The Warning Bell

by T D Griggs

  My father ran the cruiser against the sand and Serge was hidden by the swinging bow and its absurd figurehead. A big sea swept right in behind us and lifted the stern and I had to clutch the gunwale to stay upright. I heard the boy scream and I ran up the pitching deck and leaned over the side, stretching out over the heaving water.

  The boat tilted as her keel rolled against the shoal. For a moment, only his hands were visible above the water, clutching like claws at the night sky. I grabbed at him and missed, my strength ebbing away and din and confusion crowding back into my brain. The sea drained back and he stood there half engulfed in the shoal, staring up at me in terror, his hair whipping around his face.

  ‘Take the wheel,’ the old man bellowed at me down the length of the boat.

  I looked desperately back at him. The boat pitched again, her bow jammed up against the bank as the seas drove in under her, lifting her, hauling her back and swinging her. There was nothing but white surf below me now.

  ‘Take the wheel, dammit!’ my father roared again.

  This time I obeyed. I dragged myself back up to the cockpit and I took the wheel, astounded at the life and strength of it under my hands. The old man knocked the throttle lever into reverse and I heard the engine scream and race and I guessed the screw was half out of the water. The blades touched, and we juddered back. I saw a pair of hands come groping out of the sea and grip the figurehead and cling there. I swore and fought for control.

  Then my father’s arm was around my shoulder and his rough face was against mine. ‘Take her home, my boy,’ he said. ‘You take her home now.’

  ‘Dad!’

  I clutched for him, but he was already walking easily up the slope of the deck. When he reached the bow he turned and smiled at me in the glare of the spotlight, lifted both arms, and stepped backwards into the sea. I saw Serge lifted in lightly over the gunwale, to fall coughing and retching on the deck. Then a monstrous swell burst over our bows and we were shoved back off the shoal. As the screw caught I could see nothing up ahead but a mountain of crashing water.

  The silhouette of the figurehead seemed to tremble and dissolve and reform in front of my eyes. I spun the wheel and jammed it against me and looked back. The old launch was collapsing as I watched, the timbers cracking under the weight of the water which piled against her.

  60

  Chantal was asleep on the green plastic couch beside the bed, her hair shining in the moonlight. I watched her for a long time, and then rolled my head a little to look out of the high and unfamiliar hospital window. The wind was still restless, and the glass was streaked with rain, but I could see that the storm had all but blown itself out.

  I moved my head again, could feel a heaviness, a tightness, on one side of my skull. I put my hand up and felt a wad of dressing. It didn’t seem to hurt much. I tested my memory: the glaring lights of Casualty, the rumble of the gurney, a nurse barking questions at me and confusing me by doing so in English. Blue lights. And before that, the knot of people by the shore, some of them in the water, catching hold of the boat, catching hold of me, a glimpse of Sharif in his swirling cashmere coat with the sea up to his thighs.

  And before that…

  Yes, my memory worked all right.

  ‘Welcome back,’ Chantal said. She got up from the couch, moved a chair next to the bed and buried her face into the bedclothes over my chest. I rested my hand on her hair.

  She looked up, her eyes shining. ‘They haven’t found him, my love.’

  ‘I’m not sure he wanted to be found,’ I said.

  I took her hand and stroked it. It seemed she was the one who needed comfort. ‘Serge?’

  ‘Exposure. Shock. But he’ll be fine. Kate’s reinvented herself as Florence Nightingale.’

  ‘And Felix?’

  ‘They’ve taken him in. I think maybe they thought he might… do something stupid.’ She hesitated. ‘His father isn’t likely to last the night.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ’Here. Upstairs.’

  Neither of us said anything for a while, then I peeled back the bedclothes and swung my feet onto the floor.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  But she didn’t expect an answer to that, and she sat and watched me as I stood up. I felt frail and disembodied and I gripped the steel bed end, feeling the chill of the metal, grateful for it.

  ‘Go easy,’ she said.

  I padded into the corridor. Blue light glowed from the nurses’ station, but I could see no sign of life there. I started up the stairs. I could feel the effort of the climb at once, and I took it very slowly, leaning hard on the rail. I pushed open the swing doors that gave onto the top floor landing. At the far end of a long corridor, barred with moonlight, was another nurses’ station. A couple of figures with their backs to me were leaning against the desk and I could hear hushed conversation and soft laughter.

  Dr Pasqual was in the second room on the right. The door was ajar. I opened it silently. He looked birdlike, far smaller even than I remembered. They had dispensed with the oxygen mask, but he was hooked up to a drip, and there was a monitor of some sort flickering on a stand beside him. I sat on the edge of the bed. I had thought he was unconscious, but he moved his head.

  ‘My son…’ The words were barely audible.

  I said nothing.

  ‘It’s so dark,’ he whispered, though the room was brilliant with moonlight.

  He breathed deeply, and settled again. I sensed him gathering what remained of his strength.

