Madeleine's War

by Peter Watson

  Madeleine and I sat on a settee near the fire. She had on her frock and had washed her hair. I couldn’t be sure but I thought she had on more lipstick than usual.

  “You don’t want to watch the snooker?”

  She shook her head. “Tell me, the people who worshipped at those standing stones—where did they live?”

  “Nearby, I suppose. I told you—I’m not an expert.”

  “In what?”

  “Flimsy houses that didn’t last as well as their temples. It was a time when people were more interested in their religious beliefs than in life on earth.”

  “You think so?”

  “That’s what the local historian told me.”

  She nodded. “What will happen to this house, once the war is over?”

  I handed her some whisky. “It will eventually be sold, I should imagine.”

  She sipped some of the liquid and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “But will all go well? What if the invasion is a disaster?”

  “That doesn’t bear thinking about, but if it happens Ardlossan will continue to be used. I will continue giving courses. Continue taking people to see the standing stones.”

  A shout went up as someone made a good shot.

  I glanced towards the noise. I noticed Erich looking our way.

  “What time is it?” Madeleine asked. Her voice was especially loamy tonight.

  I turned back to her. “Eleven forty-five.”

  “Too late for a walk—?”

  “Philippe, Madeleine. Who is—or was—Philippe?”

  I sipped my whisky, and waited.

  “Okay. ‘Aye,’ as Duncan would say. Here goes.” She spoke as if to the fire. “As you know, my mother and I moved from France to Britain in November 1938. In March of the following year, when Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia, and when the French prime minister was given emergency powers for France to rearm, my mother decided on one last trip to Louzac, where we had been living before we moved. For a last look, she said, before the war, which she was certain would come. She didn’t know when—or if—she would ever see Louzac again. She wanted to say goodbye to old friends. I went with her.”

  She held out her hand so she could feel the warmth of the flames.

  “While I was in Louzac, I met Philippe Sompre. He was a geologist, though he also had an interest in archaeology. He was very good-looking, very funny, very charming—all the local girls thought the world of him. Some of them even sent him flowers, can you imagine that?”

  She cleared her throat.

  “But…but he had poor eyesight, very poor, so he had been turned down by the army. That had made him angry, and restless. Anyway, while my mother did her rounds, visiting all her old friends, Philippe and I went on long walks. There are a lot of little rivers and hills and caves near Louzac. The weather was unusually mild that March. I don’t know whether it was because I was new, because I didn’t live in Louzac, so I wasn’t familiar to Philippe, but we seemed to get on. He confided in me.”

  More noise from the vicinity of the snooker table. She looked across. Was she looking for Erich?

  “Being a geologist, in his spare time Philippe was making a map of all the caves in the area. He explained that France is very special when it comes to caves, that the rock formations favour them, and that ancient people lived there, often decorating them with art. Pictures of horses, cattle, foxes, and bears. It was his plan to map all the caves and then explore them, in the hope that he would discover a lot of ancient art and make his name.”

  She picked up the poker in the hearth and rearranged the logs in the fire.

  “I was enchanted by all this. I loved it. He was so caught up in his own ideas, he was so convinced that he would one day make sensational discoveries, that it was hard not to be swept away. And I was swept away.”

  She set down the poker again.

  “You may guess some of what happened, but not everything.” She breathed out softly. “Visiting so many caves, just the two of us…it wasn’t long before…Well, one day it stormed heavily; we were trapped in a cave for over an hour. You can guess that bit.”

  She pulled at the hem of her frock.

  “So there I was, in France for just a few days, but I had met the most exciting man I had ever known until then—and I was in love. Oh yes, it was a real coup de foudre, an emotional thunderbolt to go with the storm outside the cave that day. And it was two-way. Philippe was as much in love with me as I was with him.”

  She frowned.

  “Now we get to the difficult bit. I was, of course, in France for just a week, one over-all-too-quickly week, before my mother and I returned to London. With war looming, there was no chance we could stay. It was dangerous to remain in France if you had somewhere else to go, though I would have stayed and risked it, given what I felt for Philippe.”

  She fiddled with her necklace.

  “So, one day, we spent a while in another cave, making love, and, after it was over, we talked. We decided that, if we were in love—and we were in love—we should get married. It wasn’t absolutely certain then that there would be a war, but if there was to be, we wanted…we decided that, by being married, that would be the best way to cement what we felt for each other. It would help us hold up through the separation that a war, if it happened, would inevitably bring about.”

  She ran a finger reflectively round the rim of her glass.

  “So that’s what we did. The very next day, the day before my mother and I returned to London, Philippe and I took the train to Cognac, the nearest large town, and visited the mairie, the town hall, where we were married. Marriages in France, as I’m sure you know, are civil affairs, not religious ones, so you don’t have to arrange things with a priest—which was just as well in our case because I am a Protestant and Philippe is a Catholic. We celebrated in a bar, with some champagne, he took some photographs, and then we went back to Louzac. The next day my mother and I returned to London.”

