Fair Stood the Wind for France

by H. E. Bates

  The doctor went out of the room by another door, and Franklin heard the sound of running water in the ante-room. In about a minute the doctor was back, standing in the door, wiping his hands on a towel. Franklin had struggled out of his coat and now stood with his arm crooked, slightly away from his body. In the bright electric light he noticed suddenly how dirty the bandages were. ‘How long since you did this?’ the doctor said, and Franklin, in the few seconds before answering, could not remember what day it was, and felt that half his life lay in the few days since the Wellington had come down in the marsh. ‘Two or three days,’ he said. The doctor did not say anything. He went back into the ante-room and came out again immediately, his sleeves rolled up above his dry, white hairy forearms.

  ‘Lie on the table,’ he said.

  Franklin lay flat on the table and stared upwards. The impact of light on his eyes, shrill and harsh, centralized itself and pierced his eyes with brilliant pain as he felt the doctor unknotting the bandage on his arm.

  ‘An English aviator?’ the doctor said.

  ‘Yes.’ He was very guarded now.

  ‘My son was an aviator.’

  ‘In this war?’

  ‘He flew Morane 406s at the front until 1940.’

  ‘Fighters.’

  ‘You know them?’

  ‘No. I know of them.’

  ‘You were not in France?’

  ‘No, I was not in France,’ he said.

  He heard the dried blood of the bandages crackling on his arm. The doctor gave each successive fold of bandage a little rip, diagonally, until it came free.

  ‘My son shot down four planes and had four probably destroyed,’ the doctor said. ‘You bled a great deal.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was himself shot down on May 31st,’ the doctor said. ‘Just before the end. It was bad luck. He was taken prisoner.’

  ‘It was very bad luck.’

  ‘Almost at the same time Henri was also shot down.’

  ‘Henri?’

  ‘Françoise’s brother. Has the bandage been off before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘One moment,’ he said.

  The doctor went away to the ante-room and Franklin raised his head and looked at his arm. The bandage was down to the last two folds. They were black with blood. He lay back and closed his eyes against the light, thinking briefly of Françoise and the brother. The fact seemed suddenly to illuminate all that she did.

  ‘We have practically no anaesthetics,’ the doctor said. ‘I am sorry. It is symptomatic of the conditions of France to-day.’

  ‘I brought morphia and anti-tetanus and gentian ointment from the aircraft,’ Franklin said. ‘Please have them. They are in the pocket of my coat.’

  ‘I am grateful,’ the doctor said. He stood under the arc of light, thin and tall and tired, hands upraised. ‘I am grateful and humiliated.’

  ‘There is no need to be humiliated.’ He felt the strength of the word to be out of place, too emotional for a simple thing.

  ‘I am humiliated because of France,’ the doctor said. ‘A country that has no anaesthetics leaves one humiliated.’

  Suddenly, without warning, he took the bandage and with a short diagonal rip pulled it with skilful savagery off the arm. Franklin felt the raw tissues pulled up with the bandage in a violent second or two of pain. He felt the lips of the wound broken again, the congealed blood split, and the new blood, warm and sickening, force its way through the cracks and run down his arm. The impact, not so much pain as nausea, surged up in his throat, and filled his mouth with hot sourness. He wanted to spit it out. Then before he could think again the cool swab of antiseptic came down on his arm and then up and then down again, the coolness changing suddenly to burning as the antiseptic bit down into the flesh. He felt that all his arm lay open, slit and raw, to a wind of acid blowing fiercely down on the naked veins, cauterizing and shrivelling them up. Then it seemed to him that the hands of the doctor were pulling the flesh apart. The sourness was drained from his mouth, and in its place was the dry air of faintness, rising into his face and condensing on his forehead in sweat. The flesh of his arm was broken apart, and then, in a few moments of confusion when pain and faintness and the light on his eyeballs beat him back into waves of colder and colder darkness, came together again. It was held together with a new pain, metallic and tight and unrelenting. The edges of his flesh gnawed at each other and were fused before the wet swab of antiseptic, cool and then burning, came down for the last time.