  Suddenly he clutched at my hand. ‘God forgive me, for I’ve never forgiven myself. But I used up all the courage I had on the bridges at Saumur. I never had much, and I spent it all there.’ He swallowed. ‘We all knew the Rosens couldn’t escape. They knew it too. The boat was so small. If they’d been captured, the whole of St Cyriac would have paid the price. What was I to do?’

  ‘You killed them,’ I said. ‘Not Mathieu Garnier. You.’

  ‘I tried to protect the village – from the Germans, the Milice, from Vichy itself. Even from the demands of the Resistance. I tried so hard to hold St Cyriac together. And it would all have come to nothing. They all knew that. Yet when it came to it, none of them – not that ruffian Bonnard, not Le Toque, not even Mathieu – none of them could do it.’ He paused. ‘And it could make no difference to me by then.’

  ‘No difference?’

  ‘I was already going to burn in hell.’

  My knuckles whitened on the rail of his bed. I said: ‘The Germans didn’t come to the church that night, did they?’

  ‘You have to understand. The Germans were everywhere along our coast as the Allies were coming ashore in Normandy. They were desperate, their backs to the wall. They were ruthless to any hint of resistance. Oh, that was when our War was at its most brutal. Our only chance was for Thomas to surrender the Rosens. He’d had them there for two years, but it could not go on. Can you imagine what would have happened to the village if he’d been caught hiding them? I pleaded with him. We’d found a small boat. I told Thomas that. We could help the two British airmen. But the Jews? That was out of the question. We had to settle for what was possible, I said. We had to compromise. Everyone had to compromise. It was war.’ He moistened his lips. ‘He would not give them up. I begged him. But he refused. I had no choice. Do you understand, my boy?’ He rolled his head towards me in the darkness. ‘None of us had any choice.’

  The door swung open and the nurse gave a little gasp. ‘You mustn’t be here!’ she said. ‘I’ll get into the most terrible trouble. You shouldn’t be here!’

  I held onto his hand for a few moments more, until I was sure he no longer knew whether I was there or not. The nurse fussed around me, shooing me away. Finally, I backed out of the room and walked away. Before I reached the swing doors I heard the monitor beep. The nurse put her head out of the room and called softly and urgently to her colleague.

  61

  An enormous van was parked in the drive, and tw
o heavily muscled removals men were making a meal of carting out our few boxes and cases. Chantal spent her morning alternately shouting at them and making them coffee.

  I retreated to the cabin. It was pleasant here, with the birds squabbling under the eaves. This room – my father’s room – with its scent of pine, its makeshift desk, and Dominic’s model of 2548, was the only corner of this property I knew I would miss. I sat down next to the model, marvelling again at its intricacy. Every plank of its deck was perfect, every cleat and radio antenna. I peered in through the wheelhouse window once again at that small bearded figure at the wheel.

  The door opened and the foreman stuck his head in. ‘We’re just about done here…’

  I swung round on him. ‘Ten minutes, OK?’

  ‘Sure. Sure.’ He backed off, lifting his hands. ‘No problem. No problem at all.’

  I turned back to the model, touched the Oerlikon magazine with my fingertip, pressed more firmly. The wheelhouse section sprang open. I lifted out the diary for 1944, and flicked through the pages until I came to the priest’s last entry.

  13 June

  The Allies are pouring ashore in Normandy, and the Germans cannot stop them. The end must be soon. At least, we must pray for that, my charges and I, for the sake of France, for the sake of the future, for the sake of peace.

  But not for ourselves. It will be too late for us, and we no longer deceive ourselves on that point. Pasqual hounds me night and day, begging, threatening. He would see this innocent family sent to the death camps so that the rest of us can sit safe here until the Allies come. But how would we be able to face them, our liberators, if we betrayed our trust? What kind of people would they have fought to make free?

  Poor Pasqual. It has broken him, this war. Very soon he will collapse entirely, and in his disintegration we will all be brought down.

  There’s not a bright day nor a dark night that I do not curse myself for my foolishness. If I had listened to Rachael Rosen earlier perhaps we might already have saved them. Now my only consolation is that I have preserved the life of young Madeleine long enough for her to be touched by love and hope once again, however fleetingly.

  I came upon them last night, Robert and Lena. They were asleep in one another’s arms beneath the tiny window high in the east wall of the crypt. From there, perhaps, they had been able to glimpse the stars, and dream of freedom. When the English launch brought him back to her a few weeks ago Robert gave her a love token of sorts, an English gold coin, which she has placed in an old watch case of her father’s. This lay open on her lap as they slept, their hands joined over it. I could not help myself: I stood for a long time and watched them, sleeping like innocent children, for all they had endured. Like children who could still hope for a future.

  Ah, well. We must wait for what is to come with such fortitude as the Lord grants us. I pray that, at the end, we will not any of us be utterly abandoned.

  The door opened again and I closed the book with a snap.

  Chantal looked at me. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Sure. Of course.’

  ‘The guy said you seemed a bit… edgy.’

