"Pettigrew," I said as I entered the study and saw him standing with his back to me, gazing out the window.
He about faced instantly, already at attention when he faced me.
I fought against the smile that threatened at the corners of my lips. I concentrated on looking him up and down. He was in uniform, and I suspected that it was the same one that he'd worn on our flight over. It also looked to have been worn since Monday. There was also a bit of stubble on his chin. "It would appear that you weren't prepared to come to my aid when the call came," I said in a neutral tone.
He flushed. From the collar of his uniform blouse to his hairline. "Sir!" he began, sounding like a first week cadet facing his commanding officer, "the First Sea Lord himself—"
"Stanhope? He personally called you out of a lady's boudoir?" I asked, guessing at where a randy young lad would most likely be, if he had several days of leisure available.
He looked ready to start trembling.
"Pettigrew, relax and have a seat, man," I grinned, relenting. "We're countrymen and, I hope, friends." My grin disappeared instantly as I realised why he was here. "John, I need you to help protect Elizabeth—and I certainly don't wear my morals on my sleeve like a certain member of the Lords we both know."
If anything, Pettigrew reddened even deeper at the reference to the Earl of Lancashire. But he did relax.
"I assume that you weren't given time to pack a change of clothes?"
He looked down at his hands and nodded.
"I promise that I won't mention that aspect of our current situation the next time I see your father," I told him, unable to stifle the goad.
A laugh from behind me caught me unaware. It caused Pettigrew to pause as he moved towards the chair closest to the window. He took a deep breath and sat down. I turned to face the man who'd laughed.
"Lord Petersholme, please forgive our young sub-lieutenant his appearance," the man said as my gaze reached him. I was facing the most nondescript man I'd ever seen. I did not doubt for a moment that I would never be able to describe him adequately, even on pain of death. "I walked into that boudoir you mentioned and pulled our randy young gentleman out of the lady's bed and threatened to shoot him in the head if he weren't dressed within ten seconds." He grinned. "He made it too, except for a few buttons."
Pettigrew groaned behind me.
"You are?" I asked the man.
"Dunham, my Lord. Brigadier Dunham of His Majesty's Service. It is to His Majesty's advantage that I was never here and that we never met. If you will, let's keep me away from the sub-lieutenant's visit to Deauville."
"But—"
"He's MI5, Petersholme," Pettigrew mumbled from behind me.
"Mr. Churchill personally telephoned me this morning, my Lord. It seemed that the situation here was important enough that I should lose a bit of the cover that I've managed to acquire." He glanced beyond me in Pettigrew's direction before returning his gaze to me.
I nodded and turned to face the sub-lieutenant. "Look, John." I smiled. "Go up to my apartment, the one I'm sharing with Barry—the American from the flight over. There's a bathroom there and you should be able to wear Barry's clothes. Freshen up and come back down when you're finished."
"Will you be safe?" he asked as he stood.
"I don't plan on going outside for a while. And Elizabeth is with Barry."
"How is he, sir?"
"He took a bullet in the shoulder. The doctor said it was a fairly clean wound—his clavicle was broken with the shoulder blade broken as well, but the artery wasn't nicked. He gave him a dose of morphine."
"The poor man." John Pettigrew grimaced as he started towards the door. "I won't disturb him, sir."
Brigadier Dunham closed and locked the door behind the sub-lieutenant. He turned back to me. "If you will, my Lord, I'd like to hear what happened this morning," he said. It was obvious to both of us that he had taken complete control of our interview.
I recounted everything that had happened that morning from my first cup of tea to the shots that had brought Barry down and killed the French major. The nondescript man from MI5 had me revisiting almost every moment, poking and prodding. I was almost to the point of wondering if he wanted the details of my visit to the toilet, he was so bloody thorough.
He frowned finally. "Our French friend was two-timing us as well as his own country then," he grumbled.
My eyebrows rose, seeking my hairline. "What?"
"Major Urnazy. He was a double agent."
I felt pasty. My face must have been the colour of stone. "He was one of ours?" I managed.
"Not exactly. We caught him in an awkward moment several years ago. Rather than let us tell the French about him, he decided to work for us as well as the Germans."
I laughed. "Every Frenchman in the world wants it known that he's a cocksman in bed, Dunham. How did catching him in a delicate moment threaten him?"
The brigadier smiled back at me. "No Frenchman wants his country to know that he likes to be buggered by young lads, my Lord."
"Oh—" My ears burnt suddenly.
"We knew he worked for the Sicherheitsdienst but he confirmed it when we caught him in that compromised position. It was his orders from Berlin that we were interested in—not how he took his pleasures."
"Did he inform you about the attack on us then?" I asked, giving voice to the sense of awareness growing in me.
