The Dearest and the Best

by Leslie Thomas

  Harry was with a group of twenty-five sailors under the charge of a captain. The orders were recited to him and embedded in his mind. ‘Sub-Lieutenant Lovatt will act separately, individually, from the squad as a whole, unless ordered to do otherwise by the officer-in-command. Your function, as one familiar with the ship we are to board, is to act as guide, interpreter, and, if necessary, intermediary. Should the officer-in-command be put out of action then you will take charge. The officer-in-command has sole discretion in the minute-to-minute running of the operation, including the decision to open fire. The priority, on boarding the vessel, must be to prevent any attempt by its crew at scuttling the ship. It is probable that charges may have already been prepared with this in mind, or they may attempt it by opening the sea-cocks. On the other hand every matelot may come forward and shake hands. Welcome them to our side for the rest of the war. Let’s hope they do. But don’t count on it.’

  They had been taken in trucks to points in the dockyard, behind naval stores and other buildings. The main road was blocked to all but naval traffic prosaically by two Devon constables, with white gloves so that their upraised hands could be seen in the dark.

  The rain had eased now and the moon had appeared between large ragged clouds spread like a map across the western sky. There remained a sulky wind pushing across the blacked-out harbour. Once they had left the trucks the sailors and marines advanced to their positions in long, shuffling single files. By midnight all was ready.

  Harry stood, face blackened, waiting in the shadow of a harbour office, the men stretched along the wall like loiterers, their features smeared, their eyes moving visibly like those of negroes. He felt himself become rigid with apprehension. To his left was the set, oily face of the senior officer, Captain Furness. His own face felt sticky under its smeared mask. Furness looked at his watch. ‘Right,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s get on with the business. Good luck. Let’s hope we’re in for a quiet night.’

  The operation was staggered, a few minutes elapsing between the action against each of the five French ships in the port. As they moved forward Harry was astonished to see French sailors, many in their underwear, some wearing pyjamas, already being trooped down the gangway of a vessel tied to the jetty. They came, like a silent farce, down the sloping chute and lined up obediently but ignominiously on the quayside, while British marines, with fixed bayonets, herded them with the efficiency of sheepdogs.

  Harry’s unit were to embark in two naval launches, for the Arromanches was anchored offshore. As they went down the chaffed old steps to board them a thin pink firework sizzled into the dark night above the harbour. It exploded in a fairy-like shower.

  ‘Wonder what that means?’ droned Captain Furness. ‘It’s not one of ours. French, I expect, being pink.’

  The two deep-throated boats turned out into the choppy harbour. Harry, standing in the bow alongside the helmsman, saw the familiar shape of Arromanches fill out ahead of them. His throat was like lead. She was black and hushed. ‘She’s shut the door,’ mentioned Furness quietly. There was no ladder down the flank of the destroyer. The boats bumped alongside and from each one a sailor threw a hooked line on to the destroyer’s rail and like a man in a circus clambered up the flank. Quickly there were four rope ladders thrown down to the boats and the sailors and marines began to climb. Furness and Harry reached the deck first and were briskly joined by the marine sergeant from the second boat. ‘All aboard, sir,’ reported the sergeant, saluting.

  ‘So far so good,’ said Furness quietly. ‘Get your chaps into position, sergeant. We’ll go and see who is at home.’ He moved towards the bridge with Harry close behind and after him four sailors with rifles. He saw Furness check that his revolver was loose in its holster and he made the same nervous movement. He was conscious of the breathing of the men close behind.

  They went swiftly to the bridge, where the door was opened courteously, as though by a butler, and standing there was a young Frenchman. Harry recognized him at once, Clovis. Harry knew what he had to do. He stepped forward. ‘Loup de Mer,’ smiled Clovis before the Englishman had a chance to frame his words. ‘So you have come back.’

  ‘Please take us to the captain,’ said Harry forcing his voice to steadiness.

  ‘Of course,’ said the young Frenchman. He leaned briefly and confidingly forward for a moment and touched his upper lip. ‘You will see I have grown a moustache, a little piece of dog, you would say.’

