Over and Out

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘It’s clear, is it not,’ croaked Luke painfully, ‘that I was born to be hanged?’

  At their next visit, the doctors were reluctantly prepared to allow that the wound was healing well. But if he wished to see old age he must conduct himself prudently.

  Three prudent days later, when he was beginning to feel bored, he was allowed a visitor.

  ‘Ten minutes only,’ said the nurse.

  It was Tom. The first thing that Luke noticed was the crown in his shoulder strap.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Tom, ‘we all got a step up. And as for Fleming, when he reported that he’d wiped up the whole escape organisation—that Rudi was dead—Tante Marie sulking in Germany, and all the minor characters either dead or in prison, well, they couldn’t do too much for him. He’s a full colonel now, and the on dit is that he’s been put in for a “K”.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Luke. ‘If anyone is going to get a knighthood it should be you. If you hadn’t decoded that message we shouldn’t have got started. Everything flowed from that.’

  ‘Let him enjoy his honours,’ said Tom. ‘He’s worked hard enough for them. And he seems to have got a guilty conscience about you somehow.’

  ‘About me?’

  ‘Didn’t he suggest that you went into that cottage?’

  ‘Maybe he did. But I’d have gone anyway.’

  He was unable to love Fleming.

  ‘If I’d thought it was going to upset you, I wouldn’t have told you about it. I’ve had strict orders that you’re not to get excited. What I really came to do was to tell you how the war was going.’

  ‘Oh, the war,’ said Luke. ‘Yes.’ The war seemed to have removed itself into the middle distance. ‘Yes. Tell me about that.’

  Tom looked at his watch. ‘In the three and a half minutes that I’ve got left,’ he said, ‘I could hardly give you the barest outline, so I’ve written it all down for you to read when you feel inclined. The main point is that we’re winning. Even the Germans know it. They’re still fighting like good-uns, but they know what the result is going to be, in a matter of months, or even weeks, maybe.’

  ‘So that stinker Haig has justified himself.’

  ‘He has indeed. The Americans helped. And the French have climbed onto their feet again. But it was a British victory, First and foremost.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘One other thing, before I go. Who are your bankers?’

  ‘Barclays, Fleet Street,’ said Luke. ‘Why? Has someone left me some money?’

  ‘No. Fleming asked me to find out.’

  At this unsatisfactory point, Tom was bustled out of the room by the nurse.

  Mr Pitt-Hardy, the senior consultant at the Saint-Esprit Hospital, had informed Luke that he would inspect him again in a fortnight to decide on the terms of his formal report to the military authorities. This sounded to Luke like a hint that he might find himself shunted back into civilian life, which made him consider what exactly he was going to do when the fighting stopped.

  It was not an entirely agreeable thought.

  If he wasn’t strong enough to go on fighting, was he competent to face the rigours of civilian life?

  He hobbled to the inspection room, using a stick, but otherwise unsupported. After a series of ruthless tests Mr Pitt-Hardy announced himself satisfied.

  ‘What we must do now,’ he said, ‘is to get that injured lung healed properly. We can’t do it in this dismal rubbish heap of fogs and dust storms. You will have to go somewhere where the air is therapeutic. In peacetime it would, of course, have been the Swiss Alps. In your case, we must settle for something less ambitious. The army has a convalescent home in the mountains above Mont Doré. That’s an easy journey by rail, from here to Paris, and from there to Clermont-Ferrand. After that a short bus trip to La Charmette. You had better take someone to look after you en route.’

  When Tom turned up two days later he was delighted at this bulletin.

  ‘We’ll fix it for Joe to go with you,’ he said. ‘Don’t let him off the lead when you get to Paris. And here’s another item of news for you. When you return to normal life, as you will fairly soon I guess, you’ll find that there are a lot of loose ends for you to pick up. Colonel Fleming—I told you he seems to have a guilty conscience about you—has been grappling with them on your behalf.’

  ‘Loose ends?’

