Eye Of The Needle

"Leave it with me," the C.O. said. "I'll give the Navy a buzz. And I suppose I'd better inform Whitehall. Protocol, you know."

"Thank you, sir."

At the Royal Observer Corps station there was something of a panic. Of course, S.O.S. was not the signal an observer was supposed to give when he sighted enemy aircraft, but they knew that Tom was old, and who could say what he might send if he got excited? So the air raid sirens were sounded, and all other posts were alerted, and antiaircraft guns were rolled out all over the east coast of Scotland and the radio operator tried frantically to raise Tom.

No German bombers came, of course, and the War Office wanted to know why a full alert had been sounded when there was nothing in the sky but a few bedraggled geese. So they were told.

The Coastguard heard it too.

They would have responded to it if it had been on the correct frequency, and if they had been able to establish the position of the transmitter, and if that position had been within reasonable distance of the coast. As it was, they guessed from the fact that the signal came over on the Observer Corps frequency that it originated from Old Tom, and they were already doing all they could about that situation, whatever the he11 that situation was.

When the news reached the below-deck card game on the cutter in the harbour at Aberdeen, Slim dealt another hand of blackjack and said, I'll tell you what's happened. Old Tom's caught the prisoner of war and he's sitting on his head waiting for the army to arrive and take the bugger away."

"Bollocks," said Smith, with which sentiment there was general agreement.

And the U-505 heard it.

She was more than thirty nautical miles from Storm Island, but Weissman was roaming the dial to see what he could pick up and hoping, improbably, to hear Gle

He passed the information to Lieutenant Commander Heer, adding, "It was not on our man's frequency."

Major Wohl, who was still as irritating as ever, said, "Then it means nothing."

Heer did not miss the opportunity to correct,him. "It means something," he said. "It means that there may be some activity on the surface when we go up."

"But this is unlikely to trouble us."

"Most unlikely," Heer agreed.

"Then it is meaningless."

"It is probably meaningless."

They argued about it all the way to the island.

And so it worked out that within the space of five minutes the Navy, the Royal Observer Corps, MI8, and the Coastguard all phoned Godliman to tell him about the S.O.S.

Godliman phoned Bloggs, who had finally fallen into a deep sleep in front of the fire in the scramble room. The shrill ring of the telephone startled him, and he jumped to his feet, thinking that the planes were about to take off.

A pilot picked up the receiver, said "Yes" into it twice and handed it to Bloggs. "A Mr Godliman for you."

"Hello, Percy."

"Fred, somebody on the island just broadcast an S.O.S."

Bloggs shook his head to clear the last remains of sleep. "Who?"

"We don't know. There was just the one signal, not repeated, and they don't seem to be receiving at all."

"Still, there's not much doubt now."

"No. Everything ready up there?"

"All except the weather."

"Good luck."

"Thanks."

Bloggs hung up and returned to the young pilot who was till reading War and Peace. "Good news," he told him. "The bastard's definitely on the island."

"Jolly good show," said the pilot.

Faber closed the door of the jeep and began walking quite slowly toward the house. He was wearing David's hacking jacket again. There was mud all over his trousers where he had fallen and his hair was plastered wetly against his skull. He was limping slightly on his right foot. Lucy backed away from the window and ran out of the bedroom and down the stairs. The shotgun was on the floor in the hall where she had dropped it. She picked it up. Suddenly it felt very heavy. She had never actually fired a gun, and she had no idea how to check whether this one was loaded. She could figure it out, given time, but there was no time.

She took a deep breath and opened the front door. "Stop!" she shouted. Her voice was pitched higher than she had intended, and it sounded shrill and hysterical. Faber smiled pleasantly and kept on walking.

Lucy pointed the gun at him, holding the barrel with her left hand and the breech with her right. Her finger was on the trigger. "I'll kill you!" she yelled.

"Don't be silly, Lucy," he said mildly. "How could you hurt me after all the things we've done together? Haven't we loved each other, a little?"

It was true. She had told herself she could not fall in love with him, and that was true too; but she had felt something for him, and if it was not love, it was something very like it.

"You knew about me this afternoon," he said, and now he was thirty yards away, "but it made no difference to you then, did it?"

That was partly true. For a moment she saw in her mind's eye a vivid picture of herself sitting astride him, holding his sensitive hands to her breasts, and then she realised what he was doing.

"Lucy, we can work it out, we can still have each other-"

And she pulled the trigger.

There was an ear-splitting crash, and the weapon jumped in her hands, its butt bruising her hip with the recoil. She almost dropped it. She had never imagined that firing a gun would feel like that. She was quite deaf for a moment.

The shot went high over Faber's head but all the same he ducked, turned, and ran zigzagging back to the jeep. Lucy was tempted to fire again but she stopped herself just in time realising that if he knew both barrels had been emptied there would be nothing to stop him turning and coming back.

He flung open the door of the jeep, jumped in and shot off down the hill. Lucy knew he would be back.

But suddenly she felt happy, almost gay. She had won the first round: she had driven him off… But he would be back.

Still, she had the upper hand. She was indoors, and she had the gun. And she had time to prepare.

Prepare. She must be ready for him. Next time he would be more subtle. He would surely try to surprise her somehow.

She hoped he would wait until dark, that would give her time… First she had to reload the gun.

She went into the kitchen. Tom kept everything in his kitchen- food, coal, tools, stores-and he had a gun like David's. She knew the two firearms were the same because David had examined Tom's, then sent away for one exactly like it. The two men had enjoyed long discussions about weapons.

She found Tom's gun and a box of ammunition. She put the two guns and the box on the kitchen table.

Machines were simple, she was convinced; it was apprehension not stupidity that made women fumble when faced with a piece of engineering. She fiddled with David's gun, keeping the barrel pointed away from herself, until it came open at the breech. Then she figured out what she had done to open it, and practiced doing it again a couple of times. It was surprisingly simple.

She loaded both guns. Then, to make sure she had done everything correctly, she pointed Tom's gun at the kitchen wall and pulled the trigger. There was a shower of plaster, Bob barked like he'd gone mad, and she bruised her hip and deafened herself again. But she was armed. She must remember to pull the triggers gently so as not to jerk the gun and spoil her aim. Men probably got taught that kind of thing in the army.

What to do next? She should make it difficult for Henry to get into the house.