by Nevil Shute
“They were wearing ordinary Breton rig—black floppy tam-o’-shanters and those rusty-coloured sail-cloth ponchos that they wear. They weren’t in any uniform.”
I was handling the jumper, and my fingers struck a sticky mess. There was a four-inch rent in the back of it; I looked at the cloth, at my fingers, and then up at the surgeon.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s blood. The wearer of these clothes was stabbed in the back.” He picked up the pea jacket. “He had his coat on. Look, here’s the corresponding hole.”
I laid the clothes down, wondering at the morbid imagination that had made him show them to me. “I’ll get along and see him, if I may,” I said.
He stared at me. “I’m not sure if you understand,” he said. “Lieutenant Rhodes wasn’t stabbed. His wound is in the shoulder, and from the front.” He paused. “There’s no mark on his back at all.”
I said impulsively: “But the blood’s still sticky! Do you mean that somebody else was wearing this rig, and was stuck in the back?”
“I can’t see it any other way.” He paused. “I was very puzzled. I thought you ought to see the clothes before you went in to see him.”
I nodded. “It’s probably as well.”
He took me in to Rhodes. The young man was in a ward with about fifteen other patients in it. He was lying raised a bit with pillows. He was much thinner in the face than I remembered him; his black hair had been cropped close to his head, making him look very different His left shoulder was a mass of bandages. There was a nurse with him.
“ ’Morning, Rhodes,” I said cheerfully. “How are you feeling?”
He said in a thin voice: “I’m all right, sir. I’ve got a lot I want to tell you.”
The surgeon spoke to the nurse, and she began arranging screens around the bed. “You’ll be able to talk quietly in there,” he said. “Don’t be any longer than is necessary.”
I said: “Rhodes, we’ve got to be as short as possible, so that you can get some rest. I’m going to do the talking first of all, and tell you what I know. In the first place, Colvin’s back in England. He’s in Haslar Hospital, and going on all right.”
His face lit up. “Oh, good,” he breathed. “How did he get away?”
I told him briefly what had happened. Then I told him what we had learned from the M.G.B. lads, and from the secret messages that had come over from the other side. It took about ten minutes. “Now, look,” I said. “I’m going to ask you questions, and you answer them. It’ll be easier for you, that way. First of all, what happened to Simon?”
He said: “He’s still in Douarnenez. We’ve been there together. When Geneviève was sunk, the shell hit the stem. I was just getting out of the flame-thrower seat, and I got this in my shoulder. And then I was in the sea, and Simon was helping me, sir, in the water. And he pulled me along, and we got to one of the fishing-boats.”
“I see,” I said. “What happened to Boden?”
Rhodes said: “Oh, he was killed.”
“Did you see him killed?”
“No, sir.”
“Was he the officer who was on the keel of the boat, firing with a Tommy-gun?”
“Yes, sir. They were all talking about it in Douarnenez. He put out the searchlight. Jules was the other man with him, sir.”
“How do you know he was killed, if you didn’t see it?”
There was a pause. “He wanted to be killed,” Rhodes said.
I left that, and turned back to the main story. “Just tell me now, as shortly as you can, what happened when you got into the fishing-boat.”
I have put together what he told me with what we learned from the fishermen and from another source upon the other side. This is what happened:
When Rhodes was thrown into the water he bobbed up again at once, because his Mae West was blown up. He said that there were several men in the water with him. He knew that something had happened to his shoulder and he kept coughing, and each time he coughed, he said, funny things seemed to happen in his chest. He was in no great pain.
Presently he saw Simon, and Simon saw him, and swam towards him, and began to help him. Simon was unhurt. He called Rollot, the maître, and between them they took Rhodes in tow and began to swim with him towards the fishing-boats, seen dimly in the background. Those were the boats that had been with them in the Anse des Blancs Sablons.