  ‘The trivia of life you’d left behind you when you seemed to be booked. Bank statements, bills, subscriptions, reports you’d started, but hadn’t finished.’

  ‘Decent of him. Was one of the documents I signed when I was half conscious some sort of power of attorney?’

  ‘Not just some sort. A very beautiful and comprehensive power of attorney. I drafted it myself. When we all thought you were on your way out he went round to the bank with it and collected a lot of documents and records they were holding. If you had died, we’d have had you wound up in no time at all.’

  ‘A comforting thought,’ said Luke. ‘But as a result of my obstinate refusal to die, you’ve both wasted a lot of your time.’

  ‘Sad, but true.’

  ‘By the way, what bank did he go to?’

  ‘The one you told us about. Barclays, Fleet Street branch. Why? You look pleased.’

  ‘I’ve an idea what he might have been looking for,’ said Luke. ‘He won’t have found it at Barclays.’

  The journey to La Charmette ran as smoothly as Tom had predicted.

  The nursing-home was a large private house that had been taken over by the army, and was nominally run by them, but was, in fact, managed in every particular by Madame de La Bruyère, the owner of the house.

  Luke’s room was an isolated one at the top of one wing of the building. Tired after his journey he slid luxuriously between the lavender-scented sheets of his double bed. His window was wide open and, lying on his back, in the few moments before sleep took over, he could see the army of the stars, marching and counter-marching through the cold, clear air.

  When he opened his eyes next morning, the first thing he was conscious of was the smell of coffee. Next, of the young lady who had brought it in.

  He absorbed the essential details slowly.

  Her hair had been confined within a nurse’s cap, but enough of it had escaped to demonstrate its smooth texture and its colour, which was a dark chestnut brown. It would be agreeable to see it free of the cap, he thought, and even more agreeable to pass his hand through it.

  Her nose was short and straight. Her mouth, at the moment he first saw it, was smiling. But, when its owner observed that he was awake, it tightened into professional sternness.

  And her eyes? Not wishing to stare too directly into the face that hovered above him, he had left consideration of the eyes to the last.

  Blue-grey, he decided. The colour of a mountain lake under a clear sky; with the slight hollows under them, that a knowledgeable friend had once informed him, were a sign of sexual appetite.

  If the girl was aware that he had been studying her in this analytical way, she did not seem to be upset about it.

  ‘If you’d care for a few background details,’ she said, in a voice as pleasing as her appearance, ‘my name is Sheilagh, and I come from County Antrim.’

  ‘That’s it,’ he murmured. ‘Do you know I thought, at first, it was a highland loch. But I see now that it’s an Irish lough.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The colour of your eyes.’

  The nurse tried to look stern, but the effort was foredoomed to failure, and they were both smiling. It was at this precise moment that Luke decided that he would ask her to marry him.

  Common sense told him that he would have to wait a little. But not too long. Not too long, please.

  The days that followed were agreeable, but tormenting.

  He was allowed to get up now, and to take short walks in the garden. Between walks he rested on a great swing seat among the leaves and flowers of late autumn and pretended to read t
he books that Madame de La Bruyère thought suitable for an invalid officer. Some were in English, some in French. All were about love.

  The words on the page paraded in front of him, about turned, and were dismissed. His mind was not on them. He was thinking only of Sheilagh. Of her voice, and her face, and her body.

  Joe had quickly given up the pretence of looking after him. It was clear to him that Luke was being looked after more than adequately and that he was surplus to establishment. After forty-eight hours he took himself off and made his way back to Montreuil to report to Tom.

  ‘He’s fallen on his feet,’ he said. ‘A superb billet and a lovely Irish girl to look after him.’

  ‘Tell me more,’ said Tom, pushing aside a heavy batch of documents.

  ‘She’s in her early twenties, I’d guess. And she’s clearly crammed a lot of experience in the last four years as an army nurse. But she hasn’t let it spoil her appearance. No sir. She’s a real plum. Do you remember the “Rose of Tralee”?’

