by John Harris
As they sat waiting, Montrouge leaned towards Woodyatt. ‘I think it would be wiser to leave,’ he said quietly.
Woodyatt agreed with him.
‘They have far weightier things on their minds. The murder of an old man in a hotel bedroom isn’t of much moment just now.’
The number waiting for interrogation had dwindled considerably and it was obvious some people were slipping off quietly. As Woodyatt looked round for an unguarded exit, Montrouge’s voice came again.
‘There’s a way out near the kitchen,’ he murmured.
‘How do you know?’
‘My plumbing is not as young as it was. It leads me regularly to the lavatory. There’s a door alongside that leads into the yard. From the yard you can get to the car.’
‘Do you usually look for alternative exits to hotels?’
Montrouge smiled. ‘Oh, always. When I was young there were women and the women had husbands.’
They slipped out while the policemen were drinking coffee offered by the proprietor. Pushing Montrouge into the car, Woodyatt set off in a hurry. Nobody tried to stop them.
It had been Woodyatt’s intention to head for St Nazaire because he had heard that ships had appeared there to lift the British troops. But the owner of the petrol station where they stopped had placed a radio on the step of his office. He had it going at full blast so that people could know what was happening, and they learnt that the Germans had occupied Paris, and the wings of their army were now sweeping past on either side of the city – heading towards South Brittany.
There was no sign of military activity west of Chartres. The countryside looked normal: the only obtrusive note was struck by the abandoned cars stuck in the hedgerows, with the families who had been riding in them sitting hopelessly, devoid of energy, among their luggage.
The roads were still a tangle of vehicles. There were lorry loads of soldiers among them, who all seemed to have food while the civilians were going hungry. One or two of them showed compassion, and some loaves were given away with oil-stained hands. A big black car ahead of Woodyatt’s was commandeered by military police and immediately filled with officers and driven south, leaving the owners standing by the roadside. It seemed a funny way to defend La Patrie.
As they halted to allow Montrouge to stretch his legs, a lorry-load of wounded appeared, their faces blank, their eyes dead. It was followed by another lorry full of young, untouched men which, as it edged past, was watched by people with bicycles, cars and horses.
One of the soldiers shouted from his perch on the side of the vehicle. ‘Don’t worry,’ he yelled. ‘The war’s ending!’
‘Cochons!’ an old woman screamed back at him. ‘Lâches! You’re a set of cowards. A bit of Nazi discipline would do you good.’
Eventually, they came up against a group of British soldiers brewing tea by the roadside. Approaching the officer, a young lieutenant who looked about sixteen, Woodyatt showed his papers and indicated Montrouge. ‘I have to get him to England,’ he said.
‘Why?’ The question was inevitable.
‘He’s a British agent.’
‘He must be a hundred years old.’
Woodyatt agreed. ‘Getting on that way. He has to be taken to England before the Germans come.’
The young lieutenant offered them tins of bully beef and meat and vegetables, and a paper bag full of tea and sugar. ‘You’ll have to milk a cow,’ he pointed out. ‘We did.’ He also allowed Woodyatt a glance at his map. ‘We’re heading for Bordeaux,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard there are ships there to take people back to Blighty.’
‘What about St Nazaire?’
‘Nothing doing. Jerry’s flattening it. They got the liner, Lancastria. Full of our people. Hell of a casualty list.’
Woodyatt drew a deep breath. ‘I think I’ll try Bordeaux, too,’ he said.
Like every other town they had seen, Tours was full of people. They were sitting on the café terraces or standing in the bars as though they didn’t know what to do. All the time more cars and lorries kept arriving, moving hopelessly among the little blue trams and the parked vehicles which were filled with sleeping people who had arrived ahead of them.
As the sleepers began to wake, they developed into the usual howling mob of desperate people ready to believe anything. When a garde mobile started shouting at a scruffy-looking soldier who was obviously a deserter trying to go home, the excited crowd joined in until the soldier took to his heels.