While they were covering two or three hundred yards to the nearest of the boats the M.G.B.s roared past, dropping their charges, the duel between Boden and the destroyer went on, and the searchlight was put out. There was still a fire raging on the bridge of the destroyer which gave some light, and the moon was bright. The fishing-boats, as soon as they saw survivors swimming to them, steamed in to pick them up. Rhodes, Simon, and Rollot were taken on board one boat. He thought that about five or six, out of their crew of twelve Free Frenchmen, were taken on board another. He did not know their names, for a very good reason. As soon as they reached Douarnenez all these Frenchmen, most of whom were Breton lads, merged with the crowd and vanished quietly away. There was no reason for them to do otherwise. It was the best thing they could do.
There was some urgency for the boat that had picked them up to get back to Douarnenez without delay, because each of the rescuing boats had on board ten Tommy-guns and ammunition. They were counting upon the events of the night and the scattering of the fleet to relax the normal supervision of the boats in harbour, and this actually happened. They steamed straight to Douarnenez at full speed, and entered harbour at about four in the morning, still in bright moonlight.
Rhodes, Simon, and Rollot came into harbour down in the fish-hold of their boat covered over with a pile of nets. They had contrived a pad and bandage for Rhodes’s wound, but they could provide no dry clothes. With the cold and wet, and with the stiffening of his wound, Rhodes was becoming feverish, and from that time onwards he saw everything opaquely, blurred by a high temperature.
The master of their boat, a man called Corondot, went on shore as soon as they picked up the mooring. He went to the little harbour-master’s office on the quay, which was also the office of the German fish control. Here, in a state of anger, he reported that he had brought his boat back, having spent a few hours dodging about the Iroise being chased by British gunboats. Where was the protection of the Reich? he asked. For himself, he was fed up. The last thing he had seen was another battle in the distance, with flame and firing and God knows what. For himself, he proposed to stay in harbour till the seas were made safe for honest fishermen.
There were five other skippers making similar complaint, each talking at the top of his voice. Besides those, most of the old German petty officers were there, each telling his own tale and adding to the din. The telephone upon the little desk rang every half-minute and had to be answered, the old harbour-master had one rating to assist him, who spoke only German. It was a fine, confused party, all concentrated in the harbour-master’s office. Nobody paid any attention to what was going on down at the quay.
The ten Tommy-guns and ammunition were landed quite easily, put on a hand-cart, and pushed unconcernedly up into the town. Simon and Rhodes with the Free Frenchmen landed at the quay. The latter melted quietly away into the darkness of the streets.
Rhodes landed at the steps, feeling sick and faint, with a stiff throbbing in his chest. It was moonlight still; he looked over to the main jetty and he could see great blackened patches near the end of it, the aftermath of the fire that they had made a month before. It was a quiet, still night, and rather cold. It was incredible to him that he should be standing there, listening while Simon spoke volubly in French in a low tone, discussing with their rescuers a plan of action.
In a few minutes they made up their minds, and Simon turned to Rhodes. “Stick it,” he said in English, in a whisper. “There is a hide-out for us here, till we can get away. It is about five hundred metres to walk. Can you manage to walk so far?”
The boy said: “I’m all right, sir.”
; Simon said: “Try to walk naturally and easily, like a fisherman going home. I will be near you. We will get a doctor for you very soon.”
They set off, walking up-hill through narrow alleys, up stepped, cobbled slits between the houses. The town was black and still. They came out into wider streets, with shops; at one point they passed a German sentry. There were six or seven of them walking in a bunch together; the leader checked his pace, and said in slow French that the boats had come back early.
The man nodded in his steel helmet. “What happened?” he enquired. “We heard firing.”
Their leader said sourly: “The sale English made a raid. Here we are back again, and without one fish—not one. If you Germans cannot keep the English off, you’ll get no fish. I don’t care, either way.”
The man stepped back, motioning them on. They went on and left him standing at the corner of the street, his rifle slung over one shoulder.
