by Max Hennessy
‘Where did you learn to speak French like that?’ I asked.
‘French governess, of course,’ he said. ‘All the best people have one. Didn’t you?’
‘My mother brought me up.’
He shrugged. ‘Expect that’s why you’ve got that nasty realistic attitude to life. Makes for bad temper.’ He scratched gently.
‘Fleas?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Light infantry. Skirmishing all over me.’ He glanced at his behind. The pitchfork had torn a hole in his breeches.
‘Much damage?’ I asked.
‘Fearful. In need of a tailor.’
I glanced at the door, not at all sure that light-hearted banter was the right approach to escape. As Sykes said, I had a realistic attitude to life. ‘Suppose she goes to fetch the Germans,’ I said.
‘No self-respecting Belgian would help the people who’d trampled all over her country.’
‘Suppose she’s not self-respecting? Just frightened.’
I was all for bolting but Sykes was quite confident, though he almost had to sit on me to make me stay. I was twice as surprised, therefore, when the girl returned with a long French loaf and a jug of milk.
As she sat and watched us eat, we asked her questions. It appeared we were just outside a village called Noyelles and it seemed her family had business interests in Ghent. They had manufactured sewing machines there and this was their country home, and because the Germans had taken over the business and were now using it to make machinery for the German army, they had all been forced to live there. Her father spent most of his time in Tournai where the Germans had allowed him to set up a small factory to manufacture for the German market, but he rarely visited the farm these days and with the farm workers all gone, the work had to be done by herself and her mother.
‘But now we have only two cows and one horse,’ she said. ‘So there is not a great deal to do.’
She didn’t speak English like someone who’d spent all her life working on farms and when I questioned her more closely it appeared she’d had to leave school because the building had been destroyed by shelling in the first days of the war. She looked intelligent and gentle but she seemed to suffer from no bitterness about what had happened.
‘The war will end soon,’ she said, ‘and we shall return to Ghent.’ She smiled and gestured at us. ‘You will make the war to end.’
To me, the war looked like going on for ever, but Sykes was much more of an opportunist.
‘Not while we’re here,’ he explained.
She seemed to catch the point at once, and we picked her brain on the possibility of escape for the next half-hour. But she’d spent the last three years on the farm and didn’t know much of what was going on beyond its boundaries. While we were still talking, I heard a door slam outside and a voice call.
‘Marie-Ange!’
‘Ici, Maman.’ The girl turned her head and called. ‘Je viens tout de suite!’ She scrambled to her feet. ‘It is my mother. I must go. She will not come here. She is not well and stays by the house.’
As she disappeared, Sykes burrowed back into the straw.
‘Cracking girl,’ he said.
* * *
The girl returned about an hour later, this time with slices of meat wrapped in a red and white serviette, and two or three tomatoes. It turned out that her name was Marie-Ange de Camaerts, and she had visited England as a child to see the coronation of George V with her parents and had never forgotten it.
‘All was so beautiful,’ she said ecstatically, her eyes lighting up for the first time, so that the wary uneasiness vanished. It transformed her. She had the sort of face that was solemn in repose but the smile completely changed it. Doubtless she’d been driven deep into her reserved nature by the war and the arrival of the Germans. Her adolescence had been a time of oppression, fear and anxiety, but it was obvious a much livelier individual was there beneath the shy exterior.
We began to talk of the possibilities of escape again, and she promised to help.
‘I will take you to Middelkerke,’ she promised. ‘You can perhaps then steal a boat and go to Dunkerque. I have relatives who have a house at Wilskerke where you can hide. I will go into Tournai and obtain a permit to visit them.’
‘How will we get to Middelkerke?’ Sykes asked.
‘We must walk. It will occupy two or three nights.’
‘It must be a hundred kilometres,’ I said. Thinking about my blisters, the idea shocked me.
She looked at me, her head on one side. ‘So?’ she said.
‘That’s a long way.’
‘I think perhaps,’ she said, ‘that you do not wish to escape enough.’
Chapter 9
We spent the next days listening to the rumble of battle to the west and arguing fiercely over the merits and demerits of travelling in the dark or by daylight.
Marie-Ange arrived in the barn from time to time to bring food – once a feast of cooked lamb chops and fried potatoes with a bottle of wine.
She was excited. ‘I have to get the permit,’ she said. ‘It is not easy. They do not like us to move about. But I smile a lot and they give it to me.’
She looked at me gravely, small and fragile, and I realized that under her solemn exterior there was no shortage of will.
‘When do we go?’ I asked.
‘You are in a hurry?’ she said.
‘No, no,’ I pointed out quickly. ‘But while we’re here you are in danger.’
‘I have been here for three years wanting to do something for my country,’ she said. ‘Now I do it.’
Later that day, her mother appeared in the barn, small like Marie-Ange but with the same grave manner and leaning on a stick. She accepted our greetings like a great lady and oddly she reminded me of Sykes’ mother. The De Camaerts, it appeared, were a wealthy family by Belgian standards and they were being forced to live under much harsher conditions than they had ever been used to. She said she had books in the house which we might like to read – English books which they’d had in Ghent – and Sykes offered to help her find them. Marie-Ange stayed in the barn with me and as Sykes disappeared we both became silent. The thud of the guns came plainly over the fields on the wind.
