Flawed Banner

by John Harris

  She became silent again and he waited, feeling she wanted to talk, as if she’d wanted to talk for years but had never had anyone close enough. Eventually she went on in a wondering voice, as though surprised at herself. ‘Things are moving too swiftly. A lot of people are dying. It makes death seem closer.’

  Her hand touched Woodyatt’s and, as he took it, her fingers closed round his, tense as springs.

  ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that at the moment a lot of people are thinking the way you’re thinking. And a lot of people are behaving as we behaved. Because they’re frightened or tired or lost or lonely. Life’s suddenly become a bit difficult and different. Everything’s different. Even morals, I suppose. There are other things that war produces besides death.’

  Her head turned as she glanced at him. ‘I don’t know why I did what I did,’ she went on, still speaking in a low voice so that the old man in the back of the car wouldn’t hear. ‘But I’m twenty-six and no longer a school girl and I suppose we’re all a little desperate for warmth these days. There’s so little of it. What we felt was not just passion. It was the comfort of shared sorrows.

  He wished she wouldn’t scourge herself so. But her face remained secret and enigmatic and she persisted with the lecture, as if she were determined he shouldn’t escape.

  ‘Loving’s sharing,’ she went on. ‘And sharing’s comfort.’

  ‘Why do you dissect everything so?’

  ‘Be quiet!’ she snapped. ‘I’m trying to tell you something. To me it was a reassurance. It made me feel that to someone I’m important. Because–’ her voice shook ‘–I am lost. I’ve been lost ever since you appeared, James Woodyatt. You took away someone I had begun to cherish. He doesn’t exist any more. He’s become a different man, a stranger, and I’m lonely again. I was lonely for a long time. After my Monsieur Maladroit left and my mother died, I was bitter and I hated being so. Then I acquired a relation, my only relation. He filled a gap and he was all I had. But now he’s gone, too, because you’ve destroyed him.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  She shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t blame you. But, you see, I am on my own again. I have no one to take his place. Perhaps it will be easier for me now that we have forgotten our good manners.’

  Woodyatt, Dominique and their aged companion were silent as they ate at a small hotel. Like so many others, the owners were making money hand over fist from the refugees. They were near their destination now but, with the engine giving trouble, they were obviously not going to make it without another stop. By this time, not only were more cars beginning to run out of petrol, but their owners were also beginning to run out of money. There were constant hold-ups and some vehicles were towing others. A three-wheeled motor-driven cripple’s chair was being pushed by an overloaded two-seater; the owner, a man with paralysed legs, sitting up in front.

  They now began to pass through empty countryside devoid of hotels but eventually they found an old chateau, perched high above a river, which had been turned into a hotel. It had obviously been opened hurriedly to make money from the refugees, and the great hall had been made into a dormitory. Beds had been set up beneath the antlers, stag’s heads and hunting horns: all of them black with grime. In the hall was a picture of the Battle of Sedan, showing glassy-eyed French soldiers holding tattered banners, with piles of dead Germans around them.

  The owners were aloof and distant, survivors from another age living in a state of feudal splendour and poverty. Though they had been quick to put to good account the misery of the refugees, they obviously had little time for them. Their talk was stilted and reactionary, and they clearly felt France’s troubles were due entirely to the Popular Front and International Jewry.

  Woodyatt was able to obtain two rooms, one a small one beyond the other so that no one could reach Montrouge without passing through the larger one.

  ‘Leave the light on,’ the old man said as he stretched out on the bed. ‘I am like Goethe. I don’t fancy dying in the dark.’

  He seemed more tired than usual and complained of being too weary to sleep. Woodyatt distrusted him and suspected him of working up some ruse to escape, but they eventually heard his breath become deep and steady. As they closed the connecting door, Dominique started removing her clothes with a blank face.

  ‘We know what we are doing,’ she said in a dogged way. ‘We have decided we are neither of us innocents. We never were. And life teaches the impatience of the body and the impulses of the flesh.’

  She sounded like a schoolteacher with a difficult pupil again and Woodyatt answered irritably.

