by Ken Follett
Teresa said: ‘Guillaume was born in Normandy. All that butter.’
The younger of the two soldiers, a pale boy with glasses, smiled at Teresa. She was easy to smile at. ‘Do you have wine?’ he said.
‘Of course.’
The two sentries brightened visibly.
Teresa said: ‘Would you like some right now?’
The older man said: ‘It’s thirsty in the sun.’
Lloyd opened a pannier on one of the ponies, took out four bottles of Roussillon white wine, and handed them over. The Germans took two each. Suddenly everyone was smiling and shaking hands. The older sentry said: ‘Carry on, friends.’
The fugitives went on. Lloyd had not really expected trouble, but you could never be sure, and he was relieved to have got past the sentry post.
It took them two more hours to reach Lamont. A dirt-poor hamlet with a handful of crude houses and some empty sheep pens, it stood on the edge of a small upland plain where the new spring grass was just beginning to show. Lloyd pitied the people who had lived here. They had had so little, and even that had been taken from them.
The party walked into the centre of the village and gratefully unshouldered their burdens. They were surrounded by German soldiers.
This was the most dangerous moment, Lloyd thought.
Sergeant Eisenstein was in charge of a platoon of fifteen or twenty men. Everyone helped to unload the supplies: bread, sausage, fresh fish, condensed milk, canned food. The soldiers were pleased to get supplies and glad to see new faces. They merrily attempted to engage their benefactors in conversation.
The fugitives had to say as little as possible. This was the moment when they could so easily betray themselves by a slip. Some Germans spoke French well enough to detect an English or American accent. Even those who had passable accents, such as Teresa and Lloyd, could give themselves away with a grammatical error. It was so easy to say sur le table instead of sur la table, but it was a mistake no French person would ever make.
To compensate, the two genuine Frenchmen in the party went out of their way to be voluble. Any time a soldier began to talk to a fugitive, someone would jump into the conversation.
Teresa presented the sergeant with a bill, and he took a long time to check the numbers then count out the money.
At last they were able to take their leave, with empty backpacks and lighter hearts.
They walked back down the mountain half a mile, then they split up. Teresa went on down with the Frenchmen and the horses. Lloyd and the fugitives turned on to an upward path.
The German sentries at the clearing would probably be too drunk by now to notice that fewer people were coming down than went up. But if they asked questions, Teresa would say some of the party had started a card game with the soldiers, and would be following later. Then there would be a change of shift and the Germans would lose track.
Lloyd made his group walk for two hours, then he allowed them a ten-minute break. They had all been given bottles of water and packets of dried figs for energy. They were discouraged from bringing anything else: Lloyd knew from experience that treasured books, silverware, ornaments and gramophone records would become too heavy and be thrown into a snow-filled ravine long before the footsore travellers crested the pass.
This was the hard part. From now on it would only get darker and colder and rockier.
Just before the snowline, he instructed them to refill their water bottles at a clear cold stream.
When night fell they kept going. It was dangerous to let people sleep: they might freeze to death. They were tired, and they slipped and stumbled on the icy rocks. Inevitably their pace slowed. Lloyd could not let the line spread: stragglers might lose their way, and there were precipitous ravines for the careless to fall into. But he had never lost anyone, yet.
Many of the fugitives were officers, and this was the point where they would sometimes challenge Lloyd, arguing when he ordered them to keep going. Lloyd had been promoted to major to give him more authority.
In the middle of the night, when their morale was at rock bottom, Lloyd announced: ‘You are now in neutral Spain!’ and they raised a ragged cheer. In truth he did not know exactly where the border was, and always made the announcement when they seemed most in need of a boost.
Their spirits lifted again when dawn broke. They still had some way to go, but the route now led downhill, and their cold limbs gradually thawed.
