Flawed Banner

by John Harris

  When he appeared downstairs the following morning the car in the road had vanished. Dominique was preparing a tray for Montrouge, giving it all her attention, as if it were a means of avoiding speaking to Woodyatt.

  He told Darby about the car in the road over breakfast. The colonel was inclined to disregard it.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘There are some funny people about just now. Probably just resting on their way south.’

  They finished breakfast in a fug of cigarette smoke and a confusion of road maps spread across the table with the cups and saucers, and ashtrays.

  As Darby disappeared to fetch suitcases, Montrouge was sitting on a chair in the sun. ‘Does that stupid drunk know what you’re up to?’ he asked Woodyatt.

  His voice was harsh and querulous, with no hint of gratitude for the bed and the meals the Darbys had provided. The sympathy Woodyatt had begun to feel for him vanished at once. They were back to the old terms of distrust and dislike and selfishness.

  ‘Yes,’ he said shortly. ‘He knows all right.’

  ‘What you accuse me of?’

  ‘That, too.’

  ‘And what does he say?’

  ‘He doesn’t say anything yet.’

  ‘Have you told him about last night?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘His job’s to identify you. My job’s to let him, not to influence him by telling him that you’re behaving with all the guilt of a cat burglar caught in the act.’

  ‘He’s a poor specimen. He’s afraid of being involved.’

  ‘He is involved, damn it,’ Woodyatt snapped. ‘He was involved as long ago as 1904. He was military attaché at the Embassy in Paris.’

  Montrouge seemed startled at the information. ‘He would know everything that happened then.’

  ‘Yes’

  ‘Yet he says nothing?’

  ‘His wife says plenty. She insists you are Redmond.’

  ‘How could she know?’

  ‘She knew Redmond well.’

  The old man was silent for a long time, deep in thought. ‘Daphne Darby,’ he said, groping into the past. ‘I knew no Daphne Darby.’

  ‘Her name at the time was Quennell. It was before she was married.’

  ‘Quennell.’ Was there a faint hint of wonderment in the voice, surprise that she remembered, that he remembered. ‘Daphne Quennell.’

  There was another long pause then the old man went on, almost, Woodyatt thought, as if he were vain enough to want to know what had been thought of him. ‘What does she say?’

  ‘That you’re Redmond.’

  ‘How would she know?’

  ‘She was in love with him. She never took her eyes off him.’

  The old man shifted in his chair, not looking at Woodyatt. ‘She’s as mad as the rest of you,’ he growled.

  When Dominique appeared, she was wearing a dress Daphne Darby had given her and had used make-up. The dress suited her and the make-up was skilfully applied.

  Woodyatt complimented her on her appearance, trying to flatter her into a more conciliatory mood. She remained unyielding.

  ‘Soon we shall have to say goodbye,’ she said.

  ‘What in God’s name for?’

  ‘You’ll be going to England.’

  ‘So, damn it, will you! You’re part of the affair.’ He paused. ‘Come to that, you’re part of me now.’

  ‘I have no passport.’

  ‘I can fix that.’

  She looked at him and he saw her eyes were moist. ‘Do you want me to come to England?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  She still seemed doubtful and he went on quickly. ‘I belong to a large family. You won’t be short of friends.’

  She continued to hesitate and he wanted to tell her what Mrs Darby had said of her. But that, he felt, with someone as independent as she was, would be the very thing to set her against him.

  She touched his hand and he grasped her fingers. ‘Things have changed, James Woodyatt,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I’m the same person I was.’

  As they’d been waiting, Darby had been making last-minute telephone calls to Bordeaux. ‘They say there are a hundred thousand refugees there,’ he announced. ‘A lot of them Brits. You can’t drive through for the crowds. Bordeaux’s in a state of siege.’

  He was still confident they could reach the quays, however. He had shown enough foresight to fill his car with petrol and stuff some cans of it in the boot, and there was more in his garage for the Ford. Other than that, he and his wife had made no attempt to pack much beyond clothing.

