Return to the Field

by Return to the Field (retail) (epub)

He manoeuvred his gammy leg out of the bedclothes, slid himself out with all his weight on the good one. He was wearing underpants, he noticed, and one sock. His shirt and black tie were over the back of a chair beside a writing-table. It was a hotel room. Memory beginning to trickle back: even before he got close enough to the door to read the notice – which was headed Grosvenor Hotel and gave instructions regarding blackout regulations and air-raid precautions, the locations of hydrants and stirrup-pumps, routes to shelter in the basement, et cetera.

  Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria. Because he’d stored his luggage in the Left Luggage on this station, on arrival from Newhaven yesterday; he’d gone there from Pompey to collect gear he’d left there and tried unsuccessfully to have sent along to him before. And Joan was using her brother’s flat in Ebury Mews, which was close by and where she’d had the taxi take them. She’d been keen on his spending the night there with her. He remembered that. Also that Billy Big-Arse had been sent home hours before – soon after they’d finished supper. In any case he hadn’t been enjoying the evening very much. When Ben had first met Joan, a bloody age ago, Billy had represented himself to him as her fiancé, and it was a fact that her brother Gareth, the earl, had been trying to persuade her to accept him. Billy had money, apparently: and Joan had been acquiring a bit of a reputation, in the circle in which they moved – or in Billy’s case, floundered. It was surprising that he was still around, still taking punishment; and not in Italy where brother Gareth was – seeing that they were in the same regiment.

  Extraordinary, though. Station hotels. Here now in this one solo, celibate – when he hadn’t exactly been forced to it – and two years ago the Charing Cross Hotel, with Rosie. In every way as innocent and pure as the driven snow, nothing in any way premeditated or even thought of, but as it had turned out, far from celibate. On the night of the day they’d first met: she’d had a husband shot down and killed, and he’d had the news that he was getting back to sea. They’d met in the SOE building in Baker Street, where she’d been for an interview and SOE had turned her down – on grounds of being emotionally unstable, or some such – so she’d had that on her mind too; they’d gone out to have a drink together, had ended up having practically everything there was to drink in London, then blundering into the Charing Cross Hotel where there’d been only one single room available and he was alleged to have promised to sleep in the bath.

  It was a memory he treasured, anyway. Really treasured. He thought Rosie did now, too.

  There was a telephone beside this bed, he saw. He went to it, and rang down to the hall porter.

  ‘I don’t know what the room number is but my name’s Quarry—’

  ‘Ah, the Australian gentleman. Room one-three-nine, sir. Like your bags sent up, I dare say?’

  ‘You a mind-reader?’

  ‘You left instructions with the night porter, sir, and he took the ticket round first thing. I didn’t send ’em up before on account of the “Do Not Disturb” notice on your door… Will you be wanting breakfast?’

  ‘Yes. Definitely. But what about paying Left Luggage?’

  ‘You left ample funds, sir, if you remember. I’ll send the bags up right away.’

  Waiting for them to arrive – a page-boy brought them – he ran a bath. Then, lying back in the hot water, remembered more.

  Joan’s assumption that he and Rosie had broken up, for instance: because she wasn’t with him and he’d been drinking on his own, she’d taken it for granted that Rosie’d chucked him.

  ‘I wondered what you could possibly see in her, anyway!’

  He’d countered with something like, ‘Because the only time you ever saw her you were heavily involved with a shit by name of Furneaux.’

  In Sussex – about six months ago. A country hotel that had weekend dances and where they weren’t too particular about who shared rooms with whom. Furneaux, with whom she’d been disporting herself that night, was an MTB man. She’d protested, ‘Mike’s no shit, Ben. Rather a pet, actually. Not that there was ever anything serious—’

  ‘Old Bob was entitled to take it seriously.’

  ‘Well – Bob—’

  ‘Good mate of mine and a hell of a nice guy.’

  ‘Salt of the earth. Absolutely. Just happens to be incredibly dull. You’re the man I should have married, Ben. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘You’d have found me dull—’

  ‘Oh, cast your mind back!’

  ‘After a while, you would have. We weren’t married, it couldn’t have been more different.’

  ‘Exciting, is what it was. You know it, too!’

