Close Quarters

by Thomas Wood

  As the sunset, its glistening glow a defiant symbol of hope for the remaining occupants, the dust and smoke that had continued to rise up was lit up, the silhouette of the few remaining buildings appearing to give up its final few breaths.

  It did not take long, as my gaze remained unwavering and loyal to the town of Clerval, for my mind to wander to what the forthcoming night might bring. Within an hour or two, a perfect darkness would be gripping this part of France again, and the hooded figure of death would be rubbing his bony hands as he sought out another horde of victims.

  As the clouds of ash darkened, a cloaked figure above the town was clearly visible to me, a shudder passing over my body as I forced myself to look away.

  The bombers would be back again tonight, I thought. In fact, the men crewing the aircraft were probably already leaving the mess hall, having had what could potentially be their final meal. A thought crossed my mind, that I instantly loathed myself for considering.

  I hoped that the bomb-aimers had their eyes in tonight. Anything to stop the suffering of the people of Clerval from dragging on any longer than it needed to. The sound of bombs screaming down all around you, without being hit, was a prospect that I could never desire. The feeling of utter helplessness and desperation was one that drove me to despair, even though the skies overhead remained clear, for the time being.

  My eyes fell on the small mound of dirt that rose up higher than the rest of the garden, which was where we would crouch later on that night when the bombers returned. It was another prospect that I did not much care for, and which required more positive thoughts to counterbalance.

  There was a chance, however small, that the bombers would not return for a second run. Maybe they had returned the night before to inform their superiors that they had hit their targets perfectly, and that the factory was out of action.

  There was a possibility, more so a hope, that maybe the big knobs in Bomber Command had seen fit to stop such attritional raids on French lands, in the hope that morale would somehow be boosted.

  But, if what our local friendly police officer, Philippe, had told us, then it was more than likely that they would be back. But I could hope. Especially in the light of what it was that we were going to do to help.

  I took a sip of my drink and winced. It was a necessary evil, and one that would help to settle the nerves that constantly felt like they were shortening. I placed the glass down on the table next to me, like we all had done, apart from Christopher, who had declined the luxury of a stiff drink that we had all felt drawn to.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a flash of movement to the side, a blur of both light and shadow as someone moved very quickly in the room.

  “Jean!” hollered the small boy as he bounded in towards me, throwing himself over the obstacle course of outstretched legs and mish-mash of chairs. “Papa said that I could spend a few minutes with you all before bed.”

  Jules appeared in the doorway, with a wearisome look on his face, as if he knew that his small son would get nothing but a few hours of rest before the sirens woke him from his slumber. It wouldn’t be long before we were crouched in a hole together, whiling away the hours until the all-clear was sounded.

  But there was a naivety that the boy possessed that helped me to cling onto a faint ray of hope that maybe, just maybe, tonight would be the night that the bombers didn’t come.

  I nodded to Jules to let him know that it was alright, before beaming at the boy and tensing in anticipation of the leap that he always executed with such precision. I braced myself as he clattered onto my knee, the toxins in my legs bellowing out in anger at the extra pressure that I had put my legs under.

  “Come on then, Georges,” I strained, as I tried my best to hide the exhaustion that seemed to have me in its vice. “What questions have you got for me tonight?”

  The boy had learned quite quickly that I had experienced a life far different from his and his father’s, and had a well-developed presence of mind for such a young child. As such, he would spend the last hour of his waking day routinely quizzing me on matters of life and death, what to do to rid his country of the German occupation and once even demanding to know what it was like to fly.

  I had blushed at the question, ignoring the burning glare of Mike as I did. Georges knew nothing of my former life and did not know that he sat on the knee of a British fighter pilot, and that he was in the company of another just a few feet away. That was unless, by some freak opportunity, he had overheard my whimpering in the night, and had begun to piece together small bites of information until he could see a clearer picture.

  But, in actual fact, his question had been nothing but an innocent inquisition into what it must be like to be a bird, one that was able to soar above the war and above the death, experiencing life from a godlike perspective.

  I had answered with nothing but a short, ‘I don’t know,’ but I knew the day would come when the boy would eventually find out.

  “I think it’s funny, Jean.”

  “What is, Georges?”

  “That all of you have the same drink, most nights. At around the same time. Why is that?”

  It was one of the rare occasions that Mike looked up and breathed sharply from his nose, mainly out of relief. He did not have as much time for the boy as I did, but he knew irony when he heard it.

  “I suppose we must all get thirsty at around the same time.”

  “Then why not have some water?”

  “This is better. It also helps us sleep.”

  “Does it get rid of the nightmares?” Mike’s smirking ceased, as he took a slow, protracted sip.

  “Yes. Sometimes.”

  “Can I have some?”

  I chuckled as I looked up to Jules, mockingly asking for his approval, which was met with a smile and a shake of the head.

