Emergency in the Pyrenees

by Ann Bridge

  He drove first to the little car-space, and turned and locked his car—better to go down to the hunter’s house on foot. Luzia heard him; she came up the steps and along the path, calling ‘Colin! Where do you go?’

  ‘I want to meet someone at Barraterre’s. Why?’

  ‘There is something I must tell you—it is very peculiar.’

  ‘Well hurry up’the young man said impatiently; he wanted to get this worrying interview over, and go to bed.

  ‘Sit’ Luzia said, perching on the wall above the path; reluctantly Colin did so.

  ‘This evening before supper I went to the farm to fetch the milk’the girl began; ‘and as I crossed the Place I see this young Frenchman, whom you took down to Pau, driving through with M. Bonnecourt, in his car! This I found very odd—why does he not stay in Pau with his injured friend? And why does this Bonnecourt know him?’

  ‘Look, Luzia, I’m late already. Do let’s leave all this till afterwards’ Colin said, embarrassed.

  ‘No, you must know now—you might meet Bonnecourt. There is more.’

  ‘Well go ahead’ Colin said resignedly—‘only cut it as short as you can.’

  ‘This farm where I get the milk is on that path above Bonnecourt’s house; a little beyond, so that from it one looks over the dam and the pool. They were late with the milk, so I waited outside—and what do I see?’

  ‘Well, what did you see?’ Colin asked boredly, still vexed by the delay.

  ‘This young Frenchman coming out of M. Bonnecourt’s house, in bathing-dress!—and carrying a knapsack in his hand. And he went down to the pool, to the upper end, and left the knapsack on the bank, and went in and swam about, as anyone might do. But then he swam back to the bank, and reached up from the water, and started taking things out of the knapsack and putting them in the water—not dropping them, but placing them on the bottom—gently, gently, with great precautions.’

  Now Luzia had Colin’s full attention.

  ‘Could you see what sort of things?’ he asked.

  ‘Some rather small packages; but there was a sort of canvas case, such as one carries a camera in, and also a roll, I thought, of this yellow electric wire—do you call it flex? From the canvas case he took a metal thing that shone in the sun; it looked like a clock; he put a stone in the case, to keep it under water, and then he put back the clock also.’

  ‘Then what did he do?’

  ‘Got out, and dried himself on his towel, and picked up the knapsack and rolled it in the towel, and put all under his arm, and went back to the house. So the knapsack must have been empty, or nearly! Was this not odd?’

  ‘It looks odd, certainly’ Colin said. ‘Thank you very much, Luzia.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ the girl said. ‘These are saboteurs, and since their plans had gone wrong, he was disposing of their explosives, I say!’

  ‘Well don’t say anything about it. It might be important, or it might not. Could you recognise the exact spot, where he put the things into the pool, again?’

  ‘Yes. If I stood outside the farm, where I stood this evening, I could see it, and take you to it.’

  ‘Well don’t speak of it to anyone else’ Colin repeated.

  ‘I have told Julia.’

  ‘Oh, Julia doesn’t matter—she never talks.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I must be off. Thank you, Luzia.’

  He went down to Bonnecourt’s, but now walking slowly, and thoughtfully. It looked as though what Luzia had seen might enable him to answer Hartley’s second question, if he could get to the place at daybreak, before Bonnecourt or anyone else removed what had been placed in the pool—if they did remove it. Goodness, that Portuguese girl was a sharp one! But it also gave him another possible hold on Bonnecourt, and much as he liked the man, he wanted to use all the levers in his power to extract from him what he needed to know.

  At Bonnecourt’s, over cognac, Colin opened with a very mild talk with the young man. Yes, he had been to the hospital, and spoken with the surgeon. ‘Your poor old friend is very ill; they are not sure that he will survive.’ The young man looked distressed; Colin expressed sympathy. Then he fired his first shot. ‘But the police are waiting by his bed, in case he should recover consciousness, and be able to speak.’