  After that he heard the doctor go away. He heard the sound of running water. He lay alone. His arm was flat and taut, as if wired through every vein, and pain beat through these veins in uneven throbs transmitted in waves to his shoulder.

  The doctor came back at last. He stood over Franklin, wiping his hands again with the towel.

  ‘The best I can do is to put on clips,’ he said. ‘With an arm like that you should go to hospital.’

  ‘Which is the equivalent of prison.’

  ‘Exactly. You are all right now?’

  ‘I am all right.’

  ‘Good. One moment,’ he said.

  He went over to the door and pushed a bell-button by the light switch. ‘You had better put on your coat,’ he said. He picked up the coat, holding it by the shoulders. Franklin slid slowly off the table, the angle of the floor at once steepened, like the horizon seen from an aircraft, and then slowly straightened again as his feet touched the floor. His sickness followed these movements, sinking and slipping and settling again, and his arms seemed light and fragile as he held them out for the sleeves of the coat. He put his good arm into the first sleeve and then swung slowly round while the doctor eased the second sleeve over the bandages of the other arm. There was no pain in his arm to worry him; only the emptiness of his face and body as the sickness rose again and drained away. Then the door opened and the woman dressed like a nurse came in.

  ‘He is ready to go now,’ the doctor said. ‘It is all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ the woman said. ‘As far as one can judge it is all right.’

  ‘Where are you going now?’ the doctor said.

  ‘Back to Françoise. In the church,’ Franklin said.

  ‘That’s all right,’ the doctor said. ‘Act simply and don’t hurry. It is all right to do as Françoise says.’

  He held out his hand. The woman stood holding the door slightly ajar, ready to go. Franklin took the doctor’s hand and shook it and not knowing quite what to say, stood looking at the dark, tiredly alert face.

  ‘Good-bye.’ The doctor spoke the word in English, smiling as he spoke. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  ‘Good-bye.’ Franklin, too, spoke the word in English, feeling the deeper intimacy of the moment by the change in language. ‘I can’t thank you enough. I know how it is for you.’

  ‘It is a pleasure to do something which is a positive help.’

  ‘I know it must be,’ Franklin said. ‘But I am aware of the risk for you.’

  ‘We shouldn’t exaggerate the risk,’ the doctor said. ‘It is relative.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To the whole condition of France: which is a second revolution. If anything, more important. If anything, more unhappy.’ He stopped suddenly, smiled slightly, and put his arm on Franklin’s shoulder, turning him towards the door. ‘But this is not the time to talk of that. I think you had better go while you can.’

  The woman held the door fully open, and the doctor and Franklin went past her into the passage beyond. All three stopped in the half-darkness by the outer door.

  ‘And the arm?’ Franklin said. ‘What about that? Is there anything else I can do? ’

  ‘Try to be quiet. Drink as much liquid as you can. At the moment it is more your condition, the fatigue and so on, than the arm.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Franklin said. ‘I am very grateful. Good-bye.’

  ‘Good-bye,’ the doctor said.

  The woman opened the door and Franklin walked out of th
e house, straight out of the darkness of the passage into the white wall of sunlight outside. He walked fast, without realizing it, and then suddenly he remembered it and felt the sickness weak in his legs, and halfway across the street he slowed down. He did not look back, but as he crossed the street he knew that someone was watching him, and in a moment, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the waiter outside the café, leaning against a pole of the awning by the empty tables. He was looking at Franklin steadily, emptily, without emotion. It was the most negative thing Franklin had ever seen: the stare into the sunlight at a figure passing across the line of vision, the hands picking at the leaves of the shrubs and letting them fall on the dust of the pavement. For a moment or two Franklin held himself rigid, wondering what it meant, and then he turned his head and looked at the waiter. And he saw then how the eyes did not move to follow him beyond the narrow frontal line of vision. He saw that they were looking not at him but at nothing in particular: at nothing, out of nothing, and for nothing but the empty habit of looking.