Woodyatt’s party found a bar where, though meals were not served, it was possible for anyone who bought wine to sit at a long table in the garden to eat their own food. Montrouge was tired and said he hadn’t slept at all the night before. Having heard him snoring, Woodyatt knew he had.
They decided to stop for the night but every hotel, every room, was full and, since it was too late to go any further, they agreed to sleep in the car.
Dominique was looking weary but the old man seemed to be taking everything remarkably well. Perhaps, Woodyatt decided, everything that happened to him simply went over his head, cushioned by his age.
Next day there suddenly seemed to be plenty of food and they found a restaurant where they ate good soup and boeuf à la mode with strawberries and cream to follow. It seemed weird that there should be so much available at a time when France was in a state of collapse.
Since the departure of the government from Paris, Tours had become the provisional capital and many of the people in the restaurants seemed to be politicians. With them were the inevitable squads of political journalists and, somehow, with their smart suits, they made it seem like a congress. The only discordant note was provided by the blonde woman and the city-suited, spatted pair they had seen at the hotel where the murder had taken place, and who were filling a table in the corner.
The food and wine seemed to have brought everyone back to life but then a shout rang out, ‘Les canons!’ Over the buzz of conversation they heard the rumble of guns and all the lights went out. It didn’t seem to damp the party spirit. The proprietor brought candles in bottles with a promptitude that suggested he had done it many times before.
The talk seemed entirely to concern what was happening in the North – ‘Les Boches, sont-ils à Paris?’ – and there were gruesome stories of women and children trampled to death at the stations. The feeling was pessimistic, with curses for General Gamelin and the former premier, Daladier, and complaints about the ‘massacre de la jeunesse française’. Then someone said the Germans weren’t wild beasts after all. It quietened the gloom and seemed to calm the fears, as if preparing them to sit back comfortably to accept the debacle.
Finding a side street, Woodyatt parked the car and, settling Montrouge in the rear seat, he and Dominique arranged themselves to sleep in the front. They talked for a while about the fighting, for once without stiffness or hostility. For the first time, Woodyatt was feeling safe from pursuers but he was still worried about what to do next in the situation that was developing. It was one which neither he nor Pullinger had envisaged. The new French Premier, Reynaud, had promised that whatever happened in France the fight would continue from the French colonies in North Africa. This could only mean that the Germans would push harder and deeper into France to prevent the escape of the French armies. Woodyatt could not afford to waste time and the burden of responsibility was heavy.
‘Will England negotiate?’ Dominique asked.
‘Never.’
She was silent for a while and they could hear Montrouge’s steady deep breathing. ‘Will they follow us?’ she said eventually.
‘Probably not now they think they’ve removed our friend from the scene.’
She shuddered, sighed and, leaning against the side of the car, began to settle herself for sleep.
‘You couldn’t be much further away if you were sitting in the road,’ Woodyatt commented.
‘Would you like me nearer?’ she asked.
‘There’d be no harm in it.’
She gave him one of he
r unexpected smiles. ‘I think you would like to seduce me.’
He laughed. ‘It’s an idea that commends itself. But not in the front seat of a car, with an old man snoring in the back.’
‘Perhaps you are not going to seduce me after all,’ she said. They struggled to make themselves comfortable. All Woodyatt could do was sit bolt upright and try to sleep with his head on his chest. The street was dark and still and when the air-raid alarm went neither of them showed any inclination to move.
‘Do you want to find a shelter?’ Woodyatt asked.
‘No.’ The answer was brisk and unequivocal.
‘Good. Neither do I.’
The ‘All Clear’ went soon afterwards. At the other end of the seat, Woodyatt heard Dominique fidgeting to find comfort and became aware that the night was surprisingly chilly now the sun had gone.
‘I’m cold,’ he said.
There was no reply.
‘Are you cold?’
‘Yes.’
He reached out and pulled her to him. ‘You’ll be more comfortable and we shall both be warmer.’
