Blue Noon

by Robert Ryan

  The burst from a machine pistol set every nerve in his body firing, and with dismay he felt his left leg twitch with the shock. He tensed himself, wondering what the hell was happening. Had they shot the French soldiers? No, he could hear them protesting, the note of panic unmistakable.

  A second burst, closer, and he could imagine the 9mm slugs ripping into sheets, the shrouded bodies convulsing under the impact.

  A third thudded closer, and he felt a stray cartridge bounce off him. Neave twisted and flailed and was finally free, pulling the sheet away and screaming: don’t shoot, don’t shoot. He looked at the line of shrouded bodies laid out on the earth, but there were no bullet holes. One of the Germans smiled, pulled back the bolt on his Schmeisser and let a small burst thud harmlessly into the earth. Bluff. It had been a bluff to flush out anyone who was playing at being dead.

  The other German with the rifle indicated that Neave should get back in the truck. As if to reassure him, the man used a phrase he had clearly been uttering over and over for the last few days: ‘Pee-ohh-double-u.’ POW. Neave shuffled forward, his spirits sinking with each step.

  ‘Harry.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not Paul.’

  ‘Sometimes Paul.’

  ‘Not RAF.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Huh.’

  Odile was a little drunk. They were sitting at the rear of one of the carriages, on seats perforated by cannon fire, looking out through glassless windows at the never-ending activities of the new masters of Calais, now busy rigging up yet more lights so that dock repair could go on round the clock. You use all your efforts to blow it to pieces, then use all your skill to put it together again. The British would come along and blow it to kingdom come again soon. Or would they? Twenty thousand prisoners the man said, and no RAF in sight. Did the British have anything left?

  ‘So why did you tell me that story? About being a pilot?’

  Harry shrugged. It had been a long day. For an hour of it she had been shouted and screamed at by Diels for the Neave deception. The Abwehr man was all for shipping the medical staff off to camps as well, but Odile held her ground, arguing that Diels himself said they had more prisoners than they knew what to do with, and that it was an officer’s duty to escape.

  Eventually Diels let her go, although, as he had threatened, they were to be shipped out of the Calais zone the next day.

  Harry took the wine from her, refilled his tin cup, and handed it back

  ‘You weren’t in the RAF?’ she repeated.

  ‘No. Trouble is, Odile, you get into this habit of lying. You lie so often, you forget to tell the truth. You run up the story that’s most convenient.’ He sighed. ‘That’s a spy’s life. I’m sorry.’

  He heard a distant crackle of rifle fire. There were still small bands of British and French soldiers out there, trying to slip away, desperate to avoid incarceration. Heavier machine-gun fire answered it, and all was quiet once more, but for the distant spluttering and hum of welding torches.

  ‘So I’ll never know the truth about you?’

  Harry moved closer. ‘Well, there is one you can take to the bank.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That I like you.’

  Odile laughed. ‘Of course you do. Every man you take a bullet or a splinter from looks up at you and sees some nice tits in a uniform and falls in love. It’s only natural.’

  ‘I didn’t say love, did I? But look, there is something I’d like you to have.’

  From his pocket he brought out the ring he was going to give to Julie. Odile slid it onto the third finger of her left hand. ‘Lovely. You must have paid all of thirty francs for it.’

  Harry burst out laughing. ‘They’re diamonds.’

  ‘It’s a bad fake, Harry. Like you.’

  ‘Odile—’ he said softly.

  ‘Tell me about this,’ she said, reaching out and touching the scar on his cheek.

  ‘Hopping.’

  ‘What kind of hopping?’

  ‘The vegetable kind. I was brought up in east London. And east Londoners go hopping, to Kent. You get a free holiday, sleep in big huts, and you pick the hops for the farmer. Great time. Special trains used to take us down from London Bridge. Trouble was, if you had a big family, it’d work out expensive. We little ones used to hide under Mother’s skirts. The train people got wise to this and they gave the conductor a big hat pin, and if they were suspicious, they’d go stab’—he made a thrusting motion—‘into the skirts, see if anyone squealed. One year they got me, but I didn’t cry out. Just stayed there, quietly bleeding. Well, it went bad and left me with this, but my mum was right proud of me.’

