Emergency in the Pyrenees

by Ann Bridge

  ‘Perfectly. Did it all go according to plan?’

  ‘Yes—and dead on time. See you presently.’

  During the ‘Period of repose’, when Julia must not be disturbed, Philip drove round to the Heriots, where he found Tim Acland being given a belated lunch by the twins in the deserted dining-room.

  ‘Oh yes, everything O.K.’ the young man reported cheerfully—‘except that Berdun was absolutely covered with goats! I flew low, and circled, but they wouldn’t move, so I shut off the engine and simply yelled to your cousin to chase them away; I don’t know if he heard, but he picked up the idea, and hunted them to the side of the field. So then I landed and dropped your man, and they both got into the Rover and drove off.’

  ‘Did you see any other cars, or police, about?’ Jamieson asked.

  ‘Not a soul except the goats—if goats have souls! Then I flew back. The petrol just held out nicely; I was a little nervous after that extra circling, which I hadn’t allowed for, because it’s a close-run thing anyhow, to Berdun and back—let alone the détour to that plateau. But all went well.’

  ‘And all they know at the Ailes Basques is that Tim had a lovely solo fly out Westwards’ Nick said gleefully. ‘So I don’t see how even those nosey-parkers of the Sureté or the D.B. can suspect anything, let alone fasten on something.’

  Philip Jamieson thanked young Acland warmly. ‘We are most grateful to you’ he said. ‘I should like to offer to pay for your petrol, at least—but I’m afraid you wouldn’t accept it.’

  ‘Not on your life!’ Tim Acland replied fervently. ‘It isn’t everyone who gets the chance to fly a secret agent; I shall hug this (to my own bosom, of course) all my life. “Our Man in Larége”—I flew him out.’ Jamieson could only laugh.

  When he went round to see Julia later he found something else nice too—the quite novel experience of having a person to whom to recount his adventures in perfect security, and who took an intense interest in them. This was altogether different from reporting to Major Hartley or anyone else at the Office—attentive and friendly as they always were. Julia was concerned about his discomfort on the pillion of Dr. Fourget’s motor-cycle, horrified at the discovery of the peasant in the cabane up on the Plateau de Permounat, and laughed wildly over the sudden appearance of the sheep, which had threatened the takeoff.

  ‘Oh darling, how ridiculous!’ she said. Philip, happy to be amusing her, recounted young Acland’s trouble with the goats at Berdun.

  ‘Really, animals are the last thing one would expect “the opposition” to lay on as a Secret Weapon’ Julia said—‘though I see that they could be quite a useful one.’ Philip was rather disconcerted by this.

  ‘I don’t really see how they can have been laid on this time, at either place’ he said. ‘The shepherd up at the Plateau seemed just an ordinary dumb peasant; and how could any Spaniards have got the idea of smothering Berdun with goats, precisely this morning?’

  ‘Darling, I didn’t mean that they had—I’m sure it was all completely fortuitous today. It just struck me as a possible bright idea. Couldn’t you use it yourself?—have droves of camels in reserve to blanket airfields if some anti-you Sheiks try to fly in to obstruct your operations?’

  Philip Jamieson only half-laughed. ‘I think you may have got something there. Camels could be moved much more quickly, and less noticeably, than oil-drums. Thank you, dearest.’ Then he passed on Bonnecourt’s request that she would see his wife, and tell her about Glentoran. ‘He seems to have immense faith in you—he was rather touching about it. I said you would, if it was safe for her.’

  ‘Of course I will. I know the very cottage they’ll be in, and its nice little garden; so lay that on at any time. I’m sure I can encourage her—it’s all a fearful uprooting for the poor little woman. Luzia likes her’ Julia said, inconsequently.

  The sage-femme now came in with Philip Bernard in her arms to prepare for the next feed; this time she dumped the creature, still swathed in cottonwool, in his Father’s arms. ‘Voilà!—let M. le Colonel hold his son,’ she said.

  Philip gazed in a sort of bewilderment at the tiny creased face, now so close to his own.

  ‘He’s not in the least like anyone’ he said. But at that moment the baby began to howl angrily, disliking the strange arms, and wanting his food. ‘Yes, he is—he’s exactly like you when you disapprove of anything’ he said to Julia. ‘Good!’