  ‘Yes, Clovis,’ said Harry. It was almost a plea for reason. ‘Captain Furness would like to see your commander.’

  The young Frenchman saluted like an actor. ‘He is expecting you.’

  ‘Thanks, Clovis,’ said Harry. Relief began seeping through him. It was going to be all right. Clovis turned smartly and went with short, precise steps along the deck and through the companionway. He stopped at what Harry remembered as the captain’s door and tapped smartly, then opened without waiting for an answer.

  ‘Sir,’ said Clovis in English, ‘the British have come.’

  Captain Furness moved forward firmly and saluted. The French commander, pale-faced, responded. Harry did not recognize him. ‘Sir,’ said Furness at almost a whisper, ‘I have orders to take over this ship. I hope that there will be no resistance. Our hope is that we can go on fighting together against the Germans who have occupied your homeland.’

  It was a succinct, prepared speech. The Frenchman smile wanly. ‘I wish, captain,’ he said in slow English, ‘that our life was so simple. Unfortunately it is not. My orders are to scuttle this ship. The charges are about to be exploded.’

  Furness whirled about. ‘Stay here!’ he ordered two of the sailors. ‘Lovatt come with me!’ Followed by the other two sailors they rushed down the companionway and along the steel deck. Astonished, they saw that the French crew were lined up on the far side of the ship, at their lifeboat stations, silent company, staring straight ahead towards the sea, and beyond that France. A group of marines stood guarding the with embarrassed expressions. ‘Sergeant!’ shouted Furness. ‘Sergeant! Where are you?’

  Two marines appeared from a door. ‘He’s below, sir,’ said one. ‘I think he’s just nabbed the Frog in time.’

  They almost fell down the ladder and then down another until they clattered on to the engine-room deck. Marines were flattened like shadows along the walls of the companionway. Furness pushed by and Harry followed closely. They stepped through the hatch into the engine room and saw, at the distant end, the marine sergeant and two men crouched against the machinery. The officers slipped forward. The sergeant scarcely looked up. ‘We’ve accounted for two officers, sir,’ he said. ‘They gave up without firing the charges. But there’s another one, hiding behind the bulkhead down there, and he says he’s not coming out. He’s going to blow his hole in the side of the ship. I can’t understand half what he’s saying, but that’s the gist of it.’

  ‘The next bulkhead?’ asked Furness.

  ‘That’s right, sir. If he’d only poke his head out I could get a shot at him. He’s still got to get to the firing pin. That’s down there on the right, sir, behind that winch. It’s out of his reach just now. He took cover when we turned up. He’d get to it, easy, though, just a quick dash or even on his hands and knees. It’s no distance. Only a few yards.’

  Furness said: ‘We’ve got to get him into the open.’ He glanced at Harry. ‘This is where you do your stuff, sub-lieutenant. You talk to him.’

  Harry felt his face twitch under the black coating. ‘Yes, sir,’ he muttered. The words sounded idiotic as he called them. ‘’Allo, ’allo. This is Sub-lieutenant Lovatt. I was with this ship. Who is that?’

  ‘Lovatt?’ returned the voice echoing through the metal room. ‘It is you? This is René le Carré.’

  Harry pictured him as he had been once, pink-faced, rounded, joking. ‘René,’ he called, ‘you must come out. You are our friend. My friend.’

  ‘I have orders to explode these charges.’ A pause. ‘How are you, Loup de Mer?
’

  ‘René, come on out, will you? Please, for God’s sake. We are British and you are French. We are allies. You will be doing this for the Germans.’

  ‘My orders are first,’ the voice called back flatly. ‘Your country has betrayed France. You left us. You will not have this ship.’

  ‘René –’ began Harry again.

  Furness nudged him. ‘Go and get him,’ he whispered tersely. ‘We’ll cover you. Just get him.’

  Harry caught his breath. ‘Jesus,’ he breathed. ‘Yes . . . all right, sir.’ He rose from his cover and moved a pace forward. Immediately the voice sounded eerily ahead. ‘Stay, Loup de Mer. I see you and I can kill you. I do not want to do this. Stay there.’

