‘What shall we call our first baby?’ she asked while they lay together. The lark continued to chorus.
‘What’s the name of this stream?’
‘Robertsbrook,’ she said. ‘Someone called Robert, or Roberts, must have owned the land years ago.’ She realised what he meant. ‘That’s a good idea,’ she said. ‘I like the name Robert.’
‘It could be a girl.’
‘Roberta,’ she said easily. He put his tongue against one of her nipples. ‘Or something like that. Miranda, if you like. I don’t really care at the moment.’
In her luxury she turned her head to one side and quickly whispered: ‘We’re being spied upon.’
Ardley turned. ‘Pomerse,’ he laughed uncertainly. The horse was observing them from the long crest of the meadow.
‘Someone left the gate open,’ said Rose.
‘He’s coming down!’
Rose sprung halfway up and grabbed at her shirt. ‘Oh, God. He’s never seen me without my clothes. He might not recognise us!’
Pomerse was gently increasing his trot and snorting as he descended the slope. ‘He could do untold damage,’ she said.
There was no time. Rose began shouting: ‘Pomerse, Pomerse! It’s us! It’s me, Pomerse.’
The big horse neighed and pulled up ten yards away. It seemed to appreciate what had been going on and gave an ungainly but sprightly jump. Then it circled them daintily, loped over the stream and began drinking from the pool with long sucking noises.
Chapter Thirteen
EACH TIME THE dining-room windows of the Marine Hotel were replaced they were explosively blown out again. The room, in its semi-dark state, had put on a mysterious air, the windows boarded and blacked out with heavy curtains and electric light glimmering dolefully.
Cartwright chose a table from which he could see a segment of the foyer and hear Giselle’s voice. Joseph Laurence, the one-time Giuseppe Laurenti, manager of the hotel, who now wore a small but bright Union Jack badge in his lapel, came from the foyer into the dining room and to Cartwright’s table.
‘Dining alone, sir?’
‘My wife is a long way from here,’ replied Cartwright.
‘Like most men’s wives,’ said Joseph with a small touch of envy. ‘I trust the fish was to your liking, sir.’
Cartwright said it had been.
‘Came from the Channel only a few hours ago,’ asserted Joseph. ‘Courtesy of those German shells that fell short this afternoon.’
At the end of his dinner Cartwright remained until he was alone in the dining room. In his tunic pocket was a letter from Sarah. It had arrived from America that morning. He read it again with sadness. How long would it be before they met once more? She wrote that nothing seemed to have changed in the United States. She had. She felt like a stranger in her own country. The previous day he had passed the village where together they had signed the visitors’ book in the church and he had gone in and looked at their names; almost as if to make sure they had been there, that it had happened. He doubted if they would ever see each other again. An ocean and a war were between them.
The two waiters, after eyeing him for half an hour, had given up and gone, and it was Giselle who came in to ask if there was anything further he would like.
‘Would you have time for a talk?’ he asked.
She was surprised: ‘What type of talk?’
He smiled. ‘A secret talk. Something of national importance. Tomorrow perhaps.’
She retained her calm demeanour. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I can take the morning off tomorrow.’
‘Good. I’m very grateful. My name is Robin Cartwright.’
She glanced at his rank. ‘And you are a captain of the Royal Engineers.’
‘So I am. I will call here for you at eleven. It will only take an hour. Perhaps the army may buy us some lunch.’
She grimaced. ‘Not in the Marine Hotel,’ she advised. ‘Everybody knows me here. And the food is not getting better.’
He laughed and they shook hands. Hers was very slender. ‘It sounds very exciting,’ she said.
Cartwright said: ‘It might be.’
When they were in the army staff car he said: ‘I know you very well by sight. You have an RAF boyfriend, don’t you?’
‘Now he is a prisoner of the Germans. I will not see him until the war is ended. I have written three letters but there is none from him. He must wait and I must wait too.’
The journey was only a few minutes. She looked with curiosity from the window. They took the garrison road from the town to the castle on its abrupt hill. ‘I have never been here,’ she said. ‘When I came it was all guarded.’
‘You came with the troops from Dunkirk, didn’t you.’
