by Thomas Wood
At first, I couldn’t speak, but I just glared at him and he at me, both as if we had seen a ghost of one another. I didn’t believe in the figure that stood before me, until he spoke, his airy, dulcet tones that seemed to wrap their way elegantly around every solid object in the vicinity warming my ears.
“Alfie?”
“Louis?” I questioned, neither one of us really buying into the mirage that stood before us. “Can I come in?” I eventually asked. “I don’t want to be arrested now,” I said, trying my best to convince him that it was in fact me that stood before him, and not some sort of disguise-wielding Gestapo agent.
He welcomed me in, apparently finally accepting who I really was, at which point he threw his arms around me, as if I was a long-lost parent or sibling, sobbing uncontrollably into my shoulder.
“Louis. Louis.” I repeated, the tears that erupted in his own eyes, mirrored in my own.
“But how, Louis? How are you alive?”
“Come in, come in, sit. I will tell you everything.”
We sat in his kitchen, the welcome glass of milk that was rolling around in my hands the third one that I had been given already, as he filled me in on everything that had happened. Before he had got to tell his story, I was forced into interrupting him, to make sure that I managed to tell him my purpose before he got distracted with the wild imaginings of his mind. He had to know why I was here, he now had a part to play as well.
“We had the field secured Alf, you have to believe me. Whoever took that shot to kill the German was one of our own. But I had told them to expect him. I told them that he was on our side.”
“Then what happened?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, I supposed one of the boys was a little jumpy and accidentally pulled the trigger. Other than that, I had no explanation.”
“So, what happened after the plane left?”
“The Germans attacked us. I think you saw that much. We lost a lot of men and were going to lose a lot more. I gave the order to retreat, but many of them simply refused. They wanted to stay behind and take as many of the Germans down as they could. That was when Joseph turned up.”
“Joseph was there? But how did he find out?”
“Not from me, my friend, you must believe that. I was scared myself that he would kill me if he found out.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
“I am not sure, he seemed distracted. But he wanted to continue the fight, so we did. We managed to force the Germans back outside of the wood. They regrouped with reinforcements ready to flush us out, in which time, we were able to sneak out of the forest.”
“What did Joseph have to say about it all?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. He hasn’t shown up here much at all recently. He seems to be keeping his head down for some reason. I suppose he thinks there might be someone looking for him, what do you reckon, Alfie?” He smirked, raising an eyebrow in my direction. He knew that I didn’t trust Joseph one bit, but I refrained from revealing to him that he was in fact even less trustworthy than that, he was onside with the Germans.
“There was one thing though, Alfie, that I want you to know.” He took a sip from his own milk, he seemed to love the tension and intrigue that surrounded his house and he was just using this moment to drink it all in.
“What’s that?”
“Well, after the Germans had retreated, Joseph ran out into the field. I thought he was collecting the lamps from the runway. But, as I got closer, I realised he was rummaging around in the Germans’ suitcase.”
“He was looking for something?”
“Maybe,” he said sheepishly, “but he was also crying. Not just normal crying. Proper sobs. I’m sure it was him who fired the bullet that night.”
My mind went into overdrive once again, a smashing headache beginning to pulverise the sides of my skull as it did so. Maybe Joseph had been the one to pull the trigger that eventually killed Rudolf, but maybe he hadn’t. It was just possible that he blamed himself for killing a man that was about to hand over intelligence to the Allies, which would now not get through to them. Maybe that was why he was searching through the man’s case.
But then again, maybe he had known Rudolf. It was a possibility, especially as Rudolf had mentioned Geranium, the very codeword that I had been told to use to summon Joseph. My head pounded as I thought everything through to the best of my ability, the three pints of milk doing nothing to help it subside.
As I bid a quick farewell to Louis, Operation Geranium refused to leave the forefront of my mind. It was all that I was able to effectively think about, everything else was just mush.
The only thing that pieced all of this together was that one word; Geranium. Had they all been involved in it some way, or was it just my overactive imagination making bridges between islands that weren’t there? It would explain why Jimmy was so coy around the whole affair. It could also explain why Joseph had lied about the real reason behind his codeword. Maybe it was why the mere mention of it had led to an express ticket out of France.
It all buzzed around in my mind for hours afterwards, never really advancing, but never feeling like a total waste of time either. I had the same recurring thoughts well into the evening, each and every time being triggered by, and coming back to, the same word each time.
Geranium. Geranium. Geranium.
12
I hated this bit. I hated the waiting and the horrific feeling in the pit of my stomach that began to eat away at me, at the thought that I would never see Jameson again and that he was already either dead, or he too had betrayed me in some way.
Waiting sounds easy, you have to do nothing in particular, but for me, it was different. As you sit there and begin to think thoughts that you didn’t even believe, you try to distract yourself with more reasonable, believable things.
I was getting warm as I sat there on my favourite bench, but not a complete warm. The tips of my fingers were going blue and the ends of my toes were frozen solid, the rest of my body in a complete sweat as I struggled to keep up with the various demands of my extremities.