  ‘Dominique, we’re about to go to bed together. We’re not about to start a five-finger exercise on the piano.’

  She stood before him, slim and white in the dusk, and he saw her eyes were wet. Her mouth was open, her lips trembling. In them he could see pain and, without saying a word, he gathered her in his arms. She didn’t resist and leaned weakly against him. Then her arms went round him, clinging to him, and he could feel her shuddering in an emotion he couldn’t fathom.

  ‘Dominique–’

  ‘Don’t speak,’ she said. ‘It’s best not for you to speak, best not for you to ask questions.’

  As they turned the light out he reached for her.

  ‘I would like us to make love,’ she said. ‘No. I would like you to make love to me.’ She sounded like a sergeant in the WRAF. He felt her lips on his cheek. ‘Good James Woodyatt,’ she whispered. ‘Kind, funny James Woodyatt. I am happier with you than with any man I’ve ever known. I am happy even here with you pawing me like a farm boy.’ She gave a little laugh and moved closer to him. ‘But we are such an ill-assorted couple and it is all so different from what I expected.’

  He wondered what she meant and she went on slowly. ‘I thought when I was very young that I would grow up and marry a prince. Later when I learned about things, I still thought that when I went to bed with a man it would be very romantic and the man I slept with would be my husband and I would love him very much. It would be beautiful like music and roses and perfume. But it isn’t like that, is it? Monsieur Maladroit was not my husband. And neither are you. And we are in bed together not because I am in love, but because I need comfort and because we are in a war. And when you are in a war you must not waste time.’ He heard her sigh. ‘It’s surprising how normal it becomes when everything else is abnormal.’

  She was about to say more but he laid a finger on her lips.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No more.’

  She gave a little laugh. ‘I always say too much,’ she agreed. ‘It is the teacher in me coming out. I feel I have to explain everything to myself as if I were my own most stupid pupil. But from now on I’ll be forward and daring, and behave as an ardent lover with no worries about propriety or correctness. I no longer have any qualms of conscience. Perhaps I have no conscience. Certainly I have no fears any more.’ She paused and gave a little laugh. ‘Only that Monsieur Montrouge will wake up and catch us.’

  The following morning there were no deep silences, no embarrassments, no self-accusations.

  From the hotel wireless they learned that Pétain was about to hand France to the Germans on a plate. They’d heard rumours as far back as Fontainebleau that this would happen but had been unable to believe them. Now they seemed to be true. Stories of a terrible bombing of Paris came over but Woodyatt guessed they were all false, put out to salve the nation’s conscience.

  A rat of a man in a smart suit and tie had entered the hotel’s breakfast restaurant and was delivering a tirade on the defiant speech Churchill had made when he had promised to continue the struggle. All France wanted was peace, he claimed. ‘Let’s get the war over,’ he suggested loudly. ‘And get back to calm.’

  A fat woman kissed him in an excess of enthusiasm. ‘The Armistice’s about to be signed,’ she crowed. ‘France will be saved!’

  Woodyatt noticed the look of contempt Dominique gave her.

  Darby welcomed them with open arms. When they to
ld him of their pursuers and what had happened at Marville, he seemed to consider that was the end of their worries. But he was obviously becoming nervous at the way events were going.

  ‘Things have changed a bit since you were here last,’ he said. ‘The bloody Germans are going to have the whole Atlantic coast under the terms of the Armistice. The buggers will be able to set up submarine bases all the way from Norway to the Spanish border. We’ll have to get out. St Nazaire and La Rochelle are due to fall anytime but so far there are still ships in Bordeaux. I’ve been down there and seen them. Find Redmond?’

  ‘He’s in the car. He’s given nothing away. All I’ve been able to establish is that he drinks brandy and soda occasionally.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got plenty of that.’ Darby peered at the car. ‘Who’s the girl?’

  Woodyatt explained and Darby grinned enthusiastically. ‘Better wheel ’em in.’ As his wife appeared, he turned to her. ‘Got company, Daph. Our friend, Redmond. Should be an interesting encounter.’

