The cigarette was finished. Davenport dropped it in the sea and lit another. “You understand it’s his bloody radio operator, his ears and mouth, and who knows what she’s told the Germans by now. Besides which, someone has to keep an eye out for the Lysander, you know, guide her in with the flashlights, make sure there’s no ambush. So Beauchamp heads out to spring this girl out of Gestapo hands and tells his junior to stay. Junior does as he’s told, heads out of that basement and finds a barn, moves somewhere else the next night, and on the third night he heads out to the landing site nice and early, makes his recon, no Germans. Settles back and waits. Finally he hears the plane. Big loud propeller noise, rackety rackety rackety. He takes out his flashlight, signals them in. Ship’s coming to land. Gunfire.”
“But you said there weren’t any Germans!”
“Oh, I expect they dug in, too, biding their time. By now it’s too late to signal the plane, so the chap takes out his gun and runs toward the commotion.” Davenport paused and closed his eyes, while his thumb jiggled the cigarette up and down. “Long story short. Not only has Beauchamp sprung the girl out of prison, he’s rounded up her parents, too, because the Nazis would’ve taken them next, shot them in the village square pour encourager les autres. Beauchamp takes down the four or five Gestapo waiting at the landing site, all by himself, while the junior hustles that girl and her parents onto the Lysander and waves them off to Blighty.”
“My God,” whispered Iris.
“Quite. Of course that means neither Beauchamp nor his junior can get on the plane themselves, there isn’t room, and two hours later they run smack into a patrol, the same Gestapo patrol sent to find out why their men hadn’t returned from the landing site, and the pair of them wake up on a train to Mauthausen.”
“That’s a prison, isn’t it? A German prison.”
“Austrian, technically. But the damned thing is, Beauchamp springs them out of the prison camp a few months later, along with a few other men, and tracks down some resistance escape line into Switzerland.” Davenport patted his jacket pocket, as if he’d forgotten something. “Though I’m afraid I haven’t heard the details about that one.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Friend of mine, as I said. An old school chum. I say, I wouldn’t mind a little more champagne, would you?”
Iris wouldn’t have minded the entire bottle. She told herself it was the seasickness that made her legs wobble. She turned back to Aunt Vivian and Burgess, who had somehow moved from silkworms to the atom bomb. Burgess claimed to think it was immoral.
“You only think it’s immoral because we’ve got it, and you don’t like Americans,” Aunt Vivian said.
“Not true. I don’t dislike all Americans. I quite like you, Mrs. Schuyler, even though you entertain some bloody stupid ideas.”
“Besides, you weren’t a fighting man, were you? You spent the war sitting pretty at your nice safe Foreign Office desk. Ask Major Davenport here whether he’d like to be fighting hand to hand on some Japanese island right now.”
“I jolly well wouldn’t,” said Davenport cheerfully.
“There you have it. War’s an immoral business to begin with, Mr. Burgess, you can’t get around that. It comes down to how many of yours do we kill so you don’t kill ours.”
“But!” Burgess waved his cigarette. “But the women and children, Mrs. Schuyler! The awful consequences of radiation! How could a civilized nation do such a thing?”
“What about Burma? What about the poor Chinese? I’d say somebody had to give Japan a little of their own medicine.”
“Well, I can’t bear it,” Iris said. “I still can’t think about it.”
Aunt Vivian sent her a pitying look and poured more champagne. “Anyway, it’s done, and at least the damned thing is safely in our hands, as a deterrent to future war.”
Sasha smacked his fist into his palm. “But that’s the trouble! No single country should have the means to destroy the world. Who can stand against us?”
“My God, would you rather see the Soviets with the bomb?”
“Well, why shouldn’t they?” Sasha said recklessly, sloppily, red-faced, and Iris realized he was drunk.
“Sasha—” she started.
“The Soviets have only done what they’ve had to do. If you want to make an omelette—”
“Digby, you ass.” Burgess, sharp voice. “Have another drink and be quiet.”