by Thomas Wood
“How you doing, Robert?” I asked to the darkness, hoping that I would get a reply other than a sobbing wreck that I was half-expecting.
I felt sorry for him, this wasn’t what he really should be doing. I should have had someone who knew what war was like, the way that you might have to switch sides for half a second while you deal with a threat, before switching back again without even thinking about it. I needed someone who I knew could handle the pressures of what was about to happen, and not just deal with the stress of what time the next coffee break would be.
I knew that this wasn’t the place for him, but he had been the only man that I could trust. He was the only one who knew just as much about Geranium as I did, and the only one who seemed like he wanted to get to the bottom of it all.
“I’m a little bit scared, to tell you the truth Alf.”
“I know, I know. Once we get going though, you’ll be fine I promise. I’ll be watching you all the way in, if there’s any sign of trouble, you’ll know I’ll be in there as quick as I can.”
“Thank you, Alfie.”
He had made no attempt to tell me how scared he truly was when we were preparing for the night ahead, making it plain that he had wanted to see the war out from behind a desk, a position that, as it turned out, he had managed to accomplish a great deal from. He had told me that every minute that he had spent in the offices and corridors of Whitehall, planning and coordinating operations, he had yearned to be out in the field, alongside the men that he was in charge of, to make them know that he was with them in some way.
But, deep down, he knew he didn’t have the courage, and it was only after my desperate plea to him to join me in France, saying that his grasp on the native tongue would be absolutely fundamental to the success of the operation.
“Alf,” he suddenly croaked, “how do you deal with it all? You know, the thinking that you could die at any moment. I didn’t have that back in London, even during the air raids I was tucked up safe and sound.”
I began to wrack my brain to try and find the slightest nugget of information that might sound comforting to him, just to let him know that the more you did it, the more you got used to facing up to the fear of death. The truth was, it never went away, I could still sense it in the pit of my stomach as we perched in the trees. The only thing that you got used to was being able to put the mission objectives first, using them to distract yourself from all the lethargy and thoughts that lurked within.
I wanted to sound as profound as possible but could only muster a few syllables before I got tongue tied and lost direction over what I said.
“Erm…I guess you don’t in a way. Deal with it, I mean. You just kind of get used to it, you tell yourself that you’re doing it for a reason. I like to try and picture the looks on the family’s faces when they hear that their son is alive and well. That’s what you need to do. This will let hundreds of boys make it home. Think of them.”
“Okay…” he muttered, slowly lowering his binoculars to look over at me, but presumably also to stop the headache that was plaguing him also.
I knew that it wasn’t the comprehensive, step-by-step method that he would liked to have heard, being the kind of person who loved to be able to work things through systematically. I watched him as the cogs began to whir as he slowly came to the realisation that war was anything but a systematic process, and that anything could change within half a second that could throw you off completely.
He was trying to rewire his brain totally, to retrain his thought processes into something more practical for the situation. But a man like Jameson found that sort of thing difficult, especially when he had become so used to the warmth and comfort of an office.
I knew that he was trying his best, but it would also probably be the last time that he stepped foot out of the office, this little trip acting as the only confirmation he needed to accept that he wasn’t cut out for this sort of life.
“So, how much time did you spend in this country before the war?”
He seemed delighted that I had spoken to him, without being prompted, although the tone in his voice seemed slightly disappointed that I refused to lower my binoculars.
“Well, most summers really. I would spend the time out here with my cousins, learning the language, trying the food, all that sort of thing really.”
“Ever go to Paris?”
“No, we never quite made it that far, we were hoping to go just before I joined the army. But it wasn’t to be.”
The silence ate away at him more than it did at me, so I endeavoured to continue talking to him as much as I possibly could, running the clock down until the point where he had nothing else to think about apart from running to the building.
“Girlfriend?”
“Yes…” he said, chuckling, with a genuine happiness that I had not seen him express before. There was something about him, something that he kept hidden about his past that made me think that the happiness that he experienced in his life had been in short supply at some point, and I desperately wanted to know what it was.
“Her name’s Kitty. We’ve been together for a while now. I want to get married after the war.”
“That’s nice,” I said, scanning the westerly approach, willing anyone to move from its direction just so that I didn’t have to do the small talk for too much longer.
“Why wait until after the war?”
“Well, there’s loads of reasons really. Like not being—”
We both suddenly spun round, dropping our binoculars with a clatter and bringing our pistols up to our faces. I was glad that I hadn’t been the only one to hear it, somewhere from behind the row of trees that was meant to be keeping watch over us.
I crouched stock still for a moment, before finally running the risk of scanning the trees behind us for any sign of life, or movement. Jameson did the same.
“My friend,” called a hushed voice from somewhere within the undergrowth, “it’s me. It is Louis.”
