Ken Follett - Jackdaws

Dieter told Lieutenant Hesse to drive to the chateau at Sainte-Cecile and make sure the Gestapo were ready to cooperate. He did not want to risk being repulsed a second time by Major Weber. Hesse drove off, and Dieter went up to the suite where he had left Stephanie last night.

She got up from her chair as he walked in. He drank in the welcome sight. Her red hair fell on bare shoulders, and she wore a chestnut silk negligee and high-heeled slippers. He kissed her hungrily and ran his hands over her slim body, grateful for the gift of her beauty.

"How nice that you're so pleased to see me," she said with a smile. They spoke French together, as always.

Dieter inhaled the scent of her. "Well, you smell better than Hans Hesse, especially when he's been up all night."

She brushed his hair back with a soft hand. "You always make fun. But you wouldn't have protected Hans with your own body."

"True." He sighed and let her go. "Christ, I'm tired."

"Come to bed."

He shook his head. "I have to interrogate the prisoners. Hesse's coming back for me in an hour." He slumped on the couch.

"I'll get you something to eat." She pressed the bell, and a minute later an elderly French waiter tapped at the door. Stephanie knew Dieter well enough to order for him. She asked for a plate of ham with warm rolls and potato salad. "Some wine?" she asked him.

"No-it'll send me to sleep."

"A pot of coffee, then," she told the waiter. When the man had gone, she sat on the couch beside Dieter and took his hand. "Did everything go according to plan?"

"Yes. Rommel was quite complimentary to me." He frowned anxiously. "I just hope I can live up to the promises I made him."

"I'm sure you will." She did not ask for details. She knew he would tell her as much as he wanted to and no more.

He looked fondly at her, wondering whether to say what was on his mind. It might spoil the pleasant atmosphere-but it needed to be said. He sighed again. "If the invasion is successful, and the Allies win back France, it will be the end for you and me. You know that."

She winced, as if at a sudden pain, and let go of his hand. "Do I?"

He knew that her husband had been killed early in the war, and they had had no children. "Do you have any family at all?" he asked her.

"My parents died years ago. I have a sister in Montreal."

"Maybe we should be thinking about how to send you over there."

She shook her head. "No."

"Why?"

She would not meet his eye. "I just wish the war would be over," she muttered.

"No, you don't."

She showed a rare flash of irritation. "Of course I do."

"How uncharacteristically conventional of you," he said with a hint of scorn.

"You can't possibly think war is a good thing!"

"You and I would not be together, were it not for the war."

"But what about all the suffering?"

"I'm an existentialist. War enables people to be what they really are: the sadists become torturers, the psychopaths make brave front-line troops, the bullies and the victims alike have scope to play their roles to the hilt, and the whores are always busy."

She looked angry. "That tells me pretty clearly what part I play."

He stroked her soft cheek and touched her lips with the tip of his finger. "You're a courtesan-and very good at it."

She moved her head away. "You don't mean any of this. You're improvising on a tune, the way you do when you sit at the piano."

He smiled and nodded: he could play a little jazz, much to his father's dismay. The analogy was apt. He was trying out ideas, rather than expressing a firm conviction. "Perhaps you're right."

Her anger evaporated, and she looked sad. "Did you mean the part about us separating, if the Germans leave France?"

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. She relaxed and laid her head on his chest. He kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair. "It's not going to happen," he said.

"Are you certain?"

"I guarantee it."

It was the second time today he had made a promise he might not be able to keep.

The waiter returned with his lunch, and the spell was broken. Dieter was almost too tired to be hungry, but he ate a few mouthfuls and drank all the coffee. Afterwards he washed and shaved, and then he felt better. As he was buttoning a clean uniform shirt, Lieutenant Hesse tapped at the door. Dieter kissed Stephanie and went out.

The car was diverted around a blocked street: there had been another bombing raid overnight, and a whole row of houses near the railway station had been destroyed. They got out of town and headed for Sainte-Cecile.

Dieter had told Rommel that the interrogation of the prisoners might enable him to cripple the Resistance before the invasion-but Rommel, like any military commander, took a maybe for a promise and would now expect results. Unfortunately, there was nothing guaranteed about an interrogation. Clever prisoners told lies that were impossible to check. Some found ingenious ways to kill themselves before the torture became unbearable. If security was really tight in their particular Resistance circuit, each would know only the minimum about the others, and have little information of value. Worst of all, they might have been fed false information by the perfidious Allies, so that when they finally broke under torture, what they said was part of a deception plan.

Dieter began to put himself in the mood. He needed to be completely hard-hearted and calculating. He must not allow himself to be touched by the physical and mental suffering he was about to inflict on human beings. All that mattered was whether it worked. He closed his eyes and felt a profound calm settle over him, a familiar bone-deep chill that he sometimes thought must be like the cold of death itself.

The car pulled into the grounds of the chateau. Workmen were repairing the smashed glass in the windows and filling the holes made by grenades. In the ornate hall, the telephonists murmured into their microphones in a perpetual undertone. Dieter marched through the perfectly proportioned rooms of the east wing, with Hans Hesse in tow. They went down the stairs to the fortified basement. The sentry at the door saluted and made no attempt to detain Dieter, who was in uniform. He found the door marked Interrogation Center and went in.

In the outer room, Willi Weber sat at the table. Dieter barked, "Heil Hitler!" and saluted, forcing Weber to stand. Then Dieter pulled out a chair, sat down, and said, "Please be seated, Major."

Weber was furious at being invited to sit in his own headquarters, but he had no choice.

Dieter said, "How many prisoners do we have?"

"Three."

Dieter was disappointed. "So few?"

"We killed eight of the enemy in the skirmish. Two more died of their wounds overnight."

Dieter grunted with dismay. He had ordered that the wounded be kept alive. But there was no point now in questioning Weber about their treatment.

Weber went on, "I believe two escaped-"

"Yes," Dieter said. "The woman in the square, and the man she carried away."

"Exactly. So, from a total of fifteen attackers, we have three prisoners."

"Where are they?"

Weber looked shifty. "Two are in the cells."

Dieter narrowed his eyes. "And the third?"

Weber inclined his head toward the inner room. "The third is under interrogation at this moment."

Dieter got up, apprehensive, and opened the door. The hunched figure of Sergeant Becker stood just inside the room, holding in his hand a wooden club like a large policeman's truncheon. He was sweating and breathing hard, as if he had been taking vigorous exercise. He was staring at a prisoner who was tied to a post.

Dieter looked at the prisoner, and his fears were confirmed. Despite his self-imposed calm, he grimaced with revulsion. The prisoner was the young woman, Genevieve, who had carried a Sten gun under her coat. She was naked, tied to the pillar by a rope that passed under her arms and supported her slumped weight. Her face was so swollen that she could not have opened her eyes. Blood from her mouth covered her chin and most of her chest. Her body was discolored with angry bruises. One arm hung at an odd angle, apparently dislocated at the shoulder. Her pubic hair was matted with blood.