Woodyatt awoke stiff and cold and with his arm numb. He had slept badly, his mind still filled with thoughts of the murder and the crimson memory of the old man at the hotel. For a moment he remained still, angrily wishing he had Pullinger alongside him to handle some of the responsibility and face some of the horror. Resentfully, unwillingly, he stirred. As he did so, Dominique sat up.
Her exhausted sleep had been blissful but it hadn’t lasted long and she had wakened to find herself worried. About France. About the old man. Worried, too, at the back of her mind that, with his questions, Woodyatt had destroyed the warm feeling she had had for Montrouge. She had welcomed him into her life, delighted to have a family if only by marriage, but she was concerned now that her warmth had existed only because of her loneliness. She was worried, too, because she had begun to realise that Montrouge was selfish, sarcastic and by no means grateful. Woodyatt had tried hard to provide a degree of comfort, had never treated him as a prisoner, but had received nothing by way of thanks in return. For that matter, she realised with a feeling of guilt, he had received very little from herself.
Woodyatt studied her face. ‘You’ve been crying.’
She shrugged. ‘A little.’ She gestured about her at the parked cars, the unshaven men and the unmade-up women stretching their limbs on the pavement. ‘Wouldn’t you? If this were your country.’
Woodyatt managed to buy a newspaper. The Germans were approaching Burgundy now and had reached Normandy and Brittany, and there was no longer any attempt to fight back.
They took breakfast at an open-air bar alongside what had become an office of the Ministry of Information. It had once been a post office and was situated in a shabby street which contained a square centred by a 1918 war memorial consisting of a naked girl wearing a helmet and carrying a sword. Next to it was a pissoir. It seemed somehow to reflect what had happened to France. The square was crowded with cars bearing Paris number plates.
Dominique found a tap in the yard of the bar where they could wash, and they joined a little queue of people trying to get at the water. As Woodyatt waited his turn, he was approached by a woman wearing a fur coat despite the heat.
‘Can you drive, Monsieur?’
‘Yes, Madame.’
‘I can offer you a car if you would be prepared to drive me south.’
Woodyatt shrugged. ‘I regret, Madame, I am already driving a car full of people.’
She seemed on the verge of tears. ‘I have plenty of money,’ she said. ‘I would even pay you. I have a daughter in Marseilles. But I can’t drive and my chauffeur has vanished.’
As she turned away, a French officer, young, smart and good-looking, stepped from the back of the queue. ‘I can drive, Madame,’ he said.
‘You’re an officer. Why are you not fighting?’
‘I’m on sick leave, Madame. I’ll help you.’
During this exchange Woodyatt saw a big black Ford go past; it contained two men in city suits and an unmistakable blonde. Then, as he returned to the Renault, a smart red Peugeot pulled out of one of the gateways down the street. It passed him, heading for the main road, and he saw the young officer at the wheel, the woman at his side. The officer looked as fit as a fiddle and it seemed to Woodyatt like a simple case of sauve qui peut. He wanted to weep.
Woodyatt had decided to try to avoid Poitiers, considering that the most direct route would be the one that everybody would use and that it would therefore not be the fastest. Now he decided, instead of using the main roads, to try to stick to side roads all the way. They left the town in a rabble of vehicles, trying to push past lorries, tanks and gun limbers which for a change seemed to be heading for the front. Red Cross vans passed them carrying not wounded, but men with rifles.
After a while they were forced back towards the main road by a diversion caused by bombing ahead of them. Passing through a village with a store, they stopped to buy cigarettes for the old man but the air-raid siren went and they were sent to a shelter. Woodyatt was worried the car would be stolen, but the air raid came nowhere near them and soon afterwards they were allowed to continue. They had only been moving again for half an hour when they passed through a small town that was totally deserted.
Nothing moved. The silence and the stillness were eerie. It was as if a sudden plague had removed every living soul. All doors were closed except for one or two which moved in the growing wind. Through them it was possible to see the undisturbed interiors, tables set, tablecloths rippling in the breeze, newspapers on chairs, their sheets flapping. It was as if some dreadful warning had arrived and the owners had dropped everything to run. It could only have been caused by fifth-columnist alarms because there didn’t appear to be a German vehicle within miles.