  Trembling, Harry edged to one side but took another pace. He was almost surprised to find that his revolver was cocked in his hand. ‘Still, I see you,’ called René. There was a sob in his voice. ‘Still I can kill you, my friend.’

  Sweat was running channels down Harry’s blackened face. He could feel his tongue shaking as he licked his lips. ‘René,’ he said. It sounded in the steel compartment like a descant. ‘You are a Frenchman – you must not help the Nazis.’ He lied desperately. ‘The others have surrendered. The captain of this ship has surrendered. You must come out and be with us.’ In his own ears his diligent footsteps sounded like hammer blows. He had gone four paces now, a third of the way across the space to the Frenchman’s hiding-place. ‘René . . .’ he said, grotesquely conversational, ‘René . . . would your father let you do this . . . for the bloody Boche?’

  When the young Frenchman came into the open it was almost casually. His hands went above his head and he edged halfway into the exposed space. Relief flooded through Harry. ‘Loup de Mer,’ smiled René, ‘it is good to see you.’

  ‘He has a weapon,’ came the sergeant’s voice from behind Harry. ‘Tell him to throw it into the open.’

  There was no time to deliver the order, for René, now upright and two slow paces from his hiding-place, abruptly made a dive forward to where the trigger of the charge was hidden. The marine sergeant was a second quicker. He fired a burst from his tommy-gun, the deafening shots resounding in the chamber. Harry threw himself flat but not before he saw René flung back against the bulkhead with the force of the bullets that hit him in the neck. He lay still, hung across the winch, like a prisoner on the execution block. ‘Good shooting, sergeant,’ Harry heard Furness say quietly. Harry began to cry. He could not stop himself.

  Twenty-four hours later the naval bus taking Harry and the other junior officers back to Portsmouth stopped at the Binford crossroads and he got off and started to walk in the deep darkness towards his home. Barraclough had also died. So had three others, French and British. Barraclough had been struck by a stray British bullet during a fracas at the quayside. The other three deaths, two British, an officer and an able seaman, and one French, occurred aboard the great submarine Surcouf.

  It was a lonely walk for Harry. The commonplace war deaths haunted him. The trees at the roadside seemed lurking with shadows. An edgy wind moved them to whisper and once an alarmed rabbit sprang from the hedge, leaving the man just as startled. He stood white-eyed and shaking. It was like it had been when he was a boy walking at night, crowded with the unadmitted fears of concealed fiends. Once, when he was in the boy scouts, he had run terrified for two miles and slammed the kitchen door of his father’s house, because a drowsy tramp had clattered from the trees at the side of the void road.

  In the returning bus they had silently passed round a bottle of rum and it had done little to warm or cheer them. But he was glad of it now. He had taken a deep drink from the bottle before leaving the bus and he could feel it working within him. A weariness had settled in his body which added to his lack of courage. He wanted to go home and get into his own bed.

  He had walked another hundred yards and had turned a bend in the road when something tumbled out of the hedge to his left. He was so startled he jumped away. A short figure righted itself in the road and stared towards him. For a moment Harry thought it might be a German parachutist. Then a voice said in the dimness: ‘’S all right. It’s me.’ It was Willy Cubbins. ‘Hello, Mr Lovatt,’ said the boy. ‘Fancy you being out this time of night.’

  Harry recovered. ‘What are you doing out is more like it?’ he asked. ‘It’s two in the morning.’

  They began to walk along together. Had they met by daylight there would have been no more than a nod and a greeting between them. Now, at night, they naturally became companions, trudging towards the village. They had never had a conversation before.

  ‘I been for a bit of a walk,’ said Willy. ‘Where you been, Mr Lovatt?’

  Harry felt momentarily tempted to tell him. Instead he said, ‘Just to Plymouth.’

  ‘Plymouth?’ echoed the boy as if it were Samarkand. ‘Is it nice?’

  ‘Not very,’ said Harry. They were pacing step to step, incongruous figures from different lives, each now with his hands in his pockets. ‘It’s a bit late for going for a walk, isn’t it?’

