Complete Works of Nevil Shute

by Nevil Shute

  He turned to Charles. “If you were back in Corbeil, in your office,” he said quietly, “could you find out the thickness of the concrete roof, and the amount of reinforcement? Could you get hold of the design of the roof of the shelters, so that we can adapt our bombs to penetrate it?”

  There was a silence in the bare little office. The officers sat gazing at the man from France.

  “I couldn’t find out anything about that in Corbeil,” he said at last. “I’d have to think up some excuse and go to Lorient. I could tell you at once if I could have a good look at the things.”

  “And could you manage to do that?” the major asked.

  There was a long silence. From the next room there came the clatter of a typewriter; from the fields outside the rumble of a tractor on the farm.

  Charles said heavily at last: “If I went back to Corbeil I could get to Lorient all right.”

  The two officers exchanged a glance. The major said softly: “But you don’t want to go back.”

  There was another pause.

  The brigadier leaned forward. “What do you want to do, Mr. Simon?” he enquired. “Did you come over here to join the forces?”

  Charles turned to him gratefully. “I suppose I did,” he said. “You see, I didn’t know what things were like here till I landed yesterday. It was on a sort of impulse that I said they’d better take me from Le Tréport, if you understand. I knew I knew the sort of things you want to know, and I’ve always been English, when all’s said and done.” He struggled to express himself. “I mean, I was never naturalized French, not in all those years. I’ve got a French identity card, but I made that out myself. I told you.”

  The major said: “I know. And there’s another thing. As I understand it, the way is pretty clear for you to go back to Corbeil and take up your work there again, if you want to.”

  “If I could get across the Channel.”

  “Oh...of course.”

  Charles Simon raised his eyes to them. “I was thinking about all this last night,” he said. “I was thinking, I’d like to stay over here and join up, now that I’m here. I’d be of some use to you — in the Royal Engineers. I know quite a lot about fortification works in ferro-concrete.” He hesitated, and then came out boldly: “Do you think I should be able to get a commission?”

  The brigadier glanced at the major, and the major at the brigadier, and each waited for the other. The brigadier spoke first. “I think you could get a commission,” he said, “if that was the best way to use you. But quite frankly, I would rather see you go back to Corbeil.”

  The major said, a little bitterly: “My job is in the army. I’ve been in the army all my life, and wars don’t come very often. I thought this war was my big chance to make a name. In the first week of it I found myself in this job here, simply because I’d worked hard during the peace and learned six languages. All my contemporaries have got battalions. One of my term at Sandhurst is commanding a brigade. And I’m stuck here, and here I’ll stay till the war ends. Then I shall be retired on pension.”

  He raised his head. “I don’t want you to think that I’m complaining. But I tell you that, because so few of us get what we want. So few can go and fight. So many have to stay and work.”

  Charles pulled out a packet of Caporals, extracted one of the last two, and lit it. He blew out a long cloud of smoke. “If I did go back,” he said, “it might be months before I could get down to Lorient. Some very good excuse would have to be contrived, and that would all take time. But when I had secured the information that you want, what then? How should I send it back to you?”

  The brigadier said: “We’ll look after that.”

  Charles said: “That would be espionage, wouldn’t it? I should be shot if I were caught?” He eyed them narrowly.

  The brigadier looked at him straight, bright blue eyes in a tanned, brown face. “Yes,” he said directly. “If the Germans caught you they would shoot you. That’s one of the risks you would have to take.”

  The designer said: “I don’t mind so much about that part of it.”

  He was silent for a minute, while the officers stared at him. “It’s just the going back that is the worst part. I don’t know if I can explain it.” He dropped his eyes and stared at the thin, dirty smoke arising from the ragged ember of the cigarette. “France is a beastly country now,” he said quietly. “I never realized just how beastly it all was until I got over here. Everything — everybody over there...they go round as if they were in a dream, or tied up in a nightmare. There is a disgusting influence that has sapped their will to work, their will to live. They move about in lassitude, half men. They are tools for evil, in the hands of evil men. And the best of them know it. And the worst of them enjoy it...”