  Tom not only remembered the Rose of Tralee, but obliged Joe and Inspector Routley by declaring, in a robust tenor voice, that a pale moon was shining upon the green mountains, the sun was declining upon the salt sea, as he strayed with his love by the clear crystal fountains that rose in the beautiful Vale of Tralee.

  ‘That’s quite enough,’ said Joe.

  Tom, who had got the bit between his teeth, was about to add further information about a young lady who, it seemed, was lovely and fair as a rose in the summer, but he found that he had lost his audience.

  All their attention was on a message that had been brought in.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Joe. ‘It’s over.’

  That night, Luke, lying awake, heard the maroons sounding and watched the rockets climbing into the sky. Next morning, Sheilagh confirmed the news to him as he was occupying his favourite seat in the garden.

  ‘It’s an armistice,’ she said. ‘The Germans have asked for terms. No more war. Do you find it strange?’

  By this time Luke was on his feet. Instead of answering her he slid his arm round her, pulled her tightly against him, and started to kiss her.

  She said, ‘Oh,’ and then started to kiss him back.

  After that time seemed to stand still.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The weather being kindly, luke spent most of the next three weeks in the swing seat, a lot of it with his right arm tightly round Sheilagh, as though he was afraid she might vanish if he let her go.

  No one disturbed them.

  Of the five patients remaining at La Charmette, three had suffered in the German gas attack at Scherpenberg in September. The lining of their lungs was still suffering from the after-effects and breathing was a painful ordeal that they could only tolerate when lying quietly on their beds. Number four had lost both his legs and lived in a wheelchair. Number five had lost half of one arm and spent his time looking after number four.

  Luke, alone of all the six, was entirely and uninhibitedly happy.

  Not only did he have the undivided attention of Nurse Sheilagh Aitchison – this was decreed by Madame de La Bruyère who had already started to read the banns – but he was recovering his health with every deep breath of the ice-cold air.

  So they sat together, and talked. Endlessly. About themselves. About other people.

  One unexpected topic of their conversation was Colonel Fleming whose activities seemed to fascinate Sheilagh. Luke found himself describing, at her request, the colonel’s efforts to discover details of the escape route by acting out Sergeant Britain’s execution at dawn and reprieving him at the last moment.

  ‘In fact,’ said Sheilagh, ‘he was torturing him.’

  ‘You could put it like that. Or you might call it a legitimate device to get the information that he wanted. I could forgive him for that. What really did shake me was the top-secret document that was said to have been discovered among Britain’s kit.’

  ‘You say, “said to have been”?’

  ‘Britain maintained that it had been manufactured by Fleming, or, more likely, by one of his stooges, and put into his locker.’

  He told her about this, remembering as he did so, the calm and uninterested voice in which Britain had spoken about it. For some time after he had finished, Sheilagh was silent. Then, unexpectedly, she said, ‘Tell me. Do you like him?’

  ‘Fleming? Yes and no. He’s not the sort of man you could really warm to. He has his good points. Typical old Etonian. Physical courage and superficial charm. And bad points too. He’s unquestionably a sadist.’

  He told her about his habit of postponing the beating of small boys overnight.

  Sheilagh said, ‘I imagine you got all that from Bob Britain.’

  ‘Bob Britain? You sound as though you knew him.’

  ‘I didn’t know him, but I knew of him. No one could nurse in army hospitals for three years without hearing him discussed. A man who had refused both a commission and, twice at least, a decoration. He was bound to get himself talked about by his fellow soldiers.’

  Luke said, speaking slowly, ‘I think he was one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met.’

  ‘And thinking that, did it never occur to you that he might be telling you the truth? That he might be right when he contended that our people—I mean M.I.5 and the Special Branch, people like that—are prepared to twist the rules to gain their own ends?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Luke unhappily.

  ‘You mean that however hard you try, you can’t bring yourself to believe that we indulge in dirty tricks. The enemy cheat and lie, yes; but our own people play the game according to the rules.’