At sunrise they skirted a small town with a dust-coloured church at the top of a hill. Just beyond, they reached a large barn beside the road. Inside was a green Ford flatbed truck with a grimy canvas cover. The lorry was large enough to carry the whole party. At the wheel was Captain Silva, a middle-aged Englishman of Spanish descent who worked with Lloyd.
Also there, to Lloyd’s surprise, was Major Lowther, who had been in charge of the intelligence course at Tŷ Gwyn, and had been snootily disapproving – or perhaps just envious – of Lloyd’s friendship with Daisy.
Lloyd knew that Lowthie had been posted to the British Embassy in Madrid, and guessed he worked for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, but he would not have expected to see him this far from the capital.
Lowther wore an expensive white flannel suit that was crumpled and grubby. He stood beside the truck looking proprietorial. ‘I’ll take over from here, Williams,’ he said. He looked at the fugitives. ‘Which one of you is Watermill?’
Watermill could have been a real name or a code.
The mysterious Englishman stepped forward and shook hands.
‘I’m Major Lowther. I’m taking you straight to Madrid.’ Turning back to Lloyd he said: ‘I’m afraid your party will have to make your way to the nearest railway station.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Lloyd. ‘That truck belongs to my organization.’ He had purchased it with his budget from MI9, the department that helped escaping prisoners. ‘And the driver works for me.’
‘Can’t be helped,’ Lowther said briskly. ‘Watermill has priority.’
The Secret Intelligence Service always thought they had priority. ‘I don’t agree,’ Lloyd said. ‘I see no reason why we can’t all go to Barcelona in the truck, as planned. Then you can take Watermill on to Madrid by train.’
‘I didn’t ask for your opinion, laddie. Just do as you’re told.’
Watermill himself interjected, in a reasonable tone: ‘I’m perfectly happy to share the truck.’
‘Leave this to me, please,’ Lowther told him.
Lloyd said: ‘All these people have just walked across the Pyrenees. They’re exhausted.’
‘Then they’d better have a rest before going on.’
Lloyd shook his head. ‘Too dangerous. The town on the hill has a sympathetic mayor – that’s why we rendezvous here. But farther down the valley their politics are different. The Gestapo are everywhere, you know that – and most of the Spanish police are on their side, not ours. My group will be in serious danger of arrest for entering the country illegally. And you know how difficult it is to get people out of Franco’s jails, even when they’re innocent.’
‘I’m not going to waste my time arguing with you. I outrank you,’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘What?’
‘I’m a major. So don’t call me “laddie” ever again, unless you want a punch on the nose.’
‘My mission is urgent!’
‘So why didn’t you bring your own vehicle?’
‘Because this one was available!’
‘But it wasn’t.’
Will Donelly, the big American, stepped forward. ‘I’m with Major Williams,’ he drawled. ‘He’s just saved my life. You, Major Lowther, haven’t done shit.’
‘That’s got nothing to do with it,’ said Lowther.
‘Well, the situation here seems pretty clear,’ Donelly said. ‘The truck is under the authority of Major Williams. Major Lowther wants it, but he can’t have it. End of story.’
Lowther said: ‘You keep out of this.’
‘But this isn’t under your jurisdiction.’
‘Nor yours, evidently.’ Donelly turned to Lloyd. ‘Should we get going?’
‘I insist!’ spluttered Lowther.
Donelly turned back to him. ‘Major Lowther,’ he said. ‘Shut the fuck up. And that’s an order.’
Lloyd said: ‘All right, everybody – climb aboard.’
Lowther glared furiously at Lloyd. ‘I’ll get you for this, you little Welsh bastard,’ he said.
(ii)
The daffodils were out in London on the day Daisy and Boy went for their medical.
The visit to the doctor was Daisy’s idea. She was fed up with Boy blaming her for not getting pregnant. He constantly compared her to his brother Andy’s wife, May, who now had three children. ‘There must be something wrong with you,’ he had said aggressively.
‘I got pregnant once before.’ She winced at the remembered pain of her miscarriage; then she recalled how Lloyd had taken care of her, and she felt a different kind of pain.
