Jack Higgins - Wrath of the Lion

Even if he fetched up in the steamer lane that ran up-Channel from Ushant it would be dark in another hour. He was under no illusions about his ability to survive a night in the Channel in such a frail craft.

There were two good doubles left in the bottle of Courvoisier. He took them down slowly and tossed the empty bottle into the sea. As a thin rain drifted down on the wind he reached for the oars and started to row again.

The freshening wind dispelled the last traces of fog and an ugly chop formed on the water. He pulled steadily, staring into the gathering twilight, his mind a blank, everything he had of brain and muscle concentrated on his impossible task.

When he paused twenty minutes later and looked over his shoulder he saw to his astonishment that he was now quite close to the island. There was a slapping sound against the keel of the dinghy and it swung round, swirling past a long finger of rock, moving in fast, caught by some inshore current.

He bent to the oars with renewed vigour, forgetting the pain in his right hand, the blood that dripped steadily down. The current helped, carrying him closer inshore every minute. The waves were higher now as they pounded in over the rocks and water started to slop across the dinghy’s stern.

He heaved on the oars, trying to keep her head round, but it was too much for him. He let them go, knelt in the bottom and waited, holding on with both hands.

The cliffs were very close now, the surf white as it crashed in across the narrow beach, breaking over ledges of rock. Behind Mallory a great, heaving swell rolled in, gathering momentum, sweeping him in before it. A sudden rending crash jarred his spine. Water foamed around, spray lifting high into the air. The dinghy ground forward across jagged rocks, her boards splintering, and came to a halt, the prow wedged into a crevasse.

Mallory hung on, and as the sea receded with a great sucking noise he scrambled out of the dinghy and stumbled across the final line of rocks. A moment later he was safe on the strip of beach at the base of the cliffs.

He sat down, holding his head in his hands, and the world spun away. The taste of the sea was in his throat and he retched, bringing up a quantity of salt-water.

After a while he got to his feet and turned to examine the cliffs behind. They were no more than seventy or eighty feet high and sloped gently backwards, cracked and fissured by great gullies.

It was an easy enough climb and he scrambled over the edge a few minutes later and turned to look out to sea. The fog had disappeared completely now, but darkness was falling fast and the moon was already rising above the horizon.

He hurried through the wet grass, following the slope in a gentle curve that brought him over the edge of the hill ten minutes later on the far side of the harbour from the Grants” house.

The cove looked strangely deserted, no smoke rising from the chimney of the hotel. He was aware of Guymon’s launch, of the shooting brake tilted against a rock, the long skid-marks trailing back up the grassy slope to the road. He went down the slope on the run.

He \walked round to the front of the hotel, calling loudly without receiving any reply. When he opened the door and stepped into the bar he was already prepared for something out of the ordinary, some evidence of a struggle at least.

Jagbir and Juliette Vincente still crouched together by the bar, a pool of dried blood spreading into the rush matting.

It was very quiet, too quiet, and for a moment Mallory seemed to hear the sea roaring in his ears and there was an element of unreality to it all. It was as if none of this were really happening, and he turned and stumbled outside.

He wasted five minutes in going down to the jetty in the forlorn hope that Guymon’s launch might be seaworthy. It was almost completely dark when he breasted the hill and trotted towards the Grants” house.

He went in through the kitchen and quiet enveloped him, that strange, secret stillness a house wraps about itself when no one is there, and an overwhelming loneliness surged through him.

He spoke aloud, his voice hoarse and broken: “Anne?”

But only the house listened to him and the quiet ones. He stumbled into the sitting-room, opened the cabinet and poured himself a brandy. He stood there, sipping it quietly, remembering her here by the fireside in the soft lamplight a thousand years ago.

The darkness seemed to move in on him with a strange whispering, and he closed his eyes tightly, fighting the panic, the despair which rose inside him. The moment passed. He put down the glass and went out through the French windows.

The moon was clear and very bright, stars strung away to the horizon. When he topped the hill on the western side of the island St. Pierre and the castle were etched out of black cardboard, breathtakingly beautiful like something from a child’s fairy-tale.

Beneath him the tide was already on the turn, white water breaking across the great reef, rocks thrusting their heads into the moonlight. Minute by minute the water would continue to drop until for one brief hour a jagged causeway linked the two islands. One hour only and then the tide would come roaring in. But there was no point in thinking about that. Such had been his haste since landing from the dinghy that he had not even had time to rid himself of his lifejacket. He touched it mechanically, moved along the cliffs till he came to a sloping ravine that slanted to the beach below, and started down.

Marcel unbolted the heavy door and de Beaumont moved inside. There was no window, but the room was brightly illuminated by a naked bulb which hung from the centre of the low ceiling. Guyon and Hamish Grant sat on a couple of old packing cases, talking in low tones.

They came to their feet, the old man leaning on his walking stick. Guyon was very pale, dark circles under his eyes, and the gash on his forehead was red and angry.

“It seems I must congratulate you, Captain Guyon,” de Beaumont said calmly.

Guyon shook his head. “No need. You were doomed from the beginning. A pity you didn’t realise that a few lives ago.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure. The game isn’t over yet.”

“It will be the moment Colonel Mallory makes land.”

“And what if he doesn’t? From what I hear, Fleur de Lys was in a sinking condition when last seen.”

“You’re forgetting Granville and his wife. They must have contacted the authorities now. The sands are running out, de Beaumont. You were wrong from the start, always have been. We don’t need you and your bully-boys to tell us how to govern France.”

Marcel took a step forward and de Beaumont pushed him back. “Let him go on.”

“A country’s greatness lies in the hearts of her people, not in the size of her possessions, and France is people. In one way or another, blood and suffering is all they’ve been given since 1939 and they’ve had enough. But not you, Colonel. You couldn’t stop if you wanted to.”

“Anything I have done I have done to the greater glory of France,” de Beaumont said.

“Or the greater glory of Philippe de Beaumont? Which is it? Can you tell the difference? Have you ever been able to?”

De Beaumont’s face seemed to sag, and for the first time since Guyon had known him he looked like an old man. He turned and walked out. Marcel hesitated and then followed him. The door closed and the bolts rasped into place.

“Quite a speech,” Hamish Grant said out of the long silence which followed.

“Accomplishing precisely nothing,” Guyon said wearily, and sat down, his head in his hands.

“Worth hearing, though.” The old man patted him gently on the shoulder, resumed his seat and they waited.

De Beaumont stood in front of the great glass window of the tower room and looked out over the sea. Far, far to the west the rim of the ocean was tipped with orange fire, He de Roc dark against the sky.