  Philip would have liked to watch his child being fed, but in spite of his promises to sit perfectly quiet the old sage-femme was adamant—no, the infant was premature, and the Mother must not on any account be distracted. To his own surprise, as much as to Julia’s, Philip deposited a light kiss on the little pink forehead before the old woman took the creature from him.

  ‘Well I must ring up the Office anyhow’ he said to his wife ‘and report. I’ll do that from the Heriots, and come back later.’

  ‘What a bill you must be running up at the Heriots for telephone calls!’ Julia said, holding out her arms for the baby.

  ‘Not a bit of it—spot cash every time! Lord H. is very tough about all that,’ Philip said.

  ‘Voyons, Monsieur le Colonel! You must absolutely leave Madame in peace now’ the old sage-femme said, exasperated—Philip blew his wife a kiss, and went away.

  He found Lady Heriot having tea alone. The twins were out, and her husband, she said, was at a meeting of the Cemetery Committee. ‘So many people come here, and then go and die, that we are running short of space—and land is getting terribly expensive. I expect it will end in our having to give up a piece of the garden, but it will be most inconvenient; so far from the old cemetery, and from the Church. I wish fewer people wanted to die in Pau!’

  ‘I expect they like living here, and then Death overtakes them’ Jamieson said. ‘I should quite like to die in Pau—or even better up at Larége.’ He refused the cup of tea she offered him, saying that, as so often, he wanted to telephone. ‘I’m afraid I am a terrible nuisance, but I may just catch the man I want at the Office if I do it at once. Oh please don’t get up!—I know my way to the study.’

  He was in time to catch Major Hartley.

  ‘Yes, safely over, and on his way to Gib’ he said, in reply to the Major’s enquiry. ‘No, flown out … Private enterprise, laid on locally … No, no hitches, except for a few goats … I said goats—smelly animals, with horns! Yes, this a.m. You’d better ring Gib—the A.D.C. was out when I tried … No, two passages; I’ve told young C. to go with him right up to his destination—sorry to take C. off your job, but it can be done more unobtrusively that way … Argyll—my wife has got him a job as a ghillie … Oh yes, free at any time; it’s on C’s sister’s place … Yes, they’ll look in on you on their way through, and C. will put you in the picture … Lord no!—they’ll take the bus; that’s what I meant by unobtrusive. You don’t listen! … By the way, tell MacPherson to lay on camels, fifty or a hundred … To block the airfield, of course—no plane can land on a strip covered with camels.’

  Loud laughter came down the long line from London to Pau.

  ‘How brilliant!’ Major Hartley said. ‘Why didn’t you think that one up sooner?’

  ‘I didn’t think it up—it was my wife’s idea.’

  ‘Congratulations to your wife’ Hartley said. ‘All right—I’ll see to everything. Expect you in about a fortnight.’

  ‘Let me know when you hear from Gib—it’s impossible to telephone across this ghastly frontier. Tell Paris; they can ring me’ Philip said urgently. ‘And some time take time out to slap down Monteith; he’s an ass!’

  ‘Oh—why?’

  ‘Tell you when I see you.’

  While he was actually at the Heriot’s telephone, so conveniently private, Philip took the opportunity to ring up Colonel Monceau in Paris, and thank him for his good offices. ‘It is all much more convenient and agreeable now’ he said carefully—‘and the action was taken so promptly. I am most grateful.’

  ‘And our old friend—he i
s gone?’

  ‘Yes, but only today. This is a monster!—utterly regardless of instructions’ Philip said. Now there was laughter over the wires from Paris.

  ‘Ah, my friend, you and your colleagues will find that you have your hands full enough with that one! It is an individualist! But he can be of great value. Well, bonne chance! How is Madame?—and the son?’

  ‘Both splendid, thank you.’ Then he asked if he could bring Madame B. down to see his wife without creating difficulties? ‘She well knows the place to which they go; she would like to encourage Madame.’

  ‘By all means; she is no longer under observation.’

  ‘Excellent—a thousand thanks. See you again soon, Jean, I hope.’ He rang off.

  As usual, it took a considerable time before the Inter could be persuaded to give the price of the calls: Philip wrote the date and time of both in Lord Heriot’s book: ‘London; Paris,’ and his own name—but not the two highly secret numbers; he added the cost when he learned it, and went back to the drawing-room. There he found the twins returned and drinking tea, with Luzia.