  ‘Suppose it was.’ It had been. ‘But I tell you – if I’d been Bob, the hell with divorce, I’d have bloody shot you.’

  ‘When we were up in Suffolk – wasn’t that a lovely time?’

  ‘Did have our moments.’

  ‘Didn’t we. Ben, I’d have married you like a shot!’

  In the bath – turning off the hot tap with his toes – the dialogue was playing like a record in his memory. Maybe improvising a little here and there: but this had been the shape and tenor of it… Challenging her, he remembered, with: ‘Are we talking God’s own truth tonight, Joan – no mincing words?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Right. Well – listen… It was terrific. Not denying that for a moment. Bloody marvellous. But I didn’t ever think about marriage. No – untrue – I did think about it, because you talked about it – but I didn’t ever contemplate it – didn’t pretend I had any ideas in that direction either – did I?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Because I wouldn’t have bet a penny on you sticking to the bloody rules. And what you’ve done to old Bob proves I was right. I’m going to marry Rosie – you’d better know that.’

  ‘Except she doesn’t seem to be around?’

  ‘At the moment, not. Can’t tell you where she is, either.’

  ‘I bet you can’t!’

  Looking at her. The fact being he couldn’t tell her because – it was something one didn’t talk about. Nobody was in SOE, if you asked one of them they wouldn’t know what the letters stood for. He shook his head: ‘In any case, Joan, honey—’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say. You wouldn’t marry me, not if you were even more plastered than you are, you sod— you’re in Portsmouth now, did you say?’

  ‘At the moment. Won’t be for much longer.’

  ‘Where are they sending you?’

  ‘Can’t tell you. Sorry.’

  ‘You were never mean to me before, Ben.’

  ‘Not being mean. Damn it…’

  ‘All right. No, you aren’t. Actually that’s the last thing I’d—’

  ‘Not to you, anyway.’

  ‘Still comes down to the fact I can’t get in touch with you. If I wanted to ask you to my wedding, for instance?’

  ‘To old Billy? Well – I suppose you could do worse.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Oh. I don’t know…’

  ‘I’ll give you all my numbers. So when you do see the light – or she gives you your marching orders…’ She cocked an ear to the music – they were playing ‘Guilty’. ‘Think you could dance?’

  ‘With a stick?’

  ‘Ben, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘So am I. Frustrating.’

  – maybe I’m wrong – Loving you like I do-oo…

  ‘I never enjoyed dancing with anyone nearly as much as with you, Ben.’

  He thought of Furneaux again: the pair of them on that dance-floor in the place in Sussex, with a room booked for the night and old Bob thinking she was miles away. It had been sheer bad luck running into them, that far from Newhaven. Nothing serious, she’d just told him: so what had it been, just fun and games? Nodding to himself: exactly that. As it had been with him, too. She’d caught a waiter’s eye, was holding the empty bottle up: singing under her breath: ‘– then I’m guilty – Guilty of loving you…’ Eye to eye with him, then: ‘That’s a fact too, as it
happens.’

  He’d nodded to the waiter. Back to Joan. ‘Listen. We had a hell of a lot of fun. It’s also a fact you’re about the loveliest-looking sheila I ever set eyes on. Let alone – you know—’

  ‘Yes. Oh, yes. Often think of it, matter of fact. Cigarette?’

  ‘Lovely memories. Yes – thanks. But listen – you’re beautiful, and so sexy there ought to be another word for it, and – fun, and – all of that. I was sort of gone on you, I admit it. But if we’d married I’d have finished up in old Bob’s shoes.’

  ‘You would not, Ben! That’s the whole damn point!’

  ‘Might’ve made three years instead of two, but—’

  ‘Ben – however you thought then or think about it now, here’s the truth. I was thinking about getting married and wanting to be married and it was all because of you. You had to be so bloody careful of yourself though, didn’t you, little old Ben mustn’t risk getting his bloody feelings hurt—’

  ‘Here comes the wine.’

  It took a long minute or two, getting it uncorked and poured.

  ‘Thank you.’ Sniffing at it, wrinkling her nose. ‘Worse than the last one.’

