Into Battle

by Michael Gilbert

  “Right. Next we want to find a way into what they call the main cavern. Best if we could approach it from behind and find some way to look into it. Then we’d have a better idea of what we’re up against.”

  “Probably a dozen ways into it. Just a matter of finding one.”

  “That’s all,” said Luke without smiling. He was daunted by the idea of a maze of underground caverns and passages. “Next thing will be to find a place where we can keep observation on the entrance to the cavern. It’ll be somewhere behind the village.”

  “Kill two birds with one stone if we could see the whole village. The front part in particular. Where the boats are. Mind you, I never done it.”

  “Never done what?”

  “Killed two birds with one stone.”

  “All right,” said Luke. “Now we know what we want. It sounds like a two- or three-day job. We’ll start tomorrow evening from Dunière. Must be somewhere there where we can pick up a meal. Leave when it’s getting dark, make our way into the forest, and set up camp as close to Ezé as we can safely get. You make your way from there into Ezé. What we do next depends on what Pepin’s mother can tell you.”

  The first part of the programme went smoothly. They established themselves in a small hollow full of ferns and surrounded by bushes. There they scraped out two shallow graves and filled them with ferns. Lying on them, they waited for time to pass.

  “Early risers, early bedders in Easy,” said Joe. “I’ll start at eleven. Most of ’em’ll be tucked up by that time.”

  After he had hobbled off, Luke lay on his back, staring up at the sky. The clouds had cleared away, and all the stars were showing. One, larger than the others, was shining steadily. He thought it must be a planet.

  As he lay there, his mind was following an odd track. It started from thoughts about the power of money. Did the general realise that, armed with the considerable sum they had got hold of, a number of the escapers would now be able to pay for the last leg of their journey out of France? And if he did realise it, did he care? The men gathered in the cavern were hard cases. To get money, they had been prepared to kill. Perhaps the neatest solution would be if they all shipped themselves off to Spain.

  Neat but unsatisfactory, since murderers would go unpunished.

  Could their money buy them safety? It could buy most things. Desirable possessions, great houses, fine clothes. Everything? Everything except love. No money could buy that.

  Luke was not inexperienced in these matters. During his stay in London, in the unsettled climate of war, more than one woman had decided that a well-constructed, good-looking young man who seemed to have friends in high places would make a convenient wartime husband. With such a desirable end in view, they had been prepared to sell him their bodies. Afterward, when his total poverty was appreciated, they had scuttled away.

  Luke laughed cynically to himself. Such experiences had been disillusioning and unhappy. But surely, he thought, sometime, somewhere he would find or stumble on the true and lovely thing itself.

  On this comforting thought, he must have fallen asleep. When Joe woke him, he looked at his watch and found that it was three o’clock.

  Joe threw himself down thankfully on his primitive bed.

  He had brought back fresh supplies from Pepin’s mother, hut neither of them felt hungry.

  “Save the food for breakfast,” said Luke. “First tell me the news. You located Pepin’s mother. Had she heard from her son?”

  “We needn’t have worried. Seems he’s been out and about, all day and every day, and come home at night.”

  Luke sat up with a jerk.

  “I don’t understand. Did he get to the cave with the weapons in it? And was he able to see down into the main cavern?”

  “Yes, he did all that. Not more’n forty men there, he reckoned. Maybe a few more. And pretty comfortably fixed. The three men from the launch was keeping themselves to themselves in one corner and the officer with them, sort of exclusive.”

  “The officer? He got a good view of him?”

  “Pretty good. Not really enough to identify him. Remember, he’d never seen him. Had only our description to go by.”

  “Hell’s bells,” said Luke. “That must have been three days ago. Why the devil didn’t he come back and report? He must have known how anxious—”

  “When you’re talking about Pepin like that,” said Joe, overriding him, “I’m thinking perhaps you’re not thinking straight.”

