by Nevil Shute
“The Doctor of the Port, he comes in the morning,” he said. “Also your consul, he comes in the morning. Now you will lift up the anchor, and I will take you where you must go.”
He explained. “The place for Quarantine is outside, in the Rade. Tonight, it will be bad weather. In the Rade the waves will be gross. For such a small boat that is not good. I will put you in another place. I will show you.”
Corbett started up the engine and went forward to get up his anchor. The douanier made fast his motor boat astern and they moved to the northeast corner of the Port Militaire, opposite the back door of the Bureau du Port. They dropped anchor again.
“Here,” said the man, “it will be good.”
Corbett nodded. “Can we stay here all the time of Quarantine?”
“The Doctor of the Port will say. For me, I do not think that you are ill, or Madame, or the children, or le bébé.”
He paused for a minute. “It has been bad in Southampton?”
Corbett nodded. “Very bad. It is no longer possible to live there.” He indicated the boat. “This is now my home.”
“It is terrible, that.” He got into his boat. “In the morning, I return with the doctor.”
They cooked themselves a large meal, went to bed, and slept heavily, dreamlessly, all night. Corbett was up and shaving early in the morning; they had breakfast early, washed and dressed the children, and were all ready for the doctor by nine o’clock.
They waited all morning. “The fact of the matter is,” said Corbett after two hours had elapsed, “there’s a war on, and we’re a ruddy nuisance.”
In that he was not far from the truth. The motor boat arrived at a quarter-past twelve bringing the doctor, who was obviously in a hurry to get back to déjeuner. He took a cursory look at them and at the boat.
“You are in good health — yes?” he inquired. “But you are come from where there is both cholera and typhoid. It is since seven days that you departed. Twenty-three days is necessary. You rest here for sixteen days.”
Corbett asked, “Is that for cholera?”
“I do not think you have the cholera. By now you would be dead. Also, I do not think you have the typhoid, but for that is necessary twenty-three days.”
Joan asked him, “Must the children stay on board for the whole time?”
He did not answer that at once, but questioned them very closely about the water that they had drunk since war began. “So,” he said. “You have drunk nothing but the water from the town supply, except it has been boiled. You have been wise. No, I do not think it good for the little ones to stay on this small ship for sixteen days. Each day I will come to see if there are spots, or sickness. After I have seen, it will be possible for them to play on the breakwater between the Bureau du Port and the end.” He pointed to the shore. “They must not pass the Bureau du Port.” He smiled. “There is a window to my office. I shall see.”
Joan said, “It’s awfully nice of you to let them get on shore like that.”
He bowed to her. “At your service, Madame.”
Corbett asked, “How shall we get food and water?”
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “I do not think it necessary that I should be severe. Each day, after I have seen, you may go to buy food on the Quai de la Douane — there. You must not rest there. You must come back quick. In no case must you go into the town.”
He went away; a quarter of an hour later a young man from the consul’s office came to them. He heard their story shortly. “Well,” he said, “you’re fixed up here for the next sixteen days. After that, you can come up to the Consulate and I’ll issue you with temporary passports. You’d better not try to leave without them.”
Corbett shook his head. “We don’t want to.”
He went away, and was followed by a gloriously attired Officer of the Port, who came to have a drink of whiskey, to gossip about the war, and to get Corbett to supply the answers to the questions on a long buff form. They assured him that they had neither rats, corpses, nor coffins on board; he drank up his whiskey and went away.
The next fortnight passed by in a dream of holiday idleness. Each day the doctor came on board in the middle of the morning, stayed for two minutes, and went away. After that they went on shore and bought what food and wine they needed, fetched water from the breakwater, and came on board for lunch. In the afternoons they went on to the breakwater with the whole family and fished with handlines in the clear water of the harbour mouth for bass and pollock, with a good deal of success. The weather was warm and sunny; they sat smoking on the wall with the baby beside them in her basket cot, dangling their lines and watching for a bite, while the children played among the litter of old anchors, chains, and buoys. Presently it would be time to go back on board for tea, and to read a little to the children from the well-thumbed books, Ameliaranne and Peter Rabbit, before putting them to bed. Then they would do the daily washing, cook the supper, and sit smoking in the cockpit till it was time for bed.
So the days slipped by.
In the harbour and the Rade, the pageant of nations at war was staged before their eyes. It was unreal to them; they seemed to have no part in it at all. Each day they got a French paper and read about the progress of the war with a small dictionary; vast things were happening in Europe which they could not fully understand. They had no atlas, and the names of places in the news meant little to them, nor had they any chance to talk to other people. They were perpetually bewildered by the progress of events. In some part, however, the news which they read in the French papers was translated to them by the movements of the ships. In the Port Militaire and in the Rade, warships of France, England, and the Dominions slipped in, stayed for a day, and vanished in the night. In the Port du Commerce and the east part of the Rade congregated the merchant vessels of all countries taking their turn to unload at the quays; by night the rattle of cranes and the clanking of goods trains went on unceasingly under the glare of the arc lights. All these things flowed past them in their corner of the Port Militaire; they did not affect their quiet life by an iota.
