Eye of the Needle - Ken Follett [46]
As he took the last, he saw movement from the corner of his eye. He dropped flat and crawled under a plywood Mosquito. A soldier emerged from the tent, walked a few paces, and urinated on the ground. The man stretched and yawned, then lit a cigarette. He looked around the airfield, shivered, and returned to the tent.
Faber got up and ran.
A quarter of a mile away he looked back. The airfield was out of sight. He headed west, toward the barracks.
This would be more than an ordinary espionage coup. Hitler had had a life of being the only one in step. The man who brought the proof that, yet again, the Fuehrer was right and all the experts were wrong, could look for more than a pat on the back. Faber knew that already Hitler rated him the Abwehr’s best agent—this triumph might well get him Canaris’s job.
If he made it.
He increased his pace, jogging twenty yards, walking the next twenty, and jogging again, so that he reached the barracks by 06:30. It was bright daylight now, and he could not approach close because these sentries were not in a tent but in one of the wall-less huts with a clear view all around them. He lay down by the hedge and took his pictures from a distance. Ordinary prints would just show a barracks, but big enlargements ought to reveal the details of the deception.
When he headed back toward the boat he had exposed thirty frames. Again he hurried, because he was now terribly conspicuous, a black-clad man carrying a canvas bag of equipment, jogging across the open fields of a restricted area.
He reached the fence an hour later, having seen nothing but wild geese. As he climbed over the wire, he felt a great release of tension. Inside the fence the balance of suspicion had been against him; outside it was in his favor. He could revert to his bird-watching, fishing, sailing role. The period of greatest risk was over.
He strolled through the belt of woodland, catching his breath and letting the strain of the night’s work seep away. He would sail a few miles on, he decided, before mooring again to catch a few hours’ sleep.
He reached the canal. It was over. The boat looked pretty in the morning sunshine. As soon as he was under way he would make some tea, then—
A man in uniform stepped out of the cabin of the boat and said: “Well, well. And who might you be?”
Faber stood still, letting the icy calm and the old instincts come into play. The intruder wore the uniform of a captain in the Home Guard. He had some kind of handgun in a holster with a buttoned flap. He was tall and rangy, but he looked to be in his late fifties. White hair showed under his cap. He made no move to draw his gun. Faber took all this in as he said, “You are on my boat, so I think it is I who should ask who you are.”
“Captain Stephen Langham, Home Guard.”
“James Baker.” Faber stayed on the bank. A captain did not patrol alone.
“And what are you doing?”
“I’m on holiday.”
“Where have you been?”
“Bird-watching.”
“Since before dawn? Cover him, Watson.”
A youngish man in denim uniform appeared on Faber’s left, carrying a shotgun. Faber looked around. There was another man to his right and a fourth behind him.
The captain called, “Which direction did he come from, corporal?”
The reply came from the top of an oak tree. “From the restricted area, sir.”
Faber was calculating odds. Four to one—until the corporal came down from the tree. They had only two guns, the shotgun and the captain’s pistol. And they were basically amateurs. The boat would help too.
He said, “Restricted area? All I saw was a bit of fence. Look, do you mind pointing that blunderbuss away? It might go off.”
“Nobody goes bird-watching in the dark,” the captain said.
“If you set up your hide under cover of darkness, you’re concealed by the time the birds wake up. It’s the accepted way to do it. Now look, the Home Guard is jolly patriotic and keen and all that, but let’s not take it too far. Don’t you just have to check my papers and file a