  Odile giggled tipsily.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ He thought it was a much more likely story than being dragged across a concrete floor by members of the security services.

  ‘I think you’re full of shit, you know that? That is not an old scar from boyhood. I don’t know if you are a captain, a corporal, a secret agent, a shipping agent, a shipping clerk, and part of me really doesn’t care. You did well these last few days.’

  ‘Thanks.’ They sat in silence, sipping the wine, both pondering the same question, until Harry finally asked: ‘What happens now?’

  ‘To you? Or me?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘I can only answer for me, Harry.’ Odile stood up and went to the carriage window, sucking up air to try and clear her head. She would regret the wine in the morning. She watched the tiny figures beavering away under the dockside lights and reminded herself that they were Germans out there, the men who had over-run her country with humiliating ease. She felt a fury start to rise within her and gripped the window frame, flinching as a shard of glass sliced her palm. She licked the blob of blood away. ‘Perhaps it isn’t over,’ she said out loud.

  ‘What isn’t?’

  ‘The war. The fight.’

  Harry stood and joined her at the window, listening to the shouted orders drifting across to them, the sound of hammers on steel and hobnails on concrete. It looked pretty over to him. He put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.

  ‘I feel ashamed, you know.’ She turned. ‘Ashamed of my country, ashamed of its men, its soldiers.’ The last word was loaded with derision. She pointed at a group of Wehrmacht gunners tugging a howitzer into place behind sandbags. ‘It shouldn’t end like this.’

  ‘There is nothing we can do here—’

  ‘I think there is something we can do.’

  Harry felt his heart sink slightly, realising it was he who had started using the plural. ‘Against that lot?’

  ‘There are British soldiers all over. Ones who haven’t surrendered. In the dunes. In farmhouses. Dozens. Maybe hundreds …’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Everyone is talking about it. For the moment, the Germans are too busy to sweep the whole countryside. What if we got these British undercover, find clothes, papers, houses that will take them, before the Nazis do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why? So they can get back home. So they can carry on the fight. I hate to say this, Harry, but you British might be our last hope. You and that few miles of water out there.’ She returned to the seat and emptied the dregs of the wine into her cup. Tomorrow be damned. She sat and seethed, irritated with Harry, that he couldn’t see what had to be done. ‘If we do nothing … then we deserve what we get.’

  ‘Let’s suppose you do start rounding up stragglers—’

  ‘Oh, I’m going to do it, Harry, don’t you worry.’ Her voice was hard with determination, and he didn’t doubt that now she had a plan, no matter how vague, she was going to act on it.

  ‘How do you think that the Krauts will react if you are discovered doing this?’

  ‘I thought you were a secret agent? That you were used to such things.’

  ‘Yes, but you have no idea what you’re getting into.’

  ‘Which is why I need you to help me.’

  ‘Help y
ou?’ He sat down next to her. ‘Me?’

  ‘Help me, help me, help me. Yes. Help me.’ She leaned forward and he could smell the sourness of the wine on her breath. ‘Let me tell you a secret, secret agent. I like you a little, too. But right now—’

  He kissed her, short, sharp, quickly, but she pulled away. ‘Help me. I have to do this thing. OK, so maybe gathering up a few soldiers is pathetic, a pinprick to those bastards out there. But, Harry, we have to do something.’ Outside an engine coughed into life and a half-track with a makeshift bulldozer blade on the front lurched into view, ready to carve a path through the worst of the debris. ‘Before it is too late.’

  He could feel her eyes drilling into him, willing him to join her. There was an energy crackling from her, as if her rage was generating a massive voltage. It was a seductive mix, a beautiful woman, a good woman, stoked with passion. Why not? thought Harry. Why not be on the side of the angels for a change? Why not be on Odile’s team?

  ‘Take this as a yes,’ he said and kissed her again. This time she didn’t pull away.

  Once the decision had been made, Harry threw himself into the work, following her lead in creating a few safe enclaves for some of the hundreds of soldiers still lost in France, using his well-tuned sense of character to sniff out those locals willing to help.