  ‘Same label. Different bathtub, maybe. Joan – there could be something in what you were saying then—’

  ‘My absolute belief is if you’d asked me to marry you when we were up there – I say this in all sincerity, Ben – so there’d have been no Bob, no divorce, no what’s her name…’

  ‘Rosie, d’you mean?’

  Rosie, who was back in France. He came out of the steamy bathroom, back into room 139 of this Grosvenor Hotel: remembering that he had got a bit mean with her at that point. And how it had come in waves – happy enough when he was letting her talk as if they were reunited lovers, less so when it was things as they actually were, such as the fact that he was going to marry Rosie. But he’d felt sad, too, that she was hurt, and so sure – genuinely, it seemed – that he and she would have made it.

  Then the taxi, he remembered, arriving at Ebury Mews. Her brother Gareth’s flat, she’d brought him to; in Gareth’s absence she had the use of it.

  ‘Pay the man, will you, Ben?’

  He’d had his wallet out, and she’d had her key in some door: he asked the driver, ‘Victoria just round the corner – right?’

  ‘Spitting distance, Guv.’

  ‘Right. So take me there, will you. Joan—’ looking round, seeing she had the door open and a light on inside – ‘Joannie, look, I’ll ring you – OK?’

  She hadn’t said a word. He’d thought of telling her he couldn’t because of his knee, but that might have made the cabbie laugh.

  Ring her now?

  The thought of his wallet made him check it was still there, in the inside pocket of his reefer. As it was, of course. Spent a bloody fortune, last night… Anyway – first-class return warrant to Portsmouth, and a card – Joan’s – on which she’d written the telephone numbers of the flat in Ebury Mews, cottage – her aunt’s – at Rodmell in Sussex, and the MTC establishment in Brighton.

  Ring her now?

  Might send her a bunch of flowers. Chances were, she’d be a little sour: especially if he woke her at this hour. Whatever hour it was… So – breakfast first, then the bill including flowers – hall porter’d handle that – then to Charing Cross for the train to Portsmouth. And ring her last thing before departure. Some such line as ‘Lovely seeing you, sorry I was a bit grogged-up, please let’s stay friends?’

  * * *

  Heading southeast from St Michel Rosie had to pass through a hamlet called Loc-Guénolé, then cross the Carhaix-Pleyben road, and after another two kilometres she’d be in Châteauneuf-du-Faou. Peucat had roughed out St Michel’s environs on the back of some medical form or other, extending it on another sketch to guide her to the Lannuzel poultry-farm, which was a kilometre or so east of Châteauneuf.

  It was a pleasure to ride without all that weight of luggage. Not to mention the transceiver, or the pistol or vast sums of money…

  She passed Loc-Guénolé almost without seeing it. Also a few farm carts, a herd of half a dozen Friesians driven by an old woman with a stick, and a gazo lorry full of rubble. Not a single Boche until she got to the main road, where she had to dismount and wait while a whole convoy passed. There were more of them about than ever, Peucat had said; a lot of such movements, too. All coastal regions were of course heavily garrisoned, especially around the U-boat bases; Brest was only about sixty kilometres away, Lorient the same, and Kernével – Doenitz’s U-boat command and communications HQ – was even closer, on the Lorient road to the east of Quimper.

  She came into Châteauneuf-du-Faou from the north, and spent some minutes pedalling around. The Hotel Belle Vue, which Peucat had mentioned as the local Boche headquarters, was clearly identifiable by the swastika banner over its front entrance. She’d had a glimpse through trees of the same foul emblem decorating the former Mairie in St Michel. Then she was passing the Belle Vue when a Boche officer came out, hurrying towards a staff car that was waiting for him and calling back in German over his shoulder to some colleague in the hotel’s entrance. A joke, perhaps: a smile lingering on his face as he turned back, glancing at Rosie as she went by, as if inviting her to share in his amusement. A soldier-driver had slid out of the car, pulling a rear door open with his left hand and saluting with the other; she rode on past it, remembering Peucat telling her over his map-drawing this morning that the commandant here was an easy-going man who tried to get on with the locals.

