Diana

by R. F Delderfield

  I wondered at this for in some way it made me responsible for the course she had taken.

  “You mean you would have had the child if I had backed down on the invitation to come here?”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “Yes, I would, because I’d made up my mind to let go. I hadn’t nearly as much guts as I thought I had and I certainly hadn’t enough to do myself in. I suppose one is born with a certain amount, Jan, and uses it up, bit by bit. I don’t think courage breeds. You begin with so much and the older you get the more carefully you have to husband it. You can fire it away in quick bursts or in single shots but there comes a time when the magazine is empty. Do you believe that?”

  “It’s arguable,” I said. “Courage is a very difficult thing to analyse but never mind all that, what had you decided to do when I almost backed out, that time in the jeep? If it wasn’t suicide, what do you mean by ‘let go’?”

  “Just—‘let go’, let things take their course. It would have meant betraying Raoul and the others but I was so damned tired, I didn’t shrink from that. I didn’t care very much what set of idiots were in power and come to that, I don’t now, not madly so!”

  It was an astonishing confession from a woman in her situation but I believed her. It wasn’t really as cynical as it sounded but that was something I had to find out. I was as green as the next man when I arrived in France but I learned the true state of affairs very quickly. One did under the various pressures. The white and black inevitably merged into grey and all that has happened since the overthrow of Hitler has justified Diana’s pessimism.

  “Why didn’t you stay in Britain when you had the chance?” I asked her.

  She threw out her right hand and switched on the bedside light. It seemed that she didn’t need the dark any more.

  “That isn’t obvious to you? Not even now?”

  “No, Di, no it isn’t! It was an escape and you were sure of me and Yvonne. We could have made our fresh start on home ground. What difference would it have made?”

  “Why, all the difference in the world,” she cried. “I’ve lived all my life without achieving anything at all and to have come back and used you in that way would have been more despicable than anything else I’ve done! In some ways it would have been as futile as tying up with Pierre for the rest of my life!”

  She rolled over and clasped her hands behind her head, drawing up her knees and addressing the ceiling.

  “You and I were destined for something splendid, Jan, something we could do together, because of one another and for one another! I like to think this is it, this is our final try! In the old days, loving and needing each other was enough. There was always the opposition—my background and people, your rather snobbish pride in being poor and what’s happened since then is an altogether bigger challenge, it’s the march of the faceless little men, with their hideous machines and squalid little minds cluttered up with rules and regulations and prohibitions and tidy conceptions of an orderly, graded society!”

  “But damn it, Di, you said you don’t believe in Democracy!”

  “Democracy is a word! So is ‘Fascism’ and the swastika is only the trademark! Half the people opposing Hitler at this very moment are moving in his direction without even knowing it, and when they’ve dealt with him, because he’s thrown their machines out of gear by being so damned impatient, they’ll set to and finish what he started. People like you and me will always find themselves in opposition or gaol! I shouldn’t be surprised if the war doesn’t speed up efforts to convert Sennacharib into a nice, tidy park, with ‘By Order’ notice boards and concrete ponds and circular flower beds and God knows what other sanitary improvements! Both sides have already deified science and they’re out to convert every one of us into a bigot or a cog! Well, we’re going to take a crack at the toughest bunch and if we survive we’ll go on fighting for the rest of our lives, even if we’re the last champions above ground!”

  “Well,” I said, catching her mood at last, “you’ve made it plain what we’re fighting against but what the hell are we champions of? That’s something I’ve never really understood!”

  She thought for a moment.

  “I suppose of everything that grows and thrives in Sennacharib, the wind in the larch wood and the free flight of our special buzzards, the right to walk and love and breathe how we like, where we like and if we like! Of our absorption into the rhythm people call God and a lot of other silly names—oh, I don’t know, you can’t put a thing as fragile as that into words but you don’t need to, Jan, at least, you used not to, you feel it, sense it, belong to it! Trying to define it is pointless, don’t you see?”

  I saw well enough and reflected that she hadn’t changed much after all. She was still Emerald Diana Gaylorde-Sutton, riding into the wind with the banner of the undefeated on her stirrup.

  I said, kissing her shoulder: “That’s enough, Di! We’ve got at least forty-eight hours you said, so let’s take that holiday!”

  She laughed and threw her arms around me, rocking me slightly as a child rocks a doll. Over her shoulder I saw the first, wispish glimmer of dawn and more lights winking on the hillside.

  Chapter Four

  WHEN I was a schoolboy I thought of France as a strange country where women in frilly underwear danced the can-can in the streets and naughty old men patronised brothels advertised by red lamps. When I was a year or so older I thought of France as a place dotted with turreted chateaux and peopled by grave peasants, who paused in their toil to acknowledge the Angelus. Then, in early manhood, I travelled in France and found it broad and flat, almost treeless and half-populated, its friendly, shabby people inhabiting crumbling little towns with unpainted shutters and streets hard on the feet.

