Into the Fire

by Into the Fire (retail) (epub)

  Meaning, Ben had thought, somewhere ahead. Probably Guenioc, but it could also have been one of the other islands, or rocks. When you were lost, you were lost: and when you couldn’t see a damn thing and didn’t have a compass, ‘navigating’ amounted to little more than hoping for the best. But tell that to these guys, who’d thought they’d be on the way home to England by this time: would have been, but for the bloody Aussie’s fuck-up – was how they’d see it.

  It was the truth too. How he saw it. Should have had a compass that worked, to start with – he should have seen to it that they had – and lacking one he should have had a grass line linking the boats. Not in tow, but in touch… He saw the island – the high white rim of surf, and a blackness behind it darker than the night – when they were already almost on it. The dinghy was lifting again and in a fresh rush of horizontal movement surging forward, Ben’s weight on the sweep-oar again holding her against that tendency to wash round to port. Forget wind direction: keeping her stern to the sea was all that mattered. White water boiling gunwale-high as she scooted through it – stern up again, then, bow down – a savage jolt as the forefoot hit sand – only momentarily, thank God. If she’d stuck harder she’d have pivoted and capsized, there’d have been nothing he could have done about it – but she was lifted off in the next second, rushing on and then striking again – solidly enough but at a better angle, with a harsh grinding of sand under her flattish bottom all along her length. Bright and Farr were shipping their oars and leaping out one each side to steady the boat as it drove on, lightened by the loss of two men’s weight: the passengers were out then too, helping to drag her up the beach.

  There’d already been a faint lightness in the sky above Presqu’ile Sainte Marguerite. He was checking his surroundings while the others carried the dinghy up well out of the sea’s reach. The beach was steeper here than at Nick Ball’s landing place. If those were rocks to the right, he guessed they’d only just made it, the eastern end of the island. Sheer luck – if this was Guenioc. Touch wood, it had to be – with about the optimum chance of being taken off, he guessed, by Vidor and company. The only other island of comparable size was Tariec, which for any protracted stay would be uncomfortably close to the mainland lookout posts.

  One thing was certain, anyway. This had been the last night of the moonless period: there’d be no gunboats calling in the next three weeks.

  * * *

  They’d still been only dark shapes here and there. Faces and personalities would come with the daylight: recriminations too, he supposed. So far they’d gone easy on him. Dark shapes, though, and low voices, finding themselves places where they could sit or sprawl. They’d put the boat in among rocks for cover and had climbed higher now, into an area where there were patches of low scrub. Bristol, the squadron leader, had suggested to the American – Hansen – that although they were the senior men in this party, Lieutenant Quarry knew more about the place than they did and it would make sense to accept his guidance.

  Ben had shrugged, in the dark. ‘Gluttons for punishment if you want more of that’, but Hansen either hadn’t heard him, or ignored it, agreeing with Bristol, ‘That’s good thinking… Let’s have your views on our situation and prospects, Lieutenant. You’ll have been here a few times before this, eh?’

  ‘Never put a foot ashore – but yeah, I know the area – know about it. Enough to say we’d better keep our heads down, and not move around any more than we have to. Not in daylight anyway. Smoking’d be dangerous too. Well – down in the holes, those clefts, I suppose – but in daylight only; at night they’d see any match flare, and we’d have had it. If this is Guenioc there are German coastal defence positions there, there, and there – not to put too fine a point on it, roughly spitting distance.’

  ‘We had to pass between two of ’em on our way down to the beach.’

  ‘I suppose you would’ve.’

  ‘Prospects, then?’

  ‘Yes… Well, the gunboat – Hughes, my C.O. – will get a signal off to base as soon as he’s far enough out to break wireless silence. With sea conditions as they are, he won’t be making more than about twelve knots, so – four hours’ time, say. Then London’ll get on the air to the Resistance here. This evening, I’d guess, they can’t listen out all day and night, only at certain times. By midnight, anyway, they may know we’re here.’

  ‘You say they may – not they will?’

  ‘If they aren’t listening out tonight, don’t get any message—’

  ‘But chances are they will, eh?’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘Right. So then, what?’

  ‘Well – the long and short of it is this moonless period’s finished. There’ll be no gunboat pickups in the next three weeks.’

  ‘Christ…’

  ‘Truly have dropped you all in it, haven’t I?’