Towards the end of their Quarantine, Corbett went on shore one evening to buy bread. Returning to the yacht, he stopped outside the café Abri de la Tempête; he saw the douanier who had met them on their arrival sitting alone with a newspaper. He went in.
“M’sieur,” he said, “is it permitted that you should drink with me? There are two days only of the Quarantine to go. I do not think I have the typhoid fever.”
The man smiled. “I do not think that you are ill. I should be happy, M’sieur.”
Corbett sat down, and ordered Pernod for them both. They talked for a time in bad English and worse French, speaking very slowly to make each other understand.
The douanier raised his glass. “To Madame, and le bébé,” he said. “They are well?”
Corbett nodded. “Very well indeed.”
“Each day I see you make a walk with the children and le bébé, and to catch fish.”
Corbett smiled. “It is good to be quiet for a time before entering the war.”
“Assuredly. Madame and the children, they go to Canada?”
“I hope to be able to get a passage for them on the Lachine, for Montreal. When does the Lachine sail?”
The douanier said, “She comes to Basin Two tomorrow night, on the east side, but first the Guinea Prince is to unload. When the Lachine is unloaded, then she must coal, you understand. She goes to Quay One before departing. She may sail, perhaps, on Wednesday.”
Corbett nodded. “That’s all right. Our Quarantine runs out on Monday night.”
“That will be convenient for you. You have friends in Canada?”
“Madame is going with the children to my sister, in Toronto.”
“And you, M’sieur?”
“I shall go back to England to take service in the Army or the Navy — I do not yet know which.”
The douanier said nothing.
Corbett asked, “Is there any news in
the paper tonight?” He indicated the Paris Soir upon the table.
“There has been bombing.” There was a momentary pause; then the douanier slammed his hand down on the table, rattling the glasses. “It is madness — madness!” he said vehemently. “In the papers, bombing, bombing — nothing but bombing! I am sick of it.”
Corbett nodded without speaking.
The man leaned towards him. “But, M’sieur, I tell you this. England will win this war, as together we have won the last war. She will win it because of the bombing.”
Corbett eyed him attentively. “You think so?”
“Nothing is more sure. See for yourself. Here, in Brest, every ship, from every country in the world, brings doctors and nurses and supplies of every sort, to go to help England. I could not count, M’sieur, the number of doctors and nurses that have passed through Brest to England. Two days ago, the Washington from New York, the whole ship, only with medical help, M’sieur. Today, the Orontes from Sydney, with doctors and nurses and supplies, and very many young men to enlist to fight. It is so, every day. All the world comes to the aid of England, because of this bombing.”
“England needs all the help she can get.”
“Truly. But all the bombing — and what is it? Terrible, and devastating, to lose your homes. But no soldier yet has put a foot in England except as prisoner, because your Navy has been strong. You hold the seas. The airplanes, they can do nothing but destroy your homes, blindly. They have not been able to destroy your ships. They have not hit your arsenals or factories, except by chance. In the air you are strong. They dare not come to bomb when they can themselves be seen, for then you can destroy them. They cannot bomb except from cloud. They can destroy your homes, and nothing else. Je m’en fiche de tous les avions.”
Corbett ordered another Pernod.
The douanier said, “I tell you, M’sieur, it is a madness unbelievable that they should use their bombers so. Only a nation of no understanding, who did not know the world psychology, would make such mistakes. Very nearly have they brought in America to fight beside England. Not yet, because America is very careful, but — see for yourself! Every day the ships come from America, loaded with men, and money, and food, and military supplies — all for England. In your Empire, every Dominion has declared war, all are hastening to fight. Without the bombing, M’sieur, it would not have been so.”
Corbett nodded. “That may be.”
The douanier drank his Pernod. “England will now win this war.”
Corbett sighed. “If we’d been a bit cleverer, we might not have had it at all.”
The other said, “It had to come. Once in the history of the world this had to be tried, this blind bombing of the towns. But, M’sieur, I tell you this certainly — it has lost the war for them. This time, they will suffer a defeat and be smashed utterly. After that, I do not think that any Power will dare to do such things again.”
He got up to go. Corbett said, “You think that?”
The douanier said with dignity, “M’sieur, I still have hope for the world.”
Two days later their Quarantine was up; Corbett went to the Lachine, saw the purser, and booked a passage for Joan and the children. The ship was due to sail next day.
That afternoon for the last time they went to the breakwater with the children, the baby in its cot, and their fishing lines. For a couple of hours they sat together in the sun, the children playing round about their feet. They caught nothing, perhaps because they were not trying very hard; it was their last afternoon. They sat dangling their idle lines into the water, saying little to each other but a good deal to the children, showing them the different sorts of ships and boats, telling them what it was all about.
