in about 1937 with plenty of time to set himself up with a solid cover
perhaps two. His loner instincts are honed sharp by the spying game.
When war breaks out, he considers himself licensed to kill." He looked
at the photograph on his desk.
"He's a handsome fellow."
It was a picture of the running team of the toth Hanoverian Jaeger
Battalion. Faber was in the middle, holding a cup. He had a high
forehead, with cropped hair; a long chin; and a small mouth decorated
with a narrow moustache.
Godliman passed the picture to Billy Parkin.
"Has he changed much?"
"He looks a lot older, but that might be his... bearing." He studied
the photograph thoughtfully.
"His hair is longer now, and the moustache has gone." He passed the
picture back across the desk.
"But it's him, all right."
"There are two more items in the file, both of them conjectural,"
Godliman said.
"First, they say he may have gone into Intelligence in 1933 that's the
routine assumption when an officer's record just stops for no apparent
reason. The second item is a rumour, unconfirmed by any reliable
source, that he spent some years as a confidential advisor to Stalin,
using the name Vasily Zankov."
"That's incredible," Bloggs said.
"I don't believe that."
Godliman shrugged.
"Somebody persuaded Stalin to execute the cream of his officer corps
during the years Hitler rose to power."
Bloggs shook his head, and changed the subject.
"Where do we go from here?"
Godliman considered.
"Let's have Sergeant Parkin transferred to us. He's the only man we
know who has actually seen Die Nadel. Besides, he knows too much for
us to risk him in the front line: he could get captured and
interrogated, and give the game away. Next, make a first-class print
of this photo, and have the hair thickened and the moustache
obliterated by a re-touch artist. Then we can distribute copies."
"Do we want to start a hue and cry?" Bloggs said doubtfully.
"No. For now, let's tread softly. If we put the thing in the
newspapers he'll get to hear of it, and vanish. Just send the photo to
police forces for the time being."
"Is that all?"
"I think so. Unless you've got other ideas."
Parkin cleared his throat.
"Sir?"
"Yes."
"I really would prefer to go back to my unit. I'm not really the
administrative type, if you know what I mean."
"You're not being offered a choice, Sergeant. At this stage of the
conflict, one Italian village more or less makes no difference but this
man Faber could lose us the war. As the Americans say, I'm not
kidding."
ELEVEN
Faber had gone fishing.
He was stretched out on the deck of a thirty-foot boat, enjoying the
spring sunshine, moving along the canal at about three knots. Ctoe
lazy hand held the tiller, the other rested on a rod which trailed its
line in the water behind the boat.
He hadn't caught a thing all day.
As well as fishing, he was bird-watching both out of interest (he was
actually getting to know quite a lot about the damn birds) and as an
excuse for carrying binoculars. Earlier today he had seen a
kingfisher's nest.
The people at the boatyard in Norwich had been delighted to rent him
the vessel for a fortnight. Business was bad: they had only two boats
nowadays, and one of them had not been used since Dunkirk. Faber had
thrown in a locker of tinned food.
He had bought bait in a shop nearby; the fishing tackle he had brought
from London. They had observed that he had nice weather for it, and
wished him good fishing. Nobody even asked to see his identity card.
So far, so good.
The difficult bit was to come. For assessing the strength of an army
was difficult. First you had to find it.
In peacetime the Army would put up its own road signs to help you. Now
they had taken down, not only their own but everyone else's road
signs.
The simple solution would be to get in a car and follow the first
military vehicle you saw until it stopped. However, Faber had no car;
it was nearly impossible for a civilian to hire one; and even if you
got one you couldn't get petrol for it. Besides, a civilian driving
around the countryside following Army lorries and looking at Army camps
was liable to be arrested.
Hence the boat.
Some years ago, before it had become illegal to sell maps, Faber had
discovered that Britain had thousands of miles of inland waterways. The
original network of rivers had been augmented during the nineteenth
century by a spider-web of canals. In some areas there was almost as
much waterway as there was road. Norfolk was one of these areas.
The boat had many advantages. On a road, a man was going somewhere: on
a river he was just sailing. Sleeping in a parked car was conspicuous:
sleeping in a moored boat was natural. The waterway was lonely. And
who ever heard of a canal-block?