  ‘More telephoning?’ Dick asked, as Jamieson put several notes down on the tea-tray.

  ‘Yes indeed—I should be lost without the blessed privacy of this house.’ He thanked Lady Heriot once again.

  ‘Well now, if you got the person you wanted, have a cup of tea—this is a fresh pot’ his hostess said. This time Philip accepted gratefully, and ate some buttered brioches as well. Presently Nick observed, thoughtfully—

  ‘I think we ought to carry out poor old B’s last wishes.’

  ‘Which were?’ his twin enquired.

  ‘First, to drive that poor crazy old car of his into the Gave, to save it from the knackers.’

  ‘What is this, “knackers”?’ Luzia asked, curiously—she was always interested in unfamiliar English expressions.

  ‘Well literally, people who kill very old horses, and sell the meat to feed dogs—but nowadays it goes for anyone who breaks up cars and uses some of the bits,’ Nick replied.

  ‘I think you ought to do that’ Lady Heriot said. ‘But won’t it look the least bit dramatic if you do it in broad daylight?’ Now Luzia gazed at her hostess with intense interest—really, the English! ‘And it will have to be quite a deep place,’ she added.

  ‘I know, Maman. But there’s a spot, a good bit down-stream, where that little tributary comes in; it has scoured out a pretty deep pool—I went and threw stones into it this afternoon. It would hide any car, and there are no houses near by; the bank is very steep, practically vertical, and there’s quite a firm grass field right to the edge.’

  Jamieson listened to all this with as much interest as Luzia—he had committed himself to Bonnecourt over the disposal of the ancient Bugatti, but he was fascinated by Lady Heriot’s concern with this unusual undertaking. She continued with her questions.

  ‘How should you do it?’

  ‘I drive it down, and to the lip of the river-bank; Dick follows on in his Jag and gives it a good push from behind when I’ve got out. Or I might put it in gear, switch on the engine through the door, and jump aside. But it all means a certain degree of accuracy—it would be much easier by daylight.’

  ‘Yes, I see.’ Lady Heriot pondered. ‘But during evening daylight most of the peasants are roving about, going to drink at the buvettes, or to call on their lady-loves. I think it would be far wiser to go at daybreak, when all but the very old men will be sleeping off their various forms of pleasure.’

  ‘O.K.—we’ll go tomorrow, first thing’ Dick said. ‘You always know all the answers, Maman.’

  ‘Oh, could I not go too? I should love to see a car driven into a river!’ Luzia exclaimed.

  ‘Yes—I’ll have you called’ Lady Heriot said. Philip asked when this demolition squad would be setting out?—he too wanted to see one part of his promise to Bonnecourt fulfilled.

  ‘Well, say a quarter to five—it will still be practically dark then, but by the time we get to the place it will be light enough to see what we’re doing; if not we can wait till it is’.

  ‘Right—I’ll be round here at 4.45’ Philip said.

  The following morning was overcast, and it was almost in pitch darkness that Jamieson drove round from his hotel to the Heriots; there the old Bugatti and Dick’s Jaguar were marshalled on the drive, and with their headlights on they drove in convoy through Pau, still a sleeping town, and out westwards into the open country beyond, Nick in the Bugatti leading. He did not take the main route by Lacq and Orthez, but crossed the river in the town itself, and then followed the much smaller road which hugs the southern, or true left bank of the Gave de Pau. Presently he signalled with his hand to the cars behind him to slow down, and switched off his headlights; then he drove on, slowly—the others following. Presently they came to a small village in which an ancient stone-built bridge spanned a fairsized stream; some 400 yards further on Nick slung the Bugatti to the right into a broad grassy meadow, crossed it, and pulled up on the very lip of the bank overhanging the river.

  By now day was breaking, in spite of the clouded sky; when Dick pulled up behind Bonnecourt’s old car, and walked across to the river’s brink, there was light enough for him to see the whole lay-out. There was an almost vertical drop of over twenty feet into the Gave, which here, thanks to the erosive efforts of the tributary coming down from the Pyrenees, had expanded into a wide pool, in which the grey-green waters swirled and eddied—there had been rain in the mountains, and the river was running bank-high.

