The British Lion by Schumacher Tony

The British Lion by Schumacher Tony

Author:Schumacher, Tony [Schumacher, Tony]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Thrillers, Suspense, Historical Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780062394590
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-10-26T11:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER 28

THE BREEZE WAS picking up. Rossett’s cheeks burned as the cold air brushed his face above the raised collar of his greatcoat. In his immediate vicinity were a pub, a boarded-up post office, eight or nine small cottages, a telephone box, and four roads heading off in different directions.

He was at a crossroads.

The problem was, he didn’t know which way to go. Back in the run-up to the invasion the government, desperately clutching at straws, had called on the public to remove signposts to confuse any German invader who had forgotten to bring his map.

Rossett wasn’t a German invader, but he had forgotten to bring a map.

He looked back down the road he had driven up. The thin tire tracks his Austin had plowed were the only sign anyone was still on the face of the earth. In the distance were beautifully white snow-covered fields dotted with lifeless trees and low black hedgerows.

Movement caught his eye in the hamlet. Rossett turned his head and watched a farm laborer, with a long double-barreled shotgun broken over his arm, emerge from the pub, pulling an old British army overcoat across his stomach and chest. He kept his head down, doing his best to avoid looking at the stranger watching him from across the road. Rossett lifted his hand in greeting. The other man ducked his head in a miserable attempt to ignore him, pulling the coat tighter still over his bulky frame and adjusting the shotgun.

Rossett watched as the man, staying close to the building line, walked along the row of cottages before opening the door of the final one and going inside. The door slammed so hard, Rossett heard it from fifty yards away.

He looked around the village, checked that the roads around were still empty, and then walked slowly to the same cottage.

The door shook in its frame as he knocked on it with his fist. He turned and checked the Austin.

A strong gust of wind caused him to lower his face and shield his eyes as it whipped snow across the road toward him. He turned back to the door as he heard the handle turning.

A tiny sparrow of an old lady stood before him. The skin hung off her face as if it had been stretched and left there to dry. She was wearing a blue woolen cardigan with a two-inch frayed hole on its left breast. As soon as she saw who had knocked, she instinctively reached up to cover the hole before taking a step backward deferentially.

Rossett twitched a smile; aware that he was crowding the old woman, he dipped his head slightly and looked into the tiny sitting room behind her.

“Hello.”

She didn’t speak.

“The gentleman who has just arrived, I’d like to speak to him?”

The old lady fiddled with her cardigan.

Rossett showed her his police warrant card.

She stepped off to the side.

Rossett ducked his head and entered the cottage, seeming to fill the tiny space as he waited for the old lady to close the door and join him.



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