  ‘Sticking to practicalities’ – Hansen again – ‘they’ll come for us – the French will – say within a day or so – and hide us another three weeks – right?’

  ‘Back to square bloody one.’ Bristol’s mutter was barely audible over the surf’s roar. ‘Spent the last fortnight cooped up—’

  Ben cut across him: ‘The moon’ll be a limitation, for the French. We could get ourselves over to Tariec in the dinghy. I suppose – but another factor’s the tide, for that slog across the sands.’ He was thinking it out as he went along. ‘We’re stuck here for today, anyway. I suppose they might get to us – might – tomorrow night. I mean tonight – it’s already tomorrow, isn’t it?’

  ‘Even with a moon, you’re saying, they’ll come out for us?’

  ‘When it’s set – no moon – why not? Can’t be certain when, mind you – they might have other jobs on hand. The moon, though – should be well up before sunset, and set an hour or two after midnight. If they were ready to move between then and dawn – first light…’ He checked himself: ‘No – pre-dawn, this sort of time. Wouldn’t want to cut it too fine.’

  ‘If they can, why couldn’t a gunboat?’

  ‘We’re here, on the spot. It’s not like starting from more than a hundred miles away, with the approach from sea at least an hour, hour and a half say, in easy sight from shore, then another hour or two getting out again.’

  ‘Right…’

  ‘Wouldn’t take Einstein, would it?’

  That had been the other sergeant. Ben added, ‘I’m assuming, meanwhile, this is Guenioc…’

  It was. As dawn’s pinkish light flooded the mainland and the sea, the scattering of islands, half-tide rocks with the sea sporadically pluming up above them, he’d identified all the landmarks. Tariec, for one – about the same size as this and halfway to the mainland coast, directly in the path of the rising sun. Then in more or less full daylight he’d found the container of weapons which Ball had stashed here two nights earlier. It was in a crevice and covered with loose stones and sand, but one corner had been visible. Ball and his boat’s crew hadn’t done a bad job, at that, considering they’d been working in the dark.

  Come to think of it, the French might well be coming out to collect the stuff, some time soon. He’d mentioned this to Bristol, and the squadron leader had asked caustically. ‘How soon? A week?’

  With no food, no drink either – unless it rained. Bristol – rather froglike features under two or three days’ stubble – had asked him, ‘What’s the distance to Tariec, from that end?’

  ‘Seven hundred yards, roughly.’ Visualizing the chart, which was pretty well imprinted on his memory. He could have drawn it quite accurately if he’d had a pencil and a sheet of paper. Wasn’t a very experienced small-boat man, that was all – not without a bloody compass, or any mark or light… He told Bristol, ‘Less at low tide – more sand to cross, less rowing… Low water’ll be about ten, say. So eleven a.m. tomorrow, and the sand between Tariec and the mainland’s passable about two hours each side of low water. So if by some miracle – like getting over to Tariec after moonset tonight—’

&n
bsp; Hansen had joined them. Ginger stubble on a tanned face, ginger crewcut… ‘How about we do that. Then all we have to do after is look like we’re gathering seaweed. God knows what for…’

  ‘Manure on their fields.’

  ‘Huh. Learn one every day, don’t you? But we wouldn’t have the gear – forks, buckets, so forth. And coming, we had a guide, farmer’s daughter, knows where the mines are. Gerries have laid mines along the shore there, do you know that?’

  ‘Yes. There’s always a guide laid on. Wouldn’t risk it without one. Another problem’d be where we’d go – people around here are all strongly pro-Resistance, they say, but we might still knock on the one and only wrong door. Least, I might…’

  He’d spent most of the day asleep or dozing. Hunger gnawing, thirst too: asleep, dreams were mostly of food and drink. You had to keep out of the sun, finding shade among the rocks – because of the thirst factor, let alone the scorching. In intervals of wakefulness when he wasn’t studying the weather – wind dropping, sea still rough but a lot less so than it had been – he thought mostly about Rosie. Half dreaming, on and off – on his back, on sand in a fissure between walls of rock – hearing his own voice that night in the London fog, Fine navigator I’ll make!

  She’d laugh, when he reminded her of it and told her about this balls-up. If he ever did get to tell her.