  The young man blanched at this.

  ‘The police? Why? They do not know his name!’

  Oh what a fool, Colin thought.

  ‘Voyons, mon ami, naturally they looked for, and found, his papers—all authorities do this when an injured man is brought into a hospital; the first thing they wish to know is the name. M. de Maupassant’s was on his passport, with his Paris address, in full.’ As he said this Colin shot a glance at Bonnecourt, and caught a fleeting expression of dismayed astonishment. H’m. Two incompetents, and Bonnecourt not best pleased at being saddled with such! But now the young man’s state demanded their attention; he looked quite distraught, and began to babble confusedly: ‘But—but … ’ Bonnecourt got up and put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘If Monsieur Monnro will excuse you, I think you had better go to bed’he said, with a questioning glance at Colin. Colin got up too.

  ‘But of course. Monsieur must be quite énervé. I wish I could have brought better news of his friend,’ he said courteously.

  When Bonnecourt returned after taking the young man upstairs, he refilled both their glasses with cognac before sitting down again. ‘That was kind’he said then, looking rather hard at his guest. ‘I think you are kind, though I do not know why.’ He paused. ‘There is much I do not know that I should wish to know’he added.

  Colin could guess some of the things that Bonnecourt wished to know: whether he, Colin, was working for anyone, and if so, whether it was for the English or the French? But he realised that his host was far too good a poker-player to let this appear to begin with.

  ‘Ask away’he said cheerfully. With what he had learned from Hartley, plus Luzia’s information, he felt in a fairly strong position. Bonnecourt reflected before he spoke. At last—

  ‘Why did you make it a condition that you should speak with this young man before he returns to Spain, and then ask him no questions, when I hold him here for you? I could have had him across the frontier hours ago, but for this.’

  ‘He didn’t seem to me to be fit to answer many questions just now, he was so upset; and anyhow I have managed to learn some of the answers already’ Colin replied, coolly.

  ‘Kind again!’ Bonnecourt said, this time sarcastically. ‘May I know what questions you wished to put to him, if he had been less upset?’

  ‘Oh, various things,’ Colin replied casually. ‘I had rather wanted to look at his knapsack.’

  ‘It is in his room—I will fetch it’ Bonnecourt said, getting up.

  ‘Don’t bother—I know now that de Lassalle has emptied it already.’

  There was no mistaking Bonnecourt’s start at this statement.

  ‘How do you come to know his name?’ he asked.

  ‘I learned it in Pau, this evening.’

  ‘From the police?’

  ‘I’m not telling you how I learned it, at present’ Colin said.

  ‘Very well.’ Bonnecourt paused. ‘But what makes you think he emptied it, and of what contents? Or are you not telling me that either?’

  ‘Not how I learned it. I gather that among the contents were parcels, probably of explosives, a roll of flex, and a time-clock’ Colin said airily.

  ‘But this is fantastic!’ Bonnecourt exploded. ‘Do you keep spies here?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘Doucement, mon cher. Of course not’ Colin said pacifically. ‘But surely you have not lived so long in Larége without knowing that everyone sees everything? It is their great resource, to watch the activities of their neighbours.’

  Bonnecourt was not pacified. ‘But these details!’ He checked himself. ‘Not that I admit them’he added—‘villagers invent.

  But—you have had little time to make enquiries! You only drove up from Pau forty minutes
ago.’

  Colin laughed.

  ‘You see! You know to the minute when I came back!’ In fact the upper loops of the hairpin bends were visible from Bonnecourt’s house. The hunter laughed too, though a little reluctantly.

  ‘Touché! In fact I know the note of your English car’s engine.’ He paused, obviously considering his next move in this game of poker. ‘Still’he said presently, ‘all this is very peculiar. What I particularly wish to know—you told me just now to ”ask away”— is why you suggested that I should bring de Lassalle back here, and let him get away into Spain? You have professed to know what he came to do, and stated that your country objected to it. So why let him go, when he was practically in your hands? You must know, ”ordinary Englishman”!’—he shot the two words out with sarcastic emphasis—‘how much the French authorities desire to capture all such. So for what reason?’