  “I think that’s a no, don’t you? Next question.”

  Unperturbed by his failure, the young boy continued to look around the room, as if searching for inspiration for another question, determined that this one would catch me out once and for all.

  “Him. Why hasn’t he got one?”

  “Ah,” I muttered, looking to where the young boy was pointing. I racked my brain, trying desperately to think of an answer that would satisfy the boy’s hunger for knowledge. It wasn’t a case of moving him along to the next topic, I had tried that before, which had only served to make him even more curious.

  I shot a glare to Mike, screaming for assistance and blaming him for not helping me out.

  “He’s not thirsty,” Mike spluttered, as his latest sip caught him at the back of the throat. It was a terrible answer, but worth a try.

  Christopher continued to sit as he had done for the last hour or so, his legs crossed and pulled up tightly, his barely existent chin tucked into his chest and his spectacles twirling away in between his fingers.

  His nose seemed less pointed than it had done before, his cheekbones disappearing under a thicker layer of skin. It was as if what had happened down in Clerval had served to refine him slightly, to sand down the rough edges of his character. If that was the case, then he was taking time to adjust, as he had barely said a word all evening.

  “What’s the matter with him?” the boy questioned, tilting his head to one side as if trying to understand Christopher a bit better.

  “Nothing. He’s thinking, just like you. Except he’s doing it inside his head.”

  “No. He is different to you. He’s—”

  Jules swept across the room as elegantly as a duck landing on a glassy lake, simultaneously scooping his son up and also giving me an apologetic look.

  “Right, that’s enough of that. Come on, time for bed.”

  Jules was not angry, but there was an obvious tone of frustration in his voice. It was good, I had told him before, to let the boy think aloud, to ask all the questions that he had pent up within him. But that had been one of the occasions where he had wished that he had followed his own gut feeling and igno
red mine.

  Unintentionally, I caught Mike’s eye, as he slowly but firmly placed his glass on the table next to him. His lips were pursed, and I could tell that the pressure of his blood was beginning to rise.

  I broke away from his gaze, as his face told me all that I needed.

  If the young boy can spot something is up, so could the Germans.

  I turned my attention away from Christopher, as worrying about the demeanour of a man that had witnessed the effects of a bombing raid for the first time would get us nowhere. Although it would have to be something to consider seriously before too long.

  Instead, I was drawn to Andrew, his permanently red cheeks not reddening in the slightest at what had gone on. It was as if he had heard it a thousand times before.

  His shoulders were pushed back into the chair he occupied; his chest flared outwards as if he was preparing to take a volley of flaming arrows to his trunk. My heart rate settled as I thought about him and took a great deal of comfort.

  Andrew seemed more switched on than his comrade, more aware of what was going on around him and what was going to be required. If I learnt anything as Jules’ footsteps quickly retreated up the staircase, it was that Andrew was going to step up to whatever task we lay before him.

  The same could not be said for Christopher, who was quickly becoming more of a liability than any kind of assistance. It was a worry that I could have done without altogether.

  10

  Both Andrew and Christopher had been around long enough now to be getting stuck in good and proper to the work that Mike and I had started. As such, it was decided that the two of them should begin to join us on our transmissions, to begin learning what it was like to send in hostile territory. All too often we had heard of new agents, who had been trained for months on transmitting, only to fall foul of the totally different environment of an occupied country.

  All four of us heading out for the sake of one transmission was far too dangerous and, as Christopher seemed the more volatile of the two, it was decided that Mike would be the one to take him out.

  So, as I waited for a final message from London, Andrew was crouched not too far away, peering down the street of our safehouse, keeping watch for any Germans that did not seem to have a purpose.

  We had learnt how to spot them by now; if they were walking slightly slower than the average German, or if they looked around too often, it was guaranteed to be a radio finder. There would be a waiting truck around the next street corner, which would come haring down to take us all to the nearest police cell for interrogation.

  Although he wasn’t listening in to the transmission, or really doing anything directly involved with the wireless set, it was good for Andrew to get out, and to learn the kind of precautions he would have to take once he was out on his own. I was certain too that it had been good for him to get away from Christopher, as it was clear that the millstone he was continuously carrying around was weighing heavy on his mind.

  I was straining hard to hear the dits and dahs as they came through but, despite that, I still missed the first few digits as they squeaked into my headset.

  I began scribbling furiously, trying my best to decode as I went.

  Hello Fortunae Circuit…

  I abandoned my attempts to go any further, deciding that the integrity of the message was far more important than knowing what the message had to say straight away.

  It had always comforted me though, to hear those first few coded words, ‘Hello, Fortunae.’

  It meant that we weren’t alone. There was someone, somewhere, perhaps with a big map of France, who was waiting for us to contact them, poised with a message meant only for our ears.