  ‘What’s the point?’ Mrs Darby asked. ‘We’ve lost our possessions before in hurried moves. “Pack and follow” was my life. There’s a trail of our belongings all round the world.’

  It was decided the Darbys should lead the way. As they set off the sky was full of black thunderclouds and it started to rain. There was the usual traffic, buses and cars with luggage, a few British army vehicles, all heading in the same direction.

  Where the road joined the main highway, the usual colossal jam had built up, and a solitary policeman was struggling to sort it out. He was wearing thick woollen socks and sabots. As they halted, a motor bike festooned with parcels like a Christmas tree drew up alongside with a jerk. The pillion rider, a girl, fell off in a shower of packages. Climbing to her feet, she went up to the driver and gave him a clout to the side of the head that must have rattled his teeth.

  ‘I do that every time we stop,’ she shrieked.

  A French officer appeared alongside the Darbys’ car. He was wearing a row of medal ribbons. ‘Will you permit me to see your papers?’ he asked.

  As they handed them over, he studied them carefully then handed them back and directed them on to a side road. Darby refused to go.

  ‘That’s not the way to Bordeaux,’ he snapped.

  ‘It’s a diversion, Monsieur.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.

  The officer stared at him hostilely, then he indicated Montrouge who appeared to be asleep, his head on one side, his mouth open. Woodyatt and Dominique had opted to travel separately in the Ford.

  ‘Who is this?’ he demanded.

  ‘The British ambassador’s father,’ Mrs Darby snapped.

  The officer shrugged. ‘Ah, les Anglais,’ he said. ‘Such humour. I know you well. I fought with you in 1916.’ He indicated one of his decoration ribbons. ‘I won this on the Somme. It is a British medal and was presented to me by General ’Aig himself.’

  Darby jabbed at another of the ribbons. ‘What’s that one for?’ he demanded aggressively.

  The officer stared at him, red-faced.

  ‘Well, go on! What’s it for? Don’t you remember? I know what my medals are for.’

  The officer’s hand moved to the pistol at his waist.

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ Mrs Darby said quietly. ‘I have one, too. Just under my handbag.’

  The officer scowled and waved them and Woodyatt’s Ford past. ‘You will, of course, be stopped again at the bridge into Bordeaux,’ he said, making an ostentatious note of the car numbers. ‘Everybody is being stopped.’

  A little further on, Darby halted his vehicle and, as Woodyatt drew up alongside him, he was questioning his wife. ‘Where did you get a bloody pistol?’ he was demanding. ‘I got rid of mine years ago.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Frank,’ she replied calmly. ‘I haven’t got a pistol. But he wasn’t to know, was he?’

  Darby turned to look at Woodyatt. ‘That chap was a phoney,’ he said heatedly. ‘That was no bloody British medal. Chinese, more like. Haig could never have given him that. The bastard’s a fifth columnist.’

  He was all for going back and telling the policeman what he thought of him but was finally persuaded not to.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody aggressive, Frank,’ his wife said. ‘It’s not your war this time. It’s not even your country. Perhaps he’s not entitled to wear the damn medal but it wouldn’t be the first ti
me some poseur wore medals he wasn’t entitled to and it wouldn’t be the first time somebody said he was who he wasn’t.’

  She was looking at Montrouge as she spoke but the old man still had his head against the car window and looked as if he were asleep. Woodyatt could have sworn he saw his eyelids move, and wondered if he were afraid of Daphne Darby. She had pursued him as a young woman and perhaps he realised her eyes were sharper than her husband’s.

  At the suspension bridge outside the town, with the smell of the sea in the air, soldiers were examining papers. Around them were more remnants of the French army: a disorderly rabble of men – dirty, unshaven, lacking arms.

  ‘No one,’ they were told by an officer, ‘is permitted to enter Bordeaux. There are already too many people there and there is no accommodation.’

  ‘We have accommodation,’ Mrs Darby lied. ‘It’s already booked.’

