by John Wilcox
Proctor interrupted his reverie by stirring and blinking up at Gladwin. “God! I feel as if I’ve been hit with a hammer. What time is it?”
“Time to get dressed and go to dinner with the Abbe. Come on.” Gladwin looked down at his companion with distaste. It’s time you got washed and shaved, anyway. We don’t want to look and smell as though we’ve been on the road for days, even if we have.”
The meal, as promised, was not elaborate, but it was clear that Madame Robert was practised at making the most of their limited rations with, Gladwin could not help surmising, just a little help from the black market without the Abbe’s knowledge, perhaps? The vegetable soup was delicious, as was the civet de lapin. They were each permitted one glass of claret, which helped to make the meal a civilised event. So, too, did the conversation which, after the plans for the next day had been explained to Proctor – who accepted them, for once, without equivocation – turned to French history, so making Gladwin feel almost at home.
Towards the end of the meal, the priest returned Gladwin’s papers. With a sad smile he explained: “It’s just as well these were not examined in this part of France. There is no dockyard at Adour. It is only a tiny place. The authorities here, of course, will be well aware of that. I’m afraid we have no time to change your papers, so we must just pray that we shall not be stopped tomorrow.”
They left the Abbe at just after eleven. Towards the end of the meal Proctor, who had earlier been coaxed into speaking of the beauties of his homeland, had resumed his air of sulky disinterest in all things but the question of his own safety – an attitude that the revelation about their papers did nothing to alleviate. But Gladwin made his departure wrapped in a warm glow of affection for the gentle priest, a man who, while conducting a courageous and sophisticated programme of resistance to the occupiers of his country, stayed true to his principles of non-violence and also maintained his standards of civilised conversation and interests in things new to him.
*
It was Madame Roberts’s voice that woke Gladwin the next morning. He grabbed his watch and realised that they had slept late, for it was past eight o’clock. At first, he thought that the housekeeper was calling up to him in some distress from the garden down below. He sprang to the window, peeking out from behind the curtain, and then realised that the woman’s voice was coming from the entrance of the Abbe’s house. She was on the doorstep, talking or rather beseeching something or some person within, for tears were pouring down her face and her hands were clasped together. Parked at the pavement outside were two long, low Citroën saloons and two men wearing the giveaway trilby hats, set squarely on their heads, were standing beside them. As he watched, Madame Robert was thrust aside and the Abbe, his hands manacled, was marched down the steps by two other, similarly dressed men.
“Oh shit, no!” Gladwin’s voice woke Proctor.
“What’s up?”
“The Gestapo have got the Abbe.”
“Bloody hell.” whispered Proctor. He stood beside Gladwin, staring at the scene below, which was now being witnessed by a small crowd of spectators, who began to hiss as the Abbe was brutally pushed down the steps towards the first of the cars. The priest turned to say something to one of his captors, but a blow in the back sent him hurtling into the open door of the Citroën, cutting his head so that blood coursed down his cheek and onto his cassock. Then his head was pushed down, a knee jerked into his back and he was inserted into the car. The four men gestured to the crowd menacingly and then got into the cars. With a screech of tyres, the two Citroëns sped away.
“The swine.” Gladwin’s face was white at the brutality exercised against the old man. “Did you see how they handled him?”
“Look, Taff.” Proctor’s own voice was now low and earnest. “You must see that it’s the end for us. They’re closing in on us. They’ve knocked off everyone behind us and it’s got to be just a question of hours, now, before they take us as well.” His tone now took a higher, querulous pitch. “For God’s sake man. We’ve got to give ourselves up before they catch us on the run and shoot us. Can’t you see that?”
Gladwin let the curtain fall back and turned to his companion. Proctor had managed to cut his face in shaving quickly the previous evening, and the blood was beginning to seep anew from one of the cuts. He was wearing only his underpants, long French drawers supplied to them in the Pas-de-Calais, and his thin body looked grey and undernourished. The man’s eyes were staring, so that the whites were evident around the irises. For a moment, Gladwin felt a twinge of compassion for his partner on this long escape trail.