  Colin hardly paused.

  ‘Well, he’s no good, anyhow’he said. ‘I never thought the O.A.S. employed such silly dopes; he’d have been caught in any case. But the real reason’—now he did pause.

  ‘Yes? The real reason?’ Bonnecourt asked, urgently.

  ‘You. Once you’d met him at the spot so dottily marked on his map, you were likely to be involved too, especially as he’s such a fool.’

  ‘And why should you wish to spare me from being involved?’

  ‘Because—as I told you before—I am English, and I’ve heard what you did for our people in the last War, getting them across into Spain. Not only the old Smiths—lots of others.’

  ‘How did you hear this? Ah, I suppose from the old Heriots, Milord and Milady.’ He looked more relaxed; he got up, filled their glasses again, and lit a Gauloise. ‘I do not offer you these—I know you dislike them.’ Colin lit a Players.

  ‘Well, this is a reason of a sort’ Bonnecourt went on. ‘In fact individual citizens of perfide Albion are apt to repay their debts rather generously.’ He blew smoke. ‘I am grateful to you, naturally—it would not suit me very well to be affiché by the police with the O.A.S. Over them, at present, the officials create far more trouble than over les Communistes. I will give this poorinept another hour to recover himself, and then I will get him away.’

  ‘Hadn’t I better go, and let you also get a little quiet?’ Colin said, rising.

  ‘No—I am never tired! Let us talk; unless you are tired?’

  ‘I often am, but not tonight’ Colin said. ‘Très-bien—let us talk.’

  Chapter 5

  In fact Colin Monro was distinctly tired. He had been on the go since six a.m., walking, climbing, carrying a human body for miles in a blanket, driving his car—and perpetually using his wits: asking questions, making rapid decisions about how best to use the last piece of information he had picked up in the next interview; listening to his inner Highland monitor, and weighing that advice against the claims of his professional duty. It had been a strenuous day, mentally and physically; he was quite tired enough to feel the prospect of another long conversation in French, well as he spoke it, a little daunting. But to find Bonnecourt suddenly so ready to talk was a chance too good to be missed—he was still strongly under the impression, that had come to him as he drove up from Pau, that the isard-hunter was not only a key figure in connection with his present mission, but of great importance in his own life in some way not yet clear to him. He sat down again, sipped at his brandy, and then put a question to his host—partly out of personal curiosity.

  ‘Bonnecourt, why do you trouble to help the O.A.S., when it’s such a risky business for you? After all France is in rather a better position in the world since de Gaulle came to power than she has been for years; and he has done it. So why try to assassinate him? Or to blow up Lacq, come to that?—one of your great economic assets. I don’t quite get the idea. Don’t answer if you don’t want to, of course’ he added. ‘But I should like to understand.’

  ‘I should very much like you to understand’ Bonnecourt said. ‘I will try to explain, though you may find the story—don’t you say “long-winded” and “round-about”?’

  ‘How well you must know English!’ Colin said. ‘All right—be as long-winded and round-about as you like.’

  ‘Well, I told you that I had been in the army’ Bonnecourt said—Colin nodded. ‘For a long time I was in Indo-China, where I, like scores of my countrymen, spent much of our time trying to train the local troops, with remarkably little success—they remained a cowardly and undisciplined rabble, whatever we did. When the Viet-minh started to fight us, we found that they, the Communists, had produced, out of the very same human material, highly-trained, orderly, and disciplined troops, who fought extremely well. This was a shock, as you can imagine—it struck right at the roots of my instincts as a soldier, and I began to wonder what it was that they had got, which we had not. The same people,’ he repeated, ‘fighting badly for us, and well for them.’

