by John Harris
Montrouge smiled. ‘You can’t live to my age, young man, he pointed out, ‘without defaulting somewhere. We all have our guilty little secrets, don’t we?’
Six
The land was like the hollow in a vast dune, with vineyards and pine trees and a road that ran arrow-straight the whole length of the peninsula. Gradually it began to be more sandy and wooded and there was a strong smell of the sea. Then they left the woods behind them for open country, immense stretches of sand lay ahead of them. The wide mouth of the river was dotted with ships at anchor, large liners and small merchant ships, some of the flags Dutch, some Belgian, some French, some British. On the other side of the river was Royan, an Edwardian resort of no great beauty but at that moment shining in the sun, the church on the hill pointing like a finger to the sky. Reaching Le Verdon, they passed the memorial on the Pointe de Grave, erected to the memory of the Americans who had landed there in 1917 as they came to the aid of France.
Despite his title, the naval control officer was a British businessman from Bordeaux. Waiting to board were British soldiers, an RAF intelligence group, two or three wounded and a crowd of civilians. Cars were parked everywhere.
They learned that a launch was to take them out to a ship at four p.m. so they had lunch at a restaurant near the American memorial and afterwards Dominique insisted on going into the church nearby. ‘I would like to say a prayer for Colonel Darby,’ she announced.
‘You could say one for us too,’ Woodyatt suggested.
‘I have been doing that for some time,’ she said primly. When they arrived at the water’s edge people were struggling up with their luggage. Most of them had been too lazy, too arrogant or too stupid to leave before, and now they were behaving badly and making things worse for those whose presence there was not of their own doing.
They emptied the Ford of its luggage and Montrouge climbed out. Hoping to see inside his case, Woodyatt placed it to one side. ‘I’ll carry it.’
‘No!’ The old man grabbed the handle. ‘I will.’
People were boarding the launches from a small stone quay, everybody pushing and shoving angrily. Forcing his way through, Woodyatt edged to the front.
‘Here! You lot!’ a man with several chins and an expensive accent called out. ‘Where do you think you’re going? We were here long before you.
A naval lieutenant at the top of the steps that led down to the launches was shouting over the heads of the queue. ‘You might as well settle down for the night,’ he yelled. ‘There’ll be no more after this one.’
As Woodyatt appeared, he pushed him back. ‘Take your turn, old boy,’ he said sharply. ‘Everybody takes their turn.’
‘I have a man here who must get to England.’
‘Sorry. You can go. You’re in uniform but there are no special favours for civilians.’
‘He’s needed in England.’
‘I’ve heard that one before.’
The lieutenant’s manner infuriated Woodyatt and he waved Pullinger’s documents. ‘You’d better take a look at these,’ he said. ‘Or it will be God help you, believe me.’
The lieutenant turned. He was still trying to be authoritative but he took the papers. Flipping through them, he read the signatures and his face stiffened. For a while he was silent then he looked up. ‘All right,’ he said, making no apology. ‘Let’s have you.’
Montrouge was pushed through the crowd by Dominique.
‘Who is he?’ the lieutenant asked. ‘My instructions are that everybody taken on board has to have a good reason. We’re getting some funny types through. They’re already sending back French who were picked up at Dunkirk and don’t fancy roast beef and Yorkshire pud. Who’s the girl?’
‘She’s his nurse,’ Woodyatt snapped. ‘If you open your eyes you can see he’s old and needs one. And, as it happens, she’s my wife.’
As they went down the steps to the launch, Montrouge was at Woodyatt’s side. ‘Young man,’ he murmured, ‘I begin to see that you might yet have a future in the army.’
As they took their places in the launch, Dominique was sitting quietly beside Woodyatt.
‘You told him I was your wife,’ she said.
Woodyatt was still angry, with Montrouge, with the lieutenant, with the whole French nation and, for no reason at all, with her.
‘You could be,’ he retorted.
‘But I am not.’
‘Then we’d better make it so as soon as possible.’