‘You seem to know much about me.’
‘A little. Bits and pieces.’
‘Why do you want these bits and pieces? There is no trouble for me, I hope.’
‘None at all.’ She was wearing a pale dress with a short jacket, her fair hair deftly curled about her ears.
The car climbed the steep internal road until the driver called over his shoulder: ‘We’re here, sir.’ They pulled up among the military vehicles on a square. There was an anti-aircraft gun against an ancient wall and two more nosing over the sea, their crews sitting around them playing cards or reading newspapers.
‘This castle was built against the French?’ asked Giselle.
‘Among others,’ said Cartwright. ‘We’ve had a lot of enemies.’
‘But nobody got here,’ she said looking about her. She laughed pleasingly. ‘No French until me.’
‘Some prisoners,’ he joked. ‘The trouble is getting out again.’
The sentry at a door into the thick wall let his eyes flick once towards the slim girl but swiftly switched them to the front again. They went beneath an ancient archway, Cartwright having to lower his head, and into a starkly lit chamber, wood-panelled but with white channels of chalk showing between the boards around the walls and across the ceiling. There were two desks with a spruce sergeant sitting at one and an ATS girl clattering an upright Underwood at the other. Giselle noted it was painted khaki. Why would they need to camouflage a typewriter?
The sergeant stood. Cartwright showed him a pass. ‘You know where it is, sir,’ said the sergeant. He took a moment to cast his glance at Giselle. ‘Major-General Fisher is expecting you and the young lady.’
‘It’s a bit of a walk,’ apologised Cartwright as they began down the tunnel in the opposite wall. ‘But downhill, most of it.’
Giselle said: ‘I am fit. I can run and swim.’
‘You won’t have to do that today.’ He was trying not to get short of breath, leading the way through the deep passages under the glimmer of the bulkhead lights. The air was close. ‘Are you nervous?’ he called back.
‘It is exciting, but I am not nervous. It is not every day I am nervous.’
It took ten minutes. Cartwright had to stop halfway under the pretence of consulting a wall chart. ‘I should be fitter than I am,’ he confessed. The tunnel eventually flattened out and led into another chamber, again lined with wood. Another sergeant sat at a khaki metal desk, rose and checked Cartwright’s pass. ‘General Fisher’s in there, sir,’ he said.
Major-General Philip Fisher was a short, firm man. Giselle wondered how someone so small could be a senior soldier. He was studying a wall map when they entered. Cartwright, who was still wearing his beret, saluted, and with a miniature smile Fisher came forward to shake Giselle’s hand. She thought his hand was smaller than hers.
‘It was very kind of you to come to see us, mademoiselle,’ said the general. ‘We don’t have many of the fair sex down here.’ The ATS secretary at her corner desk looked up sharply and Fisher saw her. ‘As visitors, that is.’ He rolled his eyes a little towards Cartwright, then said to the girl soldier: ‘Thank you, Annie. You can take a few minutes now.’
The ATS girl stood and with the suspicion of a sulk left the cave. ‘Being
down here does them no good at all,’ commented Fisher when the door had been shut. ‘They get moody.’
There was a heavy door on the back wall and the senior officer moved briskly towards it. ‘I should have offered you a chair, my dear,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘But I want to show you our view.’
He turned the brass handle and opened it letting in a hard, thin shaft of sunlight. When he pushed aside the second door it splashed across half the room. ‘Come and see,’ he invited.
Giselle moved forward and Cartwright followed her. They stepped on to an almost formal balcony in the flank of the cliff, like one in a country mansion, with a carved balustrade and figured coping. ‘Nice, isn’t it,’ said Fisher tapping the stone. ‘It’s been here years, since Napoleonic times, I gather.’
Giselle said: ‘Napoleon would have liked it.’
‘Come and see,’ invited Fisher with a wave of his hand. She stepped forward and saw the heavy binoculars mounted on a stand to one side of the veranda. ‘See France, your homeland,’ he invited theatrically. ‘In close-up, as they say in the films.’
Cartwright moved forward with her. The Major-General was focusing the instrument. The French coast was spread clearly before them. ‘There,’ he said. ‘You may need some small adjustment for your eyes. And they’ll be at the correct level.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘If I can reach the eyepiece, anybody can.’