  There was a long, long pause.

  Charles Simon raised his head. “If I went back and did this job for you,” he said, “could I come back to England afterwards and be a British officer?”

  The brigadier said: “Yes, I think you could. In fact, I’d go so far as to promise that.”

  “All right,” said Charles, “I’ll go. How are you going to get me back to France?”

  They spent the rest of the morning priming him with all he had to know. It was not much to memorize. There was the name and address of a small tailor on the quays of the Port du Commerce at Brest and the simple little phrase: “I want red buttons on the coat.” There was a corn-chandler in the Rue Paul Feval in Rennes down behind the station, and the head waiter in the Café de l’Arcade in the Boulevard de Sévigné in Paris. Through one or other of these friends he would return to England, but how they would not say.

  In the late afternoon he was driven to an aerodrome to meet his pilot and to learn his parachute. With the pilot and a large-scale map of France he planned the flight. “That’s where I mean,” he said. “Ten miles north-east of Lyons, by that little place Montluel. Anywhere just round there, within a mile or two.”

  The squadron-leader who was to pilot him drew a pencil circle big and black around the place upon the map. “That’s quite okay,” he said. “We’ll take a Blenheim. If you come over with me now we’ll get you fitted for the parachute, and then we’ll go and have a look at the machine.”

  The flight-sergeant fitted and adjusted all the heavy webbing straps around his body. “Now when you comes to jump,” he said, “you just counts one — two — three after you starts falling. Not onetwothree quick — but deliberate, like: one — two — three. And then you pulls the ring and be sure you pull it right out, wire and all, case any of it’s holding up. And don’t go thinking that you’ve bust it when it comes away in your hand, because you haven’t.”

  His manner robbed the business of all fear. Simon had little difficulty in grasping the technique of landing. There were obvious risks of injury, but those did not distress him. He passed on with the squadron-leader to the aircraft where they met the young sergeant who was to serve as navigator with them, and for half an hour longer he examined the machine and the means of getting out of it.

  “I shall pull her back to about ninety-five,” the pilot said. “You won’t have any difficulty.”

  With the major from the interrogation centre, he had tea in the Air Force mess. Then they went back in the car and he met the brigadier again in the bare little office that had seen all their business. McNeil had not been idle.

  “Fix things up with the Air Force?” he enquired. “It’s all right for to-night, is it? Fine. The sooner you’re back in France the better. Here are your papers.”

  He passed an envelope across the table. It contained a pass made out in German and in French, signed by the Oberstleutnant Commandant of Le Tréport authorizing the bearer, M. Charles Simon, to pass into Vichy territory for the purpose of visiting relatives, and to return into the occupied zone within ten days. An oval rubber stamp in purple ink defaced it—’”Vu à l’entrée, Chalon,” and the date.

  Charles studied it carefully. “Is that the real signature?” he asked
.

  The major smiled. “We got a good deal of his correspondence in the raid.”

  There was no more to be done, and no more to be said. Charles dined with the major in the mess, and then went up and lay down, fully clothed but for his boots, upon the bed. He lay awake for a considerable time, wondering what lay before him. Presently he grew drowsy and slept for an hour or two.

  At one o’clock in the morning they came to wake him. He got up and put on his shoes and went down to the mess; they had thoughtfully prepared for him a drink of hot coffee laced with rum and a few sandwiches. Then he was driven to the aerodrome. On the tarmac the Blenheim was already running up, the exhausts two blue streaks in the blackness of the night.

  “All ready?” said the squadron-leader. “Well, let’s go.”

  Charles turned to the major and held out his hand. “I’m terribly grateful for all you’ve done for me, sir. Don’t worry if you don’t hear for a month or two. It’s going to take a little time.”

  The other said gruffly: “Wish I was going with you, ‘stead of sticking in this blasted job. All the very best of luck.”