They were taken to a net-store, a tarred shed behind a sail-maker’s loft. Rhodes was very, very tired by the time they got there. He collapsed wearily upon a bolt of sail-cloth, and sat holding a candle to light Simon and another man as they pulled nets about to make a bed, and spread a blanket over all. Then the other man fetched a bucket of water with some disinfectant in it, and they removed the blood-stained, soaked pad from his shoulder, and replaced it with another.
It was dawn by then, and in the grey light that filtered in around the eaves they laid him down upon the bed that they had made, and Simon covered him with another blanket. “Try to get some sleep,” he said in a low tone. “A doctor will come presently to see your shoulder. In the meantime, we will get our friends here to bring some food, some soup for you, perhaps. Would you like that?”
Rhodes said: “I’m all right, sir. I don’t want anything to eat. What’s the next thing? Can we get away?”
“Lie there, and rest, and try to get some sleep. I think we may be all right to stay here till you are better. While you are resting I will talk to our friends, and we will make a plan.”
Rhodes lay back on the nets, and presently he fell into a feverish sleep, the first of many that he was to endure in that shed. He dreamed that he was in Geneviève firing the flame-thrower, but the gun was filled with carbolic solution and when he fired it at the destroyer it would not light, but sprayed the decks with disinfectant. And Brigadier McNeil was there, smart in his khaki tunic, his red tabs, and his brilliantly polished buttons and Sam Browne, and he said: “Time they had a wash-down, anyway.” And Rhodes said to himself: “What a fool I am, of course, carbolic’s no good in this thing. I must try it on Worcester Sauce.” And he turned the three-way cock with the brass handle to the other tank, and fired again. And the gun lit and the flame hit the destroyer, and her side flared up and burned away like tinsel, and instead of men inside her there was only his black Labrador dog Ernest, and his buck rabbit Geoffrey, perishing in the flame that he had turned on them. And he burst into floods of tears, and in his misery Barbara was there. In her quiet voice she was saying: “It’s all right, Michael, it’s quite all right. It’s only a dream. Look, you can wake up.”
Then he was awake, tears pouring down his face, hot and stiff, and with a raging thirst. That was the first of many such dreams that he had.
On the evening of that first day, the doctor came.
He was a short, plump, white-faced man called Dottin; he had a grey moustache and he was very correctly dressed in a black suit. The old fisherman, Bozallec, brought him to them and stood aside with Simon in the darkness of the shed while he examined Rhodes.
“He is a safe man,” said the fisherman. “You may talk freely to that one.”
Presently the doctor called for warm water and for his bag, and began to put a dressing on the wound. When that was over he laid Rhodes down upon the blanket, wiped his hands, and walked across the shed to Simon. Together they walked out of hearing of the bed.
“You are his friend?” the doctor said. “I have not seen you before.”
“I am an Englishman,” said Simon bluntly. “I was with him in the vessel that was sunk.”
The man stared at him in amazement. “I would never have believed it. He”—he jerked his head towards the bed—“he is clearly English. But you, monsieur, you speak French to perfection. You have lived long in a department in the Paris region, or perhaps in the north-east?”
“I have lived most of my life in France,” Simon said.
“So. Well, your friend should be in hospital. He has a high temperature, and while the wound now is still clean, it may not remain so. That is my advice to you, monsieur.”
“Is it possible to take him into hospital without the Germans knowing?”
The man shook his head. “That is not possible now. Once it was, but not now, not since the shooting in the streets on the night of the great fire at the quay. The Germans insist on seeing every person in the wards each day.”
There was a pause. “Can we keep him here and see how he gets on?” Simon said at last.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders. “Certainly. But you may have to choose in the end, monsieur, between captivity for him and death.”
Simon nodded. “That is understood. But while there remains any chance of getting him to England, I will not give in. He has experience and knowledge locked up in his head, most valuable to the Allies. It will be of benefit to France, no less than England, that he should get away. I tell you this, monsieur, from my certain knowledge—I, Charles Simon.” He spoke with true French vehemence.
Dottin glanced at him keenly. “I have heard of Charles Simon.” He paused. “This knowledge that you speak of,” he said carefully. “Would that have to do with—fire?”