Giselle moved a little timidly and looked through the glasses. Startled, she stepped back before going close again. ‘Mon Dieu,’ she said in a small voice. ‘It is my house.’
‘It’s a bastard place, Thorncliffe,’ said the driver of the platoon truck in a smug tone. ‘Right on the edge, the weather comes straight off the sea. They reckon the rain tastes salty and they’ve had fish land plonk on the bastard barrack square.’
‘Perhaps there’ll be a late heatwave,’ suggested Dunphy with a sniff at the October air.
‘You wouldn’t want that either. All that bastard training, obstacles and running and that, you’d bastard fry.’
‘Don’t they fry the bastard fish? The fish that land on the bastard square?’ asked Dunphy carefully.
The driver gave a wry snort. ‘They ought to, staff. The grub’s a bastard.’
It was the first time anyone had called Dunphy by his new rank. He had only the evening before sewn on the crown above his well-worn stripes.
Dunphy squinted to look through the window behind his neck. His four men were hunched in the back. ‘Sounds more like a detention centre than a training camp,’ he said.
The driver nodded unremittingly. ‘Used to be a bastard glasshouse,’ he said. ‘And it’s not much better now. At least if you end up going somewhere dangerous then it won’t be so bad, will it.’
‘Thanks,’ said the staff sergeant. ‘You’ve made me feel very much better.’
The driver grunted and said: ‘Oh, it’s not so bastard bad.’
As they drove so the rain began and thickened quickly. There were only military vehicles on the coastal road. Thorncliffe appeared like the backcloth to a melodrama, an elevated shadow, perched over the biting sea. ‘There she is,’ said the driver almost fondly. ‘Home sweet bastard home.’
‘Just get us there,’ said Dunphy.
It was not the first time the man had ever been cut short. ‘I’ll take it I have been bollocked?’ he said.
‘It’s a bastard,’ Dunphy grunted.
There was a portcullis gate, half-raised as if ready to be dropped at the first sign of an enemy. Two sentries stood, water channelling from their oilskins. They did not challenge the truck which the driver then took around the edge of the wide, wet parade-ground and parked alongside some bigger trucks. Dunphy got out and banged on the side of the canvas back. ‘Come on, lads, we’re here,’ he called. ‘Wherever it is.’
Ardley, Sproston, Tugwell and Jenkins groaned as they squeezed over the tailboard. They stretched their limbs. The staff sergeant was already looking around him with surprise. ‘It’s an Indian barracks,’ he said. ‘It’s just like Meerut. Terrible place.’
The others stared through the rain at the roofs of the buildings, their wide verandas and arched doors. A dome would not have been out of place. A soaked Union Jack lolled against a flag mast.
‘Built like Indian barracks,’ confirmed the driver. ‘Before the bastard war. They used the same plans. No money for the army then.’ He had to have a moan. ‘Just like now. It’s a bastard.’
‘All right,’ said the staff sergeant to the four. They were all getting wet. ‘Get your gear and form up under this roof. It was built for the monsoon.’
At the end of the building was a carved eastern door with ‘Orderly Room’ painted on a sign above it. He straightened his belt and beret and strode towards the door. They watched him go. ‘What a pit,’ whispered Sproston. ‘What a bleedin’ pit.’
In the distance, at the far side of the square, a platoon of troops in full kit and trailing rifles was marching at the double through the downpour. They could hear someone bawling at them. ‘I’m not going to like this,’ muttered Ardley.
‘Let’s go AWOL,’ suggested Tugwell halfheartedly. ‘Let’s fuck off now.’
Jenkins said: ‘It might be all right. They might have a nice NAAFI.’
The barrack room was dark and filthy. ‘Not been used since right after Dunkirk, the very day,’ said the corporal who had conducted them there. ‘Three blokes bled to death in ’ere.’
He swept his hand around as if denying blame. ‘It needs a bit of bullshit but at least there’s bags of room.’ He was tall and hard and looked as if he could be nasty. ‘The assault platoons are in the Hindian barrack rooms which might have been all right in the ’eat of Hindia but are bloody draughty in Blighty.’