There were disadvantages. Airfields and barracks had to be near
roads, but they were located without reference to access by water.
Faber had to explore the countryside at night, leaving his moored boat
and tramping the hillsides by moonlight, exhausting forty-mile round
trips during which he could easily miss what he was looking for because
of the darkness or because he simply did not have enough time to check
every square mile of land.
When he returned, a couple of hours after dawn, he would sleep until
midday then move on, stopping occasionally to climb a nearby hill and
check the outlook. At locks, isolated farmhouses and riverside pubs he
would talk to people, hoping for hints of a military presence. So far
there had been none.
He was beginning to wonder whether he was in the right area. He had
tried to put himself in General Patton's place, thinking: If I were
planning to invade France east of the Seine from a base in eastern
England, where would I locate that base? Norfolk was obvious: a vast
expanse of lonely countryside, plenty of flat ground for aircraft,
close to the sea for rapid departure. And the Wash was a natural place
to gather a fleet of ships. However, his guesswork might be wrong for
reasons unknown to him. Soon he would have to consider a rapid move
across country to a new area: perhaps the Fens.
A lock appeared ahead of him, and he trimmed his sails to slow his
pace. He glided gently into the lock and bumped softly against the
gates. The lock-keeper's house was on the bank. Faber cupped his
hands around his mouth and hallooed. Then he settled down to wait. He
had learned that lock-keepers were a breed that could not be hurried.
Moreover, it was tea-time, and at tea-time they could hardly be moved
at all.
A woman came to the door of the house and beckoned. Faber waved back,
then jumped on to the bank, tied up the bo
at, and went into the house.
The lock-keeper was in his shirt-sleeves at the kitchen table. He
said: "Not in a hurry, are you?"
Faber smiled.
"Not at all."
"Pour him a cup of tea. Mavis."
"No, really," Faber said politely.
"It's all right, we've just made a pot."
"Thank you." Faber sat down. The little kitchen was airy and clean,
and his tea came in a pretty china cup.
"Fishing holiday?" the lock-keeper asked.
"Fishing and bird-watching," Faber answered.
"I'm thinking of tying-up quite soon and spending a couple of days on
land."
"Oh, aye. Well, best keep to the far side of the canal, then.
Restricted area this side."
Really? I didn't know there was Army land hereabouts."
"Aye, it starts about half a mile from here. As to whether it's Army,
I wouldn't know. They don't tell me."
"Well, I suppose we don't need to know," Faber said.
"Aye. Drink up, then, and I'll see you through the lock. Thanks for
letting me finish my tea."
They left the house, and Faber got into the boat and untied it. The
gates behind him closed slowly, and then the keeper opened the sluices.
The boat gradually sank with the level of the water in the lock, then
the keeper opened the front gates.
Faber made sail and moved out. The lock-keeper waved.
He stopped again about four miles away and moored the boat to a stout
tree on the bank. While he waited for night to fall he made a meal of
tinned sausage-meat, dry biscuits, and bottled water. He dressed in
his black clothes, put into a shoulder-bag his binoculars, camera, and
copy of Rare Birds of East Anglia, pocketed his compass and picked up
his torch. He was ready.
He doused the hurricane lamp, locked the cabin door, and jumped on to
the bank. Consulting his compass by torchlight, he entered the belt of
woodland alongside the canal.
He walked due south from his boat for about half a mile until he hit
the fence. It was six feet high, chicken-wire, with coiled barbed wire
on top. He backtracked into the wood and climbed a tall tree.
There was scattered cloud above. The moon showed through fitfully.
Beyond the fence was open land, a gentle rise. Faber had done this
sort of thing before, at Biggin Hill,Aldershot, and a host of military
areas all over Southern England. There were two levels of security: a
mobile patrol around the perimeter fence, and stationary sentries at
the installations.
Both could be evaded by patience and caution.
Faber came down the tree and returned to the fence. He concealed
himself behind a bush and settled down to wait.
He had to know when the mobile patrol passed this point. If they did
not come until dawn, he would simply return the following night. If he
was lucky, they would pass shortly. From the apparent size of the area
under guard he guessed they would only make one complete tour of the
fence each night.