Simon nodded. “He is the operator of the flame-gun,” he said simply. “He designed much of the apparatus himself. Now, monsieur, you understand that it is necessary for him to return to England at whatever cost.”
The doctor said: “I understand that it is very necessary to get him out of Douarnenez.”
Simon glanced sharply at him in enquiry.
“You do not understand the situation here, perhaps,” the doctor said. “One month ago, to the day, the English made a raid upon the port, with fire, and they destroyed two Raumboote at the quayside and two guns upon the jetty. Was that his ship that made the raid?”
Simon nodded without speaking.
“That night, fifty-three casualties, German soldiers and sailors all of them, were taken into the Municipal Hospital, monsieur, with burns. Some of the burns were not extremely bad, but all of them got worse, in every case. It has been most puzzling. The Germans have brought specialists from Leyden with a new treatment, using Cilzamene, and they have done no good, no more than we. Of the fifty-three men admitted, seventeen have died and thirty-six are still alive, all of them very much worse than in the first few days. I have never heard of burns like these. They are beyond experience, monsieur.”
Simon nodded. “That may be.”
The man said: “If the Germans were to take a prisoner from that ship they would make him talk, to tell what oil was used that burns like that. They would stop at nothing to make him talk.”
“They would use torture?”
“Most assuredly.”
Simon smiled. “They would get nothing out of me,” he said. “I do not know the secret. But you see now, more than ever, monsieur, that that one”—he nodded to the bed—“must get away.”
The doctor turned, and looked back to the bed. “He is not fit to travel,” he said. “I have heard it said that men can get away from France in spite of the Germans, if they have courage and determination, and great strength. Two young men left this town about six months ago to walk to Spain, to try to get to England to de Gaulle. I do not know how they got on. But that one could not do a trip like that.”
He turned away. “I will come again to-morrow, in the evening,” he said.
Simon did not go out, but spent that evening and the whole of the next day in trying to work
out a plan, and in discussion with Bozallec. Rhodes was no better; he spent much of the time sunk in a hot sleep. The doctor came again at dusk to change the dressing, and that day ended with no plan made, and no vestige of a plan in sight.
Next morning Bozallec came with a long face. “I have had news,” he said bluntly. “The Germans know that there are English hiding in the town. There is a proclamation of the Oberstleutnant Commandant that is stuck up at headquarters on the wall, and at the Mairie, and in the market.”
“What does it say?”
“It says that there are English hiding in the town, survivors from a ship sunk in the Iroise. It says that they are to be surrendered to the commandant to-day, or else the town will suffer severe penalties.”
“How did they find out?” Simon asked.
The old man said: “I, too, wanted to know that. In this town, soon after the Armistice, there were a few informers, but they had bad luck with their health during the winter. I do not think there are any informers now living in Douarnenez. I wanted to know how the Germans came to know this thing, because it seemed to me that an informer might have done it. But it was not that.”
“How was it?”
“It was the men in the destroyer. They were too busy with their fires to note the boats carefully, but they saw several boats from the fleet picking up survivors from the water. And when they got to Brest they remembered this. That is how the Germans know that there are English in the town.”
There was a short silence. “What will the people do?” asked Simon. “Will they give us up?”
The old man said angrily: “This place is not a Vichy rabble. This is a town of seamen, a man’s town.”
There was a silence. “Lie low,” the old man said at last. “Do not, on any account, be seen outside this place, even for one minute. It may be necessary that you stay here for some days, or even weeks. I do not think the Germans dare do anything against the town. They have not got sufficient troops to face a rising here.”
Three days later they were still there, with Rhodes in much the same condition, though rather weaker. Bozallec’s summary of the situation seemed to be justified; the time for the surrender of the fugitives had expired and two days had followed, in which the Germans had done nothing. Bozallec came to visit them each day, more confident with every visit. “It is blowing over,” he said. “It will be necessary for you to wait here for some time to come, but then we will be able to contrive something.”
