The Traitor: A Novel - Softcover

Walters, Guy

3.59

109 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743270150 ISBN 13: 9780743270151

Publisher: Atria Books, 2005

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There was something powerful about it, something magnetic. He had witnessed the effect of such uniforms in the newsreels; now he was about to wear one. But this SS uniform -- the uniform proudly worn by so many maniacs and murderers -- bore a Union Jack...It was an insult to King and Country.

In November 1943 the Nazis capture British secret agent John Lockhart while he is on a Resistance mission to German-occupied Crete. They give him a stark choice: betray his country or die.
In a decision some might consider treason and moral folly, Lockhart acts out of love and strikes a bargain with his captors: in return for his wife, who is interned in a concentration camp, he will change sides. But he is stunned to learn that his mission is to lead the British Free Corps, a clandestine unit of the SS composed of British fascists and renegades culled from POW camps. Aware that he, like them, will be branded a traitor, Lockhart seeks to redeem himself by destroying a terrifying secret weapon that threatens to change the course of history.

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About the Author:

Guy Walters is a graduate of Eton and the University of London and was a journalist for The Times (London) for eight years. He lives with his family in the West Country of England. He can be found on the Web at www.guywalters.com.

Chapter One

November 1943

Lockhart was anxious. They had been navigating the same three miles of coast for two hours, and still there had been no signal. The night air was clear and the sea was calm. The captain had insisted they were in the right place, although Lockhart didn't believe him.

"Who are you going to trust?" asked the sailor. "Me, or a bunch of drunken shepherds?"

Lockhart held his tongue. Pompous naval halfwit. He didn't want to start lecturing the man on Cretan bravery. He turned, and continued to scan the inlets for the three flashes of light.

The air was scented with thyme. The aroma brought back good memories, but now wasn't the moment to reminisce. The last thing he wanted was to miss the signal and find himself kicking his heels back in dusty Cairo. Perhaps Manoli and his gang of andartes had been captured, tortured, shot, their families raped and deported. Those too frail to move would have been burned alive inside their homes. Lockhart slowly exhaled.

The little crewman next to him started tugging at his sleeve and pointing. Lockhart looked through his binoculars to see the dim light of a blinking flashlight.

"Get the captain to take us in," Lockhart ordered under his breath.

As the crewman made his way aft, Lockhart tried to discern anything around the light, but it was too dark. He should have been helping to ready the dinghy, but something wasn't right. And then he realized the obvious: the flashlight was blinking four times. He looked again. There was no doubt -- it was the wrong signal. Bugger. It could be a German trap or, just as easily, a simple mistake. He went aft to find the captain.

"Bad news," Lockhart announced. "It's the wrong bloody signal."

"Christ," the captain sighed, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. It had been a long night, and he still had to get back to Cairo.

"It's flashing four times instead of three. I'm sure my man knows the drill -- he's done this before."

"Your Cretan friend probably can't count."

"And you can barely sail, so why don't you just shut up and do as you're told?"

Lockhart glowered at him, detecting a small, cynical smile through the captain's dark ginger beard. Lockhart held his stare.

"All right then, sir," the captain said. "What would you like to do, then?"

Lockhart paused. The captain was making him bloody-minded. He didn't want to stay on board, but a decision made in anger could see him trussed up in the back of a German truck, en route to a bloodstained cell in Heraklion. Sod it, thought Lockhart, Manoli had probably just made a mistake.

He looked the captain straight in the eye.

"I'm going ashore."

The captain snorted. "Whatever you say."

Lockhart regretted his decision as soon as he went back on deck. He had let some damn-fool sailor wind him up. He bet Theseus never had this problem when he sailed to Crete. Lockhart tried remembering his Plutarch -- what was the name of Theseus's pilot? He had read it only the other day, thinking that he too should have sacrificed a goat to Aphrodite before he left.

He looked through his binoculars again. There, still, were those same four confident flashes. He felt perversely reassured. If the Germans had discovered the location of the landing point, then they would have known the correct signal too. Was he trying to justify his rash decision? Perhaps. But he had come too far now. It would be too much of a climbdown to go back.

The crewmen were readying the dinghy. Onto it was lowered food, weapons and ammunition, a radio, clothing, and -- most crucially for those spending the winter stuck in small mountain caves -- spirits and cigarettes. As Christmas was coming up, the supply officer had even slipped in a Christmas pudding at Lockhart's request.

Lockhart checked himself over. He was dressed as a native -- baggy breeches known as "crap-catchers," a black bandanna, a thick shirt and an embroidered waistcoat. He had even grown a moustache, although it was not up to the hirsute magnificence of the typical Cretan example. Slung over his shoulder was his Sten gun, and around his chest a belt of ammunition. He slowly cocked the weapon and engaged the safety catch with his right thumb.

