Flawed Banner

by John Harris

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  She looked distressed but he gestured her to be ready.

  The two men had spotted them now and began to walk towards Woodyatt, who eased his revolver in its holster. He felt like the hero of a Western heading for the final shoot-out.

  The thin man had a gun in his hand and they seemed about to walk straight past Woodyatt to the car where they had seen the old man. It was obvious who their target was. The thin character raised the gun and Woodyatt realised it was now or never. Shades of Gary Cooper and a host of Western heroes flashed through his mind.

  Despite the silence of the immediate surroundings, the crash of the shot was lost in the rumbling roar of the traffic beyond the houses. Woodyatt’s aim was poor and the bullet clanged against the iron roof of a garage further along the lane so that the corrugated sheets leapt and clattered. The thin man looked startled, as though he hadn’t expected to be interrupted in his work. His blond partner, Zamerski, dodged behind their car. Turning, the one with the gun fired at Woodyatt and the bullet whined past his ear. To Woodyatt’s surprise, his own second shot hit the man full in the chest. It lifted him off his feet and dropped him on his back. At this, Zamerski’s head came up and Woodyatt fired again but his target swung away.

  Help arrived from an unexpected quarter as Hugo appeared in the doorway of his garage. He was carrying a can and an old battered-looking rifle. As Zamerski lifted his head again, Hugo dropped the can and fired wildly.

  Zamerski seemed to realise, like Woodyatt, that he was missing his chance. Ducking his head down, he charged, firing as he ran. Woodyatt seemed to be immune. None of Zamerski’s shots hit him. He got off one single shot himself, then they were clutching each other on the edge of the stream, each struggling to fire. Woodyatt’s revolver was wrenched from his hand and swung wildly on the end of its lanyard. But Zamerski was not as tall as his opponent and Woodyatt swung him round, his fingers gripping the hand that held the gun. As Woodyatt thrust at him, Zamerski lost his balance and teetered on the edge of the stream. The sun caught the water as it lifted in a wild splash, and glinted on a gun as it spun in the air to drop with a smaller splash alongside the floundering man who had been wielding it.

  It was a chance to escape. ‘Allez,’ Hugo yelled. ‘Allez!’

  Woodyatt dropped into the car, which Dominique had held ready for his signal throughout. ‘Go!’ he shouted.

  As Dominique let in the clutch, the Renault shot away with a screech of tyres and a cloud of dust, Woodyatt waving his thanks to the old Frenchman from the window.

  As his quarry drew away, unharmed, Zamerski crawled from the river and dived for the gun the thin man had dropped. Hugo fired at him but, old soldier or not, his aim was poor and the bullet did no more than kick up the dust yards from Zamerski. As though irritated by a wasp, Zamerski turned and fired. His aim was better than it had been at Woodyatt and Woodyatt looked back in time to see the old Frenchman stagger at the impact, then, with a look of surprise on his face, Hugo sank down in the dust at the entrance to his workshop, red staining his shirt above his heart. Slowly he sagged to his right until he lay in a twisted heap, his features in the dust.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Woodyatt said.

  Sickened, he signalled to Dominique to stop.

  ‘No,’ she shrieked. ‘You mustn’t go back! He’ll kill you!’ She was right. His job was to get Montrouge to safety not to look after the casualties of war.

  ‘Heroes must also consider the order of things,’ Montrouge observed, still remarkably unperturbed. ‘Heroism without thought is pointless.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, you ungrateful old bugger,’ Woodyatt snarled in English. ‘A man who owed you nothing has just died for you.’

  Stopping as they reached the main road, Woodyatt and Dominique changed places then, swinging back into the main road, Woodyatt tried to rejoin the stream of traffic.

  It wasn’t easy.

  ‘He’ll be after us in a minute or two,’ he warned.

  The French deserters were still standing round their British lorry, chatting with each other and throwing ribald remarks at the passing drivers. They were continuing to smoke as if they’d never heard of safety precautions. It took some time to rejoin the stream of traffic and in desperation Woodyatt thrust the car into a narrow gap, scraping the wing of an oncoming Citroën so that the owner thrust out his head and started shouting.