  After just two weeks, they had something approaching a network in place, centred on Lille, and he had sent willing helpers off down the line to create a point-to-point system stretching down the length of the country. ‘Like the bloody Pony Express,’ as Harry put it.

  Odile had found him a base on the outskirts of the small town of Madeleine, a few miles north of Lille. Three weeks after leaving Calais, they celebrated their success in a modest restaurant-with-rooms in the city centre, although dinner was somewhat soured by the crush of Feldgrau uniforms in the room, and the leering glances that flashed Odile’s way every now and then. He didn’t blame the Germans. She looked radiant, alive, her skin glowing with good health. She loved all this, he realised, loved the subterfuge and the rebellion, the feeling of achievement, of fooling the oafs crowding the bar. Deceit and deception were, as he knew only too well, powerful drugs, and Odile was becoming addicted.

  Harry was clean-shaven, with no hint of the rough stubble he had cultivated back when he was impersonating an orderly. His once-savage army haircut was growing out, albeit slowly, and Odile had oiled it to approximate a French style. He was still uncertain of his accent, so he kept his voice low while the room filled with smoke and the hearty laughter of the invincible.

  ‘I have found a job,’ she said. ‘At the hospital.’

  Harry nodded.

  ‘Nursing again.’

  He picked up a tinge of disappointment. ‘It’s what you are. A nurse.’

  ‘My father is a doctor. My brother, a doctor. My other brother, a lawyer. I’m a nurse.’

  He wanted to say that she shouldn’t be ashamed, that nurses were very valuable, but a little voice warned him to be quiet.

  ‘If I had been given proper schooling …’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘What do you think? I would not have been a nurse.’

  ‘Oh. Is it too late?’

  ‘It was always too late. For the daughter, the sister.’

  The penny dropped. ‘They have woman doctors here, don’t they?’

  ‘Not in my father’s world they didn’t.’

  ‘If you’d become a doctor I might not have met you.’

  Odile laughed at this, causing more stares from the Germans. ‘Oh, that’s all right then. Better to meet Harry than become a famous surgeon.’

  ‘Is that what you want? To become famous?’

  ‘My father is famous. Was famous. He’s dead now. In the twenties he developed a procedure for removing tonsils quicker and cleaner, with less bleeding.’

  His grasp of the language still wasn’t up to anatomy, and it was a few moments before he was clear what she meant, until she opened her mouth and pointed, making a loud gurgling noise.

  ‘Tonsils? Famous for being able to take out tonsils? Christ, that’s not real fame, is it?’

  ‘It was in my house.’

  ‘You talked a lot of tonsils in your house?’

  A chuckle. ‘I suppose we did.’

  ‘There’s a soldier who keeps staring at your back. Can you feel it? Christ, I think he’s dribbling.’

  She shrugged, as if the gaze could be swatted off like a fly. ‘I have a present for you,’ Odile said softly.

  Harry simply raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  Odile stood up, held out her hand. He took it and they rose, Odile leading him through the knots of soldiers, silencing them with a wink and a smile as she took Harry up the squeaking wooden staircase. Someone let out a ribald cheer, but was silenced. Dozens of eyes were on Odile as she sashayed ahead of a red-faced Harry, still holding his hand, signalling the bar that she had made her choice, and a Frenchman had won.

  The bedroom was small, made even more cramped by a vast wardrobe that could have held most of Printemps’ stock. The beds were narrow singles and Harry stood looking at them, balefully.

  ‘Was that all just for show? For the benefit of the Wehrmacht?’

  ‘Help me push these together, and we’ll see.’

  After they had rearranged the furniture, she turned off the yellowy overhead light and lit a candle. There was a knock at the door, and Odile opened it a couple of inches, taking an opened bottle of wine and two tumblers from an unseen figure outside.

  Harry felt lost. Normally the room and the wine and the candles would have been his idea, but here she was peeling his jacket off, taking control. She stopped as she saw his expression. ‘You don’t want to?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. I’m just …’

  She pushed him back onto the chimeric bed, which creaked alarmingly under their weight. She giggled. ‘This should make for quite a show in the restaurant. What’s the matter? Don’t worry, I don’t make a habit of this. In fact, I have only had two lovers … both doctors. Of course. Nurses and doctors. Such a cliché,’ she said sardonically. ‘Does it worry you? That you aren’t the first?’