  He felt the fear and surprise and uneasiness of this moment creep up behind him, like a person following, as he turned into the rue St Honoré, and out of that street into the square beyond. At the corner of the square he looked back, as if he expected to see someone behind him, but the street was almost empty except for a few casual shabby pedestrians and a cart at the far end. All the time he kept his injured arm in his trousers pocket, feeling the bandage tightly restricting the elbow and the blood beating thickly and painfully now in the lower arm and hand.

  He walked slowly up the steps of the church, out of the flat heat of the square, into the brown dead shade of the western porch. Inside, he stood in the nave for a moment, looking for Françoise. A few women were kneeling in the back rows of chairs and he felt for a moment frightened, not seeing her among them. Then he walked forward, his feet quiet on the long strip of dusty matting running up the stones of the aisle, and suddenly he saw her alone, about halfway to the altar, kneeling with her head on her hands.

  He went quietly and sat beside her without saying anything. She did not lift her head, but he saw her open eye like a black cherry held against the partly opened fingers, and he knew she had been watching him.

  ‘Is it all right?’ she said.

  ‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘Quite all right.’

  ‘You had better kneel down,’ she said, ‘and put your head on your hands. Did anything happen?’

  ‘Nothing happened.’

  He slipped forward on his knees, kneeling on the hassock, and putting his good hand and then his head on the chair in front of him. He was very close to her and felt the intimacy of the moment. When she spoke her voice was so low that he could hardly catch the words in French, and after a moment he moved his head so that he could see again her flickering black eye and her lips moving against her brown hands as they spoke the words.

  ‘I’m sorry I was long,’ he said.

  ‘You were not long,’ she said.

  ‘It is very good of you to wait.’

  ‘I have been praying for you,’ she said. ‘For all of you. Do you belong to the Church?’

  ‘Not to your Church.’

  ‘To what Church?’ she said.

  The Church of England,’ he said.

  ‘Does it differ very much?’

  ‘Not very much.’ He raised his eyes and looked at the fabric of the church, the half-light on the pillars, the few large and small candles burning up against the image of the Virgin. ‘In outward respects hardly at all. It is simpler, that’s all. It rests less on the ritual expression of faith.’

  He saw her dark eye flicker against her hand.

  ‘It is a proper thing to have faith,’ she said.

  ‘Very proper.’

  ‘I had faith you would come back this morning and you came back.’

  He did not speak.

  ‘I have faith that you will get away safely, and I know that it can happen. I have prayed very hard for that.’

  He did not know what to say. He felt small because of her simplicity and the great assurance behind the simplicity. She did not speak for a moment or two either. He knelt there looking at her sideways, watching her black hair curl against her face, and the lips firmly and quietly set in the shadow of her hands. As he knelt watching her the feeling of being watched and followed by someone no longer meant anything. It slipped away and seemed ridiculous. The hard tangle of events was smoothed away, too, with his fear.

  ‘Is your arm going to be all right?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you feel all right yourself? Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You looked very white when you came in. It is better to rest if you don’t feel strong enough.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I am ready whenever you want to go.’

  She turned her head, and now, for the first time, he saw her two eyes, level and black and shining. She looked at him very steadfastly for a moment or two, and suddenly as she looked at him she seemed so young and calm that he was horrified. He saw all the horror of the situation clearly and for the first time. He remembered with a sickening shock all that it meant, in France, to help someone like himself. He did not remember the rumours, the propaganda, the atrocity stories, but only the simple fact: the rule that it was treason for her to help him. His sickness rose and turned sour in his throat and he swallowed it acidly, but the horror remained and suddenly he felt the urgency of the situation. He felt now that they must get away and go on by themselves, he and the four sergeants, away from the risks and the complications of hiding, so that if anything disastrous should happen it would happen only to themselves, and not to the girl.

  ‘Do you think we can go on to-night?’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she said. She was firm and she did not seem surprised.

  ‘We ought to go on now as soon as possible.’