  Dominique was helping the old man out of the car. As he began to move up the path to the house, Darby frowned.

  ‘He’s changed,’ he muttered.

  As the introductions took place, Darby’s frown grew deeper.

  ‘This is Colonel Darby,’ Woodyatt explained to Montrouge. ‘An old friend of yours, I think.’

  He had been hoping to trap the old man into a start of recognition but he ought to have known better. ‘I’ve never met Colonel Darby before,’ Montrouge said briskly.

  ‘Colonel Darby was an acquaintance of General Redmond in South Africa.’

  The old man gave a bark of a laugh. ‘You don’t give up, do you? I assure you – and Colonel Darby – we’ve never met.’ The words were insultingly self-confident.

  Darby’s eyes were narrow. ‘Does he know what happened?’

  ‘He knows pretty well everything. He’ll give an explanation if you care to go into it. But I shouldn’t bother if I were you.’ Woodyatt turned to Mrs Darby who was studying the old man minutely. Montrouge was staring back at her, a half-smile on his lips, the sort of half-smile any French gallant would wear as he rushed back to pick up some woman in whose face he had allowed a swing door to slam. But there was no hint of recognition.

  ‘This is Mrs Darby,’ Woodyatt said. ‘Mrs Darby knew Redmond, too.’

  ‘Really?’ Montrouge gave a little bow but Daphne Darby said nothing, merely turning away to show them into the house.

  Woodyatt turned to Darby. ‘Well?’

  Darby’s face was dark and he was looking baffled. He made a frustrated gesture, like someone cheated of his prey.

  ‘It’s not him,’ he said.

  Part Four

  One

  Woodyatt’s heart had sunk to his feet. Surely to God he hadn’t gone to all this trouble for the wrong man! ‘Are you sure?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’ Darby ran his hand across his face. ‘No, I’m not sure. Just doesn’t look like him, that’s all. But how can I tell? When I last saw him he was a man in his forties: young, virile, upright. He’s an old man now. Voice is different. But old men’s voices are different. Head seems to be a different shape, too, from what I remember. But heads change also, don’t they? Skull stays the same but the flesh falls away and you can see bone structure you couldn’t see before. Looked at his hand, too. Couldn’t see any scar. I don’t think it’s him.’

  Woodyatt was angry and began to outline all of what he considered had been attempts to destroy Redmond. Darby wasn’t interested. Woodyatt suspected that at the last minute he had lost his nerve and hadn’t the courage to condemn someone he wasn’t sure about. As a result he was frowning heavily when Dominique appeared to say the old man was tired and was asking if he might lie down.

  Darby turned, his expression worried. ‘I’ll show you his bed,’ he said. He seemed to be in a hurry and anxious to be out of the room.

  Daphne Darby appeared a moment later, with glasses and a brandy bottle. ‘Have you arrested him?’ she asked.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Redmond. It is Redmond.’

  Woodyatt was bewildered. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘The way he stands. The way he talks. The shape of his head.’

  ‘Frank says it isn’t him.’

  ‘Frank didn’t know him as I knew him.’

  ‘How well did you know him?’

  She eyed Woodyatt coolly. ‘I was in love with him,’ she said.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ Woodyatt demanded.

  She shrugged. ‘You didn’t ask. It is something I’m vaguely ashamed of now. And it’s hurtful to Frank. He doesn’t like to hear it.’

  There was a long silence. ‘No matter what Frank says,’ Mrs Darby went on, ‘it is him. I know. I was in love with him and love makes you clear-sighted. Not about character. God, no! But about the shape and colour of your beloved. Ask that girl you brought with you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s in love with you. It’s obvious.’

  She gave him a shrewd look as if she knew exactly what their relationship was. ‘Hers, of course, is different. It might get somewhere. Mine never did. But I had a terrible crush on him and I found it heartbreaking that no matter what I did he never noticed me.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘I know why now, after all that happened.’ She paused, ‘Frank and I weren’t married then, of course, though I’d known him all my life. We grew up in the same village.’

  ‘How did you get to know Redmond?’