"He did, my Lord." He sighed. "In an indirect way."
"He what?" I felt weak. "You let them nearly kill Barry?"
"I said 'in an indirect way', Lord Petersholme." He looked towards the fire. "His messages held no urgency. It was decided that we could wait until closer to the weekend to move."
"Barry was shot!" I growled. "He almost died out there this morning—because you decided that you could wait until closer to the weekend?"
"Urnazy was a consummate actor, Lord Petersholme," Dunham said without a trace of emotion. "He also was apparently completely married to the Nazi cause. We didn't know."
"Bloody hell with not knowing!" I growled as I jumped up.
"Sir, we now have to ensure that you and your party remain safe until Minister Reynaud can get away from Paris and meet you."
I looked up at the ceiling and mentally counted to ten. It didn't help.
"This was a Waffen-SS operation from what we've been able to piece together," the man said with a shrug.
"Piece together? You had a man in on the attack—"
"Urnazy wasn't exactly forthcoming." The man smiled. "In fact he had us misdirected completely. And, of course, he's dead now."
"Lovely. So, why do you assume that it was Waffen-SS then?"
He shrugged. "Because if it had been an Sicherheitsdienst operation, you would have been dead, my Lord."
I groaned. "Why do I feel like a fox that's just been let out of its cage and now hears the hounds baying in the distance?" I demanded, not expecting an answer.
"I'll be here tonight and I'll get with the chap from the Sûretè who's here and work out a plan to protect you and your party for the rest of your stay." He bowed slightly and reached for the door. "I know all of this has been most trying for you—especially your—" he paused for the barest instant, "your friend being wounded like this. Thank you for allowing me to have some of your time, Lord Petersholme."
I watched him leave the room with the sure knowledge that the nature of my relationship with Barry was now known in London. Fear of what that would mean was a lump in my throat that refused to be dislodged, regardless of the number of times I swallowed.
* * *
John Pettigrew slipped quietly into the bedroom. The American was lying bare-chested in the bed, the right side of his chest bandaged from his neck to the bottom of his ribcage and extended down his arm to his elbow. The sub-lieutenant thought that he looked pale but peaceful. Elizabeth, sitting beside the bed, had heard the door open and was looking at him as he entered the room.
"I was pulled out of Paris rather quickly this morning, Miss Elizabeth," he told her quietly and felt his face flush. "Without so much as a change of clothes I have to admit. His Lordship suggested that I could wear some of Mr. Alexander's—"
Elizabeth nodded and pointed to the chest-of-drawers between the windows. "I suppose he's unpacked and placed his things there, Sub-lieutenant."
"How is he?" he asked as he crossed the room.
"Dead to the world—oh!" she yelped and her eyes opened wide in surprise as she realised what she'd said.
John smiled and moved to stand beside her. "Right—he'll be that through the night. His Lordship said that he was given morphine."
He caught a whiff of himself, the odour of stale sweat and even staler sex. He stepped back from her then, his ears again flaming. "I'm a mess. I guess that I'd better get those clothes and find the bathroom."
She smiled up at him.
"It's a pleasure to see you again, Miss Elizabeth." He stepped quickly to the chest-of-drawers. "Perhaps we'll have a chance to chat later?"
In the bathtub, John scrubbed his chest furiously with the flannel. It wasn't that he was ashamed of having spent the last two nights in a woman's bed. In fact, it would add another conquest to his reputation amongst the lads in his squadron, once it had got around.
Lancashire's youngest son would definitely not be thought of as a poofter. And he wasn't ashamed that Petersholme knew about it, either. It established him as a man in the his Lordship's eyes.
His scrubbing moved to one arm and, then, the other. No, it wasn't having been found out that bothered him.
It was the way that he'd been gathered up. His clothes thrown to him as he sat up in the woman's bed. Hurried out of her flat without even a moment to clean their sex off of him.
He was bloody angry with himself for having left his Lordship's party in the haphazard care of that damned French captain! That he'd had to be rousted out of a woman's bed to come to their aid because the Frenchman hadn't been able to. And that he'd let the Yank nearly get himself killed while he was dallying in Paris.
He'd let a lovely lady down. He'd let a confidant of Churchill's and the First Sea Lord down—and the man had nearly been killed for it. He'd trusted a Frenchman to assume his own responsibility. It was his fault alone that the damned American had been shot.
Even if that never found its way into his Navy dossier, he'd still know it. That was enough. Whilst he'd shown that he could do a woman with the best of them, he knew that he'd still failed the test of being a real man.
He raised his foot out of the water and began to scrub vigorously, paying special attention to between his toes.
