Eye of the Needle - Ken Follett [131]
Major Wohl, who was still as irritating as ever, said, “Then it means nothing.”
Heer did not miss the opportunity to correct him. “It means something,” he said. “It means that there may be some activity on the surface when we go up.”
“But this is unlikely to trouble us.”
“Most unlikely,” Heer agreed.
“Then it is meaningless.”
“It is probably meaningless.”
They argued about it all the way to the island.
AND SO it worked out that within the space of five minutes the Navy, the Royal Observer Corps, MI8 and the Coastguard all phoned Godliman to tell him about the S.O.S.
Godliman phoned Bloggs, who had finally fallen into a deep sleep in front of the fire in the scramble room. The shrill ring of the telephone startled him, and he jumped to his feet, thinking that the planes were about to take off.
A pilot picked up the receiver, said, “Yes” into it twice and handed it to Bloggs. “A Mr. Godliman for you.”
“Hello, Percy.”
“Fred, somebody on the island just broadcast an S.O.S.”
Bloggs shook his head to clear the last remains of sleep. “Who?”
“We don’t know. There was just the one signal, not repeated, and they don’t seem to be receiving at all.”
“Still, there’s not much doubt now.”
“No. Everything ready up there?”
“All except the weather.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
Bloggs hung up and returned to the young pilot who was still reading War and Peace. “Good news,” he told him. “The bastard’s definitely on the island.”
“Jolly good show,” said the pilot.
35
FABER CLOSED THE DOOR OF THE JEEP AND BEGAN walking quite slowly toward the house. He was wearing David’s hacking jacket again. There was mud all over his trousers where he had fallen and his hair was plastered wetly against his skull. He was limping slightly on his right foot.
Lucy backed away from the window and ran out of the bedroom and down the stairs. The shotgun was on the floor in the hall where she had dropped it. She picked it up. Suddenly it felt very heavy. She had never actually fired a gun, and she had no idea how to check whether this one was loaded. She could figure it out, given time, but there was no time.
She took a deep breath and opened the front door. “Stop!” she shouted. Her voice was pitched higher than she had intended, and it sounded shrill and hysterical.
Faber smiled pleasantly and kept on walking.
Lucy pointed the gun at him, holding the barrel with her left hand and the breech with her right. Her finger was on the trigger. “I’ll kill you!” she yelled.
“Don’t be silly, Lucy,” he said mildly. “How could you hurt me? After all the things we’ve done together? Haven’t we loved each other, a little…?”
It was true. She had told herself she could not fall in love with him, and that was true too; but she had felt something for him, and if it was not love, it was something very like it.
“You knew about me this afternoon,” he said, and now he was thirty yards away, “but it made no difference to you then, did it?”
That was partly true. For a moment she saw in her mind’s eye a vivid picture of herself sitting astride him, holding his sensitive hands to her breasts, and then she realized what he was doing—
“Lucy, we can work it out, we can still have each other—”
—and she pulled the trigger.
There was an ear-splitting crash, and the weapon jumped in her hands, its butt bruising her hip with the recoil. She almost dropped it. She had never imagined that firing a gun would feel like that. She was quite deaf for a moment.
The shot went high over Faber’s head but all the same he ducked, turned, and ran zigzagging back to the jeep. Lucy was tempted to fire again but she stopped herself just in time, realizing that if he knew both barrels had been emptied there would be nothing to stop him turning and coming back.
He flung open the door of the jeep, jumped in and shot off down the hill.
Lucy knew he would be back.
But suddenly she felt happy, almost gay. She had won the first round—she had driven him off….
But he would be back.
Still, she had the upper hand. She was indoors,