  She sat back in her chair, her eyes faraway as if she were looking at things she’d long since forgotten. ‘I met him in Cape Town during the Boer War. I was eighteen. He was a good-looking man and women couldn’t take their eyes off him. I know. I was one of them. The war was going badly at the time but there were a lot of handsome men about. Redmond was known as “Gorgeous George”. And he was gorgeous. He really was – tall, strong, with a matinee idol profile. I was after a husband and I watched him a lot because he seemed a likely candidate.’ She gestured towards the sitting room. ‘What you’ve got there is Redmond.’

  She paused then went on slowly. ‘If he’d asked me to run away with him I’d have gone like a shot.’ She gave a brittle laugh. ‘Some hope! Thank God he didn’t.’ She laughed again. ‘But then, he wouldn’t have, would he?’ She poured a brandy for herself and pushed the bottle towards Woodyatt. ‘My father was a soldier, too,’ she went on. ‘When he was posted to the Cape garrison in 1898 he naturally took his family with him. I was seventeen when we left England and Cape Town was a good place to be. Garden parties. Races. Everything a young girl could want. I was having the time of my life.’

  She paused. ‘Frank was in Cape Town, too,’ she said. ‘On the staff. He had his eye on me even then but I’d grown up like a lot of girls in those days did, on a diet of romantic novels. He didn’t seem handsome enough or dashing enough or sufficiently powerful and wealthy. I’d been spoiled. Then the war started and as you probably know, there was a series of disasters. Colenso. Magersfontein. Spion Kop. Ladysmith. Kimberley and Mafeking were besieged, and all the men they’d said were our best generals were defeated. They were all sacked and replaced.’

  She gave another little laugh as if she were facing up to old terrors that didn’t frighten her any more, terrors that in the present situation seemed only trivial.

  ‘It doesn’t sound much now,’ she admitted. ‘But it seemed important at the time. The Empire was in danger. Actually, the Boers could never really have kicked us out. There weren’t enough of them. But a lot of people were scared stiff. Then the reinforcements arrived, George Redmond with them. He was working in Intelligence at the time. He was all I wanted. Good-looking, already famous. Older, of course. But in all the books I’d read the heroines always married brave, famous older men who came as a relief after the irresponsible youngsters they’d first fallen in love with. He didn’t look his ag
e, mind you, and what was more he was unmarried. She paused. ‘Or so we all believed at the time. Since he seemed to be free, I made a set at him. He totally ignored me. I couldn’t make out why because I was pretty. Even generals usually managed to give me a smile. The fact that he didn’t almost broke my heart. Until he moved north after the Boers, he was often at my father’s house. He sometimes came uninvited and I thought it was to see me. Later – much later – I realised it wasn’t me he was interested in. It was the gardener’s boy. He was a Malay of about seventeen. It didn’t mean a thing to me at the time, of course. It was only later I understood.’

  ‘Did you ever meet him again?’ Woodyatt was clinging to her words.

  She lifted her glass. ‘Chin chin,’ she said, taking a swallow. ‘Of course I did. In 1902, after we came home, I bumped into him at Ascot. But again he ignored me. It puzzled me because nobody treated me like that. He was with a man and a few days later I saw a picture of that man in a magazine. His name was Henry Cazalet. He was an actor. Then one day the following year I happened to go to Richmond to see an old nanny who’d gone to live there, and as I arrived I saw Redmond leaving a house further down the street. He got into a cab and vanished and I wondered whom he’d been visiting. And, of course, I jumped to conclusions because in those days men with money often set up women in discreet little villas. I was jealous enough to want to find out. I noted the name of the house and looked up the name of the occupier. It was Henry Cazalet.’

  Mrs Darby became silent, her eyes far away again, the lines of disillusionment etched on her face. ‘I was still young and silly, I suppose,’ she went on slowly. ‘And very innocent. By that time he was Chief of Staff to the reserve army and I saw him more than once in the area. With men. But while they might have been types who might have interested him when he was working in Intelligence, they hardly seemed to be the sort he would associate with as Chief of Staff to an army corps.’