  ‘Perfect’ Dick said. ‘At the moment,’ he added cautiously. ‘Any idea how much this pool dries out in the summer?’

  ‘No—but we shan’t have summer again for another eight months; and by then we’ll have had lots of time to put a plastic bomb under the poor old thing, if the pool shows signs of shrinking,’ Nick replied.

  ‘I agree. All right—on we go. Will you start the engine, or shall I give her a shove?’

  Luzia and Colonel Jamieson had also got out, and had peered over the edge of the bank; they listened to the twins.

  ‘Push it with your car; do not let Nick start the engine—he might get caught in the door, and be carried away’ Luzia said urgently. Dick looked at her, surprised and rather disconcerted by this concern for his brother.

  ‘I agree’ Jamieson put in. ‘Either let us push it over the edge by hand, or Dick give it some propulsion from behind with his car. We can see what we’re doing now.’ He looked carefully at the meadow. ‘I think there’s just enough slope to get a run on it by hand. Back away a bit, Dick.’ The young man did so. ‘Now, Nick, reverse her a little—That’s enough’ he said, when Nick had backed the Bugatti about 30 feet. ‘Now let’s push her.’ Nick released the hand-brake, and together the three men propelled Bonnecourt’s beloved old car over the edge of the bank—it fell with a colossal splash into the pool.

  ‘Well that’s all right—not a sign of it showing’ Colonel Jamieson said, leaning over to inspect the water after the splash had subsided. ‘Safe till next summer, anyhow. Good.’ He walked back to his own car, while Dick turned the Jaguar.

  ‘Yes, the sooner we clear off the better’ Nick said—as he spoke he bent down and began to brush up the grass with his hand where the wheels of the cars had crushed it. ‘Peasants notice everything’ he observed. ‘I wish we’d brought a rake. Dick, go and kick off the rim of the bank where the wheel-marks show; that’s a frightful give-away.’

  Dick made no move to do as his brother asked. ‘Oh, come on—I want some breakfast!’ he said; he felt vaguely disgruntled. But Luzia went straight to the steep edge and began to kick at the turf, rather incompetently, with her small white sandals.

  ‘I say, look out—you might pitch over’ Dick said anxiously. ‘Don’t do that, Luzia.’

  ‘If you will not do it, I will’ the girl said. ‘Someone must—here security is involved.’ Jamieson joined her; with his large Scottish feet and strong shoes he was much more effectual, shoving gre
at chunks of grass and soil over the lip of the bank into the river, till at the actual edge there was soon no sign that a car had gone over. Nick continued to scrape away at the grass, in silence; he felt uncomfortable. Something new and disturbing was going on; he was not yet certain what, and was a little afraid of finding out.

  All the others now helped to scratch up the crushed grass and remove the wheel-marks.

  ‘Well, that’s the best we can do,’ the Colonel said. ‘Now let’s get away. Do we have to go back through that village?’ he asked Nick.

  ‘No. If we go on to Lacq there’s a bridge over the Gave, and we can take the main road back to Pau. I thought that would be better—they may have heard us coming through.’

  ‘Quite right.’ He turned politely to Luzia. ‘Condesa, will you come with me?’

  ‘Thank you—but I drive with Dick’ the girl replied. ‘But you will take Nick, of course.’

  Nick was rather relieved—somehow he didn’t very much want a tête-à-tête drive with his brother just then, and got thankfully into Jamieson’s car. Dick was relieved too. Luzia had been a bit sharp with him, and he had wondered what was going on in her mind about Nick; but this looked as though everything was all right. (Dick, as his Father had once told Julia, was an optimist.)

  As the two cars, Jamieson’s leading, turned out from the field into the road an old man came hobbling by with a scythe over his shoulder—he signalled to them to stop.

  ‘You do the talking’ the Colonel said to Nick, pulling up. ‘Better satisfy him if you can.’

  What the old man said he wanted was a lift some three kilometres down the road, to a farm where he was being employed to cut the second crop of hay, the aftermath. But when he was installed in the back seat, the blade of his scythe projecting dangerously out of the window, he began to ask questions. Ces Messieurs had wished to fish in the Gave? But here the current was too strong, and also it was too early in the day. Nick was very ready.