  ‘I’m not as naïve as that. No. I’ll allow that there can be rotten apples among the sound fruit. And I’m prepared to believe that Fleming might be one of them. What I find it more difficult to grasp—impossible almost—is the idea of the top men, the people who run our security services, being prepared to lie and cheat. Not for their own ends, maybe, but from a distorted idea of patriotism.’

  ‘You remember what Dr Johnson said about patriotism. Didn’t he call it the last refuge of a scoundrel?’

  ‘That’s not an argument. It’s the sort of windy generality the good doctor loved producing. What I need, if I’m to be convinced, is a few actual examples.’

  Sheilagh thought about this for some time. Then she said, almost reluctantly, ‘Very well. I’ll tell you about one man who had his character as scientifically removed as if it had been his appendix. And you mustn’t accuse me of partiality just because he happens to have been an Irishman.’

  ‘Are we discussing someone who is dead?’

  ‘Yes. He’s dead. Most certainly he’s dead.’

  She was silent for so long that Luke thought she must have decided to let the matter drop. Then she said, ‘I’m speaking of Roger Casement. And of the so-called “black diaries”. Extracts from them were circulated at the time Casement was standing trial for treason. Extracts containing details of an unbelievable series of unnatural offences. By the time they’d been read there wasn’t a man of importance in Britain prepared to speak for him.’

  ‘I remember the case vaguely. I was in France at the time, but it was widely reported. Are you telling me that the diaries were planted by M.I.5?’

  ‘M.I.5 and the Special Branch. Both under Basil Thomson at that time. No one could read the conflicting statements he made about the discovery of the diaries without coming to the conclusion that he was lying, and lying clumsily. His first story was that a policeman had been sent, after Casement’s arrest, to search his lodgings. That he had brought away three trunks, and—surprise, surprise—that he had found a diary in one of them. But this was clearly shown to be a lie when Casement’s landlady was tactless enough to point out that these particular trunks had been in the possession of Scotland Yard for over a year! Is one supposed to assume that, during all that time, M.I.5 and Special Branch had been constrained by motives of delicacy from opening them? Since no one
was going to believe such an improbability, Thomson was forced to amend his story. In the new version, the diary was said to have been found in the pocket of a coat that Casement had buried in the sand at the time of his disembarkation from a German submarine onto an Irish beach. Can you imagine anything less likely?’

  The speed and fluency with which Sheilagh was speaking demonstrated that she was stating conclusions which had long been in her mind. It was more than a narrative. It was a testament.

  ‘Actually,’ said Luke, ‘I think I remember references to a number of diaries.’

  ‘Yes. They seem to have spawned a family. By the time of the trial it had become four large books. Taken from four different pockets in the jacket he had buried? Although that raises a further difficulty, since one of the books was said to be fourteen inches by eight. Rather a large pocket, don’t you think?’

  ‘And it was passages from these diaries that were circulated, to destroy people’s sympathy for Casement.’

  ‘And for the cause he supported, which they most effectively did.’

  ‘All of them forgeries?’

  ‘No. Basically they were genuine accounts of routine matters. But passages had been skilfully inserted. No difficulty. Thomson had expert forgers on his payroll, and more than a year to produce a very polished piece of villainy.’

  Sheilagh paused for a moment, then added, ‘The men who should have been in the dock were Thomson and his crooked allies, F. E. Smith and Rufus Isaacs. When Isaacs pronounced sentence of death, concluding with the traditional words, “May the Lord have mercy on your soul”, in the silence that followed, a woman’s voice exclaimed, “And may He have mercy on yours”. I wonder if He will.’

  By now, Luke’s mind was desperately disturbed.

  If what Sheilagh was saying was even partly true, was it possible – was it conceivable – that the gods of his youth had feet of clay?

  The shock was almost physical.

  When for many years one has rested one’s convictions on certain unquestioned premises, when the rock begins to crumble and to split, the mind cannot at once accept what has happened.