Midnight Never Comes

The old man stood there, indecision on his face and Donner slapped him on the shoulder. 'Five hundred apiece for you and Rory when I get back this evening. After that, you can go where you want.'

Munro's eyes brightened. 'By God, that's money, Mr. Donner. Real money.'

'Get to it then.' Donner said and the old man turned and went out quickly.

Donner put on his cap and picked up his gloves. 'You are leaving now?' Stavrou said in Russian.

'I've one small thing to attend to first,' Donner said. 'Come with me.'

He went out into the hall, mounted the stairs quickly and moved along the landing. When he opened the door to Ruth Murray's room, she was lying on the bed, a glass in her hand.

She put it down and got to her feet. 'Max, darling, I haven't seen you all day.'

When she was close enough, he struck her heavily in the face, knocking her back across the bed. She got to her feet again, dazed, blood on her lip.

'What is it, Max? What have I done?'

'You bitch,' he said savagely. 'You told Asta about her mother-about what happened at Lesbos.'

She looked genuinely bewildered. 'No. Max! No-it isn't possible.'

He picked up the brandy decanter and held it front of her face. 'It was this-don't you realise? You were drunk, as you always are. So damned drunk you didn't know what you were doing.'

He tossed the decanter across the room and shoved her back on to the bed. She was completely sober, her eyes wide with horror. 'I didn't mean it, Max. I didn't mean any harm.'

'You never do, angel.'

'What are you going to do?' she whispered hoarsely.

'Do?' He smiled coldly. 'I'm going to give you to Stavrou.'

She shook her head several times from side to side. 'No, Max, you wouldn't do that.'

'Wouldn't I?' Donner said and he turned and went out, closing the door behind him.

Stavrou stood looking down at her, no expression on the cold, cruel face and then he did something she had never known him do before. He laughed.

As he took his first step towards her, she screamed and staggered to her feet, pushing a chair between them. He kicked it to one side as negligently as one might kick a football and she turned and ran to the French windows, wrenching them open so violently that a pane of glass shattered.

But there was no way out. The balcony led nowhere except to the stone terrace at the front of the house forty feet below. She turned and as Stavrou appeared in the window, gave a heart-rending cry and flung herself over the rail.

The cell into which they pushed Chavasse had a barred grill in the door, but no window and when the door closed behind him he found himself in almost total darkness. There was a rustle on the other side of the room and he was aware of a darker shadow against the wall, the white blur of a face.

'Who's there?' he said sharply.

'Ah, English,' the other said, speaking with a slight accent. 'How interesting. Presumably you are on our side?'

'That depends very much on who you are,' Chavasse said.

'Allow me to introduce myself. Gunther von Bayern, Colonel, Military Intelligence Corps, German Army. You don't mind if I call it that, do you? As far as I'm concerned there is only one.'

'Chavasse-Paul Chavasse.'

'Ah, French?'

'And English. You wouldn't have such a thing as a cigarette would you?'

'Be my guest.'

The face that leapt out of the darkness when the match flared was wedge-shaped, the skin drawn tightly over high cheekbones. The eyes were black and flecked with amber and seemed to change colour in the flickering light. He was about forty-five, a handsome, smiling man with a deceptively lazy drawl that didn't fool Chavasse for one minute.

'Wasn't there a Captain Bailey with you?'

Von Bayern nodded. 'Our liaison officer. Poor fellow, when we drove into the courtyard of this damned place and found ourselves under the guns of men who were apparently soldiers in my own army, he tried to make a run for it.'

'They gunned him down?'

'I'm afraid so. Don't you think it's about time you told me what this is all about?'

Chavasse crouched down beside him and started to talk. It took a surprisingly short time and when he finished, von Bayern chuckled softly. 'You know, one really must give credit where it is due. The plan has all the simplicity of genius.'

'And it will work,' Chavasse said. 'It will work and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.'

Footsteps sounded in the passage outside and when he hurried to the grill, he saw Asta going past with Stavrou. When he called, she turned and hurried across.

'Are you all right, Paul?'

'Fine, angel.'

Von Bayern's face appeared beside him. 'May I have the pleasure of an introduction?'

'Asta Svensson-Gunther von Bayern.'

'Distinctly my pleasure,' von Bayern said, and Stavrou, scowling, dragged her away.

They heard a door slam further down the passage, a key turn in the lock and Stavrou went past on his own.

'A nasty looking piece of work, that one,' von Bayern observed.

'Stavrou?' Chavasse nodded. 'He's supposed to be Greek.'

Von Bayern shook his head. 'Definitely from east of the Urals. I fought too many of his breed in my youth to be mistaken.'

He offered Chavasse another cigarette and they sat down on an old wooden packing case. 'A charming girl, by the way. Are you in love with her?'

'You don't pull your punches, do you?'

'My dear Paul-you don't mind if I call you that, do you? There really isn't time for any other approach. Life is always cruel, usually unjust and often very wonderful in between. It pays to recognise those moments.'

'You're a strange one,' Chavasse said. 'Here we are, condemned to rot in this dump for an unspecified period while the world crumbles around us and you philosophise. What does it take to depress you?'

Von Bayern chuckled. 'I was in Stalingrad-in fact I am one of the few men I know who actually got out of Stalingrad. Everything else in my life has been a distinct improvement. It would be impossible for it to be anything else.'

There was a sudden rattle at the door and when Chavasse turned, Hector Munro leered in at them through the grill. 'Well, well, now, isn't that nice?' he said. 'Is it warm enough for you, Mr. Chavasse?'

Chavasse moved across to the door and looked out at him. 'Where's Donner? I'd like to speak to him.'

'He left better than an hour ago,' Hector Munro chuckled. 'You're in my care now, my brave wee mannie. Now I am going to eat my fill of Mr. Donner's good food and drink my fill of Mr. Donner's fine whisky. Maybe in a couple of hours or perhaps three I'll be back to see if you've frozen to death.'

His laughter echoed back to them as he went up the steps and the door at the top shut with harsh finality.

Donner stood in the wheelhouse of the LCT and looked through a porthole at the length of the ship. The hold was a steel shell and the Bedford troop carrier and the olive green staff car belonging to their party seemed to be the only cargo. Beyond were the great steel bow doors of the beaching exit.

The sea was choppy with a slight breeze from the north-west and although the mist and the rain had reduced visibility, they had made good time from Mallaig.

The captain, a second lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Transport, a fair-haired young man in a heavy white polo sweater, came in from the bridge and gave the helmsman an order.

'Port five.'

'Port five of wheel on, sir.'

'Steady now.'

'Steady. Steering two-o-three, sir.'

Donner opened his silver case and turned to Murdoch. 'Cigarette, Captain Bailey?'

'Thank you, sir.'

The young lieutenant turned. 'Not long now, sir. About another twenty minutes.'

Donner moved to the porthole and looked out. In the middle distance and looking surprisingly large, he saw the islands; Barra, Sandray and Fhada to the south.