  Willy grunted. ‘I do sometimes, to tire myself out, see.’ He looked sideways in the dark. ‘I sleep-walk, see. Did your dad tell you?’

  ‘No,’ answered Harry, surprised. ‘He didn’t mention it.’

  ‘’Ee’s a good bloke,’ said Willy. ‘But I do. I used to wear a cow-bell on my leg. But now I go for walks ’cos you feel bloody silly with a cow-bell. I go for miles sometimes at night. I look out for Germans, so I reckon I’m sort of on patrol.’

  They walked along the road, the great-legged trees along its flanks standing in the dark. Eventually Harry said: ‘You’re the last of the London evacuees left, aren’t you?’

  ‘Last one,’ confirmed Willy. ‘They even took Eva back now. She was my sister, or we made out she was.’

  Harry said: ‘How do you mean, you made out she was?’

  The boy gave a half-grunt, half-laugh. ‘Well, when we was coming ’ere in the buses from London, the day after the war started off, Eva was sitting next to me and we changed her label, you know they put a label on you like a parcel, and made out she was my sister.’

  Slowly Harry said: ‘And nobody found out?’

  ‘No. We never told nobody, never. It don’t matter now she’s gone away. We just ’tended we was brother and sister and when we got to Binford they kept us together.’

  ‘You just liked each other,’ said Harry. ‘How old was Eva?’

  ‘Eleven. She was twelve when she was ’ere. We used to sleep in the same room at the farm and if she was scared she used to come into my bed. I’m sorry she’s gone back.’

  They were nearing the village now. Willy Cubbins paused because he was taking the turning to the Lampards’ house.

  ‘Your parents haven’t come for you, have they?’ asked Harry. He knew that they had not.

  The boy sniffed. ‘My old man came back a few weeks ago,’ he said. ‘Not for me, just to nick some meat for the black market. ‘Ee was the bloke with the tart what your father and the others caught in the road-block, in the barbed wire. I saw ’is mug in the torchlight, so I ’id. I don’t know who the tart was. She weren’t my mum.’

  The boy said good night and began to walk down the lane, dark as a tunnel, towards John Lampard’s house.

  ‘Good night, Willy,’ Harry called after him.

  ‘Good night, Mr Lovatt,’ came back the whisper.

  Harry continued towards the village.

  It was still half a mile when he saw a cat sitting on a gate, watching the ground for field mice. It was Millie and James’s cat, Bellows, so called for its habit of puffing out its chest. Harry turned off the road and approached it.

  ‘Bellows,’ he said. ‘It’s me, Harry.’

  The tabby glanced up, gave a single purr of recognition and continued to peruse the ground. Harry, all at once, wondered if he dared to disturb Millie. Perhaps she would give him a cup of tea. As much as he wanted to be home, the remaining walk seemed a fair way an
d he knew that there would be nothing, nobody awake there; he would, after all that had happened to him, just go silently to his single bed.

  Hesitating, he opened the gate and the cat swung with it, balancing calmly until he closed it again: ‘I wish I could do things as easily as that,’ said Harry. The house was outlined ahead, the low, frowning roof topped with a chimney like a jaunty hat. He walked across the dim and dewy lawn to the kitchen door. After another pause he knocked. There was no response. He told himself he would permit himself another firmer knock before going away. He did so, three times. As he waited he suddenly wondered what would happen if James were there. It was ridiculous to worry like that. After all, they were all one family. Millie was his sister-in-law, more like a sister for they had known each other since childhood.

  He heard her voice through the door: ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’

  ‘Millie, it’s all right. It’s me, Harry.’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Yes, me. Harry.’

  The bolts were pulled on the far side of the old wood and the door swung open. She stood there in a dark dressing-gown, her face and neck showing white. In her hand was a hammer. ‘Please don’t use that,’ nodded Harry. ‘I’ve had enough bloody battering for one week.’

  They sat on either side of the empty fireplace, in the two aged armchairs that had originally been in his parents’ house. Her deep blue dressing-gown was folded about her, her hair was pinned up, something he had never seen before.