  Whatever Luke had been going to say remained unsaid. It was not only the words, it also was the tone of voice in which they had been spoken. Normally Joe had been happy to follow Luke’s lead. Now he seemed to have moved up a step. If not into a position of authority, at least into a position from which he could offer what amounted to a rebuke.

  Before Luke could say anything Joe added, “Trouble is, you’ve bin thinking of Pepin as a Boy Scout. Well, perhaps not quite that, but a recruit to your private army. But he ain’t no such thing. He likes me because I’m his English tooter and because I’ve bin able to get hold of one or two little things for his mother. Butter and sugar, things she can’t get hold of herself. And because he likes me, he was prepared to help you. So long as it diddun interfere with his private plans.”

  “His private plans?”

  “Like I told you. He hates all Germans. His main idea is to get back at them for what they did to his father.”

  “All right,” said Luke. “I understand that. He’s not a Boy Scout and his one idea is to hurt the Germans. Go on.”

  “The next bit’s obvious, innit? Here’s four Germans. They’re on what the matlows call a lee shore. If he can locate the launch and remove it or put it out of action, they’re up shit creek. In fact, he’s in so good with his uncle on account of having got him his gun and his uncle being head of the fishing fleet, he might even be able to prevent the fishermen from helping them. Or at least he could hold them up until the Brits pull their fingers out and come along and clean them all up.”

  “And he’s been looking for that launch for three days? Surely by now—”

  “Ah, you say that because you haven’t seen the place. The way he describes it, it’s like a cake what’s bin cut into slices but not served out. Twelve, fifteen, twenty little openings, all covered with bushes and undergrowth, so it’s no good just looking at the opening, he has to go right up. His uncle’s lent him a rowing boat with a one-man crew. He reckons he’s covered half the likely places. He might find the boat first thing tomorrow, or the next day, or in a week’s time.”

  Having delivered himself of this unusually lengthy speech, Joe rolled over and said “Good night.”

  “Good night,” said Luke.

  He sounded so subdued that Joe could not refrain from chuckling. The chuckle turned into a snort. Then a snore.

  Luke lay awake for a long time, looking at the stars.

  Next morning, Joe was unusually silent. Maybe he thought he had been speaking out of turn. After breakfasting on the freshly cooked rolls he had brought back with him, they set out to look for a spot that was hidden from sight but that would give them an overview of Ezé.

  After an hour of unhurried and patient advance, they hit on an ideal place. Almost on top of a small knoll the earth had been scraped away by a colony of badgers. Digging in their usual thorough way, they had excavated a large hole and deposited a bulwark of earth and chalk in front of it.

  Wriggling down into the hole and disturbing the earthwork as little as possible, they found they were able to form an admirable observation point overlooking the village, which seemed to be asleep in the sun. One or two figures were moving on the main street, but the fishing boats were all moored to the quay.

  “Odd, that,” said Joe. “Could’ve understood it if a storm had been blowing up.” But the sea was calm and hardly showed the faintest ruffle.

  “What we’ve got to do,” said Luke, “is see if we can locate the way in from the village to the cavern. It’ll be somewhere
behind the back row of cottages. Probably not at all easy to spot.”

  “Unless we see someone going into it,” said Joe.

  But the back of the village was as quiet and deserted as the front. They waited until four o’clock, then climbed out of their spot and made their way back, trying to direct their path so as to stay, as nearly as possible, over the place where they assumed the cavern must be.

  This would not have been too difficult if the ground over which Luke was walking, regulating his pace to Joe, who was hobbling behind him, had been flat and open. As it was, they were forcing their way through the thick undergrowth, alternately climbing up and slithering down the frequent inequalities that faced them.

  “Bloody obstacle course,” said Joe.

  Luke turned his head to express his wholehearted agreement and stood, the words unspoken.

  Joe had disappeared.

  One moment he had been there. The next he was not.

  Luke retraced his steps to the point where he had seen him last and noted, with a sudden sinking of his heart, what must have happened.