It was only in my impatience that I realised that I was hungry, the gurgles of my stomach eventually fading into nothing, as I began to run out of energy to make the grumblings audibly. My mouth was dry and had started to burn horribly the longer that I left it before going in search of a drink.
My bladder was full to bursting, but I had learnt my lesson with Joseph, not to leave that bench until I was absolutely certain that everyone was where they were meant to be, even if that meant soaking the bench a little. I would have to do it.
Eventually, I made out the gangly, stooping figure of Jameson as he made his way up the churchyard path, before deviating over the grass towards the bench. I was so glad to see him in one piece, as I had fully expected to have seen him beaten black and blue, at the bottom of a makeshift grave, rather than well fed and watered as he appeared, perching on the bench beside me.
“What took you so long?” I asked, before he was able to even take a breath. I felt bad, but I was impatient, and for good reason, the longer that we both stayed there, the more chance there was of ending up like Rudolf.
“Sorry. It’s all happening rather fast. I came here as quickly as I could.”
I let him take a few deep breaths, as I watched a German motorbike trundle past, the driver’s head slowly rotating from side to side like a minesweeper, almost as if he was looking for someone in particular. I made a note that as soon as I heard the next motorbike engine, we were to move. Even if we weren’t the subject of the motorcyclist’s search, the two men sat on the bench at the church might have seen or heard whatever it was he was looking for, and I wanted to retain as little contact with the Germans as was possible.
“I met with Joseph. Insisted upon speaking to someone with the superiority that my rank deserves.” I felt like cutting in, just to remind him that his rank of colonel was only an artificial one, as he had suddenly come across as if he truly believed t
hat he was now a senior officer in the British Army. In the event, I stayed silent, assuming that if he believed in his rank, he believed in his cover story, which would mean there was a slightly higher chance of both of us making it out of there alive.
“I laid it on thick about what I knew, really I did, you should have seen me.” His eyes were wild and fiery, and I imagined that this was the most exciting thing that he had ever done in his life. He spoke with a pride over what he had done, a pride that I reciprocated silently. This was not his natural hunting ground, he was never cut out to be a frontline soldier, or to be anywhere near the thick of the action. But, here he was, in the middle of an enemy held country, going to speak to a known traitor and assuming a fake identity.
“What did you tell him?”
“Well, I told him everything really. I managed to slip in to one of his subordinates about my royal connections,” he said, mockingly. “And then I said that I had vital intelligence that simply had to get back to Britain.”
“You didn’t tell him what?”
“No, but I implied that I knew who a traitor was and where he was operating. Nothing more than that, I refused to give it to him.”
“Good. Good.” I said, musing over what was going to happen next and how we would react to it.
“It’s happening tonight,” he suddenly piped up, as if it was completely inconsequential to us, making me flick my head over towards him with a start.
“Tonight? I didn’t expect it to move along that quickly.”
“I should’ve been an actor,” he said chuckling lightly, “I bet the pay is a bit better than this. And the food come to think of it.”
“What time are you going?”
He looked over at me, as if I had woken him up from a deep sleep. His eyes were still a piercing blue, like he could look directly into your soul and tell you of your deepest, darkest secrets. As I stared into them, wild and ferocious, I suddenly realised what the pull had been for all those explorers from years ago, sailing the seas in search of faraway islands. His eyes seemed to house just as many secrets, just as strong undercurrents and the same ability to drag someone in and under its rolling waters.
Maybe that was what had made Joseph act so quickly, so efficiently, in what had taken so long for me to achieve the last time I was here. I was swiftly brought back into the realms of reality as Jameson piped up with yet another nugget of information.
“Zero one hundred hours. Outskirts of the village. Apparently, there’s a farmer’s cottage there, in ruins now.”
“I know it,” I proclaimed, interrupting him mid-flow. “What’s actually happening there then?”
“Not sure. He was a bit sketchy when it came to that. As far as I know, I’m going to meet someone there, who is apparently going to get me out of the country. But we’ll see about that.”
“Will Joseph be there?”
“He made out like he was going to be there before anyone else, but I suppose we’ll see. He came across like he was lying through his teeth.”
“Well, at least I know you’ve met the right man then.”
He chuckled softly, clearly trying to rack his brains for anything else that he might have forgotten that would have been vital to know.
It all seemed like everything was in place, Robert had made contact and hadn’t been found out, now he had prepared a meetup with one of Joseph’s associates who was apparently going to get him out. From there, I was sure that Joseph would lead the Germans in on the farmer’s cottage, which would leave him open to be dealt with however I saw fit.
But then, in that silence, I felt like everything was going perhaps a little too smoothly, everything had fallen into place perfectly. I began to have doubts over the excellent performance that Robert had said he had delivered, and maybe they had made him in some way. Or perhaps they had deemed him a little too important to hand over to the Germans just yet, and so they were actually organising it for him to be sent home as soon as possible.