  Fortunae also brought me great comfort and I still recalled when Mike and I had been assigned the name as if it was yesterday. There was a sense of irony at being labelled something that was meant to bring good luck, but it nonetheless made me feel like I had a slight advantage over any other name.

  Then, quite suddenly, as my finger hovered over an empty piece of paper, anticipating another load of dits and dahs, there was silence over the headset. That was that. London had switched off and we were now alone again.

  I flicked the headset from my head and started to let my mind whirr and decode the message. I had done it so many times before now that it was almost like reading a slightly long-winded newspaper article to me. It was hoped that it would take the Germans days to read, by which time the information would be out of date.

  Andrew began to watch me as I packed everything away into the case, making sure that the coils were neatly tucked away and the headset carefully folded.

  “Well?” he asked, surreptitiously, gliding towards me as if I was now in possession of the greatest secret of the war.

  “Not here,” I stated, defiantly. “Never here. When we get back.” He looked at me with disappointment etched on his face. “It is safer to. Safer for Magheritte.”

  He looked at me with a puzzled look on his face.

  I refused to answer his silent question, instead busying myself with the final few things on the wireless set, memorising the transmission, before burning the paper under the flame of the paraffin lamp.

  Magheritte, the lady whose attic we occupied, had been a great help to us already in the few short months that we had been around Besçancon, the mother-in-law of Jules and Georges’ grandmother. We knew that we could trust her.

  But that wasn’t the reason why we never spoke a single syllable to do with our work in her house. It was to do with the fact that we knew what the Germans would do to people like her if they ever found out. She would be tortured and, although she was a lady with great courage and defiance, if she knew anything, she would tell the Germans immediately. Anything to stop the thin pins from being driven up and under her fingernails.

  She knew the risks and yet was still prepared to have us in her home.

  “Tell me about Christophe,” I enquired, as I watched the paper curl and smoke above the flame.

  “What about him?” he asked, shuffling around on his feet slightly and returning to the small opening that allowed him to look down on the street below us.

  “Everything. Why is he the way that he is?”

  The words ‘I don’t know what you mean’ were hanging on his lips, but he knew immediately that it was a futile defence. Everyone had seen it, even the young Georges had called him out on it.

  He was nervous and I didn’t blame him. The two of them would have trained together right from the start, up until the point where they had both been parachuted into France.

  “You are good, André. I can see that. So can Mike. But Christophe? Not so much.”

  He rubbed at his eyes, that had puffed up to the size of cricket balls, and were just as red, before clearing his throat apprehensively.

  “He is a conscientious objector,” he said, locking eyes with me and seeing my utter horror. “Was a conscientious objector. He doesn’t believe in the war.”

  I went to ask him an obvious question, but he put up his hand to continue.

  “He was a firefighter for a while, but then the whole question of his father’s family came up.”

  “His father’s family?”

  “They are all Jewish. They left France some time ago for a better life in Britain. A year or so ago he started reading about the Nazi racial policies. And then, of course, the rumours came through about these camps that they put them in.

  “It was then that he turned, apparently. That there is a case for someone to be a part of a wartime machine to defend others. It does mean that he is always looking for ways to harm the Germans without actually putting any of them in the ground.”

  “He won’t get on with Mike all too well then.”

  “He didn’t get on with many others at Arisaig either I can tell you. Including me.”

  The mere mention of the name brought back overwhelming memories of difficulty yet triumph. Arisaig had been the first place that Mike and I had first got a sens
e of what we were letting ourselves in for, and the months of training that had followed were almost too much to bear.

  “He wasn’t all too good in training, I feel like I should warn you.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Weapons. Explosives. Everyone else took to them like a duck to water. Christophe was something of a brick. Learning Morse code takes time, but I doubt if he even knows three letters now. The only thing he seemed any good at was the French culture side of things, and that was only because he has French blood in him.”

  It wasn’t exactly the full-blooded endorsement that I had been hoping for. In fact, it was painting such a poor picture of the fellow that I felt inclined to go back and dismiss him from his duties.

  As I mulled everything over, I began to feel more isolated, far lonelier than I had done just five minutes before. I had always enjoyed my little chats with London, however formal and brief they were, as it made me feel like I had a companion, a big brother of sorts, always watching out for me and ready to step in.

  But, after the revelations of Andrew, I felt like I had been betrayed by London. I quite quickly became convinced that there was someone, in the depths of the busy corridors and offices, that wanted both Mike and me dead, and the best way to do that was to send in someone so inept and unrounded that he would give us up in a matter of weeks.

  The thought even popped into my head about whether we wanted to win the war at all with people like Christopher being involved in such a dangerous environment.

  “Right,” I muttered, my throat gurgling as I tried to buy myself some time and think through what to say next. In truth, there wasn’t really anything I could say, apart from asking the inevitable question that I did not really want to hear an answer to.

  “How did he pass training then? It wasn’t as if they were averse to cutting people. Why have they sent him?”