  As they moved forward and passed the lorry-load of petrol, in his mirror Woodyatt saw another car force its way into the traffic from the lane. Zamerski was on their tracks again, doubtless with another accomplice handy somewhere, waiting to be picked up. He heard a crunch and the scream of metal on metal and more shouts and guessed he, too, had forced his way into the column of vehicles.

  The traffic was hardly moving and Zamerski was only a dozen cars behind. A door was flung open and Woodyatt saw that his pursuer had leapt from his car and was running towards them. He looked wet through and had blood on his face, and once again held a gun in his fist. Evidently he had decided to take a chance, fully expecting that in the climate of the times he could always claim he had shot a spy. As the car which Zamerski had vacated held up the traffic, the shouting started at once.

  Wrenching the Renault’s steering wheel, Woodyatt thrust the gear lever and jammed his foot on the accelerator to pull out. With the road crammed with vehicles it was difficult. There was another scrape of metal and he saw heads turn in the car in front and eyes glaring at him. At the same time there was a tremendous whooomph and he felt the car stagger under what seemed the blast of a bomb. For a moment he couldn’t imagine what had happened then, turning, he saw the Bedford had gone up in a huge blossom of fire. Burning petrol, caught by the wind, was spraying in all directions in long offshoots of flame like the stamens of a fiery flower edged with black. As Woodyatt had been expecting for so long, one of the soldiers had got too near the leaking petrol with his cigarette.

  Zamerski had disappeared, as though swept away by the blast or caught in the huge splash of fire. The only sign of him was his hat rolling along the ground in the breeze caused by the rush of air to the flames. The garage was burning, too, now, and there was another explosion as the storage tanks went up. The deserters, their clothes on fire, were screaming and trying to jump from the conflagration in the lorry. The driver and the garage proprietor lay in the road and a farm-worker, his hair shrivelled, was trying to drag them clear.

  Within minutes as the wind swept the flames along the street, the whole village was on fire. An amateur fire brigade with a small cart carrying hoses and a hand-pump arrived, but it was worse than useless. Round the garage was an inferno: the bodies on the ground and the man trying to drag them clear were no longer visible.

  The whole village was burning from end to end with a brilliant brightness. The houses were also now enveloped in hard red and yellow tongues of fire that curled out of doors and through shattered roofs with a solid vicious strength. The heat was terrific. Every inch of roadway was covered with glass that had exploded from windows. As the air rushed in to fill the vacuum caused by the up-draught from the flames, it set up a tremendous wind that snatched at the clothes of the watchers.

  It was hopeless trying to put the fire out and the locals stood gazing helplessly, clutching the few belongings they had managed to save. At the southern end of the village was a huddle of cars which had passed through to safety just in time. Their drivers and passengers had stopped to help. Behind them were those cars caught by the furnace; among them Zamerski’s car stood tyreless and charred black, surrounded by clouds of stinking smoke. At the northern end, as the smoke drifted aside, grew another column of vehicles which could not pass, its number building up all the time as more and more arrived.

  Woodyatt and his party were there until dark. Help arrived at last from neighbouring villages; the burned and injured, their skin livid and peeling, were helped to ambulances. One of the soldiers who was being carried away looked
like burnt toast, with here and there a jagged strip of khaki cloth clinging by a seam, or a collar or a cuff, to the blackened flesh.

  Woodyatt’s own shirt had been burned when he had dragged an old woman from her house as it exploded into flame, and he had been given the checked shirt off her husband’s back to replace it. He was sitting stony-faced at the side of the road as Dominique tried to apply ointment to his bright pink skin from the supplies she always carried with her.

  ‘When will it end?’ she asked with a tense desperation. Her face was drawn and her eyes were full of tears.

  The opportunity to be rid of the red Renault was taken out of their hands and came sooner than expected.