I began to have an awful lurching in my stomach, as if some kind of rabid donkey was having a good old kick and buck in there, that I had misjudged the situation awfully, and as a consequence, I would soon find myself in this country without Jameson, that I would be left totally alone and back to square one again.
Trying to distract myself from the pessimism that had seemed to become a trademark of mine over the last few weeks, I began firing off a series of questions to Robert, to try and give myself an overall picture of what was about to happen. The more I knew, the more confident that I felt that I would be able to succeed in what I had been sent there to do.
“So, do you know who you’re actually meant to be meeting?”
He shook his head lethargically, as he seemed to stare unblinking at one headstone in particular, so much so that I began to think it might have been one of his long-lost family members.
“Haven’t the foggiest. Baudouin seemed to remain incredibly coy over who it was that I was meant to be meeting. The only thing he said was that I needn’t worry, and that when the time came, I would know exactly who it was that I was waiting for. All a bit odd, isn’t it?”
“Yeah…” I said, letting my voice trail off so it came across more as a whimper than anything else. I couldn’t help but think that Jameson was going to lose his life tonight, and that the guest that he would suddenly be enlightened towards was probably an MG34 set up just inside the doorway of the farmer’s cottage.
“Oh,” he suddenly sparked up, “the signals.” He looked over at my confused face for a moment before continuing. “The signals at the cottage, so that we both know that it’s safe to go in.”
“The person I am meeting will enter the house first, at about ten to one. He will wait there until zero one hundred when he will flick the lamp on that is in the first-floor window. When that goes on, it means it is clear for me. Once I’m in, we’ll switch the light off as we leave together. That’s the plan anyway.”
“But the lights could mean different things to the Germans.”
“Yes, that’s what I was thinking too,” he said, lethargically, as he presumably thought about his potential demise. It was a horrible position to be in, to know that you were probably going to die, just waiting for it to happen and, in some ways, it was worse than suddenly being ambushed. The adrenaline of that situation sends you into survival mode, whereas the waiting around just forces you into a despair.
I knew that I should be saying the right things now, to entice him from the trance that he was in, but the words simply wouldn’t come out. It probably had something to do with the fact that, if he was to die, then there was a very real possibility that I would too.
We had another few hours to kill, which we spent together, tending to our various needs, I got some food and water into my belly and relieved myself, Jameson did much the same, but more begrudgingly. It was to be expected, as this was probably the first time that he was facing death, with all the odds stacked against him.
I had been much the same when I had first thought that I was going to die, again in France, but back in 1940, when I was the reconnaissance officer for my regiment, and I found myself face to face with the deadly darts of artillery while in a very lightly armoured tank. I had watched the majority of my regiment become nothing more than smouldering wreckages, charred bodies leaning out the hatches as they tried to escape, or a twisted arm in amongst the contorted steel. It was after that initial piece of action that I stood up to the reality that I was going to die.
Until that point, the war had been plain sailing for me, regularly being taken off the line for rest and, even when we were on the frontline, it was little more than having a picnic alongside the rest of the French soldiers.
As so often happened each time that I had a few hours to myself, I began to wander into hallucinations of what had happened next, watching events unfold as if I was just an observer, not partaking in the war at all but watching myself, critiquing my own movements and reminding myself never to make the same mista
kes again.
My thoughts of Cécile were gradually dwindling, as I began to realise that I would never see her again, probably on account of the fact that I would never survive this war. I began to think that I didn’t even love her anymore, down to the fact that I told myself over and over that trying to find her would be unfair on her, as there was a possibility that she had only done it to keep me alive.
The fact was though, that she never escaped my thoughts. She was always there in some capacity. In actual fact, she did nothing to make me feel any happier anymore, the feelings of guilt and sadness attached to my memories of her sending me into a deeper despair each time I risked thinking of her.
Coupled with the dreams, the recurring ones of the man from Paris who had refused to reveal his face, I began to find that I was becoming a cynical individual, who could see no prospects in this war for anyone, other than being murdered by the enemy, or giving in to the depressive thoughts that lingered in the back of everyone’s mind.
I grew frustrated with the dreams as they continued to haunt me, never becoming any clearer but always appearing to me like I was in the thick of it right now. The anger that I had tried so hard to suppress continued to make a resurgence every time I thought of my dreams, growing increasingly furious that I might never be able to rid myself of them.
I raged that I had allowed myself to get in a situation such as this, one where I was allowing my anger to get the better of me, the dreams were slowly defeating me and men like Joseph were still alive.
I needed that detestable man dead, if not for the sake of the men that he had killed, and would go onto kill, but for the sake of my own sanity.
13
We had found that the building was in a brilliant place to observe it from afar, a pair of binoculars being the only thing we needed to be able to watch it from a safe distance. From where we were, sitting in amongst a smattering of trees as the darkness set in, I reckoned that I would get a clear view of anyone approaching the building, as well as the window where the lamp was meant to be switched on.