  Pushing through a belt of overlying shrubs, Joe had stepped straight into a hole. Luke went down, first on his knees, then flat on his face, as he inched forward to inspect it. He had no idea how deep it was. If it went down very far Joe, taken unaware and possessing only one useful leg, must have fallen heavily and might have knocked himself out at the bottom.

  He saw that the hole went down almost, but not quite, vertically. It was, in mountaineering terms, a chimney. The procedure for descending it was known to Luke. As you moved down, you had to maintain pressure with the arms and legs against the sides to regulate your descent.

  For the first part, this technique worked well. Then the chimney started to widen. After a few yards, he could reach the other side only by stretching his arms to their fullest extent. After that, it was out of reach even to the tips of his bruised fingers. There was nothing to do but turn on his back and start to slide, grabbing at any irregularity that offered. Fortunately, this did not go on for long before, with relief overriden by a less comfortable feeling, he found himself on his hands and knees on what looked, in the faint light filtering down the chimney, to be a chalk-walled corridor.

  A yard or two along it he found Joe, unharmed but abusive.

  “Had to move,” he said, “or you’d have bloody landed on top of me. Can’t think why you had to come down at all.”

  This seemed to Luke to be a typical piece of ingratitude.

  “What you should’ve done was get a rope. Then you could’ve hauled me up. Now we’re both bloody stuck.”

  “Don’t talk,” said Luke. “Listen.”

  The acoustics of the place were so curious that it was impossible to be sure whether the noise, which came and went, was the wind, blowing through the crevices and caves, as it might have passed through a succession of organ stops, or whether it was human voices, distant and indistinct.

  “Whatever it is, it’s in that direction,” said Luke. “At least I think so.”

  He led the way along the passage, which was flat and level. The only thing that changed was its width. At some points the walls were so far apart that the light of Luke’s flashlight, which had survived his descent, scarcely reached across to the other side. At other points, they crowded together so closely that they had to turn sideways to squeeze through.

  As they went, the light brightened and the sounds ahead, now clearly of human origin, grew louder. Luke slowed his pace, crawling around a final turn, which brought them out onto a ledge that formed a sort of balcony above a large cavern. Although there was little likelihood of their being seen, since they were above the light that came from oil lamps disposed on ledges around the walls, they both dropped to their knees before edging forward to study what lay below.

  It was a surprisingly orderly scene.

  Bedrolls and other belongings stowed along one wall. Men sitting or lying in groups. A soyer stove bubbling in one corner, eagerly watched as dinner hour approached. Only one man was on his feet. It was Sergeant Major Forgan, who passed from group to group, dispensing what sounded like instructions.

  One group he steered clear of was the quartet squatting by themselves in a corner. It was with a feeling of great pleasure, though not of surprise – for somehow they had anticipated this outcome – that they recognised their old enemy, Palmer in Canada, Richards in Portsmouth, Marriott in Ireland, Lewin in London, now and forever Erich Krieger. Lying very much at ease, he was dressed in the uniform of an officer in a German cavalry regiment. His jacket was showing signs of hard use, but his boots were immaculate. Had one of the launch crew attended to them? Luke wondered. Or had he polished them himself?

  Joe said, “Might be the time to get away, when they’re lining up for their evening meal.”

  They crawled along until they were around the corner, where they found a flight of steps cut into the chalk. At the bottom, they moved forward, exercising extreme caution. It was as well that they did so. Standing in front of what was clearly the exit from the cavern were two men, on guard, alert to their responsibilities, with a relief guard of four others lying beside them.

  They retreated, up the stairs and back the way they had come. When they had put a safe distance between themselves and the sentries, they sat down to think things over.

  “I don’t mind betting,” said Joe, “that if we’d been here last week we’d have got away as easy as kiss your hand. It’s that turd Forgan what’s got them on their toes.”

  “They’re on their toes at the moment,” agreed Luke. “They may not keep it up all night. Give them an hour or two and we’ll try again.”