He was lucky. Soon after ten o'clock he heard the tramp of feet, and
three men marched by on the inside of the fence.
Five minutes later Faber crossed the fence.
He walked due south: when all directions are equal, a straight line is
best. He did not use his flashlight. He kept close to hedges and
trees when he could, and avoided high ground where he might be
silhouetted against a sudden flash of moonlight. The sparse
countryside was an abstract in black, grey and silver. The ground
underfoot was a little soggy, as if there might be marshes nearby. A
fox ran across a field in front of him, as fast as a greyhound, as
graceful as a cat.
It was 11.30 p.m. when he came across the first indications of military
activity and very odd indications they were.
The moon came out and he saw, perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead,
several rows of one-storey buildings laid out with the unmistakable
precision of an Army barracks. He dropped to the ground immediately,
but he was already doubting the reality of what he apparently saw; for
there were no lights and no noise.
He lay still for ten minutes, to give explanations a chance to emerge,
but nothing happened except that a badger lumbered into view, saw him,
and made off.
Faber crawled forward.
As he got closer he realized that the barracks were not just
unoccupied, but unfinished. Most of them were little more than a roof
supported by corner posts Some had one wall.
A sudden sound stopped him: a man's laugh. He lay still and watched. A
match flared briefly and died, leaving two glowing red spots in one of
the unfinished huts: guards.
Faber touched the stiletto in his sleeve, then began to crawl again,
making for the side of the camp away from the sentries.
The half-built huts had no floors and no foundations. There were no
construction vehicles around, no wheelbarrows, concrete mixers, shovels
or piles of bricks. A mud track led away from the camp across the
fields, but spring grass was growing in the ruts: it had not been used
much lately.
It was as if someone had decided to billet ten thousand men here, then
changed his mind a few weeks after building started.
Yet there was something about the place that did not quite fit that
explanation.
Faber walked around softly, alert lest the sentries should take it into
their heads to make a patrol. There was a group of military vehicles
in the centre of the camp. They were old and rusting, and had been de
gutted none had an engine or any interior components. But if one was
going to cannibalize obsolete vehicles, why not take the shells for
scrap?
Those huts which did have a wall were on the outermost rows, and their
walls faced out. It was like a movie set, not a building site.
Faber decided he had learned all he could from this place. He walked
to the east edge of the camp, then dropped to his hands and knees and
crawled away until he was out of sight behind a hedge. Half a mile
farther on, near the top of a rise, he looked back. Now it looked
exactly like a barracks again.
The glimmer of an idea formed in his mind. He gave it time.
The land was still relatively flat, relieved only by gentle folds.
There were patches of woodland and marshy scrub which Faber took
advantage of. Once he had to detour around a lake, its surface a
silver mirror under the moon. He heard the hoot of an owl, and looked
in that direction to see a tumbledown barn in the distance.
Five miles on, he saw the airfield.
There were more planes here than he thought were possessed by the
entire Royal Air Force. There were Pathfinders to drop flares,
Lancasters and American Boys for softening-up bombing, Hurricanes and
Spitfires and Mosquitoes for reconnaissance and strafing: enough planes
for an invasion.
Without exception their undercarriages had sunk into the soft earth,
and they were up to their bellies in mud.
Once again there were no lights and no noise.
Faber followed the same procedure, crawling
flat toward the planes
until he located the guards. In the middle of the airfield was a small
tent. The faint glow of a lamp shone through the canvas. Two men,
perhaps three.
As Faber approached the planes they seemed to become flatter, as if
they had all been squashed.
He reached the nearest and touched it in amazement. It was a piece of
half-inch plywood, cut out in the outline of a Spitfire, painted with
camouflage, and roped to the ground.
Every other plane was the same.
There were more than a thousand of them.
Faber got to his feet, watching the tent from the corner of his eye,
ready to drop to the ground at the slightest sign of movement. He
walked all around the phoney airfield, looking at the phoney fighters
and bombers, connecting them with the movie-set barracks, reeling at
the implications of what he had found.
He knew that if he continued to explore he would find more airfields
like this, more half-built barracks. If he went to the Wash he would
find a fleet of plywood destroyers and troop ships.