He couldn't leave Petersholme with that impression of him. He might be an officer in the Royal Navy, but he was a very junior one with a number of men in position to judge him. Petersholme knew them all—at least, he knew Churchill, and that was more than enough.
He reckoned that he'd always be seen as Lancashire's youngest son after this. The sympathiser's whoring son, more like. He'd never be thought of as a man to be entrusted with responsibility by the men who counted.
He had to prove himself to Petersholme.
Flirting with Elizabeth the next few days simply would not help him to do so. Walking the perimeters of this château with a pistol strapped to his belt and peeking behind every curtain wouldn't go very far in doing so, either.
Brigadier Dunham had been quite certain that there was going to be an assassination attempt against Petersholme on the drive out from Paris. He hadn't said much—in fact, he'd been mum almost the whole time—but that much he'd been sure of. And it'd already happened when they arrived at the château.
What he needed to do was capture the Jerries behind the attempt this morning. At least one of them. That would make Petersholme sit up and take notice—London too.
He nodded and raised his other foot. He washed it more gently than he had the other one.
Capture himself a Jerry—that would be sweet, for sure. He shook his head slowly. It didn't take brains to understand that would be a lot harder to accomplish than merely thinking about it.
Pettigrew strongly suspected that the MI5 agent planned to do nothing about this morning. There would be no English effort to find the assassins. He was going to let the French follow through on it while he disappear back to Paris, now that he had Sub-lieutenant John Pettigrew of the Royal Navy in place to guard Petersholme and his party.
Pettigrew could easily guess what the French were going to do about it. Nothing. They'd let the Germans escape just to avoid a bit of ugliness. After all, they'd had two of their own killed this morning and at least one of those dead Frenchmen had proved to be an undercover agent. He didn't doubt they both were.
The French would let things lie fallow for that, of course. It wouldn't do at all to cast mud on any of their own.
But, if it was a German operation like MI5 thought it was, the Germans had failed to kill Petersholme. If they knew they'd not got the man they came after, they'd try again. That was so plain that even a five year old could make it out.
He laid back in the tub, letting the warm water lap at his chest and legs and relax him.
Somebody had killed the French major who'd turned out to be a Nazi himself. And the other Frenchman had been killed on the knoll where the assassination team had hidden. It didn't set right somehow to imagine that team had been French, however, not with them killing their French partners it didn't. And Dunham had said it was a German job.
Pettigrew told himself that there had to have been Germans in the woods shooting at everyone. Germans who'd travelled across France to reach Deauville. Germans with no confederates left alive in France. Germans who needed to eat and sleep.
With the temperature hovering at the freezing mark, the sub-lieutenant had no problem guessing that there had to be a room or rooms in Deauville occupied by Germans. At least, there had been—and, if they knew that they'd missed Petersholme, they'd still be around because they had so far failed to accomplish their mission. They had to make another attempt, and it would come before the weekend.
He sat up and pushed himself out of the tub. Quickly towelling himself, he dressed in the American's clothes. All he had to do was find them and alert MI5, and the danger to his Lordship would be past. He grinned at the thought of that being recorded in his dossier.
As he exited the bathroom, he saw Petersholme enter the American's bedroom. The man hadn't seen him and had left the door open. Pettigrew crossed quickly to the doorway but held back from entering as he realised that he'd be intruding if he made himself known to his Lordship and his ward.
Even holding back, he'd heard the man tell his cousin that the French captain had asked for her hand. He shrugged as he slipped out of the sitting room. So, his Lordship's cousin was going to be one of the women who slipped through his fingers. It was too bad, but there were other women, a whole world of them in fact. Waiting just for him.
* * *
Neville sat on the edge of the bed, glancing out of the corner of his eye at David Rice standing before the fire. He didn't know what to do or, even, what he could do. And he didn't like Rice standing there like the man was guarding Neville. It was almost as if he was in gaol and awaiting a date with the hangman.
He knew that whatever the Hun and that Crooksall were up to was no good. That much was as bleeding obvious as the nose on his face.
Only, Clive was involved in it, too. Just before the men had arrived, Clive was talking like he might do more than show them how to get to the house. That mixed things up into a pretty stew. Clive was his best mate, after all. He couldn't just desert him—even if he could get past Rice. And he couldn't tell on him, either.
Here he was in their cottage whilst Clive was moving further and further away from him with every step. And David Rice was standing in front of the fire, his arms crossed over his chest. Standing between him and the door, he was—like he was some kind of guard in the cells of gaol.
He pushed himself off the bed and, forcing a smile to his face, approached the blacksmith. "How long do you think they'll be then?" he asked, trying to keep his voice casual.
Rice just watched him. He didn't move and he didn't speak. His eyes seemed to glower as they stayed on him. Neville knew something was wrong.