Boy said: ‘Something could have happened since then to make you infertile.’
‘Or you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There might just as easily be something wrong with you.’
‘Don’t be absurd.’
‘Tell you what, I’ll make a deal.’ The thought flashed through her mind that she was negotiating rather as her father, Lev, might have done. ‘I’ll go for an examination – if you will.’
That had surprised him, and he had hesitated, then said: ‘All right. You go first. If they say there’s nothing wrong with you, I’ll go.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You go first.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I don’t trust you to keep your promises.’
‘All right, then, we’ll go together.’
Daisy was not sure why she was bothering. She did not love Boy – had not loved him for a long time. She was in love with Lloyd Williams, still in Spain on a mission he could not say much about. But she was married to Boy. He had been unfaithful to her, of course, with numerous women. But she had committed adultery too, albeit with only one man. She had no moral ground to stand on, and in consequence she was paralysed. She just felt that if she did her duty as a wife she might retain the last shreds of her self-respect.
The doctor’s office was in Harley Street, not far from their house though in a less expensive neighbourhood. Daisy found the examination unpleasant. The doctor was a man, and he was grumpy about her being ten minutes late. He asked her a lot of questions about her general health, her menstrual periods, and what he called her ‘relations’ with her husband, not looking at her but making notes with a fountain pen. Then he put a series of cold metal instruments up her vagina. ‘I do this every day, so you don’t need to worry,’ he said, then he gave her a grin that told her the opposite.
When she came out of the doctor’s office she half expected Boy to renege on their deal and refuse to take his turn. He looked sour about it, but he went in.
While she was waiting, Daisy reread a letter from her half-brother, Greg. He had discovered he had a child, from an affair he had with a black girl when he was fifteen. To Daisy’s astonishment the playboy Greg was excited about his son and keen to be part of the child’s life, albeit as an uncle rather than a father. Even more surprising, Lev had met the child and announced that he was smart.
It was ironic, she thought, that Greg had a son even though he had never wanted one, and Boy had no son even though he longed for one so badly.
Boy came out of the doctor’s office an hour later. The doctor promised to give them their results in a week. They left at twelve noon.
‘I need a drink after that,’ Boy said.
‘So do I,’ said Daisy.
They looked up and down the street of identical row houses. ‘This neighbourhood is a bloody desert. Not a pub in sight.’
‘I’m not going to a pub,’ said Daisy. ‘I want a martini, and they don’t know how to make them in pubs.’ She spoke from experience. She had asked for a dry martini at the King’s Head in Chelsea and had been served a glass of disgustingly warm vermouth. ‘Take me to Claridge’s hotel, please. It’s only five minutes’ walk.’
‘Now that’s a damn good idea.’
The bar at Claridge’s was full of people they knew. There were austerity rules about the meals restaurants could sell, but Claridge’s had found a loophole: there were no restrictions on giving food away, so they offered a free buffet, charging only their usual high prices for drinks.
Daisy and Boy sat in art deco splendour and sipped perfect cocktails, and Daisy began to feel better.
‘The doctor asked me if I’d had mumps,’ Boy said.
‘But you have.’ It was mainly a childhood illness, but Boy had caught it a couple of years back. He had been briefly billeted at a vicarage in East Anglia, and had picked up the infection from the vicar’s three small sons. It had been very painful. ‘Did he say why?’
‘No. You know what these chaps are like. Never tell you a bloody thing.’
It occurred to Daisy that she was not as happy-go-lucky as she had once been. In the old days she would never have brooded about her marriage this way. She had always liked what Scarlett O’Hara said in Gone with the Wind: ‘I’ll think about that tomorrow.’ Not any more. Perhaps she was growing up.
Boy was ordering a second cocktail when Daisy looked towards the door and saw the Marquis of Lowther walking in, dressed in a creased and stained uniform.