  Bloody have to…

  He knew – or thought he did – why she’d kept her distance, all this time. Because in the cold light of day – not the dawn, which had been beautiful, truly and seriously marvellous – later, getting-up time, splitting-up time, as it turned out – sober and by the looks of her as hungover as he’d been himself, for some reason she’d been critical of him for not having dossed down in the bath. Some fiction in her mind that he’d told her he was going to – which was plain barmy, would never have occurred to him… And she’d said – repeated – words to the effect that she’d never behaved that way in her life before. She’d remembered how it had been in the dawn, he’d guessed, and it had shocked her. Thrilled him, shocked her… She’d told him, effectively, that she wasn’t that sort of girl, that what he was thinking about her simply wasn’t damn well true, she was not like that – meaning she was not an easy lay, round-heeled, a pushover, etcetera, and ignoring his own fervent protests that it was most certainly not the way he thought of her. Might as well have been talking to a brick wall, though; and since then she’d kept her distance and silence, he guessed in the belief that if she’d agreed to see him again he’d have assumed she was ready for more of the same.

  On those lines, anyway. That morning she’d paid no attention to anything he’d said. He’d been on his knees at one stage, imploring her to listen, hear this, believe it… She’d been very mixed up. Stood to reason – her husband being killed so recently, for one thing. Oh, God yes – she’d called his name. In the dawn – making love, the best he’d ever known it, really he’d learnt then how it could be – she’d called him not Ben, but Johnny.

  * * *

  The others were being very decent about all this, he’d thought. Not a word of blame. Although he, no-one else, was responsible for the fact they weren’t in England by this time. And they were hungry and very, very thirsty.

  Hansen’s only comment had been, ‘Guess it could’ve happened to anyone.’ He’d added, ‘Nelson, even. Right?’

  ‘Nelson would have made sure he did have a compass.’

  Bristol, then, pointing skyward – he seemed to have got over his sulks – ‘I’ve been lost – up there. Had a compass all right, still got lost. Couple of times, to be honest. Anyway, you got us back on terra firma – which I can tell you I for one was glad of – to put it mildly.’

  ‘Hear, hear. If that’s life on the ocean wave—’

  ‘You can have it.’ McDonnell, sergeant-pilot, formerly of Cork City, agreed. Reminding his friend Dunlop, ‘Spewed all over me, you bugger… Sure they won’t come back for us, even with that bloody thing?’

  Meaning the new moon, a pale sliver well up and visible even this early – as Ben had known it would be. He told him no, not a chance. Three weeks…

  ‘Here?’ Tommo Farr, the Welshman…

  ‘Always swim for it, couldn’t we?’

  ‘Where to?’

  Chat: most of it pointless: only maintaining contact, confirming to themselves as the light went that they were all in the same hole together. Whys and wherefores and whose fault it was hadn’t seemed to come into it – except for A.B. Bright musing at one stage, ‘Beats me Mr Ball didn’t stick close. Seeing as he had a fucking compass and he knew we didn’t.’

  ‘Had his own hands full. The same problems we had.’ Ben had added, ‘I was supposed to stick to him, not the other way about. Only wish now we’d had a line between us. A grass would’ve been the thing.’

  ‘Could’ve been awkward, that, sir.’

  Welsh intonation, through the darkness. Then Bright’s mutter ‘Not this fucking awkward.’

  The true answer, Ben thought, was that he shouldn’t have been looking for lights on shore, should have kept his eyes fixed on Ball’s boat.

  Squadron Leader Bristol came from Nettlebed, in Oxfordshire, Charles Hansen from Michigan, McDonnell was an Irishman and Sergeant-Pilot Dunlop was from Blyth, Northumberland. He and Hansen were the only married men in the party: the American had got himself tied up, as he put it, only a few days before leaving for England.

  ‘Wish you hadn’t now, do you?’

  ‘Hell, no.’ Then second thoughts: ‘Well – some ways, maybe. Like right now, I guess… You have a girl or two, Aussie, do you?’

  ‘One, that matters.’

  ‘And where’s she?’

  ‘Good question…’

  He’d wondered, while most of the others slept, where she might be, and doing what… In fact she’d been in Rouen that Thursday night, her second night at the Bonhommes’ bakery in Rue de la Cigogne, but of course all he’d known was that she had to be somewhere in France. Picturing her in his mind – and trying to understand himself, how he’d not thought about her much in the last year or so, then happened to glance up at the old paddle-steamer’s rail, and – incredibly – there she’d been, and he was in it up to his eyes again.

