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By the same author
The Labyrinth Makers
The Alamut Ambush
Colonel Butler's Wolf
October Men
Other Paths to Glory
Our Man in Camelot
War Game
The '44 Vintage
Tomorrow's Ghost
The Hour of the Donkey Soldier
No More The Old Vengeful
Gunner Kelly Sion Crossing
ANTHONY PRICE
Here Be Monsters
GRAFTON BOOKS
For Shirley and John Kasik
Grafton Books
A Division of the Collins Publishing Group
Grafton Street, London W1X 3LA
Published by Grafton Books
First published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz Ltd 1985 "
Copyright © Anthony Price 1985 ISBN 0-586-06961-
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Collins, Glasgow
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Set in Times
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
PROLOGUE:
The Pointe du Hoc, 1944-
He had been there before, but that other time he had arrived under the protection of darkness, and had departed fearfully in the half-light, with the dawn at his heels. So he had never seen the place before in his life.
What surprised him most was the grass. Somehow he hadn't expected the grass, although it must have been there then - some of it at least must have survived the Texas and the Satterlee and the bombers. But all he could remember from the darkness was a dreadful confusion of shell-holes and bomb-craters, occasionally and inadequately illuminated by dim torchlight and the distant flash of battle flickering from Omaha and Utah.
So the grass had surprised him, not the silence - not the silence, even though the sounds of that other time were what he chiefly remembered, far more than the fear and the excitement: the natural sound of the sea on the beach below, the crunch of boots on the pebbles… and the human sounds, of whole men whispering and cursing, and wounded men crying and cursing; and the inhuman noises, of the guns far away on the beaches, and far too close from the undefined Ranger perimeter just up ahead.
But those sounds, although he could still remember them rationally, no longer echoed in his head. They were part of a fading past, unlike the surprising grass.
And it was treacherous grass , too: it had been scuffed and trampled by yesterday's crowds, so that when he had been tempted away from the path to take an unwise look into one of the larger craters - a foolish, irrational temptation to see just what sort of hole one of those 14-inch shells from the Texas had made - he had slipped on the edge, and had sat down painfully on his bottom and slid half-way into the crater, scrabbling with heels and fingers.
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Then the boy had appeared from nowhere - of all people, a nice solicitous American boy, just like Ronnie at the same age - just like Ronnie, coming to him down by the lake in front of the cabin, when he had hooked himself carelessly, and cried out, angry with his carelessness - just like Ronnie, just as helpful and vulnerable.
The boy had insisted on helping him out of the crater. And then he had shrugged him off angrily, just as he had pushed Ronnie away, all those years ago by the lake, with the hook still embedded in his flesh.
Ronnie! he thought. And with that thought all the doubts and the realities - and the unrealities - of the past fell away from him, leaving only his raw determination of the last forty-eight hours.
Ronnie had a good life, with Mary and the children - children who were almost indistinguishable from Ronnie himself now, already dating their High School sweethearts, and not at all awed by Grandpa!
And -
And he had done everything that they - They - had asked of him, so very carefully, over the years -
The path (there had been no path then, never mind the grass!) - the path was taking him close to the cliff-edge now, even offering him some sort of wooden stairway to the beach below (By God! That would have been damn useful, back in '44!).
But he had to leave the path here, to make their rendezvous.
He looked back. The boy was still there, watching him doubtfully, but he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge that concern, which would surely increase when he set off along the cliff-edge, instead of descending to the beach -
(He could remember the beach in the dark well enough, anyway: all the wreckage of the assault, and the wounded still waiting for evacuation, before his hair-raising rope-ladder climb up the cliff: he had no desire to see that beach again!)
And there was a man picking up litter around the nearest pill-box, too. And he wasn't at all sure that he hadn't been followed; although such matters were outside his remit; besides which, it might be they themselves who were watching over him; and, in any case, it was their business now; and, in the last case of all, it didn't matter now, anyway -
He had done everything they had asked of him, so carefully, so very carefully, over all the years -
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and, until now, so successfully… First, out of conviction; then in doubt, then out of necessity (even then to protect Ronnie, maybe?); and finally almost out of habit - ? But he had done it, anyway!
But now, when it mattered most or least (he honestly didn't know which now), he had given himself this last instruction of all, which would save everyone a great deal of trouble - Them, him, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Ronnie - and Ronnie and the grandchildren most of all!
He just had to find the right place, that was all.
And it had to be out of the boy's sight - and the pillbox-poking Frenchman's… and there was someone else, further away, also scavenging among the debris of yesterday's anniversary celebration…
It had to be the right place: the beach below, memory reminded him, was of pebbles and fallen rocks. But he must get the maximum height, to do it right -
It wasn't as simple as he'd thought it would be, from the recollection of that original climb, and the dark descent, when he'd had a young Ranger to shepherd him, making light of the hazards which had left him in a hot-and-cold sweat. And the grass was still treacherous and slippery.
But now he was almost out of sight of the boy. And the slipperiness of the grass was in a way a bonus: they would say ' Silly old fool! He ought to have known better than to have gone so close to the edge!' And the boy could testify that he had slipped once, already - another bonus!
Here, then? He advanced cautiously towards the edge. Beyond it, the empty sea crawled towards the invisible beach far below, from an equally invisible horizon where it joined the grey evening sky. But there wasn't a sheer drop: the edge had been gouged and smashed by the bombardment of long ago, presenting him with an unsatisfactory descent.