“Peter,” he said. “We’ve gone through all this before. If we give ourselves up or if they catch us we will put in danger all the people who have helped us. And anyway. Fuck it. They’re not going to catch us. Look.” He stepped back away from the window but pointed at it. “Just up there, only a few miles away, is the border with Spain. For god’s sake man, we’re almost across it. We can make this last lap, if we stay focussed and cool. Now pull yourself together. It is the last lap!”
The New Zealander slowly sat down upon the bed again and put his head in his hands. “Frankly,” he said, “I don’t care a toss about a bunch of French wankers who don’t know when they’re beaten.” He looked up. “Why the hell do they keep on resisting? We can go on fighting the bloody war for them,” he sniffed, “or at least the blokes back home can. Personally, I’m out of this war now. Even if we got back I don’t want to start flying again.”
Gladwin drew in an angry breath, but Proctor held up a hand to prevent him speaking. “All right, all right. Don’t go on. I’ll go with you. But I think you’re bloody mad.” He sighed. “What next then?”
“We get out of here pretty damn quick. They may decide to search Madame Robert’s apartment.” He began throwing on his clothes. “Then we go back to the café and see if that helpful lady has any ideas. Now come on. Let’s make up the beds to appear like no one has slept in them, and bundle up the old clothes. We’ll drop them in the first dustbin we see. We mustn’t implicate the housekeeper. Quickly.”
Madame Robert was nowhere to be seen and the crowd had dispersed when they let themselves out of her apartment, slam-locking the door behind them. It was not far to the café and Gladwin remembered the way clearly enough, for it was signposted to the station. They pulled up sharply, however, when the café came into sight. A large ‘fermez’ had been chalked across its window and a helmeted German soldier, rifle slung from his shoulder, stood on guard outside the door.
Gladwin immediately grasped Proctor’s arm and swung him into a side street.
“See – they’ve taken her, too,” said the New Zealander, a note of resignation in his voice now. “They’re closing in. I told you…”
“Well, they’re not going to take us.” Gladwin spoke through gritted teeth and tightened his grip on Proctor’s arm. “We’ll just have to make our own way to Saint-Jean. It should be easy enough to find the sports shop. The Abbe said there was a bus stop near his house. We’ll get on the bus. Should be simple enough.”
But it was not. Although Gladwin felt much more at ease dressed as a Basque workman, for there were plenty of similarly garbed men walking through the streets of Bayonne, he sensed danger as they approached the bus stop. A bus marked “Saint-Jean-de-Luz” was stationary at the stop, but something made him propel Proctor past it. A sideways glance confirmed the danger: two German soldiers were working their way down the centre aisle of the bus, checking documents.
“Damn!” But he turned a cheerful face to Proctor. “Okay. Let’s walk out of town and hitch a lift. The Germans can’t stop every wagon going towards the border.”
“But how will we know the way?”
“No problem. That’s where we’re going.” He nodded to where, ahead of them, as the morning mist from the sea began to melt away under the rays of the winter sun, the imposing barrier of the Pyrenees mountains emerged, rising away to their left and disappearing into low cloud. �
�We’ll just keep walking towards that lot.”
They made their way through the crowded streets, with Gladwin replacing his grip on Proctor’s arm whenever a gendarme or a German came into sight. In truth, it was not unpleasant walking past the brightly-coloured houses of the town, and their espadrilles fitted them better than those awkward old boots, so that Proctor’s look of sullen compulsion eventually disappeared, as did his accustomed slouch. Soon, they reached the edge of Bayonne and the beginning of typical Basque countryside, with acres of green fields dotted with cattle surging down to the road from the mountains to their left. The war and the Germans seemed far away.
Yet Gladwin began to feel uncomfortable. Walking along that road, with no cover on either side, he felt conspicuous. Although plenty of traffic thundered by them, there were no other pedestrians to be seen.
“I think it would be better if we hitched a lift now,” he said. “No cars, mind you. I think trucks, particularly farm lorries, would be a better bet.” Proctor nodded his head resignedly, and offered no resistance.
Eventually, one old and rather battered Renault cattle truck, empty of its load and its wood battened sides swinging dangerously, stopped in answer to Gladwin’s raised thumb. The driver, white haired and sporting a long, straggly moustache, leaned across to open his cab door. “Bonjour,” he cried.