He wondered why Crooksall had come back after they'd left and called Rice outside. Something was definitely wrong.
Rice was so much bigger than him. If the man ever got a hold on him, Neville knew he'd be done for without so much as a fuss. He reckoned then that was their plan. He stopped walking towards the man when he reached the foot of the bed, his brain trying to comprehend this.
The big question on it was what Rice was going to do to him. Only, he couldn't stop wondering if Clive knew what the men were planning all along. If he did, maybe Neville wouldn't be hurt too bad—as long as he didn't try to escape. They were mates, after all. Been since they were in nappies. Clive wouldn't let him get hurt. Maybe things would be all right, if he didn't do anything suspicious before Clive and the others got back.
Only—what if Clive wasn't in on what the men were planning? Rice had called the other two comrades—and that made him either a Nazi or a communist. Them as well, most like. And Neville wasn't about to believe that Hun was one of those communists by any stretch.
They were in danger—him and Clive.
Neville's heart pounded in his chest. Clive could be about to die, just as soon as he showed those two where the Hall was and how to get in. Just like he was, whenever Rice got around to doing him in.
Neville gulped and looked over at David Rice again, studying him for anything that would give him away.
There was nothing. Just the smith watching him. Like a hawk watching a mouse.
He glanced towards the door. He hadn't meant to. He understood instinctively that Rice would see it and know that he was now thinking about escape. He pulled his gaze back and gasped when he saw Rice take a step towards him.
Neville looked back to the door, gauging the distance to it. He didn't think about his chances of reaching it, getting it open, or getting out into the night. He had to try, else he was dead.
Rice started across the room, moving directly towards the farm boy. He'd caught Nevie's glance at the door and reckoned he knew what that had meant. His hand went into his coat pocket and found the knife there.
He might as well get it over with. That undertaker had been clear about killing him, like they were going to do to Clive. He'd been thinking about doing just that as he'd driven them out from the village, and it hadn't bothered him at all. It was him or them.
He had to stay in the village after the Hun had the brat and was gone back to Germany. He had a business there, and he didn't relish the idea of swinging on the end of one of His Majesty's ropes. With both boys dead and the Hun gone, there wouldn't be a risk of that.
He'd never killed anything bigger than that hog on his uncle's farm when he'd been sixteen. That hadn't bothered him—in fact, he'd enjoyed it. As he neared Neville, he wondered what it was going to be like to kill a man.
Only, he wished that the boy would run for the door. Anything. Instead, he stood beside the bed, frozen—like a hare caught in the beam of an electric torch.
Even the hog had tried to escape. It had struggled before he could get his knife to its throat, too. Its bucking and squirming had almost got it away from him—until he'd already cut its throat. But he'd managed to hold it down until it was too far gone even to struggle. Blimey! There'd been so much blood.
Nevie, though, just stood there, letting him draw closer with each step. The boy wouldn't even reach the door if he bolted now. Of course, he'd have never got through it, even if he'd run before David started towards him. David Rice was big all right—strong too—but he was fast. Faster than any farm boy he'd ever seen.
"Please don't, Rice," Neville said, his voice low and strained. "Don't do this, please. I won't tell anybody anything."
David Rice took another step, delighting now in how wide the boy's eyes were as they watched him approach. Definitely like a rabbit, Rice told himself. Knowing what was about to happen—the eyes wide with fear and the whole body frozen with it. He almost laughed. He had the knife by its hilt but kept it hidden in his pocket.
Neville bolted for the door suddenly, breaking out of his trance. Rice's big hand grabbed the boy's cotton vest and pulled him back towards himself. The smith's other hand came out of his coat pocket, still holding the knife, and encircled the boy's chest, entrapping both his arms.
"Don't hurt me, mate," Neville whimpered. "I'll do anything you want. Just don't hurt me." He felt the point of the blade through his vest as it rose up his front. "Oh, God!" He jerked then, lunging forward to break away from Rice's hold on him.
The smith tightened his grip, pulling the boy closer. His hand let go of the vest and moved to cover Neville's mouth.
The knife rose over the rest of the boy's chest and Neville felt its tip touch his neck. He looked down, along the sides of his nose and over the hand on his mouth at the big hand holding the knife to his throat.
"No, please—!" he tried to yell but couldn't get his mouth open enough. The sound of his voice was muffled. He felt the metal move across his skin towards the side of his head.
He felt the blade pierce his skin then, just below his ear. He started to scream but the knife slit quickly around over his adam's apple towards his other ear and the only sound he made was a gurgle.
Copyright © 2006-2025 David MacMillan
First posted 2006
Updated 2 July 2025