  ‘Sorry. I need some air. Maybe I’ll take a walk.’

  ‘You feel strong enough for that?’

  ‘I’m strong enough.’

  She hovered, unconvinced. ‘These boys will be finished pretty soon. Can they take this stuff? Or do you want to sit and look at it a while longer?’

  ‘I think maybe I’ve seen as much as I’m going to see.’

  ‘Right. Well, you know – take it easy.’

  She closed the door. I found my jacket and slipped the books into my pocket and left the cabin.

  It was a glorious day. The quayside was crowded with holidaymakers. They took no notice of me, except for one or two who glanced curiously at the bandage around my head. I cut through the narrow streets beyond the square, avoiding the church. Soon I emerged onto the cliff path, with the breeze from the Channel flattening the grass. I climbed slowly, stopping every few yards and gathering my strength, but at length I reached the old cross on the summit in its thicket of windswept hawthorns. I started down the far slope towards La Division.

  I stood above the beach for a while, recovering my breath. Sweat cooled on my skin. I did not turn to gaze at the ruined farmhouse but made my way down the bluff and across the shingle to the stone jetty. This time the water thudding against the blocks did not trouble me as I walked out along them. The sea wind bathed my face and filled my lungs.

  The diaries floated for a while, their covers spreading like the wings of shot birds and the ink wavering from their pages. And then they were gone.

  EPILOGUE

  The summer was almost at an end.

  I pushed open the iron gate and walked slowly up the path towards the church. The day was warm, and the leaves of the beech trees hung limp in the heavy afternoon air.

  There was no sign of Kate and Serge. Maybe they would come up here later. For the moment they were giving me some space. The thought made me smile. They had already moved on, out of my adventure and into their own. I pictured them already at one of Henri’s terrace tables, braving the torrent of his astonished and delighted welcome, fielding his questions, allowing him to ply them with celebratory silver tankards of peppery champagne.

  I glanced back towards the square. Chantal was sitting where I had left her, on the bench by the rose arbour with its memorial to the Rosens.

  I headed for the far wall of the churchyard, taking my time. The yew threw a cool shadow over Dominic’s grave. They had buried Dr Pasqual very close by. Both plots were neatly tended, and fresh flowers lay on them.

  ‘Good afternoon!’ a voice called from behind me. ‘Looking for someone in particular?’

  I turned. He was a young man, very black and built like a prizefighter. He wore a paint-spattered bright red polo shirt and faded denim shorts, and he leaned against the side of the church at the top of the crypt steps, smoking. A paint roller on a long handle rested against the wall beside him.

  He took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it away into the laurel bushes. ‘Filthy habit,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘I’m Father Joseph.’

  I took his hand. ‘The new priest?’

  ‘Not so new any more,’ he grinned.

  I looked down the steps to the crypt. The iron bound door stood open in the sunshine. I could hear a radio blaring – Fela Kuti in full swing. I glimpsed brilliantly whitewashed walls and pillars.

  ‘It needed brightening up,’ he said. ‘We’re going to turn it into somewhere people can be together. Eat, drink, talk, sing. Get some joy into it.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  He glanced towards the graves. ‘Friends and family?’

  I didn’t bother to confirm it for him. I knew he understood.

  ‘I hear there’s a stone,’ I said. ‘A kind of obelisk.’

  ‘Ah!’ He widened his eyes. ‘Our mystery monument! There used to be an old one here, but they took it down and put this new one up the week before I arrived.’

  It was dark grey granite, the colour of the sea at dawn. They had placed it up against the wall, close to the graves of the crew of HSL 2548, and not far from Dr Pasqual and Dominic. The polished stone was still mirror bright and the lettering sharply chiselled, but time would weather it soon enough.

  ‘It’s a fine verse,’ Father Joseph said.

  ‘It’s from Psalm 77.’ I stooped to flick away a beech twig from the turf in front of the stone. ‘But I guess you’d know that.’

  I stepped back to read the inscription again.

  Pilot Officer George Madoc

  and Lt Robert Hamelin

  ‘Thy way is in the sea, and thy path in the great waters:

  and thy footsteps are not known’

  Father Joseph cocked his head. ‘Be nice to know what it all means.’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I said.

  - THE END

  About the Author

  T
im Griggs was born in London and lived and worked on four continents. He held British and Australian nationality and worked variously as a truck driver, journalist, film extra, MD of a successful communications consultancy, and – for about seven sweaty hours – as a volunteer fire fighter. Despite that, much of the Australian bush survives.

  He wrote many short stories and three other novels, including the best-sellers Redemption Blues and The End of Winter, and the Victorian epic Distant Thunder.

  Tragically, Tim died very suddenly in October 2013. It means an enormous amount to Tim’s wife, Jenny, that his books have brought pleasure to a huge number of people. If you enjoyed The Warning Bell and would like to add your voice to that list it would be wonderful if you could write a review. It doesn’t have to be long, but it will most definitely be appreciated.

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