face must be.
He hit truer than he had dared hope, according to the Frenchman’s howl of pain as the carbuncle took him full in the face. In a flash, Robert was at his feet, scrabbling on the floor for the stone as Christophe, blood streaming from his face, dropped to the floor to clutch at him.
“A la mort, Englishman,” he hissed.
Where was the Regale? Sobbing, Robert tried to tear off the clutching hands, and just as the first crash of bombs came in the distance, he saw the ruby. Christophe wrenched his hand away and stretched it out to where it lay. But another hand reached towards it, a hand whose owner had been hidden in the darkness listening. But it was Robert, having scrambled to his feet again, who grasped it first — until Christophe tripped him, sending him crashing to the floor again. Murderous hands round his neck made him loosen his hold on the stone.
“Ta very much. Thanks, mate.” There was a whisper as the hands round his neck fell away; the words were almost drowned out by the crash of bombs on Canterbury’s ancient city. The explosions were almost overhead now.
Two of the men escaped, the other lay dead even before the bomb hit St. George’s Church.
Private Johnnie Wilson paused briefly in Canterbury Lane. The heavy bombers were screaming overhead, and more and more arriving. Was anyone following him? He looked back past the White Lion to the church. It was time to get the hell out of here and find a shelter, if no one was following him.
But someone was. A moving shape lit by the flames in the sky was coming out of the doorway. He took to his heels, all thoughts of a shelter gone. He was nearly at Butchery Lane by the time the bombs demolished half of St. George’s Street behind him.
The blast knocked him to the ground and stunned him; he was choking on the dust when he came to. Tugboat Annie was sounding; there was the noise of bombs falling and the roar of more aircraft coming in. He picked himself up and stumbled onwards, with falling masonry and fires from the incendiaries all around him. There was a split second of eerie silence, and then he could hear screams.
Was he still being followed? If so, by whom? The Englishman or the Frenchman? He’d seen the Frenchie at Canterbury Station, and as he had read the report of Wayncroft’s death in the local rag, Johnnie had guessed exactly what he was doing here.
Now he was in a hell like no artillery barrage he’d ever been through. He stayed right where he was in the middle of the road as buildings crumbled like card houses. Where he was standing seemed relatively untouched, but St. George’s Street behind him was an inferno.
Johnnie lost all sense of time, listening only to the bomb explosions. Rose Lane area seemed to have copped it badly, and the whole city was lit up by flame, smoke, and flares. Canterbury was disappearing. The road behind him was like the old pictures of Passchendaele. Where there had been pubs, shops, and the old gateway to Whitefriars monastery were now only piles of rubble and smoke. He could hear the clang of fire-engine bells, but no all-clear yet. The barrage was still going on.
St. George’s Church had been hit, but the tower was still standing, and its clock still sticking out like a yardarm. And there was someone coming after him. Automatically Johnnie took to his heels, his ears deafened by the blast. He couldn’t even think about that stone in his pocket.
“You all right, mate?” An air-raid warden caught his arm as he stumbled on.
“Yeah. I’ll give you a hand,” Johnnie replied. But he didn’t. He had a bit of a limp, a God-almighty bruise from a lump of stone or something, but nothing too bad. Even so, it was like running in a nightmare; his legs wouldn’t move as quickly as he wanted, and all the time his pursuer was gaining on him. Where should he go? Johnnie hesitated for a moment.
Then he knew the answer. Over there he could see the cathedral, still standing proud, lit up by flame. Bits of it must have been hit judging by the smoke, but the cathedral looked mainly intact. Johnnie was not a God-follower, but he knew now what he had to do. He had to get into that cathedral. It was like Saint Thomas was waiting for him.
People were coming out onto the streets, even though the all-clear had not yet gone, emerging to see the ruins of their city, or their houses, and to help where they could, though the raid was not yet over. Johnnie staggered through the gateway to the cathedral grounds, glancing back to see if he was still being followed. He bloody well was, though by whom he couldn’t tell. He had to get into that cathedral and quick. But they wouldn’t let him.
The firefighters and wardens stopped him, the officious twits. “Not in there, mate,” said one smugly. “Don’t know if it’s safe yet.”
Breathless, terrified, Johnnie remembered his battalion being brought to a service here, and that there was a door into the cloisters from the place where old Thomas a Becket met his Maker. He rushed round to the north side of the cathedral, scrambling his way into the cloisters. No bombs here, and he ran for the door into the cathedral — only to find it shut. Sobbing with fear, he turned left, for there was no way back.
At the far end was another door, but in the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of a man running to cut him off from this exit. Everywhere was noise and the smell of smoke, which was billowing out into the cloister. With relief he realised that what he’d taken to be a window was in fact the entrance to a passageway between two buildings.
Or what had been two buildings. The one he passed was more or less intact but the farther one, he saw as he reached the passageway, was a pile of smoking, smouldering rubble behind the cloister wall. It had been a library by the looks of the charred paper and leather, but there was little left save part of the far wall.
He could hear his pursuer behind him as he stumbled over the debris that had spilled into the passageway. In seconds he would be upon him, and Johnnie realised this was going to be as near as he could get to Saint Thomas. He reached the end of the passageway, clambering over the piles of smouldering rubble into what had once been a cathedral building.
He took the Regale from his pocket, and felt his pursuer’s hot breath and then his hands round his neck — just as Tugboat Annie sounded once more. For a split second they both looked up — to see part of the remaining masonry of the wall by their side about to collapse upon them. With his free arm and last ounce of strength, Johnnie tore himself free and threw the Regale into the fiery rubble of the library.