They were standing in dimness, a sort of internal dusk although it was still morning. He reached for a switch on the wooden wall and it came off the woodwork in his hand, the wires looping. It still worked. Three bare bulbs blinked to life at the far end of the room.
‘Looks like you’ll all ’ave to crowd in at that end of the billet,’ the corporal said. ‘Otherwise you won’t be able to see to bull your kit. This CO is very keen on bullshitted kit even if you’ve been up to your arse all day in mud.’
He seemed to be searching for something optimistic to say. ‘And the stove is that end, as you can see.’ The four soldiers regarded a black boiler standing balefully. ‘Bit of boot blacking on that and, if you can rummage up some wood, you could have a nice cheery fire.’
A nonchalant rat appeared and crossed the grim floor. It halted and stared at the men with abrupt consternation. The corporal moved with lightning swiftness, taking two steps and kicking the rat with his heavy boot and sending it against the stove. It lay on the concrete. ‘Right you are then,’ he said almost in the same breath. ‘Any questions?’
The group stayed silent until Jenkins asked in his bright Welsh voice: ‘What’s the NAAFI like, corporal?’
There was no hesitation. ‘’Orrible, mate. They’ve even lost the table-tennis bat. It closes at nine anyway because there’s nobody in there after that. Everybody’s too shagged out. Off to their wanking chariots early. Not that they do much wanking either. Too knackered. Flat out by half past. One bloke got up and shaved when lights out sounded. He thought it was reveille.’ He studied their faces ominously. ‘That’s funny, innit.’
They nodded miserably. ‘We got a swimming pool,’ he said. ‘And you’ll be spending a fair amount of time in it. It’s not got any ’eat and it’s filthy, just the same as the English Channel.’
‘Corporal,’ said Ardley with caution, ‘do you know what we’re going to do? I mean, when we go from here.’
‘Don’t you know, corporal?’
‘No, corporal,’ Ardley answered for them all.
‘Well, I don’t – nobody tells me. I ’spect some officer will tell you before you go.’
He considered his duty done and without another word turned and strode out into the
rain. The four men sat despondently on the iron bedsteads.
‘Christ,’ said Sproston. ‘I don’t like the sound of this lot at all.’
‘Nor me neither,’ said Tugwell. ‘Talk about being browned off.’
‘Not even a decent NAAFI,’ moaned Jenkins.
Ardley said: ‘I can’t swim.’
‘You can’t WHAT?’ The dart eyes retreated into the puffed, professionally scarlet face. The voice drooped to an unbelieving whisper: ‘You can’t do what, corporal?’
‘Swim. I can’t swim. I never learned.’
The eyes widened as though a screw had been released.
‘Corporal . . . what’s your name? And number?’
‘Ardley, sergeant-major . . . 1934682. Corporal Ardley.’
‘Ardley.’ The tone became soft, almost affectionately menacing. The four soldiers stood in a rank in front of the foulest swimming bath any of them had seen. The air was dank and the tiles around the walls ran with cold moisture. The men were wearing only baggy physical-training shorts. ‘Ardley,’ the sergeant-major repeated. ‘And you can ’ardly swim!’ He suddenly, madly, doubled up with coarse laughter.
‘I can’t swim at all, sir.’
The pointed eyes fell back into their slots. He pointed to his badges of rank. ‘I am a warrant officer, class one, the top non-commissioned rank in the British army. But I’m called sergeant-major. Did you know that?’
‘Yes, sir, I did, sir.’
‘And I am addressed as “sir”.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘My name is Warrant-Officer Hunt, M. for Michael, Mike. And if I ’ear any of you giving me nicknames – like My Cunt, Mike ’Unt, get it? – ’is feet will not touch the ground.’ He smiled unnervingly. ‘We ’ad another Hunt ’ere,’ he confided. ‘Isaac ’Unt. And he was too.’
Only Sproston smiled but blankly. Jenkins did not understand.
Hunt regarded them caustically. ‘By a long way I am probably the nastiest man in the British army, maybe the German army as well,’ he said. ‘Now, is there anybody else can’t swim?’
Dover Beach Page 25