  They spent the night with other refugees in a barn outside the charred and stinking village of Marville. An ambulance-man had further attended to Woodyatt’s burned shoulder and at last they had managed to fill the car’s parched radiator. It was a good job, Woodyatt decided, that they hadn’t very much further to go and that, with their pursuers gone, there was no longer the need to hurry so desperately. The dead had been taken away and they could only assume that Zamerski and partner had been among them, overwhelmed by the holocaust of fire that had destroyed Marville. Though at the expense of the villagers, the catastrophe caused by the deserters seemed to have saved them.

  When they set off the following morning, the road had emptied and Woodyatt had a feeling that at last they were safe. They were tired, dirty and showing the effects of strain, but at long last the burden of fear had vanished. It was cooler now and a little rain made the day seem cold. Woodyatt’s mind was busy. But for his skinned knuckles, it was hard to believe that he had actually struggled with their enemies. In the greater disaster of the fire, it was hard to remember the details of his own scuffle by the stream. Montrouge seemed as undisturbed as ever, though he must have been aware of the danger he had been in. Probably, Woodyatt thought, he was content to let others do the worrying. Perhaps he was even working out his defence for when he reached England.

  Only Dominique, quiet and thoughtful, occasionally glancing at Woodyatt, made him realise it had all actually happened.

  When the flames had died down and the confusion had halted, they had gone back to find Hugo. The old man was lying as they had left him and the flames had not reached his workshop.

  He had no family. ‘He was just an old soldier,’ they were told.

  In his sorrow, Woodyatt was still shocked that they had been traced so easily. It convinced him that the organisation seeking Montrouge was bigger than they had imagined.

  The traffic seemed to have been directed away from the scene of the disaster and for a while they were alone on the road. Then, as they rounded a corner, they saw a large black Ford V8 saloon halted at the side of the road. As they approached, two men ran from behind it, dragging a small fallen tree across their path. Woodyatt recognised them at once as the city-suited men he’d assumed were Parisian gangsters seeking new hunting grounds. The next minute a pistol was stuck under his nose, as he was forced to stop.

  As Woodyatt climbed out of the car he was relieved of his revolver. Then Montrouge was dragged from his seat and all their luggage and personal belongings followed. Dominique was the last to be ejected. Finally the familiar blonde woman appeared, staring sourly at the red Renault. ‘Is that the best we can do?’ she demanded.

  ‘It’s a car.’ The man with the pistol peered at the fuel gauge.

  ‘And it’s full of petrol. Just get in and shut up.’

  As the blonde climbed into the front passenger seat of the Renault, the second man piled their luggage from the Ford on to the rear seat and scrambled in beside it. As the car roared off, Dominique turned to Woodyatt, her face pink with rage.

  ‘Why didn’t you shoot them?’ she demanded, her eyes sparkling with tears. ‘They are a disgrace to France.’

  Woodyatt was indifferent. ‘Because,’ he said calmly, ‘they would undoubtedly have shot me first.’

  ‘You shot the other man.’

  ‘This is different. Perhaps we’re well rid of the Renault.’

  ‘You don’t think we are still being followed, do you?’

  ‘Nothing’s normal in France at the moment. Perhaps Zamerski and partner somehow got a message to their friends even to the Luftwaffe – to destroy all red cars.’

  ‘Could they identify us?’

  ‘They could identify red cars. Their planes were low enough.’

  ‘There is only one snag,’ she pointed out. ‘The car they’ve left has no petrol.’

  Montrouge laughed. ‘A problem, young man, I think,’ he said.

  Woodyatt glared at him. ‘Stick him in the car,’ he rapped. ‘Stay with him. I’ll find help.’

  While Dominique was pushing the old man into the wide rear seat of the black Ford, Woodyatt went in search of his revolver which had been tossed into the bushes. He had been careful to note whereabouts it had landed and it didn’t take him long to find it among the empty wine bottles and remnants of old picnics. He handed it to Dominique and gestured at Montrouge.

  ‘It’ll be up to you to see that the people who’re looking for him don’t get him.’

  ‘Mother of God, do you expect me to shoot him?’

  ‘Not him. Them.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘I’m off.’