She was silent for a long time. ‘Is that supposed to be a proposal?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a very odd one.’
‘There’ve been odder.’
‘We barely know each other.’
‘We’ve known each other for years.’
With her hands in her lap, her eyes directed towards her feet, she took the steam out of Woodyatt’s anger. His temper began to cool and, as his heart stopped thumping and his breathing slowed, he looked at her and grinned. ‘We’ve done all the things lovers do,’ he pointed out.
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘We have.’ She looked at him, her eyes full of mischief.
‘Since we’re discussing it–’ Woodyatt pressed the point home ‘–it’s quite possible that what that naval twit said is right and they are sending French people back to France. Whether they like it or not. They wouldn’t send an English wife. It can be done quickly at a Registry Office. You could always divorce me later.’
She looked at him, her eyes gentle, and he went on, stumbling a little. ‘I wouldn’t hold you to it. It would be a means of being safe.’
She had turned her head away but now her eyes lifted and unexpectedly she gave him one of the wide flashing grins that always devastated him when they appeared.
‘I think I just caught the smell of burned boats,’ she said.
They were put aboard a destroyer and, despite the naval man’s insistence, nobody asked to see their papers or sought their identities. After a while the ship began to move and she brought up alongside a British passenger liner named the Coniston. The liner had a dirty yellow line painted round her to indicate she had been degaussed against the magnetic mines the Germans had been dropping in the river. The sailors who helped them up the long ladder were Lascars. They were polite and helpful but they seemed amused that the pukka sahibs to whom they’d always had to show subservience were being herded like coolies. The ship had come from East Africa via the Cape of Good Hope and Sierra Leone and she had normal accommodation for a hundred and fifty passengers. There were already between five and six hundred aboard and more were expected.
There were no cabins free because they had been snatched up long since but they settled for a deck chair on the boat deck for Montrouge and a seat on the planking for themselves. As the old man sat down, he placed his suitcase alongside him and called Woodyatt’s attention to a steward moving past with glasses on a tray.
‘I think the bar’s open,’ he said in English. ‘So B and S wouldn’t come amiss.’ Suddenly he seemed to have thrown caution to the wind and become indifferent to what he said or how he said it.
More people came aboard until it was almost impossible to move. Woodyatt thought he saw Daphne Darby on the deck below but then he lost her again in the crowd. An aeroplane appeared overhead and somebody said it was Italian.
‘They haven’t declared an armistice yet,’ he explained.
A bomb was dropped but it came nowhere near them. And suddenly it didn’t seem to matter. They were in the hands of the navy, that traditional haven for thousands of weary soldiers and refugees over the centuries. Woodyatt found a great burden of responsibility had fallen from his shoulders. All he had to do now was leave it to the seamen. All the accumulated strain of the last few days had vanished and a sense of luxurious security flooded over him.
There was still the sound of aeroplanes about but none were visible. The story aboard the ship was that the Italians were determined to push the French to the limit from the South to get all th
ey could before their German overlords told them to stop.
Other ships arrived and dropped anchor. The British government had obviously mounted a major rescue attempt for troops cut off from the North and British passport-holders trying to get out of France. French, Belgian and Dutch ships lay among them.
‘That’s a Norwegian,’ a sailor standing at the rail by Woodyatt said. ‘Stavanger. She was in Southampton when I was there last year. Collier. Six thousand tons, built on the Tyne.’
The ship was a big lumpy flush-decker, painted as black as the cargoes she carried.
‘Built on the Isherwood system,’ the sailor continued. ‘’Stead of her ribs being arranged vertically from keel to deck, they run horizontally from forward to aft. Strong. Sensible, o’course, because she spends a lot of time in icebound waters. That’s why she has that heavy stern. It goes down well below the waterline. They don’t build ’em like that any more. Insurance companies think they’re too dangerous.’
He offered Woodyatt a cigarette. ‘She came in here carrying coal,’ he went on. ‘Around ten thousand tons, I reckon. But they commandeered her, coal and all, to take people home. They must be short of ships after Dunkirk.’
