Buchan Light of the Moon

'Genuine tension and excitement ... an excellent novel' Philippa Gregory, Sunday Times
Main
ISBN: 978-1-83895-538-0
Verlag: Corvus
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 576 Seiten

Lose yourself in the captivating novels by bestselling author Elizabeth Buchan, perfect if you love Harriet Evans or Deborah Moggach. I thought loving someone was simple. It isn't. Glorious, yes. Painful, yes. Unforgettable, yes. Simple, no. It took me the war to find out... Evelyn St. John has been parachuted into France to link up with the Resistance and to work undercover. Paul von Hoch's brief, as a member of the German Intelligence, is to track down enemy spies. When Evelyn and Paul meet and fall in love, their feelings for one another are fierce, but can never be uncomplicated. And when the battle lines shift, and patriotism gives way to deeper truths, they will both face the gravest of challenges.

Elizabeth Buchan was a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include the prize-winning Consider the Lily, international bestseller Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The New Mrs Clifton and The Museum of BrokenPromises. Buchan's short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She has reviewed for the Sunday Times, The Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes. She was a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for the 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and co-founder of the Clapham Book Festival. elizabethbuchan.com

Autoren/Hrsg.

Buchan, Elizabeth

Leseproben

CHAPTER TWO

A COVERED ARMY TRUCK WAITED AT GUILDFORD Station for the two women and four men who climbed into the back and were hidden from view. It headed in the direction of Wanborough Manor, a journey which normally took ten minutes but, for security reasons, the driver deliberately spun it out into an hour so that his passengers lost all sense of direction. Eventually, he climbed up the Hog’s Back and dropped down over the brow towards the seventeenthcentury manor house, flanked by a medieval tithe barn and a Saxon chapel.

The drive was sandbagged at the entrance, and the estate surrounding the manor – which included several acres of garden, woodland, a lake and two chalk quarries – was tightly enclosed. Once inside, the inhabitants were not encouraged either to stray beyond the boundary or to go on leave.

The arrivals were ushered into the panelled hallway, dominated by a fine Jacobean staircase where they waited for the commandant to greet them. Very conscious that they were the only women, Evelyn and her companion, a girl named Mary, stood a little apart. Tall and thin with a black moustache, the commandant made a brief welcoming speech, outlined the rules and scrutinised the girls.

‘We will be sharing a bedroom overlooking the front garden,’ said the female conducting officer, who had been specially brought in to look after the women agents. She was as new to the job as Evelyn and Mary. Her name was Katherine, she said, but everybody called her Kitty. She was large, dark and smiled a lot. Kitty ushered them into a room under the eaves with an inadequate Victorian grate in the corner. Even in summer the room felt cool, almost cold. Three iron bedsteads took up most of the space. ‘You are marked on your tidiness,’ Kitty warned. ‘We will also lock the door at night. The chaps here are very high-spirited, and you never know . . .’

During the following days, Evelyn woke up to a world of intelligence tests, oral questioning, hard physical exercise and the strain of being under constant surveillance.

‘Can I stand it?’ she groaned on the third evening as they prepared for bed. The day had begun with a training run up the Hog’s Back. After breakfast she had been invited to climb one of the huge beech trees in the garden and descend via a rope. After lunch, she practised target shooting in the quarry and sharp-shooting in the chalk pit with a .38 pistol. Training did not even end with dinner. An instructor sought her out in the long drawing room after the meal and plied her with whisky. Evelyn accepted two and rued it, afraid she had fallen into the simplest of traps.

‘Can stand it?’ asked Kitty. She was lying on her bed in her cami-knickers and brassière, too tired to undress. ‘You two are quite a responsibility.’ Evelyn dropped her hairbrush onto Kitty’s stomach and her conducting officer gave an unprofessional yell. Mary said nothing but during the night Evelyn woke and heard her crying.

In the morning Evelyn got up early and went to sit in the tiny chapel where Kitty eventually discovered her.

‘Having second thoughts, old girl?’

Evelyn shook her head.

The training continued for three weeks. ‘Number Fourteen is an interesting candidate. She has formed a friendship with the conducting officer and consults her regularly. She reflects on her tasks and tries to achieve objectivity. She does not always succeed, and has a tendency to underestimate herself. She tries hard, even at the end of a full day’s training, and possesses natural good manners. Physically adept. Promising shot. Perhaps not yet sufficiently mature to be trusted with this sort of job . . .’

The report on Evelyn went back to Baker Street to be studied. The chiefs evidently overlooked the reservations expressed in it. Their verdict came back: Evelyn was to proceed to the next step.

