The Sins of the Father (The Clifton Chronicles, #2)(89)
‘Do I have your permission, sir, to contact General Eisenhower and inform him of your decision?’
The field marshal gave a curt nod, and his officers quickly left the tent to see that his orders were carried out.
Harry returned to his Jeep accompanied by the major, and watched 23,000 men lay down their arms, climb out of their tanks and line up in columns of three as they prepared to surrender. His only fear was that having bluffed the field marshal, he wouldn’t be able to pull off the same trick with his area commander. He picked up his field phone and only had to wait a few moments before Colonel Benson came on the line. Harry hoped the major hadn’t noticed the bead of sweat that was trickling down his nose.
‘Have you discovered how many of them we’re up against, Clifton?’ were the colonel’s first words.
‘Could you put me through to General Eisenhower, colonel? This is Lieutenant Clifton, his ADC.’
‘Have you gone out of your mind, Clifton?’
‘Yes, I will hold on, sir, while you go and look for him.’ His heart couldn’t have beaten faster if he’d just run a hundred yards, and he began to wonder how long it would be before the colonel worked out what he was up to. He nodded at the major, but the major didn’t respond. Was he standing there hoping to find a chink in his armour? As he waited, Harry watched thousands of fighting men, some perplexed, while others looked relieved, joining the ranks of those who had already abandoned their tanks and laid down their arms.
‘It’s General Eisenhower here. Is that you, Clifton?’ said Colonel Benson when he came back on the line.
‘Yes, sir. I’m with Field Marshal Kertel, and he has accepted your proposal that the Nineteenth Corps lay down their arms and surrender under the terms of the Geneva Convention, in order to avoid, if I remember your words correctly, sir, unnecessary carnage. If you bring forward one of our five battalions, they should be able to carry out the operation in an orderly fashion. I anticipate coming over Clemenceau ridge, accompanied by the Nineteenth Corps –’ he looked at his watch – ‘at approximately 1700 hours.’
‘We’ll be waiting for you, lieutenant.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Fifty minutes later Harry crossed the Clemenceau ridge for the second time that day, the German battalion following him as if he were the Pied Piper, over the hill and into the arms of the Texas Rangers. As the 700 men and 214 tanks surrounded the Nineteenth Corps, Kertel realized he had been duped by an Englishman and an Irishman, whose only weapons were a Jeep and a handkerchief.
The field marshal pulled a pistol from inside his tunic, and Harry thought for a moment that he was going to shoot him. Kertel stood to attention, saluted, placed the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger.
Harry felt no pleasure in his death.
Once the Germans had been rounded up, Colonel Benson invited Harry to lead the nineteenth un-armoured corps in triumph to the compound. As they drove at the head of the column, even Pat Quinn had a smile on his face.
They must have been about a mile away when the Jeep passed over a German landmine. Harry heard a loud explosion, and remembered Pat’s prophetic words, Don’t you think we’ve used up enough of our nine lives during the past year?, as the Jeep cartwheeled into the air before bursting into flames.
And then, nothing.
42
DO YOU KNOW when you’re dead?
Does it happen in an instant, and then suddenly you’re no longer there?
All Harry could be sure of was the images that appeared before him were like actors in a Shakespearian play, each making their exits and entrances. But he couldn’t be sure if it was a comedy, a tragedy or a history.
The central character never changed, and was played by a woman who gave a remarkable performance, while others seemed to flit on and off the stage at her bidding. And then his eyes opened, and Emma was standing by his side.
When Harry smiled, her whole face lit up. She bent down and kissed him gently on the lips. ‘Welcome home,’ she said.
That was the moment when he realized not only how much he loved her, but also that now nothing would ever keep them apart. He took her gently by the hand. ‘You’re going to have to help me,’ he began. ‘Where am I? And how long have I been here?’
‘Bristol General, and just over a month. It was touch and go for a while, but I wasn’t going to lose you a second time.’
Harry gripped her hand firmly and smiled. He felt exhausted, and drifted back into a deep sleep.
When he woke again it was dark, and he sensed that he was alone. He tried to imagine what might have happened to all those characters during the past five years, because, as in Twelfth Night, they must have believed he’d died at sea.
Had his mother read the letter he wrote to her? Had Giles used his colour-blindness as an excuse not to be called up? Had Hugo returned to Bristol once he was convinced Harry was no longer a threat? Were Sir Walter Barrington and Lord Harvey still alive? And one other thought kept returning again and again. Was Emma waiting for the right moment to tell him there was someone else in her life?
Suddenly, the door to his room was thrown open and a little boy came running in, shouting, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!’ before leaping on to his bed and throwing his arms around him.
Emma appeared moments later and watched as the two men in her life met for the first time.