  The noise of the surf had a regular pattern to it, when you’d been listening to it for a while. What seemed at first to be a continuous roar had its separate components: the explosion and rush of each heavy sea crashing in, its thunder up the slope of the beach dissolving into a hiss of withdrawal just seconds before the next one… The wind was down, he realized. By morning there’d probably be only a swell breaking on the beaches and very little white elsewhere.

  Very little food, either. In fact none. No water either – and that was a lot worse. Bloody serious, in fact. But – tomorrow night – touch wood. If Vidor didn’t show up then – well, just have to chance it, get ashore, moon or no moon. Licking cracked lips – and trying not to, trying to put thirst out of mind. How long could a man last without even a sip of water, he wondered?

  * * *

  ‘Quarry. Hey, Quarry…’

  ‘Huh?’

  Hansen was crouching beside him: a shape in the darkness identifiable only by that Yank accent. Others were moving too, though: there were movements and voices in the background.

  A French voice?

  Dreaming…

  No moon, now. Early morning, therefore. Hansen telling him, ‘Frog with a boat, Lieutenant, come to take us off.’

  Sitting… ‘Vidor?’ He called in French – what he called French – ‘Is that Vidor there?’

  ‘No. It’s Léon… Who’s that, someone speaks French?’

  ‘Damn little…’ He switched back into it, though – such as it was… ‘I’m Lieutenant Quarry, from the gunboat, M.G.B. 600.’

  ‘You have a peculiar accent, you know that?’

  ‘Pure Australian.’

  ‘Ah. Well, never mind… But listen – there are seven of you, that correct?’r />
  ‘Yes. We’ve our own boat too.’

  ‘OK. We’ll use it. That’s good – we have to take the guns, you see, the container. In your boat maybe, and tow it. Get over to Tariec now while it’s dark enough, and later they’ll come with a cart – for the algue, eh?’ Algue meaning wrack, seaweed. Léon had climbed up to him: a man of about his own height, shaking hands with him and then more perfunctorily with the others. Ben tried his French again: ‘I’d thought the best we could hope for was tomorrow night.’

  ‘I was coming for the container anyway. There’s trouble – we have to shift a lot of stuff – a lot more than this, I tell you. But there was a message about you so I brought the larger boat.’

  ‘What kind of trouble?’

  ‘Maybe none. Could be, that’s all. Let’s get a move on, hunh?’

  * * *

  They’d made it to Tariec, and hidden the dinghy high and dry and under a heap of rotting seaweed. Léon had stayed with them, watching the tide fall, and in mid-morning they’d seen the cart and a team of seaweed-gatherers coming out over the sand. They’d brought a barrico of water in the cart, also some bread and dried fish. The container had been loaded – on the blind side of the island – and the seven foreigners had climbed in too, under a covering of seaweed which had become heavier and wetter during the cart’s slow transit back to the mainland, five Frenchmen – four plus Léon – sporadically tossing forkfuls of the wrack in on top of them, for the benefit of any watching German soldiery.

  Then off the beach, up steeply on to a farm track, the men’s shoulders at the wheels to help the poor old horse. Earthy Breton language…

  At Broennou – at this farmhouse, on the edge of the coastal village, which had one of the German gun-emplacements immediately to the south of it – there’d been an ambulance waiting, a gazogène conversion which if its driver had been questioned would allegedly have brought the old farmer home after he’d had treatment for his gammy leg – he was very lame, his daughter Solange seemed to run the place – and the four airmen had transferred to it. There wouldn’t have been room for more than three in the hayloft, so Ben and his two seamen were to stay here while the others were taken on to some other billet. Léon had shaken hands with everyone again, and disappeared, and Vidor had turned up when the three of them had been finishing an enormous tureen of fish, turnips and potatoes. It had been brought up to them in the loft by Alain – a boy of about sixteen with a mongoloid look about him, dribble on his chin – and ladled out into bowls by the daughter, Solange, who came up with Vidor. She had a shy smile and green eyes, spoke no English at all but seemed amused by Ben’s Australian accent. Vidor told them when he arrived that she sometimes acted as a guide through the minefields on the foreshore.