  In the spring of 1942 I discovered a new France, a country where the misery and shame of occupation and betrayal showed in people’s faces, where the bulk of the population hunted the necessities of life in a vicious black market and a minority risked their lives hitting back at the conquerors, but, in so doing, lost the tolerance that had distinguished Frenchmen in the past. I think the most astonishing thing about France at this time was its political confusion. Under the hammer of the Gestapo and the Vichy milice Resisters had split into scores of uncoordinated little groups, and it seemed that no power on earth could organise them to work for their liberation as a team.

  Some owed allegiance to the extreme Left and some to the official Free French organisation in London. A few co-operated intelligently with the British movement, directed from Baker Street, but the majority clung to their independence to the very end.

  I suppose that Raoul de Royden’s group was as official as any. It had the backing of De Gaullists in London, but I had the impression, then and later, that this support dated from the time de Royden and his associates told London of their active interest in reprisal weapon number one, the sinister-sounding Vergeltungswaffe Eins. The fact that Raoul de Royden was a member of the family concerned in the manufacture of the weapon must have given the London screening officers a headache, but at last he was cleared and trusted, and official backing advanced his personal prestige in France. He must have been extremely adroit at double bluff, because when I arrived in Villefranche he was not on the run but operated quite openly and was still on the payroll of the Vichy army.

  At that time, of course, not even Raoul knew the true nature of the weapon or what parts of it were being tested in factories owned and operated by Diana’s husband. All he did know was that some kind of missile was being developed in Germany and that either its direction-finder or propulsion unit was being built in one of the de Royden workshops. For a long time he and his intimates worked on the assumption that Rance, the principal boffin of the firm, was engaged in designing a new master gyro (Rance, it seems, was a recognised expert in this field) and it was this that led them to shadow Diana’s lover and get a line on his real activities. Then, soon after Diana’s visit to Britain, they had a stroke of luck. A foreman at the de Roy
den Vincennes plant went over to the Resistance and told Raoul’s group everything he knew. It tied in with information the Allies already possessed and plans were set on foot at once to strike a counter-blow.

  The original plan was to get the British to bomb the factory and destroy the plant, but this was soon discarded, partly because the work was widely dispersed and no one could be sure where vital damage could be effected but also in deference to French workers engaged on round-the-clock shifts and therefore vulnerable to air-attack. Apart from the danger of killing civilians, there was another factor that deterred the R.A.F. Total dislocation of a factory always meant that thousands of French workers were thrown out of work, and whilst the Allies were not over-sentimental in this respect, a raid that closed a large factory prejudiced employees in favour of Laval’s pro-German government.

  Ultimately, a different approach was found. It was decided to promote a three-fold offense. Rance, as a key-man in the enterprise, was marked down for assassination by the Resistance and Yves de Royden, whom the Allies thought they could coerce and use, for kidnapping. At the same time it was hoped that these two strikes would lead to the acquisition of blueprints and perhaps a prototype of the weapon or such parts of it as were in an advanced state of production. I had nothing whatever to do with this back-room planning. All that Diana was told was that on a certain day Rance was to be eliminated and that afterwards I was to impersonate him in the attempted kidnapping of Yves and the search for blueprints and prototypes.

  Diana and I were alone at the villa for two days. We moved about openly for it was thought the villa might be under routine surveillance and my presence, as Rance, would allay suspicion. On the third day we received a telephone message that Raoul de Royden was on his way down to us and he arrived that same afternoon, so quietly and unobtrusively that we never discovered whether he came by car or on foot, or whether he entered the house by the back door or front.

  Diana and I were listening to Mozart records in the big room when suddenly he was there standing just inside the door. I don’t know how she reacted but I know that I felt extremely foolish at being discovered lying full-length on a divan, with Diana squatting on the floor, her head against my legs. It was almost as bad as being surprised in bed with one another and if Raoul had arrived an hour or so later that might have been the case.

  I leaped up and he smiled, superciliously I thought. I remembered then that Diana had told him the full story of our idyll and the recollection of this increased my embarrassment. He was faultlessly dressed in the uniform of a tank regiment and he looked like a staff officer who has surprised an airman and a Waaf behind a haystack. He said, with as much irony as we deserved, “You seem to have made yourself very comfortable here, M’sieur!”

  Diana was not impressed by his manner. “Don’t sound so damned stuffy, Raoul!” she said, scrambling up and switching off the radiogram. “What did you expect us to do? Play a hand of écarté?” He smiled and relaxed. I could see that he was fond of her and that she could manage him far better than I could hope to do.

  “I’ll make some coffee,” she said, then, hovering: “When do you expect Pierre?”

  “Tonight!” he said briefly and I noticed that she winced. She left us without another word and remained in the kitchen for the next twenty minutes. When the door was shut I said: “She’s all right about everything else but she’s terrified of him! She thinks he knows that she’s involved with your people!”

  “That’s very probable,” he said, “but it won’t matter after tomorrow. If he does suspect her he hasn’t communicated his suspicions to Yves or anyone else.”

  “How can you be sure of that?” I demanded.

  “I am sure of it,” he said, irritably, “and there is no necessity to go into tedious explanations, my friend! What kind of pistol did they give you?”

  I showed him my small automatic and he sneered.

  “That is quite useless! I will lend you something more reliable.”