  She thought, So let him try. Please God, the bastard wouldn’t be here all that much longer. Invasion had to come this summer. Passing the church, which was impressive; she had a fair idea of the layout of the streets now. In case of future need… The staff car had continued straight on at the corner where she’d turned. There was a certain amount of other traffic, but not much, and it was virtually all agricultural: a gazo truck loaded with manure, a tractor with a trailer… In a shabby way, this was an attractive place, with views out to lovely countryside, the valley of the Aulne to the south of it with the river itself in giant loops and beyond that the wooded slopes of the Montagnes Noires.

  Where Guy Lannuzel’s Maquis groups hid out. And between here and there, on the edge of the Forêt de Laz, the Château Trevarez. At which she thought she might do worse than take a look before pushing on to Quimper.

  Really lovely country, with a hint of spring in the air making it feel and smell good too. Worth coming back to when it was truly French again, she thought. Bring Ben: show him the ruins of Trevarez, tell him ‘Look what I did!’

  Well – I and a few others…

  She came to the poultry-farm sooner than she’d expected: a board with a painting of a fat red hen on it, on a farm gate on her left, and a stone-built cottage set back from the road, sheds dotted over a field behind it. The track from the gate led to a barn, and there were fields on both sides, some of them recently ploughed. She dismounted, entered through a smaller gate at the side and pushed her bike up a bricked path towards the house. There was a gazo pickup truck parked at the side of the barn – from which a man emerged just as she happened to look that way again, past a corner of the house. Long-legged, and limping – a heavy enough limp for it to be noticeable even at this distance – with some heavy load balanced on his shoulder. That would be Lannuzel; Peucat had told her last night that he’d lost most of one foot in 1940 when he’d climbed out of a tank and trodden on a mine. In Peucat’s opinion he’d been lucky, not only to survive the explosion itself but also to have been invalided while the going had so to speak still been good.

  Dogs were barking somewhere up there. And the man had seen her, and stopped. Then called – having studied her for a moment, long-distance – ‘Hold on a moment.’ He went on to the truck – yelling at the dogs to shut up – dumped his burden, then came limping over to her.

  Thin. A greyhound look about him. Lame greyhound. Dark hair greying at the temples, face dark with stubble. A young,
lively face though; she’d have guessed his age as about thirty or thirty-two.

  Rather a Ben type. Even to the limp…

  ‘Help you?’

  ‘Captain Lannuzel?’

  ‘Guy Lannuzel. Rank’s useless around here, stupid hens won’t salute. How can I help you?’

  ‘I’m here to help you. Count Jules suggested I should come. Suzanne Tanguy – working for Dr Peucat, as from today.’

  Lifting his hands… ‘Says it all, doesn’t it?’

  He had a slow, slightly lop-sided smile. Hadn’t shaved for two or three days, she guessed. It was a strong face, under that camouflage; piercingly blue eyes, a firm handshake. Hard, dry hand. ‘Come along in. Brigitte will give us coffee if we’re lucky. You said “as of today” – meaning you’ve just arrived?’

  ‘Last night. After two days on this.’

  ‘So you can’t have met Count Jules yet.’

  ‘He’s away. Back today, Dr Peucat thinks, but he’d left a message that I ought to see you right away.’

  ‘Good of him.’ A nod… ‘Are you – English?’

  ‘French.’

  ‘That’s what I thought – you sound it.’

  ‘Well – since I am—’

  ‘And proud of it?’

  ‘As a matter of fact – intensely so.’

  ‘Extraordinary, isn’t it? Goes for me too, but – must be cracked, mustn’t we… Park your bike there, if you like.’

  Against the wall, between a window and the door which he now pulled open.

  ‘Brigitte! We have a visitor!’

  Gesturing to Rosie to go on in: into a warm odour of lamp-oil. Lannuzel called again, stooping through the doorway of a small front room, ‘She’s called Suzanne – the one we’ve been waiting for!’

  ‘You can stop fretting now, then.’ A girl came through, saw Rosie and put her hand out, smiling. ‘You’re very welcome, Suzanne.’

  She was taller than Rosie: and by no means fat but large-boned, wide-hipped. About Rosie’s own age. Brown hair tied back, blue eyes, features markedly similar to her husband’s. Rosie said, ‘Sorry to turn up without warning. Should have telephoned. Suzanne Tanguy, by the way: I’m a nurse, of sorts.’