  “So—?”

  “Hold on. I haven’t finished—nowhere near. I never told my mother that Philippe and I were married, not then, but of course we did write to each other and were always hoping we could meet each other again. But then war was declared in September, and travel got very difficult, almost impossible for civilians. Philippe was smuggled to Britain in the summer of 1940, for a conference of Resistance leaders—he was one by then—and we met in Dover, where he was able to stay for two nights. Two glorious nights before he had to go back. He told me then that he had made a number of discoveries of ancient art in ‘his’ caves as he called them, and hoped to publish his results after the war. Things got even worse, of course, after the Germans established the coastal exclusion zone. Then we couldn’t communicate at all.”

  “And have you heard—?”

  “Hold on! Let me tell you everything now, and then we don’t have to come back to it.”

  She leaned forward so she could feel the warmth of the fire on her face this time.

  “The Free French, in London, under de Gaulle, had set up some underground channels of communication, and my mother, though English by birth, had also registered as being French living in London, because she’d been married to my father. So we were on the Free French books, so to speak. Anyway, one day in early 1941—March or April, I think it was—a man arrived at our flat with two letters for me. One was from Philippe and one was from his mother.”

  She paused and closed her eyes, obviously thinking back. Her lush eyelashes lay on her cheeks.

  “Philippe’s letter was lovely. With France being occupied and the Resistance being set up, he came into his own. He couldn’t be in the regular army, and that was just as well, with what was happening to French soldiers being sent east, but he could be in the Resistance. He knew where all those caves were, which were perfect hiding places for the Resistance, perfect storage places for food or explosives, and places where the injured could be looked after. He had found his métier and although it was dangerous I could tell he w
as loving it. It was a very loving letter, looking forward to the end of the war. He was certain the Germans would lose.”

  She closed her eyes again.

  “His mother’s letter was very different. She said that Philippe had eventually told her about our marriage. She said she thought we had been foolish as well as deceitful—foolish because he was a Catholic and I am Protestant. My mother is Protestant and insisted I be raised in her faith, the more so after my father died. But Philippe’s mother wasn’t writing just to admonish me or criticise me, but to give me the news that Philippe was dead.”

  Madeleine took a deep breath.

  “He had become a senior figure in the local Resistance, she said, and a hero locally. His looks, his knowledge of the local terrain, the cave art he had discovered, showing how long the French had been in that land now occupied by invaders, all helped make him a local legend. But he had been betrayed. He had, his mother said, been shot in a prison yard at Cognac, the very town where we had been married. With the letter she had enclosed a photograph of me and Philippe that he had taken at our wedding but had not had time to have developed before I returned to London with my mother.”

  She looked at me.

  “It was heartbreaking. I was a widow at twenty-two. That’s when—that’s really why—I decided to do something for the war effort. To have my own little revenge.”

  We were silent for a long time.

  Eventually, I said, “None of this was in your file.”

  “I never talk about it. I didn’t want people to think my war was only personal. I didn’t mention it to you because I didn’t want you to think…It’s been three years now, Colonel, and I’ve adjusted.” Her voice thinned a little. “It was glorious, but it only really lasted four days and I…I get emotional when I talk about it, like we are doing now, but really…I’m not going into France for Philippe any more. My motives are…I’m going because it’s the right thing to do.”

  “You’re full of surprises,” I breathed after a moment. “I’ll give you that.”

  Another moment of silence. She looked at me over the rim of her whisky glass as she drank. Her eyes grew rounder.

  “Now what?”

  She lowered her glass. “Erich’s asked me out. He wants to take me to Fort William, for dinner.”

  I swallowed. “And what did you say?”

  “I said I’d think about it.” She tugged at the hem of her skirt again. “What do you think I should say?”

  “It’s not up to me, is it?”

  “You’ve never asked me out. For dinner, I mean.”

  “I was working up to it. I thought I’d wait until we got to London. I’m your commanding officer at the moment. In London you’ll come under someone else. In London we can be more discreet.”

  She regarded me, a slight smile spreading along her lips.

  A burst of applause erupted across the room as the game was finished. Shouting, more applause, cries of “Well done!,” “Congratulations!” Whistles. Glasses being banged on tables.

  There was too much noise for either of us to be heard for a few moments.

  Then she nodded and leaned forward.

  “We are a small group in F Section. Just four recruits. If I turn Erich down, that could upset him, and upset the balance in the group in our final days.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I’m going to tell him yes, on that basis. It will be interesting to see Fort William anyway.”

  I couldn’t read her expression.

  Then she said, “All the same, I look forward to our dinner in London, Colonel.”

  —

  “HOW IS IT THAT YOU don’t like whisky, Duncan?”

  He and I were sitting next to the fire in the snooker room, after dinner two nights later. It was late; almost everyone else had gone to bed. There were just two others playing darts. Madeleine was out with Erich in Fort William. They had not yet returned.