  Suddenly I was tired of being pushed around, it had gone on for too long and seemed to be the prerogative of too many people. I said:

  “Look de Royden, my life is important to me. I’ve gone a long way with all of you in the sacred name of security but I’m damned if I’ll go another step until someone tells me what’s expected of me!”

  He smiled, unexpectedly, and for a moment looked almost genial.

  “I’ll wager Diana has told you more than she ought, Jan Leigh!”

  “Whatever Diana told me was unofficial. I want to hear it from you. As far as I can see I’m doubling for this character Pierre Rance. His name makes her sick with fright and I’m not asking why; I think I know why. What really bothers me is this. If I’m standing in for him how comes it he’s still alive and is coming here? Diana says he’s due to be bumped off. The point is, when?”

  He smiled again but this time it was a tight-lipped smile.

  “I can tell you that; tonight!”

  “Tonight? You mean on his way here?”

  “No, after he arrives, after you’ve had an opportunity to study him at close quarters. Killing him is easy enough. Doubling for a stranger is not nearly so easy. Watch the way he stands, walks, talks, look for the odd gesture. Then, when you’re satisfied, kill him!”

  “I kill him?”

  “Why certainly. Who else?”

  I stared at him with dismay. The sophists declare that there is no difference between killing an enemy who happens to get in your way during a wartime operation and killing a man in cold blood but there is a difference, a very great difference if you have to do it. People who tell you that kind of thing usually take care to use theories for live ammunition. I opened my mouth to say something like this but thought better of it and remained silent. I knew any protest from me would invite his contempt and irritation. He looked at me intently for a moment.

  “Well, my friend?”

  “Does Diana know I am to kill him?”

  “If she hasn’t taken that much for granted she has even less imagination than you! However …” he shrugged and seemed suddenly to tire of the discussion and turn his attention to my prospects of understudying Rance satisfactorily. “There is a certain likeness and we might employ it successfully, that is, unless we are unfortunate enough to run into someone who knows Rance well. I think perhaps that you should bide your time when he gets here. Watch him closely for a few hours and then dispose of him early in the morning!” He turned aside. “Why is she so long with the coffee? I should like a drink. You have not even offered me a drink, Jan Leigh!”

  He said this as a feeble effort at jocularity and as he said it he reminded me of a headmaster patronising a schoolboy in out-of-school hours.

  I crossed to the cocktail cabinet and poured him a brandy. He drank it off and returned the glass for more. “Be a little more generous with our friend’s liquor,” he said, still trying to sound affable.

  Diana came in with coffee on a tray and set it down without a word. She had got herself in hand during her absence in the kitchen and was now trying even harder than Raoul to appear casual but she didn’t fool me for a second. I noticed that her hands shook when she placed the tray on the marble-topped table.

  “How do you recommend me to go about it?” I asked, presently, since Raoul continued deep in thought.

  “I have given it a great deal of thought,” he said, now sounding less like a headmaster but like an employer about to reject an employee’s claim for a rise in salary. “I should imagine that even a raw hand like you could achieve it with reasonable efficiency, that is, unless Emerald has changed her mind on the matter!”

  They exchanged looks, hostile looks, I thought, and then Diana turned away. I noticed that whenever he wanted to sound ironic he always called her “Emerald”. It was a name she hated and told me so the first day we met.

  “I can’t do it and I’ve told you why, Raoul!” she said, flatly. Then, as though anxious to be gone, “I’ll tidy the other rooms, we don’t want him
alerted by something trivial. You don’t want me any more, do you?”

  “No,” said Raoul, more kindly this time, “our friend will find it easier if you are not in a position to anticipate.”

  I was glad he dismissed her. I was having a hard battle with myself and her presence would have made it a good deal worse. She went out and I heard her opening and shutting drawers in the bedroom.

  “You will do it with this, from up there!” he said, shortly, and bent to unzip a kind of cricket-bag he had brought with him. At the same time, straightening himself, he jerked his hand towards the ceiling and at once I remembered the little glazed apertures in the attic floor.

  “Was it with something like this in mind that you loop-holed the loft?” I asked.

  “Yes, indeed!” he said, approvingly, obviously relieved that I had shown a limited amount of promise by noticing them. He reached into his bag and took out a short, murderous-looking carbine. It had begun life as some kind of sporting gun but had been adapted for close-range, single shot firing. He handled it lovingly.

  “You could hardly miss at that range,” he said, “providing you choose the right moment, of course. Don’t move about at all unless it is absolutely necessary and if you do move, move on your belly. We cut three holes just in case, but I recommend the bedroom.”

  “How about the body?” I asked, feeling as if I was speaking a banal line in a theatrical production of the Whinmouth Thespians.

  “I will call for it tomorrow,” he said, “and afterwards we will move on to the next stage!”

  Suddenly he dropped his patronising manner and became almost likeable.

  “Have a drink, Jan Leigh,” he said, “have one now and then leave it alone. And do not imagine that I fail to understand your misgivings! After all, we are supposed to be civilised and have been several centuries learning to respect the sanctity of human life. One cannot jettison all that in five minutes. It took me several months and some complicated balancing of accounts!”