“Bonjour,” responded Gladwin, retaining his grip on Proctor’s arm. “Saint-Jean…?”
“Oui.” The old man gestured for them to climb up. Gladwin pushed Proctor up first, so that the New Zealander sat in the middle. “Merci beaucoup.”
The driver let in the clutch and the old truck staggered forward in a series of lurches. He turned and grinned at the two beside him and said something in what to Gladwin seemed to be strange-sounding French… Basque?
He shrugged his shoulders, smiled in return and, in his clumsy French, explained that they could not understand because they were Polish.
“Polonais!” The old man threw back his head and roared with laughter. “Polonais,” he repeated incredulously. “Jamais.”
Gladwin felt Proctor stiffen at his side at that moment and saw a black Citroën saloon pull in ahead of them after overtaking. But it accelerated away. The driver noticed the reaction.
“Ah,” he said, winking and tapping the side of his nose. “La frontière, hein?”
Gladwin felt that there was no point in dissembling further. “Oui,” he responded, giving an answering grin.
The old man took his left hand off the vibrating steering wheel, clenched his fist and extended his thumb upward, then turned it down. “A bas les Boche, hein?” And he roared with laughter again.
“A bas les Boche… er… vraiment,” agreed Gladwin.
From that moment, the driver treated them as old friends, who spoke and understood French (or Basque) perfectly, even though all Gladwin could do in response to a flow of happy, unintelligible dialect was to grin and say “oui”, or “d’accord.” It seemed enough for the old man, and he prattled on. Proctor sat between them, staring doggedly ahead and not venturing a word. Several times they passed what appeared to be German check points at the side of the road, but the driver paid them no attention and, either because he and his old truck seemed unsuspicious or perhaps because both were recognised, they were not flagged down.
Eventually, at a point where a minor road forked away to the left, the driver pulled up. He now spoke slowly and emphatically, with many gestures, and it became clear that he was suggesting that, although both roads led to and through Saint-Jean to the border, the secondary road was less used by the Germans and was therefore safer for them to walk into the little town. He would continue on the main road. Nodding in understanding, Gladwin seized the old man’s hand and shook it warmly. They both then descended.
“Attendez!” The driver climbed down from his side. “Voilà.” He reached into the back of his truck and handed Proctor a wide, wooden rake and gave Gladwin an old spade. He spoke quickly and with many gestures to the fields around and his meaning was clear. “Une bonne idée, mon ami,” said Gladwin. “What a bloody good idea. I hope you can spare them. Many thanks, old chap.”
The old man’s face creased at the unfamiliar English and he shook his head knowingly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Bloody Boche.” And he climbed back into his truck and lurched away in a blue cloud of exhaust fumes.
“What was that all about?” asked Proctor with a scowl. “And what the hell are we supposed to do with these things?” He held up the rake as though it was contaminated.
Gladwin replied as he dug into his pocket to find Marie’s bright green scarf and tie it round his neck. “The old boy thought that it would make us less conspicuous. More like workers from the fields, on their way home, or something. Anyway, God bless him. Come on, it’s only a couple of kilometres into Saint-Jean – or, at least, I think that’s what he said. His French was like nothing I’ve heard before – although I have a feeling he was telling me earlier that he had fought against the Germans in the Great War. Bit of luck that. You see, not everything’s against us. Come on. Let’s saunter into Saint-Jean and find our mate Jacques.”
They shouldered their tools and, in what was now bright morning sunshine, began to walk down the lane towards Saint-Jean-de-Luz, the border town whose roofs they soon began to detect ahead of them.
*
They had walked for only three or four minutes, however, before they realised that a figure they had glimpsed from some way back, standing motionless in the grass at the side of the road, was a German soldier. By the time his identity had become clear, it was too late to turn back.
“Don’t panic, Peter,” said Gladwin evenly. “If we have to talk, leave it to me. Just pretend to converse with me as we near him. Just be at ease.”