  The pilot and the navigator were already in the Blenheim. Charles was assisted up on to the wing, clumsy in his parachute harness, and settled into the small seat behind them. The hatch was pushed up behind him and snapped shut. The Blenheim moved to a burst of engine, and taxied out into the darkness of the aerodrome.

  A few faint lights appeared ahead of them; the engines burst into a roar, and they went trundling down the field. The lights swept past them, the motion grew more violent, then died away to a smooth air-borne rush as the lights dropped away beneath them and behind. The pilot bent to the instrument panel and juggled quickly with his massed controls. They swept round in a long gentle turn and steadied on the course for France, climbing as they went.

  Charles remembered little of that flight. He sat there for two hours, gradually getting cold, watching the computations and the plotting of the navigator in the dim, shaded cockpit light. In the end the sergeant turned to him. “About ten minutes more,” he said. “Are you all ready to go?”

  Charles said: “All ready.”

  The pilot swung round in his seat. “You’ll see to land all right,” he said. “The moon’s just coming up.” Charles had watched it rise over the pilot’s left shoulder.

  The pilot and the navigator conferred together for a moment. Then the sergeant got up from his folding seat and turned round to Charles. “He’s going to slow her down,” he said. “We’ll open the hatch, and I’ll help you get out on to the wing. Then when it’s time I’ll give you a clap on the back...and just let go.”

  The roof hatch dropped down, and the night air blew a keen, cold gale around him. With the assistance of the sergeant he clambered slowly out. The wind tore round him, dragging his legs from the slippery surface of the wing. Far, far below him he could see the dim line of a river and the faint shadow of the woods upon the patterned fields. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he thought: “This is death. I have only a few minutes left to live.”

  The sergeant, standing in the hatch helping to support him in the violence of the rush of air, shouted with his mouth against his ear: “Just take it easy and count one, two, three after you go. Put your hand upon the ring — that’s right. Wait, now...”

  They both stared at the pilot, intent on the instruments. They saw him glance at his watch, and back to the instruments again. Then at his watch.... He turned in his seat and nodded, smiled at Charles, and said something which was never heard. The sergeant shouted in his ear: “Okay, and the best of luck. Off you go.”

  Charles felt the grasp upon his arm released and a heavy clump upon his shoulder. He dared not show his fear. He turned his body to face aft and the wind took him; he slipped, lost his hold, and bumped heavily upon the trailing edge. A dark shadow that was the tail-plane swept over him, and then he was head downwards and rotating slowly, seeing only the dim earth below as the wind rose about him, tearing at his clothes. The fear made an acute pain in his throat.

  He forced himself to think, and counted slowly. Then desperately, with all his strength, he pulled the ring. It came and something snapped behind his back; he pulled at the wire following the ring with both his hands. For a sickening moment he went on falling; then came a rustling rush and the harness plucked violently at his shoulders, hurting him with the buckles of the straps. He came erect and saw the sky again; the wind had gone and he was hanging there suspended in the quiet peace of the night. For a few moments he hung limp and shaken, exhausted by his fear.

  Presently he regained control of himself, and set to steering the parachute gingerly away from the woods and into open country.

  He fell into a pasture field close by a hedge. He fell down heavily on knee, thigh, and shoulder as he had been told to do and got badly shaken up again. The parachute collapsed beside him on the grass. He stayed there for a quarter of an hour, gradually calming down. He was not hurt at all.

  Presently he got up, made the parachute and harness into a bundle, and did with it what he had been told to do.

  An hour later he walked into his mother’s house, with a story that he had walked from Lyons, having come from Paris by the night express.

  He got back to Corbeil after a few days and settled down to work again. Duchene took his absence as a matter of course, and no word of the raid upon Le Tréport seemed to have penetrated to the factory. Charles fell back easily into his humdrum daily round, and for a time everything went on normally.

  Three weeks later he appeared one morning in the office of M. le directeur, bearing certain test samples of cement, odd-shaped little twin bulbous bricks. “I regret, monsieur,” he said, “that there is trouble with the samples.”