  Duncan drained his beer glass. “I saw what it did to my father.” He set his glass down on the low table near us. “My father was not a nice man when he drank. He hit us boys, he hit my mother. My elder brother stood up to him—and then they fought. That’s why Callum went into the RAF early, to get away. My other brother couldn’t wait to follow him as soon as he was eighteen.”

  “And what happened? What happened with you?”

  I looked at my watch. It was just gone eleven. Where were they?

  “My father fell ill with the drink—liver trouble. My two elder brothers were in training, to be pilots—if they passed their exams. I couldn’t leave home like they did—that would have left my mother with no one. So I stayed on at school, and found that I was good at maths and liked it. Then, in the space of a few months, my father died of his illness, I was given a scholarship to Glasgow University, and my mother said I should go, that I had been tied to her apron strings for long enough. She went to live with her sister. At university I joined the army reserve in 1938, and just before war broke out I was invited to a code-breaking outfit near Prestwick in Ayrshire—they needed mathematicians, they said. From there I was taken into SC2 when it was created. The rest you know.”

  “Did your mother grieve much, or was she glad to be shut of your father? Did she never remarry?”

  Still no sign of Madeleine and Erich.

  Duncan shook his head. “No, she never remarried. In a funny way, despite his drinking binges, and the fights, I think she loved him. She was certainly very upset when he died. Then, when my brothers were killed, early on in the war, she was…Well, you know.”

  “Do you like living at home now?”

  “I don’t dislike it, but…when Siobhan and I get married I’ll be moving out.”

  “And when is that likely to be?”

  He stood up. “Can we talk about this some other time, Matt? I’m very tired and we’ve got to prepare our last little deception. We’ve got our work cut out, if we are to pull it off without anyone guessing.”

  I stood up, too. “Of course. And you’re right. We can’t lose our cunning this late in the course.”

  I picked up my half-empty half-bottle of whisky and followed Duncan out of the room.

  The darts players had already gone.

  I went to the front door of the manse, opened it, and stepped out into the night.

  It was crisp, with a clear sky. No moon but countless stars. My breath escaped my mouth in tiny clouds that melted into nothing immediately. No sign of anyone arriving along the drive.

  I turned and went inside, closing the door behind me. I nodded to the sentry on duty. The manse was miles from anywhere, but it was still fully defended.

  I climbed the stone stairs to my room. At the end of the corridor a window was open slightly. It made the light hanging from the ceiling sway but the open window kept the air circulating so that in our wing of the manse it didn’t get stale.

  I opened the door to my room. The light was on. Odd. I hadn’t left it on.

  Madeleine was lying on the bed. Wearing a raincoat and scarf.

  I was both apprehensive and light-headed all at the same time.

  She had taken one hell of a risk in coming here.

  On the beaches near the manse, on our bicycle rides, in class, I had always been with Madeleine in public, or in a public place. I had long been aware of my growing feelings but hadn’t allowed them to flood my system as I knew the dangers of incoming tides. But in the confined space of my room, with Madeleine stretched out on the bed, the fact that she had come straight from being with Erich to being with me…We were still at that stage where behaviour came before words, but her very presence here, now, was a bold extension of the code which, until then, we had silently followed.

  “Is that whisky in your hand?” she said softly. “Erich doesn’t drink and I’m gasping.”

  I stepped across the room and handed her the bottle. She swung her legs off the bed and sat sideways on, holding the whisky.

  “I didn’t hear you come in. How long have yo
u been back? Didn’t Erich offer you a drink?”

  “On grounds of security we had to pay off the taxi at the end of the drive. We walked the rest of the way—”

  “Jesus! You must be rock-solid—it’s freezing out there.”

  She grinned. “We didn’t walk, we marched! But yes, the whisky will be a help.” She drank from the neck of the bottle and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “That’s better.”

  “You look like someone in a western, drinking like that.”

  “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?”

  “How did it go?”

  She handed back the bottle. I sat on the edge of the bed, alongside her.

  “There’s not much to Fort William. All the buildings are like this place—windows too small for their walls.”

  “It’s to keep the weather out. But that’s not what I meant.”

  She unwound her scarf from round her neck. “I’m thawing out at last. I know it’s not what you meant.”

  She unbuttoned her raincoat.

  “Erich’s very sweet—I’m not sure he’s too used to women.”

  “Not all of us are.”

  She turned her head and eyed me.

  “He spent the whole time talking about his family and his childhood.”

  “I’ve just had much the same sort of conversation with Duncan. Is that so terrible?”

  “You didn’t do that with me.”

  “Yes, but our first ‘date’—not that you can call it that—was an interview just after you thought you were going to die. Not exactly a fair comparison.”

  “Are you always so fair-minded? You don’t know what else happened.”

  “Do you mean he asked you to marry him?”

  She chuckled. “I think…I think he likes me, yes. I think that if I gave him encouragement, he could fall for me, perhaps heavily. I don’t think there have been many women in his life.”

  I drank some whisky. “So what are you saying?”