  He laughed. ‘The only thing worrying me is me.’

  ‘You’re nervous? Harry? Surely not?’

  ‘Not nervous … just …’ He tried to think of a word that would explain the feeling of being caught in midstream, caught in an unexpected eddy. For all his life so far, he had more or less known what he was doing and why. The why being to benefit Harry. Now he was helping a woman in a scheme which, on the face of it, had no percentage at all for him. Furthermore, he was letting her seduce him. ‘Confused,’ he said finally.

  She kissed him on the cheek, close to his lips and he moved his head so their mouths met and now his fingers were at the buttons of her blouse. Her hands ripped at his shirt and he heard a button or two go, and then she was at the fly. He was having trouble with a clasp on her blouse.

  ‘Leave my clothes,’ she said, pushing his hand inside her skirt and up her smooth, stockingless thigh. ‘I seem to have forgotten my underwear anyway.’

  Suddenly, Harry was no longer confused.

  Ten

  London, October 1940

  THE GRASS OF THE park was crisp underfoot with a stubborn frost as Sir Claude Dansey crossed from Broadway Buildings towards St James’s, musing on his narrow escape that morning. If things had gone differently, the political wilderness, rather than a good lunch, might have been beckoning. There had been moves afoot to censure him and his boss, Sir Stewart Menzies, universally known as ‘C’, for their intelligence failures, but it had been squashed in cabinet by Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister.

  Dansey may be deputy to ‘C’, but whereas Menzies (whose main judge of a character was the ability to pronounce his name correctly—Mingiss and you were in) concerned himself with making sure the security services got credit where it was due within Whitehall—and credit even when it wasn’t—it was Dansey who nurtured an
d lubricated the various Circulating Stations, the everyday machinery of intelligence gathering.

  Most politicians realised how pivotal Dansey was, and when the blame for the French fiasco came to be apportioned, fingers were quickly pointed at him. Why hadn’t the Secret Intelligence Service known that France had no spirit for a fight? Because SIS had relied on his Z men in northern France for far too long. A group of privateers could never compete with a properly funded government organisation, which MI6 had not been since the 1920s. His counterblast was that they were lucky to know as much as they did, thanks to the patriotism of men like Alexander Korda and Henry King, the filmmaker’s chief location scout, who worked for scant reward. Luckily, Churchill had bought it.

  Dansey’s spying career spanned back through the decades to the Boer wars in South Africa, where he had met Churchill, followed by Borneo, Congo, Somalia, even the United States, where he had helped set up their own fledgling intelligence efforts. Throughout the 1930s he had run his Z organisation and, as promised, once Winston was Prime Minister, he had been brought back to operational headquarters, where he was hastily trying to repair the damage done by years of institutionalised neglect.

  Dansey skirted past a pair of ack-ack guns, snouts elevated to the steel-blue sky, but the only things up there were the bloated barrage balloons over the House. Less and less daylight traffic now, more and more night raids.

  However, no matter how grateful Churchill had been for past efforts, after the fall of France he had given Dansey a hefty slap by making sure that the new Special Operations Executive was effectively beyond his control. True, Dansey had slipped a couple of his people in there, notably the journalist Kim Philby, but day-to-day, it was free of SIS influence apart from the fact the new boys had to use the MI6 communications system, which was useful happenstance.

  Dansey couldn’t let another organisation slip out of his control, though. He had to make sure that MI9, the hastily cobbled-together outfit in charge of bringing escapers and evaders home, stayed within his sphere of influence. He hated the thought of soldiers and pilots running through France willy-nilly. It could be Edith Cavell all over again. During the First World War the matron had used the nursing home she ran in Belgium to hide Allied servicemen from the Germans. When this was discovered, she was shot and became one of the war’s great martyrs. To Dansey, though, she had been a dangerous amateur, totally lacking in the skills needed for such work. To make matters worse, her activities had exposed a number of British and French secret agents who used her hospital as a cover, blowing a whole network. He couldn’t have that kind of thing happening to him.