  ‘I regret, Madame. Nobody can cross the bridge.’

  ‘Suppose,’ Dominique said sharply, ‘we left the car and walked across the bridge. What would happen then?’

  ‘I should be obliged to take action, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘What sort of action?’

  ‘My men have orders to shoot.’

  ‘You’d shoot women?’

  The officer, who was very young, flushed.

  ‘Suppose,’ Mrs Darby joined in, ‘I were to leave the car here, and walk down the slope to the river. It’s possible to swim across. I know because I’ve seen people swimming down there many times. Suppose I took my clothes off and swam across. Would you order your men to shoot at me as I did so?’

  The officer’s blush grew deeper and she linked her arm in Dominique’s. ‘Come along,’ she said as they started walking. ‘We’re going across.’

  She gestured at the cars to follow them and turned to the officer. ‘We’re all going across,’ she insisted. ‘If you shoot us, I hope you can square your conscience with God.’

  Four

  Nobody stopped them. But at the other side was another officer who said no one was allowed into the city without a laissez passer.

  ‘Where do I get that?’ Mrs Darby was doing the talking now and they let her because she was a formidable woman and she was doing remarkably well.

  The officer pointed to a building that looked like a school. It had a tricolour over the door.

  Without argument, a tired-looking lieutenant handed over a laissez passer to cover the whole party. ‘Pour aller et retour pour porter une lettre au Consul Brittanique’ was the reason it gave.

  It didn’t make it sound as if their journey was very important but it was signed with the officer’s name and rank, with a large blob of sealing wax at the bottom to make it look official. It also bore the numbers of their cars and all their names.

  As they moved into the outer suburbs of the city they had to pass through several barriers but nobody asked to see the laissez passer. Bordeaux was crammed with people, lorries, motor cars and bicycles, all bumping along the cobbled streets. There were cranes everywhere, like gigantic gallows against the sky, and what appeared to be hundreds of British all seeking ships. German aircraft seemed to be overhead all the time but no bombs fell and they learned at one of the shipping offices that they were dropping mines in the river mouth.

  Trams were running along the quays and through the main thoroughfare, but the place was like a madhouse. There wasn’t an inch of room anywhere and people were moving about like a crowd of depressed holiday-makers on a rainy day, staring with melancholy distress at the shop windows and the old houses.

  They swarmed everywhere. Centres for refugees were advertised on every corner and the cars they saw had the number plates of half a dozen nations. Crowds were outside the churches, and the Place de la Comédie, a sad dignified centre where several streets met, was besieged by a rabble of terrified travellers. A theatre was being used as a temporary Chambre des Députés and people huddled in the portico hoping to find out what to do.

  The Place des Quinconces, a large square open to the river, was packed with cars. A fair had been about to start and the site was marked by half-built pavilions. From the local paper they learned that the fighting at Saumur was over. The bridges had fallen, and the Germans were driving deep into Burgundy. There was a map of France with a line showing where they were, and another line showing how much of France they were demanding. It reduced the country to a quarter of its size, with no access to the sea except on the Mediterranean.

  As they struggled down the main thoroughfare, they were held up by a policeman.

  ‘Le gouvernement,’ he said. ‘A meeting in progress.’

  They had to wait for half an hour until, from one of the buildings alongside, they saw men in suits and uniforms emerging. Among them were Weygand and Reynaud, both looking harassed, old and ill.

  ‘The collapse committee,’ Darby observed.

  ‘Half the French Cabinet are here,’ Dominique said bitterly. ‘Together with their wives and mistresses.’

  ‘The rich and the powerful,’ Montrouge commented unexpectedly, ‘will always survive.’

  Further on they were held up again, this time by a procession of men with drums and trumpets who were led by a man wearing a sash of office and carrying a tricolour draped with black crepe. These marchers stopped at a memorial covered with names and dated 1914–1918. It had an angel with wings standing in a defiant attitude over a dying soldier, every bit of it plastered with pigeon droppings.

