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'Eighteen, Sturmbannfuhrer. Nineteen with the commandant.'

Ritter turned to the others. 'What you might call a damn close thing.'

'No problem, surely,' Strasser said.

'Let's go and see, shall we?' Ritter replied calmly, and he turned back to the field car.

Meyer waited on the step until the last half-track in the column had disappeared up the narrow street before going back inside. Gaillard was at the bottom of the stairs.

'Well?' the Frenchman demanded.

'What could I do? I had to tell them.' Meyer shivered. 'But now what, Herr Doktor? I mean, what can they do up there in the castle? Colonel Hesser has no option but to turn your friends over to the SS now.'

But before Gaillard could reply, Arnie called out feverishly from the bedroom and Gaillard turned and hurried upstairs.

In the courtyard, the prominenti were making ready to leave. Schenck had been left on board the ambulance and three German soldiers were loading the prisoners' personal belongings. Claire and Madame Chevalier waited in the porch while Hesser, Birr and Canning stood at the bottom of the steps, smoking cigarettes. Beyond the ambulance, the rest of the tiny garrison still stood in line before their stacked rifles.

It was Magda, Schneider's Alsatian, who first showed signs of agitation, whining and straining at her leash and then breaking into furious barking.

Canning frowned. 'What is it, old girl? What's wrong with you?'

There was the hollow booming of feet thundering across the drawbridge and Voss staggered out of the tunnel.

'Herr Oberst!' he called weakly, lurching from side to side like a drunken man. 'The SS are coming! The SS are coming!'

Hesser reached out his one good arm to steady Voss as he almost fell, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his face.

'What are you telling me, man?'

'SS, Herr Oberst. On their way up from the village. It's true. Finnish mountain troops in the charge of a Sturmbannfuhrer in Panzer uniform.'

Canning caught him by the arm and pulled him round. 'How many?'

'Forty or so all together. Three half-tracks and two field cars.'

'What kind of armaments did they carry?'

'There was a heavy machine gun with each vehicle, Herr General, I noticed that. The rest was just the usual hand stuff. Schmeissers, rifles and so on.'

Finebaum said to Hoover, 'They keep telling me the war's over, but here we are, the three of us, with nineteen kraut prisoners on our hands and forty of those SS bastards coming round the bend fast.'

Howard turned to Canning. 'It's an impossible situation, sir, and even if we tried to make a run for it, we'd just run slap into them. There's only one road in and out of here.'

Canning turned to face Hesser, trying to think of the right words, but strangely enough, it was Madame Chevalier who played a hand now.

'Well, Max,' she called. 'What's it to be? Checkmate or have you still got enough juice left in you to act like a man?' She moved forward, leaning on Claire's shoulder. 'Not for us, Max, not even for yourself. For Gerda, for your children.'

Max Hesser stared up at her wildly for a moment, then he turned to the garrison. 'Grab your rifles, quick as you like, Schneider - take two men, get to the guardroom on the double and shut the gates.'

There was a sudden flurry of activity. He turned to Canning, drew himself up and saluted formally. 'General Canning, as you are the senior Allied officer here, I place myself and my men at your command. What are your orders, sir?'

Canning's nostrils flared, his eyes sparkled, tension erupting from deep inside him in a harsh laugh. 'By God, that's more like it. All right, for the time being, deploy your men on the walls above the guardroom and let's see what these bastards want.' He clapped his hands together and shouted furiously, 'Come on, come on, come on! Let's get this show on the road.'

11

The column, Sorsa still leading the way in the front half-track, was no more than fifty yards from the castle entrance when the gates clanged shut. Sorsa immediately signalled a halt.

Ritter