  She gave him a startled look and her fingers went to her face. She was still standing in the road, holding the revolver and staring after him, as he set off south.

  It started to rain again and Woodyatt’s thoughts were savage as he trudged on. Cars passed him occasionally but none of them stopped to offer a lift. His anger was directed against Pullinger; against France and its politicians; against French weather; against Dominique Sardier; above all against Montrouge. Everything about him: his cleverness; his intelligence; his sense of humour; his delight in tormenting Woodyatt – all seemed to indicate he was whom Woodyatt believed him to be.

  As the rain stopped, the wet road steamed in the sunshine that had broken through again. The countryside was well-wooded and lush but there didn’t seem to be a house anywhere. Then, on a hill to his right, he saw a red-brick building approached by a lane. It looked like a small farm and he turned towards it. The gate was an iron bed-end held in place by wire. Beyond it he could see outhouses, a pigsty, chicken runs and what looked like a garage. An elderly woman was working at a vegetable patch. As he opened the gate with a clatter, she gestured at the sky.

  ‘I think the rain has stopped,’ she said, studying him. ‘You look tired, young man.’

  Woodyatt acknowledged the fact and, as he did so, he realised he hadn’t slept in a bed for days.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to rest and take a glass of prunelle?’

  Woodyatt nodded and smiled. As he entered the garden, the woman gestured at the cars that roared past from time to time on the road below.

  ‘They’ve been at it for days,’ she said. ‘The Germans won’t come here.’

  Woodyatt wasn’t so sure. ‘I have a very old man with me,’ he said. ‘My car has been stolen. By men I think were Paris crooks. They left us one without petrol. Have you a car I can hire?’

  The woman shrugged. ‘There is a car. But it’s not here. My brother’s taken it to Saintes to collect supplies.’

  ‘Perhaps I could have some petrol?’ He tried to explain. ‘I have to get my passenger to England. I can walk. But he can’t. And he’s important. If I could bring him here and let him rest a while, I could then get in touch with someone I know in Bray-en-Basse. Or the British Consul in Bordeaux who should be able to organise something.’

  The woman smiled. ‘We have petrol. We use it for the generator. I could let you have a little.’

  Her name was Gonville and she was a widow. With her brother, she ran the smallholding for a living. ‘We have only two bedrooms,’ she said. ‘They are occupied by myself and my brother. ‘However–’ she indicated the shabby building nearby ‘–there is that. It was once a stable and before the war we made it into two rooms
to offer to tourists.’ She gave a wry smile. ‘But this is not a popular area. There are no castles or chateaux to visit. Only fields and grass and, in the winter, mud. No one ever came except the occasional walker or cyclist, so we stopped bothering. There are beds and I can provide blankets. Perhaps you could make your old man comfortable there.’

  Woodyatt could have hugged her.

  Carrying a can half full of petrol, he set off back to where Dominique and the old man were waiting. As cars passed him, he remembered that the road swung in a wide curve to the East. Instead of following it, he cut across the fields to where the big Ford had been abandoned. As he trudged along in the afternoon heat, his mind was busy. He was wondering if he should head for the Spanish border or whether Darby would manage to arrange something for them. Bordeaux, he imagined, would be as chaotic as the rest of France.

  As he reached the road again, he saw the black top of the Ford shining in the sun and instinctively began to hurry. Then, as he pushed across the sloping field, he heard a scream and raised his head. A man’s shout set him running. Bursting through the hedge, he saw the Ford had been found by a group of four men, two of whom looked like the ones who had originally tried to steal the red Renault by the damaged bridge.

  Dominique had her back to the car. She was flourishing Woodyatt’s revolver and the men were clearly wary of approaching. They had split into two groups, one on each side of her and she looked baffled, wondering what they were going to do. Then, beyond them, she saw Woodyatt.

  ‘James!’

  As Woodyatt plunged forward, she pulled the trigger of the revolver. The report, harsh and staccato, echoed among the hills. It was hard to tell whom she was aiming at but the bullet whined past Woodyatt’s ear. It startled the men by the car and, as their heads whipped round, Woodyatt emerged from the hedge.