  ‘Small men,’ Dominique said coldly, ‘honouring better men than they are.’

  They were growing hungry and the café terraces were packed. But, as someone rose and left, they managed to crowd round a table and order a snack. The noise of voices around them was tremendous, and among the thousands of people in the city Woodyatt felt safe enough to relax.

  Montrouge sat slightly apart, not facing the rest of the party, and it occurred to Woodyatt that he was trying to avoid facing the formidable Mrs Darby. She rarely took her eyes off him and whenever he did meet her gaze he looked the other way at once.

  The waiter was young and handsome in an almost girlish way. He slipped swiftly between the tables, moving sinuously with lithe movements of his slender body. He was whistling gaily as he went, totally untouched by the tremendous tragedy taking place about him. The sun was hot and, in the atmosphere of panic that hung over the place, the air seemed stifling. A woman nearby was counting money on a table. A fat man was telling his neighbours that he had struggled all the way up France from the Italian border. A girl was weeping. She was extraordinarily pretty and Woodyatt found himself watching her simply because she was so good-looking. Darby was watching her, too, and so were most of the other men. Even the man complaining of his struggle up from the South of France and the husband of the woman counting her money.

  Montrouge remained detached, indifferent to what was being said, as if he held the frightened middle-class people about him, and their conventions, in contempt. Woodyatt studied him. He looked surprisingly alert. This was no Pétain bowed down with age, he decided. Montrouge seemed remarkably fit, in fact, and he suspected that all the weakness, all the weariness he had shown, had been put on especially for his escort’s benefit.

  Woodyatt was beginning to suspect, even, that he was being used and had been for some time: exploited by Pullinger for revenge, and by the old man to gain safety. The truth of the situation, he realised suddenly, could well be that Montrouge was some rogue who was manipulating him for his own ends and his stories were merely offerings to confuse him, to make him feel the man he had with him was Redmond when in fact he was not.

  One thing was sure. He had to get the old bastard to England in case he was Redmond. What he had told them was so startling it made Woodyatt’s mission twice as grave.

  He tried to push the old man to the back of his mind. There was enough going on around him to absorb his attention. The woman was still counting her money. The fat man who had complained of his struggle from the South had grabbe
d the waiter’s arm. The boy was standing alongside him, faintly bored as the man questioned his friends on their choice. The girl was still weeping, sitting quietly alone, tears on her face, lost in desperate unhappiness, her beauty drawing every male eye to her. Was she weeping for a lost husband? A dead lover? A missing child?

  Then, suddenly, Woodyatt realised that out of all the men on the crowded terrace only one had no eyes for her. It was Montrouge and he was looking at the handsome waiter. His eyes followed him everywhere he went, hungrily, lost in a sort of daydream.

  They drove to the consul’s office in silence. It was already under siege by dozens of people all wanting passes for British ships. It took them some time to fight their way to a man who stood behind a desk. He said the consul was due to leave and only a few clerks were remaining to handle the business. The hall of the consulate was full of luggage. Outside people who had petrol were loading their cars for the journey to St Jean de Luz and Spain. A train full of expatriate British had just left and those who had missed it were clamouring for another to be assembled.

  ‘I must see the consul,’ Woodyatt insisted and eventually they managed to get an interview. The consul looked worn out.

  ‘I have your boarding passes,’ he informed Darby. ‘The problem is ships. There’s nothing leaving tonight, though there may be something tomorrow. Try the docks. The passes will take you aboard any ship that’s available. If nothing comes in – and perhaps nothing will, because the Germans have been dropping mines in the river – try Le Verdon.’

  Woodyatt knew Le Verdon, but couldn’t imagine it being a good port of embarkation. It lay on the other side of the River Gironde at the end of the long peninsula that pointed north like a spearhead towards Britain. It was well out of the German’s reach but it was very small, and boarding ship would probably have to be done from boats.

  ‘I’d advise getting there early,’ the consul said. ‘German aircraft are active over the river.’