Arisaig was inaccessible except for one road and a singletrack railway. It lay between Moidard and Mallaig among some of the most lovely but lonely landscape in Scotland. It was designated a restricted area, and anyone leaving or entering had to be in possession of a pass. SOE commandeered five houses in the area and each one housed a selection of potential agents plus an instructor.

Dark, gloomy and badly heated, Garramor accommodated the French agents. Evelyn was lucky, sharing sleeping quarters with Mary and Kitty while the men were crowded five or six to a room. The plumbing arrangements were inadequate and the numbers in the house ensured that the bathroom was always occupied. Downstairs was equally Spartan, only marginally cheered by a fire and bookcase filled with carefully chosen volumes such as Geoffrey Household’s and John Buchan’s . Garramor was run by a fairhaired chain-smoking instructor nicknamed ‘The Wasp’.

‘Fieldcraft . . . Number Fourteen, are you listening?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Evelyn was shivering with cold from the stiff breeze off the sea and exhausted from a night-time hike. It was 8 a.m.

‘Well, you didn’t look like it . . . But females are forever day-dreaming.’

‘Get your own back,’ an agent who had been introduced as John whispered in her ear.

Fieldcraft. Silent killing. Unarmed combat. Knife work. Rope work. Map work. Morse code. Raiding tactics.

‘Get two rounds away, gentlemen and er . . . ladies. Never rely on one bullet to do the work. We are not proud here, we don’t employ classical shooting techniques. But we do want results. Don’t stop to think of anything or you’re dead. Until you shoot straight by instinct – from under the bed, out of your pocket or round your arse if need be – you are no shot. Regard your pistol as a pointing finger. Remember “the double tap”.’

At this point, the students were tested with electronically wired figures dressed in German uniform that bobbed up unexpectedly out of the undergrowth.

‘Shoot ’em, you blighters,’ yelled the instructor. ‘Don’t hang about. Change mags. Let them go like belches . . . You have three and a half seconds to kill. I don’t want anyone being bloody intellectual about it!’

Evelyn found herself up trees shooting downwards, shooting by torchlight, shooting while she ran, shooting while she crawled over the heather. Surprise lurked in every corridor and in every nook of the grounds where, without warning, figures dressed in black raincoats and wide-brimmed hats sprang up. Once she came upon a group of three enemy ‘soldiers’ sitting at a table in the garden shed. She shot all three with the .32 Colt slung from her waist.

Later, two expert instructors in the arts of self-defence and silent killing joined the team. Nicknamed the ‘Heavenly Twins’, their work was anything but celestial.

‘We are here to show you the possibilities. They are endless. Did you know that a matchbox or an umbrella is a very useful weapon? No? Ladies, do you know how to get rid of someone who puts his hand on your knee in the cinema? No? It’s simple. You turn him upside down and stuff his head under the seat. It’s done like this.

‘In a war you have two objectives. Either to kill or capture your enemy. If you wish to kill him, do so at once.

‘We hope it will never happen, but if you find yourself being interrogated, ladies and gentlemen, you must understand that you may be tortured. To prepare yourself, you should consider my suggestion to study yoga. Another method is to count while they torture you. It focuses the mind and, if you are to survive, you must promote mind over matter.’

Between the silent killing instruction and the course on explosives, Mary decided to throw it in. ‘I’m terrified and horrified,’ she explained to Evelyn and Kitty. ‘I could never do this and I don’t think I could stand it in the field.’

The two girls said goodbye to Mary with genuine regret and she departed for England. Kitty saw her off and came back very thoughtful.

‘You know we must see that the organisation recruits more women,’ she said to Evelyn. ‘We can’t have only one.’ She gave her delightful laugh. ‘What happens if the chaps get overtaken by sheer, unstoppable lust?’

‘Lie back and enjoy it?’

If there was any lust directed at her, Evelyn was not aware of it. She was too exhausted and too busy assimilating the knowledge being crammed into her. Never before had she been required to stretch all her faculties simultaneously. Very exhausting but addictive.

‘Plastic explosive – PE – ladies and gentlemen, is cyclonite mixed with a plasticising medium. It is considered one of the safest explosives, but it requires a detonator. It can be moulded into any shape – rather like bread dough for the cooks among us. Choose the most appropriate, according to your chosen target. A factory. Railway line. Bridge. No electricity pylons. They are a waste of time. Most towns and villages have emergency electrical supplies. We are now going to practise working with this medium up the valley. By the way, I’m sure I do not need to tell the that it is not to be used on the salmon in the river.’

‘Number Fourteen,’ went the Garramor report, ‘is an interesting agent. She analyses her work but needs reassurance. Maturing rapidly. Very friendly with her conducting officer, which suggests she is not quite self-reliant. Expresses...