Up ahead a mat of small boats was clustered round another ship and more were arriving all the time from the shore.
‘I suppose now,’ Montrouge said amiably, ‘you can sit back with the feeling that everything will be taken care of from London.’
He was lying comfortably in his chair as Woodyatt and Dominique squatted on the deck.
‘That’s about the idea,’ Woodyatt said equably.
‘And I suppose they’ll do the same as you and assume I’m this fellow Redmond you talk about.’
‘I think they will.’
Montrouge smiled. ‘British Intelligence was never very good.’
He seemed to feel he could handle anything that was thrown at him and Woodyatt smiled back, curiously at ease with him for once.
‘It’s learned a lot since your time,’ he said cheerfully. ‘They already know more than I know. More than you know, too. They have several thick files about you.’
‘It would need fingerprints, and prints weren’t in general use when Redmond disappeared.’
‘True,’ Woodyatt agreed. ‘But when he was a young soldier, he made the mistake of allowing himself to be interviewed by the French anthropometrist, Alphonse Bertillon. He measured Redmond’s head, his fingers, his foot, his forearms. Had you forgotten?’
Montrouge was silent for a moment. ‘Bertillon was a fool,’ he snapped.
For the first time he seemed shaken.
Woodyatt smiled. ‘In addition, they have very careful records of every known mark on his body. Darby made them.’
‘Darby drank.’ There wasn’t the slightest indication of sorrow for Darby’s death.
‘He was no fool, all the same. He collected every bit of information on the Redmond affair there was. Every bit.’
‘British Intelligence was never that thorough.’ Montrouge suddenly sounded lame and hesitant.
‘Darby wasn’t working for Intelligence,’ Woodyatt pointed out. ‘He was working for himself.’
The Coniston still hadn’t moved when darkness came, and they began to hear a chorus of complaints. They were the same complaints they had heard ashore and they came from the same people. Why weren’t the authorities doing more for their comfort? Why weren’t they taking steps to move them to safety? The grumbling went on long after dark.
Montrouge was fast asleep in his chair, as indifferent, it seemed, to the complaints as to the chilly breeze off the sea. He was swathed in the long overcoat, his head down in the collar.
Woodyatt could still hear aircraft in the sky and there was an occasional thump and now and then a short burst of machine-gun fire. Whatever had been decided about France, the war with Britain hadn’t finished.
It was impossible to sleep. The deck was hard and there was the constant coming and going of people as uncomfortable as themselves. Always there was someone tripping over their feet or stumbling against them as everyone moved restlessly about the ship in the dark. Dominique slept with her head against Woodyatt’s shoulder. His arm was round her and he could feel the warmth and softness of her breast against his hand.
He awoke to find there was already light in the sky. It looked as it had when they left the hotel at St Laurent, and he wondered if anybody had bothered to examine the trunk yet.
Dominique stirred and her head lifted. She caught his eyes on her and smiled, pushing at her hair.
Behind them they could see smoke rising ashore from burning buildings beyond Royan. The wind was off the land and depositing a layer of fine dust and ash on the Coniston. The river was beginning to come to life and over the water they could hear the clang of ships’ bells and the higher sound of engine-room telegraphs. The Norwegian collier, the Stavanger, which had been lying further downstream, was already underway and heading slowly towards them. As they became aware of the smell of cooking coming from somewhere aboard the ship, Woodyatt scrambled to his feet.
‘I think I’d better try to find some food,’ he said.
Rations were already beginning to run out on the overcrowded vessel but he managed to bribe his way to a tray containing cups of tea and a plateful of buttered toast. The sound of aircraft was still in the sky as he returned to where Dominique waited with Montrouge. He had just reached them when, high up, faint and silvery, like midges in the sun, he saw a group of planes heading towards them from the direction of Royan.
‘Better eat while you can,’ he advised.