  ‘Yes, that must have been worrying’ Colin said. ‘What conclusion did you reach as to the reason?’

  ‘At first I thought it was perhaps some sickness, or weakness, in our nation; after all, the events of 1940 were not very encouraging to Frenchmen!’ Bonnecourt said, with a wry smile. ‘Then, later, I was taken prisoner by the Viet-minh; partly my own fault; this dysentery was beginning—and make no mistake, mon ami, quite as much of the body, dysentery is a disease of the will!’

  ‘Did they nurse you decently?’ Colin asked, much interested.

  ‘According to their resources, and after their ideas. They have great faith in boiled millet as a specific against dysentery’ Bonnecourt said, again with that wry smile. ‘Often there was not much millet, so then they gave me rice—medically, without great success.’

  ‘How ghastly!’ Colin said. He wished he could envisage the circumstances better, but didn’t wish to interrupt Bonnecourt’s narrative with too many questions. ‘Do go on.’

  ‘Well, with their usual attention to detail they also subjected me to a fairly thorough indoctrination—day after day, hour after hour. I have told you, la dysenterie weakens the will as much as the body, and I was in a poor state to resist this treatment; without my wish, or deliberate acceptance, my outlook towards Communism altered. And there was the extraordinary success that they had had in training the indigènes, turning them into decent troops, as we had failed to do—a thing I had seen for myself.’

  Colin was rather aghast at this.

  ‘Did you become a Communist?’ he asked.

  ‘I was too ill to become anything!—except a corpse, which I nearly did! Then after the truce I was exchanged, and came back to France, and was invalided out of the Army. But I was disillusioned.’

  ‘But how did this experience—it must have been frightful—lead you to the O.A.S?’ Colin asked.

  ‘Again by a long and round-about road. When le Général assumed power again we remembered what he had done—with British help!—during the War, and were full of hope of better things. But then one disillusionment followed another: the war in Algeria was not carried out as it should have been, and could have been, given our troops! I think most soldiers felt that this sacré settlement was a sort of betrayal, not only of the colons—who after all had created such economic prosperity as Algeria possessed—but of the Army, which had fought there for so long.’

  ‘But wasn’t the Algerian war bleeding France white? I mean, I see that it was wretched for the colons, but could you have gone on indefinitely?’

  Bonnecourt threw up both his hands in a despairing gesture.

  ‘If this war had been prosecuted with real vigour, from the top, who knows? But we sensed a lack of resolution, a hesitation, long before Evian. We felt betrayed’ the French officer repeated.

  ‘So then you decided to support the O.A.S.?’ Colin asked. ‘Of course that started in Algeria, didn’t it?’

  ‘Certainly. And I felt that this movement deserved support; it might have given the—do you say “stiffening”?—that was required to win. Enfin, my fri
end, I am a patriot!—I would do anything to save France.’ He paused; Colin thought he had finished, but he was wrong. ‘But of course’ Bonnecourt pursued—and then stopped.

  ‘Yes?’ No reply. ‘Of course what?’ Colin persisted.

  ‘These murders began, in the hospitals!—and elsewhere. That I could not approve; for a long time I held my hand. One should not murder helpless people in their beds.’

  ‘I should think not’ Colin said, with energy. These mental gymnastics of an O.A.S. supporter he found hard to follow, though he could sympathise over the intractable problem which Algeria had presented to France. He had himself been in Morocco before the French left, and had seen the superb work they had done for that other North African country before it insisted on its independence. Goodness how tiresome, and how ungrateful, these emerging nations were!—biting the hands that fed them, developed them, educated them; that poured out money, skill, and devoted service, only to be ejected with contumely in the end.

  ‘Well, did you turn Communist then?’ he asked.

  ‘Very nearly! One turns from one creed to another, seeking the one that will best serve one’s country.’ Bonnecourt paused. ‘But recently, I came to the decision that the O.A.S. was probably of the most value to our country’ he said.