Presently they went on board for tea. They had a fine tea, as if it was a birthday, with strange French jam and bread in long sticks only half an inch wide, and little cakes, and pain d’épices. It was great fun. After tea Corbett read to them, while Joan washed them and put them to bed. He read for nearly an hour, right through Nicodemus, and When Jesus Was a Little Boy, and Ameliaranne, and the Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit. It took an hour, because they had to stop at each picture while both children had a look at it, pored over it, and had it explained to them.
By seven o’clock they were asleep in their berths, tired out and happy. Joan finished off the baby and came up into the cockpit; Peter lit her cigarette. “It’s a pity we can’t go on shore,” he said. It was impossible to leave the children alone on board. “We should have gone somewhere, this last night.”
She shook her head. “I don’t feel much like it. I’d rather stay here.”
He nodded without speaking. Presently he said, “It won’t be for long. The war can’t go on for long at this pace.”
She shook her head. “That’s what one tries to think,” she said quietly, “but it’s not true. Wars seem to go on for ever nowadays. All these new things — tanks and gas and planes — don’t seem to shorten wars a bit. They seem to make them longer.”
He took her hand. “It won’t be so long.”
She said, “It may be for years, Peter.”
“We mustn’t let it be.”
They sat in silence for a time, smoking in the darkness. Over the water the shore lights made dappled tracks, shattered by passing boats, rejoining as the water stilled. A gentle little breeze blew from the west. She said, “I knew that this would be the worst of all. So long as we could stick together everything was fairly all right. Even the bombs and cholera weren’t so bad. This separating is the worst we’ve had to face.”
“I know.”
“We’ll go back to Southampton when the war’s over, won’t we, Peter?”
“You want to go back there?”
She nodded. “It’s our own place. We’ll be able to, won’t we?”
“I’ll try and make it so. I’ll have to arrange with Bellinger to be on leave while the war lasts. I think he can carry on alone, for a time at any rate.”
She said, “I want to go back just like we were before.”
He hesitated. “We may not be able to do that. The house may be too bad.”
“Then I’d like to have another house in the same part. Do you think we’d have to have new furniture?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “It depends what happens to the house. We might have to have a whole new outfit.”
“I believe that would be fun. The settee was awful, and the chairs weren’t up to much. We’d have had to get some new furniture soon, anyway. And, Peter, I do want a decent radio. The children are getting old enough to listen to good music now — just a little bit, now and again. I’d like to have a piano.”
“We might have to wait a bit for that.”
“We could have the radio, couldn’t we? Even if we had to put it on the Never-Never.”
He pressed her hand. “We’ll have that,” he said, a little huskily.
“That’ll be something to look forward to.”
They went below, and began to pack her luggage and the children’s things. There was not very much; a suitcase and a kitbag held all that they had to take. When they had done all that was possible before morning they got themselves a meal; he had a bottle of Nuits St. Georges on board, and they drank that. Then for a long time they sat facing each other across the little table, littered with their plates and dishes. They sat smoking and drinking coffee, talking in little disconnected sentences.
“We’re still young,” he said presently. “We may lose a year together now — we may lose more. But we’ve got the rest of our lives before us.”
She nodded. “But that will be different. You’ll be a different man when you’ve been through this war, and I’ll be different, too. We shan’t be able to take up just where we left off. We’ll have to start off new.”
He smiled. “We shan’t find that so difficult.”
“I don’t think so. But this is the end of our young married life, Peter. We’ll be middle-aged when we meet again.”
He was
silent.
She said, “I don’t know if in passing through the world you leave a mark behind you. A sort of impression. I’d like to think so, because I think we must have left a good one. We’re not famous people, and we’ve not done much. Nobody knows anything about us. But we’ve been so happy. We’ve lived quietly and decently, and done our job. We’ve had kids, too — and they’re good ones. But I wish we could have had another boy.”
“I know,” he said. “Too bad we didn’t get time to have Little Egbert.”
She roused herself. “Let’s do the washing up.”
They washed up and sat for a little in the cockpit, well wrapped up against the cold night air. And presently they went to bed. They did not sleep well; each in the night awoke from time to time and heard the other turning on the opposite settee.
In the morning all was bustle and confusion. They did the last of their packing, breakfasted, and washed up. Then they left the luggage ready in the saloon and went on shore in the dinghy with the children, carrying the baby. They went to the Port Doctor’s office and got clearance; then they took a taxi to the British Consulate and got their passports. They turned back towards the Port du Commerce in the taxi; presently they came to a place where they had a wide view over the Rade.
Joan plucked suddenly at his arm. “Tell him to stop, Peter — quick!”
He leaned forward and spoke to the driver, who pulled up. “What is it?” he asked her.
She pointed to the mass of shipping in the Rade. “Look, Peter — the aircraft carrier! I’m sure it’s the Victorious.”
He stared out over the sea, to where the white ensign blew lazily about the stern. “It’s one or other of them,” he said at last. “It might be the Courageous.”
“Ask the driver if the Victorious is here,” she said. “He’ll probably know.”
With some difficulty Corbett did so.
“Oui, M’sieur,” said the man at last. “Le bateau anglais là-bas? On a dit le nom ‘Victorious.’”