  ‘When it is possible: yes. But it isn’t yet possible.’

  ‘But it must be soon. It’s a great risk for you. It must be possible. Will it be possible to-morrow?’

  She looked at him without moving her eyes.

  ‘There is no need to be afraid for us.’

  ‘I am afraid for you.’

  ‘There is no need. It has been done before. If you have faith it can be done again.’

  ‘Have you done it before?’ he said.

  ‘No.’ she said. ‘But others have done it. It is a question of patience and faith. You have only to trust us. That’s all.’

  He suddenly put his free hand up against hers, touching her hair and then holding her finger-tips closely with his flat hand.

  ‘I will trust you,’ he said. ‘But in turn will you trust me?’

  ‘In what way?’ she said.

  ‘In this way,’ he said, ‘that if you feel at any time that the risk is too great, you will tell me and let us go. It would be better and we shall understand.’

  ‘I will trust you in everything,’ she said. ‘Shall we go now?’

  ‘When you like,’ he said.

  She did not answer and he saw that her eyes were closed. He waited for perhaps half a minute while she said her last prayer, and then he saw her cross herself swiftly but with proper humility, her head still slightly bowed as she got to her feet.

  ‘Don’t hurry and don’t look back,’ she said. ‘Don’t imagine things. We are going to buy some peaches.’

  He followed her out of the church and once again, as when he had come out of the house, the sunlight was like a blinding white curtain beyond the door. It struck down on his head with a bright ache of heat as he and the girl walked across the shining flagstones past the fountain to the far side of the square. As they went past the cart he saw Pierre sitting down on the shady side of it, propped up by the wheel, his eyes closed. The girl spoke as they went past, but the eyes did not open and Franklin and the girl went on as if nothing happened until they came to the fruit-stalls. There were six or seven stalls, and under the grey-green awnings were lai
d out the perishable produce of the late summer that could not be transported: small green-pink peaches, sweet green grapes, soft early pears, a few apples. The girl stopped at one stall and picked up a peach and pressed it with her thumb and fingers. She put it down again and he saw the mark of her thumb like a bruise on the pink skin of the fruit. He stood for a moment or two watching it, fascinated, as if expecting to see it disappear like the dent made by a child in a rubber ball, and then he turned and the girl was no longer there.

  His heart shot up in his throat in alarm. He caught his breath and tasted for a moment all the hot sweet smell of ripe fruit in the thick air. He looked wildly round, and then knew in the same moment that he had no need to be alarmed. He could see her standing two stalls away, bargaining for the fruit and again picking up the peaches and pressing them with her fingers.

  He walked up to her.

  ‘I thought you had gone.’

  ‘Don’t be frightened,’ she said.

  ‘I’m not frightened.’

  ‘It looks better if I walk away sometimes. It looks as if we know each other well.’

  He felt sick and stupid.

  ‘I promised to trust you,’ he said, ‘and now I don’t trust you.’

  ‘Don’t talk much,’ she said. ‘Have a peach. It will stop you talking.’

  She gave him six or seven of the small peaches, in ones or twos, because he could only use one hand, and he put them into his pocket. He waited for her to pay the woman in charge of the stall, and then she, too, filled her hands and they walked slowly back across the square. He ate the last peach she had given him, gnawing the stiff flesh like an apple. It was cool and juicy, and he thought immediately of the four sergeants in the dusty room in the mill, wondering about him. He thought of O’Connor, smiling and crafty; of Sandy, bald and rather correct; and of the two young sergeants, tense and too eager. They’re probably more scared than I am, Franklin thought, and, thinking it, he knew he was no longer scared. He was eating a peach in the sunlight of a strange French square, walking naturally as any Frenchman might walk with a country girl, a stranger in a strange town. He was far away from the war; from the bombs dropped by people like himself; from the shrivelled life of war-time England and the drabness and dustiness of bombed places, and above all from the tension and smell and exclusiveness of flying. If you look at it simply, he thought, it is simple. We have to get out of France, that’s all.