I liked Louis, he had helped me out greatly in the short time that I had known him, but he had the innate ability to do things wrong, even though he had the greatest of intentions. Just then, as he had snuck up on us through the trees, he had come incredibly close to getting his own brains splattered all over the floor, especially with Jameson, who was becoming increasingly nervous and jumpy as the clock ticked round.
“Louis…” I sighed, relieved that we had just been given yet another stay of execution. Jameson on the other hand, was not quite as receptive to Louis’ arrival.
“What on earth did you do that for! I could have killed you!”
“I am sorry,” Louis said dejectedly, “I was trying to make little noise.”
“It’s okay, Louis.” I said as he waddled his way over to me. “That’s where I want you to go, just down there, where the forest begins to cover you. You’ll know what the signal is. Have you brought enough men?”
“Oh yes, Alfie. Yes, I have. I have even brought my son. He is looking forward to it.”
I nearly launched into a salvo of abuse over the morality of bringing a child into this war, in the way that he was so proud of, but I refrained as we would soon be needing every man, or boy, that we could get our hands on.
“He wants to come,” he whispered, seeming to sense my disappointment, “plus, he needs the training. He will need to grow up soon enough.”
I stayed silent, which he seemed to take as an acceptance of his argument, before he began shuffling backwards to take up his position.
Jameson had already retrieved his binoculars to continue scoping out the building, now with a slight tremble in his hand.
“Anything?” I queried, picking up my own pair and pulling them up to my eyes.
“Nothing, yet.”
I swept my gaze right the way along the length of the road that was within the range of my binoculars, hoping to watch Louis taking up his position, but something else caught my eye.
It was dark, and so it took me a few seconds of staring before I re
alised that it was the silhouette of a man, slowly making his way along the farmer’s track. I waited a few seconds more, just to make absolutely sure that this was the man that we were waiting for, and not some random drunk local who was trying to find his way home.
Without removing the binoculars from my face, I began to relay the information to Jameson, hoping that he would pick up his set and tune them in to the area that I was focused on.
“I have a possible, Robert. Coming in from the east. Just passing where the field track meets the road, now. Have you got him?”
I had to wait two or three seconds before I finally got a response.
“Yep. Got him, Alf.”
We sat there in silence for a minute or two, just watching the figure as he nervously approached the building, frequently twisting his body round to check who or what was following him. I tried to make out if it was Joseph or not, but I couldn’t quite tell, the shadows that he created throwing me off just enough that his identity remained hidden.
After about two minutes of just watching the man, he reached the ruined cottage, making his way through the wall, where a gate should have been, before barging into the front door and disappearing inside, throwing the door back into its hole as he did so.
That was that then. There was no more need for the binoculars for now, at least not for Robert.
“Right then,” he said, suddenly filled with confidence, “these are for you.” He handed the binoculars to me ceremonially, before rummaging around in his pocket for the pistol and the spare magazines that had been supplied courtesy of our sneaking Frenchman, Louis.
He couldn’t risk going into the building armed, as he was meant to be a hapless officer on the run, with no contacts to get him out other than Joseph. He needed to go in unarmed, something that would actually more likely keep him alive than end up with him being killed.
“You sure you’re ready, Robert? After this there is no going back, you know that, don’t you?”
He stared at me dead in the eye for a few seconds before his face erupted into a smile.
“I know, Alf. Don’t worry, you’ve taught me a lot already.”
“See you in a minute, then.”
“Yeah, see you.”
With that, he turned on his heel, and began to skirt down the valley towards the house. I pulled my binoculars up to my eyes once again, trying my very best to ignore the headache that now threatened to scream down the hill to the figure in the cottage.
I watched him as he seemed to dance through the shrubbery, avoiding all the rabbit holes that populated this particular bit of the country. As he got closer to the end of the shrubbery, within spitting distance of the road, he disappeared, doing exactly as he was told and lying down on his stomach, until he saw the light flick on in the window.
As we all waited for the light to flick on, I suddenly felt very alone. Louis was down there somewhere in the darkness, so was Jameson, but I couldn’t help but feel, on the top of that hill, that I was exposed, I was vulnerable, I was, in fact, lonely.
I realised that over the last few weeks, particularly the prior twenty-four hours, Jameson and I had become incredibly close, so much so that I felt like I had lost a part of myself when he wasn’t next to me anymore.
I had grown so used to his company that now, in spite of myself and everything that I was telling myself about the mission, I didn’t want him to die.
12
We all waited for a few more seconds, each one of us panicking a little more as the seconds ticked by.
I had packed away the few belongings that I had. The binoculars were now buried in a shallow grave at my feet, the two pistols tucked away in the waistband of my trousers, the spare magazines loosely in my pockets.
Now all I was waiting for was the signal.
As soon as I thought for the hundredth time that we had been set up, and the figure must have been the farmer who still lives there somehow, the light in the upstairs window flicked on, and glowed for a second or two.
No one moved in the time immediately after the lamp coming on, but after a while, something stirred within me, telling me to get down there as quickly as possible.
