The watcher smiled. ‘Come in! Come in! Test the warmth of our welcome!’
At last, the fastidious Englishman, apparently satisfied, had returned to his car.
‘Well, if a Hispano-Suiza and a heavily laden gypsy cart can survive the trip over, I think we can do it in a Morris,’ Joe announced. ‘It’s usually safe to take the road well-travelled.’ He turned to Dorcas and grabbed her by the shoulder. Excited by the mention of the gypsy cart, she was already halfway out of the car, bare legs and sandalled feet sliding over the running board.
‘Stop wriggling and listen!’ He spoke to her in the guardian’s voice he found he had developed over the past months. ‘Look, Dorcas … last chance to say this … I’ve learned a thing or two about assessing new diggings from billeting officers. Security, hygiene and comfort. That’s what you look for. In that order. Now, I think we can probably say of this handout-walls three yards thick: secure enough! From external assault at least. But the other two requirements? Do you suppose they have running water up here? Decent kitchens and proper ablutions? Flea-free mattresses? I won’t leave you behind in dubious conditions. Aunt Lydia would have my guts for garters!’
Unusually, Dorcas did not pour scorn on his concern. She’d grown accustomed, he guessed, to the high level of cleanliness and comfort maintained in Surrey.
‘Whatever your confidence,’ he went on, ‘always plan for retreat! We learned that much at Mons. I checked with the landlord back in the village that they had rooms to spare at the inn-and the telephone.’
‘Ah! I thought you were taking your time in there.’
‘I was making myself known to Monsieur Ferro and charming his good lady. I pointed you out and sketched for them the rough outline of your situation. Motherless child … arty father … concerned but distracted uncle. I even displayed my warrant card and gave poor old Inspector Bonnefoye’s name as a referee … you can imagine. The upshot is that they’re prepared-and encouraged by a generous deposit! — to take you in at a moment’s notice. Should you want to bale out at any time, you can cut along there and present yourself. And ring me in Antibes. You have my number.’
She didn’t argue but sat back in her seat and thanked him quietly. Then, suddenly alarmed, she clutched his arm. ‘Joe, you’re not going straight off, are you? I thought you’d perhaps stay for a day or two. Meet Orlando’s friends. You might find them interesting. Pablo might be here … He usually turns up … I know Henri Matisse is due to come up from Nice to put on a teaching session like the ones he used to give in Paris. There may be a poet … a dancer or two. You can carouse with Orlando till the small hours …’ Her voice trailed away as she realized that none of her offers was likely to be attractive to a man with his sights on the Riviera.
‘One night,’ he conceded. ‘I’ve brought my sleeping bag and if they can find me some hole or corner to bunk up in, I’ll stay for one night. Long enough to make certain I’m not leaving you in a nest of robber barons, Left Bank lounge lizards or Portuguese pimps. And time enough to inspect the kitchens.’
This was not what Dorcas wanted to hear but her silence was witness to her acceptance of one further night’s protective police presence. A stab of uncertainty, Joe decided.
He was seeing the child’s quite natural response to being catapulted back into her old life. She would soon acclimatize. By the end of the week, she’d be running around brown and barefoot, screeching at her father and herding the younger children, back to being the girl he remembered meeting in the spring.
He patted the hand still clinging to his sleeve. ‘Don’t worry, Dorcas. You took the Château Houdart by storm-this one will be easier. The occupants will all be friendly and you’ll be back in the bosom of your family.’ Feeling no relaxation of her grip, he added: ‘I would never leave you in a bad situation, Dorcas. You know that.’
‘Do you mean it?’
‘Of course,’ he said stoutly. ‘Promise.’
She released his gear lever arm. ‘Sorry, Joe! Nerves. Go on then. Advance!’
The motor car started up again.
The watcher in the airy space above changed position to follow the progress of the car from the vantage point of a narrow slit which widened at the base. A slim hand reached out to touch the cool limestone that an ancient mason had gouged out and rounded to accommodate the barrel of a musket. A trigger finger slid along the groove angled and channelled precisely to aim at the centre of the grassed courtyard and paused, targeting in imagination, one of the dark heads below.
Dorcas yelped with delight at the sight of the hooded gypsy cart parked in the centre of the courtyard as they passed through the narrow entrance. Joe eased over the cobbles and on to the grass to station his Morris alongside. The midday sun beating down on the open, treeless space was, in itself, a weapon deployed against invasion. The architecture surrounding them was so bristlingly military, Joe almost expected to hear the clang of the drawbridge descending behind them, the imperious challenge of a sentry, the rattle and swish of a sword being drawn. But no unfriendly sound reached his straining ears. The clang of a metal pail and the whinny of a horse came from some depth in the building, reassuring and domestic. No human greeting followed. He sat on, hands still clenched around the steering wheel.
‘Joe? Are you all right? What’s the matter?’
He began automatically to make reassuring noises but she interrupted him. ‘Stop that! You’re making me nervous! Something’s wrong, isn’t it? You’ve gone quite pale, you can’t seem to let go of the wheel and your eyes are swivelling all over the place. Not a pretty sight! What have you seen? If I didn’t know what a thug you are, I’d say you were in a blue funk … Joe?’
Joe made an effort to ease the constriction in his throat, released the wheel and shuddered. ‘Sorry, Dorcas! Feet of clay, I’m afraid. All those years of soldiering … if you survive them, you never lose it, you know … But you’re right. Blue funk it is! You’re the only person ever to have caught me in one-or, rather, recognized it for what it is: fear. Soldier’s best friend. Keeps you alive. It’s the icicle-between-the-shoulder-blades feeling of a gun barrel sighting on you … the normally steady foot that hesitates and changes course a split second before treading down on something nasty. An instinct for survival.’
While he muttered on, his eyes were ranging round the tall curtain walls, taking in the dozens of windows and arrow slits from any one of which they could have been under surveillance. ‘Officers were the favourite targets for snipers in the war and easily distinguishable at a distance. Peaked caps, side arms. High casualty rate. Lucky to have survived. For a moment I had a distinct and familiar feeling that someone was drawing a bead on me. Ridiculous! Going a bit barmy? But, of course-when you think about it-I was reacting just as the military architect intended. Freezing like a trapped rabbit! All these defences are carefully worked out and we seem to have parked ourselves right in the centre of an ancient killing ground. The earth under our tyres is probably steeped in blood! I wouldn’t give much for the chances of any rough-tough army of medieval routiers with pillage in mind making it through to the keep from here, would you?’
‘But you’re not going mad, Joe. There was something moving up there,’ Dorcas agreed slowly, staring upwards. He noticed that she didn’t point and looked quickly away. ‘I caught a flash of something white. Up there in that turret. North-eastern, would that be?’
Her voice changed from calming to startled and she gasped as, with a clatter and whoosh of wings, a flock of birds soared into the air. They eddied and swirled and with one mind descended on a different turret roof. Dorcas exclaimed with pleasure and relief. ‘Well, you can come off watch now, Joe! But we weren’t wrong, were we? The lookout turret was occupied. By peaceful white doves!’