  They tried at eleven o’clock, at midnight, and at two o’clock. On this occasion, all they witnessed was a smart and soldierlike changing of the guard.

  “Nothing for it,” said Joe. “We’ve got to find another way out. Must be a few round about.”

  They were back under the shaft. Luke found that he was shivering. It was not only the cold, not excessive for an autumn evening, it was the silence and the blackness that his flashlight barely penetrated.

  Months ago, when he had first been shown the tiny office Kell had allotted to him, he had said, in a moment of flippancy, that if he suffered from claustrophobia he would soon be mad or dead. Was it possible that he did, in fact, suffer from that particular form of hysteria? It was not only the closeness of the walls that pressed in on them, it also was consciousness of the dead weight of the earth above them. There was plenty of fresh air at that spot, but he felt that he would be stifled once he moved away from this last glimpse of the sky, into the endless catacomb ahead.

  “Come on,” said Joe. “Whadder we hanging about for? Shan’t find a way out sitting here.”

  “I was just thinking,” said Luke.

  “Then here’s something to think about. When Pepin was looking for that arms dump, which he’d been told was above the main cavern – about the same height as the ledge we was on, but on the other side – he reckoned it would be on the left of where he started from and up, but not much up. So when there was two ways to choose from, he took the one on the left. And wherever he could, he went up, not down, if you follow me.”

  “Yes. I follow that. In our case, as we’ve got to make up the depth of that hole, we choose anything that goes up, and the steeper the better. And if we keep going left we ought, sooner or later, to reach the edge of the whole system. It must stop short of the river.”

  He wondered how much of this was designed to dispel the maggot of fear that was sending shudders through him.

  One thought was uppermost in his mind.

  As they went, he must memorise the route, so that if they reached a point where they could go no farther, they would at least be able to make their way back to the cavern and comparative safety. Behind him, Joe was hugging the right-hand wall. He wondered if he, too, was getting anxious about the return journey.

  After leaving the passage, they were in and cros
sing the first cave they came to, they took the second turn to the left. Then crossed another open space and this time took the first left. Forward, until they were forced to go right by a dead end. Then fork left, into a third cave, out of that by the first – no, second left. The first one had been downhill, so they had ignored it. Then a long, straight stretch and a further left turn.

  Was it his imagination, or was the air growing so thick that it was becoming difficult to breathe?

  While he was worrying about this, he found that he had forgotten the early moves. When leaving the first cave, had it been the second or the third turning? Oh, God! The whole sequence was slipping away. When he stopped, panic-stricken, Joe bumped into him.

  “Wassup now?”

  Luke said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that – in case we had to go back – I was trying to remember the turns.”

  Joe said, “I wondered what you was muttering to yourself about. I should’ve told you not to bother. Pepin told me what he did. I thought we’d do the same.”

  He dipped his hand into the right-hand pocket of his jacket and brought out a fat reel of black thread. “Borrowed it from Pepin’s old lady. Tied the end to a stone and wedged it into the wall at the place we came down.”

  “And you’ve been unrolling it ever since?”

  “Right. The end goes through a hole in my pocket. What I did do, I kept next to the right-hand wall so the thread’d lie alongside the bottom of it. Easy to find then.”

  “Joe,” said Luke, “you’re wonderful.”

  “Pepin’s idea, really.”

  “How much do you think you’ve got left on the reel?”

  “Difficult to say. Hundred feet, maybe more.”

  “We’ll go on as far as the cotton lasts. Then we’ll make our minds up. If the worst comes to the worst we can at least go back.”

  To be able to go back. The relief was overpowering.

  “Okay,” said Joe. “Push on. Before the rats start eating the thread.”

  Even this gruesome idea did not damp Luke’s spirits. He led the way forward and turned left into a passage that ran very steeply up. Suddenly the air seemed much cooler. As he went around a right-hand bend, he saw a pinpoint of light above their heads. A flashlight? A candle?