There was one more thing, one thing that he had promised himself to get rid of. He felt the point of his left collar. It was still there, that small bump, his ultimate escape route -- his suicide pill. They called them "cough drops" at Arisaig, their training center in Scotland, although this was a medication that killed in five seconds. In theory, it meant that you never talked, you never suffered, and your friends stayed safe. It was supposed to be the honorable thing to do, because everybody cracked, running out of things to tell, until all that was left was the truth. But many of them threw the cough drops away, determined that they would never talk, and would suffer anything rather than take their own lives. If there was life, far better to hang on -- let someone else kill you. Lockhart unpicked the stitching on his collar and removed the little gray capsule. He looked at it briefly, and then threw it into the water. As it landed with a tiny high-pitched splash, Lockhart hoped some poor fish didn't regard it as a tasty morsel.

"We're ready to go now, sir."

Lockhart looked at the little crewman. There was a tremor in his voice, and his eyes were unnaturally wide. He must have been only twenty, yet here he was risking his young life in the middle of the Mediterranean for a man he had never met.

"Fancy some bravery juice?" asked Lockhart, pulling his hip flash from his breeches.

"Sorry, sir?"

"Well, if we're going to get blown to bits by whoever it is on the beach, then I'd prefer to have some Talisker inside me, wouldn't you?"

The crewman smiled gauchely -- he plainly had no idea what Lockhart was talking about.

"Do you want a drink, man?"

"Oh, yes please, sir," the crewman replied, taking the hip flash.

He swigged it, and Lockhart was surprised to see that the whisky didn't make him cough and choke. Richard had always said that Talisker was a lot smoother than Lockhart's "filthy" Glenfiddich. It looked as though his brother had been proved right. The crewman handed the flask back.

"Thank you, sir, that was very nice, sir."

"My pleasure," said Lockhart, taking a neckful. "Right -- let's get on with it then."

They made their way to the side of the boat. Lockhart looked around the deck. The captain waved a perfunctory goodbye. Cretin. Lockhart nodded back, turned and swung himself onto the scrambling rope. The dinghy was almost too packed for him and the crewman to board. Lockhart sat on an ammunition box in the stern, while his companion pushed them away with an oar. Unslinging the Sten, Lockhart steeled himself for an imminent volley of shots.

They were two hundred yards from the shore, and the crewman was rowing the heavy dinghy with great difficulty. Over his shoulder, Lockhart could see the flashlight, still flashing that exasperating four times. He gripped his gun tighter, trying to make out perhaps the shape of a German helmet, but there was nothing visible. Whoever was there was well hidden.

Lockhart looked back at the boat. They were now too far away to go back. If it was a trap, and the Germans had seen them leaving, then they would open fire. Lockhart didn't fancy his chances sitting on a box full of hand grenades. At least he wouldn't feel anything, he thought. No, they had to keep going in.

A cough. Not a loud one, but loud enough to carry across the smooth waters. The crewman looked startled. Just as he was about to speak, Lockhart put his finger to his lips. Lockhart squinted again -- they were a hundred yards away and the cough had seemed to come from the right of the flashlight. He tried playing the sound back in his head. Had it been a German cough or a Cretan cough? Was there a difference? Lockhart knew he was clutching at straws.

With fifty yards to go, he ordered the crewman to stop rowing. As they bobbed, Lockhart noticed the flashing becoming more rapid, more insistent. The crewman looked up at him, bewildered. Lockhart scanned the beach -- he began to make out three figures near the light. They didn't appear to be wearing uniforms; their shapes looked more baggy, informal, as if wearing peasant clothes.

Lockhart gesticulated to the crewman to continue rowing. It could yet be Germans in disguise, but Lockhart was now more confident. Nevertheless, he leveled his Sten gun at the three figures, waiting for a suspicious move. If that happened, he would open fire. There would be no indecision. The SOE training school at Arisaig had taught him to use weapons as part of his body, and to react without a pause.

"Hurry up, John!"

The crewman stopped rowing. It had come from one of the shapes, now only thirty or so yards away. Lockhart broke out into a big smile. It was that hairy brute Manoli! He looked at the crewman, who had shut his eyes in relief.

"Come on, keep rowing," whispered Lockhart. "There's a glass of raki for you when we get this lot off."

"What the hell is raki?"

"It's a sort of local fuel. Don't worry -- it's bloody dreadful."

The men on the shore started wading toward them. They were dressed like Lockhart, and carrying either Marlin submachine guns or rifles over their shoulders. At their head was Manoli, Lockhart's old friend from the digs, his six-and-a-half-foot frame wading firmly through the surf. Lockhart jumped out of the dinghy.

"You took your time getting here," said Manoli, gripping Lockhart by the shoulders.

"It was nice of me to come at all considering you gave the wrong bloody signal."

"But we did as instructed -- we flashed four times."

"It should have been three," said Lockhart, and then added with a smirk, "You great big idiotic peasant."

"And you're a pathetic excuse for a man," replied Manoli, pulling Lockhart's moustache. "The runner from Mr. Yanni said it was four times."

"Never mind," said Lockhart. "Come o...

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