"Yes?" she said, then again, "Yes."
"Good,change seats then."
When she had done so, he stood looking at her, then simply nodded and headed up the track to the farmhouse on its knoll. The moonlight illuminated the path and the lawns and the white walls of Crosswinds Farm. He turned briefly and looked out to sea. Nothing. No activity. He closed his mind to all of that. It wasn't his concern.
No one challenged him, and he knocked loudly on the front door, the assumption of innocence done deliberately, with care. After a while he knocked again and heard footsteps in the hall. Drummond opened the door. He seemed perturbed, but Gilliatt excused his expression — he was a stranger to Drummond, after all.
"I'm Peter Gilliatt — sir. I was sent from London with Michael McBride."
"Oh, God," Drummond breathed in an appalled voice that could have been guilt or sadness. "Come in — Lieutenant?" Gilliatt nodded. "Of course. I— you didn't come that night, there was shooting, but I knew Michael had to be alive, probably on the run — the Germans — he's in here—"
Drummond opened the door to his study. McBride was lying comfortably and arranged and quite dead on the sofa in front of the fire. It was obvious that Drummond had been sitting opposite him, drinking. A bottle and a single glass stood on an occasional table next to the armchair. McBride's eyes were closed, his face seemed very peaceful. Gilliatt felt emotion churn in his stomach.
"What happened?"
"He — saved my life. He must have surprised the German unit hiding in the gardens—" Gilliatt looked at him narrowly. "Some of the parachute troops who landed yesterday night, I imagine. He came on them, I suppose. I heard shooting, but by the time I got my own gun, after warning London, it was all over. I found him near the door, dead, and three Germans dead in the gardens. I've seen no one since."
Gilliatt said, "He came back to kill you."
"I don't understand."
"He thought you betrayed him — the other night, when we were ambushed. We saw you then—" He studied Drummond's face, but it was merely sorrowful, half-attentive. "He was convinced you'd betrayed us, you were working with the IRA for the Germans."
"Poor Michael. He ended up saving my life." Drummond went forward into the room and stood over the body. Then he turned to Gilliatt. "I know this has been a terrible shock to you, Lieutenant Gilliatt, but have you anything to report? London is in a flap about these troops landing — my scouts have seen a few signs of them, but nothing more. Why are they here?"
Gilliatt was staring at McBride's body, in valediction. The ultimate futility of courage, he could not help thinking. To die for an error, a stupid, bigoted mistake. He wondered what had possessed McBride—
He looked up. Drummond, a senior naval officer, required his report. He nodded.
"I think I'd better talk to London, sir. How much they're aware of I don't know, but it's urgent."
"The radio's in the cellar— come."
Both men paused at the door to look back once at McBride. Then Drummond closed the door on the body, and Gilliatt decided that Maureen could remain in the car until he had made his report to London. He postponed sorrow until he had done his urgent duty.
As he waited for Drummond to unlock the door to the cellar, the hall window was suddenly illuminated by a garish orange glow from the sea.
Fitzgerald was awoken — thrust into consciousness — by the first explosion. He was tumbled from his bunk, and his head banged painfully against the bulkhead. His vision became foggy, and the weak blue light in his cabin became sinister and frightening. He scrabbled with his hands as the whole cabin lurched sideways, spilling forward, disorientating him and making him suddenly aware of the cold water of the St George's Channel beneath the ship. The cruiser was suddenly made of paper, easily crumpled.
A second explosion, banging his shoulder against the bulkhead, rolling him along the wall of the cabin — along the wain. He groaned from fear rather than pain. The blue light was extinguished, and he was in complete, cold darkness. He called out, to hear his own voice. The cruiser was listing more. Footsteps outside, drumming through the bulkhead, men cursing. Dryness still beneath his hands and knees. His genitals were chilly with anticipation of the creeping, drowning water he knew must come for him. The shudder of a more distant explosion.
Blood seeped into his left eye. He wiped roughly at it like an embarrassing tear. His body was shivering, as if registering all three explosions. His mind was clear, but could not react. He knew they were under attack, even understood that the cruiser was sinking, but there seemed no urgency. Panic was still, sedative, calming.
It was some minutes — it seemed minutes, perhaps longer, perhaps only moments? — before he felt terror return, unfreezing the icy calm. He scrambled to his feet, against the sloping bulkhead, seeming alone in the silent, dark ship, and reached for the door handle. He turned it, and pulled.
The door did not move. He heaved at the handle, but the door remained wedged and buckled into place by the effect of the two explosions.
He heard a siren, but could not be certain because he was screaming by that time and what he heard might have been the sound of his own demented voice. Siren — voice — hands banging on the door. The useless noises went on for some time, even after the cabin tilted forward. He heard the slither towards and past him of clothes and toilet gear and framed pictures of his wife and family and papers and the books he had been reading, then they stilled into an unseen heap against the forward bulkhead. Eventually, he had to grip the door handle with one hand to keep himself sufficiently upright to pound with increasing, weakening hopelessness on the cabin door. His voice had gone by that time, and it seemed the ship's siren was screaming for him.
All his awareness seemed to be in his bare feet and ankles, awaiting the arrival of the icy water that he somehow knew was already reaching through the cruiser towards him.
Churchill seemed to have acquired the company of Walsingham more exclusively than any other officer present. None of them would openly demonstrate their hostility to the Prime Minister, but they had overtly avoided Walsingham since the moment Churchill announced his decision regarding the convoy. It was as if they knew the authorship of Emerald. They may have done, but Walsingham, though he disliked the proximity of the Prime Minister because it so clearly marked him off physically from his companions, could not be disturbed by their animosity. He was bound to Churchill, Emerald would be with him for the remainder of his life — but he was beyond regretting that now. It was done, or soon would be when the report came in, and it would have either to be lived down or lived up to in the coming years and after the war.
If it was not buried efficiently by the Prime Minister— Churchill's face was blank of expression. He had drunk a good deal during the night, alternating alcohol with amounts of coffee, but he did not appear drunk so much as having slipped away from himself and from any pressure or guilts that might assail him. He seemed curiously at peace.
A telephone rang, and it was answered by a Wren. She carried the set over to Churchill.
"The Tracking Room upstairs is receiving morse from the convoy, sir."
Churchill roused himself, the face closed up around the suddenly alert eyes. The other occupants of the room stopped work, watched Churchill's broad back as he leaned over the telephone.