After a while she looked at me. ‘When you arrive,’ she said, ‘you do not trust me, do you?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘I do not think so. I see your face. It is much worried and you are anxious to go.’
She had keener eyes than I’d realized. ‘Well, I’m not now, Marie-Ange,’ I said stoutly. ‘I think – I – well, I think you’re pretty hot stuff.’
‘Hot stuff!’ She frowned. ‘What is “hot stuff”? Something to eat?’
I grinned. ‘No. It’s slang. Argot. It means – well, it means you’re awfully good – and awfully pretty, too! We use it about our aeroplanes or anything we think is pretty good.’
She stared at me gravely for a moment, then she smiled slowly. I’d already decided that the moments when she smiled were the highlights of the day in the barn.
‘The English are very funny,’ she said. ‘When something is good you say it is awfully pretty and when it is bad you say it is pretty awful. It is very difficult to understand.’
* * *
The following day, we heard the sound of a motor lorry approaching and, peering through the cracks in the timbers of the barn, we saw spiked helmets and dived for the back of the pile of straw to burrow down close to the boards. After a while, we heard the barn door open and German voices and I caught the faint whiff of cigars. The Germans were moving the pile of straw but they were careless and didn’t bother much beyond the front, and after a while the door creaked again and we heard the lorry moving away. Soon afterwards Marie-Ange called softly and as I pushed my head up I saw Sykes also emerging, ludicrously crowned with straw. Marie-Ange’s face creased with laughter, her eyes merry in a way I had never seen before.
‘They go,’ she said. ‘They look for you but I do not think they
expect to find you. They think you try to reach the Dutch frontier.’ She paused, and her face became grave again. ‘I have obtain hats for you,’ she said. ‘And old coats. Perhaps you must wear your uniforms underneath, otherwise they might shoot you as spies.’
‘I’d make a fine spy,’ I said. ‘I can’t even speak French.’
‘We will go soon’ – she paused – ‘but first I think you will perhaps like to have the bath. I have make the fire hot and there is much water awaiting you.’
Sykes went first and I sat by the door of the barn with Marie-Ange, watching the road.
‘It will be good to go back to England,’ I said.
She sighed. ‘I have often want to go back there,’ she agreed. ‘I much liked England. It is so much more grand and more beautiful than Belgium. What is it like where you live?’
‘Flat,’ I said. ‘Like here. But nearer the sea. You can sail on the rivers and there are lots of birds.’
She looked at me solemnly. ‘Perhaps soon you will see it again.’
‘I hope so.’
‘I have obtain thick socks and stout shoes for you. I think they will fit. I have write to my father.’
‘You were taking a risk.’
‘Oui,’ she said calmly. ‘C’est vrai.’
‘Do you realize what the penalties are?’
‘Oui. Certainement.’
‘It’s dangerous.’
‘So is to ride on a train, if one is not careful.’
I explained how the Germans had shot Nurse Cavell, the English nurse in Brussels whom they’d found helping British refugees to escape. She’d heard of her but she was unmoved.
‘I wouldn’t want that to happen,’ I said and she gave a little laugh.
‘Would you be sad if they shoot me?’
‘Yes, I would.’
The laugh died and she looked at me with a quizzical expression. ‘I do not believe you,’ she said.
‘It’s true.’
‘Pourquoi? Because I helped you?’
‘Yes. That. And – well’ – it was hard to explain and had something to do with being nineteen and with the way she managed to speak English – ‘not just because of that,’ I ended lamely.
She studied me for a long moment then she leaned forward and gave me a little peck on the cheek. I looked at her quickly and she explained. ‘It does not mean anything,’ she said. ‘It is because I am eighteen now and I have not seen many young men except Germans.’
There was an awkward pause then she became brisk and business-like again.
‘I do not say why I want the shoes,’ she went on, ‘but my father guesses, I think. They come to the post office this morning. I will bring them. I hope the sizes are right.’
‘Mine are a bit on the big side,’ I said. ‘At school they used to say I was good at boxing because I was hard to knock down. There was so much of me along the floor.’
She laughed, her eyes lighting up.
‘You look much prettier when you laugh,’ I said in a strangled voice.
The smile died at once and she looked at me in a sort of mock gravity. ‘I do not laugh much in the last three years,’ she said.
‘Perhaps I should make some funny faces,’ I suggested.
I made one for her and she fell back in the straw, yelping with glee. When she sat up again, there was straw in her hair and she was still shaking.
‘It is not the surprise that the Germans are frighten of the English fliers,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you make funny faces in the air at them.’
It was an idea that hadn’t occurred to me, though there’d been a few times when my guns had jammed and it had been all I could do.
She was silent for a moment. ‘I am sorry you will go,’ she said after a while. ‘There are no young people here for a long time.’
‘You haven’t a boy friend?’
She studied her feet, frowning a little as she did so. ‘There is a boy. A long time ago. In Ghent. He is a neighbour. He go into the army. I do not see him since. I do not know whether he is alive now.’
‘What was his name?’