He swallowed the tepid tea and watched Dominique do the same, then they stuffed their mouths with the toast and placed the tray on the old man’s lap. He seemed startled at their hurry. As he began on the toast, the guns on the destroyer nearby opened fire with a crash that almost split their eardrums: the harsh racket of pompoms mingled with the crash of heavier weapons. Lewis guns from smaller craft and the rattle of rifles joined the barrage. The planes were nearer now and the destroyer was going astern; the boats which had been alongside her cast adrift. On board the Coniston men were pushing screaming women through doors into companionways leading from the deck. Trays, cups, saucers and plates had been dropped and were crunched under hurrying feet.
The bombers were nearer now and every ship in the river mouth suddenly seemed to be moving. The destroyer was tearing away at speed and another liner, which had been surrounded by a mat of boats, was already heading north to the sea. There was a crash and a roar from forward and somebody yelled that the captain had slipped the anchor. Woodyatt could feel the throbbing of the ship’s engines and realised they were moving.
‘Full ahead!’ Even above the noise he heard the bridge order.
The tide had been on the turn and ships had been lying all ways so that they were moving in every direction imaginable. Among them, the Stavanger had increased to full speed and was moving quickly towards the sea. The bombers were almost overhead now. There were three waves of them coming down in shallow dives as the Coniston began to work up speed. Huge waterspouts rose as the bombs fell in the river mouth, the water dropping back across the deck of the moving ship. The screams and shouts intensified, but they seemed to have escaped damage.
Then, as the last aeroplane passed beyond the bow of the ship, Woodyatt saw the stick of bombs it had dropped, hanging in the air above them, poised for what seemed an age, growing larger and larger as they fell.
Guns were hammering all round them and they saw a piece break off the wing of the aeroplane. As it fluttered down, the plane disappeared across the river, struggling to maintain height. Everybody’s eyes were on it and only a few of the passengers were watching the bombs. Woodyatt saw a line of splashes beside the ship and felt the thump of the explosions. He was drenched by the collapsing waterspouts. Then as the last bomb landed somewhere just below the overhanging stern, he felt the deck leap beneath his feet, under an explosion that jarred his spine and made his
teeth feel loose.
Seven
At first the Coniston seemed to have escaped damage. There was no sign of wreckage and no one had been injured, and it seemed there was nothing to do but continue towards the sea.
Then Woodyatt realised the ship was swinging wildly and, as several members of the crew hurried past him towards the stern, he gathered that the bomb had jammed the rudder and the ship was out of control.
There had been no sign of fear from Dominique, only a movement nearer to Woodyatt. Montrouge had risen to his feet from the chair. Woodyatt watched him put his cup and saucer down on the deck, fascinated by his slowness and calmness. It was as though he were trying to show people younger than he was how to behave in the face of danger.
Now that the aeroplanes had gone, the passengers were crowding back on deck from the companionways, trying to see what had happened. Someone yelled from the bridge.
‘Go astern! Go astern!’
The engine-room telegraph sounded and the ship shuddered as the engines were thrown into reverse. The shout had not been directed towards the Coniston herself though, but towards the Stavanger, which was still roaring up at full speed towards the open sea.
With her ten thousand tons of coal aboard, she was right down to her load mark with only a few feet of freeboard between waterline and deck. Someone aboard had spotted the swinging Coniston and Woodyatt saw a furious froth of water under her overhanging stern as her engines were put into reverse. The Coniston’s siren boomed and the Stavanger’s roared in reply. But because of the bombing, both ships had been moving to full speed and in the distance available there was no stopping them. The Coniston was slowing but, under the dead weight of her cargo, the Stavanger still moved swiftly forward, impossible to halt in the distance available.
‘Go astern!’ The cry came again from the Coniston’s bridge.
Watching with fascinated horror as the ships drew closer, Woodyatt remembered what the sailor had told him the previous evening. He had no experience whatsoever of ships, but he could see that sharp upright bow drawing closer to where he stood. The thought that passed through his mind was that it was like an immense cold chisel.
