The Sins of the Father Read online

Giles tried to keep a straight face as the chef just about raised a hand in acknowledgement.

  They ran up the stairs, the only two sober people in the building. Giles passed the bottle of wine to Terry and said, ‘Two minutes, no more.’

  Terry walked down the corridor and slipped out of the back door. Giles withdrew into the shadows at the top of the stairs, just as an officer came out of the dining room and headed for the lavatory.

  Moments later, the back door reopened and a head appeared. Giles waved furiously at Terry and pointed to the lavatory. Terry ran over to join him in the shadows, just before the officer emerged to make his way unsteadily back to the dining room. Once the door had closed behind him, Giles asked, ‘How’s our tame German, corporal?’

  ‘Half asleep. I gave him the bottle of wine and warned him we could be at least another hour.’

  ‘Do you think he understood?’

  ‘I don’t think he cared.’

  ‘Good enough. Your turn to act as lookout,’ said Giles as he stepped back out into the corridor. He clenched his fists to stop his hands trembling, and was just about to open the cloakroom door when he thought he heard a voice coming from inside. He froze, put his ear to the door and listened. It only took him a moment to realize who it must be. For the first time, he broke Jenkins’s golden rule and charged back down the corridor to rejoin Terry in the shadows at the top of the stairs.

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  Giles put a finger up to his lips, as the cloakroom door opened and out stepped Major Müller, doing up his fly buttons. Once he’d pulled on his greatcoat, he glanced up and down the corridor to make sure no one had spotted him, then slipped through the front door and out into the night.

  ‘Which girl?’ asked Giles.

  ‘Probably Greta. I’ve had her a couple of times, but never in the cloakroom.’

  ‘Isn’t that fraternizing?’ whispered Giles.

  ‘Only if you’re an officer,’ said Terry.

  They only had to wait for a few moments before the door opened again and Greta appeared, looking a little flushed. She walked calmly out of the front door without bothering to check if anyone had seen her.

  ‘Second attempt,’ said Giles, who moved swiftly back down the corridor, opened the cloakroom door and disappeared inside just as another officer came out of the dining room.

  Don’t turn right, don’t turn right, Terry begged silently. The officer turned left and headed for the lavatory. Terry prayed for the longest pee in history. He began counting the seconds, but then the cloakroom door opened and out stepped the commandant in all but name. Get back inside, Terry waved frantically. Giles ducked back into the cloakroom and pulled the door closed.

  When the adjutant reappeared, Terry feared he would go to the cloakroom to collect his cap and coat, and find Giles dressed as the commandant, in which case the game would be up before it had even begun. Terry followed each step, fearing the worst, but the adjutant stopped at the dining room door, opened it and disappeared inside. Once the door had closed, Terry bolted down the corridor and opened the cloakroom door to find Giles dressed in a greatcoat, scarf, gloves and peaked cap and carrying a baton, beads of sweat on his forehead.

  ‘Let’s get out of here before one of us has a heart attack,’ said Terry.

  Terry and Giles left the building even more quickly than Müller or Greta had.

  ‘Relax,’ said Giles once they were outside. ‘Don’t forget we’re the only two people who are sober.’ He tucked the scarf around his neck so that it covered his chin, pulled down his cap, gripped the baton firmly and stooped slightly, as he was a couple of inches taller than the commandant.

  As soon as the driver heard Giles approaching, he leapt out of the car and opened the back door for him. Giles had rehearsed a sentence he’d heard the colonel say to his driver many times, and as he fell into the back seat, he pulled his cap even further down and slurred, ‘Take me home, Hans.’

  Hans returned to the driver’s seat, but when he heard a click that sounded like the boot closing, he looked back suspiciously, only to see the commandant tapping his baton on the window.

  ‘What’s holding you up, Hans?’ Giles asked with a slight stutter.

  Hans switched on the ignition, put the car into first gear and drove slowly towards the guard house. A sergeant emerged from the sentry box when he heard the vehicle approaching. He tried to open the barrier and salute at the same time. Giles raised his baton in acknowledgement, and nearly burst out laughing when he noticed that the top two buttons of the sentry’s tunic were undone. Colonel Schabacker would never have let that pass without comment, even on New Year’s Eve.

  Major Forsdyke, the escape committee’s intelligence officer, had told Giles that the commandant’s house was approximately two miles from the compound, and the last two hundred yards were down a narrow, unlit lane. Giles remained slumped into the corner of the back seat, where he couldn’t be seen in the rear-view mirror, but the moment the car swung into the lane, he sat bolt upright, tapped the driver on the shoulder with his baton and ordered him to stop.

  ‘I can’t wait,’ he said, before jumping out of the car and pretending to undo his fly buttons.

  Hans watched as the colonel disappeared into the bushes. He looked puzzled; after all, they were only a hundred metres from his front door. He stepped out of the car and waited by the back door. When he thought he heard his master coming back, he turned around just in time to see a clenched fist, an instant before it broke his nose. He slumped to the ground.

  Giles ran to the back of the car and opened the boot. Terry leapt out, walked across to Hans’s prostrate body and began to unbutton the driver’s uniform, before pulling off his own clothes. Once Bates had finished putting on his new uniform, it became clear just how much shorter and fatter Hans was.

  ‘It won’t matter,’ said Giles, reading his thoughts. ‘When you’re behind the wheel, no one will give you a second look.’

  They dragged Hans to the back of the car and bundled him into the boot.

  ‘I doubt if he’ll wake up before we sit down for breakfast in Zurich,’ said Terry as he tied a handkerchief around Hans’s mouth.

  The commandant’s new driver took his place behind the wheel, and neither of them spoke again until they were back on the main road. Terry didn’t need to stop and check any signposts, as he’d studied the route to the border every day for the past month.

  ‘Stay on the right-hand side of the road,’ said Giles, unnecessarily, ‘and don’t drive too fast. The last thing we need is to be pulled over.’

  ‘I think we’ve made it,’ Terry said as they passed a signpost for Schaffhausen.

  ‘I won’t believe we’ve made it until we’re being shown to our table at the Imperial Hotel and a waiter hands me the breakfast menu.’

  ‘I won’t need a menu,’ said Terry. ‘Eggs, bacon, beans, sausage and tomato, and a pint of beer. That’s my usual down at the meat market every morning. How about you?’

  ‘A kipper, lightly poached, a slice of buttered toast, a spoonful of Oxford marmalade and a pot of Earl Grey tea.’

  ‘It didn’t take you long to go back from butler to toff.’

  Giles smiled. He checked his watch. There were few cars on the road that New Year’s morning, so they continued to make good progress. That was, until Terry spotted the convoy ahead of them.

  ‘What do I do now?’ he said.

  ‘Overtake them. We can’t afford to waste any time. They’ll have no reason to be suspicious – you’re driving a senior officer who wouldn’t expect to be held up.’

  Once Terry caught up with the rear vehicle, he eased out into the centre of the road and began to overtake a long line of armoured trucks and motorcycles. As Giles had predicted, no one took any interest in a passing Mercedes that was clearly going about official business. When Terry overtook the leading vehicle, he breathed a sigh of relief, but he didn’t fully relax until he swept round a corner and could no longer see any headlights in