  They bent over the fractures; they were granulated and short. “These are the figures,” said the designer. “See for yourself, monsieur.” The failing load of the test-pieces was forty per cent below the specification strength.

  Duchene glanced at the figures. “This is very bad,” he said. “What is the reason?”

  Simon produced a paper bag of powdered cement. “This is the sample.” They dipped their fingers in it; the powder was rough and gritty to the touch. “It has passed once only through the kiln,” said Duchene. He fingered it again, with forty years’ experience behind the touch. “Or — some of it. Half — more than a quarter and less than half — has passed once only. Has any of this stuff gone out?”

  Simon said: “This is from Batch CX/684, monsieur. I regret infinitely that much of that has been already shipped. I trust that this is not a true sample of the rest.”

  The old man bit his lip. “Where did the shipment go to?” he enquired. This was a serious matter for the prestige of the company.

  Charles said: “It was sold through Brest. Much of it was shipped to Lorient, and some to Audierne, Douarnenez, and Morgat. It has all gone to the same district.”

  They discussed the distribution for some little time. It was a major crisis, and most serious to them commercially. “I will ring up the Commission of Control,” Duchene said in the end. “They must know about this first of all, and quickly, in case they think that we have made a sabotage. Then they must arrange at the ports that every sack is put in quarantine till we have made a test-piece from that sack and broken it. Every sack is to be tested. I will not take a risk in matters of this sort.”

  The designer nodded. “I will go and see to it myself,” he said. “They cannot say that we are taking this lightly if I go myself to do the tests.”

  The old man beamed his approval; he was fond of Charles. “That is a very good suggestion,” he said. “I will tell the Commission that I am sending my chief engineer to make this inspection. You must be ready to start immediately, and make my apologies to all the commandants concerned. Telegraph immediately what replacements are required.”

  The Commission were annoyed, and naturally so, but somewhat mollified by the suggestion that the S.A.F.C. de Corbei
l proposed to send their chief engineer in person to inspect the defective batch. Half a dozen telegrams were sent without delay isolating the material, and Charles was given all the necessary permits for his journey and told to get off at once. He travelled up next morning to Paris, a city of desolate, dirty streets and closed shops. He lunched sadly in a little restaurant and took the afternoon train for Brittany.

  He went first to Brest. At the station he took the common hotel bus, an ancient horse-drawn vehicle, and asked to be put down at the Hôtel Moderne. The driver looked at him curiously. “Monsieur has not visited Brest recently, perhaps?” he said. “The hotel is closed.”

  He found that it was closed indeed, or rather that it stood wide open to the sky. There was much bomb damage in the town; he was fortunate to get a room in the Hôtel des Voyageurs.

  He went to the agent next day, and sat in conference with him for an hour. Monsieur Clarisson was much concerned about the defects of Batch CX/684, and said he could not believe that there was really much wrong with it. He himself had taken samples and had tested them as soon as the news reached him, and all his samples had come out in strength well above specification. The two engineers drank several cups of coffee in the office, bitter stuff tasting of acorns, and gloomed over the samples that Simon had brought with him from Corbeil. Monsieur Clarisson gave Charles the names of all the local German commandants that he would have to see, and expressed his irritation that he would not be able to accompany Monsieur Simon on his trip from town to town along the coast. The German regulations in that part were very strict.

  “I should warn you, monsieur,” he said confidentially, “that here in Brittany it is necessary to be most discreet.” He hesitated. “You will not mind if I say this? Coming from Corbeil, you may not know quite how things are here with us.”

  Charles nodded. “There are difficulties here?”

  The man said: “Not here in Brest. Here we are business people, and we understand that circumstances change. But in the country districts people are more stupid. They are always trying to do things against the Germans, and that makes trouble. In the café, monsieur, they are always talking. You will hear the English radio quite openly.” Charles drew in his breath; this was asking for it. “You must be very careful not to get involved in their stupidity. It is trouble — trouble — trouble all the time.”