The Sins of the Father - By Jeffrey Archer Page 0,58
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 Muller 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.