It was a forlorn hope, but Gladwin chatted away inconsequently to a speechless Proctor as they approached the German, who remained motionless, his rifle slung from his shoulder but his eyes watching them as they neared.
Gladwin nodded to the man as they drew abreast. “Bonjour,” he said and made to move past. The German unslung his rifle, pointed it at them and stepped into the road to block their way.
“Oh fuck,” murmured Proctor.
“Halt!” commanded the soldier. He wore rimless glasses and his eyes seemed unnaturally large behind their lenses. Low health grade, thought Gladwin. Posted down here on border duty because he’s not fit enough to serve in an active zone. But whatever he lacked in combat duty fitness, he lacked nothing in aggression when facing two unarmed French peasants.
“Wer sind Sie? Wohin gehen Sie?” The questions were snarled.
Gladwin held out his free hand in a supplicatory gesture. “Nous comprendez pas Allemand,” he said. “Nous sommes polonais.” His brain was working quickly in an attempt to plan ahead. The papers would show that they were Polish and perhaps this aggressive little bastard would have no idea whether Adour had a shipyard or not. Anyway, it seemed that he could not speak French.
The German showed no regard for their lack of understanding. “Zeigen Sie mir Ihre Papiere,” he demanded.
Gladwin caught the last word. “Papers,” he murmured to Proctor and began fumbling for his documents.
But the soldier’s eye had been taken by Marie’s green scarf, an incongruous touch of elegance in Gladwin’s otherwise rustic appearance. “Ist das Seide?” he asked. He reached out his hand, so dropping the rifle muzzle downwards, and grasped the end of the scarf, rubbing it between finger and thumb. “Das gefällt mir. Das nehm ich.” And he began pulling at the silk to take it off Gladwin’s neck.
The Welshman lifted up his hand, almost in self-defence to stop the fabric cutting into his neck, and saw at close quarters the greed in the man’s magnified eyes. Then he suddenly saw the Jews being herded into the cattle trucks at Tours and the elderly Abbe being pushed so violently against the car door that his head was cut. “You little prick,” he said, and swung the blade of the spade towards the German’s head. The
man saw it coming and turned his head so that the blade caught the back of his helmet. But even though Gladwin was grasping the spade with only one hand, the force was enough to send the German staggering backwards.
Immediately, Gladwin was upon him. He struck again with the spade, this time sending the rifle spinning away, and then again, hitting the soldier on the shoulder and knocking him to the floor.
“For God’s sake stop it, Taffy.” He heard the despairing cry from Proctor behind him but it was too late. All of the frustrations of their captivity and their pursuit across France exploded within him – the necessity of being subservient to these oppressors; the gratuitous cruelty he had observed; the almost certain deaths of young Yvonne and the kindly doctor and his wife. These thoughts and emotions boiled up within him and he reverted to a vicious killing machine. The German sprawled on the ground, his spectacles halfway down his face, his hands raised in self-defence. Gladwin rained down blows upon him with the edge of the spade, breaking through the man’s beseeching hands and beating his face into a bleeding pulp. The soldier had died long before Gladwin had finished beating him.
He leaned, breathless, on the spade handle. He looked up. Proctor was half crouched in horror, his hand to his mouth. But the lane seemed otherwise empty.
“Right, Proctor,” Gladwin gasped. “Quick. Help me drag him into the undergrowth.” The New Zealander, his mouth open, remained crouching. Gladwin raised the spade. “You heard me, you arsehole. Get hold of his legs. NOW. If you don’t I’ll beat your head in, too.”
Proctor, his eyes wide and his mouth open, threw down his rake and took hold of the German’s jackboots, while Gladwin seized the lapels of the man’s greatcoat. “Now,” he said, nodding his head. “Drag him that way. Come on.”
The two men dragged the dead soldier across a ditch and into the brush at the side of the road, until he was deep enough into the undergrowth not to be seen. Gladwin ran back for the helmet and rifle and tossed them into the wood. A pool of blood was left in the middle of the tarmac. Gladwin turned back for the coalscuttle helmet, filled it with water from the ditch and tossed it onto the stains, rubbing them away as best he could with the sole of his espadrilles. It took him several journeys to the ditch before he was satisfied.