Pursuit of Passy Page 31

  ******

  I sat next to the girl again and watched the daylight fading outside the window. It was nearly dark now. Zero hour. My tummy felt quite empty with hunger and apprehension.

  Carnac stood up quietly. I drew a deep breath, squeezed the girl's hand in farewell and followed him into the corridor. We talked outside in low tones.

  “How are we going to find him?” I asked. “The blinds will probably be drawn, and if a couple of French civilians start opening all the doors to see who's inside, the Hun officers will be pretty annoyed.”

  “I know,” said Carnac, “but we shall have to examine every compartment, all the same. It's the only way, but this is how we'll do it. I shall walk straight in and say that there is a complaint about the black-out on the train, and I have to examine the curtains. It's a pity I haven't some uniform, but we shall have to bluff it out the best we can. You take this—” he pulled out his revolver and slipped it into my hand—“and stand just behind me so that Passy won't see you when we open his door. As soon as you see him, shoot him immediately and make sure you hit him whatever happens because it's our last chance.

  “I'll jump back into the corridor again, slam the door to stop the others coming out and then you run down the corridor and shoot anybody who tries to interfere. I shall be just behind you and we'll jump out through the door at the end.”

  “M'm,” I said doubtfully. It sounded a hell of a scheme to me. If the train is rocking along at this speed we shall land with a bit of a bump.

  “Quite,” said Carnac serenely. “But he will be dead too.”

  “O.K., you madman,” I said. “You know that French proverb, don't you, ‘mangé du lion.’ It was written for you.”

  He laughed. I slipped the safety catch off the revolver and put it in my pocket, muttered a quick prayer and we started to make our way up the train.

  That journey along the swaying and crowded corridor seemed interminable. Carnac elbowed his way along vigorously with me hard on his heels and after passing along about five coaches we came to a door. “This was locked,” he said, and then gave a grunt of satisfaction as he opened it. Somebody had been very helpful in the meantime.

  We were now in the first class carriages. Several German officers stood talking and smoking in the corridor, their light collar patches and glowing cigarettes showing up plainly in the dim blue light. Probably most of them were returning to Germany on leave.

  Carnac stopped at the first compartment and I closed up right behind him as he opened the door, my finger curled round the trigger in my pocket. I wondered if his bluff would work.

  The door slid open and he stepped firmly into the brightly lit compartment. I glanced over his shoulder—no sign of Passy but lots of Huns.

  “Pardon, messieurs, there was a complaint at the last station about light from this train, but I see your curtains are in position” —and he stepped back again and closed the door before anybody could reply. Just too easy.

  We brushed past the Germans with a muttered “Pardon,” and Carnac opened the next door and stepped in. Again no Passy; Carnac said his little piece quickly and we went to the next compartment and so on without any results.

  There were now only three more compartments to search. He was bound to be in one of them. Steady, steady, it's coming in a second now. My mouth was dry with suspense.

  We opened the next door. I saw immediately that Passy wasn't there either. A German officer was lying full length along one seat reading a magazine and two others sat opposite him. The recumbent one raised his head as Carnac walked in and glared angrily at the interruption. He was a thin, sharp-faced fellow with a bald head and a pair of beady eyes like an alert sparrow.

  He said curtly, “What do you want?” and Carnac without a trace of anxiety made his explanation about the lights being visible.

  “Well,” said the German in a more moderate tone, “there’s nothing wrong here, you can see that.”

  “Oui, Herr Offizier.” Carnac turned round to come out.

  And then the catastrophe happened, suddenly and all the more devastating because it was so unexpected, the final blow of our bad luck.

  I was just backing out of the door when I became aware that somebody was standing behind me waiting to come in. I turned round and found myself face to face with Hauptmann Konrath.

  He recognised me immediately.

  “Why, Herr Broussard,” he said. “Fancy meeting you again like this. I thought you were going back to America.”

  “Yes, but I'm. spending a few days in Cologne first,” I said desperately. “What are you doing—going on leave?”

  Anything to get this conversation over before the people in the compartment began to notice it. I glanced round again and saw the look of deep concern on Carnac's face, and over his shoulder I saw the sharp-faced officer sit up again. He'd overheard Konrath's remark and the familiar tone in which it was uttered.

  “Wait a minute,” he said sharply to Konrath. “Do you know these men?”

  “I know this one,” said Konrath with a nod at me. “I met him last night—he's an American called Broussard. What's the matter?”

  “So,” said the officer, staring at me hard with his piercing eyes. “Herr Broussard, an American, eh? And what little game are you up to, pretending to look at my curtains?”

  I shifted my left leg slightly and said, “I don't know what you—” and then suddenly grabbed Konrath round the waist and heaved him forward across my outstretched leg. He lurched forward and collapsed on the seat by the officer.

  I sprang back into the corridor with Carnac just behind me and heard the bang as he slammed the door. We tore down towards the end of the carriage, brushed past two surprised Germans and then I felt the train shudder as the brakes were applied violently. Somebody had been obliging enough to pull the alarm handle. I believe it saved our necks.

  I fumbled with the door for an awful second and then it swung open. I jumped straight out and landed on the ground with a terrific bump and rolled over and over, breathless and dazed.

  I sat up stupidly and heard Carnac's voice somewhere near me saying urgently, “Peter, Peter, where are you?”

  “Here,” I muttered. He loomed up out of the darkness beside me, seized my arm and dragged me off the line.

  The red tail light of the train was stationery a short distance away. It had stopped very quickly and there was a confused murmur of men shouting. They would be running back along the line.

  We stumbled on in the darkness and then Carnac pulled me down and we lay very still and listened. For some minutes torches were flashed along the line, there was more shouting, and then the lights moved back towards the train and a little later it started again. The red tail light drew away and vanished in the darkness, bearing with it our quarry into the heart of the Reich where we could not hope to follow him.

  We had failed and this was the end.