Daisy disliked him. Ever since he had guessed at her relationship with Lloyd he had treated her with oily familiarity, as if they shared a secret that made them intimates.
Now he sat at their table uninvited, dropping cigar ash on his khaki trousers, and asked for a manhattan.
Daisy knew at once that he was up to no good. There was a look of malignant relish in his eye that could not be explained merely as anticipation of a good cocktail.
Boy said: ‘I haven’t seen you for a year or so, Lowthie. Where have you been?’
‘Madrid,’ Lowthie said. ‘Can’t say much about it. Hush-hush, you know. How about you?’
‘I spend a lot of time training pilots, though I’ve flown a few missions lately, now that we’ve stepped up the bombing of Germany.’
‘Jolly good thing, too. Give the Germans a taste of their own medicine.’
‘You may say that, but there’s a lot of muttering among the pilots.’
‘Really – why?’
‘Because all this stuff about military targets is absolute rubbish. There’s no point in bombing German factories because they just rebuild them. So we’re targeting large areas of dense working-class housing. They can’t replace the workers so fast.’
Lowther looked shocked. ‘That would mean it’s our policy to kill civilians.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But the government assures us—’
‘The government lies,’ Boy said. ‘And the bomber crews know it. Many of them don’t give a damn, of course, but some feel bad. They believe that if we’re doing the right thing, then we should say so; and if we’re doing the wrong thing we should stop.’
Lowther looked uneasy. ‘I’m not sure we should be talking like this here.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Boy said.
The second round of cocktails came. Lowther turned to Daisy. ‘And what about the little woman?’ he said. ‘You must have some war work. The devil finds mischief for idle hands, according to the proverb.’
Daisy replied in a neutral matter-of-fact tone. ‘Now that the Blitz is over, they don’t need women ambulance drivers, so I’m working with the American Red Cross. We have an office in Pall Mall. We do what we can to help American servicemen over here.’
‘Men lonely for a bit of feminine company, eh?’
‘Mostly they’re just homesick. They like to hear an American accent.’
‘I do what I can.’
‘I bet you do.’
Boy said: ‘Look here, Lowthie, are you a bit drunk? Because this sort of talk is awfully bad form, you know.’
Lowther’s expression turned spiteful. ‘Oh, come on, Boy, don’t tell me you don’t know. What are you, blind?’
Daisy said: ‘Take me home, please, Boy.’
He ignored her and spoke to Lowther. ‘What the devil do you mean?’
‘Ask her about Lloyd Williams.’
Boy said: ‘Who the hell is Lloyd Williams?’
Daisy said: ‘I’m going home alone, if you won’t take me.’
‘Do you know a Lloyd Williams, Daisy?’
He’s your brother, Daisy thought; and she felt a powerful impulse to reveal the secret, and knock him sideways; but she resisted the temptation. ‘You know him,’ she said. ‘He was up at Cambridge with you. He took us to a music hall in the East End, years ago.’
‘Oh!’ said Boy, remembering. Then, puzzled, he said to Lowther: ‘Him?’ It was difficult for Boy to see someone such as Lloyd as a rival. With growing incredulity he added: ‘A man who can’t even afford his own dress clothes?’
Lowther said: ‘Three years ago he was on my intelligence course down at Tŷ Gwyn while Daisy was living there. You were risking your life in a Hawker Hurricane over France at the time, I seem to remember. She was dallying with that Welsh weasel – in your family’s house!’
Boy was getting red in the face. ‘If you’re making this up, Lowthie, by God I’ll thrash you.’
‘Ask your wife!’ said Lowther with a confident grin.
Boy turned to Daisy.
She had not slept with Lloyd at Tŷ Gwyn. She had slept with him in his own bed at his mother’s house during the Blitz. But she could not explain that to Boy in front of Lowther, and anyway it was a detail. The accusation of adultery was true, and she was not going to deny it. The secret was out. All she wanted now was to retain some semblance of dignity.