Pulling one of the pistols from the leather belt around my waist, I clasped both my hands around it, letting it swing gently around my knees as I half-crouched, half-stumbled down the slope and towards the building.
I kept my head down as much as possible, trying to spot the roots that would trip me over and the rabbit holes that would gobble me up and send the whole operation into a tailspin. Every now and then, I risked looking up, just double checking to make sure that there wasn’t a platoon from the Wehrmacht waiting at the bottom of the hill, all rifles waving and menacing fingers around triggers.
As I weaved my way down the hill, I hoped that Jameson was doing what he was meant to be doing, running towards the building to meet up with the figure. I had sudden and very realistic hallucinations that he had somehow knocked himself out on the way down the hill and had missed the signal, or that he had simply fallen asleep out of all the unfamiliar exhaustion that he was putting his body through.
I tried to put it all from my mind, deciding that there was no way that I would know until I made it to the bottom of the hill myself, whereupon I would sort out the situation as best as I could if it came to it. It never did anyone any harm by running through every single eventuality of a scenario, shortly before becoming engaged in it oneself.
However, as it was slowing me up somewhat, distracting me from picking out the rabbit warrens and brambles, I decided it was for the best to forget about it for now. The only thing that I could focus on was staying on my feet.
I wondered if Louis had been able to see the two of us, dancing our way down the hill, arms flailing and waving in an attempt to keep our balance. If he could see me, then I assumed he was having a jolly good laugh at me, as I looked like a new born calf that was struggling to find its feet.
I looked up and to my left, hoping that I would catch a glimpse of him beaming in the woodland, but I could see nothing, which, in some ways was good, I just longed to have some way of confirming that he was in the right position.
Feeling very pleased with myself and what I had accomplished, I threw myself down into the ground, hard, landing nicely into a thicket of brambles and weeds. The brambles began to pinch at my skin, and hook itself onto my clothes, which I would simply have to ignore if I was to succeed. There was no point in wriggling around trying to pull out one bramble from your arm, only for one to pierce your buttock, especially because the amount of noise you could generate would be enough to alert the whole village to your whereabouts.
This was all about remaining unseen until the vital moment, which meant taking a little bit of a scratch from the brambles in order to make sure I stayed under cover.
I panted and dribbled as I lay in the undergrowth, staring up at my target building, this time with no need for the use of the binoculars. It was bigger than I thought it would look this close up, with three reasonable sized windows upstairs, two downstairs and an old, battered front door that didn’t look as though it was able to fit in its frame properly.
I was right, all the windows were still remarkably intact, although they all looked incredibly fragile and ready to give out if someone was to cough in their general direction.
The window on the left-hand corner of the upstairs was the room that had the light on, and I could tell that the lamp was in the far corner of the room, with an ivory coloured net curtain draping from the window, presumably to keep the light in and prying eyes out. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t help but think that Joseph had sent people to die here before, it all seemed so well thought out.
As I began to relax a little bit more, my body sinking further into the brambles with every exhale of breath I, as well as the surrounding area was suddenly plunged into a darkness, as the lamp in the window was suddenly extinguished, nothing to give any kind of light, except for the few stars that winke
d at me from between the clouds.
I craned my neck upwards to look to the sky for a few moments, marvelling at how quickly the molten lava of the sunset morphed into the sobering blackness that it had now become. The clouds rolled overhead creating a starless, moonless canvas above me, the silvery light of the moon trying earnestly to peek out from the edges of the wispy clouds, but to no avail.
There was nothing now, except a perfect blackness, that begun to close in around me the longer that I sat there, as if I was trapped in some sort of box, with no way of finding a way out or being rescued from it. As I began to become more uncomfortable with the suffocating lack of light, my leg began bouncing up and down as I lay on my stomach, out of a nervous nausea that washed over me, but also down to a desire to keep the blood in my limbs moving, in case I had to make a run for it.
I imagined what it must have been like in that house for Joseph, now plunged into a brilliant darkness as black as the soul of the devil himself. I wondered whether or not he would be terrified right now, or if the adrenaline that I knew he housed somewhere in his body was working its magic and keeping everything in order.
I admired him, the more that I thought about it, as I wasn’t too sure that I would have stepped out of my comfort zone as far as he had done, especially if it could’ve ended up with me being killed brutally.
I kept my gaze fixed firmly on the window from where the glow of the lamp had emanated from a few seconds before, and I was certain that I saw the ivory curtain twitch gently as someone pulled at its corner, to look back down the track, in the direction that he had just come.
I suddenly felt very uneasy as I recalled the number of times he had glanced over his shoulder on the approach, and now here he was, with his passenger in tow, still stealing a look back down the road. I wondered if he had been talking to anyone behind him, and that I had missed them in the dark because of my obsession with the figure, or maybe they had crashed through the trees on the other side of the path. There was even a possibility that there was an entire garrison a little further down the road, and the figure was merely waiting for them, before guiding Jameson out to meet them.