Then they saw a hungry-looking dog slinking away and a cat sitting on a wall blinking in the sunshine. Their solitariness made the silence seem worse.
‘Let’s get away from here,’ Dominique begged. ‘It’s frightening.’
As they turned away, they heard the grind of an engine and a British Bedford lorry appeared. It stopped alongside their car, bringing the dead village suddenly and frighteningly alive. The canvas cover was rolled back and they saw that the rear of the lorry was filled with the shining thin-skinned tins of petrol the British had been using. The bright idea of some economy-minded idiot in London, they were a cheap substitute for a solid petrol can and easily punctured, so that troops desperate for spare petrol had all too often found they had only half what they thought they had.
The lorry also contained half a dozen French soldiers. They were unshaven, pasty-looking, dirty and flabby, but they were all armed to the teeth – not only with rifles but also with revolvers.
‘Hello, English,’ one of them called across to Woodyatt. ‘How do you like our lorry?’
It was a jeer and Woodyatt realised he would have to be careful with his reply or he would find himself on the wrong end of one of the rifles.
‘That looks like British petrol,’ he said.
‘It is, English. But the British ran away and left it so we helped ourselves. It should be worth a bit on the black market, don’t you think? Are you going to fight us for it?’
Woodyatt felt Dominique’s fingers curl round his free hand and squeeze it tightly.
‘Please,’ she whispered. ‘Let us go.’
‘No,’ he called to the Frenchman. ‘Finders keepers. It’s yours. I hope you enjoy it.’
‘That’s the reply we like, English,’ the Frenchman said. ‘After all, the English started the war, didn’t they? I’m glad you don’t want to start another.’
Woodyatt let in the clutch and the little Renault moved away, followed by laughter and jeers.
‘They’d have shot us all if we’d stayed,’ Dominique said.
‘And–’ the old man’s voice came from the rear seat, full of amusement ‘–doesn’t he who runs away live to fight another day?’
They drove out of the village quickly. In the rear mirror Woodyatt saw the French soldiers had climbed down from the lorry and were kicking in the door of one of the houses.
As they reached the busy main road, above the hum of the traffic they heard the sound of aircraft. The shout went up at once – ‘Les avions!’ Immediately, the column of vehicles came to a stop, so suddenly Woodyatt almost ran into the car in front. A big pantechnicon behind stopped within an inch of the Renault’s rear.
There were two minute specks in the sky then the noise of engines grew louder. People vanished from the road as if they had melted away, abandoning their vehicles to scatter into the fields, leaving the doors open and their possessions unguarded. Dominique began to bundle the old man out and, snatching the keys of the car, Woodyatt hurried to help her.
It wasn’t easy to get an unwilling old man of eighty with nothing to lose to crouch down with them. As the aeroplanes appeared, a few vehicles were still moving and machine guns among the army lorries opened up. The planes were Mel09s and they were flying along the column of vehicles, low down, just skimming the trees.
There was a crescendo of noise, a scream, then a crash and the sound of stones and dirt pattering down to echo the clatter of machine guns. The aeroplanes vanished as suddenly as they had come, leaving a cloud of smoke and the road littered with debris, earth, asphalt, a crumpled mattress, a charred pram. There was even a horse lying in the shafts of a cart, legs moving feebly, its stomach ripped open, its entrails steaming in the road. Woodyatt rose to a drifting grey fog of smoke, still with the feel of stones against his chest, his tongue on the grit in his mouth. Numbed and sickened, he and Dominique pushed Montrouge in front of them and installed him in his seat again as the column of traffic began to move off. Ahead, smoke was rising in the air and they could hear a high thin sound, like a dog howling, quite clearly over the noise of engines. Soon they had to skirt a crater in the road. Alongside it several cars were lying on their sides full of holes, but the moving column didn’t attempt to stop. Among the wrecked vehicles was a red Peugeot. It was burning and standing nearby was a woman with blood on her face. She was staring at her red-stained hands and screaming in a harsh dry way that made the veins stand out on her neck.
