Midnight Never Comes - Jack Higgins [53]
'My dear Paul--you don't mind if I call you that, do you? There really isn't time for any other approach. Life is always cruel, usually unjust and often very wonderful in between. It pays to recognise those moments.'
'You're a strange one,' Chavasse said. 'Here we are, condemned to rot in this dump for an unspecified period while the world crumbles around us and you philosophise. What does it take to depress you?'
Von Bayern chuckled. 'I was in Stalingrad--in fact I am one of the few men I know who actually got out of Stalingrad. Everything else in my life has been a distinct improvement. It would be impossible for it to be anything else.'
There was a sudden rattle at the door and when Chavasse turned, Hector Munro leered in at them through the grill. 'Well, well, now, isn't that nice?' he said. 'Is it warm enough for you, Mr. Chavasse?'
Chavasse moved across to the door and looked out at him. 'Where's Donner? I'd like to speak to him.'
'He left better than an hour ago,' Hector Munro chuckled. 'You're in my care now, my brave wee mannie. Now I am going to eat my fill of Mr. Donner's good food and drink my fill of Mr. Donner's fine whisky. Maybe in a couple of hours or perhaps three I'll be back to see if you've frozen to death.'
His laughter echoed back to them as he went up the steps and the door at the top shut with harsh finality.
Donner stood in the wheelhouse of the LCT and looked through a porthole at the length of the ship. The hold was a steel shell and the Bedford troop carrier and the olive green staff car belonging to their party seemed to be the only cargo. Beyond were the great steel bow doors of the beaching exit.
The sea was choppy with a slight breeze from the north-west and although the mist and the rain had reduced visibility, they had made good time from Mallaig.
The captain, a second lieutenant in the Royal Corps of Transport, a fair-haired young man in a heavy white polo sweater, came in from the bridge and gave the helmsman an order.
'Port five.'
'Port five of wheel on, sir.'
'Steady now.'
'Steady. Steering two-o-three, sir.'
Donner opened his silver case and turned to Murdoch. 'Cigarette, Captain Bailey?'
'Thank you, sir.'
The young lieutenant turned. 'Not long now, sir. About another twenty minutes.'
Donner moved to the porthole and looked out. In the middle distance and looking surprisingly large, he saw the islands; Barra, Sandray and Fhada to the south.
'Perhaps I'll have the chance to offer you a drink when we land, lieutenant,' he said.
The young man shook his head. 'I'm awfully sorry, sir. I'm only stopping here for long enough to put you and your party ashore, then I proceed to Lewis. I'm carrying electronic equipment they've been waiting rather impatiently for at Guided Weapons H.Q.'
Donner nodded. 'I understand. Duty, after all, must come before everything else.'
His accent was just right and he went out on to the bridge, wrapping the oilskin coat they had loaned him about his shoulders. Not long now and as Fhada moved closer out of the mist, he stayed there watching it, so still that he might have been carved out of stone.
The harbour was not very large and the landing craft beached beside an old stone jetty. One or two small sailing dinghies were pulled up on the sand above high water mark, but the only sizable craft were an old thirty-foot lobster boat and a beautiful power boat--a twenty-five footer, painted white and green.
When the bow doors opened, the staff car went out first, driving across a specially constructed concrete apron to the start of a tarmacadam road. A Land Rover was parked there and as the staff car approached, a tall, greying, middle-aged man in heavy jeep coat and black beret got out.
The staff car braked to a halt and Donner went to meet him. 'Von Bayern,' he said, holding out his hand.
'Major Charles Endicott.' The other saluted briefly then shook hands. 'I wonder whether you'd like to drive up to the mess in my Land Rover?'
'A pleasure.'
Donner climbed into the passenger seat and Endicott took the wheel. He grinned as