She studied her feet a moment longer then she looked up and gave me a wide, mischievous smile. ‘It is a long name. It will make you to laugh. It is Théophile Hyppolite Hyacinthe d’Ydewalle. He is a nice boy but that is all.’
I could see that with a name like that there might be difficulties.
‘He’ll come back after the war,’ I said.
Her smile became sad. ‘I think not,’ she said, and I wondered if he’d been killed by the Germans.
She was silent for a while then she went on gravely.
‘Monsieur le Major? Is he marry?’
‘Affiancé. Avec une de mes amis.’
She stared at me. ‘Et vous? You have much girl friends?’
‘No. None.’
‘But surely they admire you? Vous êtes très bien décoré.’ She touched the ribbons under my wings. ‘I think much girls will be proud to be with you.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ I said. ‘Mostly they behave as if I’d got the plague.’
She looked straight at me. ‘I would be proud,’ she said.
* * *
In the next few days, I saw a lot of Marie-Ange as we made the final preparations for departure. The shoes she’d obtained for me were, inevitably, too small, but she took them back to the village and managed to exchange them with an elderly farm labourer she knew. Since they were new and of far better quality than the ugly old boots she got in exchange, I expect the farm labourer was only too willing.
‘You now have the feet of an elephant,’ Marie-Ange said.
‘More like a large duck.’
She laughed. ‘Que tu es drôle,’ she said.
I noticed she had suddenly started using the familiar ‘tu’ to me and I felt immensely pleased and flattered. But because I’d never expected in my life ever to be so friendly with any French-speaking foreigner I had never bothered to learn that part of the verb and I was in constant difficulties as I tried to respond on the same terms.
It only served to make her laugh more and I found I was enjoying making her laugh. It wasn’t hard. I enjoyed being with her and was eager to see her smile and the way the lines appeared at the corner of her eyes. Her nose wrinkled when she laughed, too, and I spent a lot more of my time than I should have thinking up funny things to say to her.
We all knew the time for leaving was growing near, however, and finally she arrived through a thin drizzle of rain, her face solemn and with no sign of laughter.
‘Tonight we must leave,’ she said. ‘Monsieur le Major, my mother has food which she wishes you will take.’
As Sykes vanished, Marie-Ange stared at me in that sobersides manner she had when she was troubled.
‘I am sorry you must leave,’ she said.
‘So am I.’
‘But it is necessary to win the war.’
‘Yes, it is.’ On my own, if necessary, I thought, so that the Germans would disappear and Marie-Ange could smile again.
‘I will miss you.’
‘I’ll miss you Marie-Ange.’
‘Perhaps one day you will return.’
‘Not half.’
She seemed offended and I hurried to explain that ‘not half’ didn’t mean a half-hearted interest in her but something considerably more. She seemed pleased and smiled again, but it was curiously grave.
‘You have much funny words to say,’ she said.
I put my hands to her elbows and managed to kiss her clumsily on the cheek. She didn’t speak but stared at me with large grey eyes.
‘This is not a true thing,’ she said.
‘Yes, it is, Marie-Ange.’
But she was wiser than I was. ‘No. Perhaps when the Germans have gone and I see young Belgian boys in Ghent again I will not think so much about you. And perhaps when you are once more in England and you see the young English girls you also will feel different.’
I had to admit that it was possibly true
, but I promised I’d never forget her and we exchanged addresses, then I stamped the two great boots I was wearing.
‘Like a duck,’ I said, and she laughed and flung her arms round me and hugged me.
* * *
We set off from Noyelles soon after dark and, since the autumn had now arrived, it wasn’t late. Marie-Ange appeared at the entrance to the barn wearing a cloak with a hood, and stout boots and thick stockings. They gave her a lost-little-girl look, with the drizzle on her hair and eyelashes. Her parting from her mother seemed particularly emotional and the old lady’s eyes were streaming. Sykes was grave and silent and made kissing Madame’s hand seem twice as important, then we were tramping through the rain in the increasing darkness.
Marie-Ange knew her way all right. ‘I have walk before to Middelkerke,’ she said. ‘One time we walk to Ghent to see my father.’
We didn’t speak much and tramped through the puddles silently, aware of the drizzle soaking our clothes. Marie-Ange seemed to be made of fine springs and never seemed to be tired and I decided that working on a farm was better practice for this sort of thing than sitting in an aeroplane. I was tired long before she was.
We halted to eat bread and meat from the haversack Sykes carried, sitting in the shadows at the side of the road under a clump of trees. As it was growing daylight, Marie-Ange pointed to a timbered barn in a field. ‘We will rest the day there,’ she said. ‘I have write them a letter. They know we will be there, but they are not interest to seeing us. They have much fear.’
The barn was dry and comfortable and there was plenty of fresh straw. And placed prominently on an old crate was a bottle of rough wine, a loaf and cheese.
Marie-Ange smiled delightedly. ‘Someone has leave their supper,’ she said.
We were all hungry after the night’s march in the cool air and drizzle and we tore the loaf apart and shared the cheese and wine. When we’d